2023 felt like the year that movies were finally BACK. After several years of COVID delays, moviegoers finally got a full year of uninterrupted cinematic releases. And genuinely most of these releases were incredible feats of cinema and storytelling. Emphasis on most, as there definitely were some stinkers.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (dir. Francis Lawrence) is the newest installment in the Hunger Games saga (dir. Francis Lawrence/Gary Ross) and is a prequel about the life of a young President Snow—the face of the enemy in the original Hunger Games movies. While Ballad can be seen without any prior knowledge of the Hunger Games movies or books, it is definitely suggested, as there are many nearly imperceptible nods to the original series.
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