The Oscars are coming in March. I thought it would be a good time to rewatch the Best Picture winners from 2000 (Gladiator) to 2024 (Oppenheimer). This is going to be a long one – I’m hoping this is the longest episode I ever do. I’ll give a spoiler warning for any of the movies where I dive deeper into plot points that could ruin the movie. 
These are the winners, with my personal rankings, from worst to first. I will then go into my overall feelings after watching these best picture winners before wrapping things up by giving my takes on this year’s Oscar nominees.
Before I go on, I’ll lay my chips on the table – I don’t work in the film industry. The Oscars are not awarded by the critics or the fans or the press. These are, essentially, industry awards. I don’t work in Hollywood, so my takes are not shaded through the prisms of my career and / or career progression. I’m mostly basing these on how much the story impacted me – with the knowledge that we all have biases and that some stories are simply not going to move me as much as others. Let’s go.
24. Nomadland - This is the first time I saw this movie. It’s in the infamous batch from 2020 where most of the nominees made almost no money at the box office because of COVID. It’s about Fern, a woman played by Frances McDormand, who has become a nomad after her husband dies. When her longtime job ends with the town mine shutting down, she becomes a person with nowhere left to go. I thought the earlier part of the film where we see Fern surviving while trying to maintain self-sufficiency and dignity were the highlights. There were some filmmaking choices I struggled with: I wasn’t sure what year the movie took place in until halfway through the movie. The passage of time isn’t shown well. There’s a very generic score that overpowers some scenes. Some of the dialogue…ouch. There’s a character who feels like he’s pulled from the 1960s. I did like the way that Chloe Zhao shot the movie – her vistas of the Southwest look beautiful, especially at sunset. The theme of holding space and remembrance for those who have died is also woven well throughout the movie. The worst thing I can say about the movie, and it hurts me to say this because I should be moved by the message, is that it is boring. About 10 minutes in, I asked myself why it wasn’t a documentary if it was based on a non-fiction book. There are a ton of shots of extreme close-ups of people relating their stories, how they managed to find themselves in their predicaments – basically shot like a doc. If it was a documentary, it would explain the lack of narrative thrust and would just be the stories of people in this situation. Because it’s a Hollywood film, I’m expecting some plot and character development. If I wasn’t watching this for the watch through, I would have quit 30 minutes in. It’s not a particularly long movie but it felt long. Part of this was the adlibbed nature of the movie, too. Maybe if it had been trimmed 10, 15 minutes it would have been better – this was particularly acute in the last 30 minutes of the movie. The movie just kept going. It reminded me of Return of the King with the multiple endings. Long story short, it’s a movie I endured more than I enjoyed.
23. CODA – This is the only movie that I didn’t watch (or re-watch) specifically for this episode. It’s an Apple Plus exclusive (though I hear there is an Italian DVD out there for anyone interested) that I watched in January, when Apple had their free trial. It’s this low on my list because I found it to be full of cliches, boring, and predictable. For the story it’s trying to tell, it’s competently done. It looks fine and is edited well. The score and soundtrack do what they need to do (if you ignore the feeling that you’re constantly being manipulated). Where it falls apart is the script. It felt overly long and (strangely) overly sexual. There are subplots that felt wedged into the movie to pad it out and everything you think is going to happen in this movie happens and I didn’t believe any of these characters existed in a version of the real world that I inhabit. I don’t want to make this a long list of things I hated about this movie but, to pull just one cliché out of the hat, there’s a pretty girl that everyone would recognize as pretty if they possessed vision and any form of sexuality but the director puts her in overalls and gives her a ponytail and voila! Not pretty anymore. Also, would a 17-year-old seemingly intelligent person not realize that the smell of raw fish is unpleasant to literally everyone who is not a fisherman? And she would go to a high school without showering first? Really? I could go on. I’ll spare you. 
Why this movie won: I’m not going to do this for every movie (because I don’t think anyone wants a three-hour long version of this show) but you may be asking why this movie won, if it’s as bad as I say it is. This movie, despite my strong distaste of it, is a tearjerker for a lot of people. What I found to be a formulaic, unbelievable, manipulative, cloying slice of family drama made academy voters cry like newborns. Every year, The Hollywood Reporter does a segment called Anonymous Oscars where they interview different members of the various branches to get their unvarnished feelings on the year in movies. One year, the interviewee said that Yesterday, the slight examination of a world where the Beatles never existed, was his favorite movie of the year because it made him feel, and, I paraphrase, flippin’ fantastic. It also, and I heard this phrase or a version of this phrase in every review I read or heard of CODA, “showed us a world we’ve never seen before.” This seems to really matter to people, even if the value is a bit lost on me. National Geographic often shows me photos from continents I’ve never been to – I don’t think that makes it the world’s greatest magazine. 
To wrap it up, people wanted to feel good and, because the academy hates sci-fi and because Spielberg is never going to win another best picture (more on that later), this was really the only meal on the menu. I also think it’s important to note that the actor’s branch is the largest branch of the academy and that all branches vote for best picture. The movie is well acted, with solid performances from all involved. It’s not surprising that the lead actor won an Oscar for this movie. I also think in a year where people were recovering from the pandemic and a lot of movies weren’t seen in theaters, this made the competition seem smaller somehow and a heart-warming movie about chasing dreams was (apparently) what the academy wanted.  
22. Argo – I like the soundtrack of this move. Mostly because I love music from the late 1970s to the early 1980s and there’s a lot here. I also really like the first 5 minutes or so where we get a brief setup of the conflict between Iran and America. Everything else in this movie is fine. I’m not shocked that it won the Best Picture because the field wasn’t strong but I think both Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook are better movies – and its not close. I remember seeing this movie and feeling that it was okay, like a solid B. I felt the same again watching it now. There’s nothing awful about it but there’s nothing that elevates it in any real way. It’s also a strange topic to focus on – instead of focusing on the 60 hostages at the embassy in Tehran, it instead focuses on the ones who had escaped to the Canadian embassy. It was a strange choice. It’s also a heist movie at its core – and there’s no setbacks in developing the team. Everything just runs smoothly. You learn almost nothing about the six hostages at the beginning of the movie, meaning you instinctively care less about them. There’s also a scene where the hostages still at the American embassy have a fake execution, which again makes you ask the question as to why the movie didn’t focus on them. It also ends about 10 minutes later than it should. I believe that Hollywood tends to recognize big name actors who also direct (see Clint Eastwood) and that’s why this won. I also think maybe people felt that Kathryn Bigelow had won recently with the Hurt Locker and didn’t want to reward her again – even though Zero Dark Thirty, again, is a better movie. 
21. The Shape of Water – I didn’t care for this movie when I saw it the first time. On a re-watch, I liked it even less. The positives: there are really good performances across the board. The music is also really strong but what really is impressive about the movie is the set and costume designs. The movie has a blueish hue that makes you feel like you’re underwater the entire time, which adds to the dreamlike nature of the story. Negatives: I found that Del Toro, who also wrote the movie, cut scenes earlier than he should have and that the dialogue is weak. Guillermo Del Toro wants to play in both worlds – the framing device of the movie tells you it’s a fairly tale while also being very overtly sexual and violent, sometimes combining both in a way that struck me as deeply unpleasant. The symbolism is very heavy-handed and made it difficult for me to really take the characters seriously. There are people who love this movie and are on the wave length, no pun intended, of Del Toro no matter what he does – I’m much more hit and miss with him. This, for me, is one of the misses. 
20. Green Book – Slight spoilers for Green Book. This was the first time I watched this movie. There are a couple of pretty funny moments in the movie. The performances of the two leads are both good. This was the first time watching and…I thought it was okay. I think it does a solid job of showing realistic change in a character’s heart over time, which sounds easy, but isn’t. I also liked how they showed Doctor Shirley as a lonely man who is torn between two worlds. I wish it had been a little less obvious – there’s a monologue or two that I would have cut but I think you may have needed those for a general audience. I remember I was in a doctor’s office the day after it won best picture and it was announced on a news show and a guy in the waiting room said, “that was a good movie.” I would have probably said that was an okay movie.
I don’t think I’d ever rewatch – I don’t think the movie does anything great or memorable but I enjoyed it. Forgot to mention – the period specific music is very enjoyable too, even if the score was a bit sappy at times. I understand that the movie isn’t 100% historically accurate so I don’t know what scenes were embellished but I appreciate them not making Doctor Shirley’s homosexuality a main part of the plot – in a lesser movie I think it would have derailed the whole thing. The reason it’s not higher on the list is that the movie feels slight. I simply don’t see it sticking with me long term – but I guess time will tell. It’s pretty rare for me not to have seen any of the nominated movies but this was a year where that was the case. Looking at the lineup, I’m guessing that there were a lot of pictures that the academy liked but few that they loved and that’s why this movie won. Obviously, because the votes aren’t released to the public, I don’t know that but it is my hunch. I wish that Eighth Grade had been nominated – it would have gotten my vote for best picture this year.
19. Birdman – I saw this movie before and remembered a couple of plot beats but not much else. When I saw it the first time, it took me like half the movie to realize that almost all of it is shot in a series of oners. I remember liking it but not loving it. I’m still there on the re-watch. A lot of the dialogue felt juvenile. I think Michael Keaton does a great job but there wasn’t a lot here that really interested me. The fading actor who is trying to regain relevancy is inherently kind of a small potatoes story. Iñárritu is able to jazz it up with really smart camera movement and blocking but, at the end of the day, aside from one scene where Michael Keaton confronts a critic, I found the movie forgettable. Also, that same scene is better in Jon Favreau’s Chef. On second watch, I found it to be unpleasant – could have been retitled Men Behaving Badly and the Women Who Love Them! The movie wants you to believe that it is deeper than it really is. I also think this movie won because it was a relatively weak year with no standouts. I have this higher than the other movies mostly because I enjoy the style and ambition, even if the final movie wasn’t particularly moving to me.
18. Million Dollar Baby – There are some slight spoilers ahead for Million Dollar Baby. The boxing scenes in this movie are pretty hoo hum. The story is pretty basic. It’s the acting that really carries the movie, especially Morgan Freeman. Swank is also solid. It helps that this is some of the best dialogue that Paul Haggis has ever written – it makes you ignore that nearly half the movie is done in VO. The movie is strongest in its script – the first time I watched it, I was, probably like almost everyone else surprised at the turn we take about 45 minutes before the end of the movie, when it turns into a more serious and downbeat film. 
Ultimately, the movie is fine – I think it was a pretty weak year and I don’t have a problem with it winning best picture; it’s just not a movie I’ve thought about much since watching it. On the rewatch, I saw that this movie is about how found family can be more important in life than biological family. YMMV on how much that message resonates with you and if the more controversial elements of this movie were the best ways to communicate that message.
There are some problematic aspects to the movie – there is a subplot about a character who we would probably say is intellectually disabled – his disability is played for laughs and he gets assaulted as part of the story. While it is seen as an act of evil / deviousness, it still makes you wonder why it was in the film in the first place.  All the characters who are southern are shown as greedy or stupid. Didn’t love that either. 
The tonal shift doesn’t give a ton of time to deal with the ramifications of the last 45 minutes. It handles a very serious topic delicately but I think there could have been some time for some deeper soul seeking to take place. Client Eastwood’s character explicitly rejects the advice of his priest for reasons that felt unclear, given how devout his character is shown to be. I found the piece, taken as a whole, to be unpleasant – more unpleasant than I remember. Admittedly, and this will come up again later, movies (and art in general) are powerful because they reflect the perception we have about our own lives – what is important to us, what we value, who we are. There’s not a lot in this movie that reflects my lived experience and, maybe, if there was, it would be higher on this list. 
17. Everything Everywhere All at Once – The first time I saw this, I saw it on an airplane. I had problems with it then. On the rewatch, you realize how unlikeable, at least I found, the MC to be. She makes everyone around her miserable and just expects them to fall in line.  Because it’s Michelle Yeoh, you’re expected to just accept this and be cool with it. The movie is so over the it’s hard to know, what is real and what is exaggerated. Is this woman committing tax fraud? The movie isn’t really interested in answering that question. I also am just not on the same wavelength, comedy wise, of this movie. Half of the Daniels directed a movie called The Death of Dick Long. I won’t go into the main mystery of that movie but I will say I found the comedy in that movie offputting and it’s the same in this movie too. Some of these comedic elements pad the movie making the runtime feel bloated. There are some good points - The music is really good and the action scenes are really fun. Ke Huy Quan steals the movie. I was genuinely interested in the relationship between Evelyn and her husband – anything that was not that, I didn’t connect with. I’m glad for anyone who loves this movie and it’s impossible to deny the creativity and ambition of this thing but I just bounced off this, while appreciating it from a technical level. I think for a lot of people it was overrated given the amount of praise the film received and the number of Oscars it picked up – see Freddie deBoer’s blog post, “I Would Like to Gently Suggest that Perhaps Everything Everywhere All at Once is Just a Touch Overrated”. It’s not the film’s fault that it beat out Top Gun: Maverick for Best Picture, even if that was one of the top action movies of the last twenty years but I’m going to still hold it against the movie. 
16. Slumdog Millionaire – Some slight spoilers ahead for Slumdog. This movie has verve. Danny Boyle’s direction is a high point, as are the child actors at the beginning of the movie. I saw this when it came out and remembered absolutely nothing about it except that the plot is centered around Who Wants to be a Millionaire and how the main character knows the answers to the questions. I forgot how dark and offputting parts of this movie are. Some parts look like a music video and Boyle’s direction does a good job of pushing forward what is a pretty basic story. Once you know how it ends, on a re-watch, you’re just left with the style, which, while cool, gets old around the midway point. It could have used an edit – it probably should be around 90 or 100 minutes. There are a lot of kids with guns in the movie, which reminds me of City of God, which is a much better movie. Still, I found the main story, which is basically a love lost story, compelling for the most part. I also think the look of the movie improves what would otherwise have a been a fine, if forgettable, movie. It’s also important to note that I saw none of the other movies nominated this year – it was a pretty weak year for nominees and I think the academy awarded a feel-good movie that also looked cool. 
15. The Hurt Locker – When this movie works, it’s because Bigelow is great at maintaining tension, especially in the early scenes with the bomb squad. The acting too is strong – Anthony Mackie has a supporting role but is really powerful whenever he is on screen. It’s not perfect - there’s a lot of shaky cam in this movie. The dialogue is rough at times.  It could have probably used about 10 minutes of tightening up. The character motivations don’t always work. Some of the scenes feel like “Iraq War’s Greatest Hits”. It also sacrifices character depth for the general experience of the soldiers in combat – which, while entertaining, left me feeling cold and distant from the film. I felt myself losing interest multiple times during the re-watch. I’m sure that people who are more interested in war movies and that experience would have found more to like here than I do but hey, that’s subjectivity for you. There’s also the fact that this is likely one of the least historically accurate films on this list, which damaged its reputation for me. 
In honor of one of this year’s nominees for Best Picture, The Brutalist, an intermission.
14. Twelve Years a Slave – Slight spoilers for 12 years a slave. This is a tough watch. This was the first time I saw the movie. Obviously, the subject makes it difficult to sit through the full two hours plus. I think the idea to place a freeman at the center of the movie was an interesting choice – it gives a different dimension to the slavery narrative than one we’re used to seeing. We also see differences in viewpoints of the slaves – is slavery worse than certain death? What do the odds have to be to fight versus accepting that fate? The movie is very well cast – even folks in small roles bring their A game – the two Pauls, Giametti and Dano, are really good at playing awful people. Michael K Williams has a small part but is excellent, though Brad Pitt is a little out of place. The best thing I can say about the movie is that it’s a very stark reminder, in case you needed it, of how truly awful slavery was on a multitude of levels. I have some quibbles with the setup of the movie – there’s a framing device before the title card that was a bit unnecessary. I think a scene or two more with the family before leaving New York would have been helpful. There are some scenes and characters that are confusing – the white man who frees Clemens as an example. Why does Patsy ask Platt, instead of other slaves on the planation, to kill her is another. Some relationships don’t have the foundation needed for me to be fully invested in them. I also had issues with some directorial decisions - there are sequences that are shot non-linearly to no real effect. The music choices took me out of the movie several times. I like that it stuck to the historical accuracy better than the Hurt Locker, though I put them on nearly equal footing quality wise. Overall, I like that it took chances and went outside the standard slave narrative, even if it didn’t always work for me. 
13. Spotlight – Another tough one. I watched it the first time and remember liking it. It starts off slow but really becomes powerful when we starting hearing from the abuse victims. I think it’s the highlight of the movie and probably won the movie the best picture. There’s a framing device that could have been tweaked to put some oophm into the opening of the movie. I’m sure the voice acting of Mark Ruffalo was accurate but every time he talks, it’s irritating. Brian d’Arcy James doesn’t have a ton to do. There’s not really a ticking clock in the movie. If you ever need a tearjerker, this is a good one – just when you thought a movie about child molestation couldn’t get any sadder, 9/11 happens. I will say that if you wanted a story that captured the process of investigative journalism, there’s probably not a better modern example. I thought about this more the second time I watched it – the movie is more concerned about the process and the job well done aspect of the struggle of the Spotlight team to get the scoop and get the story out. It’s not as concerned about the actual ramifications of the story being read by the public i.e. justice. There are implications throughout the movie about the failures of journalism that are largely elided at the end of the movie. I think this movie would have made a good first 2/3rds of a 6-part miniseries where the last third is the exploration of the moral failings of the Globe to publish the story sooner. It won in a relatively weak year and I probably would have still given it Best Picture but I think there was wasted potential with this film given the cast.
12. The Departed – This movie is a lot. The dialog is, at times, rough. There’s a Family Guy episode where there’s a cutaway and the punchline is, “as naturalistic as a white guy’s dialogue in a Spike Lee movie”. There’s a bit of that in the Departed. Mark Wahlberg is happily dropping one liners and chewing up the scenery. Martin Sheen doesn’t have a ton to do – I wish he had more screentime. 
There are some choices… that Scorsese makes – cutting off Shipping off to Boston by the Dropkick Murphy’s multiple times.  The heavy-handed connecting of Jack’s character to Satan / God – ditto the religious iconography in general. Leonardo DiCaprio looks like Tony Jr. from the Sopranos in some scenes. There are some plot holes and contrivances that are probably a bit much to elide over given the movie’s runtime. There are very few, if any, shot choices that inspire or make you feel like you’re in the hands of one of the great directors. 
It drags at points. This is only the second time I’ve seen it and I didn’t enjoy nearly as much on the second watch. I think a lot of it is the romantic subplot – I’m not a Vera Farmiga fan. I remember not liking her the first time I saw the movie. When it hits these scenes, the movie comes to a halt. A screeching halt. I looked up at one point and was stunned that there was still an hour and a half of the movie left. 
DiCaprio is probably the best part of the movie. It’s one of his better acting performances. He really carries the movie on his shoulders and would not have worked without him doing the heavy lifting.
It’s entertaining but is probably a movie that needs to be seen on a big screen with an audience to fully appreciate. I looked at the nominees the year The Departed won – I have seen only two of the other noms: Babel, which I’ve completely forgotten about, and Little Miss Sunshine, which I’ve mostly forgotten about. This Oscar was probably deserving but it seems to have won in a relatively weak year. It’s this high on the list because it’s entertaining and quotable as all get out, even if it has some glaring flaws.
11. Moonlight – I’m going to spoil some major plot points about Moonlight, so if you haven’t seen it, you may want to skip ahead. This movie looks gorgeous. It’s cinematography clearly had an influence on other movies, Waves as a recent example. This is the second time I watched it – both times at home. I remember really liking this movie and thinking it was the 2nd best picture the year it came out (maybe third if I’m feeling really generous to Hacksaw Ridge or Arrival) but this time, I felt more removed from the story and not as engrossed. It’s slower than I remembered. The acting is really strong – it helps paper over some plot points that you have to just accept on faith. You have to believe that the MC’s mother is in poverty, even though she works in healthcare and that Mahershala Ali would continue to Big Brother this child, even though it’s very clear that the mother doesn’t want him to do this. We also move pretty quickly from her being a functioning if overwhelmed single mother to trading sex for drugs. I think the middle third is the strongest where we see a high school aged Chiron realize his sexuality while dealing with bullies and his mother’s growing drug addiction. It’s a complete short film on its own and is great. It leads into my biggest issue with the movie – the last third. The movie sidesteps the obvious contradiction between the main character being a drug dealer and his mother being an addict. The last third is dominated by the renewed relationship between him and Kevin, his high school crush. This is not very interesting to me. The lack of the character’s interiority really comes to the forefront in this last third and it’s something that I’ve thought about since watching the movie and I’ve never really been able to get over in terms of the inability or disinterest of the film maker to examine this contradiction in the character. 
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10. Oppenheimer – This is a heart vs mind decision. This is a gorgeous movie. This is the second time I saw the movie and even on a smaller screen, the images really pop. It’s intricately well crafted. I think it’s probably Christopher Nolan’s most well-made movie with his best scene – the testing of the atomic bomb. I just didn’t care for the story all that much. This movie could have gone wrong in a thousand ways and the fact that it doesn’t go off the rails is a testament to how well it’s written – the parallel trials of Strauss and Oppenheimer give the movie a throughline that the audience is able to grok easily. The main story with Oppenheimer is dragged down a bit by the female characters – I think part of this was a casting issue, especially with Florence Pugh and Emily Blunt (who I’ve liked in other things). I don’t know if we needed them in the movie, however, given how little the movie actually cares about Oppenheimer’s wife and children. Maybe you can make an argument that they are there because of the security clearance issues but I think it could have been excised from the film. When I saw the movie the first time, the runtime managed to not feel the full three hours, which is a feat in of itself. I think it could have made some edits to bring it down about 10 minutes, mostly in the family stuff. Cillian Murphy’s performance is fantastic, as is most of the supporting cast. If I enjoyed the Strauss / Oppenheimer’s issues with security clearances portion of the movie more, I think this would probably be higher on this list but it’s clearly the weaker of the two storylines.  It also doesn’t help that the highlight of the movie ends with another hour to go – it’s an example where the aftermath just isn’t as exciting as the event itself. 
9. The King’s Speech – This is a hard movie to rank. This is the first time I’ve ever seen it. It’s well executed and doesn’t have any serious flaws. It engrosses you the entire length of the movie. It’s well paced and every scene moves the plot forward. There are some laugh out loud moments. The acting is top notch from the two leads. There are very few movies that I can think of off the top of my head that speak to childhood trauma and how, no matter who you are, you have some, which I think is just a really beautifully message that this movie handles deftly. However, the year this was nominated, movies released in 2010, is the best year, nominee wise, of this list. Here is the list of movies that I have seen that The King’s Speech beat out to win BP – Toy Story 3, The Social Network, Black Swan, Inception, The Fighter, and True Grit. What I’m saying is, if they nominated movies this year the way they have historically speaking, I don’t think it makes the Top 5 – I think it’s better than True Grit, for the record. Also, from a Highest Highs vs. Lowest Lows perspective, I don’t know how memorable this movie will be in the long term compared to other movies higher on this list. Not to ramble on this point but this is probably the best place to bring this up – the Oscars work on a ranked choice voting system. This means that in a year with several polarizing pictures and no clear #1, a movie that is ranked 2nd or 3rd on many ballots has a good chance of winning the Oscar. My theory is that Social Network, The Fighter, Black Swan, and Inception split the #1 votes and The King’s Speech, being the most “feel good” of these movies, swept in and grabbed the top prize. Sometimes it helps to be a movie that fewer people love but that everyone likes. If the Academy ever releases the vote totals and I could pick just one year to get them, it would be this year. 
8. Chicago – Musicals are tough – you have to tell an interesting story, that was usually originated in another medium, while maintaining what worked in the original. I was really impressed with Rob Marshall’s directing – he makes the musical cinematic while maintaining the dark humor – the movie is surprisingly very funny. Some of the numbers I’m not a fan of and there were some scenes I think could have been trimmed but everyone here is having a good time or is magnetic, usually both. Queen Latifah, in particular, looks like she’s having a blast. I think it’s the best that Catherine Zeta-Jones has ever been – she takes over the screen whenever she’s on camera. The second act is not as strong as the first one but otherwise, a really entertaining flick. Plus, none of the characters learn anything, which is thematically perfect. I highly recommend Chicago to anyone, even if you tend to be allergic to musicals.
7. Crash – I’ve never seen Brokeback Mountain (or Tru, but that movie doesn’t seem to matter as much and neither do the other two movies that Crash beat out for Best Picture – at least if you listen to  critics). Over the years, a movie that was disliked by many at the time has morphed into a full-on leper – beating out Brokeback Mountain is seen as probably the biggest Oscar’s travesty of this century. People who hate this movie usually fall into one of three camps – 1. They hate it simply because they thought Brokeback Mountain was clearly the better movie 2. They hate it for political reasons. It’s a movie about individual racism – what it does to people how we react and reflect it onto other people. It’s not a movie about institutional racism. Over time, as a society, we’ve looked more askew at individual racism in favor of intuitional racism. For many, this makes the movie look incomplete, passe, and short-sighted. 3. They hate it because they are told to hate it. Bill Simmons and his Ringerverse, some of whom I consider valuable critics, seem to go out of their way to make this movie a punchline to the point where Bill Simmons had an hour and a half video on whether or not this movie is the worst best picture winner in the history of the Oscars.
The conceit of the movie is that the characters are all touched by individual racism in one form or another. It’s the conceit of the movie – you either buy it or you don’t. It’s also about how terrible people can be and how we often times transfer pain that we feel onto other people. 
It should be obvious by now but I enjoy this movie – I’m not going to try to convince you to also like it but I think the hate it receives it widely overblown. 
In some ways, the movie is like a cross between Grand Canyon and Traffic, with a slightly larger cast. It’s also at times – funny. It’s about 10X funnier than Haggis’ other movie on this list, Million Dollar Baby. 
It’s under two hours (which is a nice change of pace for BP winners). The script is very tight and moves from scene to scene seamlessly. The music isn’t my favorite – it’s mostly some early 2000s chanting that doesn’t really hold up. Everything else, from a technical perspective, is just okay. The main selling point is the characters.
Do I believe the characters in the movie? Yeah. I do. I’ve met people like Sandra Bullock, who, despite having great advantages and wealth, see the negative in almost everything and are scared that someone is going to come and take that away from them. They are overprotective and shallow at the same time. They are, like Sandra in this movie, control freaks. 
Do I believe that Black artists in position of authority have to make sacrifices in order to get work for other Black artists, driving them to pain and frustration with the system as a whole? Yeah. I do. Tony Danza has a cameo with Terence Howard that underscores how terrible these tradeoffs are. 
Do bad things happen to okay people and then do they, like all people, find others to blame and lash out? Yes. Yes they do.
Don Cheadle’s character, as a detective who has to make a choice between his personal and professional life. This scene is also solid. William Fichtner gets a really fun cameo in a scene with Cheadle as a manipulative hatchet man for the DA, that is also one of the film’s highlights.
I could go on. 
Would it have been nice for every character to get a full character arc?  Some characters are less developed than others – especially the characters played by Ryan Phillippe, Jennifer Esposito, and Brendan Frasier. Could you have cut out Brendan Frasier and Sandra Bullock from the movie? While I like what the Bullock character adds and I think Frasier’s character is a stand-in for how politicians use race relations in order to further their career, you probably could have cut both characters. They don’t drag the movie down but I don’t think they add a ton either. 
Why did the movie win best picture? It’s a huge cast of famous people where each actor gets a few scenes. Actors make up the largest branch of the academy and I think they rewarded the movie because of the performances – which, on average, are pretty good. There is also a theme of sin and atonement that may not be evident until your 2nd or 3rd viewing but is there. I have it here on the list because while it is well done it’s a heavy movie and not one, I want to return to very often. It’s not a movie I would describe as entertaining but it is a very human look at how we harm others and ourselves and what we can try to do to make up for those harms. 
6. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – Threequels are tough. I saw this movie a couple of times, the last time nearly 20 years ago. It has to wrap up the previous two movies and be an interesting movie on its own. It pays off on the former but fails to do the latter as there are just too many dangling subplots that Jackson has to pay off, bouncing from one to the next. There are a bunch of fist-pumping moments and the battle scenes are well shot but the movie gets bogged down telling you where all the moving pieces are – because everyone is so far flung, characters are offscreen for major parts of the movie’s runtime. Jackson’s direction doesn’t help in making the movie move – it is gorgeous and beautifully scored but whenever Jackson has the opportunity to show not tell, he chooses to do both which pads the runtime considerably – the non-extended addition I streamed was 200 minutes. There were definitely times where Jackson should have cut. I don’t think that’s the movie that people wanted to see – at this point, people would have moved to Middle-Earth if they could have but it would have made for a tighter, more compelling film. It has to be noted – Conan O’Brien has a nerd impression that is basically, “we must do the globberdook to do the thigamathing” – that is 100% this movie. A lot of the dialogue is clarifying or naming things or places. The pacing is a bit off – there’s almost no space between “we need to march on the black gate” to “Here we are on our suicide mission at the black gate”. Plus the 20 minutes of endings. 
That’s a lot of what was bad – the movie is over the top – a dying king falls to his death while on fire from hundreds of stories above the ground (and that’s like the 20th most crazy thing that happens during this movie - but I’d be lying if I said the battles scenes weren’t amazing. Jackson knows where to point the camera and the CGI and design still look good. When Chrisopher Nolan talked about cinema needing to be a spectacle to remain relevant during the modern age, I think this may be one of the best examples of that.
Okay. I lied. Really, it’s this high up because I cried during the scene where the riders of Rohan charged at the Battle at Minas Tirith. Sue me.
5. A Beautiful Mind – I’ve never seen this movie before starting this essay. I had only heard about it from a friend years ago. He said it was alright. I thought it was better than that – it’s never explicitly brought up in the movie but Crowe’s portrayal of Nash has elements of autism spectrum disorder which is probably the most realistic portrayal I’ve seen on film. I also liked this in contrast to Oppenheimer, which has a lot to do with Oppenheimer’s guilt related to the atomic bomb. Nash doesn’t have the hangups. It, ultimately, is a comeback story. I was surprised by how moved I was – I think this is almost entirely due to Crowe and Connelly’s performances. Both of them are great. It manages to blend a love story with a story about healing. Ron Howard’s not the most stylized director but he is able to visually show the way that Nash thinks without it being over the top and constant. Paul Bethany enlivens the picture whenever he’s on screen and it’s great seeing these two together before Master and Commander. Maybe you could have trimmed a scene or two but, otherwise, I think it was really well paced – I don’t know how much it would hold up on a rewatch but by the end of the film, I was choked up and pumped my fist when Nash got his pen.
By the end of the movie, I was in tears. I learned that there are two things that make me cry in cinema – schizophrenic game theorists and bloodthirsty orcs.
4. The Artist – This is the third time I’ve seen this movie – once at the movie theater and once at home. I’ve always liked it. It’s hard to defend the movie because people see it as a gimmick – a nearly dialogue-free movie that’s made in black and white. The gimmick distracts from what is great about it - at the heart of the movie is one of the best romantic comedies of the last 25 years. I truly believe that. Charm is a weird thing – you either have it or you don’t. One of my favorite movie podcasts is All This…and the Oscars Too and one of the things they mentioned that I’ve taken with me is that, at the end of the day, human beings just like looking at attractive people. The Artist is about two people falling in love and the hardships that go along with that. It’s a very simple, straightforward story but I’m able to, because it’s so well made, believe in the emotional journey of the characters. The editing, blocking, cinematography, and (especially the music) all work together to make that happen. It’s also blessingly short – this movie is nearly 30 minutes shorter than the Hurt Locker. Explaining why you like something sometimes is like explaining love – you have to just say this is for me and that is not for me (couldn’t they have gotten Bérénice Bejo from this movie to play Vera Farmiga’s role in The Departed?). Some people like Lindsay Lohan more than Emma Stone. Love isn’t about checklists; it’s about an almost imperceptible difference between human beings that we don’t understand; we don’t know how to quantify. Every time I’ve watched The Artist I’ve been moved by it. I hope I always will be.
3. Gladiator – Some of the CGI looks dated. It’s super melodramatic. It’s also incredibly entertaining. Just wildy, wildly entertaining . I hadn’t seen this movie in like 20 years and still remember a ton of lines. Yes, It’s over the top – mostly from Joaquin Phoenix’s performance. My dad, years ago, said about Commodus, “he really makes you hate him.” He sure does. I also really liked the Hans Zimmer score – I think he does a good job of not overpowering any of the scenes but still adds to the weight of the film. It is also really well structured. Everything hits when it should. It clearly follows a hero’s journey. Maybe the ending drags a tiny bit but to ask the most important question, “Are you not entertained?” No. I was. I was deeply, deeply entertained. 
2. Parasite – Spoilers ahead for Parasite. This movie is great. Maybe it starts a little slow but by the time you’re a third of the way in, you’re all the way in. The scene where the family is running lines is hilarious and cut perfectly to the music, which is a perfect selection. Maybe the most unique movie on this list – I love the way that the tone shifts in the movie and somehow goes from a comedic heist movie to a psychological horror movie. I think the main family is very well cast, especially the daughter and the father. I also like the stock character of the uptight, rich mother to the two kids. A lot has been written about the symbolism and metaphors in the movie – from the house to the scholar’s rock. A still from the movie is the cover to the Oxford’s Handbook of Film Theory. That’s not a surprise – it’s beautifully framed and shot. Watching it a second time, you can feel the shift from the first act to the second – the storm provides a beautiful foreshadowing of trouble to come. There are so many details like this throughout the movie – another one is the door to the basement. It’s pitch black – similar to the room in Lynch’s Lost Highway – no light gets in. I forgot just how nuts the ending of this movie was. The only issue I have with the movie is the likelihood that the son of the poor family would know to look for the morse code signal from the light – I don’t think it’s ever established that he would know to look for this. I also think the theme is less nuanced and sophisticated than some have said. That being said, if you can get past the first 40 minutes, you’re treated to one of the best films of the last 20 years.
1. No Country for Old Men – “There’s more to life than a little money, you know. And here ya are, and it’s a beautiful day.” 
I don’t know if this is a perfect movie because I don’t know if anything can ever be truly perfect. This is the number one movie because it feels like every detail has been thought out – it’s a story where you can feel the craft, the love, at every level, from the acting to the directing to the cinematography. 
It’s a movie where the characters are intelligent and careful. The cat and mouse act only works because the cat and mouse are equally matched.
It looks gorgeous – it’s a cliché to say that every frame is a portrait but the color and lighting, especially the early scenes of the Texas prairie at night, paint beautiful tableaus that could hang on someone’s wall.
The level of execution is even higher once you read the book – the Coens take a book with almost no internal dialogue and somehow, against the odds, are able to make it cinematic without insulting the audience.
The performances, especially the three leads are top notch, but everyone is doing A grade work here.
Thematically, it asks perhaps the hardest questions – Does evil exist? Are people getting worse? In a world where evil seems undefeatable, what is a moral person to do?
I think what I like the most about this movie is that the meaning of the film is something you have to sit with. I don’t think it’s simplistic but I do think it’s like the last scene – something that is at the edge of your perception that you’re reaching to grasp that you may not be fully able to get your hands around. When the Coen’s first read the Cormac McCarthy book that it is based on, an event happens that made them go, “huh. So I guess it’s not about that. So what is this about?”
Here’s my shot – people are terrible. They’ve always been terrible but the perception that the world is getting worse, the title comes from a WB Yeats poem – is universal. The world always feels like it’s getting worse. The last dream that Ed Tom has is about his father – his father is in both of the two dreams he describes. I took the second one to be Ed Tom describing an after world where his father will be waiting for him with light and heat. Possibly the light and heat of meaning or love. We see in an earlier scene that Ed Tom feels disconnected from God – that he does not have God in his life. I believe his second dream is his subconscious letting in the possibility of a connection or reunion with God in the future. 
The first dream takes us back to the quote I gave at the beginning of this review – it’s not from No Country for Old Men. It’s from Fargo, which also won the Coen’s best picture and was probably seen, before this movie, as their masterpiece. Like No Country, Fargo is concerned about crime and money. Like that film, it shows how greed corrupts. Unlike that film, it eschews humor for pathos and forces us to consider how money is used to symbolize evil or, at best, facilitating evil throughout the film. The first dream can be taken two ways – as a commentary on the plot (I lost the money) or as a commentary on Ed Tom’s character – he doesn’t seem at all concerned about the money or losing it, which makes him an innocent character in the film. Ultimately, for Ed Tom, it’s not about the money. None of this is about the money. 
I think this film is the apex of what Hollywood can do: a perfectly crafted, entertaining film that also makes us think about our deeper place, in society, and the world. It’s the only organization that has the funds, the resources, to connect creative people from all the walks of life to come together to achieve something that is greater than any of them could possibly do on their own. 
No Country won in a year that was probably the strongest year for movies (an argument could be made for 2010 but I think if we’re going batting average, with five nominees, this year takes the cake) – the only one that I haven’t seen of the batch that was nominated was Atonement. The other three are all wonderful – if you haven’t seen Michael Clayton, which I’m sure is the least watched of these, do yourself a favor and see it. Also, Juno is a very entertaining movie that I’m sure hits home for many people due to the subject matter. It’s well executed, even if the subject matter didn’t speak to me personally.
To wrap it up, the fact that No Country beat out There Will be Blood and Michael Clayton speaks to how great a movie it truly is. The Best Best Picture winner of the last 25 years….No Country for Old Men.
Now let’s move on to some final thoughts about the Oscars overall. Complaining about the Oscars has become a national pastime. Every year, Hollywood releases around 600 films (which doesn’t include foreign titles) and the academy has to wade through them to nominate the 10 they think are Best Picture material. How good are they at actually awarding the best movie of the year the award of Best Picture? Using this list as a proxy and using my personal taste as a barometer, I’d say they’re right about 60% of the time. As I said at the outset, “best” is very subjective and means different things to different people – if you believe the goal of the Best Picture award is to uplift powerful films that haven’t been seen by enough people, you’re going to lean away from commercial blockbusters like Avatar and towards smaller movies like The Hurt Locker. If you believe that the Oscars have a social mission to highlight the struggle of marginalized communities, you’re going to prefer CODA to Dune. If you believe the opposite, you believe the opposite. There are people who think the best picture should say something about the year it was released and there are those who think they should be timeless. Most people, obviously, aren’t that one dimensional but, if the anonymous Oscars articles have taught me anything, academy voters have very strong opinions, often about details I find petty or minute. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles. 
That being said, I think, on the whole, the Oscars have been good with their selections, especially from 2000 to 2009 where, other than maybe The Hurt Locker (and Gladiator – I’m a huge fan of Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic and on a good day, you can probably convince me that it’s a better movie than Gladiator), I think they got the selections right. 
I’d say that’s pretty good, especially compared to the Grammys which has, if anything, gotten narrower with what they award AOTY in the last ten years. If there are warning signs with the Osars, I believe they can be found in recent years – I think the expanded Academy is worse than the older academy at awarding movies that I believe will stand the test of time. Everything Everywhere All at Once, Green Book, and CODA are three recent examples of movies that will not age well. With Green Book, I’m less upset about it winning Best Picture and more upset that the nomination process didn’t lead to better films being nominated (Hereditary, Eighth Grade, First Reformed – I could go on). It’s unlikely that they are going back to the makeup of the old academy so I expect that the predictive power of the Oscars will decrease over time, sadly.
I also think the increasing diversity of the academy, both domestically and internationally, have led to strange moments – this year’s Emilia Perez controversy followed the academy nominating it for 13 Oscars. To give some perspective, Amadeus received 11. I haven’t seen the movie and so cannot speak to its quality but it’s likely that the movie will, at best, given the controversy, walk away with only one or two wins. Surely, if the movie was as great as it would need to be to garnish this many noms, it would win more than one or two, right? Only if the academy had backbone which they do not. 
It’s been a tight race this year and maybe one of the least predictable Oscar races in a long time, with The Brutalist, Anora, and Conclave all, at one time or another, the top dog in the race. I’ve seen five of the ten nominees, the aforementioned three along with Dune part 2 and The Substance. My thoughts briefly, of each: 
I liked Dune Part Two more than part one – if there is an Oscar snub, it’s that Denis Villaneuve was not nominated for director for this movie or part one. Of the five nominees, I think Brady Corbet, who actually wins the award for most times someone has asked on a podcast how to pronounce his name correctly, is the only director of the movies I’ve seen that were nominated, that I think did an equal job to DV in terms of his directing, and that’s mostly from him getting the performance he received out of Adrian Brody. The Dune story has never really grabbed me as much as others – I think it’s a colossal work in terms of bringing science fiction from the world of rayguns and spaceships to deeper psychological and sociological concerns and I am grateful for that. As a story, it doesn’t do a lot for me. I also feel that there were some miscasting – while we got Javier Bardem and Austin Butler, who were great, we also got Chalamette and Zendaya, along with Pugh and Christopher Walken (!). That being said, of the movies that are on this list, in 20 years, Dune will be the one that people talk about the most. Technically, it’s working at a very high level and the black and white section of the film where Feyd-Rautha is introduced is fantastic and also probably the most memorable scene of any of the nominees. This movie has no chance to win best picture because the academy hates sci-fi and academy voters will out of hand just dismiss anything that is set on another planet. Charitably, you could make the argument that the academy is waiting for the third Dune movie to award all the awards to the Dune franchise (ala The Return of the King). Time will tell.
The Substance was very smart in its script and directing. It tells the audience things without hitting them over the head and makes non-obvious choices, which I appreciated as a viewer. It has a very unique look and color palette that is consistent throughout the movie. The blocking and framing does a lot to make the setting feel both surreal and familiar. The total effect is the feeling that you are in a twisted fairy tale, while still having a semblance of normal human emotions (Guillermo Del Toro, please take note).
Two gripes I have with the movie – one the movie’s fault, the other not so much. I think the third act is so over the top that it may have muddled the movie’s message and is something that audiences have seen before, is it an homage or a ripoff? I think a different third act would have made a stronger film – I don’t think it’s quite the issue I had with Moonlight but it is, thematically, something that I thought could be stronger. The gripe I have that is not with the movie is with the academy writ large – they tend not to nominate horror movies unless they speak to a Larger Social Issue – all in capital letters. Here it’s feminism. Get Out was about racism. The Babadaook, The Witch, and Hereditary were all examples of the best of the genre that were expertly done but were not about the issues of the day, so they weren’t considered. I think you can find movies that have deep moral themes and still acknowledge works that are done in genre categories. The academy really seems to struggle with this. 
The Brutalist. I think, due to the runtime and subject matter, this is probably the most divisive movie of the year, which is the reason I don’t think it’s going to win Best Picture, though I think he is the front runner for Best Director, which, again speaking for just the movies I’ve seen, he would be my choice. When the movie is at its peak (in the first half), Corbet blends site and image masterfully to convey information to the audience and connect theme and character in only the way that movies can. For instance, when we learn Adrian Brody’s profession, he is building a chair. While he is doing this, a newscast announces the building of Israel, so we have a connection between Israel and Toth without needing exposition to tell you, the dumb audience, their connection. Choosing to shot in VistaVision film stock and setting the story in Pennsylvania were both inspired choices that added to the theatrical feel of the film. My issue with the movie is in the writing of the script – others who are more knowledgeable about the time period have pointed out that, given Toth’s professional accomplishes, it’s unlikely that he would need to be shoveling coal. It’s actually more likely that he would have been embraced by the Jewish architects already in the country and that he would have likely had a position of esteem and influence. It also doesn’t understand that architects are not artists in the classic sense – clients have needs and the architect’s job is to work with them in order to fulfill them. I don’t want to go any deeper into this because I don’t want to spoil the movie, so I’ll link to the podcast episode where three architects rip this movie apart, if you want more. The movies doesn’t show major events of some of the characters’ lives in the film. If this has been 90 minutes, I think I would have more forgiving but at over 3 hours, I don’t think there is an actual excuse for that. Its critiques of capitalism are shallow and dumb. I could go on. Suffice it to say, the ambition of the film is massive but, for me at least, the movie didn’t quite reach the heights it was grasping for. 
I finished watching Anora a couple of nights ago. I don’t think it was as good as Red Rocket – I probably liked it as much as I liked Tangerine. On one hand, I’m happy that Hollywood is recognizing a movie with sexuality and sex, even heterosexual sex!, at its core. I think its well-acted and, like the other two Sean Baker movies I’ve seen, I liked how gritty the movie looked and how that fit the story Baker was trying to tell nicely. Without going into spoilers, I found most of the characters to be unbelievable, especially one of the two goons. My two favorite characters were Diamond and Toros. Unlike Red Rocket, I felt the movie was shallow and gave me less to think about after watching it. The main character, like that movie, is very unlikeable but unlike Red Rocket, the character here isn’t really down and out, so her journey was less interesting to me. I think readings of the movie as a critique of capitalism can be drawn but the movie doesn’t quite land on anything interesting to say on the topic. The ending depends on a relationship I didn’t buy for the characters involved. I think it also calls into question Baker’s feelings on sex workers, which, up to this point, has been one of sympathy and compassion. The movie would have benefitted from a 15 – 20 minute trim – Baker winning best editing would not be a good choice here. If the movie wins, I think it will be because academy voters have warmed to Baker’s style and feel that this is more for a body of work than a single movie. 
Finally, Conclave. If I had to bet money on what I think will win, it’s Conclave. Across the board, it is impeccably acted. It takes a story that, in lesser hands, would have been a snooze fest and forces the audience to pay attention. I think the setup feels a little slow but hits its stride midpoint. There are some plot holes if you think long enough about the movie and I don’t understand why Isabella Rosselini is being nominated for best supporting actress given her relatively sparse screentime. The ending of the movie didn’t land for me – others it may have been more impactful. I felt like there wasn’t enough foregrounding thematically for it to pay off. That being said, if it wins, it will win for the performances – I think it is a masterclass of stakes. The stakes matter for the characters and so they matter for the audience. If Stanley Tucci isn’t selling the apocalypse that would be Tedesco’s ascension to the papacy, you the audience would check out. The fact that you don’t speaks to his ability as an actor. I think the actors branch will rally around this movie and it will likely win. It also gives them an opportunity to award a movie that revolves around religion, which is something they are often accused of not doing. 
What should win? Let’s look through two different lenses – the longevity argument and the moral message argument. 
The Longevity Argument - 
As I said before, I think Dune part 2 will be the only one here that people are talking about in 5 or 10 years, in part, because it looks absolutely gorgeous. I don’t think it will ever be as revered as The Lord of the Rings Trilogy but I could see someone making a single cut of both movies, with an intermission, and re-releasing it in theaters every few years. There are people who find it super entertaining – I have friends who have seen the movie half a dozen times. If there is in fact a third movie of the trilogy, I think that will only increase the value of this movie, especially if Denis is able to stick the landing of the third movie. 
I think Anora is a lesser film in Sean Baker’s filmography and will be viewed as such in the future, especially if he keeps making films at the rate he has been going. 
The Brutalist will not age well, especially as more and more people will see it on their computer or TV screens as opposed to the big screen. As dumb as I find the argument to be, I also think it will be penalized for its use of Artificial Intelligence – though, I’m sure, from this point forward, there will be very few films that have absolutely no AI used in their creation. 
Conclave is less likely to hold up on repeated viewing given that, at its heart, is a mystery. Also, the turn is less effective than masters of the reveal such as The Usual Suspects or The Shawshank Redemption.
The Substance, given its healthy box office relative to its budget and increased exposure due to Demi Moore’s academy run, may have legs. I think the theme of the movie will also resonate – I could see this movie being taught in college courses for years to come. 
The longevity argument comes down to The Substance or Dune. I imagine that the third Dune movie will probably be about the same quality as the first two – film trilogies seem to last longer than individual films in the minds of the public and, given the box office success of part two (part one was released as theaters were still recovering from COVID), I am going to tip the scales a bit and say that Dune would win the longevity argument here.
Moral Message – or is the movie trying to say something and, if so, how effective is it?
In some ways, both Dune and Conclave deal with how faith influences politics and where the line should be drawn when weaponizing faith for political ends. In addition, Conclave, at its most interesting, is about how organizations change or don’t change, what qualities we look for in leaders, and who is left out of that process.
The Brutalist is a movie that is trying to say a lot – about capitalism, about art, about the American Dream, about the immigrant story. I don’t know effective it actually is at saying any of those things. The immigrant story felt the most real, though Corbet loads the deck by having his main character isolated and unable to capitalize on his immense human talents in order to achieve monetary or social success.
The Substance has multiple messages, some more subtle than others. The most effective, though not the most prominent, was about cultural degradation as we see an increase in the sexualization of women as we move from Demi Moore’s seemingly old-fashioned exercise videos to Margot Qualley’s nearly pornographic dance show. Is a lot of the messaging blunt and on the nose? Sure. I, who viewed it as a twisted Cinderella story, was not as bothered about this. Your mileage may vary.
Anora – Some slight spoilers here. I struggled with what this movie is actually trying to say. Part of the issue is that we don’t get a lot of the characters back story before the main plot begins. We learn that she’s an exotic dancer in her early 20s who also escorts. The ending implies that she has an emotional break when she de-couples her sexuality from receiving money. Is the movie pro-sex work or anti-sex work? Are we supposed to like this character or not? Not that everything has to live up to Red Rocket, but that movie has a protagonist with a clear goal who has clearly hit rock bottom. He forms a plan and executes the plan. It’s more or less a hero’s journey story that implicates the audience in rooting for such a terrible person to succeed. I don’t think we ever get a deeper understanding of what Anora wants or her long-term goals. She has a sister who is in two scenes of the movie. Outside of her time as a dancer where she has friends and enemies, we get almost nothing about her larger world. If I was the King of Hollywood and could have given this script to anyone to re-write, I think the Safdie Brothers could have punched it up and it would have had clearer stakes and a stronger main character, both of which would have really helped the movie, thought it probably would not have been the one Sean Baker wanted to make. 
I think Conclave is the movie that has the most interesting and well executed moral message.
I would be fine if Conclave, The Substance, or Dune won. If I had to pick just one, I’d pick The Substance because it felt the most unique and I had the most fun watching it. I also think that anytime that a genre movig is able to slip in regardless of past snubs, I think it’s overall a good thing for the ecosystem of Hollywood as a whole.
If you’re looking to pregame tomorrow before the Oscars ceremony, a drinking game: re-listen to this episode and drink every time I use the words “offputting”, “especially”, or “unpleasant”. Finish your drink if I use an accent, do an impression, or make a joke. Chug during my defense of Crash. 
Thank you for listening to this episode of Elegant Ramblings. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard, please consider liking and subscribing to the channel on iTunes or YouTube. Next episode, we’re staying with the movies as I take a look at some underrated, overrated, and correctly rated movies of the last 25 years. Hope you enjoyed. Bye for now.