Watching movies in 2020 is, simply put, weird. Here in the US, the continued spread of the COVID-19 pandemic means that theaters have, with few exceptions, stayed empty. Theater chains like AMC are hurting. That means we're doing most of our watching at home on services like Google Play. Despite the shift, Google's best-seller list is a mix of this year and last year's releases similar to last year's list.
Along with the few movies that released in 2020, up of some of our favorites from 2019, including films like Knives Out, Parasite, and 1917. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is also on there.
Here's the top 15:
Where the weirdness of 2020 starts to come in is that Trolls World Tour was released exclusively as a premium video on demand rental, while Sonic the Hedgehog and Bloodshot both found themselves moving to the same model shortly after their releases due to the pandemic. The Invisible Man fell victim to the same thing, though it did well in drive-in theaters as the weather warmed up.
For reference, here's 2019's list:
The list shakes out with six movies from 2020 and nine from 2019. The 2019 list featured eight 2019 films, six 2018 films and, somehow, one 2017 film. What will be really interesting to see is what this same list looks like next year. Assuming things start to return to normalcy throughout the year, studios have tons of movies--at least 56--waiting in the hopper for a theatrical release. We'll have to wait and see if cinemas return to normal next year, and what impact that will have on stories like Google Play.
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