If you've been spending the early days of the new year trying to catch up on some of the best movies of 2023, then you're in luck, because the gripping documentary Beyond Utopia has finally hit streaming, so you can watch it from home.
Beyond Utopia debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023 and played at a range of other film festivals throughout the year. But as of Tuesday, January 9, Beyond Utopia is now available to watch on Hulu in the US too.
The movie is part political thriller, part history documentary and part engrossing family drama. Loosely put, it's about the experiences of defectors from North Korea as they attempt to escape to start a new life in South Korea.
The story centers around Pastor Seungeun Kim, a South Korean who has spent decades helping these people, but also puts you in the boots of a family escaping North Korea with lots of camcorder footage of their voyage from the country to a range of other Asian countries. It's a gripping and tense watch; in fact, for this writer, it was the best movie of the year full stop. (Check out WTW's official top 10 movies of 2023 right here.)
Whether you're an expert on geopolitical regions in the Korean peninsula or only have a very vague idea as to what's going on over there, it's also a great way to inform yourself as to why people want to escape North Korea, but also why lots of people prefer to stay.
Don't just take my word for it though. The movie has won awards, including the documentary audience awards at both the Sundance and Sydney film festivals. At the time of writing, its Rotten Tomatoes critic score is a nice round 100%, while its audience score is only slightly lower at 98%.
The director, Madeleine Gavin, previously directed the doc City of Joy, about a doctor, a playwright and a human rights activist who worked to protect woman affected by wars in the Congo region of Africa. That's currently streaming on Netflix.
Beyond Utopia is also one of the 15 movies shortlisted for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, alongside the likes of 20 Days in Mariupol and American Symphony. This isn't the same as an Oscar nomination, but it could well lead to one, given the reception the movie has received. The nominations will be announced on Friday, January 26.
That should all be enough to make you realize that Beyond Utopia needs to go to the top of your watchlist straight away. It's even worth signing up to Hulu for.
