I'll begin my usual preamble with some bad news: 2024 was a weaker year in cinema than 2023 in just about every respect. For starters, after three straight years of growth following the pandemic-stricken 2020, the domestic box office was down compared to the previous year.
And when you look at the highest-grossing movies, it makes sense. In the top 10, you've got a whopping 9(!) sequels, many of which no one asked for or needed. That includes #1 Inside Out 2, which I didn't even bother seeing even though I'd heard mostly good things—the first one did exactly what it needed and a sequel just seemed entirely unnecessary. (This exact same thing goes for Moana 2.) Then you've got a couple fourth entries in kids' franchises, two legacyquels that were actually fairly decent, a third and ever-more-irritating Deadpool movie, a fun but frivolous Godzilla franchise entry, and the second Dune flick. The lone non-sequel was Wicked, which is only based on one of the most, ahem, popular Broadway musicals of all time. This crop of blockbusters pales in comparison to 2023's, which was led by the Barbenheimer juggernaut.
I'd also say 2024's slate of Oscar nominees is weaker than 2023's. For one, there isn't even a no-doubt frontrunner as I write this about two weeks before the ceremony. (Update: This is still true the night before the ceremony.) It seems like Anora is the Best Picture favorite right now, but that's only a recent development in what has been a very uncertain race thus far. It'd make a fine winner (I'm a big fan!) but would likely be forgotten in a couple years like, well, like just about every Best Picture winner besides Oppenheimer, Parasite, and Moonlight in the past 15 or so years. Films like The Brutalist and The Substance might've held their own in last year's field, but I think that's about it. And this year's field also has once-frontrunner Emilia Pérez, which is one of the worst Best Picture nominees of the century.
So, yeah, 2024 was somewhat of a down year in cinema. But there's hope! This palpable downturn in quality films is likely just fallout from the 2023 WGA strike, which hampered and/or delayed countless promising projects. With that well in the rearview now, hopefully 2025 will be a big bounce-back year, both for the box office and Oscars slate. Fingers crossed.
But down year or not, there's still plenty worth celebrating from 2024 in the world of cinema. As usual, I'm here to share my favorite movies and performances with you. Below, you'll find a few of the bigger hits of the year—but even more outstanding popcorn flicks that didn't quite bring in the beaucoup bucks for whatever reason. You'll also see a few Oscar nominees—but also some prestige pictures that didn't resonate as much with awards bodies. As always, my favorites feature both popcorn and prestige, but are generally box-office and awards-show agnostic. I like what I like; sometimes it lines up with the masses and the critics, sometimes it doesn't.
But enough preamble (man, they keep getting longer over the years)—let's get to the awards. We'll start like the real Oscars usually do, with the supporting categories. All nominees are listed in alphabetical order until we get to Best Picture.
Gold = winner
^ = Oscar nominee
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Casey Affleck – The Instigators
Kieran Culkin – A Real Pain^
Chris Hemsworth – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Edward Norton – A Complete Unknown^
Guy Pearce – The Brutalist^
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Honorable mentions: Austin Amelio – Hit Man, Yura Borisov – Anora^, William Dafoe – Nosferatu, Adam Pearson – A Different Man, Sean San Jose – Sing Sing
Oscar voters did a pretty good job here, likely category fraud aside (more below). Three nominees made my field, another was an HM, and Strong made my longlist (very good but I'm generally tougher on performances based on real people). Lots of other good stuff in the HMs—Amelio might've been my favorite performance in Hit Man, Pearson stole the show every time he was on screen in Different, and San Jose more than held his own against Colman Domingo in Sing Sing. Dafoe was the closest to making my field—as soon as he showed up in Nosferatu I basically did the Leo in OUATIH meme. Let's start my field with a name that was nowhere near any Oscar shortlists.
- That's right, Casey Affleck in the just-fine Apple TV streamer The Instigators snagged a nom here. He gave maybe the funniest performance of the year with absolute expert timing and delivery—especially impressive given his joke-a-minute pace. But there's also a strong element of pathos, of world-weariness, in his performance. Manchester by the Sea this is not, but he might actually out-Masshole his brother here. He and Hong Chau really elevate an otherwise middling streamer into something very much worth watching.
- The category fraud comment above was clearly in reference to Kieran Culkin, who is basically a co-lead in Pain with writer/director Jesse Eisenberg. But I'm slotting him here because 1) the Oscars did, and 2) the story is very clearly told from Eisenberg's POV. Controversy aside, his performance is incredible—hilarious and nervy and poignant—even if it's somewhat a remix of his work on Succession. That's no slight—Roman Roy is one of the great TV characters of this century. Culkin has the Oscar sewn up and is a definite contender here.
- Furiosa didn't seem to click much at all with audiences, and it was definitely received much more coldly by critics than its predecessor. That's a shame, because it's still a pretty great movie even if it's (as expected) a notch or two below Fury Road. It's at least worth watching for Chris Hemsworth as Dementus, maybe the best villain in the whole Mad Max saga. He's a great example of the "villain is the hero of their own story" paradigm and shows surprising dramatic depth amidst all the bellowing and pillaging. His death scene is one of my favorite scenes of the year—he's incredible in it. "Do you have it in you to make it epic?"
- Edward Norton was the last name to make my field (it was so close between him and Dafoe) for his tender, wounded, unshowy work as Pete Seeger in Unknown. His Seeger is a man who doesn't know his time has passed him by but he still keeps fighting for his values. It's the best performance in a movie that featured a little too much playacting for my liking. He's long been one of my favorite screen presences (shoutout to Kingdom of Heaven director's cut!) and I hope this role gets him back in Hollywood's good graces.
- Speaking of veteran's getting their due, somehow this is Guy Pearce's first Oscar nomination. He's had at least a half-dozen awards-worthy performances since L.A. Confidential (The Rover is a personal favorite) but his performance as a metaphorical hammer of capitalism in the epic The Brutalist finally put him over the top. His role demands that he dominates the screen every time he's on it and he does so with magnetic ferocity and a twisted empathy. It's stellar work and, again, hopefully just the start of more Oscar-recognized roles.
While Culkin will almost certainly take home the statue on Oscar Sunday, he has to cede the spotlight here to Dementus himself, Chris Hemsworth. I think part of the reason he takes the win here is the unexpected greatness of the performance. While greatness can be expected from the other four nominees (a former Oscar winner, an about-to-be Oscar winner, and two vets with now five Oscar noms between them), Hemsworth had only shown flashes of greatness thus far in his career—he's come a long way from the first Thor movie. And the role of Dementus could have been capably filled by, say, Kevin Durand (no shade!)—and yet Hemsworth had it in him to make it epic and take the fake statue here.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Adria Arjona – Hit Man
Hong Chau – The Instigators
Katy O'Brian – Love Lies Bleeding
Brigette Lundy-Paine* – I Saw the TV Glow
Margaret Qualley – The Substance
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Honorable mentions: Monica Barbaro – A Complete Unknown^, Elle Fanning – A Complete Unknown, Felicity Jones – The Brutalist^, AnnaSophia Robb – Rebel Ridge, Zoe Saldana – Emilia Pérez^
I seem to have a tough time filling this category just about every year. But I think the reasons for that are fairly clear. One is institutionalized sexism in the acting industry—there are simply more male character actors than female, and there are more, and meatier, supporting roles for men than women. But the other reason is that I just tend to see more male-skewing movies, making it less likely that I'd see that many great female supporting performances. That's one reason the Oscars actually *are* important—see the three nominees in my HMs. (Just didn't see it with Rossellini and her 5 minutes of screentime, and Wicked was decidedly Not For Me.) That said, the actual Oscar nominees were all beat out by performances from less-heralded movies, including a couple from streamers.
- I was passingly familiar with Adria Arjona prior to Hit Man, mostly from the rather underappreciated Michael Bay Net Flick 6 Underground. But she hadn't been given a ton to do in many of her previous roles aside from "be hot." Don't get me wrong—she absolutely does that *very well* in Hit Man. But she's also able to take the "abused wife" stock character and subvert the stereotype and make it her own. She also more than holds her own against Glen Powell's nuclear-grade movie star charisma—they have some absolutely incendiary scenes together, especially the Notes app scene, which is easily one of the best scenes of the year.
- Like Casey Affleck above, Hong Chau rose above the material around her in The Instigators. Her no-nonsense psychiatrist to Matt Damon's character is a great comedic foil to Affleck's character (they have some absolutely hilarious interactions) and somewhat grounds the movie. If not for a very lackadaisical script and straight-to-streamer mindset, this could've been one of the best comedies of the year. Like Arjona above, she's here in large part due to a single scene, the one in which she's both operating on and therapizing Matt Damon. She takes no bullshit from either Damon or Affleck and dishes as much as she takes. Really fun performance.
- Katy O'Brian was the final name to make my field here, narrowly beating out Barbaro, Jones, and Robb, who all at various points were in the field. Barbaro's Joan Baez was riveting and one of the best parts of Unknown, while Jones delivered some very good Capital A Acting, which typically doesn't do all that well in this space. I quite liked Robb's perky yet pained southern lawyer, but O'Brian's criminal lesbian bodybuilder was just too undeniable—and in basically her feature debut, no less. Come for her scenes with Kristen Stewart, stay for her mid-competition freakout. This was a star-making performance, and we'll be hearing more from O'Brian soon.
- I'm still wrapping my head around I Saw the TV Glow as a whole, but one thing that's clear is that Brigette Lundy-Paine's performance is absolutely massive. Her transformation from a fairly normal (a little weird but well meaning) teenager to unhinged and haunted adult is as fascinating as it is impressive. Her mid-movie monologue is one of the most captivating and memorable scenes of the year, one that stuck with me long past the final credits. I'm still not sure if Glow "works" (or whether that matters) but I know the whole thing would fall apart without a performance of the caliber of Lundy-Paine's. (*Note: I found out during research that Lundy-Paine now goes by Jack Maven and uses they/them pronouns. But the performance was as Lundy-Paine so that's how I've referred to them here.)
- That leaves us with the actress that was easily closest to earning an actual Oscar nomination, Margaret Qualley. She very well could have finished sixth in the actual voting for nominees. But she easily made my field here, as The Substance (one of my favorites of the year) flat-out doesn't work without her vacuous yet vital work opposite Demi Moore. She has kind of an un-acting thing going on—she's largely expressionless in many scenes but is still able to communicate a fervent hunger for pleasure, for success, for life. It's also a very fearlessly physical performance—Fargeat demanded a lot from her actresses. I'm more than impressed that the Academy actually nominated Moore, but Qualley deserved a nomination alongside her.
If this was a somewhat tough field to put together, it was also tough to call, especially with such a wide range of femininity represented among the nominees. Arjona, Lundy-Paine, and Qualley all merited serious consideration. It came down to Qualley and Lundy-Paine, two nominees that represent vastly different definitions of femininity. Ultimately, Brigette Lundy-Paine took the fake statue it in a nailbiter. That monologue, my god—absolutely vital, thrilling work. Sometimes one scene is all it takes, which just about every nominee here can attest to.
BEST ACTOR
Adrien Brody – The Brutalist^
Daniel Craig – Queer
David Dastmalchian – Late Night with the Devil
Ralph Fiennes – Conclave^
Josh O’Connor – Challengers
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Honorable mentions: Timothée Chalamet – Dune: Part Two, Colman Domingo – Sing Sing^, Jesse Eisenberg – A Real Pain, Aaron Pierre – Rebel Ridge, Sebastian Stan – A Different Man
Between my nominees and HMs, we've got all five Oscar nominees represented. Brody, Fiennes, and Chalamet all have a shot to win the statue, although Chalamet was absolutely nominated for the wrong performance, if I may say so. His Dylan vocals are absolutely incredible, but his non-musical performance is mostly just Dylan cosplay. I did find Stan's Trump to be a strong performance, but it's nowhere near as good as his work in A Different Man. Eisenberg was nominated for his A Real Pain script, but he was also worthy as an actor—there's a group dinner scene that might very well be the best-acted scene of the year. (He just didn't ask himself to do much more than that, though.) And Pierre was a knockout in Ridge and could easily wind up back here as a nominee very soon. But on to the five that made my field.
- Adrien Brody is the odds-on Oscar favorite, and for good reason—he's an absolute marvel as the center of the 3+ hour postwar American epic that is The Brutalist. He'd mostly been slumming in DTV projects the past several years, having seemingly falling out of favor in Hollywood years after becoming the youngest-ever Best Actor winner for The Pianist (which I still haven't seen) in 2002. But the role of László Tóth feels like only a role he could have played, and one that seems primed to win him a second Oscar. His Tóth is a creation of pure pain, ego, and willpower, as fully realized a character as Cate Blanchett's Lydia Tárr to where you leave the theater not quite sure if they were a movie character or historical figure. There is almost no higher compliment you can give to an acting performance than that.
- Next up is Daniel Craig, who did play a historical figure—or at least a fictionalized version of one. In Queer, Luca Guadagnino's second absolute banger of 2024 after Challengers, Craig plays William Lee (aka William S. Burroughs), a bisexual, drug-addicted, likely wife murderer bumming around 1950s Mexico City. It's about as far removed from James Bond as possible (but not so far removed from Benoit Blanc). Craig easily disappears into the role, utterly magnetic as he stalks his next lover, gets violently drunk, fully blows a dude, and hallucinates on jungle plants. It's a bold performance, and one that I hope sets the stage for a fascinating post-Bond career.
- There are always some surprise names in my Fake Oscars, but I think David Dastmalchian might be one of the biggest surprises in the history of these blog posts. He's a career character actor who finally got a leading role in a Shudder exclusive in which he plays fictitious late-night host Jack Delroy, who may or may not have helped summon the devil on live TV... and it's easily one of the best performances of the year. He's in just about every frame and expertly balances his on-camera persona with the "real" Jack Delroy backstage. He's funny, charming, tormented, and then unhinged—a performance that signals this man is ready for more leading roles.
- And then there's Ralph Fiennes, who may actually be my favorite working actor today—he elevates everything he's in and is just so versatile. He actually won this category back in 2016 (the second-ever Fake Oscars!) for playing a character who couldn't be much different than Conclave's Cardinal Lawrence. His Harry Hawkes in A Bigger Splash is all cocaine and (mostly) false bravado, a horny, sun-baked rolling stone—and he's just marvelous. But his Cardinal Lawrence might be just as impressive, even if it's much more intensely internal work—Fiennes is a master of subtle facial tics and body language. (Note that he was also very good in The Return last year and, oh yeah, hangs full dong.)
- The final name in my field was Josh O'Connor, a new-to-me name who barely fought off strong, ahem, challenges from Domingo, Pierre, and Stan. (His co-star, Mike Faist, made my longlist.) But his perfectly named (for a tennis player) Patrick Zweig was one of my favorite parts of one of my favorite movies of the year, Challengers. (You *will* be hearing more about this movie.) Zweig is an irresistible and not-quite-irredeemable dirtbag who's only slightly better at manipulating people than he is at tennis. O'Conner has an obvious swagger and smoldering charisma who brings out the best in his co-stars, Faist and an absolutely scintillating Zendaya (more on her later for sure). I'm eager to see more from this intriguing talent.
Craig, Dastmalchian, and O'Connor were all very good but a cut below Brody and Fiennes—looks like the Oscar cream rises to the top. And as much as I love Fiennes and dug his work in Conclave, he won't earn his second Fake Oscar this year as Adrien Brody's work is just too transcendent in The Brutalist. It's great to see one of Hollywood's most obvious top talents get back to the top of the mountain. Hopefully he stays there this time.
BEST ACTRESS
Willa Fitzgerald – Strange Darling
Mikey Madison – Anora^
Demi Moore – The Substance^
Fernanda Torres – I'm Still Here^
Zendeya – Challengers
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Honorable mentions: Jodie Comer – The Bikeriders, Lily-Rose Depp – Nosferatu, Kirsten Dunst – Civil War, Naomi Scott – Smile 2, Kristen Stewart – Love Lies Bleeding
Like Best Supporting Actor, we have three nominees in common with the real thing. Missing are Erivo and Gascón, neither of whom even made my longlist as I greatly disliked both of their movies. (Erivo was better than Gascón, although neither were the problem with their movies.) But we do have what seems to be the top three contenders (could see any of them winning the statue), as well as a slew of nominees from horror movies in both the nominees and the HMs. I've long championed horror flicks in this space, especially their actresses (shoutout to Toni Colette in 2018!), while the Oscars are finally catching up this year by nominating Moore. Also in the HMs are some great earlier-year performances from Comer, Dunst, and Stewart. This is a pretty strong field overall. Let's dive in.
- The heretofore-unknown-to-me Willa Fitzgerald was the final inclusion in the field, just making it over fellow scream queens Depp and Scott. They both give wrenching, physical performances and were very close to making the field, but Fitzgerald's versatility won me over. What you think you know about her character changes from sequence to sequence (Darling is broken up into five parts that unfold non-chronologically) and Fitzgerald effortlessly slides from one facet of her personality to another like a cinematic chameleon. Moore's surprise nomination was a great start, but I hope we see more horror actresses like Fitzgerald, Depp, and Scott nominated in the future.
- I think—think—Best Actress will come down to Madison and Moore, but I absolutely know (spoilers!) they they are my top two contenders here. A performer from each of Sean Baker's previous two movies has won a Fake Oscar: Willem Dafoe won Best Supporting Actor for The Florida Project back in 2017, and Simon Rex won Best Actor for Red Rocket in 2021. Mikey Madison could absolutely continue that streak this year for her fiery, aching, indelible Ani in Anora. In a very similar way to Bria Vinaite in Florida, Madison simply melts into the role of a Brighton Beach stripper who gets tangled up in love and fortune with the son of a Russian oligarch. She's won a ton of precursors and could very well win the Oscar—and the Fake Oscar, something that hasn't actually happened yet.
- Madison's main competition is, unbelievably if you've seen the movie, Hollywood legend Demi Moore for her physically and emotionally baring work in The Substance. That's right, the goopiest, most bonkers body horror movie of the year is nominated for not one but several major Oscars. I knew Moore would be in this field the moment I walked out of the theater (completely stunned, it must be said), but I didn't think she had much of a shot at a real Oscar nom. So very happy to be proven wrong! She's absolutely deserving—she takes every comment about her looks or body over the years and channels them into a fearless, cathartic performance as Elisabeth. She's nothing short of a revelation and her win would bring the house down on Oscar Sunday.
- The other real-life Oscar nominee to make my field was Fernanda Torres. She was also the final acting nominee I needed to see, only having watched I'm Still Here the Thursday before the Oscars. (A five-day bachelor party in Nashville takes away a lot of movie-watching time.) But she was an easy, if late, inclusion here for her unadorned, finely calibrated turn as a Brazilian activist, wife, and victim who must stay strong for her family after her husband is kidnapped and murdered by agents of the military-controlled government. What could easily have been a histrionic, Oscar-baity performance was instead quiet, studied—but still heart-breaking—work. She's a darkhorse contender for the Oscar for sure.
- I'll be honest—I didn't really get Zendaya before Challengers. I'd never heard any of her music, never seen Euphoria. Thought she was fun as MJ in the Tom Holland Spider-Mans and decent as Chani in the Dune movies. But then I saw her as Tashi Duncan and I *got it*. And how! She positively emanates unbridled sex appeal—which is, by the way, completely necessary for the role. But more than that, for every smoldering look she gives, she serves up (zing!) just as many of disappointment, disdain, loathing as she navigates her broken career and marriage. It's the most full-fledged performance I've yet seen from her—and, hopefully, a beacon of what is still to come.
Of all the categories in this post, this one was by far the toughest to decide. I love all the scream queens, and after I walked out of Challengers I was sure Zendaya would win this. But Madison and Moore were a definite cut above the rest, both of whom are more than deserving and give better performances than some past winners here. It was agonizing, but Baker's streak has come to an end: Demi Moore was just too raw, too genuine, too iconic to lose here. I'll be happy for either leading lady at the Oscars, but I'll be pulling for Moore just a bit, well, more.
BEST SCREENPLAY
Sean Baker – Anora^
Jesse Eisenberg – A Real Pain^
Coralie Fargeat – The Substance^
Justin Kuritzkes – Challengers
Jane Schoenbrun – I Saw the TV Glow
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Honorable mentions: Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold – The Brutalist^, Justin Kuritzkes – Queer, Richard Linklater and Glen Powell – Hit Man, JT Mollner – Strange Darling, Jeremy Saulnier – Rebel Ridge
As is tradition, just the one screenplay category this year—and it might as well be called Best Original Screenplay since the only one that is even kind of an adaptation is Queer. We've got 4/5 Best Original Screenplay nominees in my field/HMs, and September5 made my longlist. The only Best Adapted nominee that made my longlist was Conclave. A Complete Unknown was a disappointingly standard biopic, the strength of Sing Sing wasn't the script, Emilia Pérez is an actively bad script, and I haven't yet seen Nickel Boys, but it does not seem like the kind of film that would crack this list. (Update: It did not. Very good but not because of writing.) Elsewhere in the HMs you've got a couple excellent streamers (Rebel Ridge and Hit Man) plus the clever Strange Darling. But let's get to the actual nominees.
- Sean Baker earned screenplay nominations for both The Florida Project and Red Rocket but didn't win either (losing to Jordan Peele for Get Out and Mike Mills for C'mon C'mon). He's obviously an incredible screenwriter, but his films often have an improvised feel that makes them feel less "written." There are large stretches of Anora that have that improvised quality, but it's much more structured than Florida or Rocket and, thus, feels more "written." Baker creates some amazing characters and situations (that kidnapping scene especially) and is the favorite for the Oscar right now—and he's a big contender here as well.
- A Real Pain was a bit of a revelation for me. Not because it's one of the best or my favorite films of the year (it's not, although it is very good), but because it showed just how talented Jesse Eisenberg really is. I've always enjoyed his screen presence, even if he largely plays variations on the same character, whether in legitimately great films like Adventureland and The Social Network or popcorn fare like Zombieland and Now You See Me. He plays a very similar character in Pain, but his writing allows him to unlock parts of himself as a performer that I've rarely seen (that group dinner scene) and paved the way for Culkin to win an Oscar. Eisenberg himself won't win an Oscar on Sunday, but he almost certainly will someday, whether as a performer or writer.
- Speaking of revelations, then there's Coralie Fargeat. I had seen and quite liked her previous feature, 2017's Revenge, but The Substance—another visceral, female-centered horror-adjacent trip—was a massive step up in just about every conceivable way. Starting with her script, which creates a not-quite-real world very similar to ours and populates it with vividly drawn caricatures that mostly don't feel like real people with the obvious exception of Moore's Elisabeth. The script is as smart and layered as it is unsubtle and darkly hilarious. It might just get my real Oscar vote if I had one just for its sheer audacity.
- But that's just because the next two writers weren't even nominated. Justin Kuritzkes seemed to have been hanging on the fringes of a nomination but wound up missing out. Which is a shame, as Challengers is one of the best scripts of the year and one of the best feature debuts in recent memory. It's sexy, it's thorny, it's smart, and it's a helluva lot of fun. Who would have thought that a love triangle set in the world of competitive tennis would also be an insightful rumination on—hold up, let me quote my Letterboxd review—"the fires that burn inside each of us. The fires that move us, compel us, and sometimes burn us—in competition, in the bedroom, in life." All that *plus* the dude wrote Queer for Luca as well. What a year for them both.
- When I first walked out of Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw the TV Glow, I wasn't sure whether I "got" it. Whether it "worked," plot-wise, character-wise. Then I watched it again recently and realized whether you "get" it or whether it "works" doesn't matter at all. I don't necessarily—but kind of do?—mean to compare it to Mulholland Drive, but Glow is more about vibes, ideas, feelings, who cares whether the events of the movie make logical sense. It's designed to slip into those deep, dark crevasses of your brain and fuck with what it finds there. But it's also warmly humanistic and shows great affection for its influences (everything from Buffy and Pete & Pete to '90s indie rock and, yes, Twin Peaks). It's remarkable work and I'm beyond intrigued to see what they have in store next.
These are all really excellent scripts, but this category was the easiest call so far—game, set, match Justin Kuritzkes. He's now the second writer to win a screenplay award for a Luca film here, after James Ivory for Call Me by Your Name in 2017 (in Adapted Screenplay back when I did two separate categories). Baker is now 0-3 in this category (he'll have to settle for the Director/Picture wins for Florida) but will almost certainly be back. I could also see the other three nominees returning someday as well. Really strong group overall!
BEST DIRECTOR
Mike Cheslik – Hundreds of Beavers
Brady Corbet – The Brutalist^
Coralie Fargeat – The Substance^
Luca Guadagnino – Challengers
Jane Schoenbrun – I Saw the TV Glow
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Honorable mentions: Sean Baker – Anora^, Luca Guadagnino – Queer, George Miller – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, RaMell Ross – Nickel Boys, Walter Salles – I'm Still Here
Like most categories, there's a decent crossover with the actual Oscar nominees—two in the field and one in the HMs (it really hurt to leave Baker out). If you've been paying attention, it should be no surprise that Audiard and Mangold missed out. Besides Baker in the HMs, you've got a second Luca sighting (again: what a year), a more-than-worthy follow-up to Fury Road from Miller, and the directors of two critical darlings who I'm surprised didn't get more Oscar buzz. But on to my nominees, starting with easily the most unexpected name in the field.
- If you haven't seen Hundreds of Beavers, do yourself a favor and check it out right away. (It's on Amazon Prime and Tubi.) Not only is it, by far, the funniest movie of the year—it's a screwball blend of The Revenant, Looney Tunes–esque slapstick comedy, and Super Mario games—but it is, and I'm only slightly exaggerating here, a cinematic achievement on par with the Avatar movies. Made with a budget of only about $150,000, it's endlessly inventive, a true showcase of the magic of moviemaking—just see it to see what I mean. Massive respect to director Mike Cheslik, who kicked Baker, a personal favorite, to the HMs. I obviously can't wait to see what he does next, even if I strangely hope he doesn't get a bigger budget.
- What Brady Corbet accomplished with The Brutalist is actually a similarly impressive achievement, albeit on a slightly higher scale. His budget was about $9.6M—while that's nowhere near $150k, it's still absolutely miniscule for most wide releases, much less a 3+ hour epic like The Brutalist. And it was shot in just one month! Just absolute mastery of his craft. I saw and liked his previous feature, 2018's Vox Lux, but like Fargeat, this was an incredible evolution for Corbet. He seems to have fallen slightly behind Baker in the Best Director race, but no one would be surprised if it was Corbet's name that's called out tomorrow night.
- I covered Coralie Fargeat as a writer above, but now let's talk about her direction. Like her script, it's often remarkably unsubtle—that Dennis Quaid shrimp scene immediately comes to mind here—but that's kind of the point. The world—and Hollywood specifically—is remarkably unsubtle about how it treats women, so Fargeat takes the same approach in her movie. That approach allows her to be as outré or gauche as she wants—which is never more apparent than in the Monstro Elisasue segment in the third act, truly one of the most brazen and bonkers set pieces in any movie ever, much less a Best Picture nominee. It makes me giddy to no end that The Substance got as many nominations as it did.
- Luca Guadagnino has only one Oscar nomination, but it's not even for Best Director (it's a Best Picture nom for Call Me by Your Name). There's no such injustice in this space: he now has three nominations for CMBYN, Suspiria, and, now Challengers. (And it should probably be four—it took me a second viewing to really come around on A Bigger Splash.) Between Challengers and Queer, I just don't think there's another director working on the same level as Luca right now—he gets the most out of his outstanding casts, he freely takes filmmaking risks (e.g., the tennis editing), and always—always—has sensational music in his films. (Reznor/Ross would be a shoo-in for Best Score if I still did that category.) There's just no one doing it like Luca right now.
- Like Fargeat above, Jane Schoenbrun also gets the double nod for Screenplay and Director. And like Fargeat they also create their own slightly off-kilter cinematic world—the setting is identifiable as "the suburbs," but the details are just... off somehow. And like Guadagnino, Schoenbrun is really firing on all cylinders here—getting *that* performance out of Lundy-Paine, putting together *that* soundtrack, and creating several unforgettable images (the burning TV, Smith sticking head into his TV, *that* shot in the bathroom at the end). Impressive, impressive stuff, and I'm eager to delve both backward and forward into their work.
This is another really strong field (duh, I put it together) but the final choice was actually pretty easy for me: this is (spoilers) the year of Challengers, so Luca Guadagnino his first-ever Fake Oscar after losses to Baker in 2017 and Ari Aster in 2018. It probably won't be his last—his aesthetic is just that much in my cinematic wheelhouse. He could be a contender as soon as this year, as his next project—an academia-set thriller starring Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, and, of course, Michael Stuhlbarg—sounds entirely up my alley.
BEST PICTURE
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Honorable mentions (in order): The Shadow Strays, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Rebel Ridge, The Fall Guy, Dune: Part Two^
Just three actual Oscar nominees this year (plus Dune in the HMs)—way down from a combined eight last year. That was an unusually strong year, though—as I mentioned way back at the beginning, this was definitely a weaker movie year overall. Not that it's a bad year for movies—I don't think there's such a thing—it's just not an all-timer like last year.
But as you can tell from my #2 above (and the HMs), there's one area where 2024 was a great year: action movies. Yep, you read that right: The Beekeeper is my second-favorite movie of the year. In fact, it spent almost the entire year in the #1 spot (it came out in January) before a recent second viewing of Challengers finally knocked it off its perch.
While it may not be my Best Picture, it *is* the most purely entertaining movie I've seen in a long time, a perfect 5-star rating right out of the gate. I've always been a fan of Statham (Wrath of Man was my Best Picture in 2021), but even then I wasn't quite ready for The Beekeeper. The premise sounds typical of a post-awards January dump: there's a secret group of government operatives called the Beekeepers, and Statham is a former agent gone rogue. But it walks an absolutely perfect line between self-seriousness and parody—even after two viewings I can't tell whether they knew what kind of movie they were making.
But I don't care because the result is absolutely amazing. I saw a Saturday matinee with a few friends and we were just GUFFAWING almost the entire runtime, from the ludicrous suicide that kicks things off to the cop calling someone a "dog fucker" to all the glorious fights and kills to the insane reveal of who the antagonist actually is to, yes, all the bee puns. There have been very few movies I've straight up enjoyed more than The Beekeeper in recent years. As you can probably ascertain, I've positively *turgid* at the recent news that Timo fucking Tjahjanto (he made my Best Director longlist for The Shadow Strays) will be directing the sequel. Best Picture 2025 (or 2026)?
And with that I'll call it a wrap. This is somehow almost as long as last year, when I had a few bonus categories at the end. If you're interested, here's a link to my full, (loosely) ranked list of every 2024 film I've seen. (Add me if you're on there!) Next up is my usual Oscar predix. This is as tough a year to predict as I can remember, so wish me luck! Thank you, as always, for reading.
