Was there any doubt that Miles Morales would spidey-leap to the top of the Letterboxd charts at the halfway point of 2023? Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse at number one was always going to be a canon event, and the film’s team ramped up the innovative animation, brought Spider-Punk in for righteous thirsting, went bonkers for Spot and did that gorgeous thing with the melting brushstrokes in Gwen’s universe. 

Not even wonky audio levels, an ending that’s not an ending and reports of producerial overreach on the production can keep audiences from smashing those four and five-star ratings for this second of three animated installments from Sony Pictures Animation. Each frame does indeed deserve to be hung in the Louvre. 

With this kind of head start, it’s going to take something extraordinary in the next six months to challenge Spider-Verse’s run at the Year in Review crown (which would be a repeat of what Into the Spider-Verse accomplished in 2018 at the eleventh hour). But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, and there’s so much else to discover in the 25 highest-rated films for the first half of 2023. 

Not least of which is: a midway high of ten women-directed films, including Celine Song’s swoon-worthy, second-placed Past Lives, Raine Allen-Miller’s fresh London rom-com Rye Lane and Kelly Fremon Craig’s adaptation of Judy Blume’s iconic YA story, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. This time last year, just four of the top 25 were helmed by women, well down from eight in 2021. 

Ten is progress, and it’s fantastic to see A.V. Rockwell’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winner A Thousand and One in there, along with Maryam Touzani’s The Blue Caftan, Georgia Oakley’s Blue Jean, Emmanuelle Nicot’s Love According to Dalva, Jeanne Herry’s All Your Faces, Laurel Parmet’s The Starling Girl and I Like Movies by Chandler Levack. 

Which brings us to Canada: Levack is one of several Canadian filmmakers on the list, alongside Anthony Shim with Riceboy Sleeps (at number five) and Matt Johnson with BlackBerry. (Look out for more Canadian cinema released this year, including Brother, You Can Live Forever and The Dishwasher—and look back at the 50 greatest films directed by a Canadian, as curated by CBC Arts.) Films from the UK, Germany, Japan, France, India, Korea and Morocco are also represented in the list.

In the top ten, it’s charming to see Past Lives and Riceboy Sleeps, two beautiful meditations on the Korean diaspora, tucked in between three barnbusting sequels: Across the Spider-Verse, Guardians of the Galaxy’s franchise-capping third volume and the fourth chapter for John Wick. Series highs, all three, both artistically and for the enthusiasm with which fans have embraced them—all three films continuing a pandemic-restoring box-office trend, after Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water broke the dam last year. 

Alongside Wes Anderson’s bigger-budget, star-packed Asteroid City, it’s really encouraging to see several indie comedies: Clay Taytum’s idiosyncratic The Civil Dead, Rye Lane and I Like Movies. All three of these narrative features are directorial debuts, a significant element of the top 25 overall. 

So far the highest-rated limited narrative series is BEEF, starring Steven Yeun and Ali Wong. Close behind is another Netflix series, The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House—one of the writer-directors on that is Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose Cannes winner Monster also made the narrative top 25. Italian cartoonist Zerocalcare’s This World Can’t Tear Me Down—a follow-up to Tear Along the Dotted Line—rounds out the top three limited series.

Beyond the narrative

The highest-rated documentary of the year is Still: A Michael J. Fox Story, which imaginatively blends footage from the actor’s work with clever re-enactments and a front-and-center interview to tell the actor’s life story and his Parkinson’s journey. It’s followed by a micro-surgical dive into the human body via De Humani Corporis Fabrica and Pamela Anderson’s reclamation of her star-status and narrative in Pamela, A Love Story.

Our highest-rated documentary miniseries is Paul T. Goldman, whose inclusion at the halfway mark is based on filmmaker Jason Woliner’s categorization of the production (the Emmys beg to differ, arguing that the series, based on Paul Finkelman’s semi-autobiographical book, is not a documentary). Second in line is one for the Sheerios: David Soutar’s behind-the-curtain doc on musician Ed Sheeran, from serial music-doc studio Fulwell 73. 

Bubbling under 

Films are eligible for our halfway top 25 if they have a minimum of 2,000 ratings, had a first national release (anywhere) between January 1 and June 30, 2023—and had at least a limited theatrical, streaming or video-on-demand run this year. These guidelines mean there are many more films worth your time that haven’t yet made it into the top 25, and we recommend getting these onto your watchlists. 

The four-hour-plus Argentine epic Trenque Lauquen rewards patience with its nesting-egg story of missing women, while Antonio Lukich’s Ukrainian comedy Luxembourg, Luxembourg, about two brothers confronting their father’s death, is tickling funny bones (“How is it that the jokes land effortlessly, making this one of the funniest films I’ve seen in a while?” asks Andrii.)

We expect other highly rated films that are not yet at the threshold (despite fruitful festival runs) to rise up the ranks once they’re released later this year. These include a set of Cannes trophy holders: Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning Anatomy of a Fall, Jonathan Glazer’s Grand Prix-winning The Zone of Interest and Wim Wenders’ Best Actor-winner, Perfect Days. And we won’t have long to wait for the theatrical releases of Bottoms, Theater Camp and Scrapper, which are already rating highly too.

Be sure to add these to your watchlists and, if you are a Pro or Patron member, remember you can select and filter by your favorite streaming services (pick from any service listed on JustWatch) and get notified when films in your watchlist arrive on those services. We’ve also added release dates to film pages on the web, and they are coming to our apps very soon. 

For the rest of the year, films that our team is looking forward to include the Barbie/Oppenheimer double-feature (even if we already know How to Blow Up a Pipeline), the follow-up parts to Dune and Mission: Impossible, Hayao Miyazaki’s mystifying How Do You Live? and Yorgos Lanthimos’ wild and wacky Poor Things. Bring on fall-festival season!