What to watch in 2023: Our favourite new movies

Saint Omer

• Directed by Alice Diop
• Written by Alice Diop and Amrita David
• Starring Guslagie Malanda, Kayije Kagame and Valérie Dréville

What our critic Barry Hertz said: Alice Diop’s narrative feature debut Saint Omer is an attempt to answer, or at least explore, the vexing question of Fabienne Kabou, a woman who stood trial for murder over the death of her 15-month-old daughter. The basics of Kabou’s story remain the same, albeit transferred to the trial of Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda), a Senegalese woman who travelled from Paris to the town of the title expressly with the purpose of murdering her young daughter. Just as neat answers evaded Kabou’s case, so, too, are they in short supply in Saint Omer. But this is a feature, not a bug: by letting the so-called facts of the shocking act hang in the air for everyone to interpret, Diop’s film revels in the enigmatic power of uncertainty.

Living

• Directed by Oliver Hermanus
• Written by Kazuo Ishiguro, based on the film by Akira Kurosawa
• Starring Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood and Tom Burke
• Classification PG
• Runtime: 102 minutes

What our critic Barry Hertz said: Living, while made with all the best intentions and ambitions by a supremely talented lot of artists, should not work. Yet it does, ultimately, thanks to the magnificent talents of its leading man, Bill Nighy.

Plane

• Directed by Jean-Francois Richet
• Written by Charles Cumming and J.P. Davis
• Starring Gerard Butler, Mike Colter and Tony Goldwyn
• Classification PG
• Runtime: 107 minutes

What our critic Barry Hertz said: Plane is an exceedingly entertaining and ridiculously titled new thriller. Gerard Butler brings a low-rent-but-high-effort energy to a film that unfolds like a series of increasingly outlandish screenplay-writing “What If …?” exercises. No matter your stomach for copious acts of kneecapping and throat-slicing, Butler brings a believable sense of gravitas to the proceedings. He gets, and looks, tired. He sweats, he bleeds, he struggles. But as dedicated Butler-heads by now know, he gets the job done. One murder at a time.

Missing

• Written and directed by Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick
• Starring Nia Long, Tim Griffin and Storm Reid
• Classification PG
• Runtime: 111 minutes
• Opens in theatres Jan. 20

What our critic Sarah Hagi said: Made by first-time directors Nick Johnson and Will Merrick (and produced by the writer and directors of Searching) Missing follows rebellious teen June Allen (Storm Reid) as her mother, Grace (Nia Long), goes missing while on holiday in Colombia with her boyfriend, Kevin (Ken Leung). When June is set to pick them up from the airport and they don’t arrive, her worst suspicions are confirmed: her mother has gone missing in a foreign country and Kevin may not be who he says he is. Missing is essentially a stand-alone sequel to 2018′s Searching, a well-received film where a father has to find his missing daughter and which the audience experiences through his Google searches and video calls. Could effectively the exact same concept work again? Somehow, yes. Missing is a delightful surprise.

Ever Deadly

• Ever Deadly
• Written and directed by Tanya Tagaq and Chelsea McMullan
• Classification: G;
• Runtime: 90 minutes

What our critic Radheyan Simonpillai said: Tanya Tagaq is a disarmingly funny, unsurprisingly eloquent and playfully coy presence throughout Ever Deadly. The documentary, which she co-directs alongside Chelsea McMullan, is partly self-portraiture, but one in which Tagaq stays light on personal details and regularly turns the lens away from herself. The doc is a lot like the outfit Tagaq is wearing at the live concert it repeatedly returns to. It’s a dress covered in glass scales, catching in its reflections the world surrounding Tagaq. And these reflective fragments come together as something beautiful, cohesive and significant all on their own.

Pathaan

• Directed by Siddharth Anand
• Written by Siddharth Anand, Abbas Tyrewala and Shridhar Raghavan
• Starring Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and John Abraham
• Classification 14A;
• Runtime: 146 mins

What our critic Aparita Bhandari said: Bollywood and Shah Rukh Khan are back, aided in no small part by other celebrities such as Deepika Padukone and John Abraham, in Pathaan, a slick action-thriller. Don’t bother looking for a plot. To be honest, things like a coherent narrative arc are not top priority in such action flicks. The story is merely a ruse to take the audience on a whirlwind globe-trotting tour as beautiful specimens of good guys take on bad guys, with the odd gal thrown in the middle somewhere.

Infinity Pool

• Written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg
• Starring Alexander Skarsgard, Mia Goth and Thomas Kretschmann
• Classification R;
• Runtime: 117 minutes

What our critic Barry Hertz said: In other, cleaner hands, Infinity Pool’s high-concept pitch might devolve into a ponderous and rather dry exercise. A movie in which everybody asks the other, “Are you really you?” But in Brandon Cronenberg’s palms, the central identity-crisis conceit provides an opportunity to revel in an all-out primal nastiness. People are shot, stabbed, vivisected and treated like disposable playthings. This violence isn’t limited to acts of murder, either, with several sex scenes – including a drug-fuelled encounter that might hold the record for the longest onscreen orgy – treating the human body as a mutable thing, to be used and abused, worshipped and feared. This is unapologetic, assured filmmaking that has no qualms about sticking its face in the muck and staying there till everything turns black.

You People

• Directed by Kenya Barris
• Written by Kenya Barris and Jonah Hill
• Starring Jonah Hill, Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis-Dreyfus
• Classification R; 117 minutes
• Streaming on Netflix starting Jan. 27

What our critic Barry Hertz said: The laughs in You People are not a chuckle or a polite throat-clearing: these were hearty, full-strength guffaws that kept coming and coming as Barris and Hill took their simple premise – a 2023-era Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner – and laced it with enough sharp one-liners to punch up an entire year’s worth of other so-called Netflix comedies. This could be my Jewish High Holidays PTSD talking, but You People just might be the single funniest thing that the streaming giant has ever produced.

Adult Adoption

• Directed by Karen Knox
• Written by Ellie Moon
• Starring Ellie Moon, Rebecca Northan and Michael Healey
• Classification N/A
• Runtime: 93 minutes

What our critic Tabassum Siddiqui said: It’s tempting to label Adult Adoption as “quirky” – from the pastel-hued cinematography and thrift-store wardrobe to the electropop soundtrack. But bolstered by a cast of Toronto theatre veterans, filmmaker Karen Knox’s directorial debut delivers a narrative that is more complex than twee. That’s in large part thanks to a clever screenplay by award-winning playwright Ellie Moon.

Corsage

• Written and directed by Marie Kreutzer
• Starring Vicky Krieps and Florian Teichtmeister
• Classification N/A
• Runtime 113 minutes

What our critic Kate Taylor said: In Corsage, a fictionalized account of Empress Elisabeth of Austria’s 41st year, writer and director Marie Kreutzer offers unrepentant anachronism and shifting perspectives on a character as unsettling as she is fascinating.