Google Year in Search 2023: ‘Barbie,’ ‘Oppenheimer’ Lead Top-Trending Movies, ‘Last of Us’ Tops TV Rankings

Todd Spangler
·2 min read

No surprise here: “Barbenheimer” led the field on the top-trending Google searches of the year in movies, while HBO’s dystopian video-game adaptation “The Last of Us” came out on top on the TV front.

The Google year-in-review 2023 lists, released Monday, are based on data about the top-trending searches in the U.S., tracking queries that had the highest spikes in traffic over a sustained period this year as compared with 2022. That’s why Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, for example, don’t show up on the rankings for music artists.

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In TV, Netflix had a strong showing, with seven of the top 10 trending searches in the category for the streamer’s originals: “Ginny & Georgia,” “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story,” “Wednesday,” “That ’90s Show,” “Kaleidoscope,” “Beef” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

After “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” top-trending movie searches on Google for the year were for “Sound of Freedom,” this summer’s unexpected and controversial box office hit, and Oscar-winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

The No. 1 top-trending actor searched among Google U.S. users was Jeremy Renner, who suffered a near-fatal snow plow accident in January.

Here are highlights from Google’s 2023 Year in Search report for the U.S.:

Movies 

  1. Barbie

  2. Oppenhiemer

  3. Sound of Freedom

  4. Everything Everywhere All at Once

  5. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

  6. The Super Mario Bros. Movie

  7. Creed III

  8. John Wick: Chapter 4

  9. Five Nights at Freddy’s

  10. Cocaine Bear

TV Shows

  1. The Last of Us

  2. Ginny & Georgia

  3. Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story

  4. Daisy Jones & The Six

  5. Wednesday

  6. That ’90s Show

  7. Kaleidoscope

  8. Beef

  9. The Idol

  10. The Fall of the House of Usher

Actors

  1. Jeremy Renner

  2. Jamie Foxx

  3. Danny Masterson

  4. Matt Rife

  5. Pedro Pascal

  6. Jonathan Majors

  7. Sophie Turner

  8. Russell Brand

  9. Ke Huy Quan

  10. Josh Hutcherson

Deaths

  1. Matthew Perry

  2. Tina Turner

  3. Jerry Springer

  4. Jimmy Buffett

  5. Sinéad O’Connor

  6. Ken Block

  7. Tyre Nicholas

  8. Lisa Marie Presley

  9. Suzanne Somers

  10. Bob Barker

Games 

  1. Hogwarts Legacy

  2. Connections

  3. Baldur’s Gate 3

  4. Starfield

  5. Diablo IV

  6. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

  7. Atomic Heart

  8. Dead Island 2

  9. Sons of the Forest

  10. Mortal Kombat 1

Musicians 

  1. Jason Aldean

  2. Ice Spice

  3. Oliver Anthony

  4. Peso Pluma

  5. Joe Jonas

  6. Sam Smith

  7. Matt Healy

  8. Kellie Pickler

  9. Kim Petras

  10. Sexyy Red

People

  1. Damar Hamlin

  2. Jeremy Renner

  3. Travis Kelce

  4. Tucker Carlson

  5. Lil Tay

  6. Andrew Tate

  7. Carlee Russell

  8. Jamie Foxx

  9. Danny Masterson

  10. Matt Rife

News

  1. War in Israel and Gaza

  2. Titanic submarine

  3. Hurricane Hilary

  4. Hurricane Idalia

  5. Hurricane Lee

  6. Maine shooting

  7. Nashville shooting

  8. Maui fire

  9. Idaho murder trial

  10. Canada wildfires

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