During the 2023 Wisconsin Film Festival, the AMC movie theater at the Hilldale Shopping Center, formerly known as Sundance, was used the last time for its original purpose.
Fittingly, the final film shown in it at the end of the festival was the 1971 classic, “The Last Picture Show.” With a respectful nod to the Buggles, it was another sign of how streaming is killing the theater star.
But then last summer, Barbenheimer happened. The big budget films “Barbie,” “Oppenheimer” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” were all released in theaters during the summer months and catapulted physical movie theaters to a successful year with hopes of more in the future.
Those films were also nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars coming up Sunday, March 10. “Oppenheimer” seems to be the front runner to win.
The Barbenheimer phenomenon boost is good news for those of us that like the communal third space experience movie theaters give us.
However, it’s mainly good news for the blockbuster films. Theaters that used to specialize in showing more independent and foreign films, like Sundance, are still not doing well. A lot of small independent or arthouse theaters have closed in recent years.
Many people have probably seen “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie,” but probably not as many have seen some of the other Best Picture nominees like “American Fiction,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “The Holdovers,” “Past Lives,” “Poor Things,” and “The Zone of Interest.”
The film “Past Lives” showed up at the top of many film critic lists last year and recently won Best Picture at the Independent Spirit Awards.
If the ability to watch independent, foreign, classic and documentary films is left to streaming services, the problem these days is the rising cost of subscribing to multiple streaming platforms.
You can usually access blockbuster films on multiple platforms, but smaller titles often not.
The Madison College Libraries strive to help provide free access to many different types of films that might be hard to watch elsewhere. Visit https://libguides.madisoncollege.edu/film/finding to find links to streaming film databases like Kanopy and Swank, as well as some free or low-cost open-access streaming web sites.
There are also some pre-made lists of different film genres and collections at the link as well (e.g. https://libguides.madisoncollege.edu/foreignfilms).
Kanopy specializes in independent, foreign, and documentary films, while Swank offers many classic and culturally important films.
The libraries also try to collect an eclectic list of titles in good old-fashioned DVD or Blu-Ray format, and usually try to get copies of Oscar-nominated titles when available.
So, if you’d like to see some of the smaller budget titles nominated for Best Picture this year like “Past Lives,” you will likely be able to soon from the libraries.
Enjoy the movies!