Onscreen's 2023 Preview

Words Lee Curtis

We’re still not quite back to normal, but despite lingering uncertainty and upheaval, 2022 was a huge year for cinema that delivered unmissable big screen moments and instant classics that will last long in the memory. With the promise of even more epic stories, superheroics, spine-tingling horror, romance, and franchise revivals…2023 is looking to go even bigger!

Tom Cruise took our breath away all over again as Maverick soared back onto the big screen, now another of his iconic cinema heroes returns for the first part of the final chapter in the story of Ethan Hunt. Get ready for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

If explosive action is top of your agenda, you won’t be disappointed as we’ll also see Keanu Reeves back in action in John Wick: Chapter 4, Denzel Washington dish out more vigilante justice in The Equalizer 3, and a mighty ensemble of action veterans team up for The Expendables 4. That’s not all, there’s the small matter of the final Fast & Furious film Fast X, a new breed of robot in disguise bringing the battle between Autobots and Decepticons roaring back to life in Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts, and, of course, Harrison Ford dusting off his fedora for an all-new adventure in Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny.

And all of that's without mentioning what promises to be yet another huge year for superhero cinema with epic new entries in both the Marvel and DC cinematic universes.

Quantumania awaits as Ant-Man and The Wasp kickstart Marvel’s Phase Five and meet the MCU’s new big bad, then get ready to say goodbye to the Guardians Of The Galaxy as we know them in their third and final film, and that’s all before The Marvels expands the universe even further. On the Sony side of things, there’s the web-slinging sequel to the Oscar-winning animated adventure that takes us Across The Spider-Verse and another classic Spider-Man villain’s story come to cinemas in Kraven The Hunter. Meanwhile, DC bring an electrifying Shazam! sequel that sees Billy Batson and co face the Fury Of The Gods, multiverse madness of their own in The Flash, a brand-new hero in Blue Beetle, and the highly-anticipated return of Jason Momoa’s antihero in Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom.

Fantasy fans can enjoy seeing a classic role-playing game come to life in Dungeons And Dragons: Honour Among Thieves, boxing buffs get ringside seats for the latest chapter in the Rocky spin-off as Michael B. Jordan’s Adonis faces battles in and out of the ring in Creed III, and sci-fi lovers will certainly be looking forward to a return to Arrakis for the second part of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune.

There’s still even more as The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes takes us back to where The Hunger Games began, Wonka reveals the origin story of Roald Dahl’s legendary chocolatier, and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer tells the true story of the man who made the atom bomb. There really is something for everyone, and so much to love.

There’s also a lot OF love ahead, too. Sam Mendes’ Empire Of Light tells a love story set in a quiet seafront cinema, the producers of Love Actually warm hearts with cross-cultural romcom What’s Love Got To Do With It?, and a perfectly cast Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling find real love in a material world as Barbie comes to the big screen. Though, our money's on Channing Tatum stealing most hearts as he strips down one final time in Magic Mike’s Last Dance. There’s also love stories about cinema itself too with Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama The Fabelmans and a new love letter to Hollywood from the director of La La Land, Babylon.

Romance is also at the heart of one of the year’s most anticipated films. Go under the sea for Disney’s live-action take on The Little Mermaid, starring Halle Bailey as Ariel, Javier Bardem as King Triton, and Melissa McCarthy as Ursula. We can’t wait for this to be part of our world.

Horror has rarely been as popular as it is now and the year ahead is packed full of scares. There’s a new face of horror from the mind behind The Conjuring in M3GAN, a new mystery from M. Night Shyamalan in Knock At The Cabin, and a terrifying new chapter in the Insidious saga. The survivors of the recent Ghostface killings in Scream face fresh terror in a new city in the sixth film in the franchise, the book of the dead makes a killer comeback in Evil Dead Rise, and a new still-to-be-titled Saw film restarts cinema’s deadliest game. There’s something spooky going on in the third of Kenneth Branagh’s adaptations of Agatha Christie’s whodunnits as this time Poirot finds murder and scares afoot during a séance in A Haunting In Venice. Even Disney are getting in on the horror act, albeit more family friendly, with their Haunted Mansion.

Talking of films for all the family, 2023 doesn’t disappoint there either. Everyone’s favourite swashbuckling feline returns for another adventure in the fairytale of Shrek in Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, the creators of Despicable Me and Minions bring beloved Nintendo characters to the big screen in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and Pixar show how opposites attract in their beautifully-animated Elemental.

For more information on these films and all of the major theatrical releases in 2023, be sure to follow our socials, keep an eye on our website, and pick up new issues of our magazine that’s your ultimate guide to cinema.