Barbie

Directed by Greta Gerwig, this live-action Mattel adventure follows a stereotypical Barbie doll (Margot Robbie) into the real world to try and fix what’s been malfunctioning with her.

Like Oppenheimer, this movie is packed with names: the aforementioned Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Simu Liu, John Cena, and even Kate McKinnon count themselves among the cast. McKinnon is “Weird Barbie” — the doll that gets played with too hard: hair gets cut with scissors, legs stretched permanently into splits, and just generally messed up. The other dolls in Barbieland make fun of her behind her back (and to her face).

Unlike Oppenheimer, it was really easy to keep track of who was who because most everyone is either “Barbie” or “Ken”.

This movie was laugh-out-loud funny from the first minute, but it was also surprisingly, unexpectedly deep. And it definitely hit close to home.

Making deep stuff is essentially what Greta Gerwig is known for, though. She took something that doesn’t have the luxury of a backstory like the Marvel Cinematic Universe — even the trailer for this movie was vague — and turned it into something that matters.

It matters because although aim of the movie seems to be to tap into the nostalgia of people who played with Barbie dolls as children, it has a universal message about belief in oneself. With substance like that, it’s really no surprise that this movie has been successful.