The 40 Best Movies of 2023 (So Far):

As 2023 chugs into its final months and many of the year’s most anticipated films are still waiting in the wings for their fall or winter debuts, the year has already provided an absolute smörgåsbord of cinematic delights for those who know where to look (or are lucky enough to live in the kind of place where AMC isn’t the only game in town).

Many of the highlights — including heart-stopping immigration dramas “R.M.N.” and “Tori and Lokita,” as well as the more narcotized likes of “Godland” and “Pacification” — are inevitable holdovers from last year’s Cannes lineup, while more recent festival breakouts like “Cassandro,” “Earth Mama,” “Flora and Son,” “Rye Lane,” “Passages,” “Theater Camp,” “Scrapper,” “The Starling Girl,” “A Thousand and One” have already made their way down the mountain from Sundance. There are even an assortment of still older festival picks, like “Monica,” “Falcon Lake,” “The Blackening,” and “Master Gardener” that have finally arrived on American shores, along with the release of British indie hit “Blue Jean.”

But the most pleasant surprise of the movie year so far is that several of this winter and spring’s new releases have wildly over-delivered on expectations (e.g. “M3GAN,” “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret”), while auteur-driven fare like Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City,” Celine Song’s “Past Lives,” Ari Aster’s “Beau Is Afraid,” and Makoto Shinkai’s “Suzume” have taken such great pleasure in confounding them.

As for the smash hits by any and all metrics? Look no further than “Barbie,” “Oppenheimer,” “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” which delighted movie-goers and critics, and made a pretty penny while doing so.

With new work from masters and favorites like Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, Emerald Fennell, Sofia Coppola, and Yorgos Lanthmios on the immediate horizon — and surely many other gems set to emerge during the rest of the fall festival season and into the winter — there’s reason to hope that this already excellent year in film still has many gifts to bestow.

Here are our picks for the 40 best movies of 2023 (so far). We will be updating and refining this list throughout the year as new films are released.

View all their picks and this article at IndieWire.