2023 is going to be an exciting year for movies. With a string of big-budget releases and big-scale projects, 2023 is filled with promise. Three months into the year, there have been some great films with great performances, with film buffs hoping for more as the year progresses. Some of these projects were impacted by the pandemic but have finally secured a release date later this year. Here are some of 2023's most anticipated movie performances, ranked.
10. Rachel Zegler - Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes serves as a prequel to the preexisting storyline, with a sharp focus on life 50 years before the events of the Hunger Games. Rachel Zegler, after having made a name for herself in Spielberg’s West Side Story, will star as Lucy Grey Baird, a promising protégé of Coriolanus Snow.
9. Margot Robbie - Barbie
Margot Robbie is set to play the role of Barbie in Greta Gerwig’s live-action film that revolves around the famous doll sensation. The film also features Hollywood heartthrob Ryan Gosling as Barbie's love interest, Ken, and follows Barbie being expelled from Barbieland, arriving at the human world in search of meaning and happiness.
8. Timothée Chalamet - Wonka
Over time, Timothée Chalamet has made a name for himself as an actor with more than just a pretty face. With performances just as Call Me By Your Name and Bones and All, the young actor is considered a serious performer in Hollywood. In Wonka, Chalamet will star as a young Willy Wonka, with the film documenting the start of his romance with all things sweet and chocolatey. Wonka is directed by Paul King (Paddington and Bunny and the Bull).
7. Nicolas Cage - Renfield
Renfield will see Nicolas Cage star as a scary-looking, bloodthirsty Dracula that looks menacing but has a dormant aura of comedy suppressed within him. After a string of recent performances in films like Mandy and Pig, fans are eagerly awaiting what Nicolas Cage will bring to the forefront this time. Despite its overly dramatized antics, Renfield operates on the border of horror and comedy and provides a comic spin on a scary subject.
6. Florence Pugh - Dune Part Two
The first part of Dune has a large ensemble of the who’s who of Hollywood. A powerful cast that featured the likes of Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya, Stellan Skarsgård, and more. The second part furthers this already heavyweight list by the likes of Florence Pugh and Austin Butler, with Florence Pugh playing an important role of Princess Irulan, the eldest daughter of Emperor Shaddam, and one a key player in the intergalactic scenario.
5. Bradley Cooper - Maestro
Based on the life of American conductor Leonard Bernstein, Maestro is written, directed, and produced by Bradley Cooper, who also stars as Bernstein. The film focuses on the musical demigod’s passion for his craft along with his complex relationship with his wife Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan) over 25 years of marriage and three children.
4. Ben Affleck - Air
Directed by Ben Affleck, Air follows the story of Sonny Vaccaro, a Nike executive that moves heaven and earth in order to secure a deal with a basketball rookie named Micheal Jordan. What follows is the genesis of one of the biggest brands and the birth of one of the biggest sports stars the world has ever seen. Air has an ensemble cast of Hollywood heavyweights such as Ben Affleck, who plays the role of Phil Knight, the founder, and chairman of Nike along with Matt Damon, Chris Tucker, and Jason Bateman in prominent roles.
3. Leonardo DiCaprio - Killers of the Flower Moon
Killers of the Flower Moon is an upcoming western crime drama, that’s directed by the legendary Martin Scorsese and based on the best-selling non-fiction book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. The film stars Leonardo Dicaprio, and revolves around the murders of a wealthy Osage nation, which culminated in a string of brutal crimes.
2. Joaquin Phoenix - Beau is Afraid
Ari Aster has established himself as a master of all things creepy and twisted. Add to that
Joaquin Phoenix’s uncanny ability to transmit fear and anxiety, and you have a completely twisted and visceral movie-watching experience. The plot of
Beau is Afraid isn’t very clear but has the workings of a man who embarks on an odyssey home after the sudden passing away of his mother, encountering his greatest fears and nightmares on the way.
1. Cillian Murphy - Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer is arguably one of the most anticipated films of 2023, with Cillian Murphy playing the role of Robert Oppenheimer, the angel of death and the father of the atomic bomb. Directed by one of the most prominent directors of the modern age Christopher Nolan, the film documents the events that led up to The Manhattan Project, which culminated in the first detonation of a nuclear weapon at the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico.
