1990 Oscar Viewing Project

"It's the nineties, for God's sake," and indeed it is as we encounter our 34th Oscar Viewing Project (see links to the other 33 below).  The Oscar Viewing Project is now in its 2nd third (we'll likely never be below that at this pace, as I try to get through 5-7 of them a year), and we're entering the first year of what my brother & I refer to as our "wilderness period" of movie watching.  I was born in the 1980's, but the movies didn't become my life until the mid-1990's.  This was driven by a series of events, specifically watching my first Oscars at the 1995 ceremony (i.e. the Braveheart Oscars) on repeat after my brother & I taped it, the inclusion of AMC (and eventually TCM) in my parents' cable package, the advent of the AFI 100 Years TV specials, the discovery of Entertainment Weekly at our school library, the opening of a standalone video rental place in my town, my parents letting me watch PG-13 movies, and my mom instituting Tuesday night movies, where she would take my brother & I (regardless of what was showing) to the 7 PM showing (i.e. the G/PG/sometimes PG-13 slot) while my dad had golf night, and so pretty much every week in the summer from roughly 1995 to 1998 we would watch a movie.  This gave me a pretty extensive vernacular with what was going on in the world of movies, and generally meant I had seen 20-30 films from the calendar year by year's end.

From 1990-1994, though, it's a weird spot because these are not "classics" that I had to seek out or have no memory of watching in real-time, but were really when movies were still just a "normal" thing for me, not something I was obsessed with and made my entire personality.  In 1990, I definitely watched at least two movies (The Rescuers Down Under and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) in theaters, and so I have at least some context for this year in real-time, even if the bulk of these movies are me watching them later at home.  By 1995, Oscar-related films like Apollo 13 & Babe I'd seen in movie theaters, and had known they were going to be Oscar nominees beforehand, and so the early 1990's feel like a weird time of catchup for me as a teenager, a feeling that has stretched well into adulthood.

I give you this preamble in part because this is a personal journey of Oscar exploration, and in part because I think it's good context.  The early 1990's are a time where I see some of these movies from a child's eyes (I remember my parents' VHS copies of films like Ghost & Pretty Woman, and secretly watching them when I was too young to understand what they were wholly about), and revisiting them as an adult has shifted some of my perspective on them, but in other ways they are immobile.  As always, to ground you in the films of the year, the domestic Top 10 at the box office in 1990 was:

1. Home Alone

2. Ghost

3. Dances with Wolves

4. Pretty Woman

5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

6. The Hunt for Red October

7. Total Recall

8. Die Hard 2

9. Dick Tracy

10. Kindergarten Cop

I have actually seen all of these movies, and to underline my point about growing up with them, I had seen 70% (save for #7-9) by the time I turned 16.  Honestly, you have to go Another 48 Hours at #14 on the domestic box office list to find a movie I haven't caught from the top box office that year.  While I have seen all of the Oscar nominees below, there are a couple of precursor contenders that I haven't seen yet, namely The Russia House, White Palace, and Q&A that I haven't caught yet, but plan on doing so before we get to the My Ballot.  

But now, it's time to go back to a time when Nelson Mandela was being freed in front of the world, the Hubble telescope was having us reach for the stars, Roseanne Barr was teaching us new ways to never sing on national television, and the entire nation was mourning the loss of Jim Henson.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Note: For the last time (likely ever) the Visual Effects category was not a competitive category, but instead was given to Total Recall as a special prize.  We'll have a proper category for this when we get to it for the My Ballot with five nominees, and it's worth noting that it's relatively accepted that Dick Tracy, Ghost, and Back to the Future, Part III were shortlisted for this but none of them got nominated (all of which I've seen as well), but I want to note that Total Recall was seen by me for this project, and I generally was impressed with the visual effects, particularly the way that they used makeup effects toward the end of the picture. 

Picture

1. GoodFellas

2. Ghost

3. The Godfather, Part III

4. Dances with Wolves

5. Awakenings

The Lowdown: Let's begin with me saying that 1990 is, collectively, one of the first years I ever saw all five of the Best Picture nominees (I've had this lineup completed since before I graduated high school, which was a while ago), and also a year where (both for Oscar and in general) I don't love the movies themselves as much as others.  The glossy movie star-driven blockbusters that would become the decade's calling card hadn't started yet, and we don't have some of the best prestige work that I enjoyed in the 1980's.  Of these films, it's an easy call for GoodFellas, one of the best films of Martin Scorsese's career.  Ghost ages better with reappraisal, and Godfather 3 is not as bad as its critical reputation allows, but GoodFellas is an easy champion.

Director

1. Martin Scorsese (GoodFellas)

2. Stephen Frears (The Grifters)

3. Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Part III)

4. Barbet Schroder (Reversal of Fortune)

5. Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves)

The Lowdown: It's weird to think about now, but at one point in time Martin Scorsese was basically the Hitchcock or Kubrick of his era-a man who was constantly nominated for Academy Awards but never was able to win any of them.  Meanwhile, I'm giving him his third statue for the OVP (again, links below) for the really incredible way that he upended the gangster flick after decades of hero-worship of it through the Godfather pictures (which of course in this case he competed alongside).  I will also acknowledge I have some respect for Dances with Wolves, but you're going to find out they do not extend to Kevin Costner's involvement in the film (and this ain't its final 5th place finish).

Actor

1. Richard Harris (The Field)

2. Jeremy Irons (Reversal of Fortune)

3. Gerard Depardieu (Cyrano de Bergerac)

4. Robert de Niro (Awakenings)

5. Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves)'

The Lowdown: A very odd lineup, and not a strong one (this isn't Oscar's fault...my My Ballot for 1990 is going to be very weird unless I start discovering some stronger stuff in the upcoming viewings...this is much more a year for actresses).  Oscar went with Jeremy Irons, and honestly this wouldn't be the worst thing that ever happened for the OVP-Irons is a really good actor, one who somehow only got one Oscar nomination despite being in the AMPAS wheelhouse (British, handsome, classy, constantly in prestige fare), but I'm going to go with Harris over him.  Harris's part is a bit more theatrical, but it also has a stronger build, and he's also batting in a lesser movie while still excelling.  The rest, even Robert de Niro, don't really need mention.

Actress

1. Anjelica Huston (The Grifters)

2. Kathy Bates (Misery)

3. Meryl Streep (Postcards from the Edge)

4. Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman)

5. Joanne Woodward (Mr. and Mrs. Bridge)

The Lowdown: While I will own that I'm not inspired by 1990 as a whole, that doesn't mean that I don't have moments, and this is one of the best Best Actress lineups Oscar ever pulled together.  Any of these women would be a winner, and I wouldn't be stunned if my My Ballot looks a lot like this-even Woodward in fifth place is doing a lot of strong work.  I ended up going with Huston over Bates (a controversial choice, I know) not because Bates isn't splendid (one of the best Oscar upsets), but because Huston nails this part so well that I have long been obsessed with it.  The interiority in her work, the way that she nails the animal instinct of that final scene...she's honestly never been better.  I'm aware this means that Bates may never get an OVP statue from me, but...that's why we decide this in a vacuum, and I prefer Huston in a vacuum.

Supporting Actor

1. Joe Pesci (GoodFellas)

2. Andy Garcia (The Godfather, Part III)

3. Bruce Davison (Longtime Companion)

4. Al Pacino (Dick Tracy)

5. Grahame Greene (Dances with Wolves)

The Lowdown: Joe Pesci is one of those truly spectacular actors who rarely works...but when he does, it always felt like an event.  In 1990 you've got him not just nailing the fiery persona behind GoodFellas but also playing the funniest henchmen outside of a DC Comic in Home Alone.  Davison is subtler than I would've expected given the subject matter (his final scene is the best in the movie) and I actually think Andy Garcia brings a hot-headed style to Godfather III (and no, this is not just because I palpitated every time he was onscreen...Andy Garcia in Godfather III was a formative experience for a teenage John watching this on VHS for the first time), but they just aren't in the same hemisphere as what Pesci brings to his doomed mob hitman.

Supporting Actress

1. Whoopi Goldberg (Ghost)

2. Annette Bening (The Grifters)

3. Lorraine Bracco (GoodFellas)

4. Diane Ladd (Wild at Heart)

5. Mary McDonnell (Dances with Wolves)

The Lowdown: While I didn't go with the consensus choice for Best Actress, that won't be the case here.  Whoopi Goldberg owns Ghost, giving us a lesson in comedy, and totally nailing the frequently cliched role of "best friend to the leading lovers" that has long been the bread-and-butter of the romantic genre.  I do really like Annette Bening, particularly the glossy over-her-head feeling she gets the further The Grifters goes (without ever totally telegraphing it), and Lorraine Bracco has strong moments even if she's pitched a little to the hilt in some scenes of GoodFellas, but like Oscar said-this is Whoopi's year.

Foreign Language Film

1. Cyrano de Bergerac (France)

2. The Nasty Girl (Germany)

3. Ju Dou (China)

4. Journey of Hope (Switzerland)

5. Open Doors (Italy)

The Lowdown: For me, this is a pretty tight contest between France & Germany.  I liked elements of Ju Dou, but honestly Raise the Red Lantern a year later leaves a much longer shadow.  Cyrano is more conventional, a space we've gone to before, but this is also my favorite adaptation of Rostand's story, and it doesn't have the not-always-successful narrator tricks of The Nasty Girl, even if the latter has a more compelling story (and honestly, a better lead performance).

Adapted Screenplay

1. GoodFellas

2. The Grifters

3. Reversal of Fortune

4. Dances with Wolves

5. Awakenings

The Lowdown: Adapted Screenplay goes to the crooks, and the two films I pretty much universally love of this bunch: GoodFellas and The Grifters.  There's something wonderful about The Grifters, a movie I find I champion more than most do, as it strips down some of the best elements of the neo-noir (the sex, the deceit, the ability to have a non-Hays Code ending) and creates something that feels fresh and calculating, but I can't deny GoodFellas in the end, the extremely rare screenplay so well-written it even makes the narration work.

Original Screenplay

1. Ghost

2. Metropolitan

3. Avalon

4. Alice

5. Green Card

The Lowdown: A pretty middling field, even if none are objectively bad.  I'm picking Ghost not just because it's the best, but also because it takes a really challenging genre to make without it turning camp or cloying (the romantic drama-fantasy) and really makes it sell (it's also genuinely funny).  Metropolitan is the most sophisticated (I was stunned to find out it's not based on a play or novel), and part of me wants to go with it but I think its ending doesn't work at all, and neither Avalon nor a weak default nomination for Woody Allen really compare to the Unchained Melody of Ghost.

Sound

1. Dances with Wolves

2. Total Recall

3. Days of Thunder

4. The Hunt for Red October

5. Dick Tracy

The Lowdown: We're shifting into the Oscar era for Best Sound where we are very much valuing the big, action-film even over the prestige fare of the giant epic (Dances with Wolves is the only epic in this bunch, and it's not without its battle scenes).  I actually really like what the team does with Dances with Wolves, between the Civil War beginnings to the way that it adds elements of "the last western" realism to the scenes with Costner off finding himself, all while beautifully bringing in that lush John Barry score.  Total Recall and its futuristic & impressive battles would also have been a good idea, but I think I'm ready to give a statue to Oscar's Best Picture winner here.

Sound Editing

1. The Hunt for Red October

2. Total Recall

3. Flatliners

The Lowdown: It's a running joke with Oscar that he tends to, when it was a separate category, always think first of submarine movies when it comes to Sound Effects Editing (look at the history of the category-it pops up way more than you'd think), and to some degree I agree with him.  The water effects, constant claustrophobia, & many buttons & levers of The Hunt for Red October are really done and a large part of what builds the suspense, even if the space age adventures, and especially some of the final scenes in the dying planet of Mars in Total Recall hold their own.

Score

1. Dances with Wolves

2. Home Alone

3. Avalon

4. Ghost

5. Havana

The Lowdown: I feel like a lot of these OVP Score contests from the 1970's through the 2020's is a battle of "to John Williams or not to John Williams" and this is a particularly tough one as I adore the score to Home Alone (and honestly Avalon or Ghost would be a good winner here too...there's only one true dud in this lineup).  But John Barry's score to Dances with Wolves is just a perfect piece of music, and adds the best parts to a movie I really did not care for overall.  It deserves the W.

Original Song

1. "I'm Checking Out" (Postcards from the Edge)

2. "Somewhere in My Memory" (Home Alone)

3. "Sooner or Later" (Dick Tracy)

4. "Blaze of Glory" (Young Guns II)

5. "Promise Me You'll Remember" (The Godfather, Part III)

The Lowdown: You know that line that I said above about how movies have connections to your childhood you can't really escape.  For me, one of the few true memories of childhood, specifically around Christmas, that I need to bring back every year is hearing "Somewhere in My Memory" playing in the background.  It's also a movie that reminds me, more than maybe any other, of my little brother as I know how much he loves Home Alone, which gives it a nostalgic necessity I really cherish.  I'm judging on a scale (and honestly all of these movies are good), and for me "I'm Checking Out" is better (and better-used in the film) so I'm giving it the trophy, but it's tight and you should expect both to end up in the My Ballot.

Art Direction

1. Dick Tracy

2. Hamlet

3. The Godfather, Part III

4. Cyrano de Bergerac

5. Dances with Wolves

The Lowdown: Honestly, a really solid lineup (there are no losers in this bunch, even if I won't repeat all of them with my My Ballot).  I tend to like the Mel Gibson Hamlet more than most (for the record, people turned on this one well before they turned on Gibson), and I think the castles & work here is really beautiful.  But Dick Tracy is so inventive, it's impossible to deny-the comic book lights, the way that it feels at once like it's springing from a dime novel AND a 1940's Hollywood set, despite relatively modern makeup & visual effects surrounding it-and all that color!  Glorious!

Cinematography

1. Dances with Wolves

2. The Godfather, Part III

3. Avalon

4. Dick Tracy

5. Henry & June

The Lowdown: Leave it to those crazy pervs in the Cinematography branch to totally go for a film as banal as Henry & June just because they tastefully shot most of the sex scenes so well.  That random silliness aside, this is really a battle between the increasingly aged & sepia-hued glories of The Godfather, Part III and the gorgeous expanses of Dances with Wolves (points are due for the way that Avalon feels of another time though).  I would not be opposed to giving it to the third Godfather film (and lord knows Gordon Willis deserved a competitive Oscar at some point), but it's hard to argue with the glories of the West.

Costume Design

1. Hamlet

2. Cyrano de Bergerac

3. Dick Tracy

4. Avalon

5. Dances with Wolves

The Lowdown: Hamlet has been cited three times (to date) for Best Costume Design, and like 1948 (see link below), we are giving it the gold medal here (1996's version with Kenneth Branagh is still unseen, but don't worry...we'll get there eventually-every one of these contests I do I become more & more determined to truly finish this project...also fun fact within a fun fact-I have been to Elsinore in my world travels, and thought it was breathtaking).  For me, the biggest competition is the period costuming in Cyrano.  I think some of the comic book costuming in Dick Tracy is a bit silly, and Avalon doesn't stand out, but the gorgeous 17th Century decorations of France were on-par with 14th Century Denmark, but not quite enough to conquer to the monologuing Dane.

Film Editing

1. GoodFellas

2. The Godfather, Part III

3. Dances with Wolves

4. Ghost

5. The Hunt for Red October

The Lowdown: I feel at this point like a broken record-GoodFellas was the best, and somewhere behind it is Godfather III and Ghost.  I will own, given its really rough reputation as a movie, that Godfather III being in second here is no accident.  I think a lot of the problems with it are casting (Sofia Coppola, apologies, but you are the weakest link...and George Hamilton is not a strong substitute for Robert Duvall), but the editing works-we get a really strongly-structured story, one that feels inline with the originals even if it isn't that level of classic (like, say, GoodFellas, which basically invented a new type of editing with its cocaine-inspired manic nature).

Makeup

1. Dick Tracy

2. Edward Scissorhands

3. Cyrano de Bergerac

The Lowdown: It feels weird to end in Makeup, not Visual Effects (I believe this is the only time we'll do this as we're alphabetical and Makeup has been a category for a much shorter time than Visual Effects), but I'm glad we're doing it with two icons of the category.  There are only winners between the garish brilliance of Dick Tracy and the transformative genius of Edward Scissorhands (honestly, Cyrano ain't bad either), but I'm going with Dick Tracy both because there's more characters to be in awe of and because it feels so in-tune with the glorious silliness of a comic strip, rather than needing to take itself too seriously.

Past Oscar Viewing Projects: 1931-32, 1948, 1957, 1964, 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, 2025

OVP: The Untouchables (1987)

Film: The Untouchables (1987)

Stars: Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia, Robert de Niro

Director: Brian de Palma

Oscar History: 4 nominations/1 win (Best Supporting Actor-Sean Connery*, Art Direction, Costume Design, Original Score)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Sean Connery: click here to learn more about Mr. Connery (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We're going to cover two Connery films today as I missed last week, but didn't want to short-change him, so we'll talk through both his time in the 1980's and, this evening, the 1990's.  Connery was, by the early 1980's, a movie star but not a consistent box office presence.  While he had made hits (Time Bandits dwarfed its production costs in 1981), nothing he had done had, quite frankly, approached what he had achieved with James Bond, and as a result Connery was talked into making his final installment in the franchise in 1983 with Never Say Never Again.  This was something he did without Eon Productions (traditionally the production house for Bond films), and he did so in a head-to-head competition with Roger Moore, who had Octopussy out that year.  Both films were huge successes at the box office, though Moore's film ended up on top.  Connery hated the experience, and stuck to his commitment to "never again" after this one (he would never appear in a Bond film again), and indeed wouldn't even make a movie for two years after this.

(Spoilers Ahead) Connery probably could've played his types of middling, increasingly aging rogues & fictional knights forever for the rest of his career, the memory of Bond so appealing to nostalgic movie producers who grew up idolizing him, but it was today's film that truly changed the course of his career & legacy.  The Untouchables is a film where Connery gets second billing to Kevin Costner, not remotely as famous as him at the time, but it was a smart move to choose a supporting part.  The Untouchables is a highly-fictionalized look at Eliot Ness (Costner), the federal agent who led the efforts to take down Al Capone (de Niro), and features Connery in a role as a rogue cop, one who is brought in as part of Ness's operation, which is ultimately successful in beating Capone (or at least sending him to jail), but (because this is a Brian de Palma film) not without a lot of very bloody corpses along the way.  Like most of de Palma's films, I struggled with this.  Costner's one of the blandest leading men of his era, gorgeous but blank-faced and rarely a compelling figure in the lead (and if we're judging solely on looks, Andy Garcia is even prettier than him at this point), and Robert de Niro is actively terrible in this movie, a hint of the many cash-grabs the acting icon would have in the decades to come.  The best part of the movie, for me, was Ennio Morricone's score (and that flawless Giorgio Armani tailoring).

Connery is solid, though, not nearly as good as he is in, say, The Man Who Would Be King, but he's winning and very good at embracing the role of "aging sexy guy who mentors a younger star," something that he'd started with Christopher Lambert in 1986's Highlander, and which would become the bulk of the remainder of his career.  For much of the catty press he took back in 1983 for Never Say Never Again, about how he and Moore were far too old to be believable as aging action stars bedding women young enough to be their daughters, it did feel like Connery's place as an action star would soon fade.  But here, he showed how well he could fit in-he was a tough guy, someone who was grizzled but had "one last go in him" and this would be something he'd ride for the next 15 years or so, but also would carve out for others like him.  Action stars, because of Connery's work in this and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade a few years later, had a path for a second act, one with a lot of box office (The Untouchables was a massive hit, the sixth highest-grossing film at the domestic box office in 1987, and made 3x as much as de Palma's now much-obsessed Scarface), so the paydays (and movie stardom) could continue even as the stunt work became less intense.

It also would define Connery's career because it made him one of the only action stars to date to win an Academy Award.  In the 1980's, with a lot of Golden Age actors aging to the point where they were near death, we saw a lot of the leading actors of that era winning "sentimental" Oscars.  Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, Geraldine Page, Don Ameche, Paul Newman, & Jessica Tandy would all take home Oscars at the time, and with this movie, Connery would as well.  Connery's win is one that it's hard to fault the Oscars (it's cool that he won a sstatue, even if I don't know that I'm going to agree with them in the 1987 OVP), and certainly they did worse in the era, but it gave him a nobility that would become a trademark the remainder of his life, and gave him a further distinction over future James Bond actors none of whom (to date) have ever gotten so much as a nomination.

OVP: Supporting Actor (2023)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2023)

The Nominees Were...

Sterling K. Brown, American Fiction

Robert de Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon

Robert Downey, Jr., Oppenheimer

Ryan Gosling, Barbie

Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things

My Thoughts: And now we officially are in the acting races!  I've noticed slightly less traffic to this series than normal, which I'm chalking up to this being right after the 96th Academy Awards, so you're all tired of the field and would prefer something more retro (don't worry, in June we're be going to do our first foray into the 1990's, so there'll be plenty of nostalgia for everyone).  But, I'm hoping that today and tomorrow will be a fun discussion.  The supporting races at the Oscars were such a foregone conclusion that, quite frankly, it feels like these lineups were under-discussed more than anything else.

For example, did it feel like we were having a moment for Robert de Niro last year?  Nearly fifty years after his first Oscar nomination for The Godfather, Part II, he got his ninth acting nomination for Killers of the Flower Moon, playing the unfathomably evil patriarch of a crime syndicate.  De Niro is giving his best performance...maybe in my lifetime, honestly?  It's spectacular stuff, with the way that he shows his hands repeatedly (this is a man who feels unexpected and yet doesn't have much of a poker face), and yet you are always caught off-guard by his ruthlessness.  Really good stuff, and surprisingly strong chemistry with DiCaprio.

Ryan Gosling gave what might end up being his most memorable role at the end of his career.  Gosling's winning celebrity combined with his lousy box office returns (save Barbie) means that he's been one of our most consistent actors and has done so in genuinely good movies.  That's true here, giving us the best version of his handsome goofball.  There was some press about how "Ken got nominated but not Barbie" in 2023, but that's because Gosling steals literally every scene in the movie he's in, embodying a himbo energy with a silly, broken man.  It's a masterclass in comedy.

This isn't the case for Mark Ruffalo.  Ruffalo was once the Ryan Gosling in movies (compare his work in You Can Count on Me with Gosling's in Blue Valentine...you'll find the similarities), but Gosling is better at over-acting.  Ruffalo's work here isn't enough.  I kind of liked some of his earlier scenes, where he plays a lothario who is just intent on getting into Emma Stone's pants, but when he's asked to play wide in the latter half of the movie, he whiffs more than he connects.  There's too much silly, especially compared to the more sophisticated "big" acting that Stone is doing next to him.

Robert Downey, Jr., like his Avengers costar (it should not be lost that 60% of this category has Marvel credentials given our next nominee was in Black Panther), can suffer from "too much" acting, but that's not the case with Oppenheimer.  I don't think this ranks amongst his best work (which, for my taste, is either Tropic Thunder or Ally McBeal), but it's also a very respectable way to give him an Oscar.  He plays his villain with a sense of entitlement (but also coordination) that feels like a DC creature, someone who is always ready to spring forward with his next line-of-attack, the next ploy for a promotion.  It feels custom-made for him, but that doesn't mean he doesn't ace it.

Our final nominee is the problem.  Sterling K. Brown is not just the worst of these nominees, he's the worst of all 20 acting nominees in 2023.  I am not someone who cares that much about if straight people play gay roles, but they do need to be believable as gay people, which he is not.  He plays this role as too stereotypical, frequently feeling like he has no sense of being attracted to men other than "it's in the script."  To be fair to him, this is the most phoned in character in Cord Jefferson's script, and is filled with a lot of really rough stereotypes about gay people (making him a man-crazy, irresponsible drug addict), but it's so flat, and truly, an egregiously bad performance that would feel more at-home at the Razzies.

Other Precursor Contenders: First off, I hate that the Globes expanded to six nominees per category, as it's such a copout due to a bunch of online whining (news flash: there are more than five good performances in a year...it doesn't stop being a good performance if they're not in the Top 5).  Downey won, besting de Niro, Gosling, Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe (Poor Things), & Charles Melton (May December).  SAG stuck with five, giving it to Downey over Brown, Dafoe, de Niro, & Gosling, while BAFTA also picked Downey atop de Niro, Gosling, Jacob Elordi (Saltburn), Paul Mescal (All of Us Strangers), & Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers) (side note, but this is one of the best lineups I've seen from BAFTA in a while).  The sixth place was undoubtedly Dafoe, though I also think Dominic Sessa was probably on more ballots than his precursor run would let on...it's the kind of co-lead role that gets into this category.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: Both of the supporting men in All of Us Strangers (father Jamie Bell, boyfriend Paul Mescal) are spectacular.  In a year where we spent a lot of time discussing whether both Poor Things actor would get in, we should've been focused on the supporting men of Andrew Haigh's brilliant picture.

Oscar’s Choice: Downey won by so much, you honestly could make an argument for pretty much anyone (save Brown) in second...and no, it isn't automatically Gosling (de Niro is a legend who has been waiting for that third Oscar for 43 years, Ruffalo is clearly going to win at some point, and this was a big picture for him...either of them could've been the runner-up).

My Choice: Depending on the day, it'd be Gosling or de Niro, but more days I land on the latter, so I'm giving it to the villain of Killers of the Flower Moon (both are showing in my My Ballot, and either would've ranked amongst the best winners of this category).  In third is Downey, followed by Ruffalo and then Brown.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you want to attend Senate hearings with Robert Downey, Jr., or do you want to join Robert de Niro & I in Oklahoma?  Ryan Gosling & Mark Ruffalo both feel like inevitable Oscar winners at this point-who gets it first?  And was it Dafoe or Sessa in sixth place?  Share in the comments!

Also in 2023: 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 Supporting Actor Contests: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Picture (2019)

OVP: Best Picture (2019)

The Nominees Were...

Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, & James Mangold, Ford vs. Ferrari

Martin Scorsese, Robert de Niro, Jane Rosenthal, & Emma Tillinger Koskoff, The Irishman

Carthew Neal, Taika Waititi, & Chelsea Winstanley, Jojo Rabbit

Todd Phillips, Bradley Cooper, & Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Joker

Amy Pascal, Little Women

Noah Baumbach & David Heyman, Marriage Story

Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris, Jayne-Ann Tenggren, & Callum McDougall, 1917

David Heyman, Shannon McIntosh, & Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Kwak Sin Ae & Bong Joon Ho, Parasite

My Thoughts: All right, we are now finishing off our look at 2019.  As I said, we'll do the "If I Had a Ballot" next Thursday, but this will be the last individual Oscar contest we'll look at, and while I enjoyed a lot of these films, I will admit I'm excited to close this down.  2019's races have dominated much of the pandemic; we've been doing this ceremony for not the whole quarantine, but it's the only year so far where I've been all inside so I'm hoping that by the time we finish our next contest (we'll be kicking it off in the next few days, possibly as soon as Friday) many of you (and hopefully me) will have gotten vaccinated, and perhaps we'll have started to talk about movies I saw in movie theaters, rather than at home.

Weirdly I saw every single one of these in theaters, despite the fact that most of you probably caught Marriage Story on Netflix.  While Roma the year prior had been the first "streaming service" movie to be cited for Best Picture, Netflix came out with a vengeance here, nabbing two nominations for Best Picture, and this is the one that perhaps played just as well at home.  The intimate tale of a marriage falling apart is brilliantly-acted, led by both Adam Driver & Scarlett Johansson (our choices for both lead acting Oscars).  I loved it-it is such a rich film, one that doesn't hide the warts of divorce or try to simplify the feelings when you stop loving another person (or being able to love them the way you did).  It's a sign that you don't need epic stories or grand-scale adventure to make a film feel complete.

But it's not like grand-scale adventure hurts when done correctly.  No film on this list has aged better in my mind than 1917, which takes the huge and makes it universal for the audience.  The point-of-view approach to war has been done before, but rarely has it been done with the cinematographer & director instructing the audience where to turn...1917 uses the approach we get from video games to feel present, but uses the specificity & jumps of movies to ensure you don't feel like we're cheapening the emotion & toll that combat brings.  It's one of the best war films I've seen in the past ten years, and proof that Sam Mendes could, in fact, make a second "Best Picture" even if he didn't win one.

That honor would, of course, go to Parasite in one of the bigger recent upsets from the Oscars, as the Korean film became the first movie not in English to win the top Academy Award.  It would take a truly spellbinding film to break such a streak, and that's what this is.  Parasite melds genres & storylines with sophistication & deftness, never staying on one plot that long, and yet not once feeling chaotic or like it's pulling in the wrong direction.  Bong Joon-Ho issues a damning look at the have's and have not's of our society, and how arbitrary (and cruel) wealth can be.  Parasite is an all-timer, one of those Oscar choices that is always going to look good.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a reminder, though, that Oscar doesn't always change, and it loves nothing better than rewarding itself.  The one film that has the most Hollywood connections, this is also some redemption for Quentin Tarantino after the overlong Django Unchained and the near-unwatchable Hateful Eight.  Hollywood needs editing, and it doesn't quite know how to end the movie (pulling a page from Inglourious Basterds but without the shock false history), but few directors care so much about where their films come from than Tarantino, and you see that in the way he pays homage to films & television that created the movie that we are seeing in front of us.

Little Women is aware of what came before it, of course, though not always in the right ways.  Though I was familiar with elements of the novel, this movie is not for newcomers to Alcott's tale, and as it's played for people unfamiliar with what comes next for the March sisters, it reads as too chaotic in spurts.  A miscast Saoirse Ronan (I love her, but it's true) also hurts the film, but it is saved by a star-turn performance from Florence Pugh (and the continued manic pixie magic of Timothee Chalamet), but it's not a rescue without casualties.  Little Women is good but it never approaches the greatness that we've come to expect from pretty much everyone involved with its creation.

It is not, however, a car wreck in the vein of Ford vs. Ferrari, a film that knows a thing or two about car wr...you get the pun.  Though Christian Bale & Matt Damon are actually better with lighter roles (which this should be), it meanders & becomes an ode to moronic masculinity.  I opined at the time that the script was one of the worst I'd viewed in 2019, and it's true.  Saddled with bad lines, and with the most hackneyed villain role I've seen from a mainstream actor in years (Josh Lucas, what were you thinking?), Ford never even starts on track, much less stays there.

The Irishman could've been in a similar boat.  After all, this is another film about the pressures of masculinity, and it's from a director who can watch his films meander (at 3+ hours long, The Irishman is by-far the longest film on this list).  But it doesn't-this is a movie that feels like the conclusion of the mob genre, ending the stories of Little Caesar and The Godfather with a quick dose of cinema magic (in the forms of three leading man icons), and then injecting dose-after-dose of realism, giving us what it's like to be a man whose family becomes the backseat of his life, devoted to a job that will never appreciate what he gave up to make it successful.

Joker wants to be that for comic book films, bringing realism to a world that we know by heart, and making us see it anew.  Alas, Joker is the latest in a long line of movies who confuse dourness for importance.  A misguided lead piece-of-work from Joaquin Phoenix doesn't give it the soul it needs, and the movie is so bereft of anything but cruelty, it has no shading, oftentimes feeling like you're watching a paint-by-numbers snuff film.  There's some beauty in the tech elements, yes, but that can't save it from itself-the only thing worse than a sad clown is a clown that doesn't seem to have a point.

Weirdly while Joker takes a cartoon & fails to make it real, Jojo Rabbit has more success taking a real villain & turning him into a cartoon.  I know that this movie split critics more than maybe any other on this film (save Joker), but I quite liked Taika Waititi's take on Adolf Hitler, as seen through the mind of a young boy obsessed with Nazism.  Jojo Rabbit struggles with good taste, and someone like Rebel Wilson is pretty ill-cast (and the ending is inappropriate), but it's actually funny in parts, features strong performances from the child actors, and Waititi convinces you that he's an actor he should be casting in more of his movies.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split their nominations between Comedy/Musical and Drama, so we have a full ten nominees here.  Drama gave the top prize to 1917, and because of the HFPA rules skipped Parasite (which won Best Foreign Language Film instead), so Sam Mendes instead beat Irishman, Joker, Marriage Story, and The Two Popes.  Once Upon a Time in Hollywood bested the race for Comedy/Musical, here over Dolemite is My Name, Jojo Rabbit, Knives Out, and Rocket Man.  BAFTA remains the only major awards show with only five nominations, and 1917 won Best Picture, over Irishman, Hollywood, Joker, and Parasite, while at the PGA the ten-wide field was a carbon copy of Oscar's (plus Knives Out), with 1917 taking the trophy.  In terms of tenth place finishes, it's honestly a tossup between Knives and The Two Popes...I can see an argument for either.

Films I Would Have Nominated: We'll get to my full ballot next Thursday, but as of now I just want to say that it's a shame that Ad Astra, a cerebral space odyssey, and Transit, a mesmerizing Kafkaesque look at a Casablanca-style romance, didn't end up in this list as they are truly movies for the ages.

Oscar’s Choice: In one of the biggest upsets in modern Best Picture history, Parasite triumphed over the season-long frontrunner 1917 out-the-gate, and considering it won Best Director, it might have honestly been by a decent margin.

My Choice: I will also go with Parasite, here over The Irishman...it's fresher cinema, and a more difficult task.  Marriage Story, 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Jojo Rabbit, Little Women, Joker, and Ford vs. Ferrari follow, in that order.

And with that, we close 2019, though it will carry on in the comments if you so choose.  I feel like the collective internet prefers Parasite, but does anyone want to make the case for a different film (there are other good movies here-I'll buy the argument)?  If this had been ten-wide, would it have been Knives Out or The Two Popes that got the final spot?  And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2019?  Share your comments below!

Also in 2019: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Animated Short, Live Action Short, Previously in 2019

Past Best Picture Contests: 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

No Globe? No SAG? No Problem!

Yalitza & Marina:
Always the Bride, Never the Bridesmaid

This week has been an eye-opening one from the precursors.  We've seen unexpected success for Bombshell, Taron Egerton, and Parasite, while also witnessing the revived Oscar prospects of people like Annette Bening & Jamie Foxx.  Inevitably some of these people will end up disappointed in a few weeks (but they still get to be in hit movies and be nominated for other major awards, so they should be fine), but today we're going to focus on those people who watched their Oscar hopes go up in flames this week...or did they?

Yes, it's time for one of my all-time favorite traditions at TMROJ: our annual "No Globe/No Sag/No Problem!" article.  For those unfamiliar, every year we take a look at one of the more under-reported aspects of the awards season, that despite people pretending like anyone without a Globe or SAG nomination is DOA when it comes to Oscar, almost always there's at least 1-3 actors who randomly get nominated without either of these precursors.  Even in an era of group think with the Academy, we have not had a year where no one is a "new name" since 2006, which was largely due to the bizarre Best Supporting Actor race that season (nine different actors were cited in those categories that year between the Globes & SAG Awards).  For reference, in the past ten years these have been the "No Globes, No SAG" victors with AMPAS:

2018: Marina de Tavira & Yalitza Aparicio
2017: Lesley Manville
2016: Michael Shannon
2015: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Hardy & Mark Ruffalo
2014: Bradley Cooper, Marion Cotillard, & Laura Dern
2013: Jonah Hill
2012: Quvenzhane Wallis, Emmanuelle Riva, & Jacki Weaver
2011: Gary Oldman & Max von Sydow
2010: Javier Bardem
2009: Maggie Gyllenhaal

As you can see from the above, the "No Globe/No SAG" contenders usually fall into one of two camps.  Either they are previous nominees/winners who are making a late play for the Oscar nomination, as they're already established enough with the Academy that they don't need precursors to get their screener into the DVD player, or they are "halo" nominations from films that are doing well in the Best Picture or other acting races that sneak onto enough ballots to get a fourth or fifth place nomination.  It's worth noting that none of these actors usually end up winning (I believe the last time that someone pulled off an Oscar win without either precursor nomination was Marcia Gay Harden in 2000), but it's too soon to count the following ten contenders out of Oscar's big night:

Honorable Mention: I genuinely thought about including Margot Robbie for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, as that's a nomination I could totally see happening, but it also doesn't really go with the spirit of this article since Robbie has received attention from the Globes and SAG this year for her work in Bombshell.  However, if she gets in on Once (totally plausible if Oscar doesn't have the crush on Bombshell that the precursors did), that would technically count here even though it's not really the same thing as some of the past actors listed above.

10. Adam Sandler (Uncut Gems)

For Him: He's been a critical darling all season (NBR Best Actor prize), and he's made a lot of Academy members rich through the years.  The reviews on Uncut Gems are solid-it could honestly surprise in Director or Screenplay at this point-better than any film that Sandler has made since Punch-Drunk Love.  He seems to really want the nomination, and has been out on the campaign trail pushing for this hard.
Against Him: If Sandler was going to score in a major awards ceremony, it was the Globes, right?  He's a movie star, a recognizable name, and would show up-shouldn't the Globes have eaten that combination up?  Best Actor is littered with names this year, and Uncut Gems looks dark & seedy from the trailer.  Considering they're already going that route with Joaquin Phoenix, will they really want such a downer this close to Christmas?

9. Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit)

For Her: McKenzie best fits the mold of "major performance in a likely Best Picture nominee" better than most on this list.  Her work here is arguably the most traditional for Jojo Rabbit to get recognition, as a young Jewish woman forced into hiding during the Holocaust.  It's a big role, bordering on lead, and she was in the conversation last year for Leave No Trace-could she have residual goodwill here?
Against Her: Scarlett Johansson also has a bait-y role to award Jojo with in Best Supporting Actress, as a sympathetic, long-suffering mother, and she's having the bigger year (and has more star power in a category that increasingly doesn't have time for newcomers).  Double nominations in the same category for the same film are rare this century-can McKenzie buck someone like Annette Bening or Kathy Bates to get this citation?

8. John Lithgow (Bombshell)

For Him: He's a legend, one who has never won an Oscar despite being nominated a couple times, wearing a mountain of prosthetic to play the film's villain.  Lithgow is the sort of actor who sometimes scores here-he's worked with everyone, and he's playing a key role in a movie that's gotten a lot more heat than you'd expect (that SAG Ensemble nomination should raise eyebrows for people who had been dismissing this as a Best Picture nominee possibility).  Oscar loves a transformation.
Against Him: I haven't seen Bombshell, but it seems odd that Lithgow wasn't cited by either of these bodies with such a plum (on-paper) part.  Is Roger Ailes largely sidelined, or does he make this too hammy (occasionally a problem for the theatrically-suited actor)?  Kidman, Robbie, & Theron keep getting in for Oscar-why isn't Lithgow?

7. Alan Alda (Marriage Story)

For Him: Alda's only other Oscar nomination came in a form similar to this, where he managed to avoid all precursors but get in on a supporting role for a major Best Picture contender (The Aviator).  Here he's playing a memorable bumbling lawyer who has both seen the world and also needs to find a way to be personal and cutthroat at the same time.  His chemistry with inevitable nominee Adam Driver is strong-could that translate?
Against Him: If you've seen the film, it's hard to come away liking Alda's character even if you like Alda himself in the role.  I suspect many (particularly male) members of the Academy won't want to issue such an endorsement to him; that feels like the most likely reason that a legend such as Alda is missing for what could have been a plum role.

6.  Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit)

For Him: Waititi is best-in-show in Jojo Rabbit, a movie that has solid buzz for a Best Picture nomination.  It's hard to imagine someone wanting to put this in the Best Picture field and not also citing this comedic detour (if you think Jojo Rabbit is one of the year's finest films, you're going to think the same of Waititi).  He's the only person (kind of) playing a real life person in the movie, which always helps with Oscar.
Against Him: Is he famous enough for people to get him in on strength alone?  He's a director, which rarely translates when they try to act (it's more common to reward the reverse), and there are those who could view his portrayal as insensitive.  Plus, it's a proper supporting part competing against a lot of leads and near-leads, which puts him on uneven playing ground.

5. Florence Pugh (Little Women)

For Her: Pugh is having the kind of year where you randomly get an Oscar nomination.  She's gone from critical darling a couple of years ago with Lady Macbeth (so good!) to proper leading woman this year with Midsommar.  The Ari Aster film is too out-there for Oscar to give his approval, but Little Women is supposedly a plum showcase for her, and if there's momentum for the film with Oscar, she could sneak in as a result.
Against Her: Is Little Women going to be considered too feminine for this male-dominated Oscar race?  I'm getting that vibe, and while Pugh is supposedly the standout, Amy is not really the role that gets people's attention in past tellings of Alcott's story.  Could she also be suffering from internal competition as there's at least four other actresses (Laura Dern, Meryl Streep, Eliza Scanlen, & Emma Watson) in the film with significant parts?

4. Sam Rockwell (Richard Jewell)

For Him: Rockwell has been on something of a role with the Oscars lately, winning in 2017 and then getting an "afterglow" nomination for last year's Vice.  Rockwell again is in a significant role in a late-breaking political contender this year with Richard Jewell, and Clint Eastwood is very good at getting people nominations for his movies.  Considering that at least the fifth slot for Best Supporting Actor is a loose race, could Rockwell sneak in again?
Against Him: The reviews on Richard Jewell are mixed, and the film's treatment of Olivia Wilde's character has already attracted Eastwood's movie outraged reviews, with some calling the film anti-feminist.  Rockwell has gotten in for controversial movies before, but they had Best Picture buzz, which Richard Jewell doesn't seem to do.  If Bates is a stretch, can Eastwood really extend a second nomination on such a short leash?

3. Zhao Shuzhen (The Farewell)

For Her: It's hard not to love Zhao in The Farewell.  She's the heart-and-soul of the picture, and in many ways she reminds me of someone like June Squibb, an older character actor that would delight Oscar voters on the red carpet.  The Farewell got attention at the Globes, so it's probable that Oscar voters are going to be putting the film in their screener pile.
Against Her: Supporting performances in foreign languages are a tough sell with Oscar, and Asian actors have a criminally-short history with Oscar (only six actors of Eastern Asian descent have ever been nominated for an Oscar).  Will The Farewell have enough of a cache with Oscar to overcome both of those barriers?  It probably needs a Best Picture citation and maybe even a nomination for Awkafina to get there-can that happen?

2. Alfre Woodard (Clemency)

For Her: She's a legend in a category that is in need of one this year (Woodard is the only plausible nominee who is over the age of 50 in the Best Actress race).  Word is very strong on her performance here (pretty much everyone who has seen it has her on their personal Top 5), and Best Actress seems the most fluid (only Zellweger feels like a proper lock).  If you look above people like Charlotte Rampling, Emmanuelle Riva, and Lesley Manville all got in largely on being longtime character actor legends.
Against Her: If Clemency had come out in October, I think Woodard would have been nominated for the Globes & the SAG, and be a sure bet for Oscar this year.  It's not though-Neon foolishly is putting its release date after Christmas, thus depriving Woodard of momentum.  She could still make it (she's an awards darling & could coast in solely on her name recognition/respect in the industry), but this should have been an easy call in a year as eclectic as 2019 for Best Actress.

1. Robert de Niro (The Irishman)

For Him: He's Robert de Niro, and he's in a Best Picture nominee.  That's almost always a recipe for success-in the seven years where de Niro was in a Best Picture nominee, he's only missed out on a nomination once (for the curious, 1986's The Mission).  Plus, it's easy to see why he missed with precursors-the Globes dislike de Niro after he disparaged them when he won the Cecil B. DeMille (he also missed for Silver Linings Playbook, for which he scored an Oscar nod), and he's already winning the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award so there wasn't as much pressure to nominate him there.  It'd be so strange for de Niro to miss for a movie that looked so strong to win Best Picture.
Against Him: De Niro is a legend-petty road blocks are things HFPA and SAG theoretically would get by to get back to the movie star worship.  His role isn't as showy as Pacino's or as out-of-character as Pesci's, and arguably he's hurt the most by the de-aging visual effects.  While male movie stars missing for Best Actor for a Best Picture winner is rare, it does happen (Argo, Chicago, Braveheart)-could The Irishman be in this club?