MovieManifesto

Was 2023 the year that saved the movies? It’s a question that stems from a false premise; any prior suggestion that cinema was imperiled—that the multiplex is homogenized, that streamers are destroying theaters, that studios don’t make films for grownups anymore—ignores the immutable fact (or at least this critic’s fierce opinion) that artists have spent the past decade stubbornly churning out high-quality motion pictures. Still, it’s difficult to deny that something happened on July 21, 2023—a moment that, depending on your perspective, either signaled a seismic shift in audience behavior or vindicated your long-held insistence that movies remain alive and well.

I am speaking, of course, of #Barbenheimer, that ungainly portmanteau of two of the year’s most critically and commercially successful pictures, which arrived in theaters on the same day. Rather than cannibalizing each other, they complemented one another, sparking a craze of double features and breathing fresh life into the industry. Here were two movies that, in empirical terms, had nothing in common; one was a brightly colored fantasy inspired by a doll, the other a sober and intense three-hour epic about the birth (and aftermath) of the atomic bomb. Yet people flocked to Barbie and Oppenheimer alike, and in the process they reminded everyone that the simple act of going to the movies remains a cherished pastime—a sacred ritual in which art and commerce need not be mutually exclusive. Read More