2023 was an influential year for film when it came to blockbuster filmmaking and art cinema. At the Oscars, we saw the best lineup of nominations in years. Although the selected cultural canon of great cinematic work from the past year is diverse in terms of social inclusivity as well as cinematic mode, there are always films that don’t quite break through to the zeitgeist.

January and February, August and September. These pairs of months might not seem to be related even slightly, but they share a crucial similarity: they are continuously referred to as “dump months” for the movie theater marketplace.  

For many filmmakers, their twilight years are a period of slowdown and downsizing with smaller, less ambitious works replacing the grand epics and massive swings that defined their careers. That makes Martin Scorsese’s recent film run (starting with “The Wolf of Wall Street” in 2013 and continuing with “Silence” in 2016 and “The Irishman” in 2019) all the more remarkable. As he approaches his eighth decade, his films have only grown in ambition, subverting the genre convention he had helped popularize with his most famous works to tell a grand, interwoven tale about the history of America and how it is entrenched with exploitation and violence.

For over a century, horror films have lured audiences to cinemas all around the world. Their purpose is not only to terrify or disturb but also to engage with dark, challenging and taboo themes that you usually would not see in any other genre of films.

On Thursday, Feb. 3, the show “Murderville” was released on Netflix. The show stars Will Arnett and is an American adaptation of its British counterpart, “Murder in Successville.” “Murderville” successfully infuses comedy into the whodunnit genre of television, allowing viewers to take a ride into a murder–ridden town with their favorite celebrities as guest stars.

“Moonfall” is a science fiction film directed by Roland Emmerich and was released in theaters Friday, Feb. 4. The film follows the three characters: Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson), a retired astronaut after an incident that occurred in 2011 that cost the life of another astronaut during a routine satellite fix; Jocinda Fowler (Halle Berry), a renowned astronaut that was also present at the 2011 incident and K. C. Houseman (John Bradley), a megastructurist and the first person to realize that the Earth’s moon is out of orbit.

Was “Godzilla vs. Kong” a “good film?” Not really, but that question isn’t relevant to a movie like this. Monster movies like this aren’t supposed to be high art. They aren’t competing with classics like “The Godfather” and they aren’t trying to. What they are, and what they have always been, are fun, and this movie delivers.

Lara Jean Song Covey is back once again to bring out the romantic in all of us. The “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” lead returns for the third and final installment of the series, “To All the Boys: Always and Forever.”