At the most difficult of times, audiences crave nostalgia. That soothing feeling of being reminded of the happiness of yesteryear can prove the perfect antidote to the anxieties and fears of the modern world, and that is a specific feeling most are experiencing right now. Times are tough, and a comfort watch from cinema’s past is both the spoonful of sugar and the medicine going down.
Of all the great nostalgic movies, such as Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over for those craving a slice of the ’00s or the Ghostbusters franchise for some ’80s fun, one film stands out perhaps as the most nostalgic of all. The film in question is Space Jam, the 1996 classic that saw people of all generations flock to the theaters to witness NBA legend Michael Jordan and Hollywood favorite Bill Murray playing basketball alongside Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes. In total, the movie earned a strong $250 million worldwide, split between a domestic haul of $90 million and a further $160 million from overseas markets, against a production budget of $80 million.
Given these tough times we’re living in, it seems a slice of Space Jam nostalgia is proving particularly appealing to audiences. At the time of writing, Space Jam is one of the ten most-streamed movies on Peacock in the U.S., a list that also includes other big hits such as last year’s musical sequel Wicked: For Good, another strangely nostalgic movie in The Cat in the Hat, and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, which is the current Peacock chart-topper.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
Advertisement
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
Advertisement
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
Advertisement
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
Advertisement
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
Advertisement
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
Advertisement
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
Advertisement
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
Advertisement
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
Advertisement
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
Advertisement
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
Advertisement
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
Advertisement
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Advertisement
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Advertisement
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Advertisement
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Advertisement
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
Advertisement
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
Advertisement
Advertisement
‘Space Jam’ Was Met With Mixed Reviews Upon Arrival
Bill Murray, Bugs Bunny, and Michael Jordan talk in a huddle on the basketball court in Space Jam.Image via Warner Bros.
Time has certainly helped the reputation of Space Jam. When it was first released, the film was actually met with plenty of negativity from critics, which can be seen on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. On the site, the movie earned just 44%, with the consensus reading, “While it’s no slam dunk, Space Jam‘s silly, Looney Toons-laden slapstick and vivid animation will leave younger viewers satisfied — though accompanying adults may be more annoyed than entertained.” A synopsis for the movie reads:
“Swackhammer, an evil alien theme park owner, needs a new attraction at Moron Mountain. When his gang, the Nerdlucks, heads to Earth to kidnap Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes, Bugs challenges them to a basketball game to determine their fate. The aliens agree, but they steal the powers of NBA basketball players, including Larry Bird and Charles Barkley — so Bugs gets some help from superstar Michael Jordan.”
Space Jam is streaming on Peacock. Stay tuned to Collider for more streaming stories.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login