With the advent of the new year comes award season, and a whole host of ceremonies dedicated to honoring various movies, TV shows, and other media. This past year was an exciting one for the entertainment industry, bringing new pop culture events such as BarbenHeimer, the dual premier for movies ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’, new heartthrobs, such as actors Jacob Elordi and Jeremy Allen White, and a fresh start for industries that were effectively shut down by the pandemic.
The past few years have been decidedly rough for Hollywood. The COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 put a halt to all productions, and only in 2022 did we see a comeback with the reopening of theaters and the newfound popularity of streaming services. Then, this past year, the SAG-AFTRA and Writer’s Guild of America strikes additionally slowed many aspects of the industry down, and highlighted the issues that were present within it.
However, 2023 was the first year since 2020 that we saw the resurgence of visual media. According to CNN, the total gross of box office revenue from this past year was about $9 billion dollars, the highest since the pandemic. Heavy hitters like ‘Barbie’, ‘Oppenheimer’, ‘Spider-man: Across the Spider-Verse’, ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’, and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ raked in millions of dollars, and offered a boost of morale for those that lost faith in entertainment.
The beginning of January officially kicked off the award season, where within the first few months of the year several ceremonies are held to celebrate the best media of the past year. The first notable ceremony, The Golden Globes, occurred January 7th and set a trend for the winners; notably, ‘Oppenheimer’ took home five awards, ‘Succession’ swiped four, and shows ‘The Bear’ and ‘Beef’ pulled several others. Subsequently, the Critic’s Choice Awards took place a week after the Globes, with many of the nominees and winners following the same pattern; ‘Oppenheimer’ once again won eight awards, ‘Barbie’ six awards, and ‘The Bear’ four awards. The Emmys, which were postponed from September of last year, were just as predictable, with ‘Succession’ and ‘The Bear’ coming out on top, snagging six awards respectively, and ‘Beef’ following close behind with five awards.
After this flood of movie and TV award shows, the 66th GRAMMY Awards took place on February fourth to culminate 2023’s music season. This resulted in many surprise wins, such as Record of the Year going to ‘Flowers’ by Miley Cyrus, Album of the Year to ‘Midnights’ by Taylor Swift, and Song of the Year to ‘What Was I Made For?’by Billie Eilish for the ‘Barbie’ soundtrack.
However, one of the largest and most well-known ceremonies is just on the horizon. The 96th Academy Awards, set to be aired on March 10th of this year and hosted by entertainer and comedian Jimmy Kimmel, have released their full list of nominations. Some significant snubs were ‘Barbie’ director Greta Gerwig being excluded from the Directing category, and Margot Robbie from the Actress in a Leading Role category.
Needless to say, it has been an eventful year for media of all types, and these shows work to recognize the talent of the people that create these projects.
