I didn't do this at the time because the Oscars were so early this season. In hindsight, while I think this led to some boring uniformity at the ceremony (yet another case of the same four acting winners taking trophies, and they didn't even pose for the "all four acting winners" picture for reasons-I still want someone to logically explain why to me), this was a blessing. If we'd had the Oscars in late February/early-March, there's a decent chance that the ceremony might not have happened at all, and so while I didn't love all of the winners, I'd prefer a boring ceremony to no ceremony. With the ceremony early, though, I didn't get the chance to see some of the nominees until the awards, and I was late to doing my personal ceremony due to COVID-related reasons, so here we are. In all major Oscar categories (skipping Foreign Film, Docs, and Shorts because I don't see enough of them to feel like I can give a robust nominations' list), here are who I would have picked for nominees.
1917
Ad Astra
End of the Century
Director
James Gray, Ad Astra
Bong Joon-Ho, Parasite
Terrence Malick, A Hidden Life
Christian Petzold, Transit
Martin Scorsese, The Irishman
Gold: Again, Ad Astra is a director's achievement in a lot of ways. I have liked but not loved some other James Gray films before, but I feel like this leans hard into his strengths, and is sort of the perfect combination of surreal & insightful.
Silver: Bong Joon-Ho creates a magnum opus regarding the class system in South Korea, keeping a film that could easily go off-the-rails completely marching forward.
Bronze: Petzold's film is a high-wire risk, something that could easily become too confusing or too obvious with a director that doesn't have total control of his material. That he doesn't just goes to show why he's one of the most fascinating filmmakers working today.
Actor
Robert de Niro, The Irishman
Adam Driver, Marriage Story
Jimmie Fails, The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Brad Pitt, Ad Astra
Franz Rogowski, Transit
Gold: Rogowski finds the introverted and occasionally craven ambition of Georg. His work here is the announcement of a major new talent in international cinema.
Silver: Driver is so good so often these days, it'd be easy to assume he could play a role like this in his sleep, but he still gives this his all, particularly that late-in-film musical number that reads as authentic & not just a way to "be cinematic."
Bronze: Pitt, like Driver, is take-for-granted-consistent, but that doesn't mean he doesn't mesmerize here-honestly, he finds the poetry in an auteur vehicle while still giving a stone cold acting class. His late scenes with Jones would falter if he hadn't laid impressive groundwork earlier in the picture.
Actress
Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story
Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers
Lupita Nyong'o, Us
Mary Kay Place, Diane
Alfre Woodard, Clemency
Gold: Alfre Woodard might be the greatest living American actor, if only she'd be given the roles to prove it. This is at least an argument someone could make after seeing her nail the complicated balance of Clemency. You leave understanding the woman she's playing, even if she can't really comprehend her own feelings.
Silver: Coming close behind her is Lupita Nyong'o in the best performance of her career. Nyong'o gets to have the showy vocal work of Red, but it's in both characters, and the way that she informs the film's twists without ever giving them away, that she truly sparkles.
Bronze: Johansson finally made it into the Oscar inner-circle (twice!) this year, but I've loved her since LiT. Still, it's nice that she made the cut for a performance that always feels balanced-this woman is neither a saint nor a sinner, but a real flesh-and-blood person that can show the audience's own biases.
Supporting Actor
Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Tommy Lee Jones, Ad Astra
Al Pacino, The Irishman
Joe Pesci, The Irishman
Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit
Gold: Al Pacino waited some forty years, but we finally have the man who consistently made bravado acting a new art-form in the 1970's back. You spend most of the movie wondering when he'll start to overplay his Jimmy Hoffa, but he keeps a larger-than-life character grounded, and more impressively, human.
Silver: Close behind him is costar Joe Pesci, who also goes against a lot of his less admirable instincts to let the legend shine through. His character, always in control, always with a plan, is the antithesis of the hotheads who made him a star, but he knows how to put that threat of the hothead in his eyes & delivery, giving what could be a stock character true menace.
Bronze: I'm aware that some found his performance polarizing, but I was obsessed with what Waititi brought to Jojo Rabbit. Borrowing from Chaplin, he brings humor and the thought process of a young man disappointed with himself to life...while still acknowledging the real-world monster he's playing.
Supporting Actress
Laura Dern, Marriage Story
Florence Pugh, Little Women
Nicole Kidman, Bombshell
Margot Robbie, Bombshell
Cho Yeo-jeong, Parasite
Gold: Pugh had two great performances this year, but it's in Little Women where we get to see not just great acting, but also a performer who can totally command a script. She makes Amy not only the most interesting character in the film, but makes you question why she wasn't more critical in other tellings of this story.
Silver: Dern's hot streak may end after this (I mean-she can't sustain this kind of momentum forever) so while I would have voted for Pugh, it's great that she won an Oscar for Renata Klein unleashed in Marriage Story. Yes, she's been here before but no one does it better.
Bronze: Yeo-jeong gets the most complicated character in the movie. She's playing a woman who can easily be duped by the family trying to take advantage of her wealth, but also smart enough to know how to ensure the wealth stays entirely in her corner.
Adapted Screenplay
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Transit
Gold: In a relatively weak year, Transit stands out even more. The writers not only had to modernize a novel 75 years after-the-fact, but also had to find a way for you to constantly question your settings, your characters, and even the overall plot without ever being convoluted. The best script of the year.
Silver: The Irishman somehow manages to keep a 210-minute film from ever feeling overlong or like it's on an unnecessary tangent. That's a direct result of the writers, crafting a compelling, epic story.
Bronze: Marielle Heller's movies work so beautifully because they're unexpected, and they show the secrets behind characters we feel we'll know right away. That's what makes Beautiful Day so fresh-the characters unfold naturally, not in a way that's supposed to advance our plot.
Original Screenplay
Ad Astra
End of the Century
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Marriage Story
Parasite
Gold: Parasite is totally ingenious. The movie makes sharp observations, gives blistering dialogue, and has that second act twist that could totally make it fall on its face...and yet it completely elevates the film.
Silver: Speaking of risky second acts, we have End of the Century, a long, sexy afternoon about two men who were certainly lovers in the past, and might be in the future. The commentary about gay relationships and the way small moments change our lives is spectacular.
Bronze: Ad Astra is definitely a visual feast, but its writing is also electric. Few movies with this many unspoken realities can make a movie feel full and not reliant on exposition through the narrator, but Ad Astra is about upending your expectations.
Animated Feature Film
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Missing Link
Toy Story 4
Gold: I'm a little reluctant to share this right now since it'll come up in the Animated Feature race for the Oscars, but that's a few months in the future so perhaps you'll forget? If not, hold me to that I said it was the emotional final chapter of How to Train that I was most smitten with.
Silver: I don't think the fourth chapter of Toy Story 4 was at all necessary, and there are moments where it's more Godfather III than Godfather II, but it's still a roaring good time, filled with maybe not as much heart as previous iterations, but still fun and some wonderful sight gags.
Bronze: I could have chosen the artistic reaches of I Lost My Body or perhaps the gorgeous animation of Klaus, but if we're talking simply a good movie being presented in an original way, you can't go wrong with Laika. This film may have put the studio in some tough financial situations, but it didn't deserve such a dishonor.
Cinematography
1917
Ad Astra
End of the Century
A Hidden Life
Transit
Gold: Oh come on-I know that Roger Deakins is my personal favorite and it's hard for me to ever deny him the top spot, but this movie is insane. Particularly the sequence at the French farm house and the one where he runs through the gold-dappled night, haunted ruins a single soldier's background...it's impossible to deny the work being done here.
Silver: Again, I know I'm heavy on the Malick when I give out this category, but it's just so beautiful. No one understands how to make nature look more full of life than his pictures, and even with a new DP (Lubezki is replaced by Jorg Widmer), he proves incapable of a bad frame.
Bronze: It's sometimes hard to tell with a movie like Ad Astra where the cinematographer ends and the visual effects team begins. Certainly those shots of Neptune are reliant on VFX, but still-the lighting on Mars & the Moon is scrumptious.
Costume Design
Hustlers
The Irishman
Little Women
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Transit
Gold: The precise period work in Hollywood, particularly anything Margot Robbie wears and the whole Spahn Ranch sequence is the sort of costuming that fits a movie like a glove (and will surely inspire Halloween costumes for years).
Silver: Hustlers is more than just G-strings and push-up bras. It's also about personality, giving these women a chance to show themselves, and the artificial version of themselves that lies on top of reality, in every aspect of their lives. Lopez's Ramona, in particular, knows exactly the woman she wants to be & how to look like her (even when she can't afford to).
Bronze: Sandy Powell does more with men's clothes than any other designer. Look at the way that characters stick with their own unique tastes, while still updating for the times & fashion. Powell is an artist of detail.
Film Editing
Ad Astra
A Hidden Life
The Irishman
Parasite
Transit
Gold: It's hard to imagine how much hell Thelma Schoonmaker's life was for the year she made The Irishman, cutting not only countless scenes to get a succinct, 210 minutes of movie, but also piecing together visual effects shots of constantly "aging" actors. The Irishman wouldn't work without her behind the camera.
Silver: Parasite is nearly Irishman's equal in this regard. Again, you have to piece together a story that's motive can't be revealed, but is always there. The shot choices, particularly the long and extended sequences, are exact.
Bronze: Finally, we have Transit among the three truly mesmerizing 2019 achievements in editing. Once again, you have recurring themes, passages out-of-sequence, and two performers (Rogowski & Paula Beer), who aren't going to make it easy to understand what direction to take the shots (in the best way possible).
Makeup & Hairstyling
1917
Bombshell
Joker
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Us
Gold: Bombshell won this basically the second the first trailer was released, and we all had to pause our YouTube videos to understand "is that Charlize Theron?" That the rest of the characters are equally well-created (but never distracting) makes this a home run.
Silver: Hollywood would have been a threat for this trophy in a normal year. The looks of the late 1960's are greatly put together, particularly the hair & the way that the Spahn Ranch girls are given a sun-burnt edge-this is detailed work.
Bronze: It's really just one look, but Joker creates a distinct impression, and while Phoenix's performance never approaches that of Heath Ledger, he crawls quickly out of his shadow when it comes to the caked on look of his face.
Production Design
1917
Ad Astra
Ford vs. Ferrari
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite
Gold: 1917 is so much about the mood of where we are, and about combining sparsity (we are crossing fields & through burnt cities), while also giving us a constant "you are here" mood to the picture. That's not possible without meticulous production design, giving us a constant sense of standing next to the soldiers.
Silver: If we gave this trophy just to one spot, I'd go with the house in Parasite, which needs to be its own creation, and truly is. That second act behind the bookcase is fantastic, and gives us whole dimensions about the owners and how the buildings we live in take on their own personalities.
Bronze: Astra is close behind. We've flown leaps-and-bounds when it comes to spaceships and vehicles in the past decade, but this gives us a unique, realistic depiction of life in a world near our-own. Look at how distinct they make the Moon and Mars-similar, yet completely outside, our Earth.
Visual Effects
1917
Ad Astra
Avengers: Endgame
Captain Marvel
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Gold: Ad Astra is marvelous-it's the right combination of classy effects work, spellbinding & terrifying (the sequence with the monkeys, as well as the scene on Neptune), and still distinct to the vision of the director.
Silver: I reserve the right to change this, but part of me wonders if this should be Star Wars. The water battle, in particular, is seat-gripping old-fashioned computer animation. It looks great, is wonder-filled, and feels effortless even though we're looking at millions of dollars at play.
Bronze: Close behind would be 1917, which is so exact you'd be forgiven for taking it for granted, but does more with practical effects than any other film this year.
Original Score
Ad Astra
A Hidden Life
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Midsommar
Us
Gold: Last Black Man is the king in one of the best score lineups I've assembled in a while (this was truly the best year for film scores in at least 12 years). The score appears a bit too lush at first, but guides you into what you're supposed to expect from the story, and then lives up to those expectations.
Silver: Close behind is the grandeur of A Hidden Life. James Newton Howard brings his own design to a score when a composer could have easily relied on centuries-old classical music (it is Malick, after all).
Bronze: Finally, we have the delectable glare of Us, with its rippling staccato (and use of "I Got 5 On it") to give us an instantly iconic horror movie threat.
Original Song
"The Ballad of the Lonesome Cowboy," Toy Story 4
"Catchy Song," The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
"Glasgow," Wild Rose
"Into the Unknown," Frozen II
"One Little Soldier," Bombshell
Gold: I expect at some point that the Oscars will have to issue a public apology for not nominating "Glasgow," which totally should have won this category (it was better than everything else by a long shot). It's not often you can put an original tune in a song filled with actual classics and still have it feel genuine.
Silver: I dare you not to play "Catchy Song" over and over and over again the second that you buy it. I literally just typed it and then had to start playing it. It's, dare I say it, better than "Everything is Awesome."
Bronze: You cannot say the same about "Into the Unknown,"...this is not "Let it Go." But it is a great ballad and the one song on the soundtrack that feels like it lives up to what the makers of Frozen II were trying to achieve.
Sound Mixing
1917
Ad Astra
A Hidden Life
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Gold: Another really good lineup. Maybe I'd go with Ad Astra...right? Those space sequences, and particularly the muted noise of the moon chase scene are instantly recognizable, and distinction (which is so key to the visual aspect of the film) is brought in large part by the auditory team.
Silver: I'd put 1917 right behind them though. The movie uses sound design to keep us focused on the action at hand, alternating between loud, soft, and background noise to make the movie fully immersive.
Bronze: A Hidden Life does this as well. Nature rips through this film, coming forward against the music with babbling brooks, wind-swept hills, and cavernous churches.
Sound Editing
1917
Ad Astra
Ford vs. Ferrari
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Gold: I'm going to reverse this one and give it to 1917. Particularly for the plane crash scene, it uses Deakins' sharp focus to upend our expectations of what we're seeing and what we're actually hearing to devastating effect.
Silver: Ad Astra uses noise, shuttles & rovers, to keep us stooped in the reality that James Gray is creating. Look at the way he takes noises we kind of find familiar and juxtaposes them against a hyper-realistic alien world.
Bronze: Ford vs. Ferrari has great sound design, say whatever you want about the film. The cars have enough distinction to make you look at them the way that Bale & Damon do-as personalities, rather than parts on an assembly line.
A Hidden Life
The Irishman
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
The Irishman
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Marriage Story
Parasite
Transit
Parasite
Transit
Us
Gold: This is a really solid lineup-2019 was my favorite cinematic year since probably 2014. As a result, this is a close race but I'm going with the father-son peaks of Ad Astra. The movie is gorgeous, well-acted, and inwardly cerebral.
Silver: I always struggle with giving my favorite movie title to one of the earliest films I saw all year, but Transit is breathtaking, and totally upended my expectations, which were already high due to a great trailer.
Bronze: Parasite is the movie of the unexpected, a film that seems to come out-of-nowhere with twists that make total organic sense to the rest of the picture. There's a reason it suddenly was the biggest thing on the planet for Oscar-it's just that good.
Gold: This is a really solid lineup-2019 was my favorite cinematic year since probably 2014. As a result, this is a close race but I'm going with the father-son peaks of Ad Astra. The movie is gorgeous, well-acted, and inwardly cerebral.
Silver: I always struggle with giving my favorite movie title to one of the earliest films I saw all year, but Transit is breathtaking, and totally upended my expectations, which were already high due to a great trailer.
Bronze: Parasite is the movie of the unexpected, a film that seems to come out-of-nowhere with twists that make total organic sense to the rest of the picture. There's a reason it suddenly was the biggest thing on the planet for Oscar-it's just that good.
James Gray, Ad Astra
Bong Joon-Ho, Parasite
Terrence Malick, A Hidden Life
Christian Petzold, Transit
Martin Scorsese, The Irishman
Gold: Again, Ad Astra is a director's achievement in a lot of ways. I have liked but not loved some other James Gray films before, but I feel like this leans hard into his strengths, and is sort of the perfect combination of surreal & insightful.
Silver: Bong Joon-Ho creates a magnum opus regarding the class system in South Korea, keeping a film that could easily go off-the-rails completely marching forward.
Bronze: Petzold's film is a high-wire risk, something that could easily become too confusing or too obvious with a director that doesn't have total control of his material. That he doesn't just goes to show why he's one of the most fascinating filmmakers working today.
Robert de Niro, The Irishman
Adam Driver, Marriage Story
Jimmie Fails, The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Brad Pitt, Ad Astra
Franz Rogowski, Transit
Gold: Rogowski finds the introverted and occasionally craven ambition of Georg. His work here is the announcement of a major new talent in international cinema.
Silver: Driver is so good so often these days, it'd be easy to assume he could play a role like this in his sleep, but he still gives this his all, particularly that late-in-film musical number that reads as authentic & not just a way to "be cinematic."
Bronze: Pitt, like Driver, is take-for-granted-consistent, but that doesn't mean he doesn't mesmerize here-honestly, he finds the poetry in an auteur vehicle while still giving a stone cold acting class. His late scenes with Jones would falter if he hadn't laid impressive groundwork earlier in the picture.
Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story
Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers
Lupita Nyong'o, Us
Mary Kay Place, Diane
Alfre Woodard, Clemency
Gold: Alfre Woodard might be the greatest living American actor, if only she'd be given the roles to prove it. This is at least an argument someone could make after seeing her nail the complicated balance of Clemency. You leave understanding the woman she's playing, even if she can't really comprehend her own feelings.
Silver: Coming close behind her is Lupita Nyong'o in the best performance of her career. Nyong'o gets to have the showy vocal work of Red, but it's in both characters, and the way that she informs the film's twists without ever giving them away, that she truly sparkles.
Bronze: Johansson finally made it into the Oscar inner-circle (twice!) this year, but I've loved her since LiT. Still, it's nice that she made the cut for a performance that always feels balanced-this woman is neither a saint nor a sinner, but a real flesh-and-blood person that can show the audience's own biases.
Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Tommy Lee Jones, Ad Astra
Al Pacino, The Irishman
Joe Pesci, The Irishman
Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit
Gold: Al Pacino waited some forty years, but we finally have the man who consistently made bravado acting a new art-form in the 1970's back. You spend most of the movie wondering when he'll start to overplay his Jimmy Hoffa, but he keeps a larger-than-life character grounded, and more impressively, human.
Silver: Close behind him is costar Joe Pesci, who also goes against a lot of his less admirable instincts to let the legend shine through. His character, always in control, always with a plan, is the antithesis of the hotheads who made him a star, but he knows how to put that threat of the hothead in his eyes & delivery, giving what could be a stock character true menace.
Bronze: I'm aware that some found his performance polarizing, but I was obsessed with what Waititi brought to Jojo Rabbit. Borrowing from Chaplin, he brings humor and the thought process of a young man disappointed with himself to life...while still acknowledging the real-world monster he's playing.
Laura Dern, Marriage Story
Florence Pugh, Little Women
Nicole Kidman, Bombshell
Margot Robbie, Bombshell
Cho Yeo-jeong, Parasite
Gold: Pugh had two great performances this year, but it's in Little Women where we get to see not just great acting, but also a performer who can totally command a script. She makes Amy not only the most interesting character in the film, but makes you question why she wasn't more critical in other tellings of this story.
Silver: Dern's hot streak may end after this (I mean-she can't sustain this kind of momentum forever) so while I would have voted for Pugh, it's great that she won an Oscar for Renata Klein unleashed in Marriage Story. Yes, she's been here before but no one does it better.
Bronze: Yeo-jeong gets the most complicated character in the movie. She's playing a woman who can easily be duped by the family trying to take advantage of her wealth, but also smart enough to know how to ensure the wealth stays entirely in her corner.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Transit
Gold: In a relatively weak year, Transit stands out even more. The writers not only had to modernize a novel 75 years after-the-fact, but also had to find a way for you to constantly question your settings, your characters, and even the overall plot without ever being convoluted. The best script of the year.
Silver: The Irishman somehow manages to keep a 210-minute film from ever feeling overlong or like it's on an unnecessary tangent. That's a direct result of the writers, crafting a compelling, epic story.
Bronze: Marielle Heller's movies work so beautifully because they're unexpected, and they show the secrets behind characters we feel we'll know right away. That's what makes Beautiful Day so fresh-the characters unfold naturally, not in a way that's supposed to advance our plot.
Ad Astra
End of the Century
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Marriage Story
Parasite
Gold: Parasite is totally ingenious. The movie makes sharp observations, gives blistering dialogue, and has that second act twist that could totally make it fall on its face...and yet it completely elevates the film.
Silver: Speaking of risky second acts, we have End of the Century, a long, sexy afternoon about two men who were certainly lovers in the past, and might be in the future. The commentary about gay relationships and the way small moments change our lives is spectacular.
Bronze: Ad Astra is definitely a visual feast, but its writing is also electric. Few movies with this many unspoken realities can make a movie feel full and not reliant on exposition through the narrator, but Ad Astra is about upending your expectations.
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Missing Link
Toy Story 4
Gold: I'm a little reluctant to share this right now since it'll come up in the Animated Feature race for the Oscars, but that's a few months in the future so perhaps you'll forget? If not, hold me to that I said it was the emotional final chapter of How to Train that I was most smitten with.
Silver: I don't think the fourth chapter of Toy Story 4 was at all necessary, and there are moments where it's more Godfather III than Godfather II, but it's still a roaring good time, filled with maybe not as much heart as previous iterations, but still fun and some wonderful sight gags.
Bronze: I could have chosen the artistic reaches of I Lost My Body or perhaps the gorgeous animation of Klaus, but if we're talking simply a good movie being presented in an original way, you can't go wrong with Laika. This film may have put the studio in some tough financial situations, but it didn't deserve such a dishonor.
1917
Ad Astra
End of the Century
A Hidden Life
Transit
Gold: Oh come on-I know that Roger Deakins is my personal favorite and it's hard for me to ever deny him the top spot, but this movie is insane. Particularly the sequence at the French farm house and the one where he runs through the gold-dappled night, haunted ruins a single soldier's background...it's impossible to deny the work being done here.
Silver: Again, I know I'm heavy on the Malick when I give out this category, but it's just so beautiful. No one understands how to make nature look more full of life than his pictures, and even with a new DP (Lubezki is replaced by Jorg Widmer), he proves incapable of a bad frame.
Bronze: It's sometimes hard to tell with a movie like Ad Astra where the cinematographer ends and the visual effects team begins. Certainly those shots of Neptune are reliant on VFX, but still-the lighting on Mars & the Moon is scrumptious.
Hustlers
The Irishman
Little Women
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Transit
Gold: The precise period work in Hollywood, particularly anything Margot Robbie wears and the whole Spahn Ranch sequence is the sort of costuming that fits a movie like a glove (and will surely inspire Halloween costumes for years).
Silver: Hustlers is more than just G-strings and push-up bras. It's also about personality, giving these women a chance to show themselves, and the artificial version of themselves that lies on top of reality, in every aspect of their lives. Lopez's Ramona, in particular, knows exactly the woman she wants to be & how to look like her (even when she can't afford to).
Bronze: Sandy Powell does more with men's clothes than any other designer. Look at the way that characters stick with their own unique tastes, while still updating for the times & fashion. Powell is an artist of detail.
Ad Astra
A Hidden Life
The Irishman
Parasite
Transit
Gold: It's hard to imagine how much hell Thelma Schoonmaker's life was for the year she made The Irishman, cutting not only countless scenes to get a succinct, 210 minutes of movie, but also piecing together visual effects shots of constantly "aging" actors. The Irishman wouldn't work without her behind the camera.
Silver: Parasite is nearly Irishman's equal in this regard. Again, you have to piece together a story that's motive can't be revealed, but is always there. The shot choices, particularly the long and extended sequences, are exact.
Bronze: Finally, we have Transit among the three truly mesmerizing 2019 achievements in editing. Once again, you have recurring themes, passages out-of-sequence, and two performers (Rogowski & Paula Beer), who aren't going to make it easy to understand what direction to take the shots (in the best way possible).
1917
Bombshell
Joker
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Us
Gold: Bombshell won this basically the second the first trailer was released, and we all had to pause our YouTube videos to understand "is that Charlize Theron?" That the rest of the characters are equally well-created (but never distracting) makes this a home run.
Silver: Hollywood would have been a threat for this trophy in a normal year. The looks of the late 1960's are greatly put together, particularly the hair & the way that the Spahn Ranch girls are given a sun-burnt edge-this is detailed work.
Bronze: It's really just one look, but Joker creates a distinct impression, and while Phoenix's performance never approaches that of Heath Ledger, he crawls quickly out of his shadow when it comes to the caked on look of his face.
1917
Ad Astra
Ford vs. Ferrari
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite
Gold: 1917 is so much about the mood of where we are, and about combining sparsity (we are crossing fields & through burnt cities), while also giving us a constant "you are here" mood to the picture. That's not possible without meticulous production design, giving us a constant sense of standing next to the soldiers.
Silver: If we gave this trophy just to one spot, I'd go with the house in Parasite, which needs to be its own creation, and truly is. That second act behind the bookcase is fantastic, and gives us whole dimensions about the owners and how the buildings we live in take on their own personalities.
Bronze: Astra is close behind. We've flown leaps-and-bounds when it comes to spaceships and vehicles in the past decade, but this gives us a unique, realistic depiction of life in a world near our-own. Look at how distinct they make the Moon and Mars-similar, yet completely outside, our Earth.
1917
Ad Astra
Avengers: Endgame
Captain Marvel
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Gold: Ad Astra is marvelous-it's the right combination of classy effects work, spellbinding & terrifying (the sequence with the monkeys, as well as the scene on Neptune), and still distinct to the vision of the director.
Silver: I reserve the right to change this, but part of me wonders if this should be Star Wars. The water battle, in particular, is seat-gripping old-fashioned computer animation. It looks great, is wonder-filled, and feels effortless even though we're looking at millions of dollars at play.
Bronze: Close behind would be 1917, which is so exact you'd be forgiven for taking it for granted, but does more with practical effects than any other film this year.
Ad Astra
A Hidden Life
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Midsommar
Us
Gold: Last Black Man is the king in one of the best score lineups I've assembled in a while (this was truly the best year for film scores in at least 12 years). The score appears a bit too lush at first, but guides you into what you're supposed to expect from the story, and then lives up to those expectations.
Silver: Close behind is the grandeur of A Hidden Life. James Newton Howard brings his own design to a score when a composer could have easily relied on centuries-old classical music (it is Malick, after all).
Bronze: Finally, we have the delectable glare of Us, with its rippling staccato (and use of "I Got 5 On it") to give us an instantly iconic horror movie threat.
"The Ballad of the Lonesome Cowboy," Toy Story 4
"Catchy Song," The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
"Glasgow," Wild Rose
"Into the Unknown," Frozen II
"One Little Soldier," Bombshell
Gold: I expect at some point that the Oscars will have to issue a public apology for not nominating "Glasgow," which totally should have won this category (it was better than everything else by a long shot). It's not often you can put an original tune in a song filled with actual classics and still have it feel genuine.
Silver: I dare you not to play "Catchy Song" over and over and over again the second that you buy it. I literally just typed it and then had to start playing it. It's, dare I say it, better than "Everything is Awesome."
Bronze: You cannot say the same about "Into the Unknown,"...this is not "Let it Go." But it is a great ballad and the one song on the soundtrack that feels like it lives up to what the makers of Frozen II were trying to achieve.
1917
Ad Astra
A Hidden Life
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Gold: Another really good lineup. Maybe I'd go with Ad Astra...right? Those space sequences, and particularly the muted noise of the moon chase scene are instantly recognizable, and distinction (which is so key to the visual aspect of the film) is brought in large part by the auditory team.
Silver: I'd put 1917 right behind them though. The movie uses sound design to keep us focused on the action at hand, alternating between loud, soft, and background noise to make the movie fully immersive.
Bronze: A Hidden Life does this as well. Nature rips through this film, coming forward against the music with babbling brooks, wind-swept hills, and cavernous churches.
1917
Ad Astra
Ford vs. Ferrari
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Gold: I'm going to reverse this one and give it to 1917. Particularly for the plane crash scene, it uses Deakins' sharp focus to upend our expectations of what we're seeing and what we're actually hearing to devastating effect.
Silver: Ad Astra uses noise, shuttles & rovers, to keep us stooped in the reality that James Gray is creating. Look at the way he takes noises we kind of find familiar and juxtaposes them against a hyper-realistic alien world.
Bronze: Ford vs. Ferrari has great sound design, say whatever you want about the film. The cars have enough distinction to make you look at them the way that Bale & Damon do-as personalities, rather than parts on an assembly line.
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