As you know, the day they are revealed is, in most years, the day I post my rankings of movies from the previous year. Two more wrap-up posts follow on consecutive days, plus an informal ode to my #1 on day 4. By that time, the nominations are no longer a new enough phenomenon for me to devote a whole post to them and still feel current.
This year, due to the tragic circumstances of the LA fires, my rankings release and the nominations date became disentangled. (I could have continued watching 2024 movies until yesterday, but I think that might have killed me.) So here I am, able to create a full reaction post and still be within the first 12 hours of the world's knowledge of them.
First let me start by saying I have to officially learn how to pronounce Emilia Perez. Like many lazy Americans, I still put the emPHAsis on the wrong syllABle. (That old joke.) I still say "Perez" as "Puh-REZ," when of course we know it is much closer to "PAIR-ez." I'll get it one of these days.
Emilia Perez did lead all nominees with 13 Oscar nods, a ridiculous number that is higher than I can remember any film getting in quite some time. That number is of course boosted by three nominations in the music categories, for the score and two songs, but hey, 13 nominations is 13 nominations. No reason to undercut it.
Especially since Emilia Perez was my #4 movie of 2024. Which is gratifying as hell to see.
I have yet to see Emilia Perez on another critic's top ten list, though granted, I've only closely observed about eight of them. (Lost in this year's busy and travel-filled December and January was my usual perusal of top ten lists from prominent critics. I'm talking about seven top ten lists on two of my movie podcasts and one created by my friend Don.)
There was a temptation to think of Emilia Perez as one of those movies the Golden Globes embraces but the Oscars do not embrace. (And yes, I do realize I'm following different pluralization rules for those two bodies, which strikes me as strange but which feels right.) And that means if you like that movie, there is something unsophisticated about you.
But no, Emilia Perez has gotten the full-throated support of the Academy, perhaps even more so than the Globes, It's been officially endorsed. It's okay for me to love it as much as I do.
But hold on there, Emilia Perez is not my highest ranked best picture nominee. Not nearly.
I figured my #2 Wicked would get a nomination, and it did. But only lately did I start thinking, to my general surprise, that my #1 The Substance would get a nomination. I started to get the idea it might be possible not from the Golden Globes nominating it for best musical or comedy, since that category has some allowances the drama category does not, but from Coralie Fargeat being nominated by the Globes as best director. And indeed, The Substance got that BP nomination, as well as another directing nod for Fargeat, a screenplay nod for Fargeat, and the richly deserved and much expected best actress nomination for Demi Moore. (And hair and makeup.)
Suddenly, a top ten list that I felt put me out of step with other cinephiles -- I was often counting no more than one title in common with their lists, though finally one of my podcasters named The Substance his #8 -- is a fully defensible, even mainstream, list. Three best picture nominees in my top five.
In fact, too mainstream? Am I now a company man or something? Because actually there are three other movies in my top ten that got best picture nominations. Expectedly, The Brutalist (#9) got one, and I think may be the favorite to win. Unexpectedly, Nickel Boys (#10) got one, which I thought would be unlikely since I'd only heard its name called once or twice before that, though one was for RaMell Ross' screenplay, which always gives a movie a chance at the big prize. And even though its predecessor got a nomination, I thought it was no sure thing that Dune: Part Two (#8) would follow suit, because it sounds like some people are cooler on this than the first, and sequels generally are considered damaged goods.
So, fully 60% of my top ten was nominated for best picture. I'm not sure I've ever had that sort of alignment with the Oscars. There was one recent year, in fact, where my highest ranked movie to get a best picture nomination was my #11, meaning I had zero in my top ten. And this is the first time my #1 has been nominated since Parasite won the big prize in 2019.
That leaves four other movies, only three of which I've seen. I thought there would be one nominee I hadn't seen, but I was led by early prognosticators to think that might be Sing Sing. Instead it was I'm Still Here, a surprise nominee from Brazil -- a surprise not because I hadn't heard of it, as I did start getting the buzz about it later in the year, but because foreign language films struggle to find a spot here, though perhaps less so in recent years. (In fact, Emilia Perez is primarily a foreign language film, as it has some English despite mostly Spanish. Both films got nominated as best international feature, Perez representing director Jacques Audiard's home country of France.)
My #14, Conclave, keeps my alignment with the Academy going. That makes seven nominees in my top 15. Astonishing, though with Conclave it was certainly expected. Even my eighth ranked best picture nominee, Anora, almost made my top 25, settling in at #26.
That's where it drops off.
Every time I heard A Complete Unknown's name called throughout the morning, having watched the nominations live at 12:30 a.m. my time as I always do, I shook my head. The movie was my #128 of the year, and I wanted to put it lower except I liked some of the recreation of the period and Timothee Chalamet's performance. Everything else about that film was, I thought, a dud. We'll get into some of my specific reservations as we go through the categories.
Which I think it is time to do now, limiting ourselves to "the big eight" for the purposes of close analysis, followed by some other scattered thoughts. In some cases I will award the highest ranked film on my list but in some cases I will not. I'm mercurial like that.
Best picture
Most deserving nominee: The Substance
Least deserving nominee: A Complete Unknown
Comments: As discussed.
Best director
Nominees: Sean Baker, Anora; Brady Corbet, The Brutalist; Coralie Fargeat, The Substance; Jacques Audiard, Emilia Perez; James Mangold, A Complete Unknown
Most deserving nominee: Corbet
Least deserving nominee: Mangold
Comments: I'm going to give this one to Corbet despite two other films appearing higher on my list. The Brutalist is the grandest vision in terms of old-fashioned auteurist directing, and I wouldn't mind seeing that rewarded. Of course I would also love to see one of the French take home the statue. And I think Mangold's direction may have actually been one of the worst aspects of ACU.
Best actor
Nominees: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist; Timothee Chalamet, A Complete Unknown; Colman Domingo, Sing Sing; Ralph Fiennes, Conclave; Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice
Most deserving nominee: Brody
Least deserving nominee: Chalamet
Comments: Although I said I liked Chalamet's performance, I don't like the movie and so I want its nomination count to go down, not up. Besides, this category contains two movies I haven't seen, and though I also want the nomination count to go down for a movie about Donald Trump -- he'll consider it some kind of ego boost that someone was nominated for an Oscar for playing him -- I can't call a nominee I haven't seen undeserving. Brody edges out Fiennes by having the more demanding role.
Best actress
Nominees: Cynthia Erivo, Wicked; Karla Sofia Gascon, Emilia Perez; Mikey Madison, Anora; Demi Moore, The Substance; Fernanda Torres, I'm Still Here
Most deserving nominee: Moore
Least deserving nominee: Madison
Comments: It's absolutely wonderful to see a trans performer nominated in the gender with which they associate. It seemed likely the Oscars would get this right, but we couldn't be sure until it happened. And though Gascon is utterly deserving (as is Erivo), I have to give it to my girl Demi, don't I? I haven't seen Torres' film so that leaves only Madison, who was great in and as Anora. What can I say, some categories are just jam-packed.
Best supporting actor
Nominees: Yura Borisov, Anora; Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain; Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown; Guy Pearce, The Brutalist; Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice
Most deserving nominee: Pearce
Least deserving nominee: Norton
Comments: Another Complete Unknown nomination, another whiff. Norton is fine in this movie, but there isn't a lot of acting involved. This is what I said about the Seeger character in my review: "The portrayal of Seeger in this film is a discussion for another time ... he's largely ineffectual and eventually becomes something of a buffoon, despite seeming like a very nice guy." That is not Oscar material. Pearce edges out Borisov, but Culkin was quite good in a movie I didn't particularly care for.
Best supporting actress
Nominees: Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown; Ariana Grande, Wicked; Felicity Jones, The Brutalist; Isabella Rosselini, Conclave; Zoe Saldana, Emilia Perez
Most deserving nominee: Grande
Least deserving nominee: Barbaro
Comments: Even though I was a bit captivated by Barbaro, who I'd never seen before, come on, Joan Baez is a nothing role in that movie. Though it should be said, much as I love Conclave, Rosselini's role is a "barely anything" role. It's hard to compare the work of Saldana and Grande because it's so different, but I have to give the edge to Grande just because of how much she surprised me and how much her work contributed to why I loved Wicked.
Best original screenplay
Nominees: Anora, The Brutalist, A Real Pain, September 5, The Substance
Most deserving nominee: The Substance
Least deserving nominee: A Real Pain
Comments: I think this is the only nomination for September 5, which I guess is what you get if you decide to release your movie so deep into awards season, with so little ability for people to see it except in screeners at their own houses. Since that leaves me only four choices for least deserving and three of them are in my top 26, the default choice is A Real Pain, which did, I think, have a pretty good script. The Substance wins, natch.
Best adapted screenplay
Nominees: A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Emilia Perez, Nickel Boys, Sing Sing
Most deserving nominee: Emilia Perez
Least deserving nominee: A Complete Unknown
Comments: I have to say I did not even know Perez was adapted from something else, though maybe it makes sense that Audiard did not just whip up such a crazy idea for a movie out of thin air. The script here is incredibly ambitious and somehow manages to land everything it's doing, including songs. And you won't be surprised to hear yet another jeer for ACU, whose script, I think, is among its worst elements.
Other assorted thoughts:
1) I have not heard of a single of the documentary feature nominees. How far that category has fallen out of the mainstream. I blame the lines blurring so much with all these quickie, exploitative documentaries on Netflix.
2) I would have liked to see Kirsten Dunst get a nomination for Civil War, which I thought seemed like a lock. I don't know who you'd kick out, though, since I haven't seen I'm Still Here.
3) There was a movie called Elton John: Never Too Late?
4) I only saw two of the best animated feature nominees. I was on the cusp of seeing the Wallace & Gromit movie while I was in America but was thrown by its 2025 release date on Netflix. I chose not to see Memoir of a Snail (incredibly depressing filmmaker) and Flow (I didn't think I could handle a whole movie without dialogue that late in the viewing season). My preference between Inside Out 2 and The Wild Robot is clearly Inside Out 2, but it was only #60 on my list in what I thought was a bad year for animation. My highest ranked animated movie was one that never had a prayer of a nomination, Ultraman: Rising at #28.
5) Speaking of The Wild Robot, is it weird for an animated movie to get a sound nomination? I'm not sure if I've ever seen that. I feel like the thrust of this award is for sound that accompanies and complements a moving image, and animation is not a moving image in the same way. Or could it be that an animated movie has just never had as good sound as The Wild Robot? I doubt that.
6) As Bowen Yang noted during the announcements, three of the visual effects nominees created monkeys as one of their primary effects.
And even though six is a fairly random number of additional comments, I think I can/should release you now.
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