Here are almost two dozen films that competed in the main competition at the Berlin Film Festival in 2023 and their scores on Metacritic (the largest aggregator site that collects reviews of films, games and series). This is not a top in the usual sense; rather, a cross-section that demonstrates the preferences not of individuals, but of global film critics as a whole.
How we've grouped data:
- all films are placed from top to bottom and left to right, from highest to lowest and in alphabetical order;
- the data is current as of early March 2023. As more reviews appear, the scores of movies and, as a result, their placement may change slightly;
- films that do not yet have a Metacritic score are listed in alphabetical order;
- we also recommend that you read the results of Berlin, Cannes and Venice film festivals in 2022.
Past Lives — 95 points (dir. Celine Song)
Reward: -
Genre: melodrama
What is remarkable: Nora and Hae-seong's friendship ended when the girl's family emigrated from South Korea to Canada. Two decades later, they meet in New York to understand love and destiny.
Totem — 86 points (dir. Lila Avilés)
Reward: -
Genre: drama
What is remarkable: young Saul helps her family prepare a party in honor of her father. But at some point, chaos reigns in the house, rapidly undermining the foundations of the family.
BlackBerry — 83 points (dir. Matt Johnson)
Reward: -
Genre: drama, comedy
What is remarkable: the story of the BlackBerry smartphone, which anticipated the total digitalization of modern society, but failed to keep up with its own popularity.
Afire — 80 points (dir. Christian Petzold)
Reward: Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize
Genre: drama
What is remarkable: summer fires surround the holiday home on the Baltic Sea coast, bringing four guests closer together.
The Shadowless Tower — 78 points (dir. Zhang Lu)
Reward: -
Genre: drama
What is remarkable: a restaurant critic from China makes sense of his divorce and his difficult relationship with his father, whom he hasn't seen in years, but in the meantime, improves his personal life.
Suzume — 78 points (dir. Makoto Shinkai)
Reward: -
Genre: anime, fantasy
What is remarkable: by chance, Suzume opens a mysterious door, causing all kinds of natural disasters to hit Japan. Now she has to go on a journey and fix the situation.
Limbo — 76 points (dir. Ivan Sen)
Reward: -
Genre: thriller, drama, detective
What is remarkable: detective Travis Hurley travels to the Australian countryside for an unsolved murder that has been gathering dust in the archive for twenty years. During the investigation, he learns the unpleasant truth about the situation of local indigenous people.
On the Adamant — 75 points (dir. Nicolas Philibert)
Reward: Golden Bear
Genre: documentary
What is remarkable: the everyday life of a psychiatric care center, whose uniqueness lies in the fact that it is located on the Seine, in the very center of Paris.
Disco Boy — 71 points (dir. Giacomo Abbruzzese)
Reward: -
Genre: drama
What is remarkable: forced to leave his native Belarus, Alexey joins the French Foreign Legion and travels to the Niger Delta.
Music — 71 points (dir. Angela Schanelec)
Reward: Best Screenplay
Genre: drama
What is remarkable: abandoned in the Greek mountains as a baby, John meets his own parents as he grows up and enters into conflicting relationships with them.
Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything — 67 points (dir. Emily Atef)
Reward: -
Genre: drama, romance
What is remarkable: in the warm summer of 1990, a young girl begins an affair with a charming farmer from East Germany. The catch is he's twice as old as she is.
The Survival of Kindness — 66 points (dir. Rolf de Heer)
Reward: -
Genre: drama, detective
What is remarkable: a woman is locked in a cage and left in the middle of the desert, doomed to certain death. But she finds the strength to get out of captivity and go through the scorched earth to meet her new captivity.
Ingeborg Bachmann: Journey into the Desert — 55 points (dir. Margarethe von Trotta)
Reward: -
Genre: drama, biography
What is remarkable: the intricate and often painful relationship between an Austrian poetess and a Swiss playwright.
Manodrome — 51 points (dir. John Trengove)
Reward: -
Genre: thriller, drama
What is remarkable: Ralphie, who works for Uber and is preparing to become a father, falls into a libertarian cult and begins to lose touch with reality.
The Plough — 50 points (dir. Philippe Garrel)
Reward: Silver Bear for Best Director
Genre: drama
What is remarkable: children of hereditary puppeteers not only revive soulless objects, but also have a hard time making ends meet.
20,000 Species of Bees — Score unavailable (dir. Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren)
Reward: Best Leading Performance
Genre: drama
What is remarkable: 8-year-old Coco really doesn't like the fact that adults see her only as a little girl. But when she goes to a bee farm with her mom, their relationship changes.
Art College 1994 — Score unavailable (dir. Liu Jian)
Reward: -
Genre: cartoon, drama
What is remarkable: in the early 1990s, students at the Chinese Academy of Arts were not only getting an education, but also looking for their place in a deeply traditionalist society that was nevertheless striving for progress.
Till the End of the Night — Score unavailable (dir. Christoph Hochhäusler)
Reward: Best Supporting Performance
Genre: drama
What is remarkable: Robert doesn't look like a typical police officer, as he wears a leather jacket and long hair as his uniform. The fact is that this allows him to work successfully undercover.
Bad Living — Score unavailable (dir. João Canijo)
Reward: Silver Bear Jury Prize
Genre: drama
What is remarkable: the tragedy of a small family with neither boys nor men left. As a result, one of the women's bipolar disorder occupied the void.
See you at new film festivals!
