Oscar Choices

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Having seen all the contenders except Bugonia (the sour taste of Poor Things still lingers), I’m ready to anoint my Oscar choices for 2025, limiting myself to the official nominees:

Best Actor
Ethan Hawke. An easy decision. He held the screen the entire movie, captivated us although he wasn’t attractive by any measure, and so inhabited the character that I had no idea who the actor was for much of the film.

Best Actress
 Jessie Buckley. Also easy, although not for want of competition. Any other time I would be happy with a win for Rose Byrne, Renata Reinsve or even Kate Hudson, but Buckley was radiant, acted with range and carried what otherwise could have been a limp, albeit beautiful, film.

Supporting Actor
The supporting cast of One Battle After Another was uniformly superb, but Sean Penn, as he often is, was in a class by himself. Although you knew it was Sean Penn, you believed in him as a character every time he took the stage.

Supporting Actress
I thought I discovered Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas among her more heralded co-stars, only to see the Academy acknowledge her as well; but if the Academy wants to recognize Amy Madigan for her bizarro role, I will too.

Best Picture
Only two of the ten Oscar nominees made my personal Top Ten, and neither was near the top of the list. I will go with Sinners for its artistic achievement, a movie about music, the South, race relations and, yes, zombies.

Director
Ryan Coogler gets my nod over Paul Thomas Anderson. Both took ambitious, daringly big swings–Anderson’s a little too much so.

International Film
Sirat was the most convincingly original film of the year, in its setting, its cast, its score and its emotional shock.

The Technical Awards
I don’t hold myself out as competent to judge these awards, and I wonder if many Academy members do either, as year after year the nominees are drawn from the Best Picture slate. In other words, I suspect many people just vote for their favorite films, without considering some mediocre film that had really great costumes, say, or sound editing. How, for example, could someone say Marty Supreme, with a number of bumbling amateurs, was one of the five best Casting films?
With that caveat, I thought Frankenstein the most sumptuous film of the year, so I’ll give it the Oscar for either Costume or Production Design. F1 had great race scenes that didn’t overwhelm the rest of the movie, so I’ll throw a bone there, although I won’t complain when One Battle After Another wins the award. Cinematography could go to anything other than Marty Supreme; many people loved Train Dreams, and we felt we missed a lot by watching it on the TV screen. The director of Sirat made a strong case for the Best Sound nod; it was certainly the loudest, most percussive, and most instrumental to its story. Sinners had the best music, and Ludwig Goransson usually wins the Original Score, so no problem there. I don’t know any of the Original Songs, but our granddaughters love the Kpop Demon Hunters. Original Screenplay–Blue Moon. Adapted Screenplay–One Battle After Another. That’s all I know.

Top Ten 2025

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How to pick a Top Ten–and what does “Top Ten” mean, anyway? I’m in no position to pick the “best” movies; so my choices must be personal favorites and, on a further level of subjectivity, on the particular day I saw them. Some would question how I could pick Americana., a film that was barely noticed and poorly reviewed, but not Sentimental Value, the kind of quiet, interpersonal film I usually champion, with award-worthy performances throughout.  Here’s my explanation: I had heard so much positive chatter about SV before I saw it, and I had so loved Joachim Trier and Renata Reinsve’s previous collaboration that I was somewhat disappointed that the film was much quieter and smaller than The Worst Person in the World. Conversely, I went to see Americana. after reading reviews that weren’t terribly promising but made it sound quirky enough to check it out on at Metro 4 on a Tuesday afternoon. Low expectations, big payoff vs. high expectations, no fireworks.

The one common test I applied to all the movies vying for a spot on the list is, Do I heartily recommend it to others? Conversely, again, however “good” the film is, if I walk away thinking more about my reservations than overall quality, then it’s off the list. One Battle After Another is clearly one of the most ambitious films of the year, with a serious message, brilliant directing and worthy acting Oscar nominations; but I left thinking how much I disliked Leonardo DiCaprio’s acting or character (not sure which) and how absurd the chase-scene ending was. F1 and Song Sung Blue were far less original, but the action scenes were entertaining and the chemistry of the romantic leads was convincing, making both totally enjoyable nights at the cinema.

Then there are points for originality and artistry: if a director has a vision, successfully executes it and, also important, I get it, it deserves a spot. Richard Linklater’s twin bill of Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vague makes it largely on those grounds. While I had a good time with both, there was more admiration than rapture. What ideas and how did he pull them off! Sirat falls in this category as well. I was amazed at how the director combined music, setting, characters and plot that were all new to me into a unified whole. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You was another unusual vision-driven film that just missed inclusion on my list.

Zombie and horror pictures aren’t my usual Top Ten fare, but both Sinners and Weapons were sufficiently tethered to reality that I could accept them on their terms and go along for the ride without internal protest. By the time the story went crazy I was settled in their worlds. Same for The Housemaid, another film, like Americana., that will be forgotten in awards season but also, like Americana., gave me new respect for Sydney Sweeney.

Jay Kelly also gets little critical respect, but it was made up of fun moment after fun moment, and seeing it before reviews with Noah Baumbach to explicate gave it a head start. As for Part One of Billy Joel: And So It Goes, whether it qualifies as a “movie” matters less than the fact it provided the most fun two hours we had in front of a screen all year.

There weren’t a lot of important films this year, which is fine, but this made The Teacher stand out even more than it would have just for its artistry. Other than daily Trump and his destruction of a country that was doing so well for 250 years, Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people was for me the defining issue of the year; and while this movie predated October 7 it captured that environment in language that was not at all foreign. More than recommend, I would urge people to see it and only regret that it hasn’t been around to watch.

1. The Teacher
2. Billy Joel: And So It Goes
3. Americana.
4. Sinners
5. F1
6. Blue Moon/Nouvelle Vague
7. Song Sung Blue
8. Weapons
9. Sirat
10. Jay Kelly

Top Films of 2025

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The Teacher
Americana.
Weapons
Sinners
Sirat
One Battle After Another
Blue Moon/Nouvelle Vague
F1
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Sentimental Value

My Oscars

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A day before the official awards, and still not having seen all the contenders, notably The Brutalist and the Documentary Features, here for the public record are my choices:

Best Picture: A Complete Unknown. Not a perfect movie in a class with last year’s winner, Oppenheimer, this film took on a difficult challenge and produced the most fun we had this year in a theater, which these days counts for a lot. Like many, I had my own ideas of Bob Dylan’s music and story but was completely won over by Timothee Chalamet’s bravura performance.

Best Actor: Chalamet’s visit to a Hibbing, MN high school while researching his character spoke volumes, but it pales in comparison to Colman Domingo’s immersion in federal prison with actual convicts to pull off Sing Sing. Plus, he’s older and Chalamet, also wonderful as Willy Wonka, will get more shots at the Oscar.

Best Actress: Karla Sofia Gascon. Can we separate art from the artist? She gave two powerful performances in one body. Going outside the nominations I would choose Jodie Comer, the British actress who convincingly transformed herself into white trash with spirit and carried the underrated Bikeriders.

Supporting Actor: Jeremy Strong, hands down for his chilling portrayal of Roy Cohn, who raises then is dumped by the young Donald Trump. As an aside, I couldn’t stand Kieran Culkin’s character and think he had too big a role to be considered “supporting.”

Supporting Actress: Monica Barbaro won my heart with her looks, her acting and her uncanny Joan Baez voice. “Don’t Think Twice” brought tears down my cheek. Outside the slate I would give a nod to Jamie Lee Curtis in The Last Showgirl, for her sympathetic daring as an aging stripper.

Best Director: An unusual three-way tie among Sean Baker (Anora), Jacques Audiard (Emilia Perez) and James Mangold (A Complete Unknown).

Original Screenplay: Probably A Real Pain, although I haven’t seen three of the nominees.

Adapted Screenplay: No award. All of the nominees depended more on directing, acting and cinematography than their script.

International Feature: While saving room for The Seed of the Sacred Fig, I want to mention Green Border, the most powerful and best made movie I saw last year. It played like a documentary with compelling characters and not a false note.

Top Ten 2023

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Taking a cue from the Oscars and in another way the Golden Globes, I have divided my Top Ten for 2023 into two categories: five of the very best were foreign-language films, and I was able to cobble together five respectable movies in English. Contrary to what the critics said, and seem to say every year, this was not a great year for the movies. Were it not for the Oscar-nominated foreign films, which weren’t released to the public until 2024, I could not have put together a top ten.

Foreign-Language Films

1.  Anatomy of A Fall. A clever story and attractive actors showed what a director can do with minimal sets and a small budget. The plot challenged you every step of the way: did she push her husband or did he fall, and the question ran another level deeper. Then, does a trial deliver justice, or truth? And the genius was, at the end we don’t know the answers.

2. Zone of Interest. A chillingly original take on the Holocaust, a story we thought we knew, brilliantly conceived, photographed and acted. The relevance today, with events in Gaza, only made the message, never spoken, more powerful.

3. Io Capitano. At the other end of the budget spectrum from Fall, this Italian film brought to life an immigrant’s journey from Senegal, through Mali, the Sahara Desert, to Sebha then Tripoli in Libya before ending on the Mediterranean. Seemingly too horrific to be true, parts of the story are playing out every day. A wringer of a film (as were Zone and Fall).

4. Fallen Leaves. Another bleak world, but where there is love there is hope and beauty. The rom-com story is familiar but it is told with a spare sweetness that more than engages. The Finnish setting doesn’t try to be attractive; we have the lead couple’s faces for that.

5. The Teachers’ Lounge. A young sixth-grade teacher against the German school system was refreshing for the real-world problems it offered. When to buck the system, when to go along, how much to take upon yourself are questions we see around us, at least in the newspaper, every day.

Foreign, English-Language Films

1.  Oppenheimer. This deserves a category of its own, the best picture in almost every category, from Acting to Cinematography to Directing to Score. The story is Important and cleverly told: we are sucked into the drama of Robert Oppenheimer’s odd life, while the world events around him jog our memory of history without taking over. And the surprising use of Lewis Strauss as a foil allows the filmmakers a moment of happy ending before we are left to ponder our future. And what actors!

American Films

1. The Holdovers.  The feel-good movie for Christmas, and boy was it needed! In every way a throwback to the ’70s, this was funny, sweet, easy to follow and impossible not to like. The three leads were award-worthy and forged an unlikely three musketeers relationship that warmed the snowy prep school setting.

2. May December. An acting tour de force with another unlikely trio rubbing each other the wrong way, setting off little sparks. The Southern milieu added a Gothic sheen to a story that would seem farfetched had it not been infamous.

3. Priscilla. A sideways take on the Elvis Presley story, with a remarkable performance in the title role and a darn good Elvis.

4. Barbie. There was so much here, you could pick and choose what you liked (Barbie) and what you didn’t care for (Ken). It was a comic strip made with subtle intelligence and a love of the cinema.

5. Air. A film about Michael Jordan that didn’t show Michael but gave us the wonderful Matt Damon/Ben Affleck tag team. Very American and the best corporate drama of the year.

Top Ten 2022

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It has become traditional at year’s end that I look back and select ten memorable films I’ve seen in the preceding twelve months, and I shall hew to tradition, even though a look back convinces me that this was the worst year of cinema I can remember. Was it a hangover from the pandemic? A migration of talent to television series? Uncertainty about the fate of the world? Who knows? One trend that was constant was the absence of spectators in the theaters. At a 7:30 Monday showing of Devotion I was completely alone. It seems inevitable that the industry will suffer, then change. Movie budgets and star salaries could drop by 50% or more and it wouldn’t necessarily hurt the product. Many of my favorites–e.g., Banshees of Inisherin–could be made on a shoestring. At the same time, the year’s highest grossing films, albeit few and far between, were still high-budget blockbusters; so I fear Hollywood will chase in that direction for a while to come. The number of big-budget flops, however, will shake something. Usually, the last weeks of December are full of pedigreed, Oscar-intended releases that we have to wait until February to catch. This year, not so much. That said, here are my favorites:

1. Argentina 1985. A true story of a political reckoning in, per the title, 1985 Argentina, this had superlative ensemble acting around a remarkable lead performance and a convincing sense of realism (compare, e.g., to the similar She Said). It got bonus points for showing me a culture and a moment of history I was unfamiliar with. And, always welcome, a heartwarming ending.

2. Official Competition. The most fun movie of the year, with Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderis and Oscar Martinez having the time of their lives playing actors making a film. The plot twists wee delicious, the spare cinematography elegant, the intelligence welcome.

3. The Banshees of Inisherin. So Irish, so stubbornly tragic, so forlornly beautiful, but above all such amazing peformances by Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell, Kerry Condon and all the regulars at the pub. This was obviously and fittingly a playwright’s movie.

4. The Bastard King. A totally remarkable nature docudrama in which the life of a lion is not only anthropomorphized but raises issues central to our own species, from climate change on down. Filmed in sepia, each scene is more jaw-dropping than the last.

5. Call Jane. In spirit a sequel to the superior The Trial of the Chicago 7, this was the political feel-good film of the year, unfortunately made timely by the Dobbs decision.

6. Tar. The final ten minutes ruined what was otherwise the most powerful, thought-provoking American film, with two great performances by Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss and a unique dive into the world of classical music.

7. Cyrano. As much a ballet or opera as a movie, this reimagining of a well worn fable with Peter Dinklage as the fulcrum brought the 17th-century French settings to lovely life.

8. Phantom of the Open. Always room for a feel-good comedy with a good heart. The golf sequences were spurious but Mark Rylance’s characterization was deft.

9. Top Gun: Maverick. Strictly formulaic but an expertly executed tried-and-true formula. The anonymity of the enemy downplayed the militarism, and Jennifer Connelly was the heartthrob of the year.

10. The Good Nurse. Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain in a quietly powerful “based-on-a-true-story” indictment of our health care system.

PS: The Quiet Girl and All Quiet On the Western Front While not available for viewing in Santa Barbara in time for the initial list, both of these films are up for 2022 Oscars and merit inclusion on the above list, replacing Phantom and Nurse, as much as I liked those quirky choices. All Quiet is powerful both as action film and political statement, while Quiet Girl is a pure expression of love and beauty, a psychological probing worthy of an Irish Bergman.

Top Performances
While not a fan of combining the categories of Best Actor and Best Actress, I do see merit in eliminating the often artificial distinction between Lead and Featured Actor, when studios use it to game the Oscars and snag an award for a featured performance that may be onscreen as much as many leads. So, without increasing the total number of nominees, here are the performers whose work I consider award-worthy.

Cate Blanchett, Tar
Andrea Riseborough, To Leslie
Jessica Chastain, The Good Nurse
Emma Corrin, Lady Chatterly’s Lover
Danielle Deadwyler, Till
Sally Hawkins, Phantom of the Open
Nina Hoss, Tar
Zoe Kazan, She Said  
Keke Palmer, Nope 
Anya Taylor-Joy, The Menu 
Sigourney Weaver, Call Jane

Antonio Banderas, Official Competition
Paul Dano, The Fabelmans
Ricardo Darin, Argentina 1985
Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin
Eddie Redmayne, The Good Nurse
Mark Rylance, Phantom of the Open
David Strathairn, Where the Crawdads Sing

Ten Worst
Finally, I can’t go quietly without singling out the major disappointments. I’m avoiding obscure titles here and considering only films that made some critic’s best-of list:

Aftersun 
Crimes of the Future
Elvis 
EO
Everywhere Everything All at Once
Fire of Love
Glass Onion 
Nope
Petite Maman
Woman King

Top Ten 2021

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Without much effort, my Top Ten for 2021 could all be movies made outside the U.S.; only a personal affinity for Don’t Look Up, a movie more scorned by the critics, prevented a shutout. Whether this had anything to do with Covid restrictions on film production, I don’t know. I do know that it relates to my preference for movies about real people and real-life situations, a genre that seems to mainly reside outside Hollywood. I’ve relegated the single most affecting movie I saw, In the Same Breath (made in the U.S. but filmed largely in China), to a separate category of Documentaries and will list the ten best feature films in alphabetical order:

A Hero The title is just as ambiguous as the numerous moral issues addressed directly and obliquely in this warm but chilly thriller from Iran.
Belfast Wonderful actors inhabit Kenneth Branagh’s recalled childhood and a historic time in Van Morrison’s Northern Irish capital.
Don’t Look Up  On the one hand, this is the most ‘unrealistic’ film on this list. On the other hand, it’s the starkest depiction of the world I feel I’m living in.
Drive My Car Quietly engrossing, this film about theater delved the deepest into humanity, both Japanese and universal.
Hand of God Paolo Sorrentino’s specifically Neapolitan reminiscence was good-hearted and colorful, producing smile after smile.
I’m Your Man A German thesis movie in which the recognizable and gripping human dimensions made one forget the “sci-fi” setting.
The Lost Daughter Elena Ferrante’s world of psychological quandaries, albeit in Greece, not Italy, intensely conveyed by Jessie Buckley and Olivia Colman.
Parallel Mothers Pedro Almodovar and Penelope Cruz–what could go wrong?–and some Spanish history, routine but masterful.
The Power of the Dog For plot, bravura acting, serious (New Zealand) scenery, this was the one to think about, talk about and debate.
The Worst Person in the World A clever scrapbook of an immensely appealing Renate Reinsve’s relationships in an everyday Oslo.

Best Documentaries
In the Same Breath A literally breath-taking account of Covid in Wuhan and a depressing coda of Covid in America.
Velvet Underground Todd Haynes’s direction created a visual counterpart to the music, mixing archival footage and reminiscent interviews.
Lost Leonardo Documented all sides in the Salvador Mundi saga, letting the viewer come to their own conclusion.

Honorable Mention
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
CODA
Munich: The Edge of War
Tragedy of Macbeth
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

Top Ten 2021

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Without much effort, my Top Ten for 2021 could all be movies made outside the U.S.; only a personal affinity for Don’t Look Up, a movie more scorned by the critics, prevented a shutout. Whether this had anything to do with Covid restrictions on film production, I don’t know. I do know that it relates to my preference for movies about real people and real-life situations, a genre that seems to mainly reside outside Hollywood. I’ve relegated the single most affecting movie I saw, In the Same Breath (made in the U.S. but filmed largely in China), to a separate category of Documentaries and will list the ten best feature films in alphabetical order:

A Hero The title is just as ambiguous as the numerous moral issues addressed directly and obliquely in this warm but chilly thriller from Iran.
Belfast Wonderful actors inhabit Kenneth Branagh’s recalled childhood and a historic time in Van Morrison’s Northern Irish capital.
Don’t Look Up  On the one hand, this is the most ‘unrealistic’ film on this list. On the other hand, it’s the starkest depiction of the world I feel I’m living in.
Drive My Car Quietly engrossing, this film about theater delved the deepest into humanity, both Japanese and universal.
Hand of God Paolo Sorrentino’s specifically Neapolitan reminiscence was good-hearted and colorful, producing smile after smile.
I’m Your Man A German thesis movie in which the recognizable and gripping human dimensions made one forget the “sci-fi” setting.
The Lost Daughter Elena Ferrante’s world of psychological quandaries, albeit in Greece, not Italy, intensely conveyed by Jessie Buckley and Olivia Colman.
Parallel Mothers Pedro Almodovar and Penelope Cruz–what could go wrong?–and some Spanish history, routine but masterful.
The Power of the Dog For plot, bravura acting, serious (New Zealand) scenery, this was the one to think about, talk about and debate.
The Worst Person in the World A clever scrapbook of an immensely appealing Renate Reinsve’s relationships in an everyday Oslo.

Best Documentaries
In the Same Breath A literally breath-taking account of Covid in Wuhan and a depressing coda of Covid in America.
Velvet Underground Todd Haynes’s direction created a visual counterpart to the music, mixing archival footage and reminiscent interviews.
Lost Leonardo Documented all sides in the Salvador Mundi saga, letting the viewer come to their own conclusion.

Honorable Mention
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
CODA
Munich: The Edge of War
Tragedy of Macbeth
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy