Overall, 2023 has been a great year for movies so far. A variety of films have been released to critical and cultural acclaim, likeSpider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,Joyland, andThe Little Mermaid. Several films have already surpassed the $500 million mark at the box office, withThe Super Mario Bros. Movietaking the cake with over $1.3 billion worldwide gross in ticket sales. It’s always great when the movie you were looking forward to watching meets or even exceeds your expectations.
Once in a while movies subvert the viewer’s expectations, either for the better or worse. Sometimes the film is marketed as something that it’s not, which can be disappointing. Other times, small-budget movies end up getting great reviews and that steamrolls into big box office numbers. From low-budget comedies to big summer blockbusters, here are the most recent movies that subverted our expectations.
10Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.is a smaller movie with a big heart. Based on the Judy Blume book first published in 1970, the movie is about a young girl named Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) who’s stuck in a pickle. Her parents grew up in different religions, and she’s not sure if she relates to either of them. Instead, she talks to God directly and shares the inner workings of her life - her emotions, thoughts, and feelings as they come to her.
The humor and charm ofAre You There God? It’s Me, Margaretsurpassed moviegoers' expectations. The surprise is that it did that without the help of too many big-name stars. Fortson carries the film with her wit, and while Rachel McAdams and Kathy Bates are in the movie, it’s not like there’s a group of comedians pandering for belly laughs. It’s one of thebest comedy movies starring lesser-known actors.
9BlackBerry
Who knew watching the rise and fall of a technology company could be so entertaining?BlackBerrychronicles the rise and fall of Research in Motion, the Canadian software company that helped develop the iconic (but now defunct) BlackBerry phone. Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, and Matt Johnson star as wealthy executives trying to get the phone off the ground. The movie debuted at the Berlin International Film Festival and currently holds an astonishing 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
BlackBerryseemed like a corporate plug that could have been thin on plot and characters, Instead, the movie, subverts expectations by pulling out some good twists and dramatic moments. The movie was made with a measly $2.5 million budget and has already made back double that figure in just over a month of release.
8Past Lives
InPast Lives, two childhood friends reconnect at a bar. Greta Lee plays Nora, a woman who immigrated from South Korea to Canada as a child. Teo Yoo is Hae-Sung, a man who completes his military service in South Korea and decides to settle in China. There he begins dating a different woman but still thinks about Nora. When Hae-Sung travels to New York, he meets up with Nora, and the couple is set on a path to figure out their destiny.
Put simply, critics and audiences are raving aboutPast Lives. Nobody expected this small movie from A24 to be as big as it’s been. It was released with almost no expectations in mind, but it’s already been screened at Sundance and many other movie festivals.Past Liveshas an impressive 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s already in the Oscar conversation for 2024.
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7You Hurt My Feelings
Another A24 film that is surprising people is the comedy-dramaYou Hurt My Feelings.Jula Louis-Dreyfus plays Beth, a woman who thought she was comfortable in her marriage to Dan (Tobias Menzies) but is rocked when she is betrayed by him. Dan confesses that he doesn’t like Beth’s latest book, and it makes her start to second-guess everything.
The movie debuted to strong acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023. Louis-Dreyfus continues to subvert viewers' expectations by delivering smart and funny comedic performances. She’s been a bit hit inSeinfeld,The New Adventures of Old Christine, andVeep, so it’s refreshing to see that she still has a great sense of humor and perfect comic timing. Some critics are callingYou Hurt My Feelingsone of thebest movies of 2023.
Gerard Butler stars as airplane pilot Brodie Torrance in the action thrillerPlane. When Brodie tries to take a shortcut across the South China Sea from Singapore to Tokyo, he’s caught in a nasty storm. An emergency landing in a hostile territory in the Philippines forces the pilot to take command of the situation. Brodie goes into the jungle but is attacked by rebels who want to harm his passengers. It’s up to the pilot to save the crew and everyone on board.
Planewas stuck in development hell for over five years before picking up production in 2021. Few people thought much could be salvaged from the movie, but it’s actually a tense thriller that delivers on low-budget stakes. Despite a familiar premise, Butler delivers a strong performance and shows why he’s a strong leading man in Hollywood.Planeonly cost a modest $25 million to make, and it’s already made double its budget in six months of release.
5Knock at the Cabin
Knock at the Cabinis about a family on vacation who is visited by four strangers who claim they’ve been sent to warn them about an impending apocalypse. The intruders are led by Leonard (Dave Bautista), a visionary who sees the Earth being taken over by darkness and conceding to a terrible pandemic. Leonard claims to have been sent by an unknown force to find the family, but he doesn’t understand why.
You never know what you’re going to get out of an M. Night Shyamalan movie these days. Sometimes his films are brilliant, full of great allegory and eerie thematic elements, other times they’re just jumbled messes that are trying too hard to be important. To that effect,Knock at the Cabinhad huge potential to be the latter. Instead, it’s a pretty good movie with deep symbolism, strong acting, and adecent twist at the end.
4Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
To say thatDungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieveshas been through the wringer is an understatement. The film has been in development since at least 2013 when Warner Bros. Pictures was fighting it out in court with Universal Pictures for the rights to adapt the popular Hasbro board game. The movie eventually went to Paramount Pictures and went through various writers and directors before finally seeing the light of day in March 2023.
Honor Among Thieveseasily could’ve been a mess of a movie, but it’s a great adventure film. Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, and current heartthrob Rege-Jean Page helped propel the movie to $200 million in box office receipts. While that’s a far cry from some of the highest-grossing movies of all time - and probablynot enough to warrant a sequel- it’s surpassed people’s expectations of a movie based on a board game that could have easily been as bad as, say,Battlefield Earth.
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3John Wick: Chapter 4
Keanu Reeves returns as the title character inJohn Wick: Chapter 4. While some audiences are sick of watching action sequels, theJohn Wickfilms have generally been well-received over the years. The premise is familiar, with Wick setting out to get revenge on those from the High Table who left him to die. He squares off against the Marquis (Bill Skarsgard), a high-ranking leader of the High Table, in the final scene, andthe ending subverted our expectationsmore than we thought possible.
Spoiler alert: John Wick dies at the end of the movie after a fatal wound. Considering there are rumors of moreJohn Wickfilms to come, this was very surprising.John Wick: Chapter 4is the highest-grossing movie of the franchise, so it seems counterintuitive he’d be killed off with so much money-making potential to come.
2Beau Is Afraid
Beau Is Afraidis an A24 movie directed by Ari Aster, the man who was behind the lens for the horror classicsHereditaryandMidsommar. Joaquin Phoenix is Beau, a man who’s paranoid because he lives in a violent part of town. When he’s forced to venture out to attend his mother’s funeral, Beau realizes his delusions are getting worse and worse as time goes on.
Beau Is Afraidsubverted audiences' expectations for a couple of reasons. Unlike his other films, it was the first Ari Aster film to blend several genres, like comedy, drama, and horror, into one. This was met with mixed reviews. Some critics liked that Aster flexed his creativity, others expected a more straightforward psychological horror movie, likeMidsommar. Another reasonBeau Is Afraidsubverted expectations was that it didn’t make back its production budget. The movie cost $35 million to make but as of June 2023, has only made back $11 million at the box office.
Did anyone ask for a biographical sports movie about shoes? Probably not, butAiris, surprisingly, a slam dunk. Matt Damon stars as Sonny Vaccaro, a talent scout for Nike who is challenged by CEO Phil Knight (Ben Affleck) to find a star to revitalize the company. With the basketball shoe division on the verge of being shut down, Vaccaro decides to court Michael Jordan, a hot young star who was recently picked 3rd overall in the 1984 NBA Draft.
LikeBlackBerry,Airlooked like a movie that was produced to boost Nike’s shoe sales. But with great acting by Damon, Affleck, Jason Bateman, and Viola Davis, the movie subverted expectations by delivering an interesting story about America’s obsession with sports in the 1980s and 1990s.Airalso did a great job ofgetting the true story right.
