79 Fun Facts About 2023 Movie

Which star of a rival summer blockbuster posted photos of his tickets to both Barbie and Oppenheimer in June 2023?

Tom Cruise tweeted the photos with his Mission: Impossible director, and Barbie's director and star replied by posing with tickets to his film.

Who directed Barbie, from a script co-written with her husband Noah Baumbach?

Greta Gerwig came aboard only after versions built around Amy Schumer and then Anne Hathaway had fallen apart at another studio, whose option on the doll expired in 2018.

Who played Ken opposite Margot Robbie in Barbie?

Ryan Gosling first passed on the part, but he was the film-makers' only choice and they refused to take no for an answer until a gap opened in his schedule.

Barbie overtook the last film of which series as the highest-grossing release from the studio behind both?

Harry Potter. Deathly Hallows Part 2 had been the studio's top earner since 2011, and Barbie only landed there because Sony let its option on the doll lapse in 2018.

Which song from Barbie won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?

What Was I Made For? ended a long dry spell for Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas, who began writing it the day after the director showed them a rough cut of the film.

Oppenheimer was based on which Pulitzer-winning 2005 biography?

American Prometheus took 25 years: Martin Sherwin signed the contract in 1980 expecting to need five, and finished only after Kai Bird joined him as co-author.

Who plays Lewis Strauss, the Atomic Energy Commission member, in Oppenheimer?

Robert Downey Jr. took a steep pay cut for the supporting part, a reported $4 million against his usual eight-figure fee, and it brought him his first Oscar.

Which studio, Christopher Nolan's home since 2002, did he leave before making Oppenheimer?

Warner Bros. had released every Nolan film since Insomnia in 2002, but he left after it announced its whole 2021 slate would reach HBO Max the same day as cinemas.

Which company had to specially manufacture the first black-and-white IMAX film stock for Oppenheimer?

Kodak made its Double-X black-and-white stock in the 65 mm IMAX gauge for the first time, because Nolan wanted monochrome for the scenes told from outside Oppenheimer's own point of view.

Oppenheimer's seven Oscars included Best Actor for which of its stars?

Cillian Murphy had appeared in five earlier Christopher Nolan films without once playing the lead, and the win made him the first Irish-born Best Actor.

Oppenheimer overtook which film as the highest-grossing World War II movie ever?

Dunkirk. The record Oppenheimer broke was its own director's: Nolan's 2017 evacuation epic had taken more than half a billion dollars worldwide.

Which studio produced the 2023 Super Mario Bros. film together with Nintendo?

Illumination got the job after Mario's creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, was introduced to its chief, Chris Meledandri, through Nintendo's theme-park partnership with Universal.

Who voices Bowser in the 2023 Super Mario Bros. film?

Jack Black was wary of singing in the film until he was offered a love song, and he co-wrote Peaches, Bowser's ballad to the princess.

The 2023 Super Mario Bros. film became the first movie of what kind to gross $1 billion worldwide?

A video game adaptation had never reached $1 billion before; this one got there in 26 days, thirty years after the live-action Super Mario Bros. flopped.

Which 2023 release became the longest animated film from an American studio, at 140 minutes?

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is still only half a story: its writers found they had written two films' worth, so the 140-minute cut stops on a cliffhanger.

Who voices Miles Morales in Across the Spider-Verse?

Shameik Moore's Miles shares the lead with Hailee Steinfeld's Gwen Stacy, because the sequel was built around their relationship and grew into two films.

Killers of the Flower Moon is set among which Native American nation after oil was found on its land?

The Osage had kept the mineral rights to their reservation, and the oil royalties made them so wealthy that outsiders plotted, and even murdered, to get at the money.

Which tech company financed Killers of the Flower Moon and released it with Paramount?

Apple stepped in when Paramount grew nervous about a price tag near $200 million, and the studio stayed on only to handle the cinema release.

Which film brought De Niro's first Oscar nomination, 49 years before Killers of the Flower Moon?

The Godfather Part II. De Niro had been hired for a small part in the first film but asked to be released for another job, which left him free to play the young Vito Corleone and win.

In Poor Things, Emma Stone plays Bella Baxter, a woman reanimated by a scientist played by whom?

Willem Dafoe spent about six hours a day in the make-up chair for the role: four to have the scarred prosthetic face applied and two to get it off.

Poor Things won the top prize at which 2023 film festival?

Venice gave it the Golden Lion in September 2023, the month it was meant to open; by then the studio had pushed the release back to December.

Which film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2023?

Anatomy of a Fall was then passed over as its home country's Oscar entry in favour of The Taste of Things, yet it earned five nominations and won for its screenplay.

Which actress led two of the ten Best Picture nominees of 2023, including The Zone of Interest?

Sandra Hüller had long shied away from Holocaust films, and was first sent a scene of a couple arguing with no hint of the setting; her own dog plays the family's pet.

The Zone of Interest depicts the family life of the commandant of which concentration camp?

Auschwitz. Glazer hid up to ten remotely operated cameras around a house by the camp wall and kept the crew out of the rooms, so the actors could live the family's routine unobserved.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 centres on the origin of which character?

Rocket is the Guardian James Gunn says he identifies with; Disney fired Gunn from the film in 2018 over old tweets, then reversed course within months.

Which martial-arts star plays Caine, the blind assassin sent after his old friend in John Wick: Chapter 4?

Donnie Yen's Caine takes the job only because his daughter's life is threatened; the blind swordsman is a nod to Japan's long-running Zatoichi films.

In The Holdovers, Paul Giamatti's teacher is stuck at a boarding school over which 1970 holiday?

Christmas. Alexander Payne wanted the film to look as if it had been made in 1970, yet it was shot digitally, with the look of old film stock and the retro studio logos added afterwards.

Godzilla Minus One won an Oscar in which category, the first non-English-language film ever to do so?

Best Visual Effects. Director Takashi Yamazaki supervised the effects himself, and a team of just 35 artists made all 610 shots for a film that cost under $15 million.

The hero of Godzilla Minus One is a former what, haunted by his failure to complete his mission?

Kamikaze pilot Koichi Shikishima fakes engine trouble to escape his mission, then freezes when Godzilla attacks his island base, and spends the film trying to atone.

Past Lives, Celine Song's debut about two childhood friends from Seoul, had which distributor?

A24 released Celine Song's first film, which she drew from her own life: her family left South Korea when she was 12, and she later married an American writer.

Who plays the security guard at the haunted pizzeria in Five Nights at Freddy's?

Josh Hutcherson's night guard fronted a film made for $20 million that was streaming on Peacock from opening day, yet it still took almost $300 million in cinemas.

Timothée Chalamet's 2023 chocolatier musical is a prequel to which earlier film?

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) was the model: Paul King called his film a companion piece to it, reprising some of its music and the look of its Oompa Loompas, one now played by Hugh Grant.

Which director came out of retirement to make The Boy and the Heron?

Hayao Miyazaki had announced his retirement in 2013; his comeback then opened in Japan with no trailers and no stills, promoted by nothing but a single poster.

In Saltburn, Barry Keoghan's Oliver Quick is a scholarship student at which university?

Oxford. The film's closing scene, set to Murder on the Dancefloor, sent Sophie Ellis-Bextor's 2001 single back to number two in the UK chart in January 2024.

What does Ethan Hunt's team face as its enemy in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One?

A rogue artificial intelligence called the Entity is the enemy; for the centrepiece chase, the film's star rode a motorcycle off a Norwegian cliff himself.

Who plays the vengeful villain Dante Reyes in Fast X?

Jason Momoa's Dante wants revenge for his father's death in Fast Five; off screen, director Justin Lin quit days into the shoot and Louis Leterrier took over.

In 2023 the BBC asked whether the fifth Indiana Jones film marked the era of the what?

Flopbuster: a blockbuster's budget with a flop's takings. The fifth Indiana Jones film took $384 million and still lost money, because it was one of the costliest films ever made.

Which actor returned in The Flash as the Batman he had last played in 1992?

Michael Keaton came back 31 years after Batman Returns; he also shot a Batman appearance for Batgirl, which its studio shelved without ever releasing it.

Indiana Jones flees through whose 1969 parade in Dial of Destiny?

Apollo 11's crew got their real ticker-tape parade in August 1969; the film restaged it in Glasgow, whose city centre was dressed up as 1960s New York.

Sound of Freedom, the surprise hit starring Jim Caviezel, was released by which independent company?

Angel Studios, the crowdfunding outfit behind The Chosen, acquired the film in 2023, five years after it was finished, and thousands of small investors paid for its release.

Cocaine Bear was loosely based on a real 1985 incident in which US state?

Georgia. The real black bear was found dead of an overdose after eating cocaine dumped from a smuggler's plane; the killing spree is the film's own invention.

Which 2023 horror hit is about a lifelike AI doll that turns murderously protective of an orphaned girl?

M3GAN went viral before it opened, when the doll's dance in the trailer became a meme, and reshoots trimmed the violence to earn a teen-friendly rating.

In the Australian horror hit Talk to Me, teenagers contact spirits using what object?

An embalmed severed hand is the party game: grip it, invite a spirit in, and let go within 90 seconds. The directors are brothers who made their name with YouTube stunt videos.

Ben Affleck's Air tells the story of Nike's pursuit of which athlete?

Michael Jordan gave the film his blessing and asked for changes, insisting above all that his mother be played by Viola Davis; his own face is never shown.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves stars Chris Pine as a member of which character class?

Bard. Pine's Edgin is a former Harper, sworn to keep the peace, who turned thief after his wife was killed; the whole heist is his bid to bring her back.

Who plays Ariel in Disney's 2023 live-action The Little Mermaid?

Halle Bailey, half of the sister duo Chloe x Halle, was the first to audition; director Rob Marshall said none of the hundreds who followed came up to the bar she had set.

Who plays the title role in Ridley Scott's Napoleon?

Joaquin Phoenix reunited with Scott 23 years after Gladiator; Vanessa Kirby became his Joséphine only when Jodie Comer had to leave over a scheduling clash.

Which 2023 film, based on Percival Everett's novel Erasure, won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar?

American Fiction was the first film by TV writer Cord Jefferson, who used his Oscar speech to say how many people had passed on it and to ask for more modestly budgeted films.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes follows a young version of which character?

Coriolanus Snow, the tyrant president played by Donald Sutherland in the earlier films, is seen here at 18, mentoring a tribute in the tenth Games to rescue his family's fortunes.

Which villain, played by Jonathan Majors, does Scott Lang face in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania?

Kang the Conqueror was lined up as the saga's main villain, with an Avengers film named after him, until Marvel dropped Majors after his assault conviction in December 2023.

Which horror series swapped its usual cabin in the woods for a city apartment block in a 2023 film?

Evil Dead Rise was made to go straight to HBO Max, but test screenings went so well that it opened in cinemas and became the series' highest-grossing film.

In Bottoms, two unpopular high schoolers start what in order to hook up with cheerleaders?

A fight club, born from a lie: threatened with expulsion, the girls claim to be practising for a feminist self-defence club, and ex-NFL star Marshawn Lynch plays the teacher who sponsors it.

What puts the 1955 town of Asteroid City under military quarantine?

An alien visitor steps out of a UFO in the middle of the stargazers' convention, takes the town's meteorite and leaves, and the army seals everyone in to keep it quiet.

Which actor plays the nameless assassin in David Fincher's The Killer?

Michael Fassbender's hitman steadies himself for a job in Paris by listening to The Smiths, the only band he plays in the entire film.

After Austin Butler's Elvis, who plays Presley in Sofia Coppola's Priscilla?

Jacob Elordi plays an Elvis whose records are never heard: the singer's estate refused the film the rights to his music.

Bradley Cooper's Maestro is about the marriage of which composer?

Leonard Bernstein's story passed from Martin Scorsese to Steven Spielberg, who gave the director's chair to Cooper after watching an early screening of A Star Is Born.

Which actress sat out Scream VI after starring in every earlier Scream film?

Neve Campbell turned the film down, saying the offer did not match the value she had brought to the franchise.

Disney's Wish, made for the studio's centennial, is set in which fictional kingdom?

Rosas was designed to look like a watercolour storybook: the film blends computer animation with the painted style of the studio's earliest features to mark its 100 years.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was the final film in which shared cinematic franchise?

The DC Extended Universe ended here because DC's new studio heads, James Gunn and Peter Safran, chose to launch a fresh continuity in its place.

Which duo composed the score for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem?

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross wrote the score, which shares the film with classic East Coast hip-hop, much of it from Seth Rogen and director Jeff Rowe's own listening, to suit the setting.

J. A. Bayona's Society of the Snow retells which real disaster?

The 1972 Andes plane crash had been filmed in English by Hollywood as Alive; Bayona shot his version in Spanish, with a largely unknown cast of Uruguayan and Argentine actors.

Todd Haynes's May December, with Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, mirrors which real scandal?

The Mary Kay Letourneau case, in which a teacher was jailed over a sixth-grade pupil she later married, helped Haynes's research; the film meets a similar couple two decades on.

The Iron Claw, starring Zac Efron, tells the tragic story of which wrestling family?

The Von Erichs lost five of six brothers before the age of 35, and director Sean Durkin left one of them, Chris, out of the script as one tragedy more than the film could bear.

The 148-day Hollywood writers' strike of 2023 overlapped with a walkout by which other union?

SAG-AFTRA's actors joined the writers in July 2023, the first double walkout since 1960, when the dispute was over films sold to television; this time it was streaming pay.

Which 1927 film, the first Best Picture winner, entered the public domain in 2023?

Wings won Outstanding Picture at the first Oscars while Sunrise took a twin prize for artistic merit; a year later the Academy ruled the Wings award its top honour and scrapped the other.

Which 2023 release became the highest-grossing concert film of all time?

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour skipped the Hollywood studios, with Swift dealing directly with the cinema chain AMC, and its opening weekend alone out-earned the full US run of the previous record holder.

Creed III (2023) was the directorial debut of which actor, who also starred as Adonis Creed?

Michael B. Jordan, a lifelong anime fan, modelled the film's boxing on series such as Naruto and Dragon Ball Z.

Pixar's Elemental (2023) draws on director Peter Sohn's youth as the son of immigrants where?

New York City is where Sohn's parents, who left Korea in the early 1970s, built a grocery store in the Bronx; in the film, fiery Ember is expected to take over her immigrant father's shop.

Which franchise star made his directorial debut with Insidious: The Red Door (2023)?

Patrick Wilson also sings over the closing credits: he joined the Swedish band Ghost for a cover of the 1992 hit Stay.

Xolo Maridueña, who plays Jaime Reyes in Blue Beetle (2023), found fame as Miguel in which series?

Cobra Kai made Xolo Maridueña a star as karate student Miguel Diaz, and he was cast as Blue Beetle when the film was still meant for streaming on HBO Max, before the studio moved it to cinemas.

Gran Turismo (2023) follows a gamer who won a real racing seat with which carmaker?

Nissan backed the GT Academy contest that Jann Mardenborough won in 2011 after learning to race on a console, and he drove in the film himself as a stunt driver.

The Creator (2023) opens with a nuclear blast, blamed on AI, that destroys which city?

Los Angeles is destroyed in the opening scenes. Gareth Edwards shot the entire film on a Sony FX3, a compact camera priced for hobbyists and a rarity on a blockbuster set.

Saw X (2023) is set between which two earlier Saw films?

Saw and Saw II bracket the story for a practical reason: Tobin Bell's John Kramer died at the end of Saw III, so a film built around him had to go back in time.

Who directed The Marvels (2023), the sequel to Captain Marvel?

Nia DaCosta came to the sequel from Candyman. After the weakest opening weekend in Marvel Studios history, Disney chief Bob Iger said too few executives had supervised the pandemic-era shoot.

Leave the World Behind (2023) was written and directed by the creator of which TV series?

Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail adapted Rumaan Alam's novel with script notes from Barack Obama, an executive producer, who found some early plot points too bleak.

Which American Idol winner plays Celie in the 2023 musical film The Color Purple?

Fantasia Barrino had already played Celie on Broadway in 2007, after her Idol win, and the film let her and Danielle Brooks, the stage Sofia, carry their roles to the screen.

Anyone but You (2023), starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, is loosely based on which Shakespeare play?

Much Ado About Nothing gave the romcom its sparring lovers, and director Will Gluck had the cast sing Natasha Bedingfield's Unwritten in scene after scene to build the closing credits.

BlackBerry (2023) set a record for the most nominations ever at which country's national film awards?

Canada's Screen Awards gave it 17 nominations for a home-grown story: the phone came from Research In Motion in Waterloo, Ontario, and director Matt Johnson plays its co-founder Doug Fregin.

Dumb Money (2023) dramatizes the January 2021 short squeeze on which company's stock?

GameStop shares soared after Keith Gill, played by Paul Dano, posted earnest videos as Roaring Kitty and rallied small investors against the hedge funds betting on the retailer's collapse.