So Barbie saved the day, while all around her went up in flames. An honest account of the year in film has to acknowledge the sense of crisis still gripping the industry, but also the triumph of Greta Gerwig’s hot pink comedy, which ends 2023 having made almost $1.5bn worldwide.

In the numbers game alone, that crowned Gerwig and star-producer Margot Robbie queens of the box office. But their movie also won the other prize most valued by the film business: a place of relevance at the very centre of the culture. It just took a lot of people filming themselves singing “I’m Just Ken”, then posting the results online.

That the film industry might now exist largely to provide material for TikTok is an uncomfortable thought. But then, in a year this turbulent, why would cinema be any less so? The secret of the movies’ place as history’s most productive marriage of art and commerce has always been mirroring the wider mood. So it’s only natural that the past 12 months would see Hollywood convulsed by economic strife — and unnerved by the future.