2025 Oscar Viewing Project

Just in time for Oscar next weekend, I have officially seen all of the Oscar Viewing Project contenders for 2025!  For the second year in a row, I've done this before the ceremony, which feels very in-theme for how we operate.  For those that are new, the Oscar Viewing Project has me watching every single narrative, feature-length nominee at the Academy Awards (i.e. no shorts or documentaries, unless they're in the traditionally feature-length, narrative categories), and rating them in a vacuum, picking my choices based on whom Oscar selected based solely on the quality of the 3-5 nominees in front of me.  If you are truly new, this is the 32nd of the 98 Oscar ceremonies we've done this for, and you can see links at the bottom of this list for past contests.  For the first time since 2001, we have a new category that will be added, and it will be covered (Casting), and I will also be adding it to the My Ballots going forward (though not retroactively).  I have a few more screenings left to finish up the 2025 My Ballot (where I pick the nominees), including one specific animated film that's been annoyingly hard to get ahold of, but in the meantime, we will sort through Oscar.  As a reminder, here was where the domestic box office ranked in 2025:

1. Zootopia 2

2. A Minecraft Movie

3. Lilo & Stitch

4. Avatar: Fire and Ash

5. Superman

6. Wicked: For Good

7. Jurassic World: Rebirth

8. Sinners

9. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

10. How to Train Your Dragon

(Note: I will point out this is the current lineup as of the last writing.  Avatar: Fire and Ash, specifically, is still making relatively decent domestic money, though likely not enough to outearn Lilo & Stitch and move onto the medal stand)

Of these 10 films, I've seen eight of them, skipping both of the live-action animated remakes because, as a general rule, I think these are terrible.  I think it's notable, looking at this, how we have at least one truly original movie (Sinners becoming the highest-grossing totally original story since Gravity), and that the MCU truly just fell from grace here, with Thunderbolts not even crossing the $200M mark domestically and Captain America: Brave New World making $700M less than the last Captain America movie did at the box office (and only Fantastic Four making the Top 10).  Looking down the box office list, most of the unseen movies that I haven't caught yet are horror movie sequels, though The Housemaid stands out as maybe the movie I should've caught and might try to sneak in before the My Ballot (I will definitely be seeing How to Train Your Dragon given so many people loved the visual effects).

But now, it's time to go back just a few months to a time we all were getting a crush on Zohran Mamdani, watching Taylor & Travis get engaged, and seeing the first American pope.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Picture

1. One Battle After Another

2. Hamnet

3. The Secret Agent

4. Sinners

5. Sentimental Value

6. Train Dreams

7. F1

8. Bugonia

9. Marty Supreme

10. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: This is a solid list in what was honestly a very good year for movies, maybe the best since 2021 or even 2017.  But there's no competition for Paul Thomas Anderson here-One Battle After Another is a profound, challenging picture with universally good acting and writing.  Hamnet is really special in second place, proving that Chloe Zhao is emerging as one of our most thoughtful and introspective directors, and I have a sincere enjoyment of the craftsmanship of something like The Secret Agent or Sinners, but One Battle is on another level, and as you'll see, is going to be batting really well this write-up.

Director

1. Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)

2. Chloe Zhao (Hamnet)

3. Ryan Coogler (Sinners)

4. Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value)

5. Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme)

The Lowdown: A second showdown between Anderson & Zhao (both of whom are going to repeat when we get to the 2025 My Ballot), but I won't pretend this is a close race.  I've actually been much kinder to PTA than Oscar has (his films have plenty of My Ballot statues), but I'm glad on some level that Oscar waited for (what I hope) will be a coronation here as this will become the defining work of his career.  Also, I want to say for the record that Josh Safdie's personal troubles are not why he's in last...I just really did not like his movie.

Actor

1. Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another)

2. Michael B. Jordan (Sinners)

3. Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent)

4. Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon)

5. Timothee Chalamet (Marty Supreme)

The Lowdown: Best Actor remains the best lineup of the 2025 acting races, and I will own that none of these (not even Timmy in a movie I didn't like) is a bad performance.  In terms of a win, though, Leo's best work in years is really going to take it over Michael B. Jordan adding nuance to two different characters and Wagner Moura's steady, marked performance in The Secret Agent.  Leo's so good here-a man that even in his prime was over-his-head but in love with ideals and a woman who wouldn't stay, having to reengage with life to save the only thing he truly cares about...this is the kind of star power electricity that Leo promised when he was in his Chalamet years.

Actress

1. Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)

2. Emma Stone (Bugonia)

3. Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value)

4. Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue)

5. Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You)

The Lowdown: I will largely skate by the elephant in the room (I love Rose Byrne, I love Kate Hudson, but these performances are not ranked incorrectly...do with that what you will), and instead focus on the real competition: Jessie Buckley's spiritual work as a mother trying to connect with a man she loves but can't understand and a boy she knows but cannot grasp, and Emma Stone's terrifying girlboss incarnate, totally grasping on to Bugonia's bizarre (and oftentimes off-kilter) wavelength.  I'm going with Buckley because I think she is able to connect more to the ending than Stone.

Supporting Actor

1. Sean Penn (One Battle After Another)

2. Benicio del Toro (One Battle After Another)

3. Stellan Skarsgard (Sentimental Value)

4. Delroy Lindo (Sinners)

5. Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein)

The Lowdown: I like #3-5 in other things (truth be told, there is no acting performance of the 20 that I truly disliked even if there are movies that were cited that I disliked, which is rare), but for me it's a competition between the two Oscar-winning acting titans in One Battle After Another.  I'm going with Penn not because he's the bigger performance, but because I think that big performances sometimes get a bad rap in modern acting (del Toro is certainly subtle), but you need them when you're playing a big character like he is, and he totally inhabits a unique type of weak toxicity that's rarely seen represented in the movies (but oftentimes on cable news).

Supporting Actress

1. Amy Madigan (Weapons)

2. Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another)

3. Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value)

4. Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners)

5. Inga Ibsdotter Lileaas (Sentimental Value)

The Lowdown: Madigan gives one of the most unhinged supporting performances in recent years, channeling in many ways actors like Kathy Bates in Misery or Ruth Gordon in Rosemary's Baby to give us something truly terrifying (and speaking of Trump, if you think the red-haired clown terrorizing a group of children isn't an allegory for the guy that has plagued the Epstein list, watch again).  Taylor would be a really worthy winner too, and I love the imprint she made on this movie with only time in the first 40 minutes or so, but this is Madigan by the widest margin of the acting races.

Adapted Screenplay

1. One Battle After Another

2. Hamnet

3. Train Dreams

4. Bugonia

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: One Battle is not done with its wins yet, and takes another one for PTA.  One Battle is honestly one of the rare one of Anderson's films that is more of a director's achievement than a writing or acting one, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have the oomph to best Hamnet, which is also a wonderful and deceptively strong screenplay (the way that it folds ideas of Shakespeare into the film, while also feeling vaguely universal).  The rest of this category I'd probably upend, and will when we get to the My Ballot.

Original Screenplay

1. Sinners

2. Sentimental Value

3. Blue Moon

4. It Was Just an Accident

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: I'll be honest, the writing categories are where a relatively decent Best Picture lineup (like I said, 2025 is one of the best years for movies so far this decade) shows some chinks in the armor, as you have films like Marty Supreme & Bugonia where I actively disliked the endings and felt they took down chunks of the movie.  There is a touch of that with Sinners, so I will note that it is just barely beating out Sentimental Value (which nails its ending), but the inventive plotting and the way that it unfolds a closed door horror so well means I'm going to slightly favor the vampires over the Swedish introspection.

Animated Feature Film

1. Elio

2. Little Amelie, or the Character of Rain

3. Zootopia 2

4. Arco

5. KPop Demon Hunters

The Lowdown: In what was otherwise a strong year for cinema, I'll own that animation was terrible.  It's not even a case where we have a bunch of better films sitting around-KPop is good when the music is playing and Zootopia is good if you don't constantly compare it to the original and Arco is good if you pretend the melancholy ending was at all earned by the rest of the picture...but overall this is not an impressive list.  If I have to pick a winner, it'd be Elio, a somewhat forgettable Pixar movie that nonetheless has gorgeous animation, beautiful music, and some really strong emotional plotting, but would stand out more if Pixar hadn't been using the same plot for every non-Toy Story film since Cars 3).

International Feature Film

1. The Secret Agent (Brazil)

2. Sentimental Value (Norway)

3. It Was Just an Accident (France)

4. Sirat (Spain)

5. The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia)

The Lowdown: The movies of this category used to, on very rare occasion, get nominations in other fields, but this year we have four of them nominated elsewhere and two nominated for Best Picture.  Even with this category, the Academy is becoming entirely focused on the Best Picture field.  Thankfully that's where this should be, as those are the two best movies of the bunch, with weirdly similar plots (both movies are essentially about how you can never know your parents).  I prefer The Secret Agent, a subtler movie with a more sprawling historical look behind it (and the better central performance), but honestly either one here is a winner.

Score

1. Hamnet

2. One Battle After Another

3. Sinners

4. Bugonia

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: I am a total sucker for Max Richter, whose soft melodies and gorgeous, romantic use of strings and swelling orchestras is a callback to the man I frequently confuse him with (Max Steiner).  Hamnet earned him his first Academy Award nomination, and I struggle to find a reason not to give him this (the OVP is in a vacuum, as a reminder, so I'm not trying to make up for lost time-just noting that Richter has gotten multiple My Ballot nods at this point, and will get another one in 2025 from me when we get there later this month).  One Battle After Another, by another favorite of mine (Jonny Greenwood) is really aces as well, even if it isn't quite as distinctive as we're used to from Greenwood's collaborations with Paul Thomas Anderson.

Original Song

1. "I Lied to You," Sinners

2. "Golden," KPop Demon Hunters

3. "Sweet Dreams of Joy," Viva Verdi!

4. "Train Dreams," Train Dreams

5. "Dear Me," Diane Warren: Relentless

The Lowdown: I sometimes struggle with how to grade this category, because I do feel that it should not just be about the quality of the song, but also about how it is incorporated into the movie.  "Golden" is an ear worm that I have not stopped listening to since it came out (there's a reason this became a genuine pop hit), but the "I Lied to You" sequence in Sinners is easily one of the best scenes of the year, and in my opinion deserves this statue even if "Golden" might be a better piece of music outside the realm of the movie.  Of the three also-rans (i.e. the songs you don't know), "Sweet Dreams of Joy" is much better than you'd expect, and sadly "Dear Me" is exactly what you'd expect (we really should've just given Diane Warren that Oscar for Burlesque and none of this would've happened).

Sound

1. F1

2. Sinners

3. One Battle After Another

4. Sirat

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: After watching Sirat, I realized why this was nominated (the sound work is on full-display throughout, and honestly is a supporting actor in how prominent it is), though unlike The Zone of Interest, I wasn't as impressed, and felt it bordered the line between best and most that sometimes tech categories can't distinguish.  I was far more impressed with F1 and Sinners, the former a sea of zooming cars & "you're practically there" race scenes, the latter a wonderfully constructed semi-musical.  I'm going to go with F1, a movie I think did both mixing & effects well (I'm old-school), but either would make a good winner.

Casting

1. Hamnet

2. Sinners

3. One Battle After Another

4. The Secret Agent

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: The first year of this category, I also kind of need to set my own parameters of how I'm going to grade this, as (like editing) you don't entirely know what was left in the cutting process.  For me, I think it comes down to how well the cast works together, how ingenious/inventive the casting process is (particularly if an actor isn't an obvious choice), and whether there are any clear standout good/bad casting decisions that elevate/demote it.  For me, I have Hamnet over the next two-I don't think there's a bad choice in the casts here, which is saying something as there usually is, but Hamnet had the stunt casting of two actual brothers to underline one character and the character he inspired, and that on top of Mescal & Buckley being perfect for their parts puts it in the lead.

Cinematography

1. Train Dreams

2. One Battle After Another

3. Sinners

4. Marty Supreme

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: Sinners has, for my money, some of the best cinematography of the year.  The Golden Hour shots are honestly breathtaking, but the night scenes suffer (by my personal tastes), with them trying to patch over some of the gaps in the visual effects (I liked the makeup, but the visual effects were more hit-or-miss for me), by making the screen too dark to see properly make it hard to judge overall as a success.  As a result, I am all in on the beautiful Train Dreams, a gorgeous Lubezki-esque take on the passage of time with a camera.  In a year where, in general, Cinematography was lacking (this is somehow going to be the weakest of my My Ballot lists in a few weeks), this is the one film that really embraced looking like a movie you'll remember forever.

Costume Design

1. Sinners

2. Hamnet

3. Marty Supreme

4. Avatar: Fire & Ash

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: It's possible I totally upend this entire list (looking like the only category I'll do that with), but for me it's all about the outfits specifically worn by Michael B. Jordan & Michael B. Jordan in the film.  Part of Sinners ability to inspire is that you kind of need to be horny for the dual MBJ's (this is a very sexy movie, with an early sex scene and Jack O'Connell clearly meant to be both figuratively and literally carnal), and the gorgeous teal-and-red combo that Ruth E. Carter brings here is better than the peasant period fare in Hamnet or the out-of-this-world third spin on Avatar (the craziest nomination of 2025).  I will note that the Mia Goth peacock outfit in this photo is so good it makes me forget that I was largely uninspired by the rest of Frankenstein.

Film Editing

1. One Battle After Another

2. Sinners

3. F1

4. Sentimental Value

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: I mean, sometimes this category gets something a bit out-of-the-box (F1 was probably further along here than in the Best Picture race), but there are days I think "Oscar didn't try to think beyond his five favorite movies in the editing branch...should I even bother?"  I will note that One Battle After Another's win here comes from the way it unfolds tension-the bank robbery scenes, the harrowing conversation late in the film between Sean Penn & Chase Infiniti...it's something to behold.  Sinners might have had a better shot if it had had more consistent cinematography lighting, as well as had the good sense to cut that post-credits ending which feels nonsensical and totally unnecessary (but the building tension there is something else).

Makeup & Hairstyling

1. Kokuho

2. Sinners

3. Frankenstein

4. The Smashing Machine

5. The Ugly Stepsister

The Lowdown: Oscar has historically struggled with horror in his category even though it is very much the bread-and-butter of the genre, so it's weird to see a lineup where the majority of the nominees come from that world.  I am not so apathetic (I nominate horror more regularly for the My Ballot), and while I was impressed with the violent deformity of Sinners and the albino care of Frankenstein, my heart belongs to the remarkable beauty and elegant aging of Kokuho, giving us a first-hand at the look of kabuki theater.

Production Design

1. Sinners

2. Marty Supreme

3. One Battle After Another

4. Hamnet

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: We're going to give Sinners its final trophy here (genuinely curious how this compares to its count with Oscar-it ended up taking three statues from me), with the sets in this feeling so authentically barren.  There's so much personality and touches in the dancehalls and railway stations in Coogler's work, and yet they feel appropriately isolated-there's nowhere to run.  I'll note that most of this lineup is good, and this is Marty Supreme's worthiest nomination (I love the on-a-budget redesign of New York City that never feels like it's on a budget at all), but Sinners feels like it lives in the set the most, and adds the most to the story.

Visual Effects

1. Avatar: Fire & Ash

2. F1

3. Jurassic World Rebirth

4. Sinners

5. The Lost Bus

The Lowdown: Putting Avatar in a lineup of Visual Effects always feels like you're playing on cheat mode.  The latest round doesn't have the "how the hell did they do that?" impact that its predecessors had, but in an era where visual effects are increasingly sloppy, overdone, and clearly glossed over by darkened cinematography (looking at you, The Lost Bus), it has beauty and looks fantastic, and even against something as impressive as the technical virtuosity of F1, it's unbeatable.

Past Oscar Viewing Projects: 1931-32, 1948, 1957, 1972, 1981, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

OVP: Picture (2023)

 OVP: Best Picture (2023)

The Nominees Were...

Ben Le Clair, Nikos Karamigios, Cord Jefferson, & Jermaine Johnson, American Fiction

Marie-Ange Luciani & David Thion, Anatomy of Fall

David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, & Robbie Brenner, Barbie

Mark Johnson, The Holdovers

Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, Martin Scorsese, & Daniel Lupi, Killers of the Flower Moon

Bradley Cooper, Steven Spielberg, Fred Berner, Amy Durning, & Kristie Macosko Krieger, Maestro

Emma Thomas, Charles Roven, & Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

David Hinojosa, Christine Vachon, & Pamela Koffler, Past Lives

Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos, & Emma Stone, Poor Things

James Wilson, The Zone of Interest

My Thoughts: Whenever I finish another one of these seasons, I always seem to start humming "The Blower's Daughter" by Damien Rice, a song that I associate specifically with the film Closer, which I saw in college and was one of the first (then) contemporary films that I saw specifically as "mine."  It was a movie that very few of my friends or people I knew had seen (or liked), and that I loved when it came out (and still do, as is evidenced by the 2004 My Ballot where it made the Best Picture lineup).  The movie is about the passage of time & missed opportunities, but it's also a distinctly college movie for me, one of those formative flicks that you didn't realize going into the year would become part of your personality.  I think about that particularly with Best Picture lineups, because my hope is that some of these movies mean that for young cinephiles who are carving their path in the world, and loving movies in that way that it becomes harder to do the older you get.

One of the movies, though, that shocked me in that specific way in 2023 was The Zone of Interest. Jonathan Glazer takes way too long to make his movies, but he does at least make your patience worthy of the wait.  The Zone of Interest is a fascinating treatise on evil, how it seeps into our day-to-day life so much we can no longer see a world without it feeling commonplace.  The sound design is rich here, adding personality to the picture, and the writing & performances (particularly Sandra Huller) only accentuate this distinct look at the Holocaust and World War II (and, let's face it, modern fascist movements in the United States & Europe).

Another film that reminds me of Closer (I promise, I won't reference Mike Nichols' picture for all of these, but if you haven't seen it, do yourself a treat & seek it out) is Past Lives, though the 2023 movie has a far warmer heart.  I talk about my love of ticking clock romances on this blog a lot, but this one turns that a bit on its head, giving the main love triangle too much time to process their romance, leaving regret in place of urgency.  The way that the film examines how we become ghosts of our former selves (something you only begin to understand as you enter middle age), not in a melancholy way but in an inevitable one is really prescient stuff.  More than any other film in this lineup, I'm happiest this made it because it's the film that could've most easily gotten lost from public consciousness of the Oscar contenders.

The Holdovers is one of those movies that becomes better because of the parts, even if the sum doesn't always add up.  The warm performances from the three leads give it a lot of its flavor, as does some of the poignancy that invades Alexander Payne's script.  The movie is too neat, with every turn feeling telegraphed from the opening moments, and in the process Payne manages to screw up the ending, as he hasn't invested in our main character to make some of his choices in the final scenes feel unsaid.  Simple movies can be total masterpieces, but you have to get every part right if you're going to approach from that vantage-Payne only gets some things right.

Screwing up the ending, though, is not a sin exclusive to The Holdovers.  Maestro has the overconfidence to end with "any questions?" as if Bradley Cooper's film has answered fully the life of a complicated man.  But he doesn't-the movie invites far more questions than it answers, and what it does it gives a lot of really staid conversations about the life of Leonard Bernstein.  I think some of the conversations here are overplayed (I'm tired of talking about straight actors playing gay-in an era where openly gay Jonathan Bailey can get cast as the straight romantic lead in Wicked and get to front a major franchise like Jurassic Park, I think we can concede that we've made some progress), but the film's handling of Bernstein's sexuality seems hampered by real-life considerations (like his family's access to the life rights), and in the process Bernstein remains unknowable throughout the picture, a clear drop given the ending of the film.

But Maestro doesn't fumble at the beginning of the movie.  This is the last time I'll complain about it this season, but Anatomy of a Fall screws up much of its film's momentum at the top of the picture when it shares that it will end without resolution.  The movie never really recovers from that.  Though there are scenes of value (I think the title sequence is impressive, and Sandra Huller is better than the script), the movie's need to stay ambiguous becomes a problem as it feels too open-ended, and especially given how long it is, it lacks perspective on the crime itself.

A movie that better balances the need to be two things at once is American Fiction, though it isn't totally successful either.  American Fiction is really smart as social satire, giving us a cutting diatribe about the commodification of diversity and the ways that racism can take on different forms, even in seemingly progressive politics.  But in a weird twist, the film itself doesn't have enough strength in its family drama (the types of books that the main character wants to write) to sell that story-within-a-story angle.  The film's call sheet is smart (save for a woefully miscast Sterling K. Brown), with Jeffrey Wright a strong lead and I loved the meta-casting of Erika Alexander in a movie about a writer who struggles to convey to his publishers that the Black experience can take on any lens (Alexander is best-known for playing Cousin Pam on The Cosby Show, one of the first mainstream Hollywood productions to truly emphasize this message).  It's just short, though, of being something truly special.

Poor Things in a lot of ways has that "just short" of something truly great scenario going for it as well.  Like American Fiction, it has a strong lead performance, and it has a lot to say, in this case about feminism.  But also like American Fiction, it can't quite find a balance, though here it's trying to keep up with Lanthimos' need for shocking the audience through sex, body humor, and tantalizing moral conversations.  All of these can make up great art (see Lanthimos' The Favourite, in fact), but in Poor Things it gets in Lanthimos' way.  I'll also own that some of the aesthetic choices in the picture feel arbitrary (and a bit ugly for me), which made the film suffer whenever I wasn't getting to revel in Emma Stone's brilliant work.

Killers of the Flower Moon continues Martin Scorsese's recent trend of making his best pictures at the close of his career.  Running well over three hours, the movie gives us a totally epic tale, one that feels more complete for being pieced together (news flash: not every big story works better as a miniseries...this is proof of that).  The acting is somewhat strong.  We have Robert de Niro giving his best performance in decades, and Lily Gladstone's understated approach giving us a woman who is always hiding in Mollie Kyle, a strategy that makes her final scenes just sing on the screen.  I think DiCaprio is miscast (and Brendan Fraser is laughably bad), but those are minor quibbles when you're getting to see a master like Scorsese at work.

We of course have to end with the two movies that will forever be intwined, both in moviegoers' minds and at the Oscars: Barbie and Oppenheimer.  We'll start our Barbenheimer conversation with Oppenheimer, a movie that underlines how Christopher Nolan is one of our most visually arresting film directors.  The movie's aesthetic choices are divine (the art direction & cinematography are both laudable, I also think the editing approach works when it easily could've been too much), and most of the ensemble cast delivers, including some of the bit players like Benny Safdie or Casey Affleck.  I do think Nolan continues to struggle at writing women (and Emily Blunt's not giving us enough to make up for that), but Oppenheimer is going to age beautifully as a Best Picture winner, a striking meld of populist intellectualism.

Barbie is a movie, unlike Oppenheimer, that wasn't guaranteed Best Picture consideration.  It's due to Greta Gerwig's shiny pink optimism that this became the biggest hit of 2023.  Barbie is going to be hard to grade for future generations primarily because it was a phenomenon (the marketing on this film was both costly and insanely effective, with a press junket that should be studied), but the film itself is also strong.  It looks sensational (love the costumes, art direction, & makeup), and the lead actors are both fizzing with chemistry, though the standout remains Ryan Gosling's Ken, inevitably the definitive role of one of our best working actors.  I do think some of the commentary about feminism feels a bit prosaic, but I am hardly going to Kensplain girl power-Barbie is delicious & frothy fun.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes have their categories separated into Musical/Comedy and Drama, with six nominations each so we do get some new names, though not in Drama, where Oppenheimer beats Anatomy of a Fall, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Past Lives, & The Zone of Interest.  Instead it's in Musical/Comedy where Oscar nominee Poor Things took it over some films from the AMPAS lineup (Barbie, American Fiction, The Holdovers) and some not (May December, Air).  The PGA copied Oscar verbatim for both nominations and wins, and BAFTA (the only game in town still doing five nominations) went with Oppenheimer atop Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, & Poor Things.  I wrote an entire article about who might've been in 11th place, and while future pundits (who rely too much on stats for my taste) will assume The Color Purple or Nyad were in 11th place, I honestly think it was All of Us Strangers, Origin, or Air that was in 11th, and would've been the first film since 1943 to get in for Best Picture without a nomination anywhere else.  This is a fascinating conversation (more so than any recent "who was the runner-up" dialogue), so here's the article if you want more or want to know why I picked those specific titles.

Films I Would Have Nominated: You'll find out tomorrow!

Oscar’s Choice: Oppenheimer won by so much, it's a genuine question between The Holdovers, Barbie, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Zone of Interest what was in second place (whomever it was, they were distant, but I'd probably bet on The Holdovers if forced to choose because of how the ranked ballots work).

My Choice: Not a hard one for me-The Zone of Interest is the best in a really solid list of movies (Oscar did better here than he has in a lot of recent years even if there won't be much overlap with my personal ballot).  Behind it (in order) are Killers of the Flower Moon, Past Lives, Oppenheimer, Barbie, American Fiction, The Holdovers, Poor Things, Anatomy of a Fall, and Maestro.  So that means in our six Barbenheimer matchups, Barbie went 5-1...but still missed for Best Picture.

And there you have it-another OVP in the books.  Are you all still enchanted by Oppenheimer, or do you favor a darker picture like The Zone of Interest?  Who do you think was in the second and eleventh places in a year where that was quite murky?  And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2023?  Share your comments below!

Also in 2023: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2023

Past Best Picture Contests: 1931-32, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Actress (2023)

OVP: Best Actress (2023)

The Nominees Were...

Annette Bening, Nyad

Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon

Sandra Huller, Anatomy of a Fall

Carey Mulligan, Maestro

Emma Stone, Poor Things

My Thoughts: Recency bias is one of the most annoying things about being a part of online social media discussions about the Oscars.  You will hear the most insane hyperbole.  Last season, it was a near constant stream of "Stephanie Hsu losing to Jamie Lee Curtis is akin to a war crime" madness (news flash: Jamie Lee Curtis is nowhere near one of the worst acting wins of all time...she wasn't even the worst acting win that night).  In 2023, it felt like this was directed at Lily Gladstone's snub for Best Actress.  As you'll find out in a second, I really liked Gladstone-I think she's talented, and I think this is the sort of performance that grows on you.  But no nominee in 2023, despite what you may have heard on Twitter, was an "all-timer" in a field of winners that includes Blanche DuBois, Ada McGrath, & Mary Poppins.

Gladstone's work, though, is really wonderful.  I loved the interiority of this part.  She is a woman conditioned to only show her true self to people she can trust, and it's shocking to watch the film and understand how little she actually trusts her husband.  The monologue toward the end, where she starts to interrogate him to understand what was real & what wasn't in their marriage, is devastating less because she's realizing this man she has been with for so many years is a liar, but more so because she realizes that she never was able to trust anyone to begin with.  This is the sort of measured consistency she brings to her Mollie Kyle.

Speaking of Twitter controversies, you'd also think that the Academy had committed one of the ultimate sins by choosing Annette Bening over Margot Robbie in Barbie (spoiler alert for my My Ballot on Sunday: neither of them should've been here).  Bening likely got her citation for Nyad because she wanted it, Hollywood loves her, and there's a general consensus that she should have an Oscar by now, which will require some more nominations to rectify.  But I do think that this is better than the reputation it's earned (even if it's not very good...oh lord, why is Twitter making me defend Nyad?).  Bening's chemistry with Jodie Foster is strong here, and I like the single-minded determination she brings to a champion, but the film's perspective is so dull (not getting into the controversy about Nyad after-the-fact was a choice, and a weird one), and this doesn't have all of the best bite that Bening's finest creations have.  But Margot Robbie is doing fine, so settle down.

Emma Stone's work in Poor Things continues a run since her first Oscar that was inevitably leading to a second, as she's too famous and too good to be ignored.  I loved what she did with Bella Baxter.  So much of this season has been me realizing that Poor Things has aged badly for me, but that doesn't mean that I'm blind to its bet asset.  The way that she approaches almost a dozen characters at once (Bella's evolution being so pronounced and exact in each scene, you have to come up with someone new almost every chapter), it's genius.  This is, I'm happy to say, a win that is going to age quite well, as it'll be correctly a definitive performance of her career.

Sandra Huller's work in Anatomy of a Fall could be the announcement of a new international talent (or she could simply be Jean DuJardin, never to be heard of again from Oscar voters).  I think she's much better than a picture I didn't particularly care for (the overlong legal melodrama where they tell you the ending at the beginning is not a genre I want), though I thought she was better in The Zone of Interest.  The work here is layered, with her intentionally not showing too much of her hand (so that the "is she guilty?" question works), though that also holds back some of her performance.  Part of what we need to realize toward the end is if she believes she's innocent, as that's where Huller's performance is going, but we never quite get there.

The final nominee is Carey Mulligan, who like Huller is given a less than ideal vehicle, but one that she makes the best of the situation.  Bradley Cooper's work here is unfulfilled, but I don't feel like his onscreen wife has the same issue.  Mulligan plays the part of a beard, in many other movies a role that would be milked for sympathy or be a joke, as complicated and complete.  We realize that she loved Lenny, but also loved him from a distance because that was the only way she could without abandoning herself to a man she'll never be able to have fully.  I love the brittleness of her work, the way that she also needs to stay "in the closet."  The only thing really lacking is I don't think her ending gives us enough catharsis with her Felicia, but perhaps even that is keeping in character.

Other Precursor Contenders: As you know, the Globes separate between Comedy/Musical and Drama, and for some reason had six-wide fields in 2023, so we have 12 nominees.  Setting up the matchup for the season, we had Gladstone taking Drama over Bening, Huller, Mulligan, Greta Lee (Past Lives), & Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), while Comedy/Musical went to Stone over Fantasia Barrino (The Color Purple), Jennifer Lawrence (No Hard Feelings), Natalie Portman (May December), Alma Poysti (Fallen Leaves), & Margot Robbie (Barbie).  SAG favored Gladstone atop Bening, Mulligan, Robbie, & Stone, while BAFTA went with Stone against Barrino, Huller, Mulligan, Robbie, & Vivian Oparah (Rye Lane).  In sixth place, it was almost certainly Margot Robbie.  She was in a major Best Picture nominee, playing a title character...that's usually enough to make it (for the record, I predicted Bening correctly which was the nominee most missed if they went with the Barbie actress-I missed Mulligan in favor of Robbie).  Despite what future "precursor only" readers will say, I don't think her biggest competition was Greta Lee or Fantasia Barrino-I think it was Aunjanue Ellis for Origin, which could've been the biggest shock of the morning given its late-breaking buzz (if it had opened two weeks earlier, I think she gets in).

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I actually like a performance, in a biopic, and it gets precursor support...and still nothing.  Academy, what are you doing to me by ignoring Cailee Spaeny like this?!?

Oscar’s Choice: In a truly tight race, Stone's position as a producer, her star power, and headlining in a film that the Academy seemed to want to honor more got her a win over Lily Gladstone, one that it was clear she wasn't entirely prepared for (and it's not obvious she even wanted given whom she was beating).

My Choice: I'm going to pick the opposite with Gladstone taking it over Stone (my second place).  I think Gladstone's work is a quiet triumph, whereas Stone's is a loud one, and works more effectively (particularly in both of their films' last thirty minutes).  Behind them, let's go with Mulligan, Huller, and then Bening.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  In the battle of the rolling stones, were you Team Emma or Team Lily?  Are we ever going to see Annette Bening clutching her own Oscar?  And why do people feel the need to throw out such hyperbole about the Academy Awards every season (or in general)?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2023: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2023

Past Best Actress Contests: 1931-32, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Supporting Actress (2018)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2018)

The Nominees Were...

Amy Adams, Vice

Marina de Tavira, Roma

Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

Emma Stone, The Favourite

Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

My Thoughts: Unlike Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress has some truly great performances in 2018 (the women definitely outshone the men in both lead & supporting in 2018).  The problem here, if we're going to call it one, is the reality of category fraud, which is a topic we discuss a lot on this blog (and they discuss virtually everywhere Oscar discussions happen online).  I tend to think of category fraud this way when it comes to the OVP-it's important to level the playing field a bit, so I remove one "star" from a five star rating if someone is committing category fraud to make it in this lineup, because otherwise it's not fair to those people playing in a smaller time slot.  However, I don't blanket refuse to give an award to a performance if, say, that bumps one nomination down to 4-stars and no one else is above a three (this has happened in a few races, like our 2005 & 2012 Supporting Actor fields)-category fraud performances can win, but they need to do so on a higher plane.

The reason I bring this up is that there is at least one surefire category fraud performance here, and debatably a second one.  The first that is obviously a lead is Emma Stone in The Favourite.  I'm not going to get into technical definitions of lead/supporting (while these can be fascinating, they also can border into the silly if you get too literal), but Stone is the lead in this movie-her story is central to the plot, even if Colman might reign as the queen.  So I'm taking a star off, which still puts Stone as one of the best performances in this lineup, because this is the best thing I've seen from her to date.  Her Abigail is spoiled, calculating, and as the film continues, truly amazing in the way she unfolds before our eyes.  It's terrific work from an actress who seems to be doing some of her most fascinating acting after she picked up her Oscar (which gives you the impression that she could well get a second one).

Her costar Rachel Weisz is a slightly different case.  I personally think this is a lead performance, though she doesn't have the screen-time that Stone or Colman do.  Sometimes movies have three leads, and her story is just as central as the others.  Normally for debatable performances I might toe-the-line & not knock down a star, but I don't quite see it that way here and am doing it for Weisz as well.  That's important to say again because Weisz is amazing in The Favourite.  This is some spellbinding work, playing someone who in some ways is similar to Abigail (ruthless, ambitious, greedy), but in other ways she has a different perspective (unlike Abigail, she cares about, perhaps even loves, the Queen but knows that to play such a hand would be to give a vulnerability she's not capable of).  Also, and I know this is an embarrassment of riches, but of the three women she's the best at delivering the film's delicious dialogue.

None of the other performances in the lineup are category fraud worries-the remaining ladies are 100% supporting performances.  The one who gives the Favourite ladies a run for her money is Regina King.  Her work in If Beale Street Could Talk is relegated to two major scenes in the movie, one with her daughter saying she's pregnant & the other in Puerto Rico.  The scene with her daughter, where she defends her child against the baby's other grandmother, is pure acting panache-great scenes, lines, & King aces it.  The Puerto Rico scenes are subtler, but they might be the more impressive achievement.  You see how her Sharon used to be, before she was a mother, the way that she still understands the appeal she once utilized to her advantage, the ease of a lifted veil when not assigned the responsibility of wife-and-mother.  It's technical wizardry from one of our best working actresses.

Amy Adams gets the best-written part in Vice, and probably the part that's the truest to life.  By all accounts Lynne Cheney, not her husband, was the "natural politician" and you see that in the way that Adams brings out her ambition from behind-the-curtain, knowing that she'd never be able to claim the mantle for herself because she was born at the wrong time.  But Adams can't explain why Lynne wants power, and that hurts the performance.  The problem with Vice is that McKay wants us to make these figures evil, but doesn't have the guts to just push that into "we're bad people" territory, thinking it's too easy of an answer.  But Adams' performance lacks that awareness, and it makes even the most ridiculous of scenes (like the infamous Shakespearean dialogue fourth-wall breaking) feel ludicrous, and not stylized.

Marina de Tavira is one of the most shocking nominations in recent history for this category, truly coming out of nowhere to get this nomination after no precursors (none) had paid attention to her.  She is solid in Roma-of the entire cast, which relies on naturalism, she's the professional actor of the bunch & it shows.  I don't buy that "newcomers are the best option" for vehicles like this (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't-we'll get into Yalitza Aparicio next week for my final thoughts), and De Tavira feels best-prepared to encounter some of the more literal aspects of Cuaron's class tale.  But she also isn't the focus, and it's not a daring performance or noteworthy one even if it's the best part in a great movie.  It's not her fault that she got upstaged by the water on the garage floor, because that's where Cuaron wants your attention...but she did get upstaged by it.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Regina King as their victor, and kept Oscar's lineup intact save for De Tavira (they went with Claire Foy in First Man instead).  SAG gave their trophy to Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place) of all people, mostly because they skipped both King & De Tavira (their other nominee was Margot Robbie in Mary Queen of Scots).  BAFTA also skipped both King & De Tavira, adding in Robbie & Foy, and here gave the trophy to Weisz, so a three-way split on the winners of the major precursors.  In terms of sixth place, I know that Foy, Blunt, & Robbie all have their acolytes here, but I honestly think it was Linda Cardellini in Green Book.  The film was very popular (it won Best Picture for a reason), she's in the "long-suffering wife" category, and De Tavira getting in makes me think that Oscar just wasn't feeling some of the other precursor options & was willing to go in a totally different direction.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: At some point we're going to need to see Ann Dowd get in with the Oscars.  She's been so good so often in the past decade we take it for granted, but the brilliant actress was once again marvelous as the enigmatic Joan in Hereditary, totally owning the screen.

Oscar’s Choice: Though the precursors were spread out pretty wide, I honestly think that King won by more than the range of winners would suggest-Weisz or maybe De Tavira could make a decent argument for second, but King's win feels like one of those JK Simmons/Allison Janney-style victories that happen where everyone's collectively like "oh, sure, she's great-let's make her an Oscar winner."

My Choice: I think there are three five-star performances in this lineup...and this is why I led with category fraud as an issue, because I'm going to give this to King as a result.  You'll see all three of these women in the My Ballot in two weeks, but the Favourite ladies will be in lead where they belong, and though Weisz (silver) and Stone (bronze) might be performances I like mildly better than King's, I'm going to stick to my rules and give it to the one true supporting performance.  De Tavira and then Adams round out the list.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Is everyone with Oscar & I in giving Regina King a trophy, or do you want to support an additional nominee?  What is the fairest way to handle an issue like category fraud?  And how often do we have performances like Marina de Tavira's lurking in sixth place, a total shock that we have no idea is sitting there?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2018: Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018

Past Best Supporting Actress Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019