For the past few months we have been tracking all of Oscar's choices when it came to the films of 2021 (links to all past races at the bottom of the page), but today I get to take the center stage. It's become a tradition as part of our Oscar Viewing Project write-ups for me to select my nominees in each category. As I always add, while I saw all of the Oscar nominees (and a whole lot of other major films in 2021), I haven't seen them all. If you are not seeing a title or can't believe I didn't include something, ask me if I caught it before burying me in the comments. Overall, I thought the films of 2021 aged quite well, and I'm excited to share this. We'll move into our 21st season in the next day or so, but in the meantime, here's how I would've run the Oscars if given the choice.
Bergman Island
CODA
Dune
Encanto
The Green Knight
Licorice Pizza
The Power of the Dog
tick, tick...BOOM!
West Side Story
The Worst Person in the World
Gold: Jane Campion gives us a sprawling, desolate western in The Power of the Dog that shows men on the brink of not just civilization, but of their own selves. Aided by a career-best performance from Benedict Cumberbatch, we get a skewering of the western myth...and at the same time perhaps its most honest embrace?
Silver: Camelot has long been the fascination of literature & cinema, but The Green Knight is the first film that takes on the legend on its surface, giving us a world of magic, horror, & decay. The way that it examines honor, and how it is a construct that stands on wobbly legs, is really smart (and it all looks spectacular).
Bronze: Though we'll see later this year how great of a film the first half was (we don't yet know our ending), the introduction of Arrakis in Dune is setting us up for a great volleyball spike in the second film. Gorgeous, with the planet playing as much of a character as the excellent work from Rebecca Ferguson & Charlotte Rampling, we get one of the best new cinematic franchises in a while.
Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza)
Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog)
David Lowery (The Green Knight)
Steven Spielberg (West Side Story)
Denis Villeneuve (Dune)
Gold: Campion's work here is all about setting the mood. Power of the Dog works because it is a film that is giving its location, desolate & unreaching, as much of a place in this story as the characters who cannot escape it until one of them relents.
Silver: Villeneuve is the master-and-commander of Arrakis. The film would've been so easy to make into a Star Wars knockoff (to be fair, Lucas' films are kind of a Dune knockoff if you get technical about it), but he doesn't. He brings some of the enigma of the world without getting it bogged down with easy characterizations, and gives us as much looking into the world-building as he does the story itself.
Bronze: David Lowery's Green Knight alternates between glowing, almost 13th Century style tabernacles & illuminated manuscripts and a slight punk rock, steampunk motif in parts. This is good-Green Knight is about adventure, but it's also a very specific kind of adventure, one where you are marching to an enlightened doom.
Benedict Cumberbatch (The Power of the Dog)
Andrew Garfield (tick, tick...BOOM!)
Dev Patel (The Green Knight)
Joaquin Phoenix (C'mon C'mon)
Denzel Washington (The Tragedy of Macbeth)
Gold: Cumberbatch totally makes me forget that I have never really been a fan by somehow getting cast as the most unlikely cowboy imaginable. Swaggering & seductive, with an accent that is miles away from John Wayne, he still gives us menace and inhabits Phil from every angle, giving a unique creation (and career best work).
Silver: Dev Patel is in the same boat. We all knew Patel had a movie star sex appeal that oozed from every corner of the screen when given the chance, but honestly until this point he's never given a performance to match that. But here, the bravado & the impetuousness feels fully-fledged, and he has delivered on his promise hand-over-fist.
Bronze: Andrew Garfield is the third unlikely casting of this trio (who knew he could sing?), and he does it in a weird way. Lin-Manuel Miranda clearly hero worships Jonathan Larson, but with Garfield, he doesn't deify him, giving a complicated, vain, talented, & affable man to bring to life a film without easy answers.
Penelope Cruz (Parallel Mothers)
Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter)
Alana Haim (Licorice Pizza)
Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World)
Emma Stone (Cruella)
Gold: Pedro & Penelope...a combination that few could argue is one of the best in modern cinema. That's true here, as we see Cruz make a comeback of sorts in a complicated depiction of motherhood, showing the sacrifices that come from parenting, but doing so in a way that never demonizes or sanctifies our leading lady.
Silver: Olivia Colman is also taking on motherhood, but instead of the ways one pushes toward it, she shows the ways it can bend whom you are. This is a prickly performance, one I'm surprised Oscar noticed, and it's only because Colman is so good as a woman who lives life without regrets, even when others would've felt pressured to buckle to them.
Bronze: Alana Haim's role in Licorice Pizza is tricky. She's playing a part that's meant to at once be human (there's no indication that she's a memory in the plot), but clearly also meant to be a form of fantasy in this semi-autobiographical take from Paul Thomas Anderson. That she does this on her first screen outing...incredible.
Anders Danielsen Lie (The Worst Person in the World)
Jamie Dornan (Belfast)
Mike Faist (West Side Story)
Jason Isaacs (Mass)
Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Power of the Dog)
Gold: Unlike some of his costars, Mike Faist was not given an awards-bait role in West Side Story...Riff isn't what you think of when you start predicting defaults from Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece. But through character work & dance moves that feel like poetry, he delivers the single best performance in Spielberg's remake.
Silver: Kodi Smit-McPhee is given a difficult task in Power of the Dog. In a movie where a lot of people are having epiphanies, he has to remain unknowable, even past the credits, in order to make some of the film's late twists work. He does this by keeping Peter close-to-the-vest, giving the audience all of the answers...and letting their own prejudices mislead them.
Bronze: When you're playing a character that is leading to one big moment, it's hard not to focus entirely on that moment. Anders Danielsen Lie gets a late-breaking monologue that shocks and captures the ephemeral nature of life, but he does so after showing us the reality of life-that it's made up of not great purpose, but tiny moments (many of which we waste waiting for the big ones to happen).
Ariana DeBose (West Side Story)
Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog)
Kathryn Hunter (The Tragedy of Macbeth)
Ruth Negga (Passing)
Alicia Vikander (The Green Knight)
Gold: The witches have always been a crowdpleaser in Macbeth...they get a lot of the best lines, and provide Shakespeare's play with much of its macabre mood. But through Kathryn Hunter, they also scare the crap out of you, as the British character actress gives a physical, occasionally otherworldly performance that kind of has to be seen to be believed.
Silver: In almost any other year, Ruth Negga would've won this (Hunter's too one-of-a-kind to pass up), as after years of being an actress I respected but didn't love the way others did, this totally sold me. She plays Clare as this riddle that, no matter what happens to her, no one can deduce. That Negga has the good sense to make sure she understand the motivations of Clare makes the performance even more provocative.
Bronze: Rounding out our supporting medalists is Kirsten Dunst. What I love about Dunst in Power of the Dog is that she gives us so much pretense in the early scenes, where she's forced (just as much as her son) to not show her true self, that when her own struggles start to bubble up, it almost feels like it's out-of-nowhere, proving that addiction really can be an invisible disease for those not paying attention.
Dune
The Green Knight
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story
Gold: A three-act play that knows exactly what cards to show as it's unfolding, The Power of the Dog gets a lot of credit for the structuring of its plot. What gets it the gold medal, though, is that it also throws in some wonderful dialogue on top of that, particularly the great soliloquies where Benedict Cumberbatch shares far more than he thinks he's saying.
Silver: I have talked a lot in our 2021 series about how little I liked Frank Herbert's original novel, which I found far too dense, which makes the approach the writers of Dune took with the most recent adaptation all the more impressive. It feels just as focused on getting across our plot as aiding the visualization onscreen, and handles the trickiness of doing a half movie well.
Bronze: On the surface, one wouldn't expect The Green Knight to be a writer's film. But look at it this way-the movie is essentially a fable, and one that (while sprung from the Arthurian legends), stands apart as a lesson about bravery & duty, and the validity/fallacy in both. That's hard to ensure it makes sense in a film that is also brimming with gorgeous effects & design.
Bergman Island
Encanto
Licorice Pizza
Luca
The Worst Person in the World
Gold: Paul Thomas Anderson can write, of course, but with Licorice Pizza I think he has one of his best marriages between the multi-character worlds at hand that he used to perfect, and also making sure that it feels like we're caught in a memory.
Silver: The Worst Person in the World, despite the title, is not a misanthropic conversation about a curmudgeon who finds the kindness in people. Instead, it's a more interesting tale of a relationship, one that will mean different things to the two people involved in it as life moves on, and the strange transience of life. It handles it beautifully, giving us more-and-more of people who are still discovering whom they are.
Bronze: Part Certified Copy, part The French Lieutenant's Woman, Bergman Island does a great job at looking at how we are haunted by art, and the way the tales we create for ourselves mirror our real-life relationships, all while paying homage to possibly the greatest filmmaker of all-time.
Encanto
Luca
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Gold: I said at the time that Encanto was Disney's best outing since Coco, and two years after the fact, I stand behind it. The score is sublime (Lin-Manuel Miranda finds his Disney beats here, and there's a reason why it became a zeitgeist hit), and the animation is glorious, but it's the side characters, fully-fleshed out and not just reliant on two-second zingers to sell toys, that feel like we're nearing the Disney Renaissance consistency that was once de rigueur for the Mouse House.
Silver: The same can be said for Luca, a movie that feels a bit more juvenile than you'd expect from Pixar (it is not lost on me that the movie was made for children, but I am not a child and will grade accordingly), but when it works, it works really well. The clear queer allusions of the film (all three of these movies are all a little bit gay), and the way that it bravely gives us a bittersweet ending (amidst the sunny beauty of the Italian landscape) add texture.
Bronze: Mitchells vs. the Machines has some flaws (the animation feels like a kitchen sink approach, Across the Spider-Verse has wrought a little bit too much leeway for other animated films imho), but the comedy & setup works really well. For a two hour film, it's never long, and it's aided by a deliciously villainous Olivia Colman.
Dune
The Green Knight
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story
Gold: The Academy spends too much time just automatically giving musicals nominations in this category as far as I'm concerned, so I try to be more judicious in that approach. So when I tell you that West Side Story, feeling as if it's coming in from a dream in most of its songs, is the most deserving in a very strong batch of contenders, know that I'm saying it with no preconceptions.
Silver: Behind it is the mastery of Dune, which would win in most years. This movie sounds incredible-it's rare that you leave a film focusing on that aspect, particularly one as visual as this, but it's true for Dune. You can hear the humming roar of the score & the pinpoint dialogue as if it's opening up new worlds for the viewer.
Bronze: The most jaw-dropping appeal of The Green Knight comes from its ability to feel like you've walked into a different universe, one centuries old. A lot of that is happening with the way that the music and sound onscreen feels sharp, as if we've walked into a different time all-together and you totally understand centuries-old people were, in fact, like us.
Dune
Eternals
The Green Knight
Luca
No Time to Die
Gold: Like I said, the sound design of Dune is so good it is echoing in your ears as you leave the theater. So much of what's happening here (the sand snakes, the strange ships, the spice itself) all of which is artificial, but has to be incorporated into an already well-structured world. It's a bit of a miracle, honestly.
Silver: The same has to be said for The Green Knight (both of these movies are just gorgeous in all aspects...you're about to hear a lot of superlatives flung at each of them as they stacked up my medals), which uses battles & giants to whoosh past you in your theater chair, immersing you in this land.
Bronze: No Time to Die is one of the most varied of Bond thrillers in a while, giving us fantastically choreographed action sequences that ring through the senses as you fight on land, sea, and air.
Dune
The Green Knight
Luca
The Power of the Dog
Spencer
Gold: Jonny Greenwood has fast become one of our best composers, and he's done it without giving us a particularly distinctive sound (ala Williams or Zimmer). That's evident with The Power of the Dog, so different in the plucking chorus and consistent metronome counting down to our grand standoff (such a western trope) in this movie.
Silver: One of my favorite things with music in movies is when something that sounds like it is created from a different time is, in fact, original. That's the case with what Daniel Hart brings to The Green Knight, in many ways feeling like much off the music is coming out of a 13th Century monastery rather than a 21st century recording studio.
Bronze: For Luca, you need something that feels natural, lazy, and glowing with the music. That's what Dan Romer brings here, but he also has the good sense to build his themes to a fantastic crescendo on the train. Every time I even listen to the music for that scene, I tear up. That's on Romer (and Jack Dylan Grazer & Jacob Tremblay).
"Blome Sweet Lille Flour," The Green Knight
"Dos Oruigitas," Encanto
"The Family Madrigal," Encanto
"No Time to Die," No Time to Die
"We Don't Talk About Bruno," Encanto
Gold: Oscar's strange rules meant it was never eligible, but I don't have such hangups about nomination limits or submissions, so on my ballot, we're definitely going to talk about "Bruno." A catchy, impossibly fun ear-worm that beautifully layers into the story and smartly introduces a character that will prove crucial to the film's second half.
Silver: Billie Eilish is, for my money, the biggest new talent in music of the past decade. That's true in the way that she approaches her songs, not just giving us a solemn pop song like "No Time to Die" but understanding the assignment. Watch the movie and then listen back on the lyrics...realize more than most how much she's telegraphing plot without you catching on with this song.
Bronze: Yes, it borrows a lot of narrative notes from "Remember Me." But if you're going to take from a movie, at least steal from a movie as good as Coco, and that's what "Dos Oruguitas" does, giving us a beautiful, cleansing moment in Encanto.
Cruella
Dune
The Green Knight
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story
Gold: The fantastic set designs of Dune feel completely new (even if they have a previous movie & book series to borrow from), but the thing that strikes me about them is the sparseness. Cavernous rooms, empty of feeling, showing that Arrakis is a place, but it's not a home. It's beautiful but showing how temporary the Atreides' life is here.
Silver: West Side Story has to deal with expansive dance numbers (outdoor & indoor) when it comes to its set design. The camera helps here, as we get to take in huge, expansive sets that make it feel like you're actually dancing through a city and not through a soundstage (the location shooting helps), and it feels like it's brimming with energy & life.
Bronze: If you're going to tell a story that's been told a thousand times, at least make its design look original. This is what happens with The Tragedy of Macbeth, giving us not ornate castles, but instead something akin to a Macbeth Museum, walking through from set to set, the same dance over-and-over again for the rest of time for our doomed king.
C'mon C'mon
Dune
The Green Knight
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
Gold: Shot in glorious black-and-white, Bruno Delbonnel gives us a masterpiece with Macbeth. I've talked a lot about the transportive quality of film in this article, and let me tell you-you could not convince me while watching this, with these pristine visions and bizarre, cubicly designed castle that Delbonnel hadn't somehow brought Denzel & Frances back to a multiverse 11th Century Scotland with a time machine.
Silver: Ari Wegner spends much of The Power of the Dog playing with classic western tropes (you can see The Searchers and Once Upon a Time in the West in the way she approaches filming Benedict Cumberbatch, in particular). But her talent isn't just nostalgia-she also knows ways to make the film more dangerous, showing the sexiness of Phil or the overwhelming vastness of the prairie...there is no escape.
Bronze: Dune, yes, gets a lot of its luster from that ace VFX team. But after watching how badly some DCEU/MCU CGI monstrosities can look, it's nice to see someone like Greig Fraser who knows exactly what he's doing with a camera, giving us light & shadow, and making the film feel like it's in a different universe (particularly in the way he frames Zendaya like she's in a perfume ad...a compliment, for the record).
Cruella
Dune
The Green Knight
Spencer
West Side Story
Gold: It always feels a little like cheating when you make a film about the tech aspect that you're celebrating, and then give it the trophy. But Cruella...who can deny it? The way that Jenny Beaven is so inventive with a limited color palette of red, black, & white is extraordinary...by the time that garbage dress shows up, I basically just wanted to chuck an Oscar at the screen.
Silver: One of the things I want in my costume designs is wares that match the characters, and that's the case for the beautiful work in West Side Story. You have Tony all buttoned up, Maria finding her look, Bernardo so sexy he's literally popping out of his shirt...Paul Tazewell does the right amount of homage to the original while totally reinventing certain looks to match our new character incarnations.
Bronze: The genius of Spencer's costumes are what they aren't. They aren't recreations, they aren't things that the real-life Diana, at one-point the most photographed woman in the world, actually wore. That you spend the entire film assuming that these are dresses & suits that she wore in real-life is a great play on a film that is about subverting, not copying, the princess's aura.
Dune
The Green Knight
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story
Gold: With The Power of the Dog, as I've mentioned before, the best part of it is the showdown in the film that is clearly about to happen, but in reality is still not mentioned. We know some of these characters must stand down, but we don't know when & which, and the way the editors unfold the story so that you don't entirely understand what's happening until the end is magnificent.
Silver: The Green Knight is a journey, and one where you don't know what will happen from scene-to-scene. In a more boxed-in film, that would be a problem...but the editors here are trusting their audience to keep pace with our Sir Gawain, and it pays off as a lived-in experience.
Bronze: Are we just going to sit back and pretend that filming large-scale dance numbers the way that Spielberg does is easy? West Side Story's musical numbers, each one, unfolds naturally and into a great crescendo. The editors are what keep you coming back, particularly when they show restraint (and don't do a lot of quick cuts).
Cruella
Dune
The French Dispatch
The Green Knight
Nightmare Alley
Gold: Beautifully-designed hairpieces & Dev Patel's hyper-realistic, umm, production both deserve mention here, but it's Ralph Ineson's gorgeous headpiece as the titular Green Knight that astounds. Look at it-what other filmmakers would've skimped on with CGI, actually took dozens of hours of makeup artists diligently bringing it to life, giving us something tangible (and noticeable) onscreen.
Silver: Stellan Skarsgard's grotesque, steroid-infused minotaur look in Dune is the calling card of the film, but everything in the film feels coated in sand. I like that they weren't afraid to lean into glamour, as Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya & Jason Momoa all look like they've come from Arrakis...but definitely still want to exude some sex appeal (what's the point in hiring beautiful people onscreen if you're not going to lean into it?).
Bronze: Cruella certainly understands that assignment, giving us the constantly transforming looks of the Emmas Stone and Thompson, not just changing their dresses but their hair & makeup throughout the movie to feel like a fabulous game of oneupmanship.
Dune
Eternals
Godzilla vs. Kong
The Green Knight
No Time to Die
Gold: I mean, it has to be Dune, right? Filled with splendor, the movie obviously has its headliner items (those sand worms are appropriately terrifying and grand), but it also doesn't skimp in the way some other blockbusters do these days on the building blocks. Look at the convincing, overwhelming crowd scenes, giving us a better sense of the planet itself.
Silver: I am a frequent critic of the MCU aesthetic, and how it seems to have devolved in the past five years. But I'm not impervious to its charms (I still see every movie), and with Eternals, you get some of the best effects work in the long run of Disney's comic book syndicate. In particular, I loved the way that the costumes incorporated into the effects, giving us something beautiful in addition to awesome.
Bronze: We'll finish once again with The Green Knight, the movie that Oscar needs to issue an apology to daily for dismissing. Its effects here aren't as big-budgeted as Dune or Eternals, but they are just as impactful, particularly the giants sequence where you get the sense that we've walked off of a cliff into Wonderland.
Also in 2021: Picture, 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 2021
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