The cinema industry is still struggling with the consequences of the corona crisis, but is recovering and winning back audiences. Although the superheroes were weakening, the Barbenheimer hype ensured full halls. A number of films with very strong female characters won important film awards. And in the face of a world situation with many crises and several wars, the documentary is becoming more and more relevant. These were the best movies of the year:

»Anatomy of a Case«

How do you promote such a terrific film as »Anatomy of a Case«? The best solution was recently found by a London cinema. Instead of the Palme d'Or, which director Justine Triet won at Cannes, or the euphoric critical praise, the cinema simply wrote a quote from the film on its board: "I am innocent. You know that, right?"

They are the script lines of the year, read by the actress of the year. In »Anatomy of a Case«, Sandra Hüller plays a woman accused of the murder of her husband. But the evidence is inconclusive, which is why the verdict – of both the court and the audience – depends on who is more trusted to do what: the depressed, noisy husband to commit suicide or the dominant, manipulative wife to murder.

In her fourth feature film, the Frenchwoman Triet brings together legal thriller and relationship drama and disposes of the great clichés of both genres. No investigator tells you when to doubt the testimony of the accused, and no major marital dispute provides certainty about what kind of relationship we were dealing with here. This is near-perfect cinema. Hannah Pilarczyk

»The Fabelmans«

You'd better listen to your mother. Steven Spielberg had to realize this when he finally tackled his film »The Fabelmans« one day. His own mother, Leah Adler, had been telling him for a long time that he should make a family epic about the Spielbergs: "Steven, you have to make a film about us, we'll provide you with such great material."

No sooner said than done decades later: »The Fabelmans«, which deals with the director's childhood and coming of age in the fifties and sixties, is not only a great homage to his mother, who died in 2017, but also a ludicrous comedy, a gripping thriller and a touching artist's biography. The now 77-year-old director has succeeded in creating a film full of empathy and warmth, which gives the viewer the exhilarating feeling of belonging to a very special family for two and a half hours. Lars-Olav Beier

»Killers of the Flower Moon«

Martin Scorsese is something like cinema personified today. He takes care of the restoration of classics and strives to keep the awareness of film history alive. He clearly expresses his opinion on current productions, such as his disdain for superhero movies. And at the age of 81, he has reached a point in his career where no budget seems too big and no epic too long – financed, ironically, by streaming services, ironically. But he hasn't delivered a film that would have really satisfied the high expectations of the audience for a long time.

In 2023, the time had finally come: »Killers of the Flower Moon« is still the masterpiece that one had no longer dared to hope for. At the same time, an elegiac late western and thriller about the early history of US capitalism, a melancholic and razor-sharp look at greed, which has always developed a special creative but also inhuman energy in the USA. The bitter diagnosis that Scorsese makes to his home country does not bode well for the future. But the way he captures them in images that say more than arguments – this once again proves him to be a master of art to which he has dedicated his life. Oliver Kaever

»Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse«

In 2023, cinema audiences were invaded by a mysterious syndrome – superhero fatigue! The fact that DC is stumbling with its comic book debacles (including »The Flash« ) is hardly surprising, but the fact that the success of its competitor Marvel is now also running out of luck is new: After 15 years and 33 blockbusters, fans were no longer in the mood for »The Marvels« - and ensured the narrowest box office result of an MCU film to date.

However, Sony, the studio with the Spider-Man license, showed the sagging genre a way out of the crisis – with the most aesthetically beautiful and thrilling superhero film since ... well, since the first part of the »Spider-Verse« series, which started in 2018. » Not only does "Across the Spider-Verse" feature the largest (and most curious) number of spider heroes to date (Spider-Punk, Peter Parkedcar, Spider-Man India, etc.), but it also tells a touching, multidimensional teenage love story. By reverting to the comic origins – brushes, ink, (digital) drawing board – the film found a cheerful groove. Andreas Borcholte

»Forever«

Eva and Dieter Simon were a couple for more than 70 years, the last five of which were accompanied by filmmaker Pia Lenz with her camera. Eva is already ill at this time, Dieter takes care of her touchingly. This, Eva points out, was not always the case. For many years, her husband tended to withdraw from everyday life with children. Even now, it is Eva who analyzes emotionally and yet clearly, looking back on a life spent together with all its fractures, scars, injuries. Dieter remains the great silent one.

The result is a rarely intimate look at a relationship that respectfully respects boundaries. What does it mean to share a life? How do you bridge the distance that always remains, no matter how much time you spend together? Fortunately, Pia Lenz didn't make a cinematic relationship guide; Rather, her film »Forever« is transformed into a tender meditation on the fact that a life story only ever takes shape in retrospect, while the present must remain a tentative search. Oliver Kaever

»Beau is Afraid«

Christmas is the perfect opportunity to remember this grandiose and outrageous three-hour imposition, which unfortunately got lost in the roar of Barbenheimer. Because at Christmas you visit your mother, just as the titular hero Beau (much better than in »Napoleon«: Joaquin Phoenix) plans to do in Ari Aster's Kafkaesque Oedipal farce. Of course, it's about her funeral, but that could be a day of celebration for her son, who is so distraught by his mother, if Freudian nightmare scenarios didn't prevent him from getting to the cemetery (and inner peace).

Arthouse horror director Ari Aster ("Midsommar") lets go of all inhibitions in his masterpiece: He equipped the hook-hitting plot with aesthetic breaks (theater! animation sequence!), flat jokes, slapstick and body horror until not only Beau loses all sense of reality, but also becomes quite flowery to the viewer. Aster calls his psycho-odyssey an "anxiety comedy", i.e. a comedy about primal fears. In fact, »Beau Is Afraid« is one of the most fearless films of the year. Andreas Borcholte

»The Teacher's Room«

The men and women of the so-called teaching staff of a German grammar school argue about how to deal with their protégés and pressing political questions – this is the basic idea of the cleverly constructed and touching film that director Ilker Çatak has made with the delicate, combative actress Leonie Benesch in the leading role.

Benesch plays a teacher of mathematics and physical education who is just starting her career. The heroine is repulsed by the cynicism with which the headmaster (Michael Klammer) tries to blame a student of Turkish origin for thefts at school. That's why she investigates on her own. Because she uses questionable means and exposes a psychologically severely battered alleged perpetrator (Eva Löbau), the viewers are soon confronted with many legal and moral doubts.

Çatak depicts the teacher's room as a battlefield of angry social discourse, in which racism and inequality of opportunity are argued, among other things. Above all, however, he makes palpable the oppressive atmosphere and the feeling of helplessness that ruin the job of some teachers these days. The accuracy of the dialogues and the intensity of the actors make »The Teacher's Room« a masterpiece of German cinema, which was quite rightly awarded the main prizes for best director, best actress and best film at this year's German Film Awards. Wolfgang Höbel

»The Hamlet Syndrome«

Everyone is fighting on their own front. Ukrainian actress Oxana wrestles with whether or not to leave her country. As a paramedic in eastern Ukraine, Roman has experienced much more death and violence than he could handle. Katya always carried a hand grenade with her in the battle for the territories occupied by Russia in order to be able to blow herself up in case of capture. These are three of a total of five protagonists who meet on the stage of a theater in Kiev in the documentary »The Hamlet Syndrome« a few months before the Russian invasion.

Guided by a theatre director, they try to find words and gestures for their experiences to share with the others. The film is a social experiment in which people from very different biographical backgrounds try to overcome the boundaries that exist between them. The film by Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosołowski tells a gripping and moving story of the wounds of a war that began long before February 2022. Lars-Olav Beier

»The Quiet Girl«

The young actress Catherine Clinch, who plays the title role in the film by Irish director Colm Bairéad, has a sensationally clear, calm, pale face. It's not fear, just trepidation with which the nine-year-old heroine watches the adults rant and wail. In Ireland in 1981, her parents put her in residence with distant relatives for a while because of the poverty of her large family. Her host parents, a friendly woman (Carrie Crowley) and her stubborn husband (Andrew Bennett), live on a huge farm by the sea. It soon becomes clear that they are carrying a secret with them.

Bairéad's film explores the beauty of the hilly area, the nearby seashore, but also the dirt and drudgery of agriculture with gentle curiosity and almost meditative tranquillity. The malice and sometimes warming solidarity of a village community also comes to light. »The Quiet Girl« depicts the gradually growing intimacy between the young heroine and her hosts – and a magical childhood summer that is full of horrors and more surprising pleasures. Seldom, in any case, has a cinema director so sensually overwhelmingly brought his audience closer to what a blessing it can be when a young person accustomed to starvation is finally allowed to eat his fill. Wolfgang Höbel

»Pacifiction«

If Gérard Depardieu never made a film again, it wouldn't be too bad. Especially because his abusive behavior towards women and even children is now well documented. But also because Benoît Magimel is now ready. The 49-year-old has matured into an actor for the kind of attractive-repulsive tilting figures that were previously thought only Depardieu could embody.

In »Pacifiction«, Albert Serra's laid-back cinephile feat, Magimel plays the French High Commissioner of Tahiti as both a string-puller and a fool. At first, his De Roller thinks he has an overview of what is going on on and around the island. But then the rumours that France wants to start nuclear tests in the region again become louder and louder. What can De Roller find out before he is exposed as an unsuspecting placeholder in front of colleagues and islanders?

Albert Serra stages this story as a stretched thriller, lurking in its suspense and grotesque in its beauty. Launched in Germany in February, the unique spell of »Pacifiction« still continues. Hannah Pilarczyk