It's Barbenheimer weekend, an the Barbie movie is breaking records in its opening opening weekend. Barbie will have have the biggest opening weekend of any film in 2023 thus far, taking in $155 million from theaters in North America. Combined with Oppenheimer's $80 million opening weekend take, the box office is having its strongest overall weekend before the COVID-19 pandemic began and its fourth-best weekend of all time. The Greta Gerwig-directed Barbie will also set a new record for a film debut directed by a woman, surpassing the $153 million earned by Captain Marvel in 2019, which Anna Boden co-directed with Ryan Fleck. Patty Jenkins previously held the record for a woman directing solo via Wonder Woman's $103 million opening in 2017.
Barbie earned an impressive A CinemaScore. The Margot Robbie-led movie is one of the rare films in recent memory where critics and audiences seem to agree, both granting the movie a 90% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. ComicBook.com's Nicole Drum awarded Barbie a review score of 4.5 out of 5. She writes:
"Barbie is quite possibly Gerwig's best film to date. It is insightful, hilarious, and packed with thoughtful commentary as well as an incredible amount of Easter eggs and one-liners that will reward audiences of every age and opinion on Barbie, not just on the first watch, but on multiple rewatches. Barbie pulls off the near-impossible task of taking what could have been merely a capitalist IP-driven cash grab and turned it into a celebration of and commentary on culture that gives the audience permission and encouragement to challenge not only everything they think Barbie represents, but what the world asks of us mere humans as well so that we never go back into the box again."
Oppenheimer has been similarly well received. The latest Christopher Nolan movie has a 93% positive score from critics and a similar rating from audiences. ComicBook.com's Patrick Cavanaugh gave Oppenheimer a 4 out of 5 score in his review. He writes:
"After a long string of crowd-pleasers that also manage to inject ambitious philosophical and existential components, Oppenheimer is Christopher Nolan's most intellectual and internal experience in years. It showcases the universality of humanistic struggles without hingeing upon them entirely, while also subtly yet exponentially layering in explicit critiques of global war machines. Despite chronicling events that unfolded 70 years ago, exploring an arms race or being given conflicting information by government authorities and being expected to honor ever-changing ideologies feels immensely contemporary. With Oppenheimer, Nolan orchestrates a talented symphony of performers at the top of their game to explore an overlooked corner of history, treating it with nuance and respect while lesser hands would lean into melodrama. The movie is a tribute not only to the true-life figures who pushed the limits of science forward, but also to those who suffered the consequences of those forward-thinkers' quest for fire."
Barbie and Oppenheimer are both playing in theaters now. The list of top 10 films at the box office this weekend is in the works.