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

1964 Oscar Viewing Project

If you've been following me on social media, you'll know that I have been working diligently on the 1964 screenings, and that this was the next year in my Oscar Viewing Project.  This is amazingly the 33rd Oscar Viewing Project, which means we are one-third done with the project (see links to the other 32 below).  As a reminder, for the Oscars, we see all of the nominees in all of the narrative, feature-length film categories, which in this year had many still split between Color and Black & White (something that happened from the late 1940's to the mid-1960's).  I have seen every single one of the below categories, and will be picking (in a vacuum) my favorites of the bunch.  Finding domestic box office records pre-1980 is surprisingly challenging, but the general consensus on the Top 10 highest-grossing domestic films of 1964 are:

1. My Fair Lady

2. Goldfinger

3. Mary Poppins

4. The Carpetbaggers

---From Russia with Love*

5. A Fistful of Dollars

6. Father Goose

7. A Shot in the Dark

8. A Hard Day's Night

9. The Night of the Iguana

10. What a Way to Go!

* - From Russia with Love was released in the UK in 1963, and is generally considered to be a 1963 film which is what we will consider it for the My Ballot, but it was first released in 1964 in the US, and would be in 5th place if it was considered a 1964 film.

With the exception of The Carpetbaggers (a now-forgotten 1960's bestselling novel & artifact of the sexual revolution that only could've been a film hit in the mid-to-late 1960's, which sounds intriguing in a smutty sort of way but I don't know if I'll get around to before the My Ballot) I've actually seen all of these movies already, including several that didn't get nominated for the Academy Awards.  In the weeks ahead, I'll be seeing a lot of 1964 films (follow along here for my weekly screenings), though, as I try to get a complete picture of the cinematic landscape outside of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

But now, it's time to go back to a time of Washington passing the Civil Rights Act, Muhammad Ali becoming the heavyweight champion of the world, and a car they're calling the "Ford Mustang" taking center stage at the World's Fair.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Note: 7 Faces of Dr. Lao received a non-competitive Makeup statue in 1964, before the category was established.  I did see the film (as you'll see below), but wanted to make a note of that.  We'll do Makeup as a My Ballot category with five standard nominations, so you'll be able to see if I picked it then, but I will note for posterity that the makeup is very good (if, admittedly, a bit racist, which I'll talk about with its Visual Effects nomination).

Picture

1. Dr. Strangelove

2. My Fair Lady

3. Mary Poppins

4. Becket

5. Zorba the Greek

The Lowdown: One of those lists that proves the insanity of the Oscars-five films that only have the year they were made in common (even the musicals are shockingly different).  I am picking the sharp Kubrick-led black comedy, perhaps the quintessential black comedy, in a slight bid over My Fair Lady.  As you're going to find in this list, my childhood love of Eliza & Professor Higgins translated into adulthood, and I enjoyed the movie far more than most on Letterboxd & Film Twitter.  Really, though, any of the Top 4 (I wasn't really into Zorba) would be a fine addition to the Best Picture pantheon.

Director

1. Stanley Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove)

2. George Cukor (My Fair Lady)

3. Robert Stevenson (Mary Poppins)

4. Peter Glenville (Becket)

5. Michael Cacoyannis (Zorba the Greek)

The Lowdown: In one of the few years Oscar did this (and part of the reason I picked this year as there was so few films to catch up on), the Best Picture & Director lineups were exactly the same...and I'm going with the same order.  I think to at least some degree I'd have Mary Poppins & Becket closer to the #2 slot here than I would otherwise (I think that it's bizarre that a director so good with intimate films like The Philadelphia Story and The Women like George Cukor would win his sole directing Oscar for a gigantic musical...but that's Hollywood, I guess).  But yeah-Kubrick's going to win this, and I'm increasingly wondering if the "Kubrick gets the most OVP Directing statues" train is inevitable at this point.

Actor

1. Peter Sellers (Dr. Strangelove)

2. Peter O'Toole (Becket)

3. Richard Burton (Becket)

4. Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady)

5. Anthony Quinn (Zorba the Greek)

The Lowdown: This is an underrated race for the best this category has ever been, certainly one of the most impressive lineups-there is not just no bad performances in this list, there's no even "merely good" nominee in this list.  Instead, we have four great performances against a titanic one.  O'Toole and Burton, two of the most famous Oscar bridesmaids, will not be curing that here (O'Toole is now 0 for 3 for his eight nominations, Burton this is his first miss to date), as there's just no beating Peter Sellers taking on three very divergent roles in the absurdist Dr. Strangelove.

Actress

1. Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins)

2. Kim Stanley (Seance on a Wet Afternoon)

3. Sophia Loren (Marriage Italian Style)

4. Anne Bancroft (The Pumpkin Eater)

5. Debbie Reynolds (The Unsinkable Molly Brown)

The Lowdown: We will get into the Audrey Hepburn of it all with the My Ballot, as that's focusing on the year at large and this is just about Oscar's list (and I need to respect that).  But without Audrey, it's a competition between two totally different performances from Julie Andrews & Kim Stanley (I also quite like Sophia Loren this year, but not enough to threaten the two best).  I actually rewatched Mary Poppins specifically to see if it held up, and was beyond impressed with the way that she finds a gentle, but never cloying way to play the part.  It's kind of a miracle, as is her singing voice (as is Marni Nixon's...), and so it's an easy call.  Side note, but it's a damned shame this is the only performance Debbie Reynolds ever got an Oscar nomination for given she's a fine actress and this performance is so discardable.

Supporting Actor

1. Stanley Holloway (My Fair Lady)

2. Lee Tracy (The Best Man)

3. John Gielgud (Becket)

4. Edmond O'Brien (Seven Days in May)

5. Peter Ustinov (Topkapi)

The Lowdown: Honestly one of the weakest lineups in an otherwise stellar year for the Academy.  My love of My Fair Lady and its plentiful soundtrack extends to Holloway, who I think nails his "I'm Getting Married in the Morning" number, and while he is a bit over-the-top in other scenes, it is in a delightful way fitting of his picture.  I'm therefore going to give him the statue over stellar-if-not-the-best work from Tracy & Gielgud on the sidelines.

Supporting Actress

1. Agnes Moorehead (Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte)

2. Grayson Hall (The Night of the Iguana)

3. Gladys Cooper (My Fair Lady)

4. Lila Kedrova (Zorba the Greek)

5. Edith Evans (The Chalk Garden)

The Lowdown: Similar to Supporting Actor, this isn't what I'd call the best nomination list.  My My Fair Lady love extends far, but not far enough to include Cooper, who is fine but hardly necessary (and in shockingly little of this movie-I'm surprised they noticed her).  You have to indulge some over-the-top work from the Top 2, but you still get some winning performers, and occasionally insight into their characters that the 1960's otherwise might not have allowed.  I'll go with Moorehead, I think a bigger presence in her picture.  Also, even in a weak lineup, isn't it a joy to see ten character actors nominated in the supporting categories instead of the obsessive "movie star slumming" we see today.

Foreign Language Film

1. Woman in the Dunes (Japan)

2. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (France)

3. Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Italy)

4. Raven's End (Sweden)

5. Sallah (Israel)

The Lowdown: Two classics in this lineup, both of which dominated the Oscars...a year later (Oscar rules were weird in the 1960's & 70's, and we'll get into how we'll handle that when we hit the My Ballot in the next few weeks).  A shocking amount of these movies have weirdly similar plots (doomed, sometimes forced romances, and whether to stay in them), which makes them somewaht easier to compare, and for me Woman in the Dunes, one of the scariest films I've ever seen, is more adept than the flawless color perfection of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg or the surprisingly strong anthology film Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, so I'm going with that in a battle of classics.

Adapted Screenplay

1. Dr. Strangelove

2. Mary Poppins

3. Becket

4. My Fair Lady

5. Zorba the Greek

The Lowdown: Probably the only time in Oscar history where the Picture/Director/Adapted Screenplay lineups are all exactly the same films (and it's worth noting-had Dick van Dyke gotten in for Mary Poppins instead of one of the Becket boys, that'd have been the same for Best Actor, also all Best Pictures).  This doesn't quite match those lineups even if they once again have the same victor-Dr. Strangelove is a genius script, but its biggest competition ends up being Mary Poppins, which is a challenging adaptation (how do you not make Mary more conventional?), but a fine one, and it fights a lot of impulses other live-action Disney films of the 1960's would indulge.

Original Screenplay

1. A Hard Day's Night

2. One Potato, Two Potato

3. Father Goose

4. The Organizer

5. That Man from Rio

The Lowdown: Relatively weak lineup here, with the latter two having active plotholes that make these nominations (their only ones in 1964) feel all the odder.  It reads in some ways as weird to give this statue to A Hard Day's Night, a movie that frequently evokes being made just as the Beatles are randomly being screened, it's so spontaneous.  But that's not really the case-it just feels that way due to Alun Owen's fizzy script.  I therefore pick it over the showier (and more writerly One Potato, Two Potato), a racial drama that has largely been forgotten at this point but is worth your time if you've never heard of it.

Sound

1. My Fair Lady

2. Mary Poppins

3. Becket

4. The Unsinkable Molly Brown

5. Father Goose

The Lowdown: When it comes to Oscar, you have to remember that he likes what he likes, and in the Mixing category, even in the 1960's, what he liked was musicals which is why 60% of this category falls into that category.  For me, Molly Brown isn't worthy to be in the same sentence as the other two...so we won't do that.  Mary Poppins has the added advantage of incorporating animation into its sound sequences, and so if this was a contest between the two for editing, I'd be a bit more inclined to spread the wealth, but given it's solely Mixing (and we had to make sure that Marni Nixon felt organic to the story), I'm going to go with Eliza & her crew.

Sound Editing

1. Goldfinger

2. The Lively Set

The Lowdown: 1964 was only the second year that Oscar was distinguishing between Mixing and Editing (it's why 1963 will be the first year we do these separate categories for the My Ballot awards), but even then, it was very clear that he had his preferences, picking both the action-adventures and the car racing scenes (if only there was a submarine, this would truly feel in Oscar's wheelhouse).  For me, it's not just that Goldfinger is a much better picture (The Lively Set, for those who haven't heard of it, is a snore), but also it has considerably better special sound effects, as The Lively Set's race cars (experimental though they may be) do not compare to the explosions on display with 007.

Score

1. The Pink Panther

2. Mary Poppins

3. Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte

4. Becket

5. The Fall of the Roman Empire

The Lowdown: Truly sensational work from Henry Mancini (give or take "Moon River," the best thing he's ever done), The Pink Panther comes in with its sole nomination and totally sells it.  With all due respect to the luxurious Charlotte, and the breathtaking high-flying antics of Mary Poppins, there's really no other option but to pick one of the most memorable movie tunes of all time (I had to check, and Oscar went with my second place, which is an understandable if not acceptable path...this should've been Mancini's). 

Scoring

1. My Fair Lady

2. A Hard Day's Night

3. Mary Poppins

4. Robin and the 7 Hoods

5. The Unsinkable Molly Brown

The Lowdown: Given the musical was on life support by 1964, it is bonkers how good the Top 3 is here (I've got a few more to see, but it'll take a tsunami to best one of these for my My Ballot).  The other two basically don't exist for me, and it's three musicals, with me weirdly picking the one that wasn't original, mostly because it does a superb way of expanding beyond the confines of a Broadway stage to really feel like it's taking up space...with truly loverly incorporation of these classic tunes.  But A Hard Day's Night or Mary Poppins would've been worthy had Oscar picked them (forgive the weird photo collage on this one...I forgot to include A Hard Day's Night and I'd already deleted my individual photos so didn't want to have to recreate this from scratch).

Original Song

1. "Chim Chim Cheree" (Mary Poppins)

2. "My Kind of Town" (Robin and the 7 Hoods)

3. "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte" (Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte)

4. "Where Love Has Gone" (Where Love Has Gone)

5. "Dear Heart" (Dear Heart)

The Lowdown: One of those categories where Oscar only chose good nominees...but my list is going to look much different because, quite frankly, 1964's Original Song options are absurd (thank the lord My Fair Lady wasn't an original).  For the win it's a hard bet between the top 4, with sentiment and a bit of magic giving Mary Poppins the win over Frank Sinatra and two lush ballads, in an era where those sorts of songs still became standards.  Really, though, any of the Top 4 is better than you'd guess and makes a strong choice for the win.

Art Direction (B&W)

1. Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte

2. The Night of the Iguana

3. Zorba the Greek

4. The Americanization of Emily

5. Seven Days in May

The Lowdown: I mean, I'm a sucker for a gigantic swamp-ravaged mansion, particularly when you've got it surrounded by Olivia de Havilland & Bette Davis in a horror film.  The detailing in Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte and the way that the ambience becomes almost part of the story (it certainly helps to aid the story) gives it the edge over The Night of the Iguana and Zorba the Greek, both of which have surprisingly more outdoor scenes (something that at this era usually precluded nominations here) than you'd expect.

Art Direction (Color)

1. My Fair Lady

2. Becket

3. What a Way to Go!

4. Mary Poppins

5. The Unsinkable Molly Brown

The Lowdown: Much more into this lineup, and honestly having a hard time between the Top 2 (all of them are good though).  I think I'm picking My Fair Lady because there's more personality in the set pieces (particularly the streets of London, which are gorgeous studio shot situations, as well as Professor Higgins' house), though I am in awe of what they're doing in the gigantic expansions of Becket.  I also love the ingenuity of What a Way to Go!, as we are so informed on the men in this picture through the sets themselves.

Cinematography (B&W)

1. Zorba the Greek

2. The Night of the Iguana

3. The Americanization of Emily

4. Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte

5. Fate is the Hunter

The Lowdown: With the exception of Fate is the Hunter (which if you have been around this blog a long time you might remember I reviewed for our Saturdays with the Stars tribute to Nancy Kwan six years ago), this is a really strong list (I know I'm repeating myself in praising 1964's Academy Awards, but it's very true for both Cinematography lineups-Oscar outdid himself).  I like the sweaty heat of The Night of the Iguana, the sophistication of The Americanization of Emily, and the gothic horror of Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte's involved lensing, but you can't compete with Anthony Quinn's dancing in Zorba the Greek.  It is the most indelible image of his long career for a reason-the playful way the team plays with long & close shots...it's something else.

Cinematography (Color)

1. Cheyenne Autumn

2. My Fair Lady

3. Becket

4. Mary Poppins

5. The Unsinkable Molly Brown

The Lowdown: All five of these are 4-star or higher achievements-this is one of the best lineups of Color Cinematography Oscar pulled together.  In terms of the actual win, My Fair Lady, Becket, & Cheyenne Autumn, all three very different takes on cinematography (one showing the majesty of a studio lot, the next lots of interior location shoots, and the next the grandeur of Monument Valley).  I have to pick Cheyenne Autumn if forced to choose.  It's large-scale, epic John Ford grandeur (when that was about to stop being a thing) at its very best, a beautiful tribute to a dying film genre, with every scene basically a painting. 

Costume Design (B&W)

1. The Night of the Iguana

2. The Visit

3. A House is Not a Home

4. Kisses for My President

5. Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte

The Lowdown: This category features Kisses for My President, maybe in the Top 10 most disagreeable films I've seen for this project (at least pre-1967)...which still has better costumes than some.  Honestly, this field is a list of relatively decent contenders, but not necessarily any truly outstanding ones.  I think it's a competition between Night of the Iguana, a sexy batch of heat-sweltered looks from Ava Gardner, Richard Burton, & Sue Lyon, and then a gorgeous array of looks from Ingrid Bergman in The Visit.  I think I'll go with Gardner & Burton looks lusty over Bergman's fanciful wealth, but it's a close contest.

Costume Design (Color)

1. My Fair Lady

2. What a Way to Go!

3. Mary Poppins

4. Becket

5. The Unsinkable Molly Brown

The Lowdown: On the flip side, you have the Color categories, where literally all of these are outstanding, and at least a few I expect to make it to my My Ballot when all is said and done.  The best look, and probably what's getting it the win, is that Royal Ascot iconography of Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (all the looks are good...but that scene is film history), which is a shame as the pink deliciousness of What a Way to Go! deserves a win just as much.

Film Editing

1. Becket

2. Mary Poppins

3. My Fair Lady

4. Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte

5. Father Goose

The Lowdown: Potentially hot take, but when it comes to the three Best Picture nominees cited here (all of which, at this point, you should understand my love of to the point you can cut me some slack for not being a full-on stan), none of them seem like you could call them "film editing" standouts.  I think that Becket wins here in part because it has a stronger and better build in its expected tension than either Mary Poppins or especially My Fair Lady, and so I'm giving it the title, but in a year where Oscar was a monolith, I kind of wish they'd have gone with some different options here (you'll see a lot of different titles when I tackle this for the My Ballot).  Also, because this write-up made me look like I didn't like Father Goose, I want to be very clear for the record that I did (it's just not in the same league as some of these other movies...but I have deeply fond memories of watching it with my little brother and our beloved aunt-and-uncle when we were kids in their apartment in Wyoming).

Special Visual Effects

1. Mary Poppins

2. 7 Faces of Dr. Lao

The Lowdown: Both of these are intriguing options, but only one of them is legendary.  The way that Mary Poppins incorporates animation into the live-action scenes is not new (Disney had been doing this as far back as Song of the South), but it'd never been so seamless.  It felt like Andrews & van Dyke (and those two kids) had been popped into this world in a way that was sparkly but also believable.  7 Faces of Dr. Lao is really more of an achievement in makeup effects if we're being totally honest (and those are a bit racist given one of Tony Randall's characters is in yellowface), but some of the claymation figures, particularly the Medusa tentacles, are impressively ahead of their time.

Past Oscar Viewing Projects: 1931-32, 1948, 1957, 1972, 1981, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025

My 2025 Oscar Ballot

All right, it is the 98th Academy Awards tomorrow, and while I have never been able to do this before, thanks to efficient viewing (and, let's face it, seemingly less films at year-end that I have to track down...it does with each passing year feel a bit like Hollywood's output is getting smaller), I'm going to do something I've never done before: release the My Ballot Awards before the Academy Awards for that year.  If you haven't already seen it, check out the Oscar Viewing Project article I did for this year here, where I pick solely based off of Oscar's choices, but for those uninitiated, the My Ballot Awards are where I turn the tables and pick who I think should've been nominated for (and won) the awards that year.  Given that Oscar is adding a new category this year to the OVP (the Best Casting prize), I will be adding that as well, but that is the only change you'll see (also a reminder that for Animated Feature Film, I only pick three nominees & honestly think Oscar should do the same).  As a reminder for these awards, while I have seen all of the Oscar-nominated films in the narrative, feature-length categories (including Best International Feature Film, which I don't pick here but do see all five nominees), I can't see every film.  If you have a question about "why wasn't X included?" you can check to see if I've seen it yet by following me on Letterboxd here, or by sounding off in the comments (I do take recommendations).  With that said, here is our 32nd (we are one year away from being a third done with this project, and for the curious that year will be 1964 which I'm working on ardently).  Enjoy!

Editor's Note: A quick reminder that these My Ballot Awards, like the Oscar Viewing Project, are done entirely in a vacuum...I don't take into account people being overdue, an artist's personal life or politics, or if they've won before, just solely based on who was the best in that specific category.  There are times when you might put the hand on the scale for such things, but this project is not one of them.

Picture

Avatar: Fire and Ash

Black Bag

Hamnet

Jay Kelly

The Life of Chuck

The Mastermind

Materialists

One Battle After Another

The Secret Agent

Twinless

Gold: About once a decade Oscar & I match up, and if One Battle After Another wins tomorrow (which I'm predicting it will, even if I'm not certain about it), we'll have our first overlap since Moonlight in 2016.  Paul Thomas Anderson's crackling, relevant look at a dictatorial USA and the way that it treats its citizens through a frequently comic lens is the sort of film you can watch and know it will become a classic.

Silver: In second, we have Chloe Zhao (who also got second in 2020) doing her thing once more, showing the meditative search for meaning in a world that offers little (and yet, offers it aplenty if you allow it to come in).  Hamnet is a thoughtful and heartbreaking look at what we give to our children, knowing that love cannot be taken back once it's given, even if fate or cruel destiny intervene.

Bronze: If there's a movie this year that is going to eventually be a "I knew this was great before anyone else did" picture, it's Black Bag, which had critical love early this year but got not a single Oscar nomination, something you'll find I rectify for this sleek, sexy thriller many times over in the coming categories.

Director

Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another 

James Cameron, Avatar: Fire and Ash

Kleber Mendonca Filha, The Secret Agent

Steven Soderbergh, Black Bag

Chloe Zhao, Hamnet

Gold: Paul Thomas Anderson and I got off to a rocky start (I will own that I was one of those people who didn't really get into Magnolia, and Punch-Drunk Love is not a movie I reference regularly as a favorite).  But I've been kinder to him than Oscar has in the years since (he got Best Director from me in 2012, and Best Screenplay in both 2012 & 2021), and this being his magnum opus, I cannot deny him his laurels.

Silver: There is a part of me that wishes I had room for Chloe Zhao's beautiful use of nature in Hamnet.  A film that is about the stage, a place literally alien from the natural world, seems to feel such an odd place for us to connect to the quiet, but that is how her camera moves, pushing us into the sphere outside our homes.

Bronze: We're going 3/3 with the same medals for all three films, something we generally don't do (even with a voter of one), and there was part of me that debate giving this to Cameron for his gigantic expansion of the planet of Pandora.  However, I cannot deny the tension-building cosmopolitan spy ring he has crafted for Black Bag.

Actor

Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another 

Michael B. Jordan, Sinners

Paul Mescal, Hamnet

Dylan O'Brien, Twinless

Josh O'Connor, Wake Up Dead Man

Gold: Easily the best of the four acting lineups (and maybe one of the best lineups I've pulled together for Best Actor), I was torn between all three medalists, and at times felt all of them deserved the gold.  I'm going, though, with the unlikely choice of Dylan O'Brien, whose beautiful dual performance (of very different, and yet connected, twins) gives the film so much of its fire (and is the source of James Sweeney's obsession).

Silver: Leonardo DiCaprio is too big of a movie star to be positioned for a "comeback," but for an actor who has been nominated for six acting trophies so far in the My Ballot (if you want to see past contests, I have links to all of them at the bottom of this article, but know we haven't gotten to his Gilbert Grape and Titanic era quite yet), and he's giving some of his best work here as a neurotic, baked-out revolutionary who is trying to find his footing in the political chaos while also being a good parent.

Bronze: Speaking of "trying to be a good parent" we have Paul Mescal, our most consistent movie star in the 2020's (give or take his fellow nominee Josh O'Connor who could've been nominated for multiple movies this year without any shame), giving us a unique take on the Bard, one that feels appropriately selfish, lusty, and heartbroken.

Actress

Cate Blanchett, Black Bag

Jessie Buckley, Hamnet

Dakota Johnson, Materialists

Amanda Seyfried, The Testament of Ann Lee

Emma Stone, Bugonia

Gold: Mescal's romantic partner in Hamnet is our gold medalist, playing a sort of bewitched version of Anne Hathaway, one whose performance really comes to life as the film progresses.  In the final theatrical production scene of Hamnet, we see an openness to the world, which Buckley plays not just as a way for her to be able to connect to her dead son, but also to a community-at-large that shunned her.

Silver: Emma Stone has yet to get an acting gold medal from me, but lord knows she's trying, playing every part the way that Meryl Streep did in the 1980's or Jane Fonda did in the 1970's-as if it's an event.  Her terrifying embodiment of a toxic girl boss (the 5:30 PM scene will send chills down the spine of everyone who's ever worked in corporate America and had that boss), makes her the only person who can escape the preposterous nature of the film's final moments.

Bronze: I debated pretty hard between Seyfried and Blanchett for the final medal (Dakota is just happy to be here), which is hard to do given this is a very divergent pair of performances, but I ended up picking Amanda's Ann Lee.  I think what she does here is so fully-committed, not just to the unique vision of Mona Fastvold's musical, but also to the selfless egoism that it takes to believe you might be a deity.

Supporting Actor

Tom Burke, Black Bag

Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another

Noah Jupe, Hamnet

Jack O'Connell, Sinners

Sean Penn, One Battle After Another

Gold: Sean Penn is one of those actors who is almost certainly crazy (and would've gotten fired a lot more in a different field).  He's also an actor of great talent who frequently overacts or gets cast in bizarre roles.  But damn it if he isn't selling the hell out of his racist military man in One Battle After Another, playing appropriately over-the-top a cruel embodiment not just of hate, but its close sibling stupidity.  Those "greatest actor of his generation" plaudits he got in the 2000's sometimes feel deserved with work this good.

Silver: Tom Burke suffers from me giving this to Penn, as this is the closest in my mind of the four acting prizes between Gold & Silver.  Burke's role here, as a drunk, sexed-up (but charming) louse is marvelous, the best performance in a film brimming with them, and I love the way that years of stealing scenes with such a part culminated in this.  Can't wait for the role that is going to inevitably get him on Oscar's radar.

Bronze: A comeback of sorts for Benicio del Toro, who took the My Ballot gold medal from me in 2000, and hasn't been back since.  In a very quiet, limited bit of screen-time in One Battle After Another, he leaves an intense impression of a man you know will survive even as everything else is crumbling around him.

Supporting Actress

Marisa Abela, Black Bag

Glenn Close, Wake Up Dead Man

Regina Hall, One Battle After Another 

Amy Madigan, Weapons

Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another

Gold: Giving the best performance of her career, Amy Madigan's Aunt Gladys is a spooky creation to haunt the dreams, and a turn that belongs alongside Ruth Gordon in Rosemary's Baby and Kathy Bates in Misery.  So much of the role is rounded in a cartoonishness, the garish way we look past aging women who try to show a bit of life and heap pity on them, that her big scene where she shows her plan feels all the more horrifying.  We all would fall in her wake.

Silver: You'll note that I don't have lead performances nominated in my supporting fields (Paul Mescal is where he's supposed to be), and what that opens up for us is the ability to nominate true supporting work that doesn't have a lot of screen-time, but is vital for a movie's success.  Such is the case for Regina Hall, a longtime comedic champ who aces this dramatic part, giving us a woman decades into the trenches, jaded but still nervous enough to feel fully vested.

Bronze: Teyana Taylor gets One Battle After Another its fifth & final acting medal (Chase Infiniti, for the curious, was sixth in Best Actress, so One Battle After Another nearly took up 30% of the performing nomination slots).  I loved the impression she made-Taylor's part is tricky, as she's virtually absent past the film's first hour, and needs to leave a long shadow for us to keep thinking back to how she plays a part in what's happening in the "present."  Taylor plays her so commandingly that's not a problem.

Adapted Screenplay

Hamnet

The Life of Chuck

One Battle After Another

Pillion

Wake Up Dead Man

Gold: So far every year of the 2020's the Best Picture winner has also taken a Best Screenplay gold medal, something I really hope gets disrupted (no category should have a cheat code to winning a tech category-it should always feel fluid).  But I'm picking in a vacuum, and in a vacuum the best script of 2025, filled with humor, observation, & terror, was One Battle After Another.

Silver: And this means, yet again, that Chloe Zhao must take a silver medal to Paul Thomas Anderson's gold, with Hamnet getting the second place here.  I have not read either source material, but given Hamnet in many ways feels so cinematic, almost to the point where it's too abstract to be written prose, I do wonder if Zhao's task might've been even more challenging than PTA's (though PTA is translating Thomas Pynchon so let's just call it a draw).

Bronze: And we'll end it with a bit of Stephen King, who had a banner 2025 (I nearly nominated The Long Walk here as well which (imho) is the best movie of 2025 I didn't find room for in a single category...weirdly both movies also starred Mark Hamill in very different turns).  The Life of Chuck is Mike Flanagan putting a bit of wonder alongside a solid dose of life-affirming sentimentality that I can't help but be consumed by.  The script's look at how we value our memories (and how we live in them) is so great (and that Tom Hiddleston dance number is one of the few moments this year where I was crying and smiling while watching at the same time, the best feeling a movie can provide).

Original Screenplay

Black Bag

Jay Kelly

Materialists

Sinners

Twinless

Gold: We are able to look beyond One Battle and Hamnet for a moment, and that's going to give the warped mind of James Sweeney a chance to shine.  In Twinless, we are given a tale of obsession, a friendly and sometimes sexual obsession, where Sweeney is driven mad over dual Dylan O'Brien's, an understandable feeling he turns into a harrowing thriller.

Silver: With Black Bag, we have a thriller as well, one more conventionally situated in the world of espionage, but one that is as much about the sexual dynamics (and the competitive angles) that come from marital love.  Soderbergh continues to be one of the best screenwriters for ensembles, making sure every part of this play feels rich & full.

Bronze: Longtime character actress Emily Mortimer joined Noah Baumbach in writing Jay Kelly, a movie that was totally in Oscar's wheelhouse and yet he didn't seem to care.  But I cared, and thought the way that they handled it, with a man at the crossroads of his life as he enters what he knows will be the last chapter of it.  I love the ways that it plays with age, showing that even as we get older, even with the fullest of lives, it always feels too short.

Animated Feature Film

Elio

Little Amelie, or the Character of Rain

Zootopia 2

Gold: I hate to start out any section like this, saying "this was a weak year" for a category as it feels like such a back-handed compliment to the movies being honored, but...this was a weak year for this category (not the only category I'd say that about either-Cinematography & Costume have both had better days).  Of the contenders, though, the one that spoke to me the most was the dazzling colors and thoughtful looks at grief in Elio, the best Pixar has been since at least Luca.

Silver: Another film that is weirdly centered on grief, though here it feels more at-home in a far more grown-up tale, is the Oscar-cited Little Amelie, proof that that Oscar does some good (I wasn't likely to have seen this otherwise), and I loved the ways that it shows how childhood echoes with you the remainder of your life.

Bronze: The first Zootopia movie was a delicious breath-of-fresh air, a mystery that told us a tale about racism that also was some of the best world-building I've ever seen from the Mouse House.  With that starting point, Zootopia 2 is merely just fun.  I wish it had had the guts to be a romance (given the box office numbers, I'm sure it will get there soon), but instead we just got more of a good thing.

Sound Mixing

F1

The History of Sound

One Battle After Another

Sinners

Warfare

Gold: In many ways "I Lied to You" was the scene of the year.  Sinners surely got most of its critical plaudits from this scene, and if/when it takes Sound at the Oscars tomorrow (it's in a tight race with the #2 on this list), it will be because of this scene, a jammed, ethereal look at the Black experience through music (with an impending horror movie about to take place).

Silver: Coming behind it is F1, a movie whose Sound Mixing is so compelling it could beat the most-nominated film in Oscar history.  Here it's a bit of a combination of experiences for Mixing vs. Editing, and some of that work is the way that it incorporates the score on-top of real-world sounds, but they also do a fantastic job of filming in cars so that you get that actual authentic rev & beat of the engine.

Bronze: One of the reasons I still keep these categories separate for these write-ups long after Oscar gave up on such things is that you get a movie like The History of Sound, which has almost no sound editing to speak of, but is a rich, beautiful look at music & nature.  You hear these two men falling in love, feeling each other through decades of song and the odes that bind us across communities.

Sound Editing

Avatar: Fire & Ash

F1

Nouvelle Vague

Tron: Ares

Warfare

Gold: That being said, F1 may have fine mixing, but it's a sound editors' wet dream.  The cascade of multiple cars, told across speeding raceways (oftentimes on different types of material), you are transported into this world that hundreds of millions devote their fandoms toward.  The strength of F1 isn't just in the lead performances from Pitt & Idris, but also in how it fills your aural canals so you're in the driver's seat.

Silver: Decades into Pandora, it's hard to top what we've already experienced, and yet...James Cameron knows his way around gushing water and (in something of a new twist) a land of fire.  The flame-filled battles and conflicts of Fire & Ash make it a fitting ending (even if that's not what we're getting...someone free James Cameron from this franchise please so I can get one more original idea from him before he goes), and one where the sounds are nearly equal to the visual effects.

Bronze: "War is hell" is a trope nearly as old as war films themselves, and so to say something new about it is nearly impossible.  But Warfare's take (not that it's cliche or a revelation, but instead that it's just pointless) is translated through the sounds of war, the omnipresent bullets and the surgical dicing that takes place in this picture in the most graphic scene at the picture's halfway point.

Note: Unlike the Oscars, for the modern My Ballot, I continue to keep the two Sound categories separate, rather than combine them like Oscar did since 2020.  If you want a direct comparison for the record, if I had combined them, I would've nominated: Avatar: Fire & Ash (Silver), F1 (Gold), The History of Sound, Sinners (Bronze), & Warfare.

Score

Hamnet

Jay Kelly

The Mastermind

Materialists

One Battle After Another

Gold: First a plug-we need to demand that major, wonderful film scores are available on streaming & physical music channels just as much as we do movies.  And that is more-than-true for something like The Mastermind, a movie with jazz-filled touches that will make you spend most of it wondering what 1940's legend did all of these recordings...only to realize this is somehow a 2025 creation.

Silver: That is not true for all of Hamnet, which has at its most critical moment a 20-year-old recording from Max Richter that might (in some worlds) disqualify it here.  But I do not have such qualms (I nominated Alexandre Desplat for this prize for The Tree of Life despite such reservations), and the rest of Hamnet is so good "On the Nature of Daylight" feels more like a cherry on a sundae than the main course.

Bronze: Richter, Jonny Greenwood, and Nicholas Britell feel like they are filling the backgrounds of all 2020's movies, the best of the best of this decade, and so it should surprise no one that with all three nominated, I'm going to give a second of them a medal.  In this case it's Britell, whose lush, sometimes too much (but it fits the plot so that works) score in Jay Kelly gives the film so much of its cinematic gilding.

Original Song

"Golden," KPop Demon Hunters

"I Lied to You," Sinners

"Our Love," The Ballad of Wallis Island

"Song For Henry," On Swift Horses

"Waiting on a Wish," Snow White

Gold: Hypocrisy, thy name is John.  I spend so much time complaining about how Oscar just nominates end credit songs for his films (this year, he did it three times), and here I have a quartet of songs that were performed in the movie, frequently as big musical numbers or in guiding the plot of the picture.  And yes, I'm going to still give the gold to the melodic "Song for Henry," perhaps the tune I listened to the most this year and shaped an otherwise kind of phoned-in movie in ways that made it feel far better than it actually was.

Silver: The best actual song scene of the year, though, was "I Lied to You," one of the best scenes of the year.  As a stand-alone piece of music I don't know that it feels in the same league as my personal tastes (I love the blues, typically, so this is more me going on vibes & what I like...I'm a movie guy, not a music guy) for some of the other songs, but damn if this (still solid) song doesn't work magic in Sinners.

Bronze: Do not come at me, KPop Demon Army.  I know I didn't nominate your (very average) picture for Best Animated Feature Film, but I am not incapable of enjoying the bouncy beats of your picture.  Part of me is still a little mad I couldn't put the infectiously ridiculous "Soda Pop" in as a nominee (it was in sixth), but at least the electric "Golden" will turn a lovely shade of bronze.

Art Direction

Avatar: Fire & Ash

Black Bag

F1

The Phoenician Scheme

Sinners

Gold: Art Direction means not just the buildings, but also the way that we build the sets and even the props that are happening onscreen.  I'm more inclined to celebrate this all-encompassing nature with movies like F1, meticulously giving us a world of shiny, flashy cars and curated quiet luxury that feels at once astronomical and realistic (for these people's bank accounts...not yours).

Silver: Behind it is a more conventional type of quiet luxury.  The posh office spaces, curated intellectual designs & fashions of Black Bag also give off the aura of "you can't afford this," which is character-building.  These people are sexy, smart, and dangerous (even to themselves).

Bronze: I am not someone that automatically name-checks every single Wes Anderson movie in the tech categories (though he's shown up before a few times), but when he gets it right, he really gets it right, and as you're about to see in the coming paragraphs, I was sold on the world-traveling aesthetic of The Phoenician Scheme, another in his increasingly personal string of 2020's films.

Casting

Black Bag

Hamnet

One Battle After Another

The Secret Agent

Sinners

Gold: The first year of doing this category, I feel a bit lost on how to grade this, but am going to give it a shot, kind of using the criteria of inventive casting, a solid ensemble feel, and making sure the performances match the script.  In this case, Hamnet is the top of the list.  Emily Watson's wonderful doom, two top-of-their-game leads, and the stunt casting that totally works of the two Jupe brothers playing mirror images of themselves is really well done, and a worthy inaugural gold medalist.

Silver: Behind it, though, is Sinners, a true ensemble movie where every character feels well-cast, and perhaps most crucially, doesn't necessarily rely upon known names to fill out every player in the plot.  When you have people online name-checking minor characters the way they do in major blockbusters, you're doing something right, and that's the case with Sinners, where the whole cast feels like we're in the same place.

Bronze: One Battle After Another can't get ahead of Sinners in part because it does cast big names (save for Chase Infiniti in a star-making role).  But even if the call-sheet has three Oscar winners and several prominent character actors, that doesn't mean that every part doesn't fit like a glove for these performers, and in some cases (particularly DiCaprio) it's spinning on its head their star persona.

Cinematography

Anemone

Black Bag

F1

Hamnet

Train Dreams

Gold: Sometimes movies feel like they're being made solely to have us marvel at gorgeous camerawork.  That doesn't always make for terrific filmmaking, but this category isn't Best Picture, now is it?  And Train Dreams is one of those movies, a film that looks at nature from every angle, and also quietly (I cannot believe a movie that requires you to put your phone down this much is on Netflix) gives us a changing sense of technology as we're going.

Silver: You spend all of Black Bag aware of light.  In an industry where most cinematographer's default is to have half of the screen as dark as possible to hide the CGI (looking at you, Sinners), this film has candle-glowing dinners, the natural light of a London sky, the soft humming interior lights of an office...all of this feels at once authentic and cinematic, something we should see more of on the big-screen.

Bronze: We're in our longest Terrence Malick drought this century, and it's getting to me as an ardent admirer of his work.  Not only did I shortlist Train Dreams (clearly paying homage to him), but I also have to include Hamnet (weirdly left out of this list with Oscar), a movie that uses natural lighting throughout, but also gives us a green sense of the English countryside, allowing us the same connection to it that Jessie Buckley's lead character feels throughout.

Costume

Black Bag

Kokuho

One Battle After Another

The Phoenician Scheme

Wicked: For Good

Gold: I am not afraid of contemporary design if it's done well, and this is a field where, quite frankly, you're seeing a lot of contemporary design honored.  Part of what makes Black Bag work is the quiet luxury angle.  We need to feel like these people aren't real...there's a level of authenticity in the performances, but these people are not just like you and me.  That's translated in the leather jacket and black jumpsuit Cate Blanchett wears while potentially committing treason (the jacket costs $5k if you want to try to emulate it), or in the black form-fitting turtlenecks in which Michael Fassbender instills a sense of "you'd fuck him too" vibes.

Silver: On the flip side, One Battle After Another does give us that realism.  Not only do we get Leo wearing that "retired dad" flannel night shirt & stocking cap that counters with the effortless cool of Teyana Taylor's character earlier in the film (hell, she wears the same outfit earlier in the picture and gives off totally different vibes), but we get to see that same sense of style in her daughter...even though they haven't met.  Talk about story-building through clothing.

Bronze: If you want to get into something more traditional (i.e. period or fantasy) with the third medalist, I'll give you that.  Costuming goddess Milena Canonero gives us the alabaster white nun's uniform, the impeccable suits and Scarlett Johansson's napkin-checkered shirt with sky high shorts in The Phoenician Scheme, every outfit feeling like a shorthand introduction for the audience to these characters.

Film Editing

Black Bag

Hamnet

One Battle After Another

The Secret Agent

Sinners

Gold: Balancing multiple plot lines, told decades apart, is the sort of thing that most filmmakers can't handle, and they get lost in the editing room where we stop caring about what happened before since it's not happening now.  But that's not how One Battle After Another works.  Instead, we spend it recalling, wondering how this story will be told in full, a 2.5-hour tale that doesn't once let up or make you want to look at your phone for the time.

Silver: Thrillers live-and-die in the editing room, and that's the case with Black Bag, a movie that always seems to be aware of the giant elephant in the room, whether that's a dinner party where we know a lie is about to be exposed, or something grander, like a literal ticking clock counting down if a man can trust his wife.

Bronze: Part of the genius of The Secret Agent (a great movie I really wanted to put into our stacked Best Actor field, and I'm feeling bad only got one medal in this whole article, but that's how it goes in the best year for movies since 2017) is that it is telling so many tales at once.  You have a seemingly arbitrary tale of a shark coming in at points, as well as looking back-and-forth as this story is told from the vantage of decades after-the-fact, and yet still feeling like a proper mystery.

Makeup & Hairstyling

Frankenstein

Kokuho

The Phoenician Scheme

Sinners

Weapons

Gold: The makeup effects in Kokuho are some of the best I've seen in a long time.  Usually when Oscar cites a random film out of nowhere, I roll my eyes and give it three stars because it's not that impressive...here, he outdid himself, not just giving us mountains of character-telling Kabuki makeup, but also some of the most impressively realistic aging makeup I've seen onscreen.

Silver: The Phoenician Scheme does what Wes Anderson does best-gives us a sea of the most famous actors working today, and lets them play pretend.  That shines in the way that we get a quirky business tyrant in Benicio del Toro, debonair (you can see a bit of Howard Hughes here) but still consistently ruffled, along with the gaudily over-enunciated nun played by Mia Threapleton.  It's makeup that not just tells a joke, but also looks good.

Bronze: Sometimes you get a nomination just from one creation in this field (indeed, that's true of two of these nominees), and no character this year was quite as singular as Aunt Gladys.  The way that we unfold her in three acts, a gigantic orange clown, a spooky under-the-mattress freak show, and then a stripped-down monster...it's Madigan working hand-in-hand with the makeup chair to make this woman an icon.

Visual Effects

Avatar: Fire & Ash

F1

How to Train Your Dragon

Thunderbolts

Tron: Ares

Gold: It almost feels tired to give yet another gold medal to a James Cameron movie, but if there's a less lazy way to pick the best of the cinematic VFX in a year, it didn't come in 2025.  Avatar stands so far above these with its realistic animation, body-capture tech, and gorgeously-lit cascades through land, fire, & water in Pandora, nothing else can compare.  This isn't quite in the same league as The Way of Water, but that's a bit like comparing Nadal's Grand Slam wins at Roland Garros...they're all works of art.

Silver: That said, I did really like the five films I picked here (I think this is the category I most outdid Oscar), and I'm going to remain surprised for a while that the Academy didn't see the glorious effects in Tron: Ares, filled with so much red, blue, & black cleverness in design, and didn't instantly want to put their stamp on it.

Bronze: It's always fun to chase two CGI-heavy films with a movie that (while very CGI heavy too, let's be real) also has some practical effects in the ways we handle these cars.  The combination of subtlety with the creation of some of these race tracks with the practical endurance of actual race cars in many scenes is a fitting close to honestly a terrific year for movies.

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