Barbie, Oppenheimer, Taylor Swift: 2023’s most important films

Call 2023 an explosive comeback at the box office.

There were blonde bombshells, in “Barbie,” actual bombs, in “Oppenheimer,” and small-budget blockbusters — each of them aiding the theatrical industry in bolstering ticket sales and drawing relapsed customers back to the big screen.

With one week left in the year, the 2023 box office has tallied $8.8 billion in ticket sales, about 20% down from the same period in 2019 but up 21% over last year.

Much of that haul was thanks to Warner Bros. Discovery’s “Barbie” and Universal’s “Oppenheimer” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” Together those three films contributed more than $1.5 billion to the domestic box office, according to data from Comscore. Globally, the films have generated more than $3.7 billion in ticket sales.

And this year’s box office wasn’t just buoyed by big-budget content. A number of lower-budget films sparked public interest, driving moviegoers away from their couches and towards cinemas. These films filled gaps in the calendar created by Hollywood labor strikes and challenged the status quo of how the industry operates.

There’s still room for improvement in 2024, and most industry analysts don’t expect a return to form until 2025 after months of production shutdowns.

But in the meantime, here’s a look at some of the most important theatrical releases of 2023 — and why they worked:

The historic box office combination of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” dubbed “Barbenheimer” by the public, arrived at a time when even the most dependable franchise movies had failed to lure in audiences.

Their shared July 21 release date inspired double features, not direct competition. Together, the films generated $244.5 million during their first three days in theaters — $162 million for “Barbie” and $82.5 million for…