Evaluation of the year[edit]
In his article highlighting the best movies of 2023, Richard Brody of The New Yorker said, "Though a year in movie releases is a small and arbitrary sample size, it’s nonetheless clear that, at the moment, the art of cinema is in good shape in the United States. The overwhelming commercial success of two of the year’s strangest big-budget films, Oppenheimer and Barbie, released on the same day this summer, is an obvious sign of the vigor of the cinemascape. But the more crucial indicator of vitality preceded their release by several years—namely, the moments when these projects got the green light from their respective studios. One has blown far beyond the billion-dollar mark, and the other is approaching it, at precisely the moment that the superhero-industrial complex seems to be tottering. However, the studios are hardly the artistic center of the American cinema; they’re just one element in an environment that is fostering ongoing artistic progress. Deep-pocketed streaming services that can afford to compete with the studios—and even outbid them—have an incentive to prove themselves as purveyors not just of quantity but of quality, including by competing for awards. As for independent production companies, they can—and must—take chances on inexperienced filmmakers with big ideas and on audacious projects by acclaimed filmmakers with the name recognition to help sell them."[2]
The year saw an unusually large number of high-profile, big-budget films which subsequently under-performed at the box office, leading to the coining of the term "flopbuster."[3] Several of the most prominent tent-pole films of 2023 which under-performed include Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,[4] Shazam! Fury of the Gods,[5] Fast X,[6] The Little Mermaid,[7] Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,[8] The Flash,[9] Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,[10] Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,[11] Blue Beetle,[12] and The Marvels.[13] Many reasons have been given for the phenomenon, with one of the most common being the high budgets, low marketing due to the 2023 Hollywood labor disputes, and thus increased thresholds for breaking even and making a profit.[14]
Box office records