Best movies to see in summer 2023

Opens: Dec 15

Remember Avatar? Sure, it’s a little odd that one of the biggest movies in the history of cinema feels like a strange and distant dream. But the first sequel is here, 13 years on. It will pick up a decade or so after the events of Avatar, with Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), now fully Na’vi, living a family life with his partner Neytiri and their kids. The setting is a watery realm that will showcase the fruits of some painstaking underwater performance capture. With the pandemic and James Cameron’s unusual four-in-one production plan, the making of this sequel has been almost as epic as the film itself. 

See this if you liked: Duh, Avatar

Opens: Dec 23

A tale of the macabre likely to add some chill to your summer, Netflix’s period whodunnit The Pale Blue Eye is a tale of murder, conspiracy and menace set in 19th century New York. It has a top-notch cast – including Christian Bale, Gillian Anderson, Robert Duvall and The Queen’s Gambit’s Harry Melling – and a famous character, Edgar Allan Poe, at its heart. Plus, murder. Lots of it. It's 1830 and Poe is a young cadet at America's prestigious West Point Academy when a fellow cadet is murdered in grisly fashion. Poe falls in with ex-New York detective, Gus Landor (Christian Bale), for help deciphering clues and pursuing the culprit in the face of the military academy’s code of silence. Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) directs.

See this if you liked: A Few Good Men

Opens: Dec 26

This epic biopic of Whitney Houston is the brainchild of screenwriter Anthony McCarten (The Theory of Everything, Darkest Hour, Bohemian Rhapsody), and the big challenge for director Kasi Lemmons (Harriet) will be finding the right balance between sober analysis and crowd-pleasing tribute. The ‘Saving All My Love’ singer experienced both stunning career highs and crushing falls from grace, so the work is also cut out for British actor Naomi Ackie (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker) in the lead role.   

See this if you liked: Tina: What’s Love Got to Do with It 

Opens: Dec 26

A 1965 children’s book reaches the big screen belatedly with this live action/CGI musical featuring new songs from The Greatest Showman team. It’s the story of the Primm family, who move into a brownstone in New York City and discover that a flamboyant performing crocodile is already living there. Constance Wu, Scoot McNairy and Javier Bardem lead the cast of a film that looks like a good bet for keeping the kids occupied over the break. And with Shawn Mendes voicing the titular croc, you’d have to be pretty cold blooded to resist.    

See this is you liked: Sing

Opens: Dec 26

Speaking of long-awaited sequels, the feline swashbuckler from the Shrek franchise finally gets another solo outing (the Netflix series notwithstanding) with Antonio Banderas reprising his Zorro-esque role. Puss learns that he’s used up eight of his nine lives and goes on a quest to find the mystical ​​Last Wish in a bid to restore them. Expect the voices of Salma Hayek (as Kitten Softpaws), Florence Pugh (as an ass-kicking Goldilocks) and Olivia Colman (Mama Bear), as well as a Big Bad Wolf played by Narcos’ Pablo Escobar, Wagner Moura.  

See this if you liked: Shrek 2

Opens: Dec 26

This Irish death-of-a-friendship comedy is feckin’ tremendous. Martin McDonagh’s latest blend of belly laughs and emotional gut punches reunites In Bruges’s two leads, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. Farrell plays Pádraic, a mulish but kind-hearted man whose best pal, Colm (Gleeson), has tired of him. As the Irish Civil War rumbles over on the mainland, Pádraic and Colm start to act it out in microcosm. It takes a smart actor to play dim without lapsing into caricature, and Farrell brings a gentle sense of puppy-dog hurt to the slighted Pádraic that gives Banshees its bruised heart. 

See this if you liked: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Opens: Dec 26

Opens: Dec 26

After skewering male ego in Force Majeure and lampooning the art world with The Square, writer-director Ruben Östlund takes the handbrake off altogether with a takedown of the super-rich aboard a superyacht that plays like Buñuel by way of the Farrelly brothers. A film that really goes there – the second half is positively spattered in bodily fluids – it’s hardly subtle, but it’s a wild ride and in many ways, it’s also the perfect comedy for our times. A modelling couple go on a cruise (Woody Harrelson is the ship’s drunken captain) and end up washed up on a deserted beach with a coterie of mega-rich survivors. Think of it as a wildly funny Lord of the Flies for the era of the over-entitled.

See this if you liked: Zoolander

Opens: Jan 1

A 15-year-old diver and her mum (Ilsa Fogg and Radha Michell) befriend an enormous blue groper in the waters of the West Australian coast and become activists for preserving ocean diversity. Tim Winton’s short 1997 novel has been adapted by Robert Connolly, a filmmaker with a knack for spinning hits out of a range of Australian stories like The Dry, Balibo and Paper Planes. Eric Bana and Mia Wasikowska co-star, with Erik Thomson playing the bad guy.  

See this if you liked: Storm Boy

Opens: Jan 1

Tom Hanks becomes more and more like a 21st century Jimmy Stewart with each passing year and his latest film, an adaptation of the Swedish novel and film A Man Called Ove, seems preloaded with yuletide mawkishness. Otto is 60, widowed and forced into retirement. Grumpy as hell, he feels he has little to live for until a couple moves next door with their adorable twin girls so he can learn to be nice again in the time-honoured tradition of grumpy man movies like As Good as It Gets. Swiss filmmaker Marc Forster brings some class to sugar-coated fare such as Finding Neverland and Stranger than Fiction, so here’s hoping it's not as predictable as it seems.

See this if you liked: The Grinch

Opens: Jan 5

Steven Spielberg, now the grand old man of spectacle cinema, reaches back into his childhood for this semi-autobiographical story of a gifted kid in the late ’50s and early ’60s who takes to making movies like a shark takes to a wounded seal. Michelle Williams plays his mom, a former concert pianist, and Paul Dano his scientist dad, while Seth Rogen is the omnipresent family friend. When eight-year old Sammy (Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord) is taken to see circus epic The Greatest Show on Earth he becomes obsessed with recreating the film’s climactic trainwreck, sparking a love affair with film whose ultimate blockbusting results we all know. Veteran Judd Hirsch steals scenes as Uncle Boris, another born showman.

See this if you liked: Cinema Paradiso