2026 Oscars

Photo taken by RAP in LA, August 15, 2025

As I do annually, this post reviews Academy Award nominees in major categories and provides my rankings within them. I am not predicting winners and only rank the films I have seen. Again this year, I have not seen very many of the movies, so I will be updating this post extensively in the future and noting the edits with yellow highlights. 

You can find my post about last year's Oscars here and work backwards if you want. 

Best Picture

“The Secret Agent”

“One Battle After Another”

“Train Dreams”

“Sinners”

“Hamnet”

“Frankenstein”

“Bugonia”

I suspect that a couple of the films I have not seen will push towards the top of this list, but I can only rank what I have watched to-date. Were most of these films better than Eddington? Or Black Bag?

** Update: The Secret Agent is exceptional filmmaking. 

“F1”

“Marty Supreme”

“Sentimental Value”

Directing

Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After Another”

Ryan Coogler, “Sinners”

Chloé Zhao, “Hamnet”

Every year I struggle with ranking in this category -- I usually just put them in the same order as I do the films unless there is a good reason not to do so.

Josh Safdie, “Marty Supreme”

Joachim Trier, “Sentimental Value”

Actor in a Leading Role

Michael B. Jordan, “Sinners”

Ethan Hawke, “Blue Moon”

Wagner Moura, “The Secret Agent”

Leonardo DiCaprio, “One Battle After Another”

I don't think DiCaprio is going to win a second Oscar this year and Jordan did play two characters. 

Timothée Chalamet, “Marty Supreme”

Actress in a Leading Role

Jessie Buckley, “Hamnet”

Emma Stone, “Bugonia”

Kate Hudson, “Song Sung Blue”

I do not think Stone will win a third Oscar and doubt that she deserves it for this role. I saw a lot of Jessie Buckley last month as we watched the entire run of Fargo, the series. She's talented.

Rose Byrne, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”

Renate Reinsve, “Sentimental Value”

Actor in a Supporting Role

Sean Penn, “One Battle After Another”

Benicio Del Toro, “One Battle After Another”

Delroy Lindo, “Sinners”

Jacob Elordi, “Frankenstein”

There's apparently a lot of buzz about the one performance I have not yet seen (Skarsgard), but Sean Penn could absolutely win for this role. He was great. I would be very surprised if the other 3 won.

Stellan Skarsgard, “Sentimental Value”

Actress in a Supporting Role

Amy Madigan, “Weapons”

Teyana Taylor, “One Battle After Another”

Wunmi Mosaku, “Sinners”

I would not be surprised if Taylor won, but obviously I still have to see several other performances. 

Elle Fanning, “Sentimental Value”

Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, “Sentimental Value”

Animated Feature Film

This is one of those years that I did not see any of these films. 

“Arco”

“Elio”

“KPop Demon Hunters”

“Little Amélie or the Character of Rain”

“Zootopia 2”

Documentary Feature Film

I have neglected this category often in recent years. It happened again.

“The Alabama Solution”

“Come See Me in the Good Light”

“Cutting Through Rocks”

“Mr. Nobody Against Putin”

“The Perfect Neighbor”

International Feature Film

Honestly, I probably would have watched "The Secret Agent" in a nearby theater while traveling in the UK if it was shorter (it runs 160 minutes). The problem with "Sentimental Value" and "Sirat" is that they were not showing at a non-chain theater near me. I'll view several of these soon, most likely. 

“The Secret Agent,” Brazil

The Secret Agent would have been a completely defensible Oscar winner. 

“It Was Just an Accident,” France

“Sentimental Value,” Norway

“Sirat,” Spain

“The Voice of Hind Rajab,” Tunisia

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Films of 2025

 

Attribution: Steve Morgan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

As usual, there are numerous well-reviewed 2025 films that I did not yet see during the calendar year. Many have been released in recent days and weeks and I won't see them until 2026 -- or later. Still, this year I saw many very good to excellent films from 2025. 

Long-time readers may recall that it used to take great effort to figure out which movies were released this year and which movies I saw. I used to consult various lists, box office numbers, etc. However, now that I'm using Letterboxd, I have a really good feel for the exact movies I saw this year -- and a fairly good idea of which of them were released in 2025. A few of these titles are listed with 2024 production dates, but I'm fairly confident that if they are here, they were not widely distributed in the US until 2025. This includes some that my spouse and I saw at film festivals. 

FWIW, I saw a large number of 2024 films this year too and if I was writing it now, would significantly revise last year's post on the Films of 2024. Indeed, I logged 92 films this year on Letterboxd so the list below is obviously only a sliver of my viewing. 

I write an annual version of this post so anyone interested an use that link to work backwards -- or simply click on the film labels below the post to see a list. 

We attended festivals in Collingwood, Ontario (Blue Mountain viewings are noted with ***) and Indianapolis, Indiana (Heartland is ****) and saw five films in total at those events. We also saw a couple of other films in theaters while traveling -- on a really hot day in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and on a festival day in Indy when we could not get good seats for a different movie (** below). Mostly, these movies were streamed on our television, though a few involved library DVDs. 

The first few films I discuss are excellent, but really the top 15 are all worth seeing.

Both of the top 2 films deal with immigration, which confirms that this is a globally important political issue since one is from the US and the other is from France and the immigrants are from Latin America in one and Africa in the other. Paul Thomas Anderson has made a Tarantino-style movie with previous Oscar winners in key roles and Souleymane's Story is a relatively small film with a novice actor. 

Black Bag is a fun spy film that is exceptionally well done with a great cast. 

One Battle After Another

Souleymane's Story ***

Black Bag

It's hard to separate the dozen films in the next group and they cover a diverse array of topics. An interesting spin on a crime story set in Ireland, a modern take on the continuing problem of nuclear armament, and a film about recovery from sexual assault top the list, but the remainder of the films offer something for everyone -- interpersonal drama, the COVID pandemic and its politics/conspiracies, a small town baseball film, a human interest story based on a true story, a UFO movie, etc. Several are subtitled foreign films. 

Sinners has been getting substantial attention so you probably already know about it. I liked the film, but it was not among the very best movies I saw this year. 

Aontas ***

House of Dynamite

Sorry, Baby

Ballad of Wallis Island

Holy Cow ***

Eddington **

Sinners

The Phoenician Scheme

Eephus ***

Roofman **

Bugonia

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

Hello Out There ****

This final group includes films that could be worth watching, but I found them to be flawed in meaningful ways. At the top is an AI story, but there's also comedy, social commentary, fun sequels, attempted satire of billionaires, a retelling of a classic superhero story, and the final Tom Cruise Mission Impossible movie. The latter was overly long and predictable, sadly, and far from the best in the franchise. Bridget Jones was a better sequel. 

I was probably most disappointed in Mountainhead because it sounded like a sharp critique of economic inequality and the "billionaire boys [tech] club." Unfortunately, the writing was just so-so and I did not find it that engaging. 

Companion

One of Them Days

Materialists

Friendship

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

Mountainhead

Superman

Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning

I will update this if I watch any new films before midnight on the 31st. I'm scheduled to be on a long flight and it is hard to predict what might be available and worth viewing. 


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Blue Mountain Film Festival 2025

From May 29 to June 1, my spouse and I attended the Blue Mountain Film Festival near Collingwood, Ontario. We went in 2024 as well. If you are interested, this link navigates to a list of all of the films. 

I post film reviews to Letterboxd, but not everyone is on that platform. Here are my brief (slighted edited) reviews of the four films we saw:

Thursday: Holy Cow (2024) (French)

This is a story about a young man known for his drinking and fighting who is forced to grow up when misfortune strikes his family. He begins a romance and learns an artisanal craft. It's worth a watch.

Friday: Aontas (2025) (Irish)

It's a crime thriller that provides commentary about the importance of community, especially given the contemporary political economy. The story is told almost exclusively backwards, beginning with a scene from nearly the end of the movie and working back bit by bit. It manages to provide plenty of suspense despite this method.

Saturday: Eephus (2024) (US)

I've seen a *lot* of baseball movies and this fun flick is in the upper third (approximately). There are some nods to prior films even as this movie focuses on a seemingly meaningless adult game featuring Dads, very pudgy catchers, old outfielders, and others with modest talent. They love the game and want to finish their late October matchup even though the sunshine disappears, the umpires leave (but baseball has no clock!), and the supply of balls runs short. Bill "Spaceman" Lee has a cameo inning pitching in the game. The conceit is that the field is being destroyed to make way for construction of a new school.

Sunday: Souleymane's Story (2024) (French)

This is an exceptional film. The novice lead is terrific playing a version of himself -- a recent immigrant from Guinea seeking asylum. His hard life in Paris reflected on the screen is sometimes tough to watch and it reminds the viewer of the horror of the nationalist anti-immigrant fervor infecting the US and other nations in the current political moment.

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2025 Oscars

As I do annually, this post reviews Academy Award nominees in major categories and provides my rankings within them. I am not predicting winners and only rank the films I have seen. This year, I have not seen very many of the movies, so much more than normal I will be updating this post and noting the edits with yellow highlights. 

You can find my post about last year's Oscars here and work backward if you want. 

Best Picture

Conclave 

The Brutalist  
A Complete Unknown  

Anora  

Emilia Pérez  

Dune: Part Two  

The Substance 

I really liked Conclave even though I was not really expecting much. It features great acting performances and an intriguing storyline. 

A Complete Unknown is an interesting and generally well-done biopic focusing on just a few years of Bob Dylan's life -- his period as a NY folk musician. There are a lot of great songs. 

Anora is an interesting character study, but it felt like I was watching a preventable catastrophe. Emilia Pérez is a unique film. Did we need it? 

Dune 2 has a complicated storyline and the acting is fine, but it is overly long and more of a technical achievement than anything else. Green Borders was a better film last year and I'm sure there were many other more deserving candidates for an Oscar nomination. 

There were many non-Oscar nominated movies that I liked much better than The Substance. Indeed, in the same genre, I thought A Different Man was better. 

Updates: The Brutalist is very good, but not especially entertaining. Conclave managed to be very good and entertaining. The nominations for Emilia Pérez , Dune 2, and The Substance suggest that this was a weak year for top films. 

I’m Still Here  

Nickel Boys 

Wicked  

Directing

Brady Corbet, The Brutalist

James Mangold, A Complete Unknown

Sean Baker, Anora

Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez

Coralie Fargeat, The Substance

I need to see more of the top films.   I never entirely know how to evaluate this category. 

Actor in a Leading Role

Adrien Brody, The Brutalist

Ralph Fiennes, Conclave

Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice

Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown

Fiennes does a great job, though it is probably not the best performance of his career. That Nazi he played for Spielberg is difficult to shake all these years later. 

I saw Chalamet in Dune 2 and Stan in A Different Man so I have a feel for their work. Both are quite talented but this year I'd go for Fiennes among the 3 of them. Update: Chalamet was great in A Complete Unknown. And Stan was excellent in The Apprentice. It's a tossup. 

Update 2: Brody was really good too. 

 

Colman Domingo, Sing Sing

Actress in a Leading Role

Mikey Madison, Anora

Demi Moore, The Substance

Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez

Madison committed to her role in Anora. She was very good, but it's an odd film. 

Moore's performance was perhaps the best aspect of The Substance, but that was not enough to save the film for me. Gascón's performance was fine, but I'm not sure it was Oscar-nomination material even if she was the title character. 

Cynthia Erivo, Wicked

Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here

Actor in a Supporting Role

Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice

Guy Pearce, The Brutalist

Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown

Yura Borisov, Anora

I watched A Real Pain instead of the Oscars. It was a very good performance, but grating. Norton was also excellent and could have won. Borisov was understated and also excellent. 

In my view, Strong was robbed of the award, though he probably should have been nominated for Best Actor. He had a lot of screen time. Pearce was also excellent. 

Actress in a Supporting Role

Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez

Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown

Isabella Rossellini, Conclave

Felicity Jones, The Brutalist

Saldaña gives an excellent performance and I can see how she won. She even sings and dances, of course. 

Barbaro was good, but Elle Fanning might have been better. Her face said everything when she watched Dylan and Baez singing duets. 

I don't believe Rossellini will win as this is a surprisingly small part. She is more seen than heard, perhaps predictably in a film about the selection of a new Pope. 

Ariana Grande, Wicked

Animated Feature Film

Flow

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

The Wild Robot 

This is unusual. In many years I don't see any of the animated features prior to the Oscars -- and may never see them. This year, I caught one because my wife wanted to see it (she usually has almost no interest in animation) and another because I teach climate change. A third was on a streaming service I'm accessing right now.

I really enjoyed Flow though I freely admit that the dog was my favorite character in a film mostly about the journey of a cat. The flooding and lack of people (and dialogue) makes this seem like a tale about climate change from the point of view of the natural world. 

W&G was fine, but not spectacular. The Wild Robot was too much of a kid movie for my tastes. 

Inside Out 2 

Memoir of a Snail 

Documentary Feature Film

Black Box Diaries 

No Other Land 

Porcelain War

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat 

Sugarcane 

International Feature Film

Flow 

Emilia Pérez 

Flow was a very good film, but I suspect there are stronger contenders for the award. It's amazing to me that Green Borders is not on this list -- apparently a decision marred by government pressure. 

Maybe Emilia Pérez is a better movie, but I liked Flow -- but split Emilia Pérez into 2 nights because I really don't like musicals very much. 

I’m Still Here 

The Girl With the Needle

The Seed of the Sacred Fig 

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Best Films of 2024

The graphic below identifies the top 25 films from 2024 that critics ranked on their end-of-year "best of" lists. The full list goes to 100 and if you are interested in seeing it, I'm sourcing the list from the same website as I used last year. The methodology for compilation is ostensibly the same. Here's the detail from last year:

Films are sorted by the percentage of lists they are included on.* This is typically the same as sorting by number of lists included, but can vary when films make lists across multiple years.  For example, if one film makes 10 lists in a year with 100 lists available, it’s ranking will be higher than a film that makes 15 lists when 200 lists are available.  The times a film appears at the top of a list is used as a tie-breaker.

*punctuation errors corrected 

Basically, this is an annual best films comment that I'm posting for 2024. This is the post about the best films of 2023. Below this graphic, you'll find my rankings of these films (by tiers) with a list of the ones I still need to see. As I watch them over time, I'll edit the post but note the changes with yellow highlighting.  

This "best of" comment is distinct from both the annual post on "films of 2024," which is my end-of-year musing about all the films I saw in a calendar year, and my annual Oscar post, which concerns that year's Academy Award nominees. 

Top-tier films. These are very serious Oscar contenders:

TBD.

Conclave

The Brutalist

Anora

I did not have particularly high expectations, but Conclave is excellent film-making. A thriller about selecting a new Pope!

Anora was very well made, but I didn't think it was an all-time great or anything. 

Second-tier films. These are very good and could garner Oscar support:

A Different Man

A Real Pain

Challengers

Dune: Part Two

Janet Planet

Juror #2

Civil War

Third-tier films. These are entertaining but flawed films:

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Love Lies Bleeding

The Wild Robot

I Saw the TV Glow

The Substance

Fourth-tier films. I found these to be disappointing and do not recommend (if necessary, could remain blank):

TBD

Films yet to see (20 of 25 as of today):

Nickel Boys

All We Imagine as Light

Wicked Part One

Sing Sing

Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World

Hard Truths

The Beast

Nosferatu

Evil Does Not Exist

No Other Land

Glancing through the rest of the top 100, I've seen the following films already and rank them roughly in this order:

Best of the rest

Green Border (#45) (I'd put this in the first tier above)

A Complete Unknown (#27)

His Three Daughters (37) This could have been an Oscar contender in acting categories.

Between the Temples (42)

Thelma (61) 

September 5 (40)

Rebel Ridge (50)

Kneecap (60)

I liked most of these films more than all of the third-tier above. 

These were all about the same

Saturday Night (73)

Twisters (86)

Will & Harper (96)

Emilia Pérez  (33)

Problemista (82)

Hit Man (31)

Flow (30)

My Old Ass (49)

Less enjoyable

Kinds of Kindness (63)

The Fall Guy (71)

Trap (44)

Nearly all of these films would be in my second or third tier above. 

Note that the list numbers change slightly over time as more "best of" lists are added. That explains any discrepancy in ratings noted. 

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Films of 2024

Attribution: AlexiusHoratius, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

There are a large number of 2024 movies I intend to watch and some of the very best ones will be appearing on screens in front of me in the coming weeks of the new year. I say screens because this year I actually saw more than a handful of films in the theater -- for the first time since December 2019 (or maybe early 2020, I don't recall precisely). 

As for the films I saw, readers can find my brief reviews and ratings at Letterboxd. On that site, I have been religiously logging all the films I've seen, not merely those released in 2024. It appears I watched 97 films this year; thus, the list of new films below reflects only a small portion of my total movie viewing. It does include a few foreign films that were technically released in 2023 but were not widely distributed in the USA until this year. 

As longtime readers know, this is an annual list and here is a link to last year's post if you want to work backwards through my viewing experiences. 

Films from this first set of films will probably receive award nominations, or at least deserve strong consideration. Two of them received recognition last year.

Green Border **

Zone of Interest **

Thelma *

The Teacher's Lounge **

Kneecap

Lee *

If you are a film buff, you probably already know about the Oscar nominations for two of the foreign films from 2023 -- Zone of Interest won an Oscar and was nominated for another; The Teacher's Lounge was also nominated. They are powerful and important films with very different subjects (Nazi death camps and elementary school theft). Green Border is an exceptional foreign film about Syrian refugees that opened in Poland in 2023 but was not available until mid-year 2024 in the US.  Though eligible last year, it was not nominated for an Oscar after facing domestic political backlash. 

Thelma is quite a different film, a fairly lightweight comedy action movie. We saw it on a big screen at the State Theater in Traverse City, as part of the reimagined TC Film Festival. Now, through much of the year, Tuesdays are reserved for festival films. Our show featured a Zoom discussion with the director-filmmaker Josh Margolin after the screening, featuring Q&A by Michael Moore. That may have influenced my rating, but it is a very entertaining movie.

Kneecap is about Irish rappers...and British colonialism, so be sure to check it out too. Lee, starring Kate Winslet, is an excellent biopic about a pathbreaking female photo journalist. Its release was delayed by the Hollywood acting/writing strikes of 2023.  We saw this at the State Theater in Traverse City (home of the revamped TC Film Festival  mentioned above) during my fall break in late September. 

Next, these films were quite good and might receive award consideration. More likely, they will be remembered as very solid movies:

Girls Will Be Girls *

Civil War
The Missile *

Between the Temples

Will & Harper

June

Rebel Ridge

The Teacher Who Promised the Sea * & **

Carry-On

The three films with asterisks are foreign films that my spouse and I saw at the Blue Mountain Film Festival in late spring in Canada. There are some terrific acting performances in these movies and all address important topics. Green Border from the above list was also at the festival but we didn't attend, partly because it is very long. 

Readers may be more familiar with two movies I saw on Max and Netflix this summer, Civil War and Rebel Ridge. They are entertaining and definitely worth seeing. Both have been picking up some votes (#32 and #55 currently) on critics' "Best of 2024" lists.  We watched Civil War in the same fall break weekend that we saw Lee and both feature female photojournalists during wartime. 

Between the Temples (#40) is funny thanks to a strong cast with good material. Through no fault of his own, I'm sure, Jason Schwartzman sometimes rubs me the wrong way. He's watchable here.

Will & Harper (#97T) has received a lot of press and it is a thoughtful and entertaining film. June is a documentary about June Carter Cash. I like her music and appreciated the doc.

Carry-On is an action movie on Netflix with a Christmas setting. Will it be the Die Hard of the 2020s (and beyond)? There's a reasonable chance of that. The hero isn't as funny as Bruce Willis sometimes was in the earlier film (iirc).

Finally, these films in the last set were less interesting to me though generally watchable and entertaining in one way or another:

Hit Man

A Quiet Place Day One

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 

Problemista

Love Lies Bleeding

Trap

This list actually includes several films that are appearing on critic "best of" lists. Love Lies Bleeding is currently standing at #24 on that list, making it arguably the best film I saw this year. While I think I know what it was trying to say, too much of it didn't really click with me. Likewise, my spouse and I didn't find Hit Man or Trap (#32 and #46) to be all that great. They were too formulaic and predictable, even when they were going for novelty, if that makes any sense. 

In contrast, we had very low expectations for the Beetlejuice sequel and we kind of liked it. We rewatched the old one in preparation too. Problemista  (#88) was both quirky and fun (and was also delayed by the Hollywood labor strife). The Quiet Place prequel was OK but it didn't have that much to offer beyond what the prior films in the series did.

I'm obviously missing a large number of highly rated films from 2024 and plan to see them through 2025 (and beyond). I used to provide a list (and I still might) of top-rated films that I have not yet seen, but I didn't do it the last couple of years and no one complained. 

NOTES: 

* I saw these movies in theaters!

** Foreign releases from 2023 not really distributed in the US until 2024. 

I will update this if I watched any new films before midnight on the 31st.

I also saw "Blood of Angels" in a theater, a film made by local artists that I know personally. 

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Canadian Film Festival

In late May my spouse and I drove to Canada and attended the Blue Mountain Film Festival at the ski resort just outside of Collingwood. From there we ventured over to Toronto for a few days, took in a Blue Jays game versus the Orioles, and then had a final stop in Rochester for a few days. 

At the film festival we saw three very good films. I think the best was probably Girls Will Be Girls, though I also really enjoyed The Missile and the Teacher Who Promised the Sea. These were all international films and each arguably offered some lessons about global politics.

The Orioles easily won the matchup against the Jays, but the home team was giving away Vlad Guerrero bobble head dolls and Vlad hit a HR that night. Loyal readers may recall that I saw Vlad on a Michigan vacation years ago (2017!) when he was playing for the Lansing Lugnuts. Bo Bichette was a teammate on both occasions.

In Toronto we enjoyed walking around downtown and in the Beaches neighborhood. We had some excellent ethnic food including Indian and Thai. Departing Canada, we crossed and visited Niagara Falls from the NY side.

In Rochester we ate some delicious local strawberries, some on a short cake served with ice cream and whipped cream, and drank a very tasty local beer, Unfettered Soul from Strangebird, that recently won a Bronze for its Hazy IPA at the World Beer Cup. 

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Oscars 2024

This is my annual post about the Academy Awards. I'm not predicting who will win, but instead ranking the nominations in my preferred order of finish. I'll only rank the films and performances I've seen and will update this list in the future once I see a film. Those changes will be noted in yellow highlights. 

You can find my post about last year's Oscars here and work backward if you want. 

Best picture

“Killers of the Flower Moon”

“Oppenheimer”

“Anatomy of a Fall”

“Poor Things”

“Past Lives”

“The Holdovers”

“American Fiction”

“The Zone of Interest”

“Maestro”

“Barbie”

Frankly I'd be OK if any of the top 4 5 6 win. They are all very good films. The Holdovers is the one I could imagine watching again in a few years because of the humor. Maybe Barbie too. Oppenheimer conceivably could be a film for my political science course.

Update: Poor Things was terrific with lots of interesting stuff going on. It explores some of the same themes about science as Oppenheimer but in a very different manner.

Update 2: Anatomy of a Fall is an exceptional film that I watched in late August 2024. It's very long, but I could imagine seeing it again though I suppose the resolution to the mystery at the center of the film won't be a surprise the next time I see it. 

Zone of Interest could also be a film for my course, but it is almost impossible to rate here. It is a singular work of art that is not meant to be entertaining. The other films that feature horrible deeds, including Killers of the Flower Moon, have moments of light humor. The Zone of Interest is unrelenting, but also masterful. See it once. 

Directing

Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”

Yorgos Lanthimos, “Poor Things”

Justine Triet, “Anatomy of a Fall”

Jonathan Glazer, “The Zone of Interest”

Martin Scorsese, “Killers of the Flower Moon”

I flip-flopped some of the top films here and it might be mysterious why I did this. It would probably take too long to explain, but some of the rankings of the movies as movies reflect the writing, the acting, the cinematography etc. In this category, I have attempted to weigh the factors that the directors most directly control. It's subjective. 

Actor in a leading role

Paul Giamatti, “The Holdovers”

Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer”

Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction”

Colman Domingo, “Rustin”

Bradley Cooper, “Maestro”

Giamatti was excellent. He may not win, but the performance was award-worthy.

I've seen a lot of Murphy in 2024 because my spouse and I have watched several seasons of Peaky Blinders on Netflix. He's talented and I would not be disappointed if he won.

Wright and Domingo were also excellent though I have not heard serious buzz about their winning and I probably would vote for one of the other performances. But this is a tight category. 

Cooper was fine but the movie really didn't click with me. 

Actor in a supporting role

Robert Downey Jr., “Oppenheimer”

Robert De Niro, “Killers of the Flower Moon”

Mark Ruffalo, “Poor Things”

Sterling K. Brown, “American Fiction”

Ryan Gosling, “Barbie”

We were well into the movie before I recognized Downey in his role. It's a very good performance. 

DeNiro played his usual type, a type he has long perfected. Brown was excellent too. I hope this pushes him into larger roles.

Gosling has had many better roles.

Actress in a leading role

Emma Stone, “Poor Things”

Sandra Hüller, “Anatomy of a Fall”

Lily Gladstone, “Killers of the Flower Moon”

Annette Bening, “Nyad”

Carey Mulligan, “Maestro”

Last fall, my spouse and I saw Gladstone in a 2016 Kelly Reichardt film, Certain Women. It was a strong performance and I'm not surprised she delivered an Oscar-caliber performance this year. It's not as loud as Bening's role. If I had to re-rank them from scratch, I could just as easily put Mulligan over Bening. Update: Emma Stone was excellent, as was Sandra Hüller. 

Actress in a supporting role

America Ferrera, “Barbie”

Da’Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”

Emily Blunt, “Oppenheimer”

Jodie Foster, “Nyad”

I don't have strong feelings here though apparently Randolph is the overwhelming favorite. She was very good in her role. I've seen Ferrera's speech more than once on TV and wonder if it will carry her to a victory. It was impressive. 

Blunt was fine, but the role was perhaps not Oscar-worthy. Surprisingly, Foster was somewhat mannered in Nyad, delivering a character not a lot unlike some others she has performed in the past. 

Danielle Brooks, “The Color Purple”

Documentary feature film

So far we have not seen any of these. There's work to do, no none of them sound especially uplifting. Most are available on streaming services that we can access, so it is inevitable that I will see some.

“Bobi Wine: The People’s President”

“The Eternal Memory”

“Four Daughters”

“To Kill a Tiger”

“20 Days in Mariupol”

International feature film

United Kingdom, “The Zone of Interest”

Spain, “Society of the Snow”

Germany, “The Teachers’ Lounge”

I've discussed The Zone of Interest above. I am curious as to why it is listed as UK rather than Poland, which is credited in the film.

Society of the Snow is an interesting film (on Netflix right now) that had me recalling the press coverage of the crash and aftermath. The Teacher's Lounge was well-made, but I thought the tone was over-the-top for the setting. Maybe I'm jaded by American schools where "zero tolerance" brings to mind the threat of gun violence. 

Of the others, I really want to see The Zone of Interest, which is also on the top list above. 

Italy, “Io Capitano”

Japan, “Perfect Days”

Animated feature film

I have not watched many animated films the past few years. I saw a few minutes of the new Spider-Man at a brewpub and will probably see it before any of the others. 

“The Boy and the Heron”

“Elemental”

“Nimona”

“Robot Dreams”

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”

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Best films of 2023

The graphic below identifies the top 25 films from 2023 that critics ranked on their end-of-year "best of" lists. The full list goes to 100 and if you are interested in seeing it, I'm sourcing the list from a different website this year. The methodology for compilation is ostensibly the same. Here's the detail:

Films are sorted by the percentage of lists they are included on.* This is typically the same as sorting by number of lists included, but can vary when films make lists across multiple years.  For example, if one film makes 10 lists in a year with 100 lists available, it’s ranking will be higher than a film that makes 15 lists when 200 lists are available.  The times a film appears at the top of a list is used as a tie-breaker.

*punctuation errors corrected 

Basically, this is an annual best films comment that I'm posting for 2023. This is the post about the best films of 2022. Below this graphic, you'll find my rankings of these films (by tiers) with a list of the ones I still need to see. As I watch them over time, I'll edit the post but note the changes with yellow highlighting.  

This "best of" comment is distinct from both the annual post on "films of 2023," which is my end-of-year musing about all the films I saw in a calendar year and my annual Oscar post. 

Top-tier films. These are very serious Oscar contenders:

Killers of the Flower Moon

Oppenheimer

Anatomy of a Fall

Poor Things

Past Lives

American Fiction

The Holdovers

The Zone of Interest

May December

I've seen all but May December since the new year, which means they were not on the December list for 2023. The top 4 5 on this are excellent and are well worth your time. Warning: Oppenheimer is exceptional, but it is both very long and about a subject that I have studied off-and-on since the 1980s. Your interest may vary from mine.  

Incidentally, I joined Letterboxd last October and you can find  my brief reviews of films there. I think I backfilled for all of 2023 and most of the films used in my political science course. 

Second-tier films. These are very good and may garner Oscar support:

Maestro 

Showing Up

Priscilla

Barbie

Maestro was well-made and well-acted, but I wasn't nearly as interested in this story as I was in the stories from the first-tier of films. I didn't find Bernstein's life especially interesting.  

The 2 films after Maestro were both calendar year 2023 viewings. Honestly I thought about putting Barbie in the following tier. 

Third-tier films. These are entertaining but flawed films:

The Killer

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret

Asteroid City

Again, nothing new here yet. My spouse and I are trying to find time to see the Oscar nominated movies. 

Fourth-tier films. I found these to be disappointing and do not recommend (if necessary, could remain blank):

N/A

Films yet to see (16 of 25 as of today):

Afire

All of Us Strangers

The Boy and the Heron

Fallen Leaves

Godzilla Minus One

John Wick: Chapter 4

Passages

Saltburn

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Glancing through the rest of the top 100, I've seen the following films already and rank them roughly in this order:

Tar (tier 1, a remnant from last year's list for some critic)

The Teacher's Lounge (tier 2)

Fair Play (tier 2 or 3)

They Cloned Tyrone (tier 2 or 3)

Reality (tier 2 or 3)

Dream Scenario (tier 2 or 3)

You Hurt My Feelings (tier 2 or 3)

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part I (Tier 4 material)

Oscars 2023

The past few weeks, my spouse and I have been viewing many of the Oscar nominees. We saw several over the course of 2022, but quite a few remain on the watchlist. We would have watched 2 more films last weekend, but the windstorm knocked out our electricity for 54 hours ending hopes of viewing on Friday and Saturday night.

These are my rankings for each category, not my predictions about the awards. You can find forecasts elsewhere. I'll update these by highlighting films or performances that I view after today. 

Best Picture

“The Banshees of Inisherin” 

“All Quiet on the Western Front” 

“Tár” 

“The Fabelmans” 

“Triangle of Sadness”

“Elvis” 

“Top Gun: Maverick” 

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” 

I know that I'm ranking the favorite last, but it just didn't grab me. Maybe I should see it again. 

“Avatar: The Way of Water” 

“Women Talking” 

Best Director 

Martin McDonagh (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) 

Todd Field (“Tár”) 

Ruben Östlund (“Triangle of Sadness”)

Steven Spielberg (“The Fabelmans”) 

Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) 

Banshees really was an excellent film. As was Tár. 

Best Lead Actor

Colin Farrell (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) 

Austin Butler (“Elvis”) 

Paul Mescal (“Aftersun”) 

Bill Nighy (“Living”) 

Though I have Mescal behind others, he delivered a fine performance and I encourage everyone to see the film. Update September 2023: Nighy was also very good in Living, which is also worth your time. 

Brendan Fraser (“The Whale”) 

Best Lead Actress

Cate Blanchett (“Tár”) 

Andrea Riseborough (“To Leslie”)

Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”)

Michelle Williams (“The Fabelmans”) 

Williams was fine, but her performance didn't knock me out. Yeoh's role was a lot more demanding and she was very good. The winner may come from a film I did not see yet. 

Update: Cate Blanchett is a marvel. Riseborough was also excellent in a film few people saw based on the IMDB box office information.

Ana de Armas (“Blonde”) 

Best Supporting Actor

Brendan Gleeson (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) 

Barry Keoghan (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) 

Brian Tyree Henry (“Causeway”) 

Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) 

Judd Hirsch (“The Fabelmans”)

It was really difficult to decide which actor to select here from Banshees, which could mean voters will divide their ballots and open the door for another actor. 

Best Supporting Actress

Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) 

Stephanie Hsu (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”)

Jamie Lee Curtis (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) 

Condon was excellent. Obviously, you know what film would sweep my ballot if I had one. 

Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) 

Hong Chau (“The Whale”) 

Best Documentary Feature Film 

“Fire of Love”

The Kraffts were risk-takers, making this film difficult to watch in spots. But it is an interesting story about volcano experts that is very much worth your time. 

“All That Breathes" 

“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” 

“A House Made of Splinters” 

“Navalny” 

Best International Feature Film 

“The Quiet Girl” (Ireland) 

“All Quiet on the Western Front” (Germany) 

“EO” (Poland) 

All Quiet captures much of the spirit of the novel, but there are some significant plot differences. It is nonetheless a superior film. See it.

Update: The Quiet Girl is really good too. Maybe better.

“Argentina, 1985” (Argentina) 

“Close” (Belgium)

Best Animated Feature Film 

“Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” 

I have some work to do here as I have not seen any of these animated films at the time of the Oscars. 

“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” 

“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” 

“The Sea Beast” 

“Turning Red” 

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