In Hollywood, 2023 was a year defined by the “Barbenheimer” box office craze and the dual strikes that shut down the industry for months. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé dominated live music, and translated their blockbuster world tours into moviegoing events that bolstered the fall box office. Artificial intelligence became Hollywood’s next hot button issue, and the outbreak of violence in the Middle East divided the industry.
Variety readers gravitated toward other stories, too, as evidenced by our most-read magazine cover stories of the year, which investigate the crisis at Marvel and downfall of the MCU, list the 100 greatest TV shows of all time and chronicle the making of one of 2023’s kookiest comedy-horror films.
In terms of video content, Variety‘s flagship Actors on Actors series ruled, with Cillian Murphy and Margot Robbie’s “Barbenheimer” collab topping the charts — generating nearly 6 million video views on YouTube in less than a month. And, in a sign of social media users’ shifting attention spans, two YouTube shorts clocking in at under 15 seconds made the top five.
Read below for a roundup of Variety‘s most popular cover stories and videos of the year.
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Variety’s Top 5 Cover Stories of 2023
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5. The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time
Image Credit: Mike McQuade for Variety Variety‘s comprehensive ranking of the 100 greatest television series of all time reignited an age-old internet debate. Our list included the usual suspects (“Mad Men” at No. 2, “The Sopranos” at No. 3 and “Saturday Night Live” at No. 15); network mainstays (“Grey’s Anatomy” at No. 68, “Friday Night Lights” at No. 47 and “Seinfeld” at No. 8); and cult faves (“Freaks and Greeks” at No. 65, “The Comeback” at No. 62 and “My So-Called Life” at No. 50). But perhaps what surprised readers the most was our No. 1 spot, held for the 1950s sitcom that changed television forever: “I Love Lucy.”
Read the cover story here.
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4. Fantasia Returns
Image Credit: Victoria Stevens for Variety One of Variety‘s 2023 Power of Women honorees, Fantasia Barrino opened up about turning down Oprah Winfrey, surviving an overdose and acting her heart out in “The Color Purple,” for which she’s attracted a whole lotta Oscar buzz.
“I grew up watching fighters,” Barrino told Variety, describing not boxers or brawlers but rather her mother and late grandmother. “I watched them fall and I watched them get back up,” she explains. “They never quit. A lot of that is embedded in me. It’s in my blood. It’s in my DNA.”
Read the cover story here.
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3. Emma Stone and Bradley Cooper (Actors on Actors)
Image Credit: Alexi Lubomirski for Variety The most-read Actors on Actors story of 2023 is a reunion between Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone, who co-starred in Cameron Crowe’s 2015 rom-com “Aloha.” The pair bonded over spending six years each on their current opuses. In “Maestro,” Cooper plays the famed and complicated conductor Leonard Bernstein; and in “Poor Things,” Stone plays Bella Baxter, a Victorian woman who is resurrected after her suicide.
“Just watching your performance, you had to give yourself permission, which I had to do as well, to just jump off the cliff every day, in terms of giving over to — I don’t know — people laughing at us on set, quite honestly,” Cooper told Stone at one point during their sit-down conversation.
Read the cover story here.
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2. Crisis at Marvel
Image Credit: Rafa Alvarez for Variety For perhaps the first time since the inception of the MCU, Marvel seemed to lose its way in 2023. Sure, the superhero studio produced hits like “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” but it also put out embarrassing flops like “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “The Marvels,” the lowest-grossing installment of the MCU. Meanwhile, Jonathan Majors, who was set to become the franchise’s next Thanos-sized villain, was embroiled in a domestic violence trial that resulted in the actor being found guilty of harassment and assault.
In November, Variety‘s Tatiana Siegel drew out Marvel’s biggest problems and investigated how the studio might move forward, writing, “The key to reinvigorating Marvel may lie with the superhero arsenal that Disney acquired during its 2019 purchase of 21st Century Fox.”
Read the cover story here.
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1. Elizabeth Banks Risks It All for ‘Cocaine Bear’
Image Credit: Photographs by Art Streiber; Visual Effects by Weta FX In February, senior entertainment writer Adam B. Vary sat down with Elizabeth Banks, who posed on Variety‘s most-read cover with a CGI bear. Banks, who swore she’s never sniffed the stuff, described the path to directing “Cocaine Bear,” an unlikely box office hit that is somehow loosely based on a true story.
“‘Cocaine Bear’ is a ginormous risk,” Banks said before the movie’s release. “This could be a career ender for me.”
Read the cover story here.
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Variety’s Top 5 Videos of 2023
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5. How Well Do Ethan and Maya Hawke Really Know Each Other?
Image Credit: Heather Hazzan for Variety For Variety‘s Toronto International Film Festival cover, Ethan and Maya Hawke sat down to discuss their film “Wildcat,” a biographical drama about the American writer Flannery O’Connor, and play a father-daughter game testing how well they really know each other. Ethan whiffed on naming Maya’s first school play, while Maya underestimated her dad’s Oscar nominations.
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4. Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway (Actors on Actors)
Image Credit: Alexi Lubomirski for Variety Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt sat down for Variety‘s Actors on Actors to discuss “Oppenheimer” and “Eileen” and swap stories about working with Christopher Nolan. Their conversation also, of course, qualified as a “Devil Wears Prada” reunion.
“I was so green coming into that situation. And you were like the warmest embrace,” Blunt told Hathaway, recalling her breakout role. “Even though you were a colossal movie star at that time, you treated me like a complete equal.”
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3. Halley Bailey’s Interview Crashed; Rihanna Feels ‘Expensive’ at the Met Gala
Image Credit: Variety / Getty Blink and you’ll miss two of Variety‘s most-watched videos of 2023. One of them, a 7-second clip we published in August 2022, features Halle Bailey pausing an interview to take a phone call from a special guest. “Sorry, mom! I’m doing this interview, I’ll call you right back, OK?” Bailey said, while teasing her role in Disney’s 2023 live-action movie musical “The Little Mermaid.”
Another popular YouTube Short, with a 12-second runtime, follows Rihanna on the Met Gala carpet. As Variety‘s Marc Malkin tries to pin the superstar down for a quick-hit interview, Rihanna says of her outfit, “It’s Valentino, baby!” Then, when asked how she’s feeling, Rihanna responds, “Good! Expensive!”
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2. Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl (Actors on Actors)
Image Credit: Variety Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl gave fans the “Grey’s Anatomy” reunion they’ve been waiting for on Variety‘s Actors on Actors, covering everything from working with Shona Rhimes to ghost sex and operating on dead animal parts.
“Kudos to Shonda for changing the entire dialogue of network television at a time that really didn’t have women in those kinds of roles in the story, didn’t have as much diversity,” Heigl said. “I was young. I wasn’t paying that much attention. It felt like a job, a great job. I didn’t realize it was as impactful as it was.”
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1. Cillian Murphy and Margot Robbie (Actors on Actors)
Image Credit: Alexi Lubomirski for Variety Bomb, meet bombshell. It’s hardly surprising that Variety‘s most-watched video of the year brings together the two buzziest movies of the year, as “Barbie” herself, Margot Robbie, sat down with “Oppenheimer” star Cillian Murphy to reflect on dominating the summer box office, working with Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan, and those “Barbenheimer” memes.
“I think it happened because both movies were good,” Murphy said about the cinematic phenomenon. “In fact, that summer, there was a huge diversity of stuff in the cinema, and I think it just connected in a way that you or I or the studios or anybody could never have predicted.”