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‘Living’ Review: Losing His Inhibition

Bill Nighy stars as a buttoned-up bureaucrat transformed by a grim diagnosis in this drama by the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, adapted from an Akira Kurosawa movie.

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By Beatrice Loayza

There is a coziness to “Living,” despite the fact that it revolves around death. It’s not a holiday movie, at least not explicitly, but like “A Christmas Carol” and other Yuletide ghost stories, it’s a film that steps back to consider the rituals and routines we perpetuate, the ways we’ve changed since the last break. And the ways we haven’t.

“Living,” directed by Oliver Hermanus from a screenplay by the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, is an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s drama “Ikiru” (or “To Live”). That Japanese classic from 1952 stars the great Takashi Shimura as a drab Tokyo functionary who learns he is terminally ill and begins to question his life.

Ishiguro has called “Ikiru” a formative work for him. His books (which include “Never Let Me Go” and “The Remains of the Day”) limn the crisis of confronting one’s own life with newfound clarity, of perceiving the ways in which it is fraught and one’s complicity in its corruption. With “Living,” Ishiguro — a British writer whose parents moved the family from Nagasaki to Surrey when he was five — infuses his beloved parable with nostalgia closer to home.

“Living” transposes “Ikiru” to a gloomy postwar London filled with buttoned-up men of dignity; bowler-hat-wearing worker bees who commute in and out of the city with the solemn demeanor of churchgoers. One of them is Williams (Bill Nighy), a cadaverous bureaucrat and the intimidatingly austere head of the Public Works Department. The film opens on a new hire’s first day, but the young man’s illusions are quickly dashed when his new boss, a total gentleman at first glance, proves to be an inert leader. A group of women with a petition asking for the construction of a new playground are kicked around the building — this is under that department’s jurisdiction, no, that one — because no one wants the hassle.

Thinking of Nighy and holiday releases, Williams is the total inverse of Billy Mack, the washed-up rocker whom Nighy played in “Love Actually.” Where Mack is lovably sleazy, the creaky Williams is inhibition personified. The chipper Margaret (Aimee Lou Wood), the sole female employee of Williams’s wing, calls him “Mr. Zombie.”

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Review: If you doubted the greatness of Bill Nighy, a moving new drama offers ‘Living’ proof

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Not long into “Living,” Mr. Williams learns that he has not long to live. The news doesn’t come as a huge shock, but even if it did, you gather, nothing about this man — not his stiff posture, his calmly appraising gaze or his thin, flat line of a mouth — would betray anything resembling devastation or even surprise. We are in 1950s London, and Mr. Williams, who’s spent more than two decades toiling away in the county hall’s Public Works department, has encased himself in a shell of propriety, receiving every new document and file with unfailing politeness and unflappable calm. Why should his response to his own demise — in six months to a year, max — be any different?

Here it should be noted that Mr. Williams is played by Bill Nighy, for whom a show of restraint is never just a show of restraint. Within emotional parameters that other actors might have found gloomily constricting, Nighy coaxes forth a tour de force of understatement, suffused with an almost musical melancholy. His performance, which won a lead acting prize from the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. earlier this month, is a gorgeous minor-key symphony of downcast gazes and soft-spoken pronouncements, lightened occasionally by a faint little ghost of a smile. There’s a whisper of humor to Mr. Williams, a sense of irony about a death sentence that he keeps secret from all but a trusted few. In the movie’s best moments, Nighy lures you into the impression that he’s sharing a private joke with you, a glimmer of comic insight into an unbearably sad situation.

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At one point you might flash back to “Love Actually,” specifically a line from one of Nighy’s funniest, most famous performances : “And now I’m left with no one, wrinkled and alone!” But Mr. Williams is not one for flamboyant self-pity, and “Living,” thankfully, will never be mistaken for “Life Actually.” Exquisitely directed by Oliver Hermanus from a spare, elegant script by the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, the movie is a faithful English-language reimagining of “Ikiru,” Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film about a Tokyo widower who receives a terminal stomach-cancer diagnosis and turns over a startling new leaf.

An emotional epic situated between more sweeping Kurosawa classics (it was made after “Rashomon” and right before “Seven Samurai” ), “Ikiru” remains sufficiently revered that the mere thought of a remake might draw cries of sacrilege. But it is also, like so many of Kurosawa’s films, a culturally permeable, infinitely adaptable story. (“Ikiru” itself was loosely drawn from Leo Tolstoy’s novella “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.”) Its lessons about the finity of existence and the beauty of living for the good of others are nothing if not universally applicable, something that could also be said of its withering indictment of government bureaucracy.

In “Living,” that bureaucracy has been transplanted to postwar London and visualized as a sea of gray pinstripe suits and bowler hats, flowing through wood-paneled offices and up and down marbled stairwells. It’s an almost distractingly beautiful vision of workplace tedium, thanks to the impeccable cut of Sandy Powell’s costumes, the polish of Helen Scott’s production design and the deep colors and sharply planed images of Jamie Ramsay’s cinematography. Our first impressions of the place, and of Mr. Williams himself, come by way of a new Public Works hire, Peter Wakeling (an excellent Alex Sharp). His cheery disposition and idealistic spirit are swiftly tempered by the realization of what their work, if that’s the word, entails.

The building is a well-ordered monument to inefficiency, where papers are duly stored and shuffled around, and anyone in need of personal assistance is immediately referred to the next department over. The satire of public administration is much the same as it was in “Ikiru,” down to the series of wipes used here (by editor Chris Wyatt) to follow a group of women on their fruitless, frustrating quest to convert a bomb site into a children’s playground. But Ishiguro has also streamlined the material and sanded down some of its rougher edges, in keeping with a sensibility that feels governed by a quintessentially (or perhaps just stereotypically) English reserve. In “Ikiru,” a doctor lies to his terminally ill patients, claiming they only have an ulcer; in “Living,” bad news is delivered and processed with the stiffest of upper lips.

That makes for a trimmer narrative (40 minutes shorter than the original), if also one that, for those who’ve seen “Ikiru,” might feel a touch muffled and overly circumscribed as it sends Mr. Williams off in search of existential answers. Away he goes from the office where he has never missed a day’s work until now, with nary a word to his colleagues or to his unsuspecting, self-absorbed son (Barney Fishwick) and daughter-in-law (Patsy Ferran). His chance encounter with a worldly pleasure seeker (Tom Burke) is diverting enough, though their guided tour of arcades and nightclubs has been conspicuously denuded of suspense or menace. More affecting are Mr. Williams’ moments with a soon-to-be-former colleague, Margaret Harris (a delightful Aimee Lou Wood), whose warmth and good humor make her an ideal if accidental confidant.

Their tender rapport is one of the story’s pleasures — a reminder that the gradual forging of a bond between near-strangers, truthful and unhurried, can be one of the simplest and most powerful things to witness in a movie. Their meetings also never rise above a polite simmer, which is true of nearly everything that transpires in “Living,” death included. In “Ikiru,” the great Takashi Shimura externalized his character’s desperation with enormous, wide-open eyes and a drooping stare. Nighy forges something more mysterious, almost subterranean, from Mr. Williams’ crisis and sudden reawakening.

That might make the movie sound more anemic than it plays, as if it were a story about the meaning of life with barely enough life surging through its own veins. But if “Living” never matches — or tries to match — the grit and density of Kurosawa’s masterpiece, it knows that detachment can be deceptive, that it can conceal profound and resonant depths of feeling. Ishiguro, who knows a thing or two about the subtle braiding of Japanese and English sensibilities, has mastered the art of such concealment in his own fiction, notably his famously filmed novel “The Remains of the Day.” Hermanus, a South African filmmaker known for his tense and powerful dramas of gay desire (“Beauty,” “Moffie” ), has similar form when it comes to dramatizing repression.

Their economy comes to fruition in the third act of “Living,” which shrewdly restructures the story’s closing scenes with no loss of impact, and with an assertion of its own singular identity. That’s to the good of a movie that knows Mr. Williams’ example is somehow both admirable and inimitable, that the difference between an ordinary life and an extraordinary one can only be measured within a set of specific, unrepeatable circumstances. It’s only human to pretend we would behave as our heroes would, and no less human to long to see and hear their stories retold.

Rated: PG-13, for some suggestive material and smoking Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes Playing: Starts Dec. 23 at Laemmle Royal, West Los Angeles

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Justin Chang was a film critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2016 to 2024. He won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in criticism for work published in 2023. Chang is the author of the book “FilmCraft: Editing” and serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.

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‘Living’: Finding out what lasts, before it’s too late

Bill Nighy anchors screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro’s elegant adaptation of the 1952 Kurosawa film ‘Ikiru’

The central character in “Living” is nearly always addressed formally, as Mr. Williams. A longtime functionary in the public works department of the London County Council — played with masterful subtlety by Bill Nighy, who evinces hints of deep feeling beneath an outward frostiness — he is sometimes informally called Williams, but only behind his back. And he’s Dad to the stuffy son and daughter-in-law (Barney Fishwick and Patsy Ferran) who share a suburban house with the widowed paper pusher. (Perhaps stonewaller would be a more apt job description. Most days, Williams’s duties appear to include polite obstructionism for citizens petitioning for assistance from a giant municipal agency that seems designed to thwart anything that might actually benefit the public.)

But it’s his secret office nickname, discovered by Williams in this achingly poignant drama of regret, that best characterizes the film’s theme of carpe diem: Mr. Zombie. That succinct evocation of Williams’s condition — not quite alive, not quite dead — is the unkind but not inaccurate moniker that Williams learns a young co-worker (Aimee Lou Wood) had been calling him, before she quit — and before she develops the touching, outside-the-office friendship with her old boss that forms the emotional heart of the film. Her confession coincides with an announcement by Williams that he is gravely ill. It’s a bit of news that has forced him to reconcile two seemingly irreconcilable things: He wants to live a little with the time he has left, yet he doesn’t remotely know how.

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Set in 1953, and directed by Oliver Hermanus from a screenplay Kazuo Ishiguro adapted from Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film “Ikiru,” “Living” is a quiet, nearly weightless story, well suited to Ishiguro’s elegant, almost restrained storytelling style. That style was showcased to great effect in “ The Remains of the Day ,” the 1993 film version 0f Ishiguro’s book, in which Anthony Hopkins delivered a memorable performance as a butler whose romantic reticence prevented him from being happy. Here, it is Nighy who gently guides a similar story of inertia, without sentimentality, ultimately delivering a message about what lasts, and what one loses when one waits too long to wake up.

“Living” mostly avoids sappiness. And it shows an actor at the peak of his powers.

Wood, a relative newcomer to film who first made her mark in the Netflix series “ Sex Education ,” is a perfect foil to Nighy. Her character Margaret’s appetite for living, as Williams calls it, gradually inspires him to try to make a small dent in the world — specifically, in the form of a tiny urban playground that three women have been asking for, but that has become encumbered by red tape. Wood’s warm and easily moved character makes for a lovely counterpoint to the passivity of the public works staff.

Other performances also leave an impression: Tom Burke (“ Mank ”), as the writer Williams meets while skiving (playing hooky) from work, and who shows the old man how to let loose a little, and Alex Sharp (“ How to Talk to Girls at Parties ”) as the new hire in Williams’s office, and from whose point of view the story is told.

But it is the memory of the unexpected and tender platonic friendship that grows between Williams and Margaret that lingers after the closing credits. And it is the chemistry between Nighy and Wood that makes this otherwise slightly chilly story glow from within.

PG-13. At area theaters. Contains some suggestive material and smoking. 102 minutes.

Bill Nighy plays a dying council worker looking for meaning in Living, which reaches for profundity but ultimately rings hollow

Akira Kurosawa has provided the basis for so much of contemporary film that remakes of the Japanese director's work could sustain their own film festival – or at least an entire Wikipedia page . It's a list that traverses borders of both genre and country; an encyclopedia of cinema in miniature.

There are the time-honoured spaghetti westerns, A Fistful of Dollars and Django, released just a couple of years apart in the 60s and both modelled on Kurosawa's samurai epic Yojimbo.

There are the zany trivia answers: Did you know that A Bug's Life – yes, the 1998 Pixar animation about politicking ants – is functionally the same film as Seven Samurai?

And there are, of course, bucketloads of flotsam, best jettisoned to the annals of history.

Living, the latest addition to this canon, reaches for glory – but finds itself firmly in the final category.

It's an adaptation of Ikiru (literally, 'To Live'), the 1952 drama widely considered one of Kurosawa's best and most intimate films, which sheds the thrills and chills of his best-known works in favour of a graceful dissertation on that knottiest of existential quandaries: the meaning of life.

In Ikiru, the Japanese screen legend Takashi Shimura stars as Mr Watanabe, a joyless bureaucrat. In Living, he becomes Mr Williams, played in an Oscar-nominated turn by Bill Nighy.

With a screenplay by Japanese British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, Living transposes Kurosawa's Tokyo setting to a storybook version of mid-century London: a swarm of bowler hats and black cabs hurrying down cobblestoned streets pockmarked with reminders of the war.

The film's opening credits even come complete with an anachronistic film grain and an ornate title treatment bearing the serif swishes of yore.

It's a meticulous re-creation, though the effect is strangely eerie.

Where Ikiru delivered a sobering critique of Kurosawa's contemporary society, Living shoehorns us back into a version of the past so romanticised it's almost sickly.

The film's period setting aims for the rose-tinted glow of memory, but it comes across as uncanny – like an AI reconstruction of a bygone era or, worse, the fetishistic nostalgia of a Renaissance fair.

It's a strange choice, especially because Living and Ikiru share a cynicism about the drudgery of our lives.

Mr Williams, like his Japanese forebear, is a widower and council worker; he leads a small office in London's Public Works department, whiling away his hours shuffling and reshuffling the same stack of papers at his desk, and rarely uttering more than a sentence most days.

There's a militaristic rigidity to it all. When a new hire, Mr Wakeling (Alex Sharp), dares disrupt the ritual during a morning commute, his co-workers impress on him the rules of the routine: Respect the silence of the train station and always stay a few steps behind Mr Williams to allow him his priceless solitude.

That routine extends to the workplace, where any deviation from the norm is quickly subsumed by a perfect storm of bureaucracy.

Case in point: A trio of women who have arrived on Mr Wakeling's first day to submit a petition for a new playground are bandied from department to department until they're right back where they started, with little to show for their daylong escapade. Kafka would be proud.

Wakeling's dejection – having witnessed firsthand these tortuous office politics – is matched only by Williams's sheer indifference, any glimmer of tenderness long ago eroded by a career in the public service.

(Not to belabour the point, but the stultifying hamster wheel of work chafes hilariously and surely unintentionally against the exquisite production design of the county hall, with its mahogany finishings and the soft beams of sunlight that filter in through its arched windows.)

As Williams, Nighy betrays precious little – even as he receives the diagnosis that instigates his path to redemption.

His doctor tells him the grim news: cancer, terminal. Six months to live; nine at a stretch.

He parses the information with the same stony expression he wears in the office, mouth locked in a permanent hyphen.

And so begins his odyssey for something, anything to hold onto; for the faintest flicker of substance in a life so far defined by austerity.

There is some charm to this quest. See, for example, the burgeoning friendship he shares with a much younger employee, the ebullient Miss Harris (Aimee Lou Wood in fine form, brimming with the same guileless magnetism that made her a star in Sex Education) – an innocent pairing that sparks malicious gossip from onlookers.

Or the rakish layabout (Tom Burke) whom Williams meets in a seaside cafe and, on a whim, decides to follow around for a not-quite-debaucherous evening that ends in a circus tent.

These threads are enjoyable diversions in Living's search for meaning. But too often, like Williams himself, you might find yourself longing for more.

Nighy's character here is the exact inverse of his breakout role in Love Actually: Billy Mack, the rabble-rousing rockstar, complete with silver chain and popped collar.

Williams might do well to absorb some of Mack's spirited mouthiness. He remains altogether too restrained, too prim, even as he resolves to free himself of the inhibitive values that have imprisoned him for decades.

Living comes weighted with a pedigree of repression: Director Oliver Hermanus (Moffie) made his name on queer films where desire always necessitates a degree of stealth; screenwriter Ishiguro, too, is a master of furtive glances and long-held secrets, his characters wielding silence as a weapon.

It makes sense, then, that Williams is frustratingly buttoned-up, refusing to indulge in any of the earthly pleasures you might associate with someone living out their final months.

But unlike either Hermanus's or Ishiguro's previous work – where repression eventually gives way to sweet release – there is no catharsis to be found in Living.

When, in flashes of lucidity, Williams manages to shake off his shackles – during a late night conversation with Miss Harris, or a suddenly invigorated crusade to build the damn playground that's been languishing in his in-tray for yonks – the screenplay veers towards the mawkish.

After so much equivocation, all we get is a few Hallmark-card truisms about happiness and living life to the fullest.

There's a scene where Miss Harris reveals to Williams her secret nickname for him, inspired by his overbearing restraint: Mr. Zombie.

We might say the same of Living and its hollow, dead-eyed swing at profundity.

Living is in cinemas now.

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‘living’: film review.

The Kazuo Ishiguro-scripted remake of Akira Kurosawa's 'Ikiru' stars Bill Nighy as a British civil servant who searches for meaning after being diagnosed with a terminal illness.

By Angie Han

Television Critic

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Remakes frequently face a double-edged sword: If a movie is beloved enough to warrant making again, there’s a decent chance it’s also beloved enough to cast a shadow so long that even a perfectly nice re-do might struggle to escape it.

Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres) Cast: Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp, Tom Burke Director: Oliver Hermanus Screenwriter: Kazuo Ishiguro, based on the film  Ikiru by Akira Kurosawa

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What finally jolts him out of his deadening routine is the imminence of actual death. Informed by his doctor that he has only six months left to live, he grasps for some way to make his limited time count — by losing himself in hedonistic pleasures with the help of a hard-drinking but generous stranger (Tom Burke), by attaching himself to an upbeat younger colleague (Aimee Lou Wood), and ultimately by finding purpose in a minor but meaningful public works project.

Nighy shrinks his typically vivid presence until even his spare frame feels too expansive for Williams’ meager personality. As Williams warms to life, Nighy projects a gentle glow rather than a roaring fire. Those around him may act a bit more assertively, but they hardly make more of an impression. His coworkers at the government office, including well-meaning newcomer Mr. Wakeling (Alex Sharp), are dwarfed by the piles of paperwork around them — purposely kept high lest “people suspect you of not having anything very important to do,” as Wood’s Miss Harris slyly notes.

The sense of repression is heightened by the film’s self-consciously old-fashioned look, which asserts itself from the opening credits — the grainy texture and elegant score mimic midcentury films so effectively that you might wonder for a moment if you’ve stepped into the wrong theater, or clicked on the wrong title. The predominating tone of Living is one of dignified restraint, in Mr. Williams’ case to the point of self-erasure. In a gut-wrenching detail, on the rare occasions that Williams works up the courage to reveal his diagnosis with someone, he still can’t help prefacing it with “It’s rather a bore, but …”

But it’s also a trick that’s been done before. While Williams spends his time haunted by his dwindling future, Living is dogged by a long past. It’s obviously distinct from Ikiru . Ishiguro has made changes to the script, including a light romantic subplot for the female lead. Hermanus’ tasteful colors and crisp lines could never be mistaken for the black-and-white messiness of Kurosawa’s. Nighy stiffens where Takashi Shimura sagged, withdraws where Shimura seemed to break himself open.

What fundamentally works about Living , though, is what worked about Ikiru , minus the surprise of discovery: the poignant premise, the unusual structure, the sardonic observations of office work and the aching compassion for a man barely in touch with his own sense of self. At the end of Living , I felt not like I’d seen an old favorite in a new light, but like I might want to go back and watch Ikiru again. There are worse outcomes for a remake than reviving affection for the original, or retelling an old story for a new audience that may not have heard it before. There are better ones, too.

Full credits

Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres) Production companies: Film4, Cast: Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp, Tom Burke Director: Oliver Hermanus Screenwriter: Kazuo Ishiguro, based on the film  Ikiru by Akira Kurosawa Producers: Stephen Woolley, Elizabeth Karlsen Cinematographer: Jamie D. Ramsay Production designer: Helen Scott Costume designer: Sandy Powell Editor: Chris Wyatt Composer: Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch Casting director: Kathleen Crawford Sales: Rocket Science

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‘Living’ Review: Bill Nighy Stars in a Sleepy British Remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Greatest Film

David ehrlich.

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Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics releases the film in select theaters on Friday, December 23.

Akira Kurosawa’s impact on modern cinema has been so complete that it can feel like semantics to distinguish the fistful of direct remakes that have been made of his films (e.g. “The Magnificent Seven,” “Last Man Standing”) from the endless list of movies that have been more broadly inspired by them (e.g. “Star Wars,” Johnnie To’s “Throw Down”). The worldwide reach of the Japanese auteur’s legacy — which continues to endure more than two decades after Kurosawa’s death, and a full nine years since Zack Snyder first threatened to set a version of “Seven Samurai” in a galaxy far, far away — is a testament to both the clarity of his storytelling and the internationality of his influences.

At a time when nationalism was seen as a moral imperative, Kurosawa forged samurai epics that interpolated John Ford, spun jidaigeki out of William Shakespeare, and smelted desolate Shōwa melodramas from the stuff of Fyodor Dostoevsky. If the borderlessness of Kurosawa’s imagination led to accusations that he was “less Japanese” than contemporaries like Ozu and Mizoguchi, the universality of his films ensured that nothing about them got lost in translation. Kurosawa’s storytelling has always traveled so well that even his least famous movies seem to exert a strong influence on Western cinema in the 21st century (one favorite example: the nuclear paranoia of 1955’s “I Live in Fear” percolating beneath the prepper mania of Jeff Nichols’ “Take Shelter”).

All of which is to say that it shouldn’t be so uncanny to see Bill Nighy star in a sleepy British remake of Kurosawa’s greatest film, but “Ikiru” has always been a different beast. Whereas the director’s most frequently cited films tend to be period tales that are rooted in the legible grammar of their respective genres, this contemplative 1952 fable draws from the rich traditions of Russian literature and Hollywood melodrama without feeling like it belongs to either one of them. A simple yet knotted story about a zombie-like Tokyo bureaucrat named Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) who finds new purpose to his time on Earth after being diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, “Ikiru” exudes a plaintive emotional power that’s as profound as it is fleeting, and as impossible to replicate as the magic of first snow. It reminds me of “It’s a Wonderful Life” in that way, another gut-punch of a classic that has only been remade as a sad parade of TV movies that all disappeared into oblivion on the same night they were broadcast.

And yet, it’s hard to fault “ Living ” director Oliver Hermanus (“Moffie”) for hoping that the same bolt of lightning might strike twice halfway around the world and 68 years apart. For starters, he came to the table with a few legitimate aces up his sleeve. They include an assist from the great novelist Kazuo Ishigiruo (whose lean screenplay is suitably repressive, if also faithful to a fault), an evocative historical backdrop courtesy of London County Hall, and a cast punctuated with rising talents like Tom Burke and “Sex Education” star Aimee Lou Wood.

Even more crucially, Hermanus understood that while “Ikiru” might be the most timeless of Kurosawa’s films, that doesn’t mean it was built to last. The image of Watanabe singing to himself on that moonlit swing set (if you know you know) isn’t so indelible because it inspires you to go “fall in love before the crimson bloom fades from your lips,” but rather because it knows that his message will fade into the light of day and the chaotic bustle that comes with it. In other words, “Ikiru” is a movie that demands to be remade because it was built to be forgotten. The trouble with this new telling is that it’s never all that memorable in the first place.

For his part, Nighy is predictably affecting in the lead role of Mr. Williams, a widowed civil servant so calcified by grief that his younger employees assume that he’s actually incapable of human feeling; if they’re terrified of him in a way that no one ever was of Shimura’s version, it might be owed to the fact that Williams already speaks in the ghoulish whisper of a spirit communicating from beyond the grave (Nighy is almost 20 years older than Shimura was at the time). Every morning he boards the train into London (his underlings ride on a separate car in their own sea of pinstripes and bowler hats, all of them looking the part in Sandy Powell’s period-appropriate costumes), every day he sits perched between the paper skyscrapers in his office like a bureaucratic gargoyle, ready to pass the buck whenever a gaggle of housewives come to petition his office to turn a slum into a playground, and every night he sits alone in the dark of his son’s living room, where he’s very much an unwanted guest.

Williams’ existence is sustained by the sheer inertia of that routine, a cycle enlivened only by Jamie Ramsay’s transportively velvet cinematography. Millions of people died in the war for this. If Williams were capable of laughing, he’d probably let out a hearty chortle upon hearing the office’s newest hire (Alex Sharp) announce that he “hopes to make a difference.”

What does make a difference — at least to our dormant hero — is the news that his stomach pains are far more serious than he thought. Channeling Williams’ poker-faced restraint in a way that makes Kurosawa seem like Michael Bay by comparison, Hermanus  opts against using the original’s famous X-ray shot to reveal the diagnosis, accurately teeing up an adaptation of this story in which it’s much harder to see under the protagonist’s skin. Whereas Watanabe’s mouth hung open as if to show that his soul had already been hollowed out, Williams’ upper lip is stiffer than the drink that anyone else would reach for in this situation. When he doesn’t show up for work the next day, his absence is greeted by an even mix of confusion and relief. Only Margaret (Wood), the lone woman in the office, appears concerned — she needs Williams to write her a reference letter so that she might go somewhere else.

From there, “Living” arranges itself into a parable-like portrait of personal awakening, as Williams does his best to look the part of someone who’s making the most of his time on Earth. A chance encounter with a local dilettante (Burke) leads to a rowdy night on the town, but Williams is haunted by the reflection he finds at the bottom of every bottle.  Likewise, a run-in with Margaret sparks an unexpected friendship, but neither of them are honest about what they hope to gain from it. At one point, Shimura’s buzz-killing performance of the Japanese ballad “Gondola no Uta” is swapped out for Nighy’s rendition of the Scottish folk tune “Oh Rowan Tree,” a fittingly melancholic replacement that nevertheless makes it seem as if Williams is trying something he once saw in a movie. That beat is typical of a remake that’s stuck between a rock and hard place; many of the notes that Hermanus copies from Kurosawa sound like echoes, while the ones he omits (the “Happy Birthday” scene!) are all sorely missed in a remake that runs 40 minutes shorter than the original while feeling almost twice as long.

That CliffsNotes-like economy doesn’t serve this retelling of a story that relied on its length and unexpected shape in equal measure. True to “Ikiru,” this is a low-key tale that hinges on a humble act, and “Living” honors the sense of discovery engendered by its structure — as in the script Kurosawa co-wrote with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni, Ishiguro’s screenplay drops a bombshell around the halfway mark, and spends the rest of its runtime trying to make sense of the fallout. The longer “Ikiru” went on — stretching the mystery of Watanabe’s enigmatic final days into a film that nearly runs two full “Rashomons” long — the narrower its focus became on the almost imperceptible choice at its core.

“Ikiru” draws its inestimable power from the tension between the vastness of life and the smallness of what we choose to do with it (or is it the other way around?), while “Living” cuts too many corners to highlight any such disparity. The moral of this story is supposed to be shrugged off despite its overwhelming honesty, but “Living” downplays its drama to such an extent that it can feel as if Hermanus and Ishiguro lacked the nerve to attempt the same trick.

Their film — despite a cast of self-possessed actors capable of infusing fresh life into even the most undead scenes — simply nips any hints of sentimentality in the bud, denying itself even “Brief Encounter” levels of expression. There’s a different kind of tragedy to conveying the protagonist in that way, but the fact that he’s destined to be forgotten is supposed to be incidental rather than by design; Williams’ death needs to have an immediate impact before it can meaningfully fail to have a lasting one. That Kurosawa’s version gets that so devastatingly right is the reason why people remember it to this day. Of course, just because “Living” is unlikely to enjoy a similar legacy doesn’t mean that it wasn’t worth trying.

“Living” premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

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Living Communes with the Past to Honor a Kurosawa Classic

When it was properly released in the U.S. in 1960, eight years after it had opened in Japan, Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru was sometimes marketed with the image of a half-naked dancer who appeared briefly in the film – quite a bait-and-switch for a somber, nearly two-and-a-half hour drama about an elderly Japanese bureaucrat dying of cancer. That infamous marketing campaign has gone down in history as a prime example of the flamboyant dishonesty of American film distributors in the 1950s and 60s. But it was also an understandable bit of chicanery. “Come watch an old man die!” wasn’t much of a tagline then, nor is it now.

Oliver Hermanus’s new drama Living , a rather faithful British remake of Ikiru set in 1950s London, has a similar challenge; we like to think we live in more sophisticated times, but we’re probably no more likely to go see such a seemingly morbid story any more than those earlier audiences were. So, it may come as a bit of a surprise when Living starts and we are immediately jolted by…color. Maybe not technically Technicolor, but something similarly saturated and rich. The film’s shimmering images, with their deep shadows and symmetric elegance, framed carefully in a classic Academy aspect ratio, create an effect reminiscent of something from the very period in which the movie is set.   Living doesn’t try to reinvent or reimagine Ikiru so much as transport it, as if to speculate what Kurosawa’s masterpiece might have looked like had it been produced in the British film industry, in color, at around the same time.

In many of its details, the new movie, written by Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, adheres closely to the original. Our hero, Mr. Williams (Bill Nighy), is a stuffed-shirt functionary who, upon learning that he’s got only a few months left to live, struggles to find meaning and joy. Then he realizes that, as a lifelong civil servant who understands the levers of power in the paralyzing bureaucracy in which he works, he can make a difference by simply helping build a modest children’s playground in a neglected corner of the city.

It would be incorrect, however, to call Hermanus and Ishiguro’s approach a replication, or imitation. The music and the cutting, or for that matter the performances, aren’t in themselves what you’d find in a ‘50s film. This is not campy cosplay, but a kind of communion with the spirit and simplicity of the past. Because there’s something ingenious about the film’s style. Living traffics in relatively basic ideas. The repression and conformity of stuffy middle-class jobs, the need to look up from a life lived within the tight parameters of society and to seize the moment – these are rudimentary, even corny themes at this point, worked over in novels and films for decades. How, then, to revitalize them for today’s audience? Well, maybe by evoking the textures of a film made in the 1950s, to help bridge the cognitive gap. A more modern approach might seem impoverished, shallow, lacking in complexity. Now, cloaked in the trappings of a film from 70 years ago, it feels like a message relayed from a hazy past to our smug present.

Like Ikiru , Living locks us into the central character’s despair. Grief and mortality transform this shadow-figure into an avatar of the human condition; we know just enough about him to let our imaginations race, and not much more. Lanky and prim, the always-excellent Nighy portrays Williams with an aristocratic reserve. We slowly learn that for him, this veneer of calm and muted confidence is an existential ambition; he’s spent his life aspiring to be a gentleman. This actually stands in marked contrast to Ikiru ’s Takashi Shimura, one of Japan’s greatest and most versatile actors, who brought to that film’s protagonist Watanabe a broad, almost theatrical anguish. Suffer in silence or rage at the snuffing of one’s light; either approach works. We all die in our own way.

Moving and engaging and visually splendid in equal measure, Living makes for a surprisingly pleasant cinematic journey, but Ikiru is a 142-minute machine designed to crush your heart into a million pieces. New Yorkers can actually see Kurosawa’s film in all its 35mm glory at the Metrograph starting next week; for everybody else, there’s Criterion or HBO Max . If you haven’t seen it yet, you really should. While its canonic status is secure, Ikiru is one Kurosawa classic that sometimes gets ignored because it’s not a crime picture or a Samurai epic. But it remains a marvelous showcase for the director’s humanity, and for his ability to strip his characters of their illusions and biases, layer by layer, until all that remains is something raw, real, and beautiful. (It should come as no surprise that the team that created this movie immediately went and made Seven Samurai .) When Watanabe, in Ikiru ’s most indelible scene, finds himself all alone one night on a swing in the playground he made possible, it feels like we’re seeing this character in full for the first time, his upright past and his sorrowful present (for he has no future) collapsing into one devastating frame, an old man singing a song from his childhood to himself in the snow.

Both Ikiru and Living are set in the years following World War II, and while the war is mentioned briefly, one does wonder how much the destructive uncertainty of those years (not to mention the global depression that preceded them) played into Williams and Watanabe’s respective desires to put their heads down and work their uneventful jobs. Monotony and constancy gain their own kind of luster when the world is going mad. Yes, Kurosawa saw a stifling, repressive complacency in the workaday bureaucrats of post-war Japan, and there are passages of Ikiru where he skewers them mightily. But he also saw their humanity, their buried striving. The highest compliment I can pay Living is that it takes those dusty ideas and makes them resonate once more. Not unlike remembering an old, familiar song, and understanding it for the first time.

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The Sydney Morning Herald

This was published 1 year ago

Remaking a masterpiece is brave and foolish, but Bill Nighy is brilliant

By paul byrnes, save articles for later.

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Living ★★★★ (PG) 102 minutes

In 1972, Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru (To Live) was voted the 12th greatest film of all time. Now, it is largely forgotten except by the hard-core. Ikiru was the story of Watanabe (Takashi Shimura), an ageing Tokyo bureaucrat who discovers he has only a few months to live.

Realising his life is meaningless – his work to this point even more so – he determines to achieve something good. The film is a masterpiece of restrained emotion, without a moment’s mawkishness, partly because it is laced with satire about post-war occupied Japan, where even Kurosawa’s script had to be passed by American censors.

Mr Williams (Bill Nighy) looks appropriately like an undertaker, which he will be needing shortly. Credit: Ross Ferguson/Sony Pictures Classics

Daring to remake it takes either courage or foolishness and there’s a little of both here. Bill Nighy’s performance is as good as his nomination for an Oscar would suggest. Few can do so much with so few gestures. The film itself is like eating a rich dessert: you marvel at all the constituent parts, but when it’s over, you may have regrets. It is lush and richly textured, like the old colour footage of London that we see in the credits, but just a little pushy.

The new script is by the 69-year-old Nobel prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who was born in Nagasaki but moved to Britain at the age of five. The director is a 39-year-old South African, Oliver Hermanus, whose mixed-race parents were ANC activists.

Ishiguro and Hermanus may be an odd couple but their not-quite-Britishness works to advantage in the satire. Sometimes, only a person who lives in Britain but is not of it can see the utter ridiculousness class brings to that culture.

The movie begins with a cracking demonstration. The setting is July 1953, eight years into the recovery from war. Peace and order have returned, especially the latter. One young man in bowler hat meets four other men in bowler hats at a station in the leafy outer suburbs.

Mr Wakeling (Alex Sharp) is the new boy, joining the others on the journey to work. They warn him to watch himself with the boss. Mr Williams (Nighy) joins the train further along, but does not sit with them. He looks like an undertaker and that’s appropriate: he soon learns he will be needing one within six to nine months.

Mr Williams barely speaks, let alone chats. The London County Council, their workplace, is like a beehive without worker bees. They shuffle files from department to department. Mr Williams sends the new boy to accompany “the ladies” – a group of three women who show up every week to petition the council to build a park in a filthy, sewage-ridden bomb site.

This is by way of initiation but it has the opposite effect: young Wakeling is not yet deadened with cynicism. In fact, he is thoroughly decent. He has a shy regard for the young woman sitting opposite, Miss Harris (Aimee Lou Wood). She gets away with being cheeky, because she is a woman and therefore irrelevant.

Bill Nighy and Aimee Lou Wood star in Living.

The film follows closely the form of the original, down to individual scenes, if not dialogue, but it has a different feel. Kurosawa took great pains to hold back the pathos. The material is dripping with emotion: best not to show it or even perform it.

The remake is less disciplined. Nighy takes long and tearful moments in front of a mirror; he mopes mournfully after the diagnosis, sitting in the dark at home as his son and daughter-in-law witter.

In both versions, the dying man must rise to a state of grace, where he realises what he must do. In this, of course, Nighy makes the film his own, deploying his ice-melting smile in just a few scenes. In both movies, the man gets drunk and sings a sad song in a late-night club. In one of the film’s finest moments, Nighy sings an old Scottish song, his heart opened up by booze and pain. It’s a scene worthy of Terence Davies.

If you have not seen the original, this new version can stand on its own feet, even with its occasional hectoring tendencies. It was never going to top the original, but it may help to stimulate its memory.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Living’ on Netflix, a Lovely Late-Career Highlight for the Stalwart Bill Nighy

Where to stream:.

• Living (2022)

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Stalwart thespian Bill Nighy earned a well-deserved 2023 Oscar nomination for Living (now on Netflix), the British remake of Akira Kurosawa’s humanist masterpiece Ikiru , which was itself based on Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich . Perhaps surprisingly, it was Nighy’s first Oscar nod of a lengthy career ranging from playing villains in Underworld and Pirates of the Caribbean movies to ensemble roles in the Exotic Marigold Hotel films to being part of director Richard Curtis’ stable of actors (Nighy was in About Time and won a BAFTA for his role in Love Actually ). In Living he plays a lifelong bureaucrat going through an existential crisis after being diagnosed with terminal illness; although he experiences some regret about the way he lives his life, you’re not likely to feel the same about watching this moving drama.  

LIVING : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We need an outsider perspective first, and it belongs to Mr. Peter Wakeling (Alex Sharp), the fresh new hire at a London governmental office that’s stuffed to the brim with people shuffling papers. He meets his buttoned-up coworkers on the commuter train platform, and is advised to stay a few steps behind their boss, Mr. Williams (Nighy), who carries with him an air of authority and superiority. Mr. Williams isn’t THE boss though, as he bows to the Chairman on his way to his desk, at the head of a group of workers best described as administrators, because it’s a vague term that could mean anything, and it’s not quite clear exactly what they do all day, but it’s definitely busy work. Mr. Wakeling – this being Britain in 1953, everybody is referred to by their honorifics – meets his coworker Miss Margaret Harris (Aimee Lou Wood of Sex Education ), and she half-jokes that if he maintains a tower of papers on his desk, nobody will even notice he’s there. 

We see an example of what happens in this office when three women arrive with a petition. They’d like the city to convert a bombed-out chunk of sewage-ridden concrete into a playground for children, which requires this approval from that department and that permit from this department, and Mr. Wakeling learns a valuable first-day-on-the-job lesson as he leads them up one flight of stairs and through this corridor and into that room and down another flight of stairs and through that corridor and into this room and everyone they meet refers them to a different department and they end up right back where they began, at Mr. Williams’ desk, where he calmly takes their petition and adds it to a pile of paperwork, perhaps to be seen only after civilization collapses and archaeologists of the future dig through the rubble and attempt to piece together how the long-dead bureaucracy functioned, and the thought of them trying to figure it out is deeply funny and ironic, because I’m not sure anyone here in the present moment of this playground petition truly knows how all of this works.

This hapless endeavor has been the whole of Mr. Williams’ life to this point, and to judge his inexpressive face, he never questioned it until now, because he just found out he has six months to live. He takes the diagnosis home and sits in the dark and when his son and daughter-in-law come home, he urges them to sit with him and they decline, oblivious to the fact that something’s clearly wrong. Read into that as you may. He procures many bottles of pills, empties half of his bank account and – what exactly does he intend to do with that? Well, it doesn’t happen. He meets Mr. Sutherland (Tom Burke), a struggling writer, who takes Mr. Williams out, to live a little at clubs and pubs, and he ends up singing a sad, sad song. He then serendipitously meets Miss Harris, who asks him to sign a reference letter for her new job – and they become unlikely friends. A wall or two falls down as they share a bit about themselves, including how she referred to him as “Mr. Zombie” because he was “not dead, but not alive either.” Meanwhile, it’s been weeks since Mr. Williams last showed up at the office; perhaps he no longer lives to work like he did for so, so very long.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: It’s easy to draw a few parallels between Living and the far less-subtle Tom Hanks vehicle A Man Called Otto : Protagonists preoccupied with niggling details in day-to-day routines, contemplating suicide and making platonic friends with younger women who help them establish fresh perspectives on life.

Performance Worth Watching: We’ve seen Nighy be funny and over the top many times before (especially as franchise bad guys), but Living is the exact opposite of those performances, a quiet, stately and mannered characterization colored in shades of longing and regret. It’s easily the most accomplished and thoughtful performance of his long, diverse career.

Memorable Dialogue: “I have a little Scotch in me.” – Mr. Williams drops a double-entendre when he steps up to sing an old Scottish song

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Director Oliver Hermanus and screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro (author of the novels Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day ) shifts the setting of Ikiru to postwar London so they may couch the story within 1,000 microvariations of mannerly British politeness, including those that seem polite but aren’t very polite at all. It’s an inspired choice, and Living comes off as a classical parable in a vein similar to Ebenezer Scrooge’s existential crisis of conscience. On its face, the film is emotionally stripped down, even sentimental at times, but the richness and clarity of Nighy’s performance prompts us to read into the character, to ponder how and why he got to this place of profound detachment. His professional subordinates stay a few steps behind him on the sidewalk; the citizens requesting his assistance get the runaround; he’s emotionally estranged from his son even though they live in the same house. 

How did Mr. Williams get this way? That’s when conjecture finds root and blooms. I see a willful devotion to conformity and propriety. I see a workaholic who committed himself to the least important things in life. I see a rigid man who can only be shaken from routine by tragedy. I see a long-delayed expansion of self-awareness. I see someone who needs to look outside his tiny sphere for a second chance – and thankfully finds some kindness, in Mr. Sutherland and especially Miss Harris. When Nighy and Wood share the screen – they share a wonderful, natural chemistry – nothing seems too late, or hopeless. 

There’s a kind of bleak comedy embedded in Living ’s depiction of the Establishment, its inefficiency and emotional detachment. It seems to have swallowed our protagonist, who perhaps allowed it to happen willingly; emotions are messy and chaotic, and at least the workday brings the illusion of order to the world. And yet, that structure has enslaved him. There’s nothing quite so heartbreaking as hearing Mr. Williams confess to a stranger that his plan to have fun, to “live a little,” fails because he simply doesn’t know how. A simple moment like that might seem trite and sentimental in another context, one less committed to the suggestive details of setting and nonverbal expression. Hermanus, Ishiguro, Nighy and Wood together find a richly exquisite intersection of time and place and character, and the result is quietly profound.

Our Call: Living yields a late-career peak for Nighy, and a moving experience for the rest of us. STREAM IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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• Sony Pictures Classics

Summary An ordinary man (Bill Nighy), reduced by years of oppressive office routine to a shadow existence, makes a supreme effort to turn his dull life into something wonderful.

Directed By : Oliver Hermanus

Written By : Kazuo Ishiguro, Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni

Where to Watch

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Margaret harris, peter wakeling, adrian rawlins, hubert burton, oliver chris, michael cochrane, anant varman, mrs mcmasters, lia williams, jessica flood, jamie wilkes, richard cunningham, john mackay, ffion jolly, celeste dodwell, mrs matthews, jonathan keeble, doctor matthews, patsy ferran, barney fishwick, eunice roberts, critic reviews.

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‘Living’: Bill Nighy keeps it low-key in precise ’50s period piece

The reliably graceful actor plays a bureaucrat in a bowler hat, changing up his robotic life when he learns he has six months to live..

A civil servant in London (Bill Nighy) leads a life of restraint in “Living.”

Sony Pictures Classics

If the wonderful Bill Nighy were a poker player, you’d get the sense he’d never make huge bluffs or needle his opponents, and if he were to suffer a bad beat, he would shrug and say something along the lines of, “Well, that’s the way the cards fall sometimes, right?” even as something more intense might be dancing in his eyes. He is an actor of grace whether he’s hitting notes large or small, and it is never not a pleasure to watch him execute his craft, whether he’s taking a big bite out of the screen in “Love, Actually” and the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies or tackling more serious fare in films such as “Notes on a Scandal” and “Sometimes Always Never.”

Nighy’s skill set is perfectly tailored to the lead role in “Living,” a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” that keeps the 1950s time period and stays true to the most important plot points but shifts the story from Tokyo to London. From the opening credits that look exactly like movies from the 1950s through the meticulously crafted costumes and production design, “Living” instantly immerses us in a post-war London populated by men in suits and bowler hats, and women in simple dresses and pearls, a place of order and restraint — which suits Nighy’s Mr. Williams just fine.

As the head of the Public Works Department, which prides itself on shuffling paperwork and creating the illusion of being busy while getting very little done, the widowed Mr. Williams is so aloof and robotic one of his underlings has given him the nickname of “Mr. Zombie.” He spends his days overseeing his small staff in a room practically bursting with silence, then heads to the home he shares with his bumbling son Michael (Barney Fishwick) and Michael’s wife Fiona (Patsy Ferran), who is cold and rude to Mr. Williams and wishes he would just die and leave them the house and his money.

Not much of a life — but when Mr. Williams is told he has only about six months to live, he begins to make some major changes, albeit with his signature low-key persona. He simply stops going to work for a long stretch of time. He withdraws a large sum of cash from his bank account and befriends a charming rogue named Mr. Sutherland (Tom Burke), who offers to show Mr. Williams a good time, involving drinks and songs and women. He strikes up a platonic relationship with Miss Margaret Harris (a delightful Aimee Lou Wood), a former employee now working at a pub.

And when he returns to work, he makes it his mission to complete a long-delayed project: converting a wartime bombing site into a children’s playground. (A scene in which Mr. Williams goes about a room, personally shaking hands with every bureaucrat in a different department who might help him, is tender and dignified and moving and just great.)

About two-thirds of the way through the film, “Living” takes such an abrupt turn that it almost feels as if several key scenes had been inadvertently excised — but then we wind back in time, and all is answered. Throughout, Bill Nighy carries the film effortlessly on his slender shoulders, reminding us of why he’s an international treasure.

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• DVD & Streaming

Content Caution

In Theaters

• December 23, 2022
• Bill Nighy as Mr. Williams; Aimee Lou Wood as Miss Margaret Harris; Alex Sharp as Mr. Peter Wakeling; Tom Burke as Mr. Sutherland; Adrian Rawlins as Mr. Middleton; Hubert Burton as Mr. Rusbridger; Oliver Chris as Mr. Hart; Michael Cochrane as Sir James; Patsy Ferran as Fiona Williams; Barney Fishwick as Michael Williams

Home Release Date

• March 3, 2023
• Oliver Hermanus

Distributor

• Sony Pictures Classic

Movie Review

To live a life, and live it well … how does one do such a thing?

Perhaps Mr. Williams should’ve asked the question long before.

Mr. Williams— always Mr. Williams—has lived his life (the last few decades of it, at any rate) with absolute respectability. It’s what is expected of him. Indeed, it’s what he expects of himself.

He is, after all, a man of some import. As the manager of the Public Works Department in London’s County Hall, he wears a black suit and bowler hat, as is expected. He’s never late and works a full day, as expected. People come asking for the Public Works department to do—well, works for the public, as expected.

And as expected, Mr. Williams rarely says yes. He rarely says no, either. He is, after all, an integral part of a bureaucracy . Papers are shuffled upstairs or down, sent across the hall or across the road. And often, they simply sit in the stacks of papers at Public Works for a few weeks, until the matter either disappears or a new request is filed.

“There’s no harm,” Mr. Williams will say.

That gentle statement about grinding government delay, too, is expected of him. He has done little else for lo these many years.

But then something unexpected happens to Mr. Williams. An incurable cancer has been submitted, and death is seeking admittance. He can file it away six months, perhaps nine at the most. But then, death will come through his door and take him away, not even bothering with the requisite triplicate forms. Nothing can stop his shadowed scythe. Not even British bureaucracy.

When Mr. Williams doesn’t go to work the day after he finds out, it’s as if Big Ben itself skipped a toll. He instead goes to a seaside town and confesses his predicament to a free-spirited playwright he meets in a café. Mr. Williams tells the man (Mr. Sutherland) that he came to town hoping to shed his rigid, aged Britishness and, for once, live a little.

But now that he’s there, with a willing spirit and spending money to spare, Mr. Williams realizes something rather sad.

“I don’t know how,” he confesses.

To live a life well? To do that, given the unforgivable timetable Mr. Williams has been given, is all-but-impossible. But to live well? Perhaps there’s still time for that.

[ Note: Spoilers are contained in the following sections. ]

Positive Elements

Mr. Sutherland, the playwright whom Mr. Williams meets, is certainly eager to show Mr. Williams the pleasures that perhaps he so long ignored. But Mr. Williams isn’t really interested in wiling away the days he has left on tawdry pastimes. He’s after something more elusive, something with more meaning.

He sees a glint of that in Miss Harris, a young lady who worked for him briefly at Public Works. She’s young and spirited, and Mr. Williams begins to spend what time he can with her—hoping, he confesses later, that she might somehow teach him to live more fully. But that, too, while helpful, is a dead end.

No, he ultimately finds meaning by going back to work , of all things. But instead of shuffling papers to other departments or letting them sit in his baskets, he takes on particular request on. He uses whatever means he has at his disposal to shepherd the project through County Hall’s byzantine system and work-averse managers, showing a stunning understanding of what method of persuasion might work for each. He even begs essentially the manager of the entire bureaucracy—a titled noble to whom Mr. Williams has long literally bowed in deference—to consider his petition.

In so doing, Mr. Williams does something practically unprecedented: He gets something done. And by the time he’s done, he’s inspired others to do the same.

Spiritual Elements

Mr. Williams seems to be a nominally religious man. He talks about returning to “his Maker” and compares the process of dying to that of children being called home by their mothers after a day of play. His funeral is conducted in a traditional church adorned by stained glass windows.

Someone quips that laughter is frowned upon early in the morning,  “rather like church.” Miss Harris has made up nicknames of most of the people she works with in County Hall, and her nickname for Mr. Williams is “Mr. Zombie,” explaining that zombies are like Egyptian mummies that are dead but continue to walk around.

Sexual Content

Mr. Sutherland, the playwright, comes across as sort of a intellectual hedonist. He talks to the café’s proprietor, Mrs. Blake, about his latest play, “Shocking Stockings.” He tells Mrs. Blake that she’d likely think it “smutty and trivial,” but he assures her that the play’s reception, and her own reaction, would be much different in Paris.

When Sutherland learns of Mr. Williams’ plight, he takes him out to many of the grimy hotspots he frequents. The last turns out to be a 1950s strip joint, of sorts: The crowd is entertained by a buxom woman in rather revealing garb (think something like a beefy bikini) dancing on stage. At one point, we see that the woman has removed her top, but we see her only from the back. Other women there reveal a bit of cleavage.

Mr. Williams’ and Miss Harris’s relationship is absolutely innocent. But they do meet on a couple of occasions, and they’re spotted by a local busybody who assumes they are having an affair and stirs up rumors to that effect.

Miss Harris is also sensitive about how these outings might look. “Someone might suppose that you’re becoming infatuated.” Mr. Williams admits there’s truth to that, but “not quite as some might suppose.”

We see a man and a woman embrace in an alleyway.

Violent Content

When Mr. Sutherland (the playwright) complains of not being able to sleep, Mr. Williams pulls out several vials of what must be sleeping agent that he’s carrying with him. Both understand that Mr. Williams had considered killing himself by taking them.

Mr. Williams suffers acute pain in his side at times, obviously from the cancer. At one juncture, he takes a handkerchief away from his mouth, and it seems to be stained with blood. We learn that Mr. Williams’ wife died some time before.

Crude or Profane Language

We hear one use of the British profanity “bugger.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Several people smoke cigarettes throughout the film—in keeping with its 1950s setting, but also enough to earn a PG-13 rating.

Both Mr. Sutherland and Mr. Williams drink heavily when Sutherland takes his new friend out on the town. At one point, when Mr. Williams staggers over to sing a Scottish folk tune, he tells the crowd that he has a little Scotch in his family. “It looks like you’ve got a bit of Scotch in you now, mate!” someone shouts. Later, Mr. Williams seems as though he’s almost passed out on some woman’s shoulder.

In a flashback, we see someone, perhaps Mr. Williams’ father, drink a beer. Mr. Williams asks Miss Harris to go out for a drink with him—an invitation that she grudgingly accepts. (He seems to have an alcoholic beverage, but Miss Harris appears to be just drinking water.)

Other Negative Elements

A vacant, rubble-strewn lot (the wreckage probably still lingering from World War II) is muddy with what someone calls sewage water.

Mr. Williams and his son seem to regard each other well, but they’re not what you’d call “close.” Indeed, the senior Mr. Williams never tells his son that he’s dying. (Indeed, he only tells two people: Miss Harris and Mr. Sutherland.)

When his father does, indeed, die, the younger Mr. Williams is filled with remorse—feeling terrible that he died in “all that cold.” Mr. Williams was indeed out in the cold weather toward the end, but it’s likely that his son was talking not about the weather outside, but the atmosphere in the flat that they all shared.

Living is aptly titled.

It’s a deceptively simple, even nondescript name, to be sure—easily forgotten and, perhaps, easily overlooked.

But as the movie tells us, so is living itself. We all, by the nature of reading this review, are alive. But how many of us know how to live?

A lot of us—even many of us Christians—don’t quite know what to do with our days on earth until they’re almost gone. And then we remember all the places we wanted to see and the things we hoped to do. We regret the time we spent killing it and wish we had more time to do the things we really valued. We think about how to repair relationships or somehow, in some way, get a little closer to the person that God wanted us to be this whole time.

But what sort of person does God want us to be?

For Mr. Williams, the answer is one we’d do well to at least think about (even if Mr. Williams would likely not bring God into the conversation at all): It’s a person who does his best. Who makes a difference. A person who doesn’t just check boxes and shuffle papers, but works to make life a little better for those around him.

I love the fact that Mr. Williams didn’t punt his life for a few months of fun or frivolity. He didn’t spend it trying to recapture the joy of youth. He didn’t, ultimately, leave who he was and who he’d been all these years. He just became a better version of that person—making a difference as just a regular ol’ bureaucrat.

Living has a nice pedigree. It’s an adaptation of the Japanese film Ikiru by the legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, which was in turn inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s classic novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

And it, also like its predecessors, plays it pretty straight and pretty clean. The content is surprisingly mild for a PG-13 film: We see the interior of a rather naughty tent, and we hear one British-centric profanity. Smoking is fairly pervasive. But that’s it. It’s almost clean enough to be cleared for broadcast on the 1953 version of the BBC.

Of course, this film isn’t for kids. But for adults who like to chew on bigger themes without gagging on content problems, and for those who like to see some very fine performances (lead Bill Nighy is rightly getting some Oscar attention), Living fills out the form for “good movie” and files it in triplicate.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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In a year of huge performances, such as Cate Blanchett in “Tár” and Brendan Fraser in “The Whale,” it’s soothing and occasionally a tad unnerving to watch Bill Nighy be so Zen calm in the affirming movie “Living.” 

Nighy speaks scarcely louder than a whisper as Mr. Williams, a shaken man concealing a fatal illness from his son and employees. The actor never erupts in anger, howls in anguish or squeals in euphoria. He’s eerily quiet. Like Williams, Nighy is keeping a secret from us, too, and we are in turn fascinated by his every blink and sigh.

Running time: 102 minutes. Rated PG-13 (some suggestive material and smoking). In select theaters Friday.

The 73-year-old British actor, who’s had an extraordinary four-decade career on stage and screen, has a strong shot for a well-deserved first Oscar nomination.

“Living,” a fantastic film all around, is a shrewd adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 movie “Ikiru” (or “To Live”) and is appropriately transplanted to post-war 1952 London. 

Williams is a blasé bureaucrat with the now-defunct London County Council, where he is in charge of the public works department. Feared and respected by his employees, such as the bright-eyed Mr. Wakeling (Alex Sharp), he does little except ignore requests from concerned citizens, or shoves them off to other supervisors who shove them right back into his neglected filing cabinet. His office is a cycle of resigned inaction — kinda like life. 

One day, the always-responsible gent mysteriously doesn’t come into work, and instead takes the train to seaside Brighton, where he gets drunk at the pub with an eccentric author. He also begins meeting up with a pretty assistant Margaret (Aimee Lou Wood, sublime) — not romantically — for lunches and movies. Those closest to the widower, like his uncaring, money-hungry son, are baffled by his behavior.

Williams confuses them even more when he becomes obsessed with three mothers’ requests to build a playground on a derelict plot of land in their neighborhood to serve underprivileged kids. He is determined to do whatever it takes to see the project to completion. 

In those scenes, Nighy — still with a stiff upper lip — breaks your heart. Awakened Williams is not unlike Scrooge on Christmas morning, only he’s truer to life and our own buttoned-up repression than a Victorian bloke in a bathrobe ordering a kid to buy a goose.

Director Oliver Hermanus has as much restraint as his star (and for a modestly sized movie, impressively manages a visually believable 1950s Britain), and the viewer never feels emotionally manipulated. 

When our eyes begin to well up with tears toward the soulful ending, we’re as surprised and self-reflective as the characters are.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Inspiring British drama reflects on meaning of life.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Make the most of your life, ensuring your days are

Mr. Williams is initially a reserved man who does

Central character Mr. Williams is an aging White m

The notion of death runs throughout, though there'

Characters visit a nightclub that features a belly

Two characters go out for an expensive lunch. Ment

Characters are seen smoking at work, in bars, in r

Parents need to know that Living is a tender British drama that's about a man with a terminal illness but remains wholly uplifting in its own, subtle way. When Mr. Williams (Bill Nighy) is told he has less than a year to live, he begins to look back on his life and consider what he can do in the time he has…

Positive Messages

Make the most of your life, ensuring your days are full of purpose. It's never too late to change for the better. Helping others is something to be proud of. Perseverance is often required to achieve worthwhile accomplishments.

Positive Role Models

Mr. Williams is initially a reserved man who does little more than work and travel to and from his office. But when he is told he has less than a year to live, he finds solace and inspiration in his friendship with Margaret. She unwittingly encourages him to live the remainder of his life to its fullest.

Diverse Representations

Central character Mr. Williams is an aging White male dying of cancer. Very minor ethnic diversity in supporting roles. Lead female character, Margaret, is fully rounded and serves a profound purpose on both Williams and subsequently on the narrative. Given the setting -- 1950s England -- the workplace is male dominated. But many women stick up for themselves and refuse to be ignored.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

The notion of death runs throughout, though there's no violence of note. A character produces a number of jars of sleeping pills, suggestion being that they were considering taking their own life. A character is diagnosed with a terminal illness. A bloody tissue; coughing up blood. A funeral takes place; passing reference to a dead spouse.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Characters visit a nightclub that features a belly dancer who removes their bikini top to the applauding audience -- no nudity as it's shot from behind. As characters walk through an alleyway, a couple are briefly seen kissing.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Two characters go out for an expensive lunch. Mention of life savings, half of which is briefly shown.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters are seen smoking at work, in bars, in restaurants. Characters drink, too; in one sequence two characters get very drunk. A character gives another some sleeping pills after they complain they can't sleep.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Living is a tender British drama that's about a man with a terminal illness but remains wholly uplifting in its own, subtle way. When Mr. Williams ( Bill Nighy ) is told he has less than a year to live, he begins to look back on his life and consider what he can do in the time he has left. As he reflects on and regrets letting life pass him by, Williams develops an unlikely friendship with his younger ex-colleague Margaret (Aimee Lou Wood), who inspires him to seize the day. Set in 1950s England, Williams' office is largely male dominated, and characters are seen smoking at work and at pubs. There is also drinking, mostly in moderation, although in one scene, two men get very drunk. There is a non-explicit conversation where a character suggests they considered ending their own life by taking sleeping pills. A funeral takes place, and there is a brief reference to a dead spouse, but there is no violence or strong language to speak of. The film is a remake of acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa 's Ikiru . To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (3)
• Kids say (1)

Based on 3 parent reviews

Beautiful British film

What's the story.

LIVING is the story of Mr. Williams ( Bill Nighy ), a man who has become trapped in the monotonous clockwork of everyday life, lacking inspiration in a postwar world. When he discovers he is terminally ill, he confronts his past and seeks to salvage what he has left of his future. He befriends his ex-colleague Margaret (Aimee Lou Wood), and her youthful vibrancy and zest for life rubs off on him. He realizes that before he dies, he wants to do something meaningful, something he can be remembered for.

Is It Any Good?

This moving British drama is standing on the shoulders of cinematic royalty, as an English-language remake of Akira Kurosawa 's critically acclaimed Ikiru . Thankfully Living more than holds its own. Put together in the most beautiful way by South African filmmaker Oliver Hermanus , the director captures the clockwork synchrony of everyday life, and yet does so with such passion. The lighting, the tonality -- it's truly sumptuous cinema, and manages to be so beautiful despite the mundaneness it depicts. But then that's the point and the takeaway message: that we should all try to find the beauty in the monotony of our lives, as our hero, Nighy's Mr. Williams, tries to do as he approaches the end of his life.

What transpires is a tender film, a warm production that manages to stay on the right side of sentimentality throughout. What helps is the absorbing central performance from Nighy. In what's arguably a career-best performance from him, he's matched at every turn by the charming Wood as Margaret, Williams' ex-colleague and the film's inspiration.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about what Living had to say about life. What lessons did Mr. Williams learn? What did he do with these lessons? What did you take away from the film? How to talk to kids about difficult subjects.

Discuss the character of Margaret. How did she inspire Mr. Williams? Would you describe her as a positive role model ? What makes a good role model?

How were drinking and smoking depicted in the film? Were they glamorized? How has our behavior when it comes to drinking and smoking changed from when the movie was set?

Living is an English-language remake of a Japanese film. What other remakes have you seen? How did they compare?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 23, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : April 11, 2023
• Cast : Bill Nighy , Aimee Lou Wood , Alex Sharp
• Director : Oliver Hermanus
• Inclusion Information : Black directors, Female actors, Asian writers
• Studio : Sony Pictures Classics
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : Friendship , History
• Character Strengths : Curiosity
• Run time : 102 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : some suggestive material and smoking
• Award : Common Sense Selection
• Last updated : May 29, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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‘Living’: Bill Nighy Oscar-Nominated Movie Sets Netflix US Release

Living – Picture: Sony Pictures Classic

The British drama movie Living starring Bill Nighy is coming to Netflix in the United States, with the movie set to land on the service in early June 2023. 

Based on a screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro and directed by Oliver Hermanus, the feature film follows an English bureaucrat with an icy exterior who begins to soften when a dire prognosis inspires him to change tack and build his legacy.

Alongside Nighy in Living stars Aimee Lou Wood, Tom Burke, and Alex Sharp. It had a limited theatrical release in the US late last year following its initial debut at the Sundance Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics acquired the US distribution rights.

The movie holds a Certified Fresh rating on RottenTomatoes with a 96% score . Paul Byrnes for the Syndey Morning Herald painted the most vivid picture in his review , concluding, “The film itself is like eating a rich dessert: you marvel at all the constituent parts, but when it’s over, you may have regrets. It is lush and richly textured, like the old colour footage of London that we see in the credits, but just a little pushy.”

Living scooped two Oscar-nomination nods at the recent 95th Academy Awards, with Nighy picking up a Best Actor nomination and a Best Adapted Screenplay nom.

Now via the Sony output deal that includes Sony Pictures Classics titles, it’s headed for Netflix in the US. The deal struck between Netflix in the US, and Sony has seen a score of theatrically released movies from 2022 onwards hit the service.

Sony Pictures Classics have hit the service in a uniform manner like the titles released under Columbia Pictures, however. Only Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song, and The So n have come to Netflix thus far, with movies like The Duke , Mothering Sunday , and Compartment No. 6 surprisingly absent.

Netflix US will carry Living from June 5th, 2023.

This will mark the movie’s first time on a streaming video-on-demand service, but it has been available for rent over the past months.

Netflix release date for Living

There’s no word on whether other Netflix regions are set to receive Living soon. Given Lionsgate distributes the movie in some territories outside the US. As a result, we cannot currently predict any release schedules for countries like the United Kingdom.

Are you looking forward to watching Living on Netflix? Let us know in the comments down below, and for more coming in June 2023, keep it locked here on What’s on Netflix .

Founder of What's on Netflix, Kasey has been tracking the comings and goings of the Netflix library for over a decade. Covering everything from new movies, series and games from around the world, Kasey is in charge of covering breaking news, covering all the new additions now available on Netflix and what's coming next.

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Brothers Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross straddle the lines of documentary v. fictional storytelling with their newest “Gasoline Rainbow.” Gathering five non-acting teens to embody the story’s central friend group, we are consistently unsure how much direction has been given to the group as we follow them on the road. The precarious nature of this strategy pays off, with the lack of fabrication delivering awe-inspiring authenticity and grace.

Nathaly, Makai, Nichole, Tony, and Micah are approaching high school graduation: the precipice of the end of youth and the beginning of jobs, college, rules, and obligations. Their small town of Wiley, Oregon is 513 miles from the Pacific Coast, and with the future uncertain, all they want to do is see the ocean. Packing into a van with a signature “f*ck it” mentality, they take off across the American West, smoking weed, talking Enya, and meeting other curious souls along the way.

“Gasoline Rainbow” is a road film in its truest form. The best understanding we get of “home” are glimpses of high school IDs and peeks into childhood bedrooms as the teens prepare to leave them behind. Everything else is the open road. From abandoned towns to turbine fields and quick familial drop-ins amidst train hopping, “Gasoline Rainbow” poignantly conflates the experience of youth with the physicality of their vagabond endeavor.

We slowly learn a bit about each of the film’s characters, from alcoholic parents to immigration-based persecutions and feelings of racial isolation. Many individualized anxieties and hopes are spoken via voiceover on top of images of stunning landscapes. And while we may recognize who is speaking, the disembodiment of these deliveries lands us in the face of youth culture rather than sole feelings - the stories aren’t meant to be Nichole’s or Tony’s, but microcosms of what they’re all going through. 

These moments, as moving as they are, remain essential without being the film’s true color. They’re pieces of a puzzle in the broader portrait of Gen-Z youth. What is most impactful are the innocuous moments, conversations and nonverbal connections between the quintet and those they encounter. Their effortless emotional awareness colliding with their sometimes-indignant immaturity is constantly charming. Though you’re unlikely to recall every detail of dialogue, it’s the swarming feeling of familiarity, nostalgia, and spirit that stays with you. 

The Ross brothers’ direction is romantic and, as expected, picturesque. Shots look like postcards you’d send on the road, and a few freeze frames drive this home. A consequential tribute to the landscape of the American West, the film’s framing and plot habitually home in on elements of scale: the kids walking a road lined by wind turbines, running out into seemingly endless expanses of desert, a partying beside the skeleton of a long-abandoned beached ship. They’re fractional in every environment, except within the van, actively driving, where the only thing that exists is them and opportunity. The minuteness of their forms, and of course, lives is always center stage, making their boastful displays of personality and wisdom all the more affecting. 

Where Kerouac’s journey was set largely to a soundtrack of jazz, the teens in “Gasoline Rainbow” profess equal penchant for Biggie Smalls as they do for Enya, enforcing the multi-cultural influence that permeates the story. They connect with all kinds of people along the way, like-minded teens, punky self-professed hobos who become mentors of the journey, and even, in a blatant display of youth’s precarity, a young man they stumble across on the road in the middle of the night and take into their van. The little dichotomies of their thoughtful conversations coupled with their sometimes mortally concerning decision making, brings together a film that is pointedly genuine. 

“Gasoline Rainbow” feels like a living, breathing, laughing organism. It’s not a caricature of Gen-Z nor a wishful document of what we may hope or theorize 2020s youth to be, and the Ross brothers’ largely hands-off technique allows this to thrive. As a Gen-Zer myself (though an older one), it’s easy to view my generation through lenses of internet prowess, mental health awareness, and political gusto. And while these are all things I duly admire, I find myself neglecting to acknowledge the central tenet of youth that perseveres amidst the endless barrage of doom-scrolling and inescapable awareness of plights near and far. What Gen-Z also has is the privilege to be so early on in the journey of discovering ourselves and the brazenness and optimism of endeavoring into the unknown, and “Gasoline Rainbow” was the joyful, hopeful kick in the pants that reminded me. 

Peyton Robinson

Peyton Robinson is a freelance film writer based in Chicago, IL. 

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Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire

When a peaceful settlement on the edge of a distant moon finds itself threatened by a tyrannical ruling force, a stranger living among its villagers becomes their best hope for survival. When a peaceful settlement on the edge of a distant moon finds itself threatened by a tyrannical ruling force, a stranger living among its villagers becomes their best hope for survival. When a peaceful settlement on the edge of a distant moon finds itself threatened by a tyrannical ruling force, a stranger living among its villagers becomes their best hope for survival.

• Zack Snyder
• Kurt Johnstad
• Shay Hatten
• Sofia Boutella
• Djimon Hounsou
• 1.9K User reviews
• 175 Critic reviews
• 31 Metascore
• 2 wins & 3 nominations

• Atticus Noble

• (as Doona Bae)

• Darrian Bloodaxe

• (as Ingvar Sigurðsson)

• (as E. Duffy)

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia Zack Snyder first conceived this as a Star Wars movie, and pitched it to Lucasfilm shortly after it was bought by Disney in 2012, but it never got off the ground.
• Goofs The shape of the floating platform on Gondival [at 1:52:00] changes depending on where it is viewed from. When Noble lands on it, and later Kora (and all shots from above, and of their fight) it is octagonal, or eight-sided - i.e. five edges are often in the shot, two of which are parallel; but in all the shots from underneath (as when Kora falls over the edge) it is shown as hexagonal, or six-sided; however it cannot be both.

Tarak : [after Nemesis has slayed Harmada] Wow. That was... That was amazing.

Nemesis : Do not celebrate this. There's no honor in this. This could easily be any of you lying here in the gutter of some forgotten world in the name of revenge. You would do well to remember that.

• Connections Featured in Drunk 3po: Rebel Moon, Ahsoka, with Special Guest Michael Bancroft | Drunk3po Live (2023)
• Soundtracks Thunderous Written and Performed by Diego Stocco

User reviews 1.9K

• Dec 17, 2023
• How long is Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire? Powered by Alexa
• Will this be a single film or in multiple parts?
• Is this film related to or inspired by Star Wars?
• Have any cast or crew members previously worked with Zack Snyder in previous productions?
• December 21, 2023 (United States)
• United States
• Official Netflix
• Rebel Moon - Phần Một: Người Con Của Lửa
• Stockholm, Sweden
• Grand Electric
• The Stone Quarry
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $90,000,000 (estimated)

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 13 minutes
• Dolby Atmos
• Dolby Digital

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Delightfully dark, Late Night with the Devil proves possession horror isn't played out -- and serves as an outstanding showcase for David Dastmalchian.

Late Night with the Devil does a great job of recapturing the late-night TV of the '70s, and horror fans will appreciate the way it doesn't rely on jump scares -- although they might not be satisfied with the ending.

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The 36 best movies of 2023 to stream on Netflix, Max, Disney Plus, and more

Stream one or more of these fantastic films before 2023 ends

• Apple TV Plus
• Disney Plus
• Paramount Plus
• Prime Video
• Best of the rest

It's time to bid adieu to 2023 – and that means it's also time to reflect on the year's line-up of great (and not-so-great) movies.

With that in mind, we've compiled a definitive guide of the best films of the past 12 months, with critically acclaimed and money-spinning new movies aplenty to watch on the world's best streaming services (you can also read our best shows of 2023 article if you're after something more long-form).

Below, you'll find sections for each streaming giant and the films that deserve your attention before 2024 arrives. For those of you worrying that we've only covered films that launched exclusively on streaming platforms, fret not. There's a section at the end for theatrical-only releases that are worth watching, and, where applicable, we reveal where you can stream them, too.

So, without further ado, here's TechRadar's 38 best films of the year. Happy holidays!

Best Apple TV Plus movies of 2023

Flora & son.

Recently, Apple has made a habit of releasing fantastic, award-winning movies in the latter part of the year – 2022's Best Picture Oscar winner CODA , for instance – and Flora and Son could be the latest flick to join such esteemed company.

The intimate Irish musical comedy-drama is a stunning piece of cinema that'll make you laugh, cry, and feel joy all at once. With powerhouse performances from leading duo Eve Hewson and Jack Reynor and an emotive and relatable story, expect Flora and Son to make a play for some of 2024's top film prizes.

Killers of the Flower Moon

Okay, it's technically a joint Apple-Paramount Pictures enterprise and isn't actually on Apple TV Plus yet, but Killers of the Flower Moon will arrive on the streamer sometime next year, so it deserves its place here.

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Regardless of whether it should be part of this category or the theatrical releases later, Killers of the Flower Moon would've made it onto our end-of-year list anyway. Martin Scorsese's latest crime epic, a western set in 1920s Oklahoma, shines a light on US corporate greed, deeply embedded racism born out of jealousy and spite, and the callous treatment of the Osage Nation. A brutal, dramatic, and heart-breaking movie, buoyed by Lily Gladstone's stunning performance in particular, is arguably Scorsese's best work in years.

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie

Few docufilms earned a place in our 2023 best movies guide, but given the poignant atmosphere Still generates, we had to include it.

Focusing on iconic actor Michael J. Fox and his ongoing battle with Parkinson's disease Still is a powerful piece of media that paints the legendary Back to the Future star as more than the hero he's portrayed as. It's an unforgettable documentary that illuminates the joy of life as much as the somberness of the illness Fox combats every day. An inspirational 90-minute film that – yes, it's an oversight on our part – we'll be adding to our best Apple TV Plus movies list shortly.

After *ahem* putting the building blocks in place for this flick in mid-2020, Apple's Tetris – a biographical thriller that told the tale of the massively popular video game's creation and the Cold War-era copyright battle that ensued – made its TV Plus debut earlier this year.

And it racked up quite the *double ahem* score upon release. The Taron Egerton-starring film currently holds 82% critical and 87% audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes, which proves even video game-based biopics are seemingly immune from the game-movie curse that plagued the entertainment industry for decades. A fun film that did the business after having things *triple ahem* stacked against it.

Honorable mentions: Sharper , Stephen Curry: Underrated , The Velveteen Rabbit

Best Disney Plus movies of 2023

After being dubbed by some critics as the worst Pixar movie ever made, it might surprise you to see Elemental on this list. So, why is it? Well, because it's actually a good movie that, upon its streaming release, broke Disney Plus' most-watched movie record .

It's not a top-tier Pixar film – read our Pixar movies ranked article to see where we placed it – nor is it one of the 36 best Disney Plus movies we've seen, but Elemental has a lot going for it. In typical Pixar fashion, it delivers an emotion-filled narrative, is wildly creative, and some of the visuals are drop-dead gorgeous. Just one look at the kinetic nature of flame-based character Ember and the fluidity of water-based individual Wade should be enough to prove Pixar is still one of the best in the business when it comes to beautifully animated movies. One of just two Disney-developed films to come out of 2023 with its head held high.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

The only one of three Marvel movies in 2023 that was a) critically and commercially successful and b) fantastic yet poignant, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was a perfect trilogy capper for the MCU 's beloved ragtag of spacefaring misfits.

A Marvel Phase 5 film that wasn't afraid to push the boundaries of what's possible for a PG-13 flick – those Rocket flashbacks were really tough to watch – Guardians 3 was also as funny, heartfelt, action-packed, and bizarrely imaginative as we'd hoped. It did a wonderful job of simultaneously acting as a springboard for more Guardians of the Galaxy adventures to come and a worthy send-off for some of its cast and director James Gunn (Gunn's now leading development on Warner Bros' rebooted DC Cinematic Universe ( DCU )). If there's a more consistently terrific MCU film trilogy than the Guardians one, we've yet to see it.

Honorary mentions: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny , The Little Mermaid , World's Best

Best Hulu movies of 2023

No one will save you.

Per Rotten Tomatoes, general viewers weren't totally enamored with this unusual take on the archetypal alien invasion story. But we think No One Will Save You was visually and narratively unique enough – its somewhat anti-climactic ending will throw you for a loop, to be fair – to merit greater recognition from its worldwide audience (it's available on Disney Plus internationally).

Led by an impressive performance from Kaitlyn Dever – the talented star does all the heavy lifting in this Hulu flick – No One Will Save You is a fraught sci-fi thriller that packs as much of an emotional punch as it does from action and tension-filled perspectives. With a 93-minute runtime, it doesn't outstay its welcome, either.

Despite the fact it stars two heavyweights in Sandra Oh and Awkwafina, we'll admit we weren't enthused by Quiz Lady 's trailer. 

Oh, how wrong we were to judge it on its two-minute teaser. Quiz Lady is a delightful comedy equipped with multiple laugh-out-loud scenes and a surprisingly touching plot that allows its stars to showcase their impressive acting range. It won't be for everyone but, if we learned anything from dismissing Quiz Lady before it was even out, it's that you should watch it before you form an opinion. One to add to our best Hulu movies guide? You betcha.

What can we say about Rye Lane that hasn't already been said? Considering the superlatives that have been thrown its way since its May 2023 debut, not much else.

A quintessentially British film, Rye Lane is a hilarious yet achingly human story about two 20-somethings who find solace in each other after both experiencing break-ups and partake in a couple of (read: many) capers along the way. Sure, it might sound clichéd and schlocky, but Rye Lane is a beautiful flick that champions Black excellence, twists the rom-com formula on its head, and comes packaged with an infectious vibe that'll make you look at life differently once the credits have rolled. One of 2023's biggest surprises.

Honorable mentions: Boston Strangler , Clock , Flamin' Hot

Best Max movies of 2023

We umm'ed and aah-ed about including the highest-grossing movie of the year (and one of the best Max movies ) on this list. But, in the end, we felt it had enough to guarantee itself a spot.

We jest, of course, there was no way Barbie wasn't going to make an appearance here. Not only did it financially outshine every other film with its eye-watering $1.5 billion global haul, but it's also an amusing, vibrant, and highly entertaining movie that's as thematically rich and emotionally engaging as it is enjoyable. Ryan Gosling stole the show as Ken, Margot Robbie proved (if it was ever in doubt) she's a top acting talent, the set design was stunning, the soundtrack infectious (if 'I'm Just Ken' doesn't win 2024's Best Song Oscar, we riot)... everything about Barbie was nigh-on perfect. Life in plastic truly is fantastic. And, with Max's subscriber woes continuing, Barbie 's streaming debut couldn't have come soon enough .

Blue Beetle

Like Marvel, the soon-to-be-deceased DC Extended Universe ( DCEU ) ensured Warner Bros' superhero franchise had a 2023 to forget. Indeed, with films including Shazam!: Fury of the Gods and The Flash bombing at the box office (at the time of writing, the jury is still out on Aquaman 2 ), the DCEU's rebirth under Gunn and Peter Safran is a necessity.

But there was one – again, Aquaman 's sequel notwithstanding – DC film deserving praise. Who would've thought Blue Beetle , the least high-profile DCEU flick of the year, would be its savior? Indeed, with positive critic and audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, viewers clearly enjoyed what it had to offer. Sure, its origins-centric plot was a rehash of what we've seen countless times before in the superhero genre, but there was plenty to like about Blue Beetle, which is out now on Max . Namely, the genre's long-overdue authentic Latin American representation, plus its pleasing blend of creative action, belly-laughing humor, and heightened drama. We'll take more of Jaime Reyes' adventures in the DCU, Messrs Gunn and Safran.

Considering it was developed by Amazon Studios subsidiary MGM, Creed III could've found a spot in our Prime Video section. With Warner Bros distributing it internationally, though, we felt it best to place it here.

The third entry in the Rocky franchise's spin-off is a testosterone-fuelled sports drama that might be the best film in the Creed series so far. In our Creed III review , we said it "punches above its weight without its star attraction" (that being Rocky icon Sylvester Stallone) and "delivers a one-two punch of style and substance to largely break free of the Rocky series' commanding presence". Its biggest issue? Its association with troubled actor Jonathan Majors – antagonist Damian Anderson – whose career appears to be over after he was found guilty of assaulting his ex-girlfriend. Majors was fired by Marvel as Kang the Conqueror in the wake of his conviction, too .

Honorable mentions: Evil Dead Rise , Saltburn , Wonka

Best Netflix movies of 2023

Extraction 2.

Sometimes, you can't beat a frenetically paced, explosive action movie – and Netflix delivered the goods with Extraction 2 in mid-2023.

The heart-pounding follow-up to 2020's Extraction (shocking, we know), this Chris Hemsworth vehicle ensured the streaming giant's burgeoning action-movie franchise is going from strength to strength. Whether it's Extraction 2 's bruising one-shot sequence that took four months to shoot , the unrelenting pace of its physically demanding story, or the fact that the combined efforts of both Extraction films helped the movie series make Netflix history , Extraction 2 showed its predecessor wasn't a mere flash in the pain for the world's leading streaming platform. With another sequel and potential Extraction TV spin-off also in development, there'll be more Tyler Rake in our lives pretty soon.

The second feature film directed by Bradley Cooper, Maestro looks like it'll be Netflix's big hope on the 2024 awards circuit.

And with good reason. It's been praised by anyone who's watched it, the biographical drama – which depicts acclaimed US composer Leonard Bernstein's (Cooper) relationship with his wife Felicia Montealegre (the incomparably brilliant Carey Mulligan) – earning rave reviews from all corners of the industry. Like cinematic poetry in motion, one of 2023's new Netflix movies is a deeply intimate story that fizzles and cracks equally with musical pomp and bravado. Stick it on your watchlist.

Nimona arrived to little fanfare when it made its Netflix debut in mid-2023, but the cyberpunk-cum-fantasy movie didn't take long to steal our hearts with its empathetic plot, crude humor (as crude as it can be for a family-friendly film), gorgeous visuals, and believably rich characters.

Its PG rating allowed it to tackle some pretty dark topics – parts of its final act are a heart-breaking visual representation of depression and societal isolation – that might make it unsuitable for the youngest viewers. But Nimona's ability to find the right balance between its weighty subject matter, frolicking and slapstick action, suspenseful and tender drama, and stirring queer representation make it a cut above many other animated films. Easily one of the best Netflix movies of the year.

They Cloned Tyrone

If you haven't watched They Cloned Tyrone yet, a) what are you doing? and b) go, rectify that immediately. No, we're not messing around here. It might have gone under the radar – it arrived on Netflix on the same day (July 21) that cultural phenomenon Oppenheimer opened – but the John Boyega-starring sci-fi comedy-mystery film is an absolute treat. 

Honestly, our words don't do justice to one of the most mind-bending, underrated 70s-era Blaxploitation flicks we've seen in a long, long time. Not convinced? Go and read our exclusive They Cloned Tyrone interview with Boyega to learn more. Then, go and stream it. Then go and read our They Cloned Tyrone ending explained article to find out more about what the heck happened in its final moments from Boyega himself. Not only is it one of the best films on Netflix in 2023, but one of the year's best movies, period.

Honorable mentions: Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget , El Conde , Kill Boksoon , Leo , Leave the World Behind , Love at First Sight , NYAD , You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah

Best Paramount Plus movies of 2023

Dungeons and dragons: honor among thieves.

You wait years for a good Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) movie, and then very few people go and see it.

Those of you who watched Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves in theaters and/or on Paramount Plus will know how good it is. The on-screen chemistry between its main cast members – including Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, and Hugh Grant – is second to none, while its DnD references are plentiful, its action and humor highly entertaining, and its story wholesome. An underappreciated big-screen offering that requires a bigger audience.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part One

Like They Cloned Tyrone , Mission Impossible 7 wasn't as successful as it should've been because, just one week later, the cinematic juggernaut known as Barbenheimer made its presence known.

That doesn't mean Tom Cruise's penultimate outing as everyone's favorite CGI fugitive, Ethan Hunt, isn't worth your time, though. In our Mission Impossible 7 review , we called it the "electrifying summer movie that cinemas need right now" as theaters worldwide struggled to sell tickets. Of course, Barbenheimer changed that, but Cruise and co. still put out an action-heavy, globetrotting, and high-stakes adventure that'll set your pulse racing when you watch it on Paramount's streaming service. And you will watch it because you'll want to be caught up on its story before the eighth Mission Impossible flick brings the curtain down on Hunt's near-30-year journey in 2025.

With its predecessor giving the cult horror movie series' a new lease of life in 2022, Scream VI continued the franchise's upward trajectory with a blood-curdling new entry in early 2023.

With the series' razor-sharp meta storytelling as frightening as ever and a new setting and characters ripe for another murder spree from everyone's favorite slasher villain Ghost Face, Scream VI doled out another narratively clever but no less gruesome (and funny!) installment for the long-running horror franchise. One of the best Paramount Plus movies to stream today – and, with Scream VII in development (though without Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega), you might need to watch it to stay up-to-date on its multi-film story arc.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

With 2019's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse changing the animated genre game, Paramount decided its latest attempt at creating a marvelous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film needed a (pizza) slice of the new-age animation pie.

The result is a visually arresting coming-of-age tale that puts the 'teenage' aspect of heroes in a half shell's latest cinematic outing front and center. Emboldened by its own wholly original animated flair, a sincere story about adoptive family, creative action, and punchy jokes, Mutant Mayhem is a thunderously enjoyable return for Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo. Order yourself an authentic Italian-style pepperoni pizza and guzzle it down while you stream this charming flick.

Honorable mentions: 80 For Brady, Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie

Best Peacock movies of 2023

Five nights at freddy's.

Another film that was trounced by critics upon release, the long-gestating Five Nights at Freddy's movie makes it onto our list based on its audience reception and unexpectedly great box office performance.

Indeed, despite launching simultaneously in theaters and on the NBCUniversal-owned Peacock platform, the horror movie, based on Scott Cawthon's massively successful indie game series namesake, grossed almost $300 million globally. That made it Blumhouse Production's most profitable flick ever and will likely ensure numerous sequels are greenlit. A campy, 80s-style slasher that'll make you think twice about messing around any Chuck E. Cheese-like animatronics, it's an easy enough watch to maintain your attention.

Five Nights at Freddy's film adaptation wasn't the only delightfully cheesy horror movie of 2023. Buoyed by that iconic dance number that appeared in its first trailer – a cringe-laden boogie that went viral on social media sensation TikTok – M3GAN proved to be another unexpected smash hit for Universal Pictures and Blumhouse.

It didn't do much differently from countless other fright-inducing flicks centered around artificial intelligence (AI), but M3GAN 's appeal lies in its unapologetic silliness (see the aforementioned dance as proof of that), plus its ability to marry surprisingly comedic moments and gruesome chills to thrill and entertain. One of the best horror movies of 2023 .

Oppenheimer

We've mentioned Barbenheimer a couple of times above, and this is the second, far more serious half of 2023's most significant cinematic event. At three hours long, Christopher Nolan's latest film epic Oppenheimer will test your runtime patience. The biographical thriller's subject matter – an embellished retelling of the atomic bomb's creation – also makes for a difficult watch. 

But, spurred on by Nolan's masterful cinematography and penchant for physical effects, coupled with Oppenheimer's absolutely stacked A-list cast – all of whom are at the top of their game (special mention to Cillian Murphy for his breath-taking and potentially award-winning turn as the titular theoretical physicist) – it's an absolute masterpiece. A film that deserves multiple viewings to be appreciated and one that'll likely shake up the order of our Christopher Nolan movies ranked piece.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

The final film of 2023 that divided critics and casual film fans into two distinct camps (the former disliking it, the latter loving it), The Super Mario Bros. Movie deserves its place here for being the second highest-grossing film of the year alone.

In our view, though, it's also a very enjoyable family-friendly flick. Universal and Illumination's animated take on the legendary Nintendo mascot's beloved game series – and the various characters, worlds, and franchises Mario has spawned since – is a phenomenal love letter to the character's illustrious history. There are Easter eggs aplenty, fun-filled set pieces, an all-star voice cast (let's not talk about Chris Pratt's divisive Mario voice, though), and an original song from Jack Black that's sure to give Barbie 's 'I'm Just Ken' a run for its money at next year's award ceremonies. A dazzling Super Star of a video game movie that's sure to get a sequel or five, based on The Super Mario Bros. Movie 's post-credit scenes .

Honorable mentions: Cocaine Bear , Eileen , Trolls Band Together

Best Prime Video movies of 2023

Like Tetris , a movie chronicling the creation of the first pair of Nike Air Jordan basketball sneakers doesn't sound all that appealing. And yet Air is an engrossing slam dunk of a biographical sports drama you won't want to miss.

Thanks to Alex Convery's crackling script, Ben Affleck's artistic direction, and the lively performances of its A-list cast, Air scored surprisingly high among us, our fellow critics, and general audiences. Indeed, it left every ounce of creativity on the court to give us one of the best Prime Video movies of 2023. You'll need to pull a trick shot on us to even attempt to convince us to change our minds.

A Million Miles Away

Another drama-filled biopic now, albeit one that shoots for the stars in different ways to Air. This Michael Peña-starring film about José M. Hernández's dream to become a real-life astronaut is intoxicatingly inspirational and confirms that, if you have a burning lifelong ambition to do something, you'll find a way to achieve your goal.

A beautifully shot movie with excellent performances from its predominantly Latino cast – the film's true-to-life Mexican representation is a joy to behold – A Million Miles Away will have you weeping tears of joy by the time its credits roll. A truly heart-warming Prime Video flick.

Jamie Foxx has had an eventful year (to put it mildly) off-camera, but he's still starred in two of the best movies of the year – Netflix's They Cloned Tyrone and this Amazon Original that reaffirms our love for a classic David versus Goliath story.

Based on true events, The Burial is a crowd-pleasing and intelligent courtroom drama that places two juggernaut actors – Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones – at the heart of its narrative and allows them to showcase their substantial acting chops. You'll laugh and occasionally get choked up, which are always signs of a good movie. Case closed.

Red, White, and Royal Blue

Red, White & Royal Blue wasn't on our bingo card to be one of Prime's best films of 2023. Based on its trailer, it looked like a pretty formulaic rom-com – but, once again, its positive reception upon release proved us wrong.

An amusing and adorable movie, the fictional tale of a US president's son and a member of the British Royal family starting a secret gay romance is a triumph, and we don't just mean from a genuine LGBT-plus representation viewpoint. You might wonder what all the fuss is about after 15 or 20 minutes but, by the time its final scene rolls around, you'll have spent much of its runtime smiling, chuckling, and feeling full of heart. A sweet and sexy flick unafraid to be as real as possible.

Totally Killer

Back to the Future meets your favorite 70s or 80s slasher in Totally Killer , a rollicking sci-fi horror mashup that has tons of fun with its twist on the timeless, well, time-travel story.

It's a tad tropey in places, especially with its plot beats that appear like they've been pulled verbatim from classic horrors like Halloween . Mostly, though, Totally Killer is a witty and slick multi-genre offering that doesn't come across as contrived or glib in its premise and conventional horror movie character design. A funny and suspense-riddled film that might become a spooky season staple for years to come.

Honorable mentions: Cassandro , Merry Little Batman , Sitting in Bars With Cake , Somebody I Used To Know

2023's best of the rest movies

Where to stream: AMC Plus (US), rent or buy (Australia), unavailable in the UK

Completing our 2023 triumvirate of movies telling the tale of a product's creation, BlackBerry is a smart and surprisingly funny feature film documenting the rise and fall of the generation-defining mobile phone.

Starring It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia 's Glenn Howerton and How to Train Your Dragon 's Jay Baruchel, the highly entertaining IFC Films-distributed flick's framing as a workplace dramedy works well, as does its positioning as a bizarre funeral-style send-off for the once-beloved gadget. It doesn't *ahem* dial it in. In our BlackBerry review , we called it "a bittersweet comedy with a sting in its tail, and a stark reminder that innovation waits for no one". 

Where to stream: MGM Plus (US), unavailable in the UK and Australia

Rowdy male-centric teen comedies used to dominate the movie landscape but, in recent years, it's been riotous female-fronted flicks, such as 2019's Booksmart , that have become the norm.

2023 saw the release of two such movies, Joy Ride and Bottoms , but the latter edges out a place on our best movies list. A fresh, sardonic take on the classic high school comedy, Bottoms is clever, hilariously crude, and even a touch violent (albeit played for laughs) on occasion. A biting riposte to its male contemporaries and a must-see production before 2024's Mean Girls musical remake dominates the conversation.

The Boy and the Heron

Where to stream: only available in theaters

Billed as legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki's final film – spoiler, it isn't anymore – The Boy and the Heron is another masterpiece from Studio Ghibli, i.e. one of the world's leading animation studios.

As weirdly creative and wonderfully realized as many of Miyazaki's other seminal works, The Boy and the Heron soulfully explores its deep-seated themes through a rich and expectedly quirky animated lens. This is yet another example of the excellence Miyazaki and Ghibli demand from every single one of their projects. If this had been the famous filmmaker's final hurrah, what a way it would've been to bow out. Another uniquely elegant and strange gem in Ghibli's glorious crown.

Godzilla: Minus One

Like The Boy and the Heron , this Toho-developed movie is still a theatrical exclusive at the time of writing. But you should stomp your way to a nearby movie theater to watch Godzilla: Minus One because, frankly, it's one of the best kaiju movies we've seen in a long time – and we're including Legendary's Monster-Verse films here, too.

With a story anchored on engaging and relatable characters – Apple's Monarch: Legacy of Monsters TV show has somewhat addressed this specific Monster-Verse flaw, though – as well as outrageously stunning visuals and action, Godzilla: Minus One gives the iconic kaiju a movie that, like its titular protagonist, will stand the test of time.

John Wick: Chapter 4

Where to stream: Starz (US), Prime Video (UK and Australia)

Everyone's favorite dog-loving assassin made his long-awaited comeback this year, and his last (or latest, depending on who you listen to) cinematic outing is arguably his best.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is, in our view, a fittingly stylish and blood-bath-based send-off for the character. It's brutal, extravagantly over-the-top, and lays down even more in-universe John Wick lore that's ripe for exploration in prequels, sequels, and present-day spin-offs alike. Skip the first of those side projects – The Continental: From the World of John Wick – and wait for the Ana de Armas-starring Ballerina , stream Chapter 4 over and again, or read our John Wick movies in order guide instead.

Where to stream: rent or buy worldwide via Amazon, Microsoft Store, Google Play, and YouTube

One of two A24-developed movies to make this list, Past Lives is a spectacular feature debut from Celine Song that puts a mature and sensitively handled South Korean spin on romantic dramas.

Full disclosure: Past Lives will make you weep but in a strangely juxtaposing manner. An uplifting yet melancholic tale about the notion of destiny, love, the life choices we make, and how they're beautifully intertwined despite the heartache we feel when we have to let someone go. A mesmeric and touching film.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Where to stream: Netflix (US), rent or buy (UK), Prime Video (Australia)

We're just going to say it: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a masterpiece. Its story is heroically compelling, its complex characters fully realized, its visuals breath-taking, humor and action well put together, and its soundtrack is an absolute banger. What isn't there to love about this animated Spider-Man endeavor, which is one of the best superhero movies of all time?

Okay, the crunch conditions its VFX team was under to get it out of the door put a dampener on things, and we seriously hope they won't be subjected to that during production on its sequel Beyond the Spider-Verse . That glaring issue notwithstanding, Across the Spider-Verse is a titan of the superhero film genre. See where we ranked it in our best Spider-Man movies guide.

Where to stream: Netflix worldwide

One of the most creative horror movies in years, Talk to Me left us spellbound with its creepy ambiance, gory nature, and freaky jump scares.

Bolstered by an unpredictable plot, visionary direction from first-time feature film directors RackaRacka – otherwise known as twin brothers Danny and Michael Phillipou – and a terrifyingly good cast, Talk to Me will have you on the edge of your seat from the outset. An incredibly effective and chilling fright-fest that eschews clichés in favor of telling a compelling, unsettlingly terrific original movie.

Honorable mentions: Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret , Fallen Leaves , Fast X , The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes , Joy Ride , Polite Society , Poor Things , Saw X , Sound of Freedom , Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour

As TechRadar's senior entertainment reporter, Tom covers all of the latest movies, TV shows, and streaming service news that you need to know about. You'll regularly find him writing about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, Netflix, Prime Video, Disney Plus, and many other topics of interest.

An NCTJ-accredited journalist, Tom also writes reviews, analytical articles, opinion pieces, and interview-led features on the biggest franchises, actors, directors and other industry leaders. You may see his quotes pop up in the odd official Marvel Studios video, too, such as this Moon Knight TV spot .

Away from work, Tom can be found checking out the latest video games, immersing himself in his favorite sporting pastime of football, reading the many unread books on his shelf, staying fit at the gym, and petting every dog he comes across. Got a scoop, interesting story, or an intriguing angle on the latest news in entertainment? Feel free to drop him a line.

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The 30 best films of 2023

As we wave goodbye to another year at the movies, we reflect on the films that have stayed with us – from the plastic fantastic to tense courtroom dramas.

Little White Lies

Illustration

• Laurène Boglio

S o that’s a wrap for 2023… And it has been a banger. The 30 motion pictures you see in the list below are the result of intense internal deliberations deep in the LWLies secret lair in Shoreditch, and there was some democracy involved, but also a fair bit of common sense and personal lobbying. The list runs from 1 February 2023 to 31 January 2024 (to account a little bit for some early US releases, such as Poor Things and All of Us Strangers ), but we were fairly stringent on the cut-off. For our number one film, there’s something unassuming about it on first watch but, like all great art, it doesn’t just lodge itself in the mind, but demands repeated reappraisal and discussion.

30. Typist Artist Pirate King

For better and for worse, we say to Carol Morley: never change. She is someone who, throughout her career, has ploughed her idiosyncratic furrow with passion and intensity. Sometimes, the final products don’t land, but with her new one , a comic dissection of English manners as told through the life of artist Audrey Amiss, she has produced one of her best and most heartfelt movies, lifted no end by a wonderful central performance from the great Monica Dolan.

29. Anatomy of a Fall

Justine Triet’s 2023 Palme d’Or winner is powered by a stratospheric performance by the German actor Sandra Huller, who plays a novelist who is accused of killing her husband by pushing him out of the window of their pine chalet. The film takes us through the legal minutiae of the ensuing investigation, but is more interested in having us consider the slippery and abstract nature of truth.

28. How to Have Sex

One of 2023’s finest debuts, How to Have Sex is a film that filters vital questions regarding sexual consent through the chronicle of a classic rite-of-passage sun holiday. Three young female friends see this moment as a chance for some gloves-off thrill seeking, but the lads they hook up with have other ideas. Manning Walker picks apart a difficult moment in the path to maturity, and does so against the neon-lit landscape of Malia.

27. Napoleon

Ya gotta laugh though, haven’t you? No really, you do… Ridley Scott rolls out a grandiose historical biography of the 18th century French military tactician, and has Joaquin Phoenix play him like an up-tight incel whose omnipresent tricorne hat covers up a head full of deep Freudian neuroses. It’s a film that split viewers over its fidelity to the recorded reality and the extreme focus on Napoleon’s obsessive love for his wife Josephine (Vanessa Kirby), but the battle scenes are some of Scott’s finest, and the whole thing, however you take it, is an unabashed hoot.

26. Rye Lane

Anyone who thinks the rom-com is dead should have a word with debutant director Raine Allen Miller, whose Rye Lane is a film which fondly borrows from the genre’s hallowed past while offering something completely fresh and invigorating. Blessed with the chemistry-heavy paring of David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah, this one was a big, charming win and hopefully the start of something big for its maker.

25. Evil Dead Rise

This was a good year for malevolent cheese graters (see also David Fincher’s The Killer ), and the one that crops up in Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise makes for one of the year’s most ingeniously nauseating scenes. This clever reshaping of the 1981 Sam Raimi original sees the action transplanted to a mouldering apartment block, and the film is all the better for its mixture of earnestness and humour, and of course the torrents of red stuff that fill the hallways.

24. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

As financially successful as they’ve always been, movies about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have always been awkward brand cash-ins aimed at an indiscriminate demographic of Prime-guzzling teens. Jeff Rowe, with the help of his pal Seth Rogen, takes a leaf out of the Spider-Verse playbook and delivers something new, genuine, heartfelt and very funny with this property. The animation is innovative, the script is very funny, and the voicework – especially from the four young newcomers playing the eponymous heroes in a half-shell – is absolutely top-notch.

23. Return to Seoul

Park Ji-min delivered one of the breakthrough performances of 2023 in Davy Chou’s Return to Seoul , in which she plays a tenacious Korean orphan who was fostered by parents in France, and who decides to return to the home she feels resentful towards to find the parents who abandoned her. It sounds like a traumatising weepie, but it’s very much not, as the protagonist’s practical, emotionally detached methods help to present this intriguing situation with humour and pathos in rich abundance.

22. Samsara

One of the measures by which we select the films that eventually make it on this list is to ask whether they’re showing us something we have never seen before. Samsara, from Spanish experimental filmmaker Lois Patiño, ticks that box and then some with this hush, ambient tale of transcendence and transport to a higher plane of being. At the 2023 BFI London Film Festival, this one played at the BFI IMAX, and we hope that it gets a few more showings there when it’s released in the new year.

21. Pacifiction

Spanish filmmaker Albert Serra rocked the 2022 Cannes competition with this insidious and subtle exploration of French colonial influence in the South Seas. Benoît Magimel, who’s fast making a name for himself as one of the world’s great actors, stars as a diplomatic emissary who wants to have his finger in every pie going, but whose attention is diverted when a possible end to his all-encompassing reign rolls into town in the form of a nuclear sub. Contains one of the year’s great shots of boats being tossed around by giant waves.

A big discovery was made in Christian Petzold’s latest film, Afire . And that discovery is that the words “Club Sandwich” as enunciated with a German lilt are in fact the funniest spoken words in all languages. For a director whose films tend to be on the more serious, melodramatic end of the spectrum, this was something a little different for him: a deceptively light comedy about a young novelist unable to overcome his pretensions and preconceptions of the world.

19. How to Blow Up a Pipeline

The tightest film of 2023 was Daniel Goldhaber’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline , a thoughtful dramatic adaptation of Andreas Malm’s 2020 non-fiction book which explores the morality of direct-action activism. Calibrated as a classic-era heist movie, in which a disparate crew comes together to – you guessed it! – blow up a pipeline, the film also to make sure that their message rings out across the landscape and leaves a chillingly ambiguous mark on the audience as well.

18. Fallen Leaves

The return of the king. Finnish maestro Aki Kaurismäki returns to the scene in 2023 doing what he does best: producing immaculate hangdog romances in which the poor, desolate and downtrodden find love on the chilly streets of Helsinki. There’s also surreal karaoke, tragic missed connections, evil capitalists, and one of the greatest cinema date scenes ever committed to film.

17. Earth Mama

A small but remarkable debut feature from Savanah Leaf which offers a visually and atmospherically unique take on Black parenthood in the modern age. Leaf is gifted with a taciturn but open-hearted lead performance from Tia Nomore as Gia, an expectant mother who has already had two of her kids taken from her custody by authorities and must now navigate a malevolent bureaucracy. It’s social realism with an ambient, more lushy visual twist.

16. Polite Society

One of the year’s finest British offerings came from the maker of one of the millennium’s best TV sitcoms: We Are Lady Parts. Nida Manzoor rises to the challenge of the feature film debut by whisking together a traditional tale of generational malaise among the bickering members of a Pakistani family in London, and a high-kicking action spectacular in which one teenager must save her sister from a conspiracy that could unravel the very fabric of the community. Very funny, completely charming – we can’t wait to see what Manzoor and star Priya Kansara do next.

15. Trenque Lauquen

The title of this intimate opus refers to a province in the west of Argentina, and it’s being used in the same way as David Lynch used the name Twin Peaks – to denote a locus for mystery and intrigue. Laura Citarella spins a tale of one woman’s journey through the rabbit hole of history and her obsession to uncover the details of a romance literally found between pages of books at the local library. But then it jackknifes suddenly into more surreal and profound territory, celebrating female autonomy and the allure of small, independent collectives.

14. Saint Omer

The time-honoured courtroom drama took on a new form in 2023, and at the vanguard of this change was Alice Diop’s extraordinary and harrowing Saint Omer . Its story, which is based on the writer-director’s own research, tells of a woman who’s in the dock on charges of murdering her young child, and her testimony takes us to some dark, morally and philosophically ambiguous places. We love Diop’s short films and documentaries, but this fiction feature debut is arguably her first masterpiece.

13. Past Lives

That rare bird: a film that debuted at the Sundance Film Festival that really delivers the goods. Playwright Celine Song transitions seamlessly to film with the lilting, long-distance romance of Past Lives , in which telecoms technology and social media help a Korean couple rekindle a formative romance with her having emigrated before things could really blossom. Tender, wistful and never judgmental, we’re just hoping and praying that Song isn’t chewed up and spat out by the Studio machine.

12. Passages

We’re not entirely sure who deserves top billing here. Could it be the three extraordinary leads in Ira Sachs’ Parisian partner-swapping ménage à trois ? Or could it be Sachs himself, who culled the story from his own formative experiences of Cupid’s poorly-aimed arrow? But maybe we’ll just give it to the costume department, especially the person who found the three-quarter length top that Franz Rogowski wears to a “meet-the-parents” luncheon.

2023’s model blockbuster, in more ways than one. More than just a movie, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a form of cinematic alchemy that achieves what so many aspire towards and so often fail spectacularly: pleasing everyone all the time. Meeting in the middle between corporate-mandated franchise extension and weirdo art movie, Barbie deserves every penny of its extraordinary success, not least for gifting Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling with two of their most perfect roles to date.

10. Oppenheimer

The film about a bomb that did the exact opposite at the box office. Christopher Nolan cements his movie-Midas status by giving us a glitchy, three-hour biopic of morally-scarred atomic bomb inventor Robert Oppenheimer, and making the sort of money usually reserved for films with spandex-clad movie stars and lots of awful CGI. Next to becoming Official God of Movies Throughout the Galaxy and Beyond, the sky’s the limit for what Nolan does next. And, of course, this could be his golden ticket come Oscar time…

9. The Killer

In 2020, David Fincher made the film Mank , which served as an ode to his departed father in that it was based on a film script he wrote. With The Killer , the famously-fastidious filmmaker has come up with a film which may serve as autobiography, the comic chronicle of a zen perfectionist assassin (played by Michael Fassbender) whose attempts to precision-calculate the requirements of his job always seem to come up short. Dismiss as slight at your peril.

8. Killers of the Flower Moon

This state-of-the-nation epic based on a ripping page-turned by New Yorker scribe David Gran saw its maker, Martin Scorsese, in a reflective mood. Killers of the Flower Moon is a film about the mechanics of genocide, carried out by wealthy white settlers against unknowing natives, but also one which ponders the tragically ephemeral nature of storytelling and, by extension, history itself. Leo’s great. Bobby’s brilliant. Garlands go to Lily Gladstone.

7. Showing Up

There’s been a murder, and the victim is the UK theatrical prospects of Kelly Reichardt’s scintillating new film, Showing Up . It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022 and there hasn’t been a whiff of it on these shores… until a Blu-ray release cropped up in online listings for the end of January 2024 (right before our cut-off for this poll). Michelle Williams stars as a cantankerous sculptor who has to deal with all manner of trifling nonsense to enable her to get the hard work of creativity done. It’s a beautiful film, and we hope that some people over here get to see it big.

6. Priscilla

While Baz Lurhman gave us a predictably OTT hot-foot through the life of Elvis Presley in 2022, Sofia Coppola delivers a better film is just about every respect with her supremely thoughtful, elegant and unshowy take on the early life of the King’s first wife, Priscilla Presley. It stars newcomer Cailee Spaeny who delivers a career-making turn as the porcelain doll who eventually cracks, with man-of-the-moment Jacob Elordi as her mamma-loving weirdo spouse. It’s biography with the Wiki bullshit pulled out and deep psychological analysis placed in its stead.

5. All of Us Strangers

Following a brief sojourn into the world of television, Andrew Haigh knocks it out of the stratosphere with his return to the big screen with this emotionally overwhelming adaptation of Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel, ‘Strangers’. Andrew Scott has seldom been better as a lonely writer whose memories of past loves (Paul Mescal) and family dramas (Jamie Bell, Claire Foy) coalesce into a time-switching tale of romance and regret. Plus, lots of eighties electro pop bangers on the soundtrack.

4. The Boy and the Heron

So is this Hayao Miyazaki’s third or fourth retirement movie? He definitely mentioned he was packing things in after Spirited Away, and that was five films ago now… Anyway, let’s not bother picking over all that, and be thankful for the fact that the Studio Ghibli grand fromage has delivered one of the Japanese animation house’s finest works , a melancholy compendium of pet themes and far-reaching philosophical inquiry. It’s ambitious and occasionally obscure, yet the seriousness of intent is always enveloped within the filmmaker’s patented brand of eccentric creativity.

3. Poor Things

It’s the film Yorgos Lanthimos was born to make! Okay, hyperbole aside, Poor Things feels like the sweet, sweet product of filmmaker who’s set out his intellectual stall ( Dogtooth ), done his industry dues ( The Favourite ), and has now been handed a carte blanche by the head of accounts to make whatever he god-damn wants. And this free adaptation of the 1992 novel by Alasdair Gray casts Emma Stone in the role of globetrotting nymph Bella Baxter – a young woman with the brain of a child who’s learning human behaviour from scratch. It’s a stellar piece of cinematic craft, which acts as a gilded pedestal for a one-for-the-ages performance from Stone.

2. Asteroid City

The jury is still deliberating, but we can’t help but wonder if Wes Anderson’s latest mad missive is also his greatest to date. His interest in the telling of the tale as much as the tale itself manifests in the nesting stories of a theatre troupe putting on a play about an extraterrestrial sighting in the desert-town of the title. There’s more stars than Heaven in the movie, but special mention should go to long-time Anderson totem, Jason Schwartzman, who is gifted his first lead role in an Anderson film since Rushmore. In short, twisty, immaculately-directed mainstream metafiction has seldom been so fun. And so moving!

1. May December

If you take a peek in Todd Haynes’s trophy cabinet, you’ll notice he already has some LWLies silverware from when he secured the number one spot in with Carol for our 2015 films of the year. So consider this one the double. When we caught his scintillating, disorienting new one, May December , at the Cannes Film Festival, we walked from the screening unsure of what we’d just seen. Perhaps it was an acerbic comedy which handled the darkest of subject matters with dainty abandon? Or a big, brassy actor stand-off, with Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore both on superlative form? Perhaps it was a stealthy critique of biographical cinema, screen acting and the impossibility of emulating another person on film? Maybe it was all of those things? Or none of them? To be frank, we still haven’t quite decided. But what we do know was that this was the film that still has us chortling, gasping and wincing just thinking about it, a discussion-point movie par excellence and another crowning achievement in the career of its director. Our only prayer now is that the award season set take notice. And if you wanna hear from the man himself, take a listen to this episode of Truth & Movies in which the august Hannah Strong interviewed him about the making of this brilliant film.

Published 19 Dec 2023

Tags: 2023 Cinema Andrew Haigh Christopher Nolan David Fincher Hayao Miyazaki Kelly Reichardt Martin Scorsese Sofia Coppola Todd Haynes Wes Anderson Yorgos Lanthimos

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Little White Lies was established in 2005 as a bi-monthly print magazine committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them. Combining cutting-edge design, illustration and journalism, we’ve been described as being “at the vanguard of the independent publishing movement.” Our reviews feature a unique tripartite ranking system that captures the different aspects of the movie-going experience. We believe in Truth & Movies.

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