Arrival
L'Attesa
Everybody Wants Some!!!
From Afar
Jackie
Moana
A Monster Calls
Moonlight
The Red Turtle
Silence
Gold: Moonlight doesn't give you time to breathe, it's a story that pushes forward & catches you, just like our lives. Chiron's journey is one of struggle, but it's also one with consequence, and a cast working its heart out to craft this poignant tale.
Silver: No director working today is better about showing us simply a "slice of life" look at the world than Richard Linklater. His Everybody Wants Some!!! is deceptively simple-the kind of college movie you expect to be doused in toxic masculinity. Instead, it's a film about the fleeting nature of youth, and what it's like to hold your future in your hand.
Bronze: Jackie releases all of the shackles of a traditional biopic, and creates a brilliant art film. With a towering lead performance, it gives us one woman, seemingly uncomplicated (but looks can be deceiving), who is put in glaring spotlights, both the glowing & the tragic.
Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)
Pablo Larrain (Jackie)
Richard Linklater (Everybody Wants Some!!!)
Martin Scorsese (Silence)
Denis Villeneuve (Arrival)
Gold: Jenkins' genius isn't just in the triptych way he gives us Moonlight, but in the way that it tries to capture the eventuality that we become different versions of ourselves, like familiar strangers as we age & learn that certain things always matter, and others can just float away.
Silver: Linklater's stylistic flourishes aren't as indulgent as other directors, but in many ways he captures the essence of an auteur not with repetitive flare, but instead through simply putting a camera on actors and watching a naturalism emerge as they explore their characters.
Bronze: Perhaps Scorsese's most personal film in decades, Silence is a giant epic, one that could be swallowed whole if it weren't for Marty's keen sense of purpose, always keeping his Sebastiao focused on the same, determined end.
Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)
Adam Driver (Paterson)
Andrew Garfield (Silence)
Logan Lerman (Indignation)
Trevante Rhodes (Moonlight)
Gold: Affleck's brilliance is not just in his perfectly-molded Boston schlub (he's made a career out of this particular prototype), but in the way he plays a man hollowed out by life. Look at how he can't forgive himself, the way he refuses to let himself move on from unspeakable tragedy.
Silver: Rhodes has a tricky job here. He has to inhabit the world of two different actors while also striking his own path, his own lived experiences, still in love but capable of being a different person. He does that beautifully-you know this is the same scared Chiron, even if he has a new bravado.
Bronze: It is bonkers to me that Andrew Garfield can give a performance of this nature, one where he confronts his own faith, endures grueling physicality & must endure the weight of a 3-hour movie with little but his own perseverance...and somehow his first Oscar nomination is for Hacksaw Ridge.
Amy Adams (Arrival)
Juliette Binoche (L'Attesa)
Isabelle Huppert (Elle)
Natalie Portman (Jackie)
Tilda Swinton (A Bigger Splash)
Gold: Portman's work is initially impressive because she brings life to a figure who became basically a Barbie doll to the American public, by showing when the public persona was real, and when it was an illusion...the willingness to remain placid even when it meant true personal sacrifice.
Silver: I'll never get why it was this movie that the Academy decided to get snooty about Amy Adams, arguably her best work since Junebug. Her performance here as a woman inspired by communication, but unable to share the pain she carries around is worn & felt.
Bronze: Juliette Binoche is also a woman carrying around the cruelty of life with her, but unlike our other two grieving mothers, she's aware of her own feelings, and while she's almost sorted through them, the film shows that loss is something we can never entirely let go of, and will always cling to memories of loved ones.
Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)
Ralph Fiennes (A Bigger Splash)
Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea)
Tyler Hoechlin (Everybody Wants Some!!!)
Glen Powell (Everybody Wants Some!!!)
Gold: For such a small role, Mahershala Ali is given a gargantuan task. He has to quickly establish himself not just as a major figure in young Chiron's life, but as someone he would want to emulate as he aged, even if he can't always explain why. Ali does that with studied care, fleshing out a man given an opportunity to change another man's destiny.
Silver: I would honestly be fine just collectively giving the entire cast of Everybody Wants Some!!! a trophy. If I have to pick a player to highlight, it'd be Powell, whose comedic relief is sharp & he has BDE dripping out of every corner of this performance-the bravado that can only come from being a young, straight dude in his twenties.
Bronze: Close behind him would be Tyler Hoechlin, inhabiting a different kind of swagger. He's confident, but has the knowing glance of someone who doesn't understand that these will be his glory days, something he'll never be able to recapture.
Naomie Harris (Moonlight)
Dakota Johnson (A Bigger Splash)
Janelle Monae (Hidden Figures)
Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures)
Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea)
Gold: The only actor who appears in all three parts of Moonlight, Naomie Harris gets the difficult task of forging an evolving (but constant) bond with three different actors, showing her own struggles in her relationship with her son. Harris does this through keen accent work, and the way she shows what parts of her are hidden from view...until her addictions force everything to emerge.
Silver: Michelle Williams isn't given much screen time, but an actress who is famous for minimalism works well here. Look at the way she plays Randi-a woman who needed to cut her husband out of her life not because she stopped loving him, but because he reminded her of the pain, and removing him was the only way she could get through the day.
Bronze: Monae is a performer of great style, and someone who can steal every scene she is in. That is needed in her Mary Jackson, a woman who is determined to defy convention, even if the world around her can't see her true potential.
Arrival
L'Attesa
Embrace of the Serpent
Moonlight
Silence
Gold: Moonlight is so good it feels like you're studying a screenwriting class while you're watching it. The triptych unfolds so that no part of the film is easy, and the connections aren't giving you obvious answers, but with biting, profound dialogue we start to see the message of Chiron's life.
Silver: "Big" is the only thing that can properly encapsulate a movie like Silence, but don't get totally caught off-guard by the movie's size-there are quieter moments throughout that give you rich speeches & treatises on faith (and what it demands of our spirits).
Bronze: Arrival is a study of grief, a look at how we allow ourselves to feel our emotions (joy, pain, sorrow), and the way that wonder & the experience of new possibilities can open up all that we're feeling.
Everybody Wants Some!!!
From Afar
Jackie
The Lobster
Manchester by the Sea
Gold: Richard Linklater, when he's on his game, writes a better script more than any other person working right now. Everybody Wants Some!!! flows so well because Linklater knows how to adapt his script to his actors (he's famously collaborative), making the film have a spontaneous, in-time nature.
Silver: Pablo Larrain takes everything you hate about biopics (narration, familiar character pitfalls), and turns it on its head in Jackie, giving us a a sharp character study of a woman who doesn't want you to know what she's thinking.
Bronze: From Afar may be the most obscure film I cite in this article, but that's your fault, not its. A sly look at the dynamics of sex, money, & control, the film is a bleak noir, one that will keep you guessing right up until the final seconds.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Jackie
A Monster Calls
Moonlight
Nocturnal Animals
Gold: The score of Moonlight is sparing, a litany of chopped violins that hang in the air even when they are no longer playing, giving us versions of the same theme (just like the three actors playing the evolving Chiron).
Silver: Never uplifting, Mica Levi's work in Jackie is more focused on making sure that we see the real woman behind the plastic princess, giving us a distinctive (but never over-powering) score to accompany her.
Bronze: A Monster Calls is a movie that demands your heart come along for the ride, and as a result we get soaring ballads, ones that are filled with adventure but also acknowledgement that this is a battle that we aren't necessarily going to emerge victorious from (just appreciative).
"City of Stars," La La Land
"Drive It Like You Stole It," Sing Street
"How Far I'll Go," Moana
"I Am Moana," Moana
"Try Everything," Zootopia
Gold: It has become something of a hobby in the past year to bag on Lin-Manuel Miranda, but I can't join in not only because I like his positivity, but also because of his genuine talent. You see that in the way he provides his own sense of uplift in helping Moana (and "How Far I'll Go," our gold medalist) capture not just the magic of her journey, but perhaps more important, recapture Disney in the 1990's.
Silver: We've chronicled many times my complicated relationship with the movie La La Land (a film I wish I loved more than I do), but the closest the film comes for me to truly engaging with what it hopes to be is in the beautiful, fleeting "City of Stars."
Bronze: Few end credit songs are worth your time in this category-it's too hard to sum up a movie without it being catering. That's not the case with the effervescent, supporting "Try Everything" (perhaps the dancing gay tigers help?).
Moana
The Red Turtle
Zootopia
Gold: The only category we go three-wide on (though 2016 is the rare year where a five-wide race wouldn't look like stretching), I have to pick The Red Turtle as the best-in-class of the bunch. More fable than plot, the movie is gorgeous (the use of red and black-tres magnifique!), it honestly feels more like The Bicycle Thief than a movie for children-elegant & foundational.
Silver: Moana is also obsessed with color (here finding gorgeous blues & greens), but is obviously geared toward a family audience. The best Disney musical since Pocahontas, it elicits joy from every orifice, and also that pig is just adorable.
Bronze: Zootopia cannot be denied its own blurb. Disney does something almost unheard of here-creating a complete universe onto itself from scratch, and doing so while providing homage to everything from 80's cop movies to The Godfather (all while giving a needed & never preachy ode to tolerance for audiences young & old).
Arrival
Jackie
Moonlight
Silence
The VVitch
Gold: I'm more into subtle than the Academy is with this category, which is why I feel pretty confident in proclaiming Jackie the best sound mixing of 2016. The movie's score intrudes like a ghost, and we get that motif throughout the film (reserving only the loudest scenes for the most horrific moments of Kennedy's life). The moments after, as she walks the White House, feel as if we're hearing a museum come to life.
Silver: Speaking of movies that play with volume, Silence lives up to its name giving us a wide cacophony of sound design, cleverly playing with a array of expansive quiet to give us a sense of the solitude these young monks endure.
Bronze: Arrival is the most traditional nominee here, but it's a testament to the film in how it rarely feels generic. Arrival's aural crafting comes from the main character's voices against a constant hum-a perfect duet of editing & mixing, necessary for an effects film of this nature.
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Gold: Instantly distinctive, Arrival gives us a specificity to its aliens & ships-the sounds they create aren't duplicated or from the long litany of aliens we know by heart, giving us a new entry into the world of cinematic space.
Silver: Obviously the battle sequences, particularly the climactic ocean-front battle to stop the Empire, are at the top of anyone's list. But I also loved the earliest scenes of Rogue One, where we hear the winds of a distant planet that becomes the background of young Jin's life.
Bronze: I'm not above acknowledging when a movie I didn't like has a great craft element. That's the case with Hacksaw Ridge, which uses well-constructed action sequences and perfectly choreographed cascades of bullets to give us a sense of the omnipresence of battle for even a pacifist soldier.
Jackie
La La Land
Passengers
Silence
Zootopia
Gold: I am still at a loss as to how Jackie missed with Oscar in this category. The film obviously gives us hints of the character with the way that Mrs. Kennedy's Massachusetts home is tailored (even the messes) within an inch of their lives. But the true "wow" here is the way that the art directors flawlessly reinvent the White House to be both historically accurate & feel like it's being lived in in real time.
Silver: Similar to Hacksaw Ridge, I can acknowledge a bad movie's best qualities, and pretty much anyone watching Passengers can understand that its production design is totally inventive. A combination of cruise ship & holodeck, it gets at the excessive indulgence & decay of hopping halfway across the galaxy to find adventure that was possible in your own world.
Bronze: Animated films aren't given enough credit here (they are, after all, creating worlds in the same way), and few animated films feel more at-home with production design as Zootopia, which gives us not just one world but all of those motifs into other creative districts of the world.
Jackie
Knight of Cups
La La Land
Moonlight
Silence
Gold: Few films play more with actual color & mood than Moonlight. Look at the way that the blacks, blues, & yellow lighting cues pop across the screen from the background, telling a visual story to Chiron's life, or the way that James Laxton is able to inform so much of his main character's tale through water, the eternally morphing element.
Silver: I mean, we all know about my crush on Terrence Malick at this point, so this shouldn't come as a surprise, but Knight of Cups continues his love affair with Emmanuel Lubezki, giving us urban & suburban landscapes that come to life behind his camera.
Bronze: Silence feels plucked out of its centuries-old time frame, looking crisp but also as if we're genuinely pulled into a different era, never staged or like we're getting a simple recreation...you feel as if you've been transported to a different era.
The Dressmaker
Everybody Wants Some!!!
Hail, Caesar!
Jackie
Silence
Gold: Never resting on its pillbox laurels (and it could have), Jackie makes the costumes in its films look stiff, boxy, real...more authentically specific to their time frame, so we feel like we're getting historical photos truly coming to life.
Silver: Sure it's not "historically accurate" in the same sense, but sometimes you just want to look at something truly gorgeous for two hours. That's what happens with the impeccable, classy designs Kate Winslet's character brings to The Dressmaker.
Bronze: Yes, I would assume that outfitting the tight-fitting clothes on the men of Everybody Wants Some!!! was its own reward, but that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the "if you've got it, flaunt it" care that they bring to these athletes' wardrobe.
Arrival
Embrace of the Serpent
Everybody Wants Some!!!
Moonlight
The VVitch
Gold: I don't know how the editors were able to cobble together Arrival, a seemingly impossible job. Given a film focused on academic research (admittedly with aliens) for one half and a deep twist you aren't meant to figure out in the other, the editors craft a seamless movie from two divergent moments in a woman's life.
Silver: Moonlight is a movie that is played across three different chapters, but the editors don't rely on this too heavily, avoiding making connections between each "Chiron" wink-y or repetitive, instead giving us the gradual crescendo to the man he'd become with judicious looks into each actor's work.
Bronze: A third film that is all about balance, Embrace of the Serpent is meant to give us a world we don't know twice, never pointing out the clear frames-of-reference we have from earlier, a world always evolving into itself.
Florence Foster Jenkins
Hail, Caesar!
Jackie
Silence
Sing Street
Gold: One last gold medal for the technical wizardry of Jackie. So often Oscar gets distracted by monsters or latex in this category, but when it comes right down to it, it's about making sure that we are seeing the characters for who they are...Jackie does that with painstaking period work, particularly with the hairstyles.
Silver: On the opposite end is Silence, not in the world of latex, but instead making the beautiful less desirable. The use of blood-and-dirt in the film is detailed & increasingly more dramatic (hygiene standards have clearly evolved in the last 400 years as we see in Andrew Garfield's main character).
Bronze: Old Hollywood glamour, sometimes played for laughs, comes throughout the story of Hail, Caesar!, paying homage to figures like Esther Williams & Hedda Hopper without ever outing themselves as "stealing" their looks.
Arrival
Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them
Kubo and the Two Strings
A Monster Calls
Passengers
Gold: Our other constant victor in the tech categories takes our last gold, as Arrival uses its effect to great aplomb, never feeling too gimmicky or indulgent, but striking the right, dramatic tone for the tender story at its core.
Silver: This category isn't just about looking spectacular-it's also about creating a sense of wonder & majesty that matches your story. A Monster Calls does that with inventive, glowing effects work that might not have the budget of a Transformers, but gets more out of what it's trying to achieve in making a strong movie.
Bronze: Obviously there is CGI throughout, but in terms of a single achievement, no VFX moment in a 2016 movie is quite as jaw-dropping as the "floating water" drowning sequence that comes in the halfway point of Passengers.
Also in 2016: Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2016
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