Algorithmic Echo Chamber?: My Favorite 2024 Music

As is tradition, I'll open my usual year-end music blog post with a quick glance back at the major trend(s) in my music listening habits this year. Last year, the major theme was underwhelming releases by some of my all-time favorite artists. That doesn't really apply this year, as not too many of my all-timers released new albums. Less Than Jake (yes, really) put out an EP that I dug quite a bit, and the new Decemberists album was pretty solid. Spoilers: Kendrick Lamar's new album was outstanding. None of the other albums in contention for AOTY were from longtime favorites, though (although a few of them could certainly end up as such in a few years).

No, the major trend this year was somewhat in the opposite direction: the number of "new-to-me" artists in this space is WAY down. Last year, artists like Joy Oladokun, Noah Kahan, The Beaches, Bully, and Hot Mulligan appeared here, with the latter a major contender for both AOTY and SOTY. This year, there are no new-to-me contenders in either of those categories, with only a meager handful sprinkled in the other categories. If I tried to do a Best New (To Me) Artist category (great idea in any other year!), I don't think I'd really be able to fill it. And, besides, the winner would clearly be Chappell Roan... whose album actually came out in 2023. (Not that stopped the Grammys from nominating her for Best New Artist. Forever the worst major pop culture awards body.)

So what does this mean? Am I finally, actually, irrefutably too old for new music (like I first thought back in 2017)? Maybe. Or is there just less good new music being released these days? Possibly, but I doubt it. No, I suspect there are two main culprits: 1) Spotify algorithms, and 2) my avenues for discovering new music have become more and more limited.

I do almost all of my music listening on Spotify, and instead of listening to tons of new and cool and hip artists, I instead listened to a lot of... well, a lot of what I listened to. According to my Last.FM (yep, I still keep up with mine in the year of our lord 2024), three of my top five artists were Waxahatchee, Maggie Rogers, and Kacey Musgraves. And I'm pretty sure the reason for that is simple (and somewhat concerning): they all kinda sorta sound a bit similar, and Spotify's algorithm likely played the other two after I finished listening to one of them, like some ouroboros of country/folk/pop–tinged singer-songwriters. I suspect that's also why there's so much Alkaline Trio/Laura Jane Grace/The Menzingers on there as well. Spotify is just one big ol' echo chamber now, isn't it?

Not only are my listening habits being influenced by goddamn Al Gore rhythms, but they are also decidedly NOT being influenced by real people like they used to be. Five or ten years ago, I would have had a much larger network of real-life friends to trade music recs with as well as plenty of reliable means to find new music recs online. By now, both of those wells have mostly dried up, unfortunately. I still have almost all the same friends (I think), but music doesn't come up as often in conversation now that we're in our 30s and 40s, and our tastes have probably diverged anyway. I'll still trade the occasional rec with my brother or fiancée (life developments!), but that's about it. (And my tastes don't 100%—or even 50%—align with theirs either.)

Online, the old reliables used to be the AV Club or Grantland. I've never found any kind of adequate replacement for those two once stalwart pop culture sites. (Never been a Pitchfork or Ringer guy.) I still do keep up with some of my favorite music writers from those days (especially Steven Hyden, my spirit animal), but the rapid deterioration of Twitter has made that exponentially more difficult. One thing I usually do toward the end of the year is scour all the big year-end lists (yes, including Pitchfork), and I did find a ton of promising new-to-me artists: Good Looks, Trace Mountains, Liquid Mike, CLIFFDIVER, Wishy. But I haven't yet spent enough time with those albums and artists to include them in this blog post.

So I guess my music goal in 2025 is less to be less reliant on algorithms (and maybe get away from Spotify entirely—yikes) and more actively seek out new music from real people, whether they be IRL or online. Sounds like a good plan to me! Anyway, that preamble was way longer than usual, so let's get into the actual music I dug the most in 2024, shall we?

* = saw live this year

Best Punk (or Punk-Adjacent) Album

Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties – In Lieu of Flowers
Alkaline Trio* – Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs
Amyl and The Sniffers – Cartoon Darkness
Frank Turner – Undefeated
Laura Jane Grace – Hole in My Head

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Also enjoyed: DEADLETTER – Hysterical Strength, Less Than Jake – Uncharted

Last year was an embarrassment of riches for fans of punk (or punk-adjacent) music. This year, not so much. I had a somewhat hard time filling this category, and there's certainly nothing here that's as good as the Hot Mulligan or Sincere Engineer records from last year. There's also not much that's truly "punk" here—DEADLETTER (h/t to the baseball writer Keith Law's newsletter) is more post-punk, LTJ is ska, Aaron West is more emo/folk (albeit certainly punk tinged), and Frank Turner has definitely softened a ton since his punkier days. (The rest seem to fit the bill, though.) But genres aren't super important, and these artists all fit well enough under the same umbrella, so let's dive in.

• We'll do a quick alphabetical lightning round before the winner. I'd listened to Aaron West a bit before this year, and I've enjoyed getting to know The Wonder Years better in recent years, but this was the first Aaron West album I've really listened to—and it's pretty great! Lush arrangements (love the strings and steel guitar), strong songwriting, and Campbell's typical committed vocals. "Roman Candles" and, especially, the title track are absolute standouts.
• I don't think an ALK3 album has truly grabbed me since probably 2008's Agony & Irony... and that trend continues this year. Like their previous several albums, there's plenty to like here (the title track and "Versions of You" are great) but the album as a whole isn't particularly memorable. But in a relatively weak year for this category, this one sneaks into the field.
• Amyl and The Sniffers is basically a new-to-me band this year. I met up with a cousin of mine last year sometime and he mentioned this band, so I think I gave them a cursory listen or two at the time. Well, Al Gore and His Rhythms must've been paying attention and served up their feisty new album on Spotify. It's mostly snarling vocals and guitars and raucous percussion ("Jerkin'," "Chewing Gum") but they can hit a nice groove as well ("Big Dreams"). Hella fun stuff!
• Turner's album also likely wouldn't have made the field in a stronger year—and it probably barely belongs here anyway. It's very strummy with plenty of ballads, and even the upbeat numbers are more like powerpop. But he still gets lumped in with the punks sometimes, so I'm slotting him here. His new one isn't quite on the level of 2022's FTHC, but tracks like "Letters" and "No Thank You for the Music" are very good.

That brings us to the easy winner here, Laura Jane Grace and her exuberant yet introspective new album, Hole in My Head. There are buoyant, retro-punk jams like the title track, "I'm Not a Cop," and "Punk Rock in Basements" combined with acoustic strummers like "Dysphoria Hoodie," "Cuffing Season," and "Mercenary." You've gotta love an album that fits ACAB screeds, Red Hot Chili Peppers references, George Harrison riffs, and gender dysmorphia into just 25 minutes. It feels a lot like the latter (post-transition) Against Me! albums, which is some of Grace's best material. I fell off a bit with her after that, but I plan on checking out her previous two solo albums more in depth now. And, obviously, whatever comes next.

Best Indie Pop/Rock Album
Charly Bliss – Forever
Japandroids – Fate & Alcohol
Los Campesinos! – All Hell
Sammy Rae & The Friends* – Something For Everybody
Sleater-Kinney – Little Rope
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Also enjoyed: Beabadoobee – This Is How Tomorrow Moves, The Decemberists* – As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again

More fun with genres! This category is mostly just what doesn't obviously fit into either of the other two genre categories—no punk leanings here (although Japandroids and Sleater-Kinney are close), and these are all groups that don't fit neatly into the singer-songwriter category. But they all definitely fit under the ever-nebulous "indie" umbrella, so we're going with it. Again, I'll try to keep the non-winner write-ups relatively brief and go alphabetical.

• I was lucky enough to see Japandroids live when they were touring for Celebration Rock at a pretty small venue in Tempe many years ago. Nothing they did before or since reached the highs of that epic opus (my #2 of 2012), but their final album tries is damnedest. Lead single "Chicago" had my hopes through the roof, and while the album as a whole didn't quite live up to that promise, it's probably right on the level of their previous album, 2017's Near to the Wild Heart of Life (AOTY HM that year, about where this one will land).
• I think I would probably count Los Campesinos! as a new-to-me artist in 2024. I had certainly heard of the Welsh indie/rock/emo band previously, but I'm not sure I'd ever listened to more than a handful of songs here and there. Then I think I spotted them in my Release Radar Spotify playlist and gave their new album a whirl—and I dug it quite a bit. It's a little bit Arcade Fire, a little bit Coheed and Cambria, a little bit, I dunno, Tigers Jaw? It's an album—and group—I need to spend more time with, which I very much look forward to.
• I first encountered Sammy Rae & The Friends in 2022 thanks to my then-girlfriend (now-fiancée), back when they were only putting out singles/EPs. Despite that, they will won their category that year. Their full-length debut didn't quite manage the same feat this year. Don't get me wrong, it's a great record, but I think I have a hard time thinking about it like an album since it was mostly released as singles beforehand (which seems to be their MO), and it also doesn't quite *feel* like an album to me either (the songs and styles are so disparate). But it's got a couple of my favorite songs of the year ("Thieves" and "Coming Home Song") and will figure in the AOTY race anyway.
• The same old girlfriend that introduced me to Japandroids also introduced me to Sleater-Kinney. Well, that's not technically accurate—I knew of the band because of this all-time great SNL sketch, but I'd never actually listened to them before. They obviously rule. They're now down to a duo and this record is no Dig Me Out or All Hands on the Bad One, but Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker still totally wail. Especially on the first five tracks, with "Hunt You Down" as the true highlight of the album.

It seems fitting that Charly Bliss would have one of my favorite albums this year, as I first encountered them in 2017 by scouring year-end lists like I described above. And just like this year, back in 2017 I was complaining about not finding enough good new-to-me artists that year. Well, just two years later they had my #2 album that year with the outstanding Young Enough. It look them five years to put out another album, but Forever is just as good—if not better—than Young Enough. I will (spoiler alert) have more to say about it below, but for now suffice to say that it was an easy winner in this category with its bouncy riffs, sleek production, and Eva Hendricks' indelible lyrics and vocals.

Best Singer-Songwriter Album
Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well
Katie Pruitt – Mantras
Maggie Rogers – Don't Forget Me
MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks
Waxahatchee* – Tigers Blood
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Johnny Blue Skies – Passage Du Desir, Katie Gavin – What a Relief, Soccer Mommy – Evergreen, Zach Bryan – The Great American Bar Scene

As mentioned in the intro, this is the "genre" I listened to most this year. Waxahatchee was by far my most-listened artist, and Rogers and Musgraves weren't too far behind. Some of this was due to Spotify algorithms, sure, but the artists here are all exceedingly pleasant listens that were very easy to throw on sitting at my computer working in the afternoons. Which is probably how/when I listen to music the most these days (that and on the elliptical at the gym). Mostly gone are the days of listening to music while driving around—I work from home (so no commute) and on the short drives to the store or gym or wherever, I usually listen to sports or FM radio. These albums would be great driving music, though. On to the blurbs.

• I've always been a bit of a fan of Kacey Musgraves, one of the biggest names (if not the biggest) to appear in this year's post. I don't think I listened to her first album much, but I enjoyed Pageant Material, and "High Horse" from Golden Hour made an appearance here in 2018. Star-Crossed never grabbed me a few years ago, but Deeper Well absolutely did this year. She just seems like she's at the heights of her powers on this record, and tracks like "Cardinal," the title track, and "The Architect" received a lot of spins for sure.
• Katie Pruitt also has one previous appearance here, an HM shoutout in 2020 for Expectations. I had high hopes for her follow-up after hearing "White Lies, White Jesus, and You" earlier in the year—such great songwriting, plus a killer guitar riff. I wasn't quite as wowed by the album overall, but there were enough strong songs like "All My Friends" and "Worst Case Scenario" to get a nomination here.
• The Maggie Rogers (HMs appearances in 2019 and 2022) record *is* an example of an album that lived up to the promise of an early single. That single was "So Sick of Dreaming," easily one of my favorite songs of the year. I'll have more to say about it later (spoilers), but the album itself could have easily won this category. It feels like it should have been a huge breakout for Rogers, a songwriter's showcase with scorchers like "Drunk," "The Kill," and "On & On & On" that should've made her as big as Musgraves. Maybe her next album? It'll at least be eagerly anticipated by me, if no one else.
• The much-beloved MJ Lenderman album was actually my last inclusion here—I'm just not quite as enamored by his slacker-poet aesthetic as most seem to be. But I wound up including it largely on the strength of two songs: the sardonic himbo takedown "Wristwatch" and omnipresent-in-indie-circles "She's Leaving You." The fact that he features on SOTY contender "Right Back to It" with Waxahatchee doesn't hurt matters, either. I very much doubt I'll revisit the album as a whole, but those two songs will have some staying power, and I'm at least intrigued by what he does next.

Speaking of Waxahatchee, it was going to be damn near impossible for anyone to top her for her follow-up to 2020's tour de force, Saint Cloud, which is probably the album of the decade as we near the halfway point of the 2020s. Tiger's Blood is, of course, not quite on that level (almost nothing is!), but it's still an AOTY contender and the winner here, with the Maggie Rogers record not all that far behind (and then a big gap before the other three). It also plays *great* live—that was probably my favorite concert of the year. Now, let's see if Katie Crutchfield has another masterpiece in her. (There's a strong possibility that she does.)

Song of the Year
"Back There Now" – Charly Bliss

"Coming Home Song" – Sammy Rae & The Friends*
"In Lieu of Flowers" – Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties
"Punk Rock in Basements" – Laura Jane Grace
"So Sick of Dreaming" – Maggie Rogers
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Honorable mentions: "Bored" – Waxahatchee*, "Chicago" – Japandroids, "Obsessed" – Olivia Rodrigo, "Starburned and Unkissed" – Caroline Polachek, "Swear to God That I'm (FINE)" – Winona Fighter

This was a tough field to narrow down to five, with not much of a gap at all between the final 2-3 songs in the field and most of the HMs. The Japandroids, Rodrigo, and Waxahatchee songs were all in the #4 or #5 spot at one point before I settled on the final field. Before I get to the blurbs, I wanted to give a special shoutout to what is probably the best band name I've heard in a while: Winona Fighter. They're a new pop-punk band out of Nashville with a female vocalist (I've got a type) whose upcoming debut in February is probably already the frontrunner for 2025 AOTY. They rule. Anyway, back to 2024.

• Charly Bliss was always going to have a nominee here, and I almost went with "Nineteen," a ballad (with a sweet sax solo) that feels like a companion piece to the Young Enough title track, which almost won SOTY back in 2019. Instead, I went with what the youths would describe as a "bop" in "Back There Now," which is actually the track right before "Nineteen." It's got a bubbly, video-gamey synth line, cheer-squad vocals, and is absolutely irresistible—just like the album as a whole.
• Sammy Rae lands a nomination here for the second time in three years. I think "For the Time Being" is the better song, but "Coming Home Song" has maybe the best chorus she's ever written. She's maybe my favorite *singer* right now, and this is just a perfect showcase for her powerful, elastic voice. I think she turns the word "falling" into about 10 syllabus and it's just fantastic. Really great live song, too, complete with crowd participation reminiscent of a Ben Folds Five concert (he was obviously not the first to do that). Looking forward to the next time she comes to town, and to whatever she does next—be it 17 more singles or another actual album.
• A True Fact™ about me: Adding horns to just about anything makes it better. (I mean, see above.) So if you take The Wonder Years' Dan Campbell's emo-folk side project that already has keys *and* steel guitar, and then add horns? Yep, that shit rules. That's never more apparent than the title track to their latest album, which has one of the most epic horn lines since the heyday of 3rd-wave ska, plus just a massive, soaring chorus. This was the #2 here and one I feel I'll keep returning to as the decade goes on.
• As mentioned above, I went back and forth between several tracks for the final slot or two here, and this slight-seeming (2:09) track from Grace wound up being the final nominee in this field. It doesn't have the epic classic rock chorus of the Japandroids track or the "shoot this directly into my veins" quality of the Rodrigo track, but what it does have is an irrepressible riff, handclap percussion, boisterous chorus, an a "Whoa-oh-oh" outro. What more do you need? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The most purely fun song of the year.

Have you ever heard a song for the first time and were like, "Oh yeah, that's obviously one of my favorite songs"? That was my reaction to hearing "So Sick of Dreaming" by Maggie Rogers for the first time. More specifically, I felt like the Jewish record producers hearing "Walk Hard" for the first time. Like I said above, I definitely liked Rogers before this, but this song—and album—just seemed so... assured and attuned to my taste that it landed like she'd been a longtime favorite. (Which she very much might prove to be!) But in a category dominated by awesome choruses, hers was the best—by far. I don't watch a ton of music videos anymore (who does?), but I wish there was a real one for this song.

If you'd like a playlist or two of the rest of my favorite songs of the year, click the Spotify links below:

• 2024 A-Sides
• 2024 B-Sides

Album of the Year

1. Charly Bliss – Forever

2. Waxahatchee* – Tigers' Blood

3. Maggie Rogers – Don't Forget Me

4. Sammy Rae & The Friends* – Something for Everybody

5. Laura Jane Grace – Hole in My Head

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Honorable mentions:

6. Kendrick Lamar – GNX

7. Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties – In Lieu of Flowers

8. Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well

9. Various Artists – I Saw the TV Glow (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

10. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – Challengers (Original Motion Picture Score)

No blurbs for each individual album—I've said enough about them above already. But I did want to touch on some of the HMs before wrapping things up. The new Kendrick album was *thisclose* to cracking the top 5, but it came out too late in the year for me to really spend enough time with it. But after the first several listens, it seems like it might be his best since To Pimp a Butterfly, only my #1 album of 2015 and the decade as a whole. It seems like his feud with Drake got him back on his A-game (Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers had its moments but was a bit of a misstep, to me). The mid-album run of "reincarnated"/"tv off"/"dodger blue" is as good as anything in his discography. When I look back in a few years, I'll likely look like a dumbass for not including it in the AOTY noms, but this is where it wound up here just about a month after its release.

This past year was also a great year for movie music. Challengers, the latest collaboration between Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross and Luca Guadagnino, is maybe the duo's best since their seismic (Oscar winning and top-10 of the decade) soundtrack for The Social Network. It's tense, throbbing, constantly on the verge of explosion... just like the, uh... the relationship between the three leads in the movie. Not any part of my anatomy whilst watching said movie. Anyway, Ross/Reznor made the Oscar shortlist for Best Original Score *and* Original Song for credits closer "Compress/Repress" and would be easy winners for both categories if they existed in my Fake Oscars. But they do not so I'll honor them here.

Remember when movie soundtracks used to be events unto themselves? I vividly remember rocking out in nu metal bliss to the Dracula 2000 and Queen of the Damned soundtracks, even if I couldn't tell you a thing about the movies themselves. Event soundtracks were a thing even as recently as the Hunger Games movies, but the practice seems to have fallen out of favor recently. We used to be a country! But Jane Schoenbrun revived the trend for her excellent second feature. It's full of moody, ethereal jams from indie It Girls like Phoebe Bridgers, Caroline Polachek (SOTY HM!), Frances Quinlan (of Hop Along), Jay Som, etc., that would've caused riots in whatever the Gen Z equivalent of Hot Topic would be. I mean, there's a cover of "Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl" for chrissakes. I hope this practice comes back!

I wanted to end by saying that the AOTY call between Charly Bliss and Waxahatchee was razor-close. I had the Waxahatchee record atop my list for most of the year, but wound up switching to Charly Bliss as I was putting this post together. The highs of Forever were just a bit higher than the highs of Tiger's Blood, which tends to stay in a certain gear for most of its runtime, whereas Forever covers more sonic territory. And nothing beats that "Back There Now"/"Nineteen" double-whammy at tracks 3-4. I'll be forever bummed that I missed them when they played the Rebel Lounge back in October (had a stupid final project due for a class in my Instructional Design grad cert program).

All that said, it doesn't seem like either album—or the year in general—will go down in my personal annals. Both albums feel more like Hall of Very Good than truly Hall of Fame–type albums. And you know what? You don't always get a true HOF album every year. So this year feels more like 2019 and 2021—a lot of very good music, yes, but nothing truly transcendent that will resonate into the next decade and beyond. Unless, of course, Kendrick proves me wrong (would not be surprised at all) or some heretofore unheard-of artist like Chappell Roan has already released 2024's true AOTY. Which is exactly why I keep listenin' to music and writin' up these blog posts.

And I hope anyone reading this also keeps listenin' and keeps readin' what I write. Here's hoping that 2025 is better than 2024, at least musically-speaking. (There's almost no way it will be a good year otherwise for obvious reasons.) Happy New Year, y'all!

Can You Oppenheimer? (Sung to the Tune of Creed's "Higher"): My 2023 Oscars Predictions

It's that time once again: time to crack a brewski beer or two or three the night before the Oscars and crank out my usual predix. (Ed. Four brewski beers. It wound up being four brewski beers.) This is something like my 15th year writing up my Oscar predictions. I started on this blog in 2010, and I know I did them for at least a year before that in the form of a Facebook note (which I think have disappeared into the ether). I usually do fairly well, but I don't think I've gotten much better at these predictions over the years. I still usually go with my heart over my head for a pick or two, which invariably costs me if I'm in an Oscar pool. I'm pretty sure Kerry Condon and My Year of Dicks were those picks last year.

Speaking of last year, there wasn't a ton of, ahem, drama, as Everything Everywhere All at Once was the big winner, as widely predicted. Its haul included the only real surprise of the major categories, Jamie Lee Curtis for Best Supporting Actress. I thought and still think she was the clear-cut worst choice of the nominees, but a year later I can't say I'm still terribly mad about it. (Which isn't always the case. I'm still SUPER salty about The King's Speech over The Social Network, and Tom Hooper over David Fincher, in 2011.) Overall, I went 18/23 with just the one major category miss and a few random down-ballot ones.

I'm hoping to equal or better that this year, in what looks to be another ceremony devoid of major drama. Six of the eight major categories seem all but sewn up, with a whiff of uncertainly around Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actress being a bit more uncertain than that. This year's EEAAO looks to be Oppenheimer, which should win several of the top prizes and even more in the technical categories. So let's see just how "higher" Oppenheimer will go, shall we?

Best Supporting Actress
Emily Blunt – Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks – The Color Purple
America Ferrera – Barbie
Jodie Foster – Nyad
Da'Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers

Let's start with the easiest category to handicap, bar none. Da'Vine Joy Randolph has won just about every precursor you could think of, and she will win her first Oscar for her wonderful performance in The Holdovers. I can't even imagine who would be her closest competition—maybe Blunt or Brooks? Both are good but definitely not Oscar worthy. Ditto Ferrera; I still can't fathom why she was nominated. She delivered the big Barbie monologue, sure, but there's nothing technically meritorious about her acting in the least. My second-favorite performance of the bunch behind Randolph is probably Foster, who's tender and witty opposite Annette Bening in the better-than-expected (to me) Nyad.

My Non-Existent Ballot: 1) Randolph, 2) Foster, 3) Blunt, 4) Brooks, 5) Ferrera

Best Supporting Actor
Sterling K. Brown – American Fiction
Robert De Niro – Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr. – Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling – Barbie
Mark Ruffalo – Poor Things

Here's another basically completely locked-in category: Robert Downey Jr. will win his first Oscar in his third attempt. He's... good in Oppenheimer, don't get me wrong, but I suspect this win is more of a tip of the cap to his career (including and especially the bajillion dollars he made for the industry as Iron Man, the first MCU superhero). He'd be near the bottom of my ranking of these five—Gosling had one of the best comedic performances of the decade, Brown just *owns* the screen whenever he's on it, and De Niro delivers his (easily) best late-career performance. I thought Ruffalo was also good but his performance (character, really) lacks range; I would have preferred that Willem Dafoe got the Poor Things nomination.

My Non-Existent Ballot: 1) Gosling, 2) Brown, 3) De Niro, 4) Downey Jr., 5) Ruffalo

Best Actress
Annette Bening – Nyad
Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller – Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan – Maestro
Emma Stone – Poor Things

If anything interesting/unexpected/memorable were to happen in one of the major categories, it would be here. If anyone is considered the frontrunner, it's Lily Gladstone—who I am also predicting as the winner, to be clear. She won the two precursors that matter most (Golden Globes – Drama and the SAG, plus numerous others) and has captivated audiences with her speeches where she's won. But you can't count out Stone (a previous winner who captured the Golden Globes – Comedy, BAFTA, and Critic's Choice) and Hüller, who seems to be the dark horse in the race. (Bening and Mulligan are also-rans both seeking their first Oscar.) I think Stone's previous win actually hurts her here a bit, and I doubt the Academy really goes for Hüller (who I thought had the best performance; although I'd still vote for Gladstone), so I'm sticking with Gladstone, who would seem to be the easy choice both on merit and for narrative reasons (first-ever Native winner here).

My Non-Existent Ballot: 1) Gladstone, 2) Hüller, 3) Stone, 4) Bening, 5) Mulligan

Best Actor
Bradley Cooper – Maestro
Colman Domingo – Rustin
Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer
Jeffrey Wright – American Fiction

That makes three out of four of the acting categories with overwhelming favorites: Cillian Murphy should take this one with ease. He'd be another first-time winner and very deservingly so—he's incredible as Robert J. Oppenheimer. You can't *quite* write off Giamatti yet—at one point he looked like the frontrunner and is incredibly well-liked and respected. Same with Wright, who will hopefully be back at some point since he has no shot this year. Cooper is another past nominee and a likely future winner, while respected Broadway actor Domingo is just happy to be here. Both were Just Fine in awards-baity biopics.

My Non-Existent Ballot: 1) Murphy, 2) Giamatti, 3) Wright, 4) Cooper, 5) Domingo

Best Adapted Screenplay
Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach – Barbie
Jonathan Glazer – The Zone of Interest
Cord Jefferson – American Fiction
Tony McNamara – Poor Things
Christopher Nolan – Oppenheimer

I'm not quite sure how predicted winner Cord Jefferson became the frontrunner for American Fiction, but here we are. I don't think any of these are flawless scripts, but I don't see Fiction's as appreciably better than Barbie's (still probably the best of the bunch) or Oppenheimer's (the only major category it doesn't figure to win where it's nominated). Don't get me wrong, it's a good script—very funny with some touching moments, even if the satire isn't always razor sharp and it struggles to juggle the two main plotlines from time to time—but I wouldn't at all count out an "upset" from the more established Nolan or, especially, Gerwig/Baumbach (the one I'll be rooting for). McNamara would make a worthy winner for the beguiling Poor Things, while I'm not sure I see Glazer's script as nomination-worthy (the strengths of Zone are almost overwhelmingly technical).

My Non-Existent Ballot: 1) Gerwig and Baumbach, 2) McNamara, 3) Nolan, 4) Jefferson, 5) Glazer

Best Original Screenplay
Samy Burch – May December
Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer – Maestro
David Hemingson – The Holdovers
Celine Song – Past Lives
Justine Triet and Arthur Harari – Anatomy of a Fall

The frontrunner and predicted winner here makes more sense to me—Justine Triet and Arthur Harari should be taking home the Oscar for the sensational writing of Anatomy of a Fall. I think it's the best script of any kind this past year, one that I haven't been able to stop thinking about since I saw the film a couple weeks ago. Their closest competition here is likely Hemingson (recent plagiarism mini-controversy notwithstanding) or Song, who is probably my second choice here. (I also have been thinking about Past Lives a bunch since watching it.) As far as the other two nominees go, I actually thought Todd Haynes's direction elevated a vexing script from Burch, and Cooper sure can do it all, including (co-)writing a fairly formulaic biopic script.

My Non-Existent Ballot: 1) Triet and Harari, 2) Song, 3) Hemingson, 4) Burch, 5) Cooper and Singer

Best Director
Jonathan Glazer – The Zone of Interest
Yorgos Lanthimos – Poor Things
Christopher Nolan – Oppenheimer
Martin Scorsese – Killers of the Flower Moon
Justine Triet – Anatomy of a Fall

It took the Academy long enough to figure it out (he's been Oscar-worthy as a director as far back as 2006's The Prestige), but Christopher Nolan will take home his first Oscar as well for the monumental Oppenheimer. An upset isn't going to happen, but it if did, Lanthimos is the most likely culprit—he's very well regarded and it seems only a matter of time before he picks up his first statue. For whatever reason, Killers just didn't seem to resonate with awards voters outside of Gladstone's performance—which is a shame, because Marty Scores delivered another late-career near-masterpiece. Both Glazer and Triet are more than nomination-worthy—especially Glazer, who continues to be one of the most singular and innovative arthouse auteurs working these days. Read up on the making of Zone if you haven't. This is a super strong field, although I do wish they had found room for Greta Gerwig.

My Non-Existent Ballot: 1) Nolan, 2) Scorsese, 3) Glazer, 4) Lanthimos, 5) Triet

Best Picture
American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest

To answer the question posited in this blog post's amazing title, yes, you can definitely Oppenheimer. You can take Oppenheimer to a place with golden statues. This is the easiest-to-predict Best Picture race since... well, since last year. It's absolutely deserving of the Academy's top award—a critical and commercial juggernaut with an absolute buffet of a cast and technical merits up the wazoo. (I been drinkin', okay?) It's not hard to see how the Academy has coalesced around this as their top choice. Personally, I slightly prefer Killers of the Flower Moon, but I will absolutely be fine with a Best Picture win for ol' Oppy.

When writing up this category, I usually wax poetic a bit about What It Means for a movie to win Best Picture. In the most interesting years, there is usually something At Stake in this race. Some stakes are bigger than others, of course—Parasite over 1917/Jojo Rabbit and Green Book over Roma were major stakes (one for the good guys, one for the bad guys), while EEAAO over the field last year was much smaller stakes (a big win for genre fans and representation).

But some years don't really have any stakes. Neither 2020 (Nomadland) or 2021 (CODA) really had much at stake. This year feels a lot like those years—Oppenheimer taking the top prize wouldn't seem to signify anything of especial import in The Discourse. It's a well-made, well-liked movie that has a lot of across-the-board support behind it. But I do think it will be remembered better than the likes of Nomadland or CODA—and not only because it made over 20x the box office of those two combined. It's the rare film that resonated strongly with critics, the filmmaking industry at large, and the general moviegoing populace. (Along with Barbie, of course, Oppy's partner in the year of Barbenheimer.)

And I think this year's Best Picture crop will go down as one of the best of the past 10-15 years—it's up there with 2019 (Parasite) and 2016 (Moonlight), and maybe better top to bottom. As former A.V. Club (R.I.P.) chief film critic A.A. Dowd said, "Every single one of the Best Picture contenders feels like it belongs." It has everything from box office titans to midbudget adult comedies and dramas to major works from auteurs to the kind of prestige fare you'd expect in any given Best Picture field. It finally feels like the ever-growing and -diversifying Academy is starting to better reflect the trends and movies that capture the zeitgeist in real time, instead of the several-year delay they sometimes seem to be on. I'm sure AMPAS will prove me wrong next year, but for now, I'll choose to believe the Academy is finally on the right track for good, that's we're finally in a place where blind men see. (Gotta carry through the Creed theme!)

My Non-Existent Ballot: 1) Killers of the Flower Moon, 2) Oppenheimer, 3) Anatomy of a Fall, 4) Poor Things, 5) Barbie, 6) Past Lives, 7) The Holdovers, 8) American Fiction, 9) The Zone of Interest, 10) Maestro

Now it's time for LIGHTNING ROUND for the rest of the categories.

Best International Feature Film
The Zone of Interest (United Kingdom) – directed by Jonathan Glazer
There are very few certainties when it comes to the Oscars, but one is absolutely that the only film nominated for Best Picture in the international/foreign category will win the latter.
My Non-Existent Vote: The Zone of Interest (the only nominee I have seen)

Best Animated Feature Film
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse  – directed by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and David Callaham
Don't discount The Boy and the Heron (which I sadly wasn't able to see before Oscar Sunday), but the second Spider-Verse installment was just as thrilling and visually marvelous as the first one.
My Non-Existent Vote: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (the only nominee I have seen)

Best Documentary Feature
20 Days in Mariupol – directed by Mstyslav Chernov
So says the internets; as usual, I haven't seen any of the nominated film because I'm a bad White Person. But this one seems pretty timely, so let's go with it.
My Non-Existent Vote: Abstain (I have not seen any of the nominees)

Best Cinematography
Hoyte van Hoytema – Oppenheimer
Strap in: It's Oppenheimer country from here on out. This'll be the first Oscar for the rapidly ascending van Hoytema, who has worked with with the likes of Peele, Gray, and Jonze in addition to Nolan.
My Non-Existent Vote: Rodrigo Prieto – Killers of the Flower Moon

Best Editing
Jennifer Lame – Oppenheimer
Another surefire Oppy win. Anytime you beat the GOAT (Thelma Schoonmaker), it's an extraordinary achievement. This is a helluva strong field, too, so this'll be well deserved.
My Non-Existent Vote: Lame

Best Original Score
Ludwig Göransson – Oppenheimer
The man who produced Camp will win his second Oscar (after Black Panther). Ain't nothing wrong with that, even though Robbie Robertson's work was far superior. (R.I.P.)
My Non-Existent Vote: Robbie Robertson – Killers of the Flower Moon

Best Original Song
"What Was I Made For?" – Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell (from Barbie)
Right movie, wrong song. I find this ballad a little boring (but nothing Eilish and her brother have ever done has resonated much with me). "I'm Just Ken" should be #Kenough. Also, poor Diane Warren.
My Non-Existent Vote: "I'm Just Ken"

Best Sound
Willie Burton, Richard King, Gary A. Rizzo, and Kevin O'Connell – Oppenheimer
O'Connell was once 0-20 in Oscar nominations; with a win, he would be 2-0 in his last two ceremonies after winning for (apparently) Hacksaw Ridge in 2016. But watch out for The Zone of Interest.
My Non-Existent Vote: Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn – The Zone of Interest

Best Visual Effects
Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Shibuya, Masaki Takahashi, and Tatsuji Nojima – Godzilla Minus One
Consensus seems to have shifted from The Creator (very good but perhaps too... polished to win here?) to Godzilla, which gets no complaints from me. The best Godzilla movie ever?
My Non-Existent Vote: Yamazaki, Shibuya, Takahashi, and Nojima

Best Production Design
Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer – Barbie
Predicting a minor upset here for Barbie over Poor Things. Both would be worthy, but Barbie was the bigger movie and Greenwood is overdue for her first statue.
My Non-Existent Vote: Greenwood and Spencer

Best Costume Design
Holly Waddington – Poor Things
Often, this category is more like "Most" costume design, especially in a year without a no-doubt historical drama nominee (which is not Napoleon). It'll be this or Barbie for sure (also very worthy).
My Non-Existent Vote: Waddington

Best Makeup And Hairstyling
Kazu Hiro, Kay Georgiou, and Lori McCoy-Bell – Maestro
Poor Things is absolutely a contender here, but AMPAS isn't really gonna let Maestro go 0-for-7, is it? It's a prestige biopic with several characters aging and, honestly, the nose plays.
My Non-Existent Vote: Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier, and Josh Weston – Poor Things

Best Live Action Short
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar – directed by Wes Anderson
The shorts are notoriously tough to predict and you can make a case for either The After or Red, White and Blue, but this would be Wes Anderson's first Oscar, so it feels like the right call.
My Non-Existent Vote: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Best Animated Short
War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko – directed by Dave Mullins
This is utterly trite but that's NEVER stopped a short from winning here before. The impressionistic post-Holocaust Letter to a Pig is a possibility, but the death row short Ninety-Five Senses is the best.
My Non-Existent Vote: Ninety-Five Senses – directed by Jared and Jerusha Hess

Best Documentary Short
The ABCs of Book Banning – directed by Sheila Nevins, Trish Adlesic, and Nazenet Habtezghi
It seems to be between this and The Last Repair shop. I'll sadly never know which one is better because no one has paid me the hundreds of dollars it would take for me to actually watch these.
My Non-Existent Vote: Abstain (I have not seen any of the nominees)

Wow, that got boozy toward the end. Just like when watching the Oscars telecast itself. I'm looking forward to watching tonight with several good friends dressed up in our Sunday best. I'll be hoping Lily Gladstone pulls through in Best Actress and rooting for upsets in Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay. But mostly I'm just glad to be able to watch a great crop of films get rewarded. Not really many bad choices possible tonight! And Oppenheimer sweep and, say, 18 or 19 out of 23 and I'll be golden.

The Year of Barbenheimer: My 2023 Fake Oscars

The first thing I do when preparing to write this post every year is look at both the year's domestic box office rankings and the Oscar nominees. It's kind of a shorthand for the year that was in cinema, and it's also representative of the main idea behind this blog and my ethos as a recreational critic: the tension between commerce and art, popcorn and prestige. (I read a lot of Pauline Kael in grad school, okay?)

When doing so this year, I was struck by how similar 2023 was to 2022. The box office was dominated by remakes and franchises, and you've even got Avatar: The Way of Water in the top 10 in both years. You're also starting to see more crossover between the box office and awards heavyweights, with two top-10 box office performers snaring Best Picture nominations in each of the past two years. Not counting the very atypical COVID-ified 2020 and its exceedingly low box office totals, the last movie to crack both the domestic box office top 10 and get a Best Picture nomination was The Martian back in 2015... and even then, that was only #9 at the box office that year.

But that growing nexus of popcorn and prestige seems really encouraging for a box office still recovering from COVID and with the Oscars not far removed from bestowing Best Picture on the likes of Green Book and CODA. (Seriously, is the latter's cultural footprint just a guest appearance from Sian Heder in an episode of Barry?). In 2022, the two crossover films were the aforementioned Avatar sequel and the Top Gun legacyquel. There were plenty of jokes last year about Tom Cruise and James Cameron—two of the best to ever do it—saving the movies...

...but this year I think Barbenheimer might have actually done it for real. The dual-headed commercial and critical wrecking ball was all people could talk about over the summer, and it's just about all anyone is talking about here in March in the runup to the Oscars. Barbie was the runaway box office champion (and currently #11 all time) and recipient of eight Oscar noms, and Oppenheimer was #5 at the box office with a whopping 13 Oscar noms—and it seems poised to win several of the major categories on Sunday. That's almost a BILLION dollars and 21 Oscar nominations combined for two movies that aren't sequels or remakes.

So if Barbenheimer is what 2023 will be remembered for (and it will), that's a pretty damn good year for movies, and sign that the movie industry is doing just fine, thank you. But Barbenheimer is not all 2023 will be remembered for—there were a bunch of other great films and performances worth remembering as well. With my longer-than-usual preamble out of the way, let's get to what else I'll be remembering 2023 for. We'll start as the Oscars themselves usually do with the supporting categories—and I'll try my damnedest to keep the category write-ups shorter than they were last year. Movies themselves seem to be getting longer and longer, but that doesn't mean you have to write more about them, right? Especially as more and more film criticism moves to Letterboxd (for better and for ill both). Speaking of which, if you're not on Letterboxd, join and add me! Anyway, on to the nominees. (Note that all nominees and HMs below are listed alphabetically. except Best Picture(s).)

Gold = winner
^ = nominated for a real Oscar

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Sterling K. Brown – American Fiction^
Robert De Niro – Killers of the Flower Moon^
Ryan Gosling – Barbie^
Holt McCallany – The Iron Claw
Jeremy Allen White – The Iron Claw
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Honorable mentions: Willem Dafoe – Poor Things, Jacob Elordi – Saltburn, Charles Melton – May December, Mark Ruffalo – Poor Things^, Dominic Sessa – The Holdovers

Three actual Oscar nominees and two performances from the criminally underappreciated The Iron Claw (strap in; you'll be hearing A LOT  about that one). The missing real Oscar nominees are presumed frontrunner RDJ (his statue will be a career achievement award; it's certainly not for his just-fine work in Oppenheimer) and Ruffalo (het gets an HM for a fun performance, but he's been better and was outshined by Dafoe). The HM that hurt the most to leave out of the field was Sessa—he was sensational in his film debut. But you have to imagine it's the first of many great performances, right? On to my field.

• I often meander through the nominees in each category in no particular order; for simplicity's sake, I'll go alphabetically this year. So we start with Sterling K. Brown, who was possibly the Oscar nomination I was most pleased to see this year—he may well have been the last name in the field. Not here. He almost steals the movie every time he's on screen, simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking. He was my favorite part of American Fiction.
• While Brown was nominated for an Oscar for the first time, this is Robert De Niro's eighth acting nomination, but first since 2013. His work as the primary antagonist in Killers is MUCH stronger than that last nomination (for Silver Linings Playbook). He'd make a worthy Oscar winner over RDJ for his frank, unembellished portrayal of pure white male evil. It rivals anything in The Zone of Interest in any conversation about the banality of evil. It's De Niro's best performance in decades.
• Ryan Gosling once looked like a dark horse for the real statue, but it looks like what might be the best comedic performance of this young decade will get swept aside by the incoming Oppenheimer blast wave. It's a shame, too, as Gosling is leaps and bounds better than RDJ—uproariously funny, yes, but also sad and sweet and with a great singing voice to boot. He's a very strong contender here and hopefully won't have to wait too long for his first real Oscar.
• That leaves the two men from The Iron Claw, one of the best movies of the year that never really caught on with awards voters. So most people probably missed out on Holt McCallany's terse, intense work as the patriarch of a "cursed" wrestling family who dangles title shots belts in front of his sons like metaphors for fatherly approval. He loves his sons but only knows how to push them relentlessly—toward his dreams for them and away from him. It's powerful work.
• Jeremy Allen White is the third-oldest and perhaps most damaged (physically, certainly) Von Erich brother. Having seen neither Shameless or The Bear, the only thing I had seen him in prior to this was The Rental, and he didn't make much of an impression that I recall. Not so this time—he's a riveting screen presence that leaves you spellbound with his bravado and woundedness both. I may or may not check out The Bear at some point, but I'll definitely be watching for his next movie project.

This ultimately came down to Gosling and McCallany. When I walked out of The Iron Claw I thought McCallany would win this for sure, but as I thought and wrote about these movies and performances, I realized that Ryan Gosling as Ken is just too indelible, too iconic to deny. We award amazing comedic performances here, even at the expense of the best supporting performance in one of my favorite movies of the year.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Marin Ireland – Eileen

Vanessa Kirby – Napoleon

Cara Jade Myers – Killers of the Flower Moon

Da'Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers^

Tracee Ellis Ross – America Fiction

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Honorable mentions: Jodie Foster – Nyad^, Scarlett Johansson – Asteroid City, Julianne Moore – May December, Rosamund Pike – Saltburn, Maura Tierney – The Iron Claw

For whatever reason, this was kind of a tough category to fill. Of the actual nominees, Foster just missed the cut but none of the other three were seriously considered. Blunt is actually one of my favorite actresses, but her work in Oppenheimer didn't do a ton for me outside of the (excellent) deposition scene—playing the drunken spouse isn't a great use of her considerable talents. Brooks was good but not appreciably better than most of her castmates—I don't see the hype for her (but then I don't like musicals at all, so...). And Ferrera's performance wasn't actually all that great! (There, I said it. But it's not really her fault; more below.) So I wound up going with some smaller—but excellent—roles/performances that stuck with me in addition to the Oscar frontrunner and Kirby in what might actually have been a co-lead role. Let's start with one of those bit roles.

• The only thing I can remember seeing Marin Ireland in before Eileen is the (outstanding) horror film, The Empty Man. (She's mostly known for Broadway and TV, I guess.) Her role is much, much smaller in this solid but mostly forgettable psychological thriller—she only pops up a couple times in the first two acts. But her one big scene/monologue near the end is absolutely unforgettable—wrenching and hard to watch as she wrestles with what she and her husband have done to their son. I've long thought there should be an acting category below supporting, and Ireland and some of the other nominees here would be perfect for it.
• But not Vanessa Kirby, who, as I mentioned above, could almost be a co-lead for Napoleon. She's incredible as the Empress Joséphine opposite Joaquin Phoenix—and she actually outshines one of our generation's greatest actors, to my eyes. (He was much better in a different movie; see below.) It's a largely thankless role (both in the movie and historically), but she's never less than compelling in every frame, with the divorce signature scene an especial highlight. She's rapidly ascending my ranks of favorite actresses. (It was great to see her back in the new M:I as well.)
• The relatively unknown Cara Jade Myers (apparently from Prescott!) was absolutely sensational in her relatively small role in Killers as one of Mollie's oldest sister Anna, sparking up the screen whenever she appears. Anna is tragically flawed and, like most of the Osage, doomed, but she's  perhaps the most vibrant example of the tragedy inflicted upon her people, and Myers imbues her with unrelenting verve and a lust for life.
• That brings us to perhaps the most locked-in of all the major category frontrunners, The Holdovers' Da'Vine Joy Randolph. I don't know if there have been many other performers to dominate awards season quite like she has. Like Ireland, I wasn't very familiar with her before this year, but when I walked out of The Holdovers, I was like, "Oh, she'll be nominated for Best Supporting Actress for sure." And so she was, and so she is here as well for her relatively understated, unshowy work, a performance without the kind of showstopping scene/monologue one usually expects from this category. But every knowing glance, every time she steels herself, every second of internalized grief just drips with truth and sincerity.
• Rounding out the nominees is a sadly small but still significant role: Tracee Ellis Ross in American Fiction. She and Ireland were the two final inclusions here just because neither of them had all that much screentime. Ross would have been an easy shoo-in if she had appeared in the whole movie, but the story dictated that she did not. Still, her easy chemistry with Jeffrey Wright and the lived-in nature of her performance are a big part of the movie's success. She also seems to be more known for TV, but I hope to see her in more movies soon.

As much as I loved the three smaller performances, screentime matters, so this came down to Kirby and Randolph. As great as Randolph was, I found myself thinking about and appreciating Vanessa Kirby's performance slightly more. Both women held their own against their higher-billed male costars, but watching Kirby navigate the initial psychosexual connection between her and Phoenix and how it gave way to deep companionship was a true marvel. I'm still shocked she didn't seem to get much of any real awards consideration. Perhaps if the film had been/done better?

BEST ACTOR

Zac Efron – The Iron Claw

Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers^

Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer^

Joaquin Phoenix – Beau Is Afraid

Jeffrey Wright – American Fiction^

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Honorable mentions: Bradley Cooper – Maestro^, Barry Keoghan – Saltburn, Jake Gyllenhaal – Guy Ritchie's The Covenant, Jason Schwartzman – Asteroid City, Teo Yoo – Past Lives

The Academy did a pretty good job here—three of my nominees and one HM. And I don't really have any complaints about their fifth nominee, Colman Domingo for Rustin. He's quite good, but the movie is pretty formulaic and he's not given a ton interesting to do, performance-wise (it's a very biopic-y biopic). You could say the same about Cooper, but I did find the physicality of the cathedral conducting scene to pretty impressive. The closest HM to a nomination here was Schwartzman, as I'll discuss below.

• We'll start with Zac Efron, who is having (has been having, really) his Channing Tatum–esque "Whoa, the hot guy can act?" moment. He holds Iron Claw together with both his absolutely shredded physique and his fierce yet tender performance as the eldest (living) Von Erich brother. While his brothers embody the physical and psychological toll wrestling (and his father) take, he embodies the emotional toll. Good luck not tearing up at his conversation with his own sons at the end. Efron seemed to be on the very periphery of the Best Actor race but ultimately missed out on a nomination. That error has been rectified here, thankfully.
• There was a minute there before the Oppenheimer train really got rolling in the awards season leadup when Paul Giamatti was the frontrunner for Best Actor. He's undoubtedly one of the best actors of his generation, but this is somehow only his second-ever nomination (and first for a leading performance). How he missed out for Sideways no one will ever know. He's graciously played second fiddle to Murphy this year but would be a more than deserving winner for The Holdovers, in which he plays a character very similar to Sideways's Miles—nigh detestable exterior, complicated yet ultimately sympathetic interior. Nobody does that balance better than Giamatti.
• Longtime favorite Cillian Murphy secured his first nomination and will almost certainly take home his first statue this year for his massive, massive performance in Oppenheimer. He's on screen for seemingly 90% of the three-hour runtime and his facial expressions alone (there are a lot of closeups) are statue-worthy. I don't know if I'd say this is his career-best performance (where my Sunshine heads at?), but it's damn close and is probably the most impressive technical achievement of the Oscar nominees.
• I went back and forth between Schwartzman and Joaquin Phoenix for the fifth slot here. Schwartzman is great in a movie I liked a lot more than I thought I would. The scenes with him talking with his children about their mother who has recently died transcends the detached twee-ness that sometimes plagues Wes Anderson movies. But I ultimately went with Phoenix's increasingly deranged performance in the oft-confounding Beau. (I still like the original title, Disappointment Blvd., better.) I absolutely plan on rewatching it at some point, but my main takeaway from the first viewing was Phoenix's vulnerable, assured work, especially in the first section of the film. My attention drifted toward the end, but I expect there's great stuff to be unlocked on that second viewing.
• In the year that we got just the second nomination for Giamatti, we also got the first for Jeffrey Wright. I'm not sure which is more surprising. He's always made everything he's in better, and it's awesome to see him finally getting his proper due. American Fiction balances a couple different plotlines that don't always fit together from a screenwriting perspective, but Wright handles handles the family drama and literary satire plotlines with equal deftness. His scenes with Brown and Ross showcase his considerable dramatic talents, and the more comedic scenes with the likes of John Ortiz (a favorite) and Adam Brody let him flex his comedic chops. He won't win this year, but he surely has a statue in his future, right?

It took a recent second viewing to confirm it, but this category narrowly goes to Cillian Murphy over Paul Giamatti. I don't normally go for performances based on historical figures, but Murphy is working on another level in Oppenheimer—he's always had an arresting screen presence, but I didn't know he could be that commanding on screen. And it's not showy, Capital-A acting, either—there's a refined interiority to the performance. I'm sure his win on Sunday will bring the house down.

BEST ACTRESS

Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon^

Sandra Hüller – Anatomy of a Fall^

Greta Lee – Past Lives

Margot Robbie – Barbie

Emma Stone – Poor Things^

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Honorable mentions: Annette Bening – Nyad^, Mia Goth – Infinity Pool, Thomasin McKenzie – Eileen, Natalie Portman – May December, Michelle Williams – Showing Up

I guess I can't quibble too much with the Academy's nominees. Gladstone, Hüller, and Stone probably delivered the three best performances regardless of gender or role this year, while Bening (very good) and Mulligan (good but absolutely uninteresting outside of the cancer diagnosis scene) are longtime Academy favorites. My two nominees in their place might very well have been the next two names on the list. So no real complaints (even though my field is obviously superior). Now, let's try to parse what might be the strongest category of them all.

• Even though I don't think she *quite* gave the best performance this year (more below), I'll still be pulling for Lily Gladstone to win the Oscar. I think she was a bit hamstrung by her film's script and the gap between her and my #1 actress performance of the year is small enough where I'll be happy if Gladstone wins for narrative/representation reasons. But don't get me wrong: she's phenomenal in Killers. She just sparkles sardonically in early scenes before she's unfortunately sidelined due to being bedridden, then her resignation and quiet fury in the final act are something to behold. Her performance as Mollie is one of 2023's true revelations.
• But I think Sandra Hüller actually gave the best lead actress performance of the year in Anatomy of a Fall. (Spoilers: She wins here.) Her job in Anatomy is incredibly tricky—she has to make the audience believe that her character could be totally innocent or guilty as hell, or else the movie just doesn't work. She succeeds spectacularly, as her Sandra is simultaneously sympathetic yet suspect, grieving yet aggravating. It's complex, multilayered (and multilingual) work and she'd be a very deserving winner (and she does seem to have a slim chance).
• The last name in this field was Greta Lee, whose film was one of the very last I watched for my Oscar homework (I always watch everything nominated for the major categories). I didn't exactly avoid Past Lives earlier in the year, but I didn't go out of my way to watch it either. But I'm so glad it was nominated, as it immediately became one of my favorites of the year, in large part to Lee's emotive, nuanced performance. The script demands a lot of her—she's very much in love with her husband but can't help thinking of the life that could have been with her childhood sweetheart who has just reentered her life—but she's more than up for the task. The final five minutes alone are some of the best acting of the year.
• I don't know how or why Margot Robbie wasn't nominated for Best Actress. I know she was nominated as a producer, but her ebullient, playful performance in bringing Barbie to fully realized life is absolutely critical to the movie's success. So why wasn't she nominated as a performer? Anti-comedy bias? Perhaps, but remember Gosling was nominated. I suspect it was just a crowded year—Gladstone, Stone, Hüller, and Mulligan were locks, and many voters probably felt Barbie's surefire nominations in other major categories were sufficient so they could squeeze Bening in. I guess? Oscar logic is funny. That's not the case here, though, where she gets her much-deserved nomination.
• And now we have likely Gladstone's biggest competition for the Oscar, former winner Emma Stone. On merit alone, she'd be a more than worthy winner—her performance as Bella is fierce and fearless, and it might very well be remembered more than any of the other nominees this year. It's both physically and intellectually demanding work, and I'm not sure many other current actresses could have pulled it off. (Random thought: Helena Bonham-Carter would have CRUSHED this role 20 years ago.) I don't think she'll win on Sunday, but the door is slightly cracked for an upset over Gladstone.

But as mentioned above, neither takes the fake statue here—I'm going with Sandra Hüller for her brilliant turn in Anatomy of a Fall. I think this is the third time a non-English performance has won in this category, after Isabelle Huppert for Elle in 2016 and Renate Reinsve for The Worst Person in the World). I think it's happened at least once in the other acting categories, but this one has the most non-English winners. Wonder if it means anything?

BEST SCREENPLAY

Sean Durkin – The Iron Claw

Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Dave Callaham – Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Celine Song – Past Lives^

Justine Triet and Arthur Harari – Anatomy of a Fall^

Takashi Yamazaki – Godzilla Minus One

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Honorable mentions: Wes Anderson – Asteroid City, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach – Barbie, David Hemingson – The Holdovers^, Tony McNamara – Poor Things^, Christopher Nolan – Oppenheimer^

As (almost) always, I combine original and adapted into a single category—I largely don't find adaptions to be as impressive as original screenplays. That's largely borne out here—none of the Best Adapted nominees made my field (although we do have three in the HMs). Then we have two Best Original nominees in my field, plus another in the HMs. (Of the rest of the Oscar nominees, American Fiction just missed my HMs, while May December, Maestro, and The Zone of Interest were never really considered.) All five of my nominees are truly original stories for the screen, even if one is based on real people and two more are based on existing characters (to an extent, with Godzilla). As it should be.

• First up is one of two main contenders in this category: Sean Durkin for the incredible Iron Claw. I was a bit familiar with him before this year, having seen Martha Marcy May Marlene years ago (but not The Nest), but his latest was a just a (Stone Cold?) stunner—I remember sitting in the theater slack-jawed as the credits rolled. The story is expertly structured, almost like a wrestling match—a wildly entertaining setup for the first 30-40 minutes before the (emotional and thematic) haymakers start landing HARD. In fact, Durkin had to cut out some of the real-life tragedies that befell the Von Erich family so the story would seem MORE realistic. The Iron Claw is a stunning achievement, in no small part due to the writing.
• Like often happens at the Oscars, animated films are siloed into their own category. Other than the occasional Best Original Song nomination, they usually aren't nominated in any other category. It's a shame, because Across the Spider-Verse is one of the most well-written movies of the year, chock full of detailed characterization, authentic character beats, strong themes, and unironic meta commentary (which is hard to pull off). Like its predecessor (in a rare year when I did separate screenplay categories), the newest Spider-Verse movie scores a nomination for Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Dave Callaham (not Callahan, apparently).
• You ever find yourself in a situation where you think "This would make a good movie"? Celine Song did when she found herself translating a conversation between her husband and her childhood sweetheart in a bar, and the result was the Oscar-nominated Past Lives. It's a lovely, bittersweet film, something along the lines of a millennial In the Mood for Love, exploring not only the idea of "past lives" in a karmic sense, but also the actual past lives your partner has led before meeting you. It's a fantastic script, announcing Song as a major new arrival to watch.
• Justine Triet and Arthur Harari are decidedly NOT new talents, but I confess to not being familiar with their work before Anatomy, which won the Palme d'Or and is considered the frontrunner for Best Original Screenplay. And deservedly so—the film explores myriad themes (marriage, infidelity, guilt, justice) with dialogue ranging from wry to gut-punching to acerbically explosive. The domestic argument recording scene is one of the best written (and acted) scenes of the year, the courtroom scenes are both hilarious and heartbreaking, and film the walks such a fine line between "Is she innocent or guilty?" This is the other major contender alongside The Iron Claw.
• The last entry into this field was Takashi Yamazaki's screenplay for Godzilla Minus One. Asteroid City, Barbie, and Poor Things were all strongly considered, but not all the subplots in Asteroid worked for me, I still have serious issues with the mother/daughter plot in Barbie, and Poor Things is an adaptation that can be a bit thematically wonky at times. All very good scripts, but not achieve what Yamazaki does—craft a real, honest-to-god thematically and emotionally resonant script around GODZILLA. It does rely on some contrivances (the very ending, for example), but it was such a thrill to watch this amazingly human (and very Japanese) story unfold in a Godzilla movie. I have mostly enjoy the newer US entries, but this one puts those to shame.

A month or so ago, this would have easily gone to Sean Durkin and The Iron Claw, but the writing of Anatomy of a Fall completely blew me away, so Justine Triet and Arthur Harari take the win here. They're the third-ever non-English winner in a screenplay category, after a pair of Korean movies (Burning and Parasite), making them the first European winners. Hon, hon, hon!

BEST DIRECTOR

Sean Durkin – The Iron Claw

Jonathan Glazer – The Zone of Interest^

Christopher Nolan – Oppenheimer^

Margot Robbie – Barbie

Martin Scorsese – Killers of the Flower Moon^

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Honorable mentions: Emerald Fennell – Saltburn, Todd Haynes – May December, Yorgos Lanthimos – Poor Things^, Eli Roth – Thanksgiving, Justine Triet – Anatomy of a Fall^

You've gotta hand it to the director's branch of the Academy. They're consistently among the most reliable branches, and all five Oscar nominees wound up in my field or HMs. They're joined by three of the absolutely campiest (in very different ways) movies from last year: May December, Saltburn, and Thanksgiving. May December truly embraced the elevated Lifetime movie aesthetic, Saltburn gussies up its tired summer estate drama milieu with note-perfect millennial pop culture excess, and Thanksgiving is an expertly calibrated genre deconstruction along the lines of James Wan's Malignant, which earned a nomination here in 2021. But they all just missed out in a very strong field; let's dive in.

• I'm still not sure how Sean Durkin and The Iron Claw didn't get any real awards buzz. It's got an amazing cast, an incredible story, and it's made with the utmost care and craft. Durkin first drops the audience into breezy, brawny '70s period piece that looks and sounds great (duh, Tom Petty is on the soundtrack). But Durkin masterfully guides the audience along when the story takes a dark turn (several dark turns, actually), never losing sight of the emotional, thematic, visual, and even musical (the original song in this should have been nominated!) throughlines set up in that first act. And some might find the ending a bit corny, but I thought it landed perfectly. This is one of the best, and best made, movies of the year.
• It was a tough call between Lanthimos and Jonathan Glazer for the final spot here. I like Lanthimos's film better, but ultimately The Zone of Interest is the greater directorial achievement, so Glazer wound up as the fifth nominee. Glazer is one of the most original filmmakers around, and the way Zone was made was so unique, with the actors largely alone in the house with just the cameras. Plus the night vision and soundscape stuff (not meaning the sound design here, which was obviously outstanding). I don't think I intend on revisiting Zone anytime soon (if ever), but that's its own kind of compliment.
• Next we have the clear Oscar frontrunner and cause célèbre for the "Make the Oscars more relevant for the masses" crowd: Christopher Nolan. He's made some of the best and biggest movies of the past 25 years but has only once been nominated as a director before (for Dunkirk), and he's never won an Oscar in any category. That'll change on Sunday, as he'll almost surely win at least Best Director and Best Picture for Oppenheimer. The story does peter out quite a bit after the conclusion of the Manhattan Project (hence no screenplay nomination here), but the segment from the Trinity test to Oppy's big speech to the project team has maybe the best filmmaking of the year, if not Nolan's career. Pure audiovisual poetry. He'd get my Oscar vote for sure (but, spoilers, that's only because the winner here wasn't nominated).
• Much like Oppenheimer, I found Barbie's direction much stronger than the writing from its writer/director—the mother/daughter storyline fell almost completely flat to me (like the confirmation hearing stuff in Oppenheimer). But Greta Gerwig's bold, imaginative direction helped pull off what almost no one thought possible—making an intelligent, funny, thematically coherent movie based on Barbie dolls. She makes Barbieland seem like a real place with real problems, explores what Barbie and Ken in the real world would look like, stages some great musical numbers, and even gets a little conceptual and metatextual toward the end. It's a really remarkable achievement, and one the Academy should have found room for.
• Yep, there's definitely a trend here. Let's make it four in a row (Glazer also wrote Zone): the direction of Killers of the Flower Moon was stronger than the writing. I mean, duh, it's Martin Scorsese. Killers is rife with raw passion and power, which primarily comes from Scorsese (and the Native performers, obviously) as he pulls back the hood (kind of pun intended?) on the white interlopers into Osage country, laying bare the evil at the heart of Manifest Destiny and the American Dream. But the writing of many of the white characters, Leonardo DiCaprio's Ernest (not even an HM here) especially falls short, and the central relationship between Ernest and Mollie remains vexing (and I'm not sure a second viewing would clear anything up). But that flaw doesn't do much to blunt the film's power, which rivals and perhaps even eclipses the atomic power of Oppenheimer as the best of the Oscar nominees.

In a field with an unimpeachable legend, perhaps the best big-budget filmmaker of his generation, one of the most respected arthouse auteurs of the past two-plus decades, and one of the best and most in-demand writer-directors working today, the relatively unheralded Sean Durkin takes this (fake) prize. The Iron Claw made that much of an impression on me. Two things are clear: 1) I need to rewatch Martha Marcy May Marelene and watch The Nest, and 2) Durkin's next project is one of my most anticipated upcoming releases, whatever it may be. (That's technically three things, but whatever!)

BEST PICTURE

1. The Iron Claw | Letterboxd Review

2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse | Letterboxd Review

3. Killers of the Flower Moon^ | Letterboxd Review

4. Oppenheimer^ | Letterboxd Reviews

5. Anatomy of a Fall^ | Letterboxd Review

6. Poor Things^ | Letterboxd Review

7. Barbie^ | Letterboxd Reviews

8. Past Lives^ | Letterboxd Review

9. Thanksgiving | Letterboxd Review

10. Godzilla Minus One | Letterboxd Review

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Honorable mentions: John Wick: Chapter 4, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Holdovers^, American Fiction^, Saltburn

I have 6/10 nominees in common with the Oscars field, with two more appearing in my HMs. The two missing are The Zone of Interest (it's in my top 25 but it's a film I admire more than actually like, and entertainment value/rewatchability are important here) and Maestro (well made but a rather formulaic biopic, which I almost never go for). So the Academy got a lot right this year in what was a strong year for cinema. There's almost nothing that can happen at the Oscars this year that would piss me off, which is relatively rare. Thank Barbenheimer!

Anyway, I said plenty about most of these films above, so instead of waxing on and on, let me instead try something new and go lightning round on some genre-specific categories. There were a ton of great action, comedy, and horror movies in 2023, which don't always find their way into my top 10 or this Oscars-style blog post. So let me highlight some of them now.

BEST (LIVE) ACTION MOVIE

1. John Wick: Chapter 4 | Letterboxd Review

2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 | Letterboxd Review

3. Fast X | Letterboxd Review

4. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One | Letterboxd Review

5. Plane | Letterboxd Review

I only considered standard, live-action movies for this category, so no Across the Spider-Verse or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, which was also pretty awesome. Other than that, it was a pretty solid year for franchises, with the latest in the John Wick saga my favorite action movie of the year—the Osaka sequence, the Dragon's Breath shootout, the Arc de Triomphe scene, the goddamn staircase, plus Scott Adkins and Donne MFing Yen. Yeah, I'm thinking it was pretty awesome. The final GotG entry was a worthy trilogy capper with a ton of great character moments, while Fast X might be my favorite of the post–Fast Five entries, which have mostly been diminishing returns. The new M:I had a ton of fun set pieces (especially the Abu Dhabi airport, Rome car chase, and falling train sequences) and Plane was yet another sturdy, no frills Gerry Butts actioner. Other highlights included the aforementioned Covenant, the final Denzel Equalizer joint, and the surprisingly enjoyable latest Indiana Jones flick.

BEST (STUDIO) COMEDY

1. Barbie

2. No Hard Feelings | Letterboxd Review

3. Maggie Moore(s) | Letterboxd Review

4. Bottoms | Letterboxd Review

5. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves | Letterboxd Review

I say "studio" comedy to differentiate your standard popcorn comedies from the likes of Poor Things, The Holdovers, American Fiction, et al. Funny, yes, but not comedy-comedies, if that makes sense. Anyway, Barbie was definitely the funniest movie of the year (so many incredible laughs after the Kens take over alone), but No Hard Feelings was easily the best R-rated studio comedy I've seen in a while. That's a dying genre these days, sadly. Jennifer Lawrence was great, and we should let our great actresses be funny more often (see also: Charlize Theron in Long Shot back in 2019). Maggie Moore(s) is your yearly reminder that Jon Hamm is one of the best comedic actors we have, Bottoms is Gen Z comedy to the nth degree (in both a good and bad way), and the D&D movie was super fun and one I need to rewatch now that I actually play D&D. There weren't a ton of other great studio comedies, but girl power grossout comedy gem Joy Ride just missed this cutoff, and the Please Don't Destroy movie (The Treasure of Foggy Mountain) had its moments, as did the latest from Broken Lizard (Quasi).

BEST HORROR MOVIE

1. Thanksgiving

2. When Evil Lurks | Letterboxd Review

3. Influencer | Letterboxd Review

4. Infinity Pool | Letterboxd Review

5. Talk to Me | Letterboxd Review

I'm a huge horror junkie who watches a horror movie a day (or thereabouts) every October. (Here's what I watched this last year.) I'm just waiting for another year like 2018, when three horror movies cracked my top 5. That didn't happen this year obviously, but it was still a solid year for horror. The best of the bunch was the long-awaited, full-length Thanksgiving—a blend of actually clever writing/direction and pure slasher thrills. When Evil Lurks and Influecer were two of my favorite finds on Shudder—the former a shockingly gory Argentinian riff on the demonic possession trop and the latter a social media riff on Single White Female. Infinity Pool is the latest from Cronenberg the Younger; it's not quite on the level of Possessor but it was still an intriguing blend of social commentary and (light) body horror. And Talk To Me was a strong debut from a Australian directorial team best known for YouTube videos—that freaking hand might be the most indelible visual from any horror movie of 2023. Elsewhere, Totally Killer was a fun, '80s-set slasher and the new V/H/S more more hit than miss.

And that's a wrap on 2023 in movies! This was about 1,000 words shorter than last year, even with the bonus categories, so I'm going to consider that a success. If you'd like to see my (very loosely) ranked list of all 2023 movies I've seen, check my Letterboxd. I also write at least a short review for each movie. Next up is my usual Oscar predictions post, which will likely go up sometime Sunday afternoon. Thanks for reading in the meantime!