Our Annual Report shines a spotlight on two very different, very impactful for performances by naming Margot Robbie and Cillian Murphy our 2023 Film Performers of the Year for their respective work in Barbie and Oppenheimer. For more of the best in this year’s music, film, and TV — including our lists of the 25 Best Films — check our full Annual Report here.
When people initially realized that the release dates of 2023’s Barbie and Oppenheimer aligned, it became instant meme fodder. Leaning hard into the concept of gender as a binary, the weekend of July 21st was defined by two colors — hot pink and grey — with an entire cultural phenomenon emerging around the unconventional double feature. It was a pop culture event, one that ultimately went far deeper than the memes.
The Barbenheimer moment, at the time, was a celebration of the contrasts between the two films. However, it’s what both movies have in common that leads to Consequence selecting Margot Robbie and Cillian Murphy as the two best film performers of the year. The expectations around both projects were quite different, as were the requirements and research required. Yet in considering their work, what both performances showcase is a theme almost too powerfully relevant to today: the quest for purpose in a world we struggle to grasp.
Both characters begin in a place of surety: As a resident of Barbie Land, Barbie (Robbie) has always known a perfect, flaw-free life, and has never had a reason to doubt any aspect of her existence. So when she’s first struck by thoughts of death, it has a seismic impact on her world, disrupting her usual routine and eventually forcing her to visit our reality for answers as to what’s happening to her.
J. Robert Oppenheimer (Murphy) is also looking for answers; however, while Oppie (as his limited supply of friends call him) struggles to unlock the scientific discoveries that will eventually lead to the atom bomb, he’s doing so as a scientist, a man who’s confident that thanks to the might of his magnificent brain, the secrets of the natural universe will eventually unfold for him.
Both Robbie and Murphy are remarkable at the level of commitment necessary to sell their characters’ belief that the universe can be understood. For Robbie, this means an ever-present smile, an unshakable cheer, a slightly flat affect that captures her calm acceptance of her circumstances. In the opening sequence, there’s a rigidity to her posture as she cruises through the neighborhood in her pink convertible; there’s nothing bland about her cheer, but it is steady and certain.
There’s a touch of that in Murphy’s own steady gaze as well, though not immediately. Christopher Nolan’s script bounces around the timeline a bit, but our first intimate awareness of the scientist comes from his early days struggling as a student at Cambridge; he’s wild-eyed, scrambling to find his way in the laboratory and failing.
Oppenheimer escapes the self-doubt that plagues him as a student by embracing his natural talents as a theorist, and finding a space for himself in that area of study. And Murphy needs no words to explain that change: A montage that blends Oppenheimer shattering glasses with his increased comprehension of the universe proves triumphant just because of the way Murphy tosses the glassware into the air. He throws them knowing what will happen when they fall to earth, a certainty that gets transmuted into his entire being as he fully commits to the study of quantum mechanics. When the action shifts to New Mexico, even Murphy’s pose captures his new confidence — when he looks out over the countryside, seeing all the future possibilities that lie for him in that land, his shoulders are lined up straight, his stance assured.
Once Oppenheimer sorts out the kind of work he wants to do, and establishes himself as one of the best men alive at it, the ground beneath his feet feels sure and steady — especially when he’s able to combine his passion for his work with the land he loves. In scene after scene, as Oppie faces down those who might challenge his ideas or his approach, Murphy makes it clear that the scientist is aware of just how complicated a mission he’s on: His life is built on a foundation of questions he wants to ask about the unknowable universe. What he never seems to doubt, thanks to every deliberate line reading, every arrogant tilt of the head, is that he has the skillset necessary to explore those ideas; he’s supremely confident that given enough time and resources, he could crack open the literal building blocks of humanity.
In both cases, playing that level of surety is essential to what comes next: devastating doubt. In Barbie, Barbie’s first thoughts of death lead to the crumbling of her entire existence — her flat feet make wearing Barbie-standard heels painful, and her flawless limbs are threatened by (gasp!) cellulite, all captured by Robbie’s razor-sharp physicality.
And when Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) explains the situation, Robbie doesn’t overplay her character’s fear, maintaining just enough lightness to assure the audience that the film isn’t about to descend into full-tilt horror. Instead, it’s so grounded as to be relatable — even if relating to Barbie might have felt impossible at one point, for so much of the audience.
On a surface level, Barbie and Oppenheimer diverge dramatically as they progress, with Barbie’s desire to return to perfection also leading to her once-loyal Ken (Ryan Gosling) discovering the patriarchy and bringing that disease back to their once-idyllic home. Even when Barbie’s falling apart at her darkest moments, Robbie’s devotion to the character never wavers; when she collapses to the ground, it’s the stiff-limbed descent of a broken doll.
Murphy lets Oppenheimer’s own self-doubt simmer beneath the surface, as his very public success as the “father of the atomic bomb” is undercut both by the haunting knowledge of the destruction he made possible, as well as the outside judgment of forces marshaled by Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) to discredit him. Yet it shakes out frequently, as his most vulnerable moments force him to confront the fact that there are plenty of ways to be wrong about the way things work.
The major difference between both characters, and thus what Robbie and Murphy are asked to portray, is that Oppenheimer’s existential crisis is the end point of his journey. He might have understood the atoms that make up the natural world, but he didn’t understand the political forces that sway the world of man, and that proves to be his professional downfall — even if the idea that truly haunts him is the bomb itself, and what it’s capable of.
By contrast, Barbie’s existential crisis leads her to an awareness that the full scope of human existence is much bigger than the perfection of Barbie Land, in all its messiness and complications. The complications are, in fact, the point. As the wise Ruth (Rhea Perlman) warns Barbie, “being a human can be pretty uncomfortable,” but even as a doll, Barbie wants to experience that.
If there’s one lesson to be found for today in both projects, it’s that one character’s fate is much happier than the other: Barbie ends with its heroine embracing existence on a whole new level, having been given the chance to ascend to actual humanity. Meanwhile, the final minutes of Oppenheimer confirm that Oppie’s quest for knowledge has certainly changed the world, even if every haunted line on Murphy’s face makes it clear that Oppie’s not sure he’s changed it for the better.
One character was certain about their purpose on this planet, and the other was chasing that same knowledge — and the chase offers a happier conclusion than the certainty.
It’s not a shock that these films were two of 2023’s biggest box office successes, that people found themselves relating to these two performances and these individual struggles. After all, a natural reaction to recovering from trauma on any scale is to re-examine the status quo, challenge what really matters to you. And it might feel a little obvious to mention it, but the entire damn world just experienced some serious trauma over the past few years, and in some ways we’re still figuring out what kind of impact it had on us both individually and collectively.
Both Barbie and J. Robert Oppenheimer take us on journeys that are about questions and curiosity, about comprehending the unknowable. In both cases, the characters are transformed and enlightened, though they then discover a deeper level of knowledge that stretches beyond physically obvious phenomena like flat feet or a successful bomb test — finding a greater, existential truth, one that encompasses mortality and morality, and what it means to be on this planet at all.
And all of it was possible thanks to the fearless, committed performances of Robbie and Murphy, which were about so much more than playing with dolls or atoms. They were talking to us about life itself — and what it’s like to try to understand it.
Barbie is currently streaming on Max. Oppenheimer is available on VOD.