In 2023, sci-fi lovers will see a great variety of genre movies, from Bulgakov adaptations and new parts of beloved cycles, to art house experiments and horror films.
We are pleased to collect 14 of the most interesting premieres of 2023, which will not let the connoisseurs of unexpected sci-fi ideas and great special effects, arranging them by the date of release in wide release.
JUNG_E
- IMDB Rating – 5.5
- Genre: Drama, Fantastic
- Production: Korea South / 2023
- Budget: $16,000,000
- Director: Young Sang-ho
- Starring: Kang Soo-yeon, Kim Hyun-ju, Ryu Kyung-soo, Han Woo-yeol, Park So-yi, Lee Dong-hee, Eom Ji-won, Yoon Gi-chan, Lee Ga-kyung, Shin Min-jae
Sci-fi drama from the South Korean director of “Train to Busan” Yong Sang-ho is characterized by high-quality graphics and exciting action. Events unfold in the XXII century, where mankind has long ago threatened their planet, moved to artificial stations in space and engaged in their favorite business – internecine wars.
Chon-yi is a successful mercenary who goes on another mission and demonstrates a magnificent fight, tearing to shreds a horde of fighting robots. And then the audience is plunged into the mysterious origins of Jeon-yi, who turns out to be not quite human, and has a real family drama to endure.
The premiere of the movie was postponed several times. It was supposed to add to the collection of sci-fi fans back in 2022, but as a result it was released on January 20, 2021.
The Wandering Earth II
- IMDB Rating – 7.0
- Genre: Fantasy, Action, Drama
- Production: China / 2023
- Budget: $90,000,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $605,242,014
- Director: Frant Gwo
- Starring: Jackie Wu, Andy Lau, Li Xuejian, Sha Yi, Ning Li, Wang Zhi, Zhu Yanmanzi, Andy Friend, Tong Lia, Zina Blakhusova
Despite the number two in the title, this Chinese film is a prequel to Wandering Earth, one of the best science fiction films of 2022.
It is here that we learn what led the planet to a series of catastrophes, after which humanity began to build engines capable of turning the Earth into a giant steerable ark. The birth of this plan, its development and the unification of humanity – in short, the second movie turned out to be no less exciting than the first.
The film premiered on January 21, 2023.
Infinity Pool
- IMDB Rating – 6.1
- Genre: Fantasy, Thriller, Drama, Crime
- Production: Canada, Croatia, Hungary / 2023
- Worldwide gross: $5,183,424
- Director: Brandon Cronenberg
- Starring: Alexander Skarsgard, Mia Goth, Cleopatra Coleman, Jalil Lesper, Thomas Kretschmann, Amanda Brugel, Caroline Boulton, John Ralston, Jeff Ricketts.
The acclaimed sci-fi thriller with elements of body horror from Canadian Brandon Cronenberg is a quality arthouse movie filled with symbolism and allegories for those who want to exercise their brains and dig into the intricacies of meaning. However, for fans of simple and scary fantasies it will also be suitable.
Having gone to a resort in an exotic fictional country, James Foster accidentally commits a crime and is sentenced to death. However, as a foreigner, he is offered an expensive favor: to create a clone of him and subject him to brutal slaughter instead of himself. And then it turns out that the idea of clones has been exploited by rich guests of the resort for a long time and very ingeniously.
The movie was released on January 21, 2023.
65
- IMDB Rating – 5.4
- Genre: Fantastic, Action
- Production: USA, Canada / 2023
- Budget: $45,000,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $60,730,568
- Director: Scott Beck, Brian Woods
- Starring: Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Chloe Coleman, Nika King, Brian Dare
A fascinating chance to visit the prehistoric past of our planet together with the main characters of the sci-fi action movie “65”, Mills and Koa.
Mills is a pilot of a research spaceship, which went on a very long expedition from an earth-like planet in the depths of space. The ship crashes and falls to pieces over Earth 65 million years ago. The entire crew and passengers are dead, except for a young girl named Koa and Mills himself.
They have to walk 15 kilometers through a jungle teeming with predatory dinosaurs to get to the rescue shuttle and in time to get away from the planet, which is about to fall on an asteroid that launched Kainozoi.
The film was released on March 9, 2023. Although the project itself was announced back in 2019, the plot was kept secret until the premiere.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
- IMDB Rating – 6.5
- Genre: Fantasy, Action, Adventure
- Production: USA / 2023
- Budget: $195,000,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $349,330,066
- Directed by Steven Capel Jr.
- Starring: Dominic Fishback, Anthony Ramos, Luna Lauren Velez, Dean Scott Vasquez, Tobe Nwigwe, Sarah Stiles, Leni Parker, Francis Lamarr, Aidan Divine, Kerwin Jackson.
Another sci-fi action movie of the famous franchise, the plot of which is based on the same Transformers toys, intertwined with fragments of the Canadian animated series “Battle of the Beasts”.
The movie is set after the events of “Bumblebee” and is set in New York and Peru, focusing on the adventures of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee and their battles with the Maximals and Pre-Cons, descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons. In this story, viewers will be introduced to a new look for intelligent machines, a new threat, and a fresh take on the Transformers universe.
The film was released in wide release on June 7, 2023.
They Cloned Tyrone
- IMDB Rating – 7.4
- Genre: Fantasy, Action, Thriller, Comedy, Detective
- Production: USA / 2023
- Director: Jewel Taylor
- Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Jamie Foxx, John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, David Alan Greer, J. Alphonse Nicholson, Joshua Miquel, Austin Freeman, James Moses Black, Jason Burkey
American ironic sci-fi detective They Cloned Tyrone is about a drug dealer, Fontaine, who is shot and killed by rival Isaac and then wakes up in his bed unharmed.
Amazed by the incident, Fontaine sets about investigating the incident, involving a couple of his eccentric buddies. Trying to understand and explain what happened, the trio stumbles upon a major government conspiracy that is slowly changing the world. By the way, the title of the movie is a clue to the main intrigue.
The film is scheduled to be released on Netflix on July 21, 2023.
Meg 2: The Trench
- Genre: Horror, sci-fi, action movie
- Production: USA, China / 2023
- Director: Ben Wheatley
- Starring: Jason Statham, Sienna Guillory, Cliff Curtis, Skyler Samuels, Kiran Sonia Savar, Melissanti Mahut, Shuya Sophia Tsai, Paige Kennedy, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Jackie Woo
A sci-fi horror movie based on Steve Alten’s book The Hollow is about a diver, Jonas Taylor, who is working in the late 90s in the Mariana Trench on a secret mission for the U.S. Navy.
While Taylor is at depth, his ship is attacked by a megalodon, a huge bloodthirsty shark thought to be extinct. The entire crew dies, and Jonas, who tells of the monster, is declared insane. He loses his job, his wife and his reputation, becoming a true outcast. Only after many years does Taylor find a man who believes him and is eager to prove him right.
The film’s wide release date is August 4, 2023.
The Creator
- Genre: Fantasy, Action, Thriller, Drama, Adventure
- Production: USA / 2023
- Director: Gareth Edwards
- Starring: John David Washington, Ralph Ineson, Allison Janney, Gemma Chan, Sturgill Simpson, Mark Menchaca, Robbie Tann, Ken Watanabe, Veronica Ngo, Amer Chadha-Patel.
Gareth Edwards’ powerful anti-war post-apocalyptic tells the story of a world in the not-too-distant future, where humanity wages an endless war against the forces of artificial intelligence that have rebelled against their creators.
Joshua is a former special forces officer who is grieving for his wife. He is trying to find and destroy the man responsible for developing the AI. The elusive and almost mythical Creator must know a way to stop the war, though the price for doing so may be prohibitive.
This film will be released in U.S. theaters on September 29, and will then get distribution in other countries.
The Animal Kingdom
- IMDB Rating – 7.3
- Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Adventure
- Production: France / 2023
- Director: Thomas Kaye
- Starring: Adele Exarchopoulos, Romain Duris, Paul Kircher, Tom Mercier, Nathalie Richard, Nicolas Avini, Louise Leri, Jean Borona, Kevin Dubertrand.
French sci-fi movie about an epidemic sweeping the humanity. People infected with an unknown virus begin to mutate into animals. They grow claws, feathers, scales and other creepy delights.
At the center of the story is a man named Francois and his 16-year-old son Emile. The two of them try to help their wife and mother, who turns into a wild beast, losing her mind and then escapes into the forest with hybrids like her. François and Emile set out on her trail with the hope of bringing the woman home.
“The Animal Kingdom” has become the opening film of the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard program. The film will be released in wide release first in France on October 4, 2023.
1984
- Genre: Fantastic, drama
- Production: Russia, Finland / 2023
- Director: Diana Ringo
- Starring: Alexander Obmanov, Diana Ringo, Alexei Sharanin, Vladislav Kuvitsyn, Sergey Budanov, Anton Biryukov, Vladimir Ivany, Alexei Shamaev, Ilya Droznin, Sergey Nikitin
An amazing movie based on Orwell’s cult dystopia, produced in Finland and Russia. The director and performer of the role of the main character’s beloved was Diana Ringo, a Finnish woman film director, pianist and artist. In the role of Winston Smith – a young actor from Volgograd Alexander Obmanov.
Smith lives a miserable existence in an alternative London, part of the state of Oceania, where individuality is suppressed at all levels. In this movie, he is a mathematician who falls in love one day and then learns about a resistance group to Big Brother.
The film is expected to be released on November 16, 2023.
Dune: Part Two
- Genre: Fantasy, Action, Drama, Adventure
- Production: USA, Canada / 2023
- Director: Denis Villeneuve
- Starring: Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Batista, Christopher Walken, Stephen Henderson, Léa Seydoux.
Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming epic film is a sequel to his “Dune”, in which only half of Frank Herbert’s novel was screened.
In the center of the sequel plot is still Paul Atreides, who will have to choose between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, and at the same time to avenge the conspirators for the death of his family. The cast of the original “Dune” returns to their roles in full.
The film will be released on November 17, 2023.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
- Genre: Fantasy, Action, Thriller, Drama, Adventure, Military
- Production: USA / 2023
- Director: Francis Lawrence
- Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Rachel Segler, Hunter Schafer, Peter Dinklage, Viola Davis, Bern Gorman, Tom Blyth, Finola Flanagan, Kjell Brutscheidt, Flora Tiemann.
A unique installment of the popular franchise, its remarkable prequel telling about the young years of the brutal dictator Coriolanus Snow. In short, a frank movie about the formation of the villain, the events of which unfold in the universe of “The Hunger Games”.
After a protracted war with the Districts, in which General Crassus Snow was killed, his family is going through hard times, at the risk of losing their entire fortune. 18-year-old Coriolanus is determined to bring prosperity back to the clan.
Chosen as a mentor in the 10th Games, he struggles to make a good impression in order to win a prize that could pay for his further education. His mentee is Lucy Grey, a girl with whom young Coriolanus inevitably falls in love.
Expect to see this movie on screens on November 17, 2023.
Rebel Moon
- Genre: Fantasy, Action, Drama, Adventure
- Production: USA, Hungary, Sweden, Denmark, UK / 2023
- Director: Zack Snyder
- Starring: Sofia Boutella, Charlie Hunnam, Cary Elwes, Anthony Hopkins, Jena Malone, Ed Skrein, Micheal Huisman, Djimon Hounsou, Cleopatra Coleman, Corey Stoll
Zack Snyder’s brilliant space saga, to which a sequel is already being filmed. Events take place in a human colony somewhere on the edge of the Galaxy, and the story itself is still kept secret, and the plot is known very little, but enough to interest fans of space fiction.
So, a peaceful colony on the outskirts is threatened by the invading army of the villainous Balisarius. The settlers send Cora, a young woman with a troubled past, to neighboring worlds to gather warriors capable of resisting the invading forces.
The film will premiere on Netflix on December 22, 2023. By the way, Zack Snyder admitted that the script is partly inspired by director Kurosawa with his “Seven Samurai” and partly by “Star Wars”.
Spaceman
- Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Adventure
- Production: USA / 2023
- Director: Johan Renck
- Starring: Adam Sandler, Paul Dano, Isabella Rossellini, Carey Mulligan, Kunal Nair, Sinead Phelps, John Flanders
Sci-fi psychological thriller in a space setting tells of astronaut Jakub, sent on an 8-month mission to collect material from a mysterious cloud left behind by a comet.
Gradually, stress and loneliness lead Jakub to strange hallucinations and events. He believes he is no longer needed by his wife, with whom he talks almost every day, he hears voices, and then begins to see an alien being in his shuttle, claiming to be sent to study humans…
Сhe most anticipated space movie is based on the book “The Astronaut from Bohemia” by Czech writer Jaroslav Kalfarz. The release date of the movie is not set exactly, but the premiere is promised by Netflix no later than the end of 2023.
