2023 has been a great year for film. While the entertainment industry pathetically tries to hinder its own successes by refusing to pay its workers what they are owed, audiences have been treated to a plethora of excellent movies across the spectrums of genre, budget, and style. This is the year where the Best Picture Oscar went to a multi-verse family dramedy with a running joke about butt plugs. A three-hour-long biographical drama comprised mostly of scenes of men talking about ethics and physics came close to grossing $1 billion. The front-runners for next year’s Academy Awards are a horny feminist retelling of Frankenstein, a Martin Scorsese historical drama about First Nations rights, and a f*cking Barbie movie. We live in fun times. One of the breakout stars of 2023 has had starring roles in a fascinating array of projects, reminding audiences of his immense talent and the long-delayed promise of a hot new star on the horizon. It took a little longer than anticipated but Alden Ehrenreich is finally getting his proper moment in the spotlight.

This year, Ehrenreich stole the show from Robert Downey Jr. playing a nameless aide in Oppenheimer, reinvented the erotic thriller with an eye towards modern toxic masculinity in Fair Play, and tried not to get eaten by a doped-up wild animal in Cocaine Bear. It’s the kind of run that would have any actor receiving career retrospectives celebrating their range, so to do it all in one year is especially impressive. For fans, it’s a delight to see him get his flowers. It’s all the more satisfying given how quickly Ehrenreich was thrown under the bus by the film industry following the blockbuster that was supposed to make him an A-Lister.

It had been obvious some weeks before the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story that Disney was growing increasingly skeptical about the film’s financial chances, and a scapegoat was needed. Much had already been made about the messy exit of the movie’s original directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were replaced by the decidedly un-hip Ron Howard. That decision bore the brunt of online ire towards Solo but Ehrenreich also found himself in the firing line. The crime of not looking exactly like Harrison Ford saw him labeled as the death knell for both the character of Han Solo and his origin story. He was an indie actor, best known for his hilarious turn as a guileless cowboy actor in the Coen Brothers’ Hail Caesar!, not a power player in the biz. Frankly, he was an easy target for the fanboys who had never had an especially healthy relationship with this franchise.

We could be here for days talking about the smothering nostalgia bubble of the Star Wars franchise and how it has become unbearably concerned with showing off Easter eggs rather than expanding upon its cloistered central narrative. Solo is certainly not devoid of such problems. Yet Ehrenreich was never the issue with Solo. He’s great as the not-yet-cynical pilot who is still in awe of the great wide universe and believes in the unblemished promise of heroism. He also understood something many franchise fans forget: that Han is a chaotic dork more than he’s a cool dude with a spaceship. Too many Star Wars fans wanted an AI model of Ford, not a talented actor giving his perspective. So, when Solo underperformed, Ehrenreich bore too much of the blame. That once-promising career seemed to vanish. He wasn’t in another film for five years.

After appearing in the one-season Peacock adaptation of Brave New World (remember that?), Ehrenreich slowly started returning to film. It reached its new zenith this year, and we’re all the richer for it. in Cocaine Bear, Elizabeth Banks’ comedic thriller with a title that explains it all, Ehrenreich plays Eddie, the useless son of a drug kingpin who is tasked with retrieving a stash of drugs (guess who gets there first?) In a stacked cast working to hold together a messy premise, Ehrenreich is the MVP, a guilt-ridden widower who is stuck working for his awful dad and thrown into the kind of jackassery that could only be fuelled by Class-A drugs. He’s already at the end of his tether before the cocaine bear turns up, and he is not prepared for any of this. It’s Ehrenreich who gets to bellow the trailer line, ‘a bear did cocaine!’ and boy does he sell it with every fibre of his being?

I wrote about my love for Ehrenreich’s performance in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer for RogerEbert dot com earlier this year, so I won’t repeat myself too much here (how’s that for a shameless plug for my other work?) But I promise you I’m not overselling things by declaring his work in this massive ensemble of award winners is truly brilliant. Ehrenreich plays a Senate aide (the only unnamed and fictionalized character in the ruthlessly researched narrative) working alongside Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) as he hopes to be confirmed as Secretary of Commerce by the U.S. Senate. Ehrenreich is a cog in the machine, one of many nameless workers strolling alongside and behind the power players. As the hearings move along, and the aide becomes more aware of Strauss’ actions towards Oppenheimer, you see the weariness on Ehrenreich’s face. It’s not that he’s surprised to discover that, shock horror, politics is full of corruption; it’s that he’s exhausted to see this cycle start all over again. When Downey Jr. lets loose, Ehrenreich is very still, becoming the only adult in the room, which you sense is a dishearteningly common occurrence for aides like him. In the end, it’s Ehrenreich who gets the best line, and he delivers it with a devastating combination of casualness and pure malice.

In Fair Play, now on Netflix, Ehrenreich and Phoebe Dynevor play Luke and Emily, young lovers who have to hide their relationship from the hedge fund they both work at. A promotion is on the table, and everyone assumes Luke will get it. When it ends up being awarded to Emily, their relationship soon fractures under the pressure and Luke’s seething resentment towards his own girlfriend. Ehrenreich makes it easy to warm to Luke at first. He’s (seemingly) kind and passionate and clearly desperate for approval. He doesn’t want to admit that being passed over for promotion (and in favour of a woman) is a blow to his already fragile masculinity, but Ehrenreich acutely conveys the growing sense of humiliation that Luke feels. There’s shame there, but also power. Ehrenreich is a good-looking guy, but in Fair Play, there are moments where his eyes seem completely dead and he stares at Emily like he’s Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Luke would be a great serial killer if he weren’t so snivelling.

Up next on Ehrenreich’s calendar is a Marvel series, which is apparently mandatory for actors these days. He’s also directing short films and taking lots of cool photographs for his Instagram account. He’s got nothing to prove and he never did, not to perennially dissatisfied franchise fans or studios looking for an easy punching bag. Still, it’s endlessly pleasing to see him get his quiet revenge on the business simply by doing his job. And he was a great Han Solo, get over it, nerds!