Well, it’s been a few days since Filmsplosion 2023 came out. Have you finished listening to it yet? If not, don’t read the rest of this post, as we’ll be looking at all the Nerds’ Top 10 lists.
So, in putting this together, I basically assigned every movie a scored based on where it was on a Nerd’s list. If it was their #1 film, I gave it 10 points; if #2, 9 points; and so on until our #10 films received 1 point each. If it was one of the eight films that appeared on more than one list, then it has a combined score.
(In case you forgot, I did this for Filmsplosion 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.)
Now, we’ll get to which movies had the highest average score, but first, we’ll look at the movies that scored the highest overall.
So, here are the HIGHEST SCORED MOVIES of Filmsplosion 2023:
- Barbie – 28 points
- Across the Spider-Verse – 19
- Bottoms – 18
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 – 16
- THREE-WAY TIE – The Boy & The Heron, Killers of the Flower Moon, TMNT: Mutant Mayhem – 10*
The asterisk denotes that each was #1 on an individual Nerd’s list, thus earning 10 points but only 10 points.
The other movies that appeared on multiple lists but didn’t score more than 10 points were: Evil Dead Rise (9 points), Poor Things and Godzilla Minus One (8 points each), and John Wick 4 (7 points).
Unsurprisingly, if we look at these films’ average scores (total score divided by number of lists it appeared on), the order is a bit different.
THE AVERAGE SCORES for the four highest-scoring movies:
- Bottoms – 9 points
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3 – 8
- Barbie – 7
- Across the Spider-Verse – 6.3
So, while Barbie was the only movie to make all the Nerds’ lists, it still lost out because Ryan sandbagged it so he and Brad could tag-team Guardians at #3 and Bottoms at #2. I see how it is, Ryan. *evil glare*
Now, looking at the 10 highest-grossing movies of 2023, in terms of domestic box office, four of them appeared on multiple lists (Barbie, Spider-Verse, Guardians and John Wick 4) and two of them appeared on just one list (Oppenheimer and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour). Looking at #11-20 for domestic box office, three more appear in Filmsplosion 2023 (MI:7, The Hunger Games and TMNT).
One more thing I wanted to examine is how our selected films break down by genre. How many action movies do we have? How many dramas? Super-hero flicks? etc.
So, for this assessment, I went by each film’s most basic genre. Our choices are: animation, action, comedy, drama, horror and superhero.
I didn’t include Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, because I didn’t know how to categorize that. A documentary? We have had documentaries in the past, but it’s not a real category this year. Oh well.
By the way, I’m generalizing which category it’s in based on my own experience in either seeing the movie or watching the trailer, and most were pretty straightforward to categorize. In the few cases where I was uncertain, I went by which genre was listed first on its IMDB page.
So, without further ado, let’s look at the BREAKDOWN OF THE FILMSPLOSION LISTS BY GENRE:
- TIE – Action and Comedy (7)
- Animation (5)
- Drama (4)
- Horror (3)
- Superheroes (1)
Wow! After reigning supreme for four years, Dramas finally fell off the podium and fell all the way to third (or really fourth) place! I chalk that up to no James and Henry entries this time. Even Animation outdid Dramas this year.
Now, to be fair, we had several movies that were counted as Comedies but were probably more dramedies. The Holdovers, Poor Things and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret all fell into this gray area for me, but IMDB counted them as comedies first and dramas second. But it’s hard to count any of those as pure Dramas when you also have something like Oppenheimer in that mix.
Comedies and Action tied for first this year. Comedies have been stuck with silver for a long time, so it’s good to finally see them at the top of the podium, even if they have to share it.
I do think it’s interesting that we’re seeing more Action movies among the Nerds’ lists. (Although, as I said, that’s probably due to no entries from James and Henry this time around). Or maybe it’s that Action movies are starting to fill the void that Superhero movies have left.
Speaking of which … for the first time in five years, we only had one Superhero entry. Technically two, if you want to count Spider-Verse, even though I counted it as animation for our purposes.
Still, even if you have Spider-Verse switch teams, Animation still beats out Superheroes for the second time in two years.
I pointed out this decline in Superhero movie quality last year. In retrospect, LOL.
After reigning supreme for so many years, the MCU has definitely taken a tumble in our esteem, it seems. No Multiverse of Madness from Ryan and no Thor: Love & Thunder from anyone… which, sadly makes a lot of sense. We’ll see if Superhero does better at Filmsplosion 2023, as we’ve got Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3, Shazam 2, The Flash and others dropping this year.
Show Time: A Statistical Recap of Filmsplosion 2022
Looking ahead for 2024, I have a feeling Deadpool 3 and/or Joker 2 will be Filmsplosion entries, but I don’t know what else could. If Beyond the Spider-Verse does actually come out in 2024 like the creators intend, I know that’ll make our lists, but I honestly think it’ll get pushed to 2025.
I am surprised we had so few horror entries this year, considering how many horror movies the Nerds saw as their Movie of the Week. I’m surprised M3GAN or something else the Nerds reviewed didn’t make it. It’s probably because 2023 offered so many amazing action and dramadies/comedies that only a few horror movies made the cut.
I’ll throw in one final observation: despite the whole Barbenheimer trend and how drama-heavy the other Nerds tend to be with their Filmsplosion lists, I’m surprised Oppenheimer was only made Zach’s list. (It wasn’t going to make my list, because — while I believe that movie is very well-made — it also gave me a headache and I have no desire to sit through the whole thing again.) I figured Zach or Ryan would have it on theirs, especially with how much Ryan loves RDJ.
Anyway, that’s almost a wrap on A Statistical Recap of Filmsplosion 2023!
Thanks to Brad, I put all everyone’s lists below so you can see for yourselves which genre I slated for them. As always, it’s interesting to see how everyone’s lists look by genre, as some Nerds lean heavily one way and others, another. This year, there were several entries where I didn’t have to change the genre from last year’s entry, just the movie title. LOL
Corinne
- The Boy & The Heron – animation
- Barbie – comedy
- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish – animation
- Across the Spider-Verse – animation
- Godzilla Minus One – action
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – action
- The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – action
- Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret – comedy
- Leo – animation
- My Happy Marriage – drama
Zach
- Killers of the Flower Moon – drama
- Barbie – comedy
- Oppenheimer – drama
- Talk to Me – horror
- Asteroid City – comedy
- Evil Dead Rise – horror
- Sisu – action
- Brooklyn 45 – horror
- Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour – filmed concert
- Godzilla Minus One – action
Ryan
- Across the Spider-Verse – animation
- Bottoms – comedy
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3 – superhero
- Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning – action
- John Wick 4 – action
- Poor Things – comedy
- Evil Dead Rise – horror
- Barbie – comedy
- Polite Society – action
- Godzilla Minus One – action
Brad
- TMNT: Mutant Mayhem – animation
- Bottoms – comedy
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3 – superhero
- Barbie – comedy
- Theatre Camp – comedy
- Blackberry – drama
- The Holdovers – comedy
- Poor Things – comedy
- Across the Spider-Verse – animation
- John Wick 4 – action
Cheers, everyone! See you all again for Filmsplosion 2024!