The past year can be argued to have brought movies back to life. Since 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic, the industry has struggled with both the quantity of critically acclaimed pictures and successful box-office hits. However, with the “Barbenhiemer” phenomenon that took place this last July, the internet rose to excitement about attending the juxtaposing films, Barbie and Oppenheimer, for a double feature on their same-day release date. People of all ages gathered at the theaters, whether ready to watch the three-hour biopic about the creation of the nuclear bomb or dressed in all pink to watch a new take on the doll they’ve known all their life- theaters across the globe brought in people and money in ways they hadn’t seen in years.

In addition to the two summer blockbusters, films like Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, a three-and-a-half-hour epic focused on the Native American Osage tribe, grossed over 154 million dollars at the box office. In its wide release, Wes Anderson’s smaller-budget arthouse film, Asteroid City, grossed almost nine million dollars, becoming his highest wide-release opening to date. People are currently attending theaters and anticipating movies in ways that have been recently forgotten. Looking at smaller-budget films and past solely box office achievement, The Holdovers is receiving all the love in the world, Saltburn’s popularity shows signs of its road to becoming a cult classic, and Pricilla is constantly being referred to as Sofia Coppola at her very best. The talents of previous and new directors, writers, and actors shined brightly this year, and audiences worldwide reflected it.

The 2024 Golden Globes received a 50% increase in watchers from last year, with viewers tuning in to watch their beloved movies and celebrities be honored, from Greta Gerwig and the Barbie cast to Taylor Swift. Stand-up comedian Jo Koy was the host of the night, and if you haven’t seen a single tweet or article joking about him “bombing as a tribute to Oppenheimer,” I commend you. From lazily joking about the three-hour run time of Oppenheimer, to distilling Barbie’s concept down to being about “a plastic doll with big boobies,” to cornering Meryl Streep into doing the “Wakanda Forever” pose from Black Panther, Koy was losing the audience from the beginning of his monologue. After his opening was completed, Twitter was booming with jokes about Koy and the audience’s lack of amusement. Koy did not come back many times throughout the night, and when he did, the number of jokes was shortened as he began to simply name the following presenters.

Hosting award shows has historically been a very tough and thankless job. One comedian of recent years who got away with criticizing the audience with charm and humor was Ricky Gervais, who hosted The Golden Globes five times between 2010 and 2020. To this day, his monologues are loved for their humorous insults to the industry and their great deal of hilarious shock value- two things many attempt and fail to recreate today. Almost a week after hosting, Koy defended himself in his next stand-up show, calling the attended celebrities “soft” like “marshmallows.” While being an easy defense when a crowd doesn’t respond in ways the comedian wished, hosts like Gervais prove that idea false.

Despite the host, the award show itself was very exciting, as many great awards were given to the deserving nominees. Differing from some occasions in previous years, each category seemed to be a tough one to predict. Some surprising moments of the night were Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things winning Best Musical or Comedy Picture over Barbie and Anatomy of a Fall winning Best Screenplay as a foreign film.

Last year, many great movies were released as Hollywood finally grounded itself from the obstacle that was the COVID-19 quarantine. As many tweets I have seen say about trailers released, films seen, or money made at the box office: movies are so back. And historically, hit-or-miss award shows is a factor that comes along with that. No matter the award show or its host, 2023 was a successful year for film, and we see that possible trend continuing with the anticipated releases to come in 2024.