With a new year ahead of us, there comes new movies for movie fanatics like myself. So naturally, the only possible topic to close out this year would be one that sees my most anticipated movies of next year.

Now while we have a lot of trailers for 2023 movies, there are many we haven’t seen anything from aside from maybe a poster or synopsis (not to mention all the movies we don’t know about that will come out next year).

This list is comprised of films that have trailers out right now or whose premise has enough information available to make someone excited to watch it.

10. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (June 30) Indiana Jones is a classic film character and the original trilogy of films are very solid. Despite the fumbling of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008, the franchise has decided to march forward with a new movie.

This will be the first film in the series without Stephen Spielberg in the director’s chair.

The trailer also shows several scenes with a digitally de-aged Harrison Ford (or possibly another actor made to resemble Ford), I suspect this might be the studio testing the waters on the possibility of having Ford continue to be Indy in film despite his age and without the need to cast someone else in the role. However, the more cynical take is that this is an effort to replace Ford with a CG creation.

It should also be noted that this film will be the last one scored by John WIlliams ahead of his retirement. For that reason alone, this movie feels like a must see for the importance of cinema history.

9. Shazam! Fury of the Gods (March 17) Shazam! was a pleasant surprise when it debuted. It featured a fun story and colorful visual while also featuring some heavy emotional themes.

It was frustrating to learn that the film was delayed for so long, but I’m glad it finally has a release date.

I’m curious how they will approach the hero’s name in this entry. For those not in the know, the superhero often associated with the name “Shazam” was actually called Captain Marvel for years in the comics.

When Marvel released their own Captain Marvel, this made the name fade away from use. The first film danced around the name issue, but I hope the movie at least acknowledges something about it.

Regardless, the sequel looks like a lot of fun, and I’m interested to see what it has to offer.

8. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (April 7) As I said a few weeks ago, I think this movie looks promising.

While I may be unimpressed with Chris Pratt’s Mario performance (admittedly the little of it we’ve seen thus far), the other vocal performances seem very strong.

Visually, the movie looks to be full of charming recreations of the video game enemies, environments and power up.

Despite some misgivings on voice roles, I think it looks exactly like how a Mario movie should look and it does

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appear that a lot of love was put into this project. Where most video game film adaptations try to distance themselves from their source material, this movie revels in it.

7. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (May 5) The Guardians of the Galaxy are one of those obscure comics groups that seemed like a huge risk to adapt. Even amongst comic readers, the group was rather obscure (but not as much so as the Eternals). But to Marvel’s credit, the movie worked and James Gunn’s reinvention of the characters proved popular with audiences.

Gunn has said this is likely to be his final Guardians film and will conclude the storyline of this particular team.

6. The Last Voyage of the Demeter (August 11) This one kind of surprised me. Dracula was one of my favorite novels to read growing up, and the chapter concerning the massacre aboard the Demeter were some of the most chilling.

For those that haven’t read the novel, there is a chapter called “The Captain’s Log”, in it the Demeter was the ship that Dracula charted to transport several boxes of his native soil (and the Count himself) to England. While aboard, Dracula begins to pick the crew off one-by-one.

I’m always down for some Dracula action, and bringing in an element of the novel not often focused on makes me excited.

5. Shin Kamen Rider (March)

Kamen Rider is something I haven’t talked much about, but is up my alley.

Kamen Rider is a franchise that turns 50 years old next year and is a famous tokusatsu (special effects) series in the vein of Power Rangers or its Japanese equivalent Super Sentai (although Kamen Rider came first).

Kamen Rider tells the story of Takeshi Hongo, who is kidnapped and turned into a cyborg by terrorist organization Shocker. Before the final step of brainwashing occurs, Hongo escapes and wages a one man war against Shocker.

This film is brought to us by director Hideaki Anno, creator of the popular anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion and director of 2016’s Shin Godzilla. This is the third re-imagining of a tokusatsu franchise from Anno following Shin Godzilla and last year’s Shin Ultraman.

I love tokusatsu, and I’ve enjoyed Anno’s work, so this movie is a nobrainer to go see.

4. Cocaine Bear (February 24)

Just look at that title! What other reason do I need to go see it?

3. Oppenheimer (July 21)

Christopher Nolan always manages to deliver on visual spectacle and some solid movies. Even his lesser films are enjoyable.

So when I heard that Nolan was making a film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, my interest was piqued.

This will be Nolan’s first film since Memento to not be distributed by Warner Bros., following the director’s fallout with the studio over their simultaneous release model (although losing Nolan is the least of that company’s worries now).

Regardless, this should be an interesting movie.

2. Untitled Toho Godzilla Film (November 3)

On Nov. 3, 2022, Toho announced a brand new Godzilla film that would debut in 2023. This film was apparently shot undercover during the summer for the big reveal.

Now anyone reading this column knows that I love Godzilla, and so even with only a teaser image available, I can’t help but feel excited for more Godzilla films from Japan.

The above mentioned Shin Godzilla was an incredible film that reinvented the character for the modern age and incorporating element of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, and a critique of government bureaucracy.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to seeing another Japanese Godzilla film.

1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (June 2) And now we come to my most anticipated movie of next year.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was one of the best movies of 2018 and rocketed into becoming my favorite animated movie, and a top tier superhero flick.

The sequel looks poised to offer us even more variants of Spider-Man (including the Toei Spider-Man and The Spectacular Spider-Man).

While the wait for the movie has been long, given how incredible the first movie looked, I thinking waiting for the animators to take their time refining the visuals and style for the best possible product.