 By Jacob Barlow-Jones With the 2026 Oscar nominations now confirmed and the nominations record broken by Sinners, it’s time to buckle down and get ready for the big event on March 15. Some will host parties, some will make it a quiet night in, and others will venture out to the bars and restaurants that occupy film’s hallowed grounds to see which films take home the gold and which go home empty-handed. It’s easy enough to guess which films are likely to win that coveted statue if one follows the races closely enough, but what about what deserves to win? How can one make an informed decision on their favorite nominees if seeing them in the first place is half the battle? That’s the question that we at The Friendly Film Fan are here to help answer. We’ll take you through film by film (in alphabetical order) on a guided journey towards nominee completion, so that you can best your friends and neighbors, impressing everyone with your ballot knowledge. Let’s get started. The Alabama Solution Nominated For: Best Documentary Feature Where to Watch: Streaming on HBO Max All the Empty Rooms Nominated For: Best Documentary Short Where to Watch: Streaming on Netflix Arco Nominated For: Best Animated Feature Where to Watch: In Select Theaters Jan. 30 Armed with Only a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud Nominated For: Best Documentary Short Where to Watch: Streaming on HBO Max Avatar: Fire and Ash Nominated For: Best Costume Design, Best Visual Effects Where to Watch: In Theaters Nationwide Blue Moon Nominated For: Best Actor (Ethan Hawke), Best Original Screenplay Where to Watch: Available on Digital, On Blu-Ray Jan. 27 Bugonia Nominated For: Best Picture, Best Actress (Emma Stone), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score Where to Watch: Available on 4K, Blu-Ray, and Digital, and Streaming on Peacock Butcher’s Stain Nominated For: Best Live-Action Short Where to Watch: In Theaters March 13-15 Butterfly Nominated For: Best Animated Short Where to Watch: Streaming on YouTube and In Theaters March 13-15 Children No More: “Were and Are Gone” Nominated For: Best Documentary Short Where to Watch: In Select Theaters Come See Me in the Good Light Nominated For: Best Documentary Feature Where to Watch: Streaming on Apple TV+ Cutting Through Rocks Nominated For: Best Documentary Feature Where to Watch: In Select Theaters The Devil Is Busy Nominated For: Best Documentary Short Where to Watch: Streaming on HBO Max Diane Warren: Relentless Nominated For: Best Original Song – “Dear Me” Where to Watch: Available on DVD and Digital Elio Nominated For: Best Animated Feature Where to Watch: Available on 4K, Blu-Ray, and Digital, and Streaming on Disney+ F1 Nominated For: Best Picture, Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Where to Watch: Available on 4K, Blu-Ray, and Digital, and Streaming on Apple TV+ Forevergreen Nominated For: Best Animated Short Where to Watch: In Theaters March 13-15 Frankenstein Nominated For: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Jacob Elordi), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, Best Sound Where to Watch: Streaming on Netflix A Friend of Dorothy Nominated For: Best Live-Action Short Where to Watch: In Theaters March 13-15, Available on Disney+ Europe via VPN The Girl Who Cried Pearls Nominated For: Best Animated Short Where to Watch: In Theaters March 13-15, Available on NFB.ca via VPN Hamnet Nominated For: Best Picture, Best Director (Chloé Zhao), Best Actress (Jessie Buckley), Best Casting, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Original Score Where to Watch: In Theaters Nationwide If I Had Legs I’d Kick You Nominated For: Best Actress (Rose Byrne) Where to Watch: Available on Blu-Ray and Digital It Was Just an Accident Nominated For: Best International Feature (France), Best Original Screenplay Where to Watch: Available on Digital Jane Austen’s Period Drama Nominated For: Best Live-Action Short Where to Watch: Available on Kanopy with a Library Card or University Code Jurassic World Rebirth Nominated For: Best Visual Effects Where to Watch: On 4K, Blu-Ray, and Digital, and Streaming on Peacock KPop Demon Hunters Nominated For: Best Animated Feature, Best Original Song – “Golden” Where to Watch: Streaming on Netflix Kokuho Nominated For: Best Makeup & Hairstyling Where to Watch: In Select Theaters Feb. 6, In Theaters Nationwide Feb. 20 Little Amélie or the Character of Rain Nominated For: Best Animated Feature Where to Watch: Available on Digital, On Blu-Ray March 10 The Lost Bus Nominated For: Best Visual Effects Where to Watch: Streaming on Apple TV+ Marty Supreme Nominated For: Best Picture, Best Director (Josh Safdie), Best Actor (Timothée Chalamet), Best Casting, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design Where to Watch: In Theaters Nationwide Mr. Nobody Against Putin Nominated For: Best Documentary Feature Where to Watch: Available on Digital One Battle After Another Nominated For: Best Picture, Best Director (Paul Thomas Anderson), Best Actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), Best Supporting Actress (Teyana Taylor) Best Supporting Actor x2 (Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn), Best Casting, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, Best Original Score, Best Sound Where to Watch: Available on 4K, Blu-Ray, and Digital, and Streaming on HBO Max The Perfect Neighbor Nominated For: Best Documentary Feature Where to Watch: Streaming on Netflix Perfectly a Strangeness Nominated For: Best Documentary Short Where to Watch: In Theaters March 13-15 Retirement Plan Nominated For: Best Animated Short Where to Watch: Streaming on YouTube The Secret Agent Nominated For: Best Picture, Best Actor (Wagner Moura), Best Casting, Best International Feature (Brazil) Where to Watch: In Theaters March 9-15 Sentimental Value Nominated For: Best Picture, Best Director (Joachim Trier), Best Actress (Renate Reinsve), Best Supporting Actress x2 (Elle Fanning, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), Best Supporting Actor (Stellan Skarsgård), Best International Feature (Norway), Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing Where to Watch: Available on Digital The Singers Nominated For: Best Live-Action Short Where to Watch: In Theaters March 13-15 Sinners Nominated For: Best Picture, Best Director (Ryan Coogler), Best Actor (Michael B. Jordan), Best Supporting Actress (Wunmi Mosaku), Best Supporting Actor (Delroy Lindo), Best Casting, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, Best Original Song – “I Lied to You,” Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Where to Watch: Available on 4K, Blu-Ray, and Digital, and Streaming on HBO Max Sirāt Nominated For: Best International Feature (Spain), Best Sound Where to Watch: In Select Theaters The Smashing Machine Nominated For: Best Makeup and Hairstyling Where to Watch: Available on 4K, Blu-Ray, and Digital, and Streaming on HBO Max Song Sung Blue Nominated For: Best Actress (Kate Hudson) Where to Watch: In Theaters Now, On Blu-Ray Feb. 17 The Three Sisters Nominated For: Best Animated Short Where to Watch: Streaming on YouTube Train Dreams Nominated For: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original Song – “Train Dreams” Where to Watch: Streaming on Netflix Two People Exchanging Saliva Nominated For: Best Live-Action Short Where to Watch: Streaming on YouTube The Ugly Stepsister Nominated For: Best Makeup and Hairstyling Where to Watch: Available on Digital and Streaming on Shudder Viva Verdi! Nominated For: Best Original Song – “Sweet Dreams of Joy” Where to Watch: In Select Theaters The Voice of Hind Rajab Nominated For: Best International Feature (Tunisia) Where to Watch: In Select Theaters, Available on Digital Mar. 3 Weapons Nominated For: Best Supporting Actress (Amy Madigan) Where to Watch: Available on 4K, Blu-Ray, and Digital, and Streaming on HBO Max Zootopia 2 Nominated For: Best Animated Feature Where to Watch: In Theaters Now And that is everything that’s nominated for an Oscar this year! Hopefully you found this guide helpful for organizing your watch time. If you’d rather knock out a few films at a time without switching apps or having to search around, here’s a similar handy little guide for you to reference. Netflix: All the Empty Rooms, Frankenstein, KPop Demon Hunters, The Perfect Neighbor, Train Dreams HBO Max: The Alabama Solution, Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud, The Devil Is Busy, One Battle After Another, Sinners, The Smashing Machine, Weapons Disney+: Elio Apple TV+: Come See Me in the Good Light, F1, The Lost Bus Peacock: Bugonia, Jurassic World Rebirth Shudder: The Ugly Stepsister YouTube: Butterfly, Retirement Plan, The Three Sisters, Two People Exchanging Saliva Digital: Blue Moon, Diane Warren: Relentless, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, It Was Just an Accident, Little Amélie or the Character of Rain, Mr. Nobody Against Putin, Sentimental Value How many of these films have you seen? Anything you’re excited to check out or discover? Let us know in the comments section below, and if you find yourself struggling to get through them all, don’t sweat it; we’ll be updating this list as things become more widely available. All of the Best Picture nominees, as well as the nominated Live-Action and Animated short films will also be shown in theaters from March 9-15 for Oscar Week, so be sure to check and see if your local theater is participating! Thanks for reading! - The Friendly Film Fan This piece was last updated on 1/24/26. It was originally posted on 1/24/26.
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 By Jacob Barlow-Jones Well, that was pretty crazy! After months of speculation and handwringing about which bubble contenders could knock out some of the on-the-wings selections of our Oscar nomination predictions, the full list of Oscar nominees for 2026 was unveiled this morning and it was a doozy! As usual, there were a lot of expected titles announced, as well as enough major snubs and surprises that I’m surprised I didn’t get whiplash just watching the announcement. The biggest winner of the morning was Ryan Coogler’s Black history vampire musical Sinners, which racked up a total of 16 nominations to not just break the all-time nominations record of 14 (which was a three-way tie between All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land), but bury it with an additional 2 nominations to its name. In fact, as a studio, Warner Bros. brought in no less than 30 nominations across its recognized projects, including 13 for One Battle After Another, its other major awards contender this year (and still, to me, the Best Picture frontrunner despite that Chase Infiniti snub). One can imagine Netflix may be looking more closely at potentially expanding their theatrical windows for WB films, even after having just announced they would be committing to a minimum 45-day theatrical run for those projects. (I’ll believe it when I see it.) Among other surprises such as Elle Fanning, Delroy Lindo, and Kate Hudson all being nominated despite not having very strong pre-season runs – as well as F1 taking its Picture spot from Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident – is that Wicked: For Good wasn’t just shut out of Best Supporting Actress for Ariana Grande (its best shot for a major nomination); it was shut out of nominations entirely. No Costume Design, No Production Design, No Makeup and Hairstyling, nothing. Given that the last Wicked film landed 10 nominations last year, and won 2 Oscars, that’s a steep fall from grace, and a sign that perhaps the industry feels even more adversarial towards the sequel than even the sea of volatility that is film twitter does. Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice was likewise shut out of nominations, failing to garner a spot in the International Feature category and crushing the hopes of those who dreamed of Neon running the table in that space (they still have 4 nominees; it’s okay). I had wondered whether the Decision to Leave snub of 2023 would worm its way into this year’s Park Chan-wook work as well; I was, sadly, correct to assume it would. Other well-liked nominees included Sentimental Value, which made a strong showing with its four main performers garnering nods (making it all the more bizarre that the film missed Best Casting), Frankenstein, which performed exceptionally well in the tech categories despite missing out on Best Director for Guillermo Del Toro, Marty Supreme, which tied those previous two films with a nomination total of 9, and Hamnet, which landed 8 nominations, losing out on categories like Best Film Editing and Best Supporting Actor for Paul Mescal. Overall, it’s a well-deserving lineup, and despite the fact that some of my nomination hopes inevitably got dashed (r.i.p. Sorry, Baby, your screenplay should have been recognized), the surprises that made up for them were ones I didn’t expect would bring me such joy. The 98th Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, March 15, at 7:00 p.m. EST, and will be broadcast for the last time on ABC. A full list of the nominated films is below. BEST PICTURE The Nominees:
BEST DIRECTOR The Nominees:
BEST ACTRESS The Nominees:
BEST ACTOR The Nominees:
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS The Nominees:
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR The Nominees:
BEST CASTING The Nominees:
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE The Nominees:
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM The Nominees:
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE The Nominees:
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY The Nominees:
BEST FILM EDITING The Nominees:
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN The Nominees:
BEST COSTUME DESIGN The Nominees:
BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING The Nominees:
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE The Nominees:
BEST ORIGINAL SONG The Nominees:
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY The Nominees:
BEST ORIGNAL SCREENPLAY The Nominees:
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS The Nominees:
BEST SOUND The Nominees:
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT The Nominees:
BEST ANIMATED SHORT The Nominees:
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT The Nominees:
What do you think of these nominations? Were there any snubs or inclusions that shocked you? What do you think of Sinners now holding the nomination crown? Let us know in the comments section below, and thanks for reading!
- The Friendly Film Fan  By Jacob Barlow-Jones Greetings all, and welcome back to The Friendly Film Fan! I’m sure you all have many questions: where have we been? What have we been up to? Is a hot dog a sandwich (it’s not)? And finally, how are we coming back after all this time, not having written a proper review for anything since James Gunn’s Superman? What happened? You’ll find your answer below this text, courtesy of former French 75 revolutionary Bob Ferguson.  Needless to say, it’s been a somewhat rocky time for us over the past five months or so, but we are back, and it looks like just in the nick of time, because we are here to unveil our first and final Oscar nomination predictions piece of the season! There’s so much up in the air with the film industry right now, and predicting whether Netflix will actually preserve the sanctity of theatrical exhibition for their new Warner Bros. properties in a few years’ time, or whether they will simply say that while they figure out how to get more eyes on their streaming service so they don’t have to commit to it, is anyone’s guess and almost impossible to predict this far out from a finalization of the acquisition. But you know what won’t be impossible to predict this year? Your Oscar ballot. Even if we weren’t public-facing about it, we've been studying the playing field all year long. Some things rose above as the year went on, some have all but dropped their races entirely. Whatever the case, if you’re looking to impress your friends and colleagues or just like that feeling you get when you’re right about something, we’ve got you covered. We’ll go through each individual category (including one new one) as we present our picks for what we think will land a spot, as well as three “wildcard” entries that could also move into poll position under the right circumstances. Here are The Friendly Film Fan’s official Oscar nomination predictions for 2026! BEST PICTURE
Predicted Nominees:
Nine of these ten seem fairly certain. A Palme d’Or winner, a Cannes darling, a Netflix “indie,” a literally Shakespearean drama, the weird one, the classical monster movie, the one carried (though not entirely) by a showstopper performance, the frontrunner of the season, and the contemporary musical (which doubles as a monster movie) seems like a fairly well-formed lineup for the Best Picture category, and only one thing remains: to find that tenth spot. This is where my previous advice from the Costume Design category comes in full force: never underestimate the Brazilians. Despite both F1 and Weapons putting up solid showings with PGA, and at least the former having a solid shot to make it in this ten, I’ve selected The Secret Agent as my number ten prediction. BEST DIRECTOR Predicted Nominees:
Best Director is one of the other major categories where an out-of-nowhere international contender can show up just as easily as any of the expected five, but even with Joachim Trier not showing up in the DGA five, with Sentimental Value appearing amongst the PGA ten, I have a somewhat hopeful feeling that he does indeed make the lineup this year. Who the international contender turns out to be is anybody’s guess, and there remains a distinct possibility that there is no international feature director who appears amongst these five nominees with Guillermo Del Toro taking that DGA spot, but for now, I believe that even subtler direction can still be recognized, especially with performances this good across the board. BEST ACTRESS Predicted Nominees:
How great is it that Chase Infiniti is going to garner herself an Oscar nomination for her feature film debut? She deserves every bit of awards love she gets, but as has been the case all season, this is a Buckley v. Byrne race, with Buckley firmly in the lead following a career of terrific work leading up to her turn as Agnes in Hamnet. What worries me here, though, is the presence of Kate Hudson in the SAG lineup, and what that might mean if Renate Reinsve is indeed snubbed for a nomination spot in her favor. Reinsve turned in some of the most impressive work of her career this year, and although it’s a quieter performance than her turn in The Worst Person in the World, it’s all the more powerful for it. And if the Academy feels any love at all for The Testament of Ann Lee, it should show up for the film’s well-deserving lead, Amanda Seyfried. BEST ACTOR Predicted Nominees
Wagner Moura needed to win the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama to stay in this race at all, and win it he did, cementing his place amongst at least the seven possible Best Actor contenders, even if he may be on the bubble and in definite danger of missing the nod. Still, Fernanda Torres didn’t have a SAG nod to her name and managed to wiggle into the Lead Actress lineup last year without a worry, so there’s a non-zero chance Moura takes the same path, especially with the level of international support he’s received. What I’m hoping is that Joel Edgerton’s quiet turn in Train Dreams somehow manages to make it into the lineup, even if it is at the expense of one of Ethan Hawke’s best performances in years. It’s unlikely that happens, but hey, what if? BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Predicted Nominees:
The SAG nod for Ariana Grande – a recognition they did not give to her castmate Cynthia Erivo this time around – is the only indicator outside of the below-the-line categories that Wicked: For Good has anything to hold onto. That said, with Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas sure to find justice for her SAG snub with a nomination here, the battle for last place appears to be between Grande and Odessa A’zion, whose career is enjoying a sharp rise at the moment. Currently, I am giving the edge to Grande, who manages to hold onto at least some of what she brought to the table in the first Wicked film, albeit a pale imitation, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see A’zion swoop in to leave Wicked: For Good relegated only to the tech fields. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Predicted Nominees:
Perhaps the single easiest of the acting races to predict in terms of who makes the lineup, Best Supporting Actor remained an open and shut case for months…until SAG elected to nominate Miles Caton over Stellan Skarsgård in their rush to exclude any international nominees from their newly-named Actor Awards. Nonetheless, with a Golden Globe win already under his belt, and what appears to be a vote-splitting opportunity with the One Battle boys duking it out, Skarsgård appears to be unaffected by the SAG snub and poised to take the lead in this category once more (the Jacob Elordi win at Critics Choice notwithstanding). Truthfully, the bottom two wildcard selections here are more for padding than anything as Miles Caton is the clear number six for this category, but stranger nominations have come out of absolutely nowhere. BEST CASTING Predicted Nominees:
The newest category to be added to the Oscars lineup takes the nomination count from the 23 categories it had been shrunk down to when the sound categories collapsed back to a full 24 (and soon to be 25 with the introduction of the Best Stunts category, which will debut with the 100th anniversary of the awards). Given that this is the first year of its inclusion, there’s not a lot of precedent to rely on for predicting what the nominee field is likely to look like. The closest one can come at the moment is to focus largely on performance ensembles – especially those with deep benches (a look at the SAG Ensemble nominees is helpful here) – and try to game it out from there. My one hope for this category is that the international community comes through for Sentimental Value in the way that SAG refused to; barring that, we’re probably looking at a five for five SAG to Oscars transfer. (I like Frankenstein, but do we really need it here too?) BEST ANIMATED FEATURE Predicted Nominees:
In recent years, animation has sadly become somewhat of a weaker category, with easier to predict wins and easier to predict nominations than ever. That trend continues this year as KPop Demon Hunters looks to dominate both this and the Original Song categories, but what films surround it are also largely unsurprising. Disney’s now highest grossing animated film of all time, Zootopia 2, would be the reasonable second place finisher, with the studio’s Pixar entrant rounding out the lineup in fifth place behind two far more interesting nominees in Arco and Little Amélie. Netflix’s other animated film this year, In Your Dreams, as well as A Magnificent Life, and Sony’s Scarlet, occupy the wildcard slots because, well, something has to, and The Bad Guys 2 – while certainly worthy of some kind of recognition – just doesn’t have the juice to push through the pack. BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM Predicted Nominees:
Even more than Best Picture, the most anticipated question of nominations morning seems to be whether Neon will be able to go five for five across the entirety of the International Feature category, a feat no studio (at least none that I’m aware of) has managed to achieve since the category’s introduction. If this were any other Academy, I might be inclined to say this would absolutely not happen, as this category always contains a wildcard that even I don’t see coming much of the time. However, given how calculated Neon has become at awards campaigning, it’s not safe to bet against them…which is exactly what I’m going to do. This may be the only opportunity for The Voice of Hind Rajab – a docu-drama about a Palestinian child calling out for rescue under Israeli fire – to reach the international audience it needs to succeed, and since the Academy has snubbed Park Chan-wook before and we’re due for at least one major blunder in the nominations, I think No Other Choice is the sacrificial lamb here. Perhaps Netflix is the one to oust the South Korean contender with the Taiwanese Left-Handed Girl, but either way, it could well be the case that a full decade passes before we see a Park Chan-wook film among this category’s lineup again. BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Predicted Nominees:
Keeping up with the documentary feature contenders throughout the year has been something I’ve prided myself on, but even during my most prolific years of documentary viewing, there’s either been plenty of entrants to the shortlist that I haven’t seen or plenty of docs I have seen that then didn’t make the cut. Luckily, many of these – like their short form counterparts – are also accessible through various streaming services or YouTube, so they’re relatively easy to see. Also, like so many categories this year, there are about four nominees that feel like concrete certainties, and one that could go basically anywhere else. I’ve selected The Alabama Solution as the fifth film, given that Netflix already has The Perfect Neighbor in the mix (so Apocalypse in the Tropics feels redundant if the Academy is trying to spread the love) and Apple has yet to land one of their documentary acquisitions in this category going as far back as 2020. Come See Me in the Good Light is easily their strongest candidate yet, and it has widespread support, so there’s a genuine shot for it to get in, but that Apple stat is hard to ignore with an HBO doc waiting in the wings. BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Predicted Nominees:
Hamnet missing the ASC nod this year dealt a crushing blow to Lukas Zal, whom many considered to be firmly in the mix after having been snubbed for his transcendent work on The Zone of Interest, a film which continues to grow more and more relevant as time continues to move forward. It’s not impossible that the Academy elects to nominate him anyway, given Hamnet’s otherwise strong showing, but it seems more likely that the Academy actually goes five for five with the ASC nominees this year, breaking recent precedent of a four for five success rate. As for the win, we’ll have to see how the rest of the season goes, but in my eyes, it’s still Sinners vs. Train Dreams. BEST FILM EDITING Predicted Nominees:
Sometimes the film with the most editing wins this category (Ford v Ferrari), sometimes it does actually go to the best edited film of the year (Everything Everywhere All at Once); in both cases, there’s strong support for both F1 and One Battle After Another, and without the ACE Eddie nominations in hand (those will be revealed next Tuesday), what surprises may be in store are anybody’s guess. For the moment, this is what I think it looks like heading into tomorrow’s announcement. BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN Predicted Nominees:
It will forever remain strange to me just how weak Avatar: Fire and Ash appears this year when compared to the certainty with which The Way of Water entered the race in 2023. Granted, it had been twelve years since the first Avatar, so a sequel that looked as good as Way of Water did with all its new technology and design work was always going to make a strong showing in the tech categories, but Fire and Ash being on the bubble even without that length of a wait still feels wrong. Nevertheless, on the bubble it is, and anyone who’s still predicting a showing for Fantastic Four: First Steps here – even in the wildcards – should keep in mind that much of the industry seems more passionate about Bugonia than previously thought. BEST COSTUME DESIGN Predicted Nominees:
Costume Design is another slightly tricky category this year, as there are about seven viable candidates, two of which possess a sincere chance at knocking Hamnet out of its spot. Given how the industry appears to adore the film, I’m reticent to remove it from the lineup, but if it were to fall, I believe it would be to Lindsay Pugh’s work in Hedda, which features a more formal style in its costuming. I know this is where many are placing their Testament of Ann Lee or Kiss of the Spider-Woman hopes, but given how both of these were entirely ignored through every shortlist, it's a safe bet to say the Academy likely isn’t giving them any more thought, justifiably or not. What they may be giving thought to, however, is The Secret Agent, as an increasingly international Academy just witnessed it win two Golden Globes, including one for Best Actor (Wagner Moura). There’s only one rule with this new Academy in major categories: never underestimate the Brazilian contingent. BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING Predicted Nominees:
Once more, thank god for shortlists; if it weren’t for the Academy’s willingness to share what was in contention for some of these below-the-line categories, I’d have forgotten The Alto Knights and The Ugly Stepsister even released this past year (not that either of them has a shot here, but it’s good to see the latter recognized). That said, there’s also plenty of room for a wildcard move in this category as well. The Academy loves prosthetic work, and while The Smashing Machine features plenty of the more subtle makeup they love to recognize, it doesn’t feature a fat suit; Nuremberg does, and if any of the old Academy still has any power, the Churchill rule should apply here as well. Of course, there’s always a possibility that Kokuho – the Tom Cruise-backed international contender this year from Japan – springs a surprise on us as well. BEST ORIGINAL SCORE Predicted Nominees:
Original score is a tricky one; last year, Challengers was snubbed in favor of Wicked: For Good, which I suppose featured a decent bit of original scoring for the film, but most of it sounded like renditions of the Broadway show score anyway, and personally I’d like to not repeat that mistake, so I am hoping with everything in me that Daniel Lopatin’s score for Marty Supreme doesn’t hit a Challengers snag this year. That said, there’s plenty of room for some wildcard madness this time around, so don’t be shocked if Wicked: For Good features as am undeserved repeat. BEST ORIGINAL SONG Predicted Nominees:
And now we come to the category no one actually cares about, but which everyone gets at least one thing right with: a Diane Warren or Diane Warren-adjacent song will keep showing up here until she gets her damn Oscar, locking out more deserving candidates. Of course, it’s possible that “Dear Me” falls at the feet of either Sinners or Wicked: For Good, both of which feature at least one original song already firmly in the mix, but I doubt any of these wildcards have the strength in campaigning to take down the single entrant that almost never misses. BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Predicted Nominees:
You’ll notice in many of these races that between three and four spots are more-or-less locked up by a few heavyweight candidates, while spots four and five are up for grabs between two or three films with some true wildcards waiting in the wings. Such is also the case with Adapted Screenplay, which is a two-way battle for spot five between Will Tracy’s script for Bugonia (currently in the lead with some WGA support) and Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, which to me should be a layup candidate. For the moment, I’ve chosen Bugonia as the safe bet, but don’t be surprised to see No Other Choice show up here if the Academy isn’t going to blank it like they did Decision to Leave a few years ago. BEST ORIGNAL SCREENPLAY Predicted Nominees:
The original screenplay category seems fairly likely to throw a huge curveball our way as Zach Cregger’s Weapons made its way onto a couple of key shortlists. That said, I’m not sure I see it making a large dent here, even if Amy Madigan is all but guaranteed to secure herself a nomination. Still, of the wildcard picks, I think it would be the likeliest to knock Sorry, Baby out of contention, even if I’m not-so-secretly praying that won’t happen. Julia Roberts seems to think highly of Eva Victor’s film. Why shouldn’t the Academy? BEST VISUAL EFFECTS Predicted Nominees:
Every time a new Avatar film releases, this race is over before it begins, but it is still fun to predict what will by riding alongside it, and my big swing this time around comes in the form of Paul Greengrass’ Paradise fire drama, The Lost Bus, which features some thoroughly convincing effects that I believe everyone is underestimating. Of course, there’s always the chance that Frankenstein takes either that spot or the Wicked: For Good one (boy, that movie sank in the rankings quick, huh), but for now, this is where I’m at. BEST SOUND Predicted Nominees:
And now we come to the part of the predictions where people actually start paying attention. Best Sound isn’t especially tricky until one gets into that fifth slot, for which I would personally nominate Avatar: Fire and Ash, but which most sound guilds gave to Mission: Impossible (even the Cinema Audio Society didn’t recognize Avatar). There’s certainly a likelihood that the Tom Cruise action film – which could be the last of its kind – holds onto that sound nod all the way through tomorrow morning, but given the widespread support for Oliver Laxe’s desert rave drama Sirât across a multitude of shortlists and its likelihood of showing up in at least one other major category in this piece, I’ve elected to call the nomination race in its favor. BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT Predicted Nominees:
Even amongst the short form categories, this is the most difficult one to predict. Only two of these films are widely available, so those are the only two I’ve seen. Extremist is the first, which I don’t believe has the juice to push past the eight other contenders listed, but Two People Exchanging Saliva – the second one I’ve seen – would be an inspired choice to bump up from wildcard into the main nominee package. BEST ANIMATED SHORT Predicted Nominees:
Butterfly seems like the easy frontrunner in this category, given how stunningly Butterfly seems like the easy frontrunner in this category, given how stunningly painted it is while also featuring a poignant storyline, but for my money, I’d like to see the adorable Snow Bear or the existentially dreadful Playing God jump up from the wildcard slots into the main pack. Is that just because they’re some of the only ones I’ve been able to see? The answer isn’t “no,” but they are also quality films. BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT Predicted Nominees:
By far the most difficult categories to predict each year are the Shorts; they’re not usually widely accessible during the year, and we know so little about how they’re made and distributed that keeping up with what rises through the ranks is more or less impossible; thank god for the Shortlists the Academy drops each year to help us nail down which ones we should focus on, and which ones we no longer need to track. This yearThis year, most of the documentary short films from the shortlist were actually fairly easy to see; some are still streaming exclusives, like the Netflix frontrunner All the Empty Rooms, but many others – such as The Devil is Busy and Last Days on Lake Trinity – are widely accessible on YouTube just by searching the title. Inevitably, at least one of the shortlisted films that are not widely accessible makes the cut, so this year I’ve put Bad Hostage in that slot (although I did see it last year as part of the IDA awards). What do you think of our predictions? Is there anything we’re underestimating? Overestimating? Which films would you like to see get some love tomorrow morning? Let us know in the comments section below, and thanks for reading! - The Friendly Film Fan  By Jacob Jones Intro James Gunn’s Superman has already taken the world at large by storm (or, at least, most of twitter – no I’m still not calling it X), with thousands of fans offering their takes, takedowns, praises, musings, and everything in between. From David Corenswet’s casting to Nicholas Hoult’s ultimate hater energy to a few key plot choices Gunn made for the film that are sure to shake up the very core of who we’ve understood Superman to be since 1938, its very existence has set the internet ablaze with largely positive (but also some negative) discourse surrounding its ideas, its direction, its themes, and the essence of the titular character himself. If you’re especially internet savvy, you’ll also see a ton of people dressing up the opening weekend (including me). For those of you who wish to know my spoiler-free thoughts on the film, you can find my original review here. But, for those aching to discuss more specific thoughts, stick around as The Friendly Film Fan covers Superman in completely open, spoiler-y fashion, from small saves to major backstory alterations. We won’t necessarily go over every single story beat, line read, or character choice, but there’s still plenty to cover in just the major leagues. With this being your only full SPOILER WARNING, let’s dig in…or take off…you know what I mean.  And so it begins… When Superman begins, the first thing we see is an opening text which counts us down from three centuries ago (first metahumans on Earth) to three years ago (Superman becomes a public figure) to three minutes ago, when Superman loses a battle to the Hammer of Boravia, the first time that he’s been beaten. During the course of this text – and due to it being in the marketing – we learn that the whole reason the Hammer is there in the first place is because Superman stopped an invasion by the Boravian military into its neighbor nation, Jarhanpur, a pair of deeply unsubtle stand-ins for Israel and Palestine, respectively. (We never get to actually see this happen, unfortunately, nor are we permitted a view at that fight Superman lost – hardly film-breaking omissions, but it’s hard not to feel like we missed out on some key bits of character growth here.) This is the only introductory text the film includes before beginning in earnest. Having been bloodied and bruised, Superman crash lands in the Antarctic, and we see David Corenswet in the red and blue for the first time, beaten and bloodied as he calls Krypto the Super Dog to take him “home,” (a.k.a. the Fortress of Solitude). Once Krypto shows up at the emerging fortress with Kal-El in tow, the Superman robots quickly get to work restoring him back to health with the help of concentrated yellow sun radiation and a soothing message from his Kryptonian parents. It’s here, of course, that who of all actors would show up but Bradley Cooper as Jor-El (careful, Matt Damon, Cooper’s coming for your cameo crown), in hologram form alongside Kal-El’s mother Lara (Angela Sarafyan) as they impart a final message to their son, which was damaged in transit to Earth, leaving it unable to be played in full. The first part of the message, still intact, states that Kal-El’s parents love him more than anything, and he is being sent somewhere where he can do the most good, that place being Earth (more on that in a bit). Not content to stand by while his city is still under the Hammer’s threat, Superman elects to fly back to Metropolis to continue his fight, although he’s not fully healed, and as the camera moves underneath him, the S logo jumps out, and we get our title card: Superman. (Style-wise, it’s more or less the same as the original Superman and Superman Returns title texts.) This leads straight into a second clash between the Big Blue Boy Scout and the Hammer, quickly revealed to be Ultraman immediately after round two wraps up – almost as soon as it began. Superman gets handily beaten again, courtesy of Nicholas Hoult’s all-time-hater performance as Lex Luthor giving him combo instructions from behind a series of office desks. It’s a solid fight sequence, especially in the way Hoult engages with it, and the editing for it is just as frenetic as it would feel to actually witness Superman lose a fight like this. Once this fight is over, we get our first true glimpse at the kind of world this Superman inhabits, courtesy of an ordinary, falafel-stand-owning civilian named Mali, who rushes across traffic – nearly getting hit – to help Superman out of the hole his body made when it hit the ground (and remind us that he gave the Man of Steel free falafel one time). The image of a Metropolis citizen making the first save of the film is not a coincidence; it signals to us that Superman has already inspired a number of people as a symbol of hope, sincerity, and a helping hand. So much so that when he gets knocked down, the people of Metropolis help him get back up. In just a few short minutes, we know who Superman is, we know how much Lex Luthor hates him, and we know how Metropolis feels about him…or at least we know how Mali feels about him. But there’s no time to waste, and the film knows that.  Welcome to the Planet We’re then introduced to the Daily Planet crew as they all weigh in on the front-page article Clark’s written; some find it dry or lackluster (Steve Lombard and Lois Lane), whereas others celebrate the occasion (Cat Grant and Jimmy Olsen, an apparent hunk around the office according to Gunn’s interpretation). This is all happening as Clark is on the phone with Ma and Pa Kent, who are checking in from Smallville to say congrats and see how things are going in what turns out to be the film’s only extended pure comedy bit (some extended bits that come later offer a more multi-tonal emotional pallet). This is also likely where some people may begin to see cracks in the armor of Gunn’s film. The Kents more like technologically-challenged boomer parents with good hearts than as chosen noble stewards of a great Kryptonian’s rise to adulthood. For my part, the bit works for this version of Superman’s world, but does exist just on the cusp of becoming too silly before thankfully not overstaying its welcome, so if it doesn’t work for you the first time, it’s unlikely to work for you on any repeat viewings either. Following a back-and-forth between Lois, Clark, and Jimmy about Superman’s involvement in the Boravian conflict as their President denies having any connection to the Hammer, the next major plot point sees Lex Luthor pitching his new metahuman police – a.k.a. Planet Watch (Ultraman, the Engineer, and a fleet of Raptor Guards) – to the U.S. defense department before jetting off to the Fortress of Solitude location in search of answers about Superman. Meanwhile, Lois interviews Clark as Superman in her apartment; it doesn’t go well (though the scene itself is great).  Jor-El and Lara’s Mission It’s at this point, as the the villains enter the fortress and the Engineer quickly dispatches with the Superman robots before being attacked by Krypto (subsequently torturing him), that the big spoiler of Superman – the one that’s bound to have audiences debating for months regarding its validity – is unveiled. Up to this point, audiences have been used to Jor-El and Lara – Superman’s Kryptonian parents – as upstanding citizens of Krypton, vessels for the inherent good that Clark embodies in the suit and cape; not so with James Gunn’s version. Following an epic fight with an exponentially growing Kaiju during which Superman saves a dog, a woman, and a tiny little squirrel (the Justice Gang swoops in for an assist, our first glimpse at a wider world of heroes), it is revealed that the second half of the message Clark’s parents sent with him contained directions to rule over humanity as a god, destroying those who refused to bend to his will. The nature of how this other half of the message is acquired – through the Engineer plugging in to the fortress console – may lead one to believe the message has been manipulated by Luthor’s team and thus walked back by the end of the film. But there is no reversal, no revelation of manipulation or mistranslation. The message is as-is: Jor-El and Lara really do want Kal-El to be dictator over the entire planet. It’s a revelation that shakes Clark to his core, having never heard the rest of the message until now, as he races back to the fortress to find the robots destroyed and Krypto gone. At first, I was unsure how to feel about this revelation of Jor-El and Lara’s true intentions in sending their son to Earth. Was James Gunn really insinuating that a truth about Superman’s parents we’d all known as long as we’d known them wasn’t actually true? Wouldn’t this ruin those characters, thus infecting the entire idea of Superman’s core values being selflessness and helping people? After further reflection, however, I began to think about choice; it’s why heroes are heroes, and it’s why Pa Kent’s later wisdom-nugget when Clark is dropped off at the farm resonates so deeply with this version of Superman – he is a hero because he chooses to do heroic things, not because he carries those traits genetically. Because he chooses to be a good man every day, he is one, not due to some pre-determined outline of saviorism or even because of his Earth parents’ advice. “Parents aren’t for telling their children who they’re supposed to be,” Pa muses as he sits on the farm’s porch swing with Clark. “We’re supposed to give you the tools to let you make fools of yourselves all on your own.” Pa emphasizes in this scene that Clark’s actions make him who he is; that line appears in the film’s official trailer as well, but in context it takes on a much greater potency. It appears that the message Gunn is attempting to impart with this changing of Superman lore is that it doesn’t matter what sort of world one’s parents or previous generations made, or how they may have failed to protect it properly, how they may want their children to live their lives, or whether they continue to hold beliefs we collectively now know to be wrong. One can always choose a better path forward, make choices rooted in hope and sincerity, and build a new world based on simply doing the right thing, rather than having to compromise rightness for the sake of figuring out how to live in a world that left the ideas of unauthorized heroism and doing good for goodness’ sake behind a long time ago. The same idea comes back around when Superman confronts Lex Luthor at the end of the film, advocating for his humanity and – in true Superman fashion – advocating for Lex’s as well, despite the latter’s refusal to embrace it.  Pocket Universe And that’s not the only time Superman’s goodness shines through despite what people do to him; after Lois goes to see the Justice Gang to find out where Planet Watch took Superman following his turning himself into the DOJ (which comes immediately after another great Clark and Lois scene in Clark’s apartment), and following the revelation from Jimmy Olsen’s source (who turns out to be his overly attached situationship Eve Tessmacher) of Clark’s location in a pocket universe, she and Mr. Terrific go there to rescue him, unaware that he’s already broken out to save Metamorpho’s kidnapped baby but is currently fighting an anti-proton river and some Raptor Guards. The pocket universe sections of the film do run a little on the long side, especially after the film cuts back and forth between Clark’s interrogation in which Lex Luthor murders Mali the Falafel stand owner in cold blood, and the Justice Gang’s initial refusal to help him. It’s also in this pocket universe that – just after Superman turns himself in to the DOJ – the audience confirms what’s been suspected, that Lex Luthor and Boravian President Vasil Ghurkos were conspiring together to take Superman out of the picture, with the help of some literal online monkey trolls farming outrage against the man of steel. Why exactly Lex is so desperate for the invasion of Jarhanpur to proceed isn’t revealed until later.  Boravia, Jarhanpur, and Lex Luthor’s Plan And this is where we come to the film’s biggest tonal clash, the one thing that – for me – keeps it from being a near-perfect film despite how perfectly it understands Superman himself. Lex Luthor decides unilaterally to open a dimensional rift in order to draw Superman out of hiding, which begins heading towards Metropolis at an exponential rate just as the Boravian troops are preparing to finally begin their full scale invasion of Jarhanpur. The single image that nearly brought me to tears in this film is handled beautifully as a group of children raise a makeshift flag with Superman’s crest on it, shouting “Superman” as the John Williams theme (on which the score relies just a little too heavily) kicks in, and Clark sees it happening on Ma and Pa Kent’s television. However, before Clark can go to Jarhanpur to help, Mr. Terrific informs him of the dimensional rift, saying he can’t stop it and if Superman can’t help, there won’t be a Jarhanpur to defend. Superman elects to try to help fix the rift, arriving just in time to save a woman in her car from being crushed by a falling skyscraper, while sending the Justice Gang (and Metamorpho) to deal with the Bovarian army. To me, those two things should have been reversed; for almost the film’s entire length, we’ve heard about how Superman’s involvement in Jarhanpur caused all the problems he’s been dealing with, but in finding out that wasn’t true – and that Lex had conspired with Vasil Ghurkos to give him half of Jarhanpur following a successful invasion – it would make sense for the man of steel to return to the nation’s defense (hell, even if it was true, Superman returning to Jarhanpur would be a sensible story beat). Instead, because Superman has to fight Ultraman, we have the slightly sillier characters (the Justice Gang) dealing with the more serious real-world threat, while the more serious real-world hero (Superman) deals with the sillier, more comic-y threat. And this is all before it’s revealed that Lex Luthor manufactured the whole overseas conflict just to have an excuse to kill Superman; Hoult is excellent in the scene despite how much motivation exposition is dumped on him, but to insinuate that the clearly middle eastern conflict the film is paralleling could be construed as a trivial matter borne of the petty jealousy of one man with something to prove rather than growing out of an organic and fully funded evil supported by millions is not a message I feel Gunn thought all the way through, even if it easily and largely could be (and probably is) wise to ascribe that blame to bald billionaires whose selfishness costs actual human lives. (It also clashes against the near one-to-one metaphor the film acts as regarding Gunn’s firing from Disney due to people who hate him in particular using online trolls to resurface old – and objectively very bad – tweets for which Gunn had previously apologized, which is what led him to work with DC on The Suicide Squad in the first place before being re-hired by Disney to finish Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3).  Ultraman Reveal Before Lex confesses his ultimate intentions though, the film has one more major reveal left to unleash; after Superman and Ultraman trade blows once more in a stadium before Superman nose-dives towards the Earth with Ultraman and the Engineer in tow, the two crash land underground, damaging Ultraman’s mask (the Engineer is knocked unconscious) and revealing him to be…a clone of Superman, made from a strand of his hair that Lex found on the ground after one of Superman’s battles. Now, this is hardly surprising, since – at least in the comics – Ultraman is usually a clone of someone; in most cases, it’s a Lex clone, but a Clark clone is not unheard of, and the movie does enough to make it work. However, making the third act power fight once more between two different versions of the same person a) is an MCU staple that Gunn sort of excelled at subverting, rendering this idea somewhat regressive and b) somewhat deflates the excitement of watching the two powers duke it out since we already know all the moves they’ll each have in their repertoire. Lex is controlling Ultraman, yes, but it’s still the same power set as the guy we’re rooting for, meaning neither really has to adjust their fighting style or learn any new skills. Again, it's not a film-breaking reveal, but it’s not as interesting as it could have been otherwise. The film still manages to pull of some true cheer-worthy moments, such as when Superman and Krypto work together to defeat Ultraman and the score swells once more as Superman flies up into the sky to deliver a knockout power set show-off moment against an army of Raptors, so there’s some give and take. The confrontation where Superman advocates for Lex’s humanity after Mr. Terrific closes the rift from Luthorcorp might be worth that whole fight by itself; it’s a moment that should go straight to the character’s all-time highlight reel. Also, I couldn’t figure out where else to work this in, but since we’re talking about character reveals, the Milly Alcock cameo as Supergirl once Superman gets back to the fortress under the care of the restored Superman robots is supremely fun, and the revelation that Krypto is in fact her dog has had every audience I’ve watched this with go “oh, yeah, that makes more sense.” Alcock is very fun in the scene despite barely a minute of screen time, and it’s an inspired move to make both the film’s mid-and-post-credits gags – both of which are great – have nothing to do with the setup for the next film (the mid-credits panel is straight out of “All-Star Superman”).  Closing Thoughts Overall, even as an imperfect project that doesn’t quite nail everything it sets out to do, I still think this is a really great Superman movie and a terrific start to the new DCU (though it’s hardly the “best” one amongst its namesakes, even if it does outclass nearly the entire DCEU by a pretty wide margin). The future of these heroes is finally back in hands that actually seem to know what to do with them, and with Supergirl less than a year away now (plus HBO Max’s Lanterns show coming early next year), I’m more than ready to jump back into Gunn and Safran’s sandbox to play with some new toys. (But first, I think I’m gonna watch Superman a whole bunch more times.)  - The Friendly Film Fan
 By Jacob Jones I love Superman. Ever since I was a child, when I saw Richard Donner’s original 1978 film for the first time – the first superhero movie I ever saw – I have loved Superman. Throughout the character’s 87-year history, the Man of Steel has undergone any number of changes whether to his look or to his method of heroism or to the essence of how his dual identity is divided. He’s fought and grappled with a wide variety of foes both average and bizarre, continued to spark debate amongst comic book and superhero fans regarding every facet of his existence, and continued to grow as a wider variety of storytellers and artists have sought to reflect the times in which he evolved. And yet, a few things remain consistent about the Big Blue Boy Scout that have endured through every power set change, outfit alteration, or new show-runner/director/artist at the helm: he’s an alien from the planet Krypton, he was sent to Earth as a child by his parents, his home world is gone, he was raised on a farm by a kindly couple, he has incredible superpowers, he helps people – always putting the needs of others over his own – and he never gives up on anyone.
Over the course of the past decade or so, Superman has been in a bit of a state of flux. While I won’t pretend to be knowledgeable enough about the comics side of things to be able to fully flesh out exactly what every change has meant, both the New 52 and DC Rebirth universes have altered the character in ways significant enough to affect the film side, chiefly in the storytelling of what’s been known as the DCEU (“DC Extended Universe”), which began with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel in 2013 and wrapped up with Blue Beetle – one of its most underrated inclusions – in August of 2023. To say that the DCEU yielded mixed results would be an understatement, as despite some healthy box office returns for certain of its entrants, its cultural impact leaves a significant amount to be desired as it failed to coalesce into anything meaningful, often feeling lost amongst the scramble to become an answer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s zeitgeist dominance. And, of course, the question of Superman’s place in all of it was constantly left up to question. Whether one does or doesn’t like Zack Snyder’s version of Superman is inconsequential to the results of the DCEU project; it failed, and so a reset was in order. Enter the newly-birthed DCU, now under the stewardship of The Suicide Squad director James Gunn and creative partner Peter Safran, which begins with – of all characters – Superman. Superman (2025) has no interest in re-examining the Man of Steel’s origins (well, in a sense…), so there’s no fundamental changes to the bones of how Clark Kent becomes the world’s most powerful hero. James Gunn dispenses with these points in order to set up the film’s story, which concerns a military conflict between the fictional nations of Boravia and Jarhanpur – their middle-eastern-sounding names are not a coincidence – in which Superman interfered, sparking controversy surrounding the hero’s ultimate motivations in a world which views his “truth, justice, and the human way” persona as not only old-fashioned but naïve in the context of its political consequences. In this sense, Gunn isn’t especially fascinated with who the character of Superman is – that much is abundantly made clear through David Corenswet’s frankly immaculate portrayal of this more modernized Kryptonian icon – so much as what he means to the world around him, what he ultimately represents, and how he can help humanity chart a new, more hopeful path forward. It’s the same mission that propelled comics like “All-Star Superman” and “What Ever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” to top-list status among comics fans, and enabled those and other comics to serve as this film’s primary inspirations. To that end, the spirit of Superman is alive and well in Gunn’s DCU launch-pad, as the emphasis of his abilities lies not with who he can beat in a fight, but who (or what) he can save in the face of disaster. Superman is the kind of hero who saved Frisky the cat from a tree in 1978, and in true Superman fashion, takes the time out of a Kaiju fight in Gunn’s film to save a helpless squirrel from being crushed to death. That said, there are plenty of thrilling fight sequences to behold as Superman squares off against foes like the Hammer of Boravia, Ultraman, the Engineer, and of course, the aforementioned Kaiju. And he’s not alone. Importantly, though the focus still rests on Superman’s capable shoulders, an abundance of fellow DC characters such as Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Mr. Terrific – who in this film are workshopping the moniker of the “Justice Gang” – as well as the superstar journalists of the Daily Planet (Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Steve Lombard, Cat Grant, and Perry White), also join the film’s sprawling cast of characters joining the fight (or at least observing it) against Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) as he tries to destroy not just Superman himself but his reputation as a protector of the planet. Of these supporting players, it’s Lois Lane, Mr. Terrific, and the Justice Gang that get the bulk of the non-Superman focus (at least on the hero side), with Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific being one of the film’s unexpected bright spots, as well as an underused but wonderfully fun first live-action appearance of one Krypto the Super-Dog. As to Superman’s love, Lois Lane, those who knew Rachel Brosnahan from her time on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel will hardly be surprised that she’s note-perfect for this part, and the film gives her plenty to work with, especially given her palpable chemistry with Corenswet during what turned out to be the performers’ chemistry read scene (the apartment interview, another Superman: The Movie callback). A common (and often understandable) strike against James Gunn’s films by those who enjoy them but would not necessarily call themselves super-fans is that he tends to over-rely on humor to get his movies across the finish line, and that humor doesn’t always work or sometimes gets tired by the time the third act kicks in. For my money, Superman’s humor works in lock-step with the film’s ultimate goals, and never seems to actually tire itself out despite how much of it the film contains. Where the film does stumble a bit is in regard to its story, the plotting of which is a tad convoluted for how simple the reveal of what’s going on turns out to be, and as to that reveal – while I won’t spoil any significant details – I’m not sure that treating real-world analogous subject matter in the way this film ultimately decides to makes a whole lot of sense or indeed does much good given how much the film already has to prove in terms of its necessity to the world we currently live in. There’s also the matter of the film’s villains, chief among them Superman’s arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor. There’s nothing particularly off about Nicholas Hoult’s portrayal of the bald technocrat – Hoult is a brilliant actor who continues to impress, inflecting little bits of vulnerability even where none are required – but when it comes to his motivations, which are often spelled out through exposition-heavy dialogue which Hoult is asked to make sound believable despite how clunky many of the lines are in nature, the film never quite brings them into focus in a way that lands. Alongside an Engineer whose characterization leaves a bit to be desired in a film that’s already trying to do a few too many things at once, Lex is the film’s singular weak point, to the degree that one major character can be. There is one major plot development in the film which will either definitely work or definitely won’t, but given the heavy spoiler nature of that development, I’ll save discussion of it for another time. Is Superman a perfect movie? No, not by a long shot, but the flaws it does contain may not ultimately be enough to keep it from creating the same feverish obsession around the hero that Richard Donner’s original film did when it first released in 1978, although there are quite a few more characters in here that have the potential to generate some of that fever for themselves (looking at you, Krypto). James Gunn’s introduction to his new DCU is full of the same spirit that propels the best versions of the titular character, with greater emphasis on Kal-El’s motivations as part of his human side than ever before, and David Corenswet is more than up to the task of embodying those aspirational qualities that Superman has always been about. If this is to be the launchpad for a new era of superheroism, there’s only one direction Gunn and Safran are pointing the genre towards: up, up, and away. I’m giving “Superman” an 8.6/10 - The Friendly Film Fan  by Jacob Jones If there’s one thing Steven Soderbergh knows how to do, it’s put in the work. The visionary director has already cranked out one film this year with Presence, and is releasing his second this weekend with Black Bag, a British spy thriller which sees Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett’s marriage tested as Kathryn (Blanchett) is among a group of agents suspected of leaking classified MI6 intel to a foreign government. The test for George (Fassbender) is one of loyalty – will it be to country or to spouse? And if it does turn out that Kathryn is guilty of treason, will he be able to do what it takes to rectify the situation, or will he be too late to do anything about it?
To a certain extent, Soderbergh’s filmography to this point has been all about what the audience is expected to bring to it and what he is expected to unveil to them over the course of each story: a workmanlike director for a working public. The catch is that on occasion he can get in his own way, and in more formal settings such as the one in which Black Bag finds itself, it can be a bit wearisome for him to get out of the way. Mercifully, Soderbergh’s plot doesn’t overstay its welcome, as the film clocks in at only an hour and thirty-three minutes, but getting to its end does require jumping through a few hoops without quite being able to see the ground beneath. It’s not so much a matter of format or styling; Presence is the experimental release this time around, whereas this film is significantly more straightforward. It’s simply that the film plays into its own nature too much for the audience to buy in when it wants them to, unless they’ve already decided to before the Focus Features logo shows up. The script, which is penned by David Koepp, is naturally secretive with certain details, but could be considered so secretive as to be overly complicated in a way that thinks it’s serving the story, when it’s only made more confusing by refusing to reveal key information to the audience that they would need to know in order to follow the story properly. Luckily, Soderbergh’s more straightforward films usually come gift wrapped with a game ensemble of character actors and some of the world’s finest performers from sea to shining sea, Black Bag being no different as every famous British supporting actor from Regé-Jean Page to Marisa Abela to Naomie Harris, Tom Burke, and even Pierce Brosnan show up to play their part in some of the most immaculate costuming a spy thriller has had outside of the Bond franchise (thank you, Ellen Mirojnick). To the degree that any of them can clarify what’s going on in the admittedly vague script, they do so with a stylish aplomb, none more so than Blanchett – who unfortunately is less central to driving the story than the marketing would have one believe – and Fassbender, the clear lead of the film by the time the ball gets rolling. It’s their relationship as a married couple that offers the film its sleekness, its sex appeal, and yet so much time is spent with other characters and other relationships away from the two of them that it seems the script is more interested in the idea of their monogamous loyalty than in the characters themselves. There’s fun to be had with that course of action, to be sure, particularly in the exploration of how infidelity infects relationships built on careers made entirely of secrets and lies, but it does leave some room for error with the film’s adherence to a plot that’s simultaneously too unfocused to the audience and narratively complex to its characters. The saving grace of every Soderbergh film akin to this one is the third act reveal, the info-dump that reveals which characters have known what’s been going on the whole time and why they know it; to its credit, Black Bag does pay off in a largely satisfying way, but one can’t help but imagine what that reveal might have been like if the audience were shown certain pieces of the puzzle being solved beforehand instead of just being told about them all at the same moment. Truthfully, there’s only one or two scenes that reveal information critical to the plot’s changing over the course of the film, but neither gets the audience closer to the truth along with the characters; the third act reveal has to catch viewers up itself, and by that time one begins to wonder if anyone was supposed to know where this was all meant to be going or get clued in by any earlier information. All that said, there is some satisfaction to be had in watching this ensemble throw their weight around on what amounts to a Sunday matinee type of project, and it’s far from outright boring despite the presence of a few scenes that could easily be sent to the cutting room floor; in that sense, it’s more of a showcase for each actor’s greater range of skill, allowing the audience to watch these famous people do what they do best: look great while delivering vague dialogue in a medium close-up shot. With that alone, there’s enough to recommend it as a positive moviegoing experience – including some rather sleek editing choices and Michael Fassbender in some truly well-fitting black turtlenecks which indicate someone clearly watched X-Men: First Class recently and finally answered the question "why isn't he wearing those all the time?” – but not quite enough to hail it as one of the best movies of the year to date. And if one is looking for an access point to understanding Soderbergh as a filmmaker, this isn’t likely to be the starting point I’d choose. Still, for this early in the year, one could do significantly worse. I’m giving “Black Bag” a 6.8/10 - The Friendly Film Fan  by Jacob Jones The 97th Annual Academy Awards took place Sunday night, once again held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, and hosted by Conan O’Brien. The legendary television host made a real game of the night, taking cracks at everyone from Drake to the President Trump to Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón herself (who was in attendance). Some bits worked, very few didn’t, and even when the night ran a little long, he always seemed to be having a good time. The big news of the night was that Sean Baker – writer, director, editor, and producer of the film Anora – took home four Oscars, including one for Best Picture of the Year; this makes Baker only the second person to take home four Oscars in the same night after Walt Disney, and the first to win them all for the same movie. Mikey Madison also triumphed over expected winner Demi Moore in Best Actress, bringing Anora’s grand total to five wins, losing only one for which it was nominated (Best Supporting Actor for Yura Borisov) to A Real Pain’s Kieran Culkin.  Among other winners were the documentary feature film No Other Land (which as of this writing still lacks U.S. distribution) for which both the Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers gave impassioned speeches advocating against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine itself, Janus Film’ Latvian animation Flow, which took home Best Animated Feature, and Walter Salles’ Brazilian submission to the Oscars, I’m Still Here, which took home the award for Best International Feature, leaving Emilia Pérez – the most nominated film of the night – with only two wins for Best Original Song (“El Mal”) and Best Supporting Actress, which went to Zoe Saldaña to cap off a clean awards season sweep. The Brutalist also took home three wins for Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Actor, which went to Adrien Brody, marking his second win in the category and denying Timothée Chalamet the opportunity to break Brody’s record of being the youngest person to ever win the Best Actor Oscar. Wicked and Dune: Part Two also won two Oscars each in the expected categories, with each Dune team giving special shout-outs to Director Denis Villeneuve, whom the Academy failed to recognize for his titanic achievement in adapted Frank Herbert’s iconic sci-fi novel. Of course, The Substance took home the award for Best Makeup & Hairstyling in a landslide victory, and Conclave concluded its winning run in Best Adapted Screenplay.  Overall, it was a solid list of winners over the course of a rather average Oscars night, all things considered. Personally, I only missed five predictions (three of which were in the Shorts categories, a widely agreed-upon mess of winners), with my largest unpaid risk being predicting Conclave for Best Film Editing over Anora. Still, some of the larger risks I took – like Flow in Animated Feature – did pay off, so I can hardly complain. In any case, here’s hoping for a slightly less exhausting awards press cycle next year, and a long year of great movies ahead. (Speaking of a long year, I’ve got some catching up to do…) A full list of the winners is below.  What did you think of the Oscars last night? Did you do well on your ballot? Let us know in the comments section below, and thanks for reading! - The Friendly Film Fan Full Winners List
Best Picture: Anora Best Director: Sean Baker, Anora Best Actress in a Leading Role: Mikey Madison, Anora Best Actor in a Leading Role: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain Best Animated Feature: Flow (Latvia) Best International Feature: I’m Still Here (Brazil) Best Documentary Feature: No Other Land Best Cinematography: Lol Crawley, The Brutalist Best Film Editing: Sean Baker, Anora Best Production Design: Nathan Crowley, Wicked Best Costume Design: Paul Tazewell, Wicked Best Makeup & Hairstyling: The Substance Best Original Score: Daniel Blumberg, The Brutalist Best Original Song: “El Mal,” Emilia Pérez Best Adapted Screenplay: Peter Straughn, Conclave Best Original Screenplay: Sean Baker, Anora Best Visual Effects: Dune: Part Two Best Sound: Dune: Part Two Best Live-Action Short: I’m Not a Robot Best Animated Short: In the Shadow of the Cypress Best Documentary Short: The Only Girl in the Orchestra  The Friendly Film Fan Selects What Will and What Should Win at 97th Annual Ceremony. by Jacob Jones Greetings all, and welcome back to The Friendly Film Fan! We are one mere day away from the 97th Annual Academy Awards and the end of a very long and chaotic awards season. Front-runners have come and gone, momentum has shifted dramatically from where it once was, and entire years have passed in the broader socio-political atmosphere between January 1 and well, today. With all that said, there is one final task ahead of us, and that’s to make our guesses for what will take home the gold tomorrow night. We’ll go category-by-category, the same as we did with our nomination predictions, and offer up our Will Wins and our Should Wins, as well as the Could Steals that might take things home in a toss-up, Dark Horses not nearly enough people are paying attention to, and at least one or more films that should have been nominated per category (excluding the shorts due to their relative obscurity during the course of the year). BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT The Nominees:
Will Win: I Am Ready, Warden Could Steal: Incident Dark Horse: The Only Girl in the Orchestra Should Have Been Nominated: N/A While I unfortunately didn’t get an opportunity to see Death by Numbers, initial research indicates that it may not have had a very strong chance of winning this category anyway, despite its deeply complicated subject matter (then again, with my luck, it could end up winning anyway). All signs point to I Am Ready, Warden as the eventual victor in this category, but while I certainly hold the opinion that the imperfect and deeply complex short doc would not be an unworthy winner on the whole, our hearts remain with Instruments of a Beating Heart, which follows a young girl as she overcomes obstacles both mental and emotional, learning alongside maybe the most supportive group of children I’ve ever encountered to take joy in the small triumphs. It may be the simplest of the nominees by a long shot in terms of its subject matter, but that doesn’t mean it’s not also the most effective at telling its story. BEST ANIMATED SHORT The Nominees:
Will Win: Wander to Wonder Could Steal: In the Shadow of the Cypress Dark Horse: Beautiful Men Should Have Been Nominated: N/A All momentum here points to Wander to Wonder winning this category, but given the metaphors present in In the Shadow of the Cypress, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it take home the gold either. In a not particularly strong category this year, either would be a worthy winner. BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT The Nominees:
Will Win: A Lien Could Steal: The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent Dark Horse: The Last Ranger Should Have Been Nominated: N/A I was admittedly unable to see both The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent and The Last Ranger due to schedule constraints and lack of general availability outside of theaters, and the live-action shorts are always the hardest to find when the Oscars shortlists are first released in December, so I’ll abstain from a “Should Win/Should Have Been Nominated” in this category. That said, I do have a particular favorite of the three I did see, and that’s A Lien, which came along at just the right time in Oscar voting post-inauguration for us to be confident that it can win the category given its subject and the scathing block of text which appears at its end. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if either The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent or The Last Ranger took the award home, or even if Mindy Kaling and Netflix had enough campaign power with Anuja that none of my current choices actually grabbed the gold. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see. BEST SOUND The Nominees:
Will Win: Dune: Part Two Could Steal: N/A Dark Horse: The Wild Robot Should Have Been Nominated/Shortlisted: Civil War or Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Despite the presence of no less than three musically-driven movies, this award remains poised to go to Dune: Part Two without a flight of doubt. I did put The Wild Robot in the Dark Horse spot in the unlikely event things go incredibly sideways, but there’s basically no chance of that happening, so if need be, its chances in this category can be entirely disregarded (but its presence here is important for its chances of winning Best Animated Feature). BEST VISUAL EFFECTS The Nominees:
Will Win: Dune: Part Two Could Steal: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Dark Horse: Wicked Should Have Been Nominated: Civil War The five selections for VFX this year were almost a done deal before the nominations even happened, so there’s little room for a surprise winner either, given Dune: Part Two’s gargantuan success in both this category and Best Sound up to now with various other guild awards and critics groups. If one film were to take the award away, it should be Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, especially given the more recent Apes films all lost the award to larger movies released in the same years they were released, but I’d advise caution on underestimating the Academy’s love for Wicked here, so if there is to be an egregious upset, don’t be surprised to see that film at the mic. BEST ORIGNAL SCREENPLAY The Nominees:
Will Win: Sean Baker, Anora Could Steal: Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain Dark Horse: Coralie Fargeat, The Substance Should Have Been Nominated: Justin Kuritzkes, Challengers The original screenplay category this year is also more-or-less what was expected, though for some time there was a question of whether Challengers or September 5 would take that fifth slot, or indeed if the Academy would have the stones to nominate a hard-genre body horror extravaganza like The Substance, a subgenre they typically avoid at all costs. The unfortunate consequence of September 5’s presence here is Challengers’ absence, one of too many for this year’s Oscars. The toss-up is between Sean Baker’s Anora and Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, both written and directed by each of them respectively, and even at this late stage of the race, it’s unknown just how strong each of them is. Anora has the Best Picture momentum behind it, as well as numerous other accolades including a WGA win in this category, but A Real Pain did just take home the Indie Spirit Award and the BAFTA win, so there’s a chance it takes the category after all. Watch out for The Substance, though, especially with the Best Actress momentum it has, and the fact that it got nominated in Picture and Director; body horror may not be the Academy’s thing, but women’s issues and bodily autonomy are, and a win in Best Screenplay at the Cannes film festival doesn’t mean nothing with an increasingly international voting body. BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY The Nominees:
Will Win: Peter Straughan, Conclave Could Steal: N/A Dark Horse: RaMell Ross & Joslyn Barnes, Nickel Boys Should Have Been Nominated: Jon Spaihts & Denis Villeneuve, Dune: Part Two This category seems tightly shut, as nothing has yet been able to oust Conclave from a victory in Adapted Screenplay at any awards ceremony for which it was deemed eligible. Its only real challenger would be Nickel Boys, which took home the WGA prize, but even that would be a longshot, as Conclave was not eligible for a WGA nomination due to the organization’s submission rules. I’d be happy to see it go to Sing Sing as well, but given how that film was more or less forgotten by the Academy and its distribution studio’s own marketing department, it’s an even longer shot than Nickel Boys. Still, as long as Emilia Pérez loses here, I’m fine with just about any other winner (though A Complete Unknown – while surprising – would be kind of a boring upset choice). BEST ORIGINAL SONG The Nominees:
Will Win: “El Mal,” Emilia Pérez Could Steal: “Mi Camino,” Emilia Pérez Dark Horse: N/A Should Have Been Nominated/Shortlisted: “Claw Machine,” I Saw the TV Glow This is “El Mal’s” award to lose unfortunately, so it would be foolish to predict an upset from anything in this category except perhaps “Mi Camino,” but even then, it’s highly unlikely that the single scene safeguarding Zoe Saldaña’s eventual Oscar win from slipping away leaves the Dolby empty-handed. This is just one of two awards Emilia Pérez is practically guaranteed this year, and given all the blowback the film has begotten recently, it may be one of only two the Academy will ever be willing to acknowledge. That said, in a weaker field than usual this year for the Oscars’ weakest non-shorts category, “The Journey” provides an opportunity for the Academy to finally reward category mainstay Diane Warren, once and for all ending the need to keep nominating songs from movies far below the Academy’s standard of quality and guaranteeing them Oscars attention. Of course, it helps that it’s one of only two songs in the category I can even remember the main themes to, but really, it would just be a relief not to have to withhold a spot from a more deserving song next year just so Warren can lose a seventeenth time. BEST ORIGINAL SCORE The Nominees:
Will Win: Daniel Blumberg, The Brutalist Could Steal: Volker Bertelmann, Conclave Dark Horse: John Powell & Stephen Schwartz, Wicked Should Have Been Nominated: Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Challengers I could rant and rave for hours about Dune: Part Two’s score being rendered ineligible for even a nomination in this category despite Wicked landing a nod, but with Challengers also being egregiously snubbed out of the game despite Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross’ immaculate work, I’ll chalk those two terrible choices up to a desperately needed overhaul of the entire Academy music branch. It seems like a forgone conclusion, in Challengers’ absence, that this award will go to Daniel Blumberg for his incredible symphonic work on The Brutalist (a score by which we now train our cats to wait for breakfast), a well deserved win for easily the best score in this category. There’s an outside chance that Volker Bertelmann could win his second Oscar for Conclave, but realistically speaking, who wouldn’t want to hear those Brutalist overture horns when Blumberg’s name is called? BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING The Nominees:
Will Win: The Substance Could Steal: N/A Dark Horse: Emilia Pérez Should Have Been Nominated: Dune: Part Two The easiest award to predict of the night by a country mile, there’s no chance anything but The Substance wins here. Perhaps Emilia Pérez could pull off one of the worst upsets in Oscars history, but we wouldn’t bet on it. The real crime here is how the Academy seemed to forget that just because Austin Butler doesn’t have hair in Dune: Part Two doesn’t mean the film’s Makeup & Hairstyling chances are rendered moot. BEST COSTUME DESIGN The Nominees:
Will Win: Paul Tazewell, Wicked Could Steal: N/A Dark Horse: Arianne Phillips, A Complete Unknown Should Have Been Nominated: Jacqueline West, Dune: Part Two Yet another terrible snub for Dune: Part Two, which produced some of the most iconic costume designs in sci-fi history, not the least of which are the Reverend Mothers’ robes and Florence Pugh’s various outfits throughout the film. Perhaps the thinking here is that so much of the primary costuming – namely the stillsuits – was already introduced in Part One that there wasn’t enough new material to garner a nomination, but I digress. In any case, this is Wicked’s award to lose, but would caution readers not to underestimate the Academy’s clear passion for A Complete Unknown, a film with far less elaborate costuming that still captures an iconic era in American music rather well. BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN The Nominees:
Will Win: Nathan Crowley, Wicked Could Steal: Judy Becker, The Brutalist Dark Horse: Craig Lathrop, Nosferatu Should Have Been Nominated: Arthur Max, Gladiator II To be honest, I’m not quite sure why Gladiator II was passed over for Production Design, even if AMPAS doesn’t seem to have a ton of love for it in the first place. Could Conclave’s momentum be such that we all underestimated just how liked it is by most of the Academy? I’d like to see either The Brutalist or Wicked take this award home, as both have some spectacular production design on display, the earlier for period design and the latter for fantasy. Still, Wicked seems to have the edge here, so I’m inclined to predict it, even if an upset by The Brutalist wouldn’t surprise me at all. BEST FILM EDITING The Nominees:
Will Win: Nick Emerson, Conclave Could Steal: Sean Baker, Anora Dark Horse: Dávid Janscó, The Brutalist Should Have Been Nominated: Joe Walker, Dune: Part Two How many times can I see in one predictions piece that Dune: Part Two was egregiously snubbed in almost half the tech categories Part One managed to win for? Joe Walker’s god-tier editing being passed over just so the Academy can over-nominate Emilia Pérez again and again or hand Wicked a nomination it doesn’t deserve should be a criminal offense in all established entertainment law, and I will never forgive the editor’s branch this breach of trust. That said, either Anora or Conclave would be worthy winners, though I would personally prefer the latter, and do believe that it will take home the award, if only due to the larger ones Anora is almost sure to receive later on. BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY The Nominees:
Will Win: Lol Crowley, The Brutalist Could Steal: Jarin Blaschke, Nosferatu Dark Horse: Edward Lachmann, Maria Should Have Been Nominated: Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Challengers and Jomo Fray, Nickel Boys Once again, what about the cinematography in Emilia Pérez makes it so special that the Academy not only gives it a nomination, but outright ignores Nickel Boys’ novel approach to telling its story, or bypasses the insane creative choices in Challengers altogether? If you’ve watched the film, you already know what the answer is. If you haven’t, here’s the answer: not a damn thing. And despite Greig Fraser’s previous win in this category for Dune Part One, it’s unlikely that this becomes a repeat Oscar with momentum pointing to The Brutalist for a win here. Personally, I’d like to see this go to Nosferatu, which is full of incredible photography, and demonstrates to studios everywhere that you can do nighttime/dark scenes while still being able to see what’s going on; you just have to know how to light your sets. BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE The Nominees:
Will Win: No Other Land Could Steal: Porcelain War Dark Horse: Sugarcane Should Have Been Nominated: N/A There are a few documentaries from the shortlists that I have yet to catch up to as of this writing – The Bibi Files, Daughters, Frida, and Porcelain War are the missing pieces, with the last of them being particularly hard to find – but from what I’m able to gather, we may be in for a situation wherein No Other Land, which still lacks U.S. distribution, becomes the winner here, especially due to the amount of abstains Academy members have admitted to giving this category this year, leaving the more passionate documentary viewers with the majority power in the voting. Of course, being too hopeful for a win for that film can be dangerous, especially as Porcelain War did win the DGA for Documentary Filmmaking, and garnered a PGA nomination (although it lost to Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which did not make the Oscars shortlist). It seems probable that if enough of the Academy simply hasn’t watched No Other Land – or worse, refuses to – Porcelain War could end up taking the victory. It would be neat to see Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat win here, as it’s my personal favorite doc of the year, but I wouldn’t count on it. BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM The Nominees:
Will Win: I’m Still Here (Brazil) Could Steal: Emilia Pérez (France) Dark Horse: N/A Should Have Been Nominated: N/A As I have not gotten to watch all of the International films on the shortlist either, I’m abstaining from picking a “Should Have Been Nominated” in this category, and throwing my weight behind both Flow, which hails from Latvia, and the incredible I'm Still Here, which has the most passionate fanbase for an international film I have seen since Parasite, managing to push it all the way into Best Picture out of seemingly nowhere (pro tip: never underestimate Brazilians). Either would be a worthy winner, but it seems like the latter has all the momentum behind it right now, especially with a Best Actress nomination for Fernanda Torres to show for it. If it can manage a win over Emilia Pérez, I won’t necessarily be shocked, but I will be delighted. BEST ANIMATED FEATURE The Nominees:
Will Win: Flow Could Steal: The Wild Robot Dark Horse: Memoir of a Snail Should Have Been Nominated: Transformers One Let’s be real: Transformers One didn’t have a shot at a nomination here, despite being one of the six or seven best animated films released last year, mostly due to its being ignored basically everywhere up to that point, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have been a worthy contender anyway. Personally, I would have swapped Inside Out 2 for it, but the power of Disney and Pixar is so ubiquitous at this point, I’m already predicting Elio to garner a nomination next year. The Wild Robot’s reach is so long I’m not sure Flow's chances are quite enough to overcome DreamWorks’ most popular and beloved animated film in over a decade, but The Friendly Film Fan is a place for hope, so at the risk of an imperfect below-the-line ballot, I'm predicting that as a small upset (plus, it does give the Academy a chance to acknowledge international animation outside of the Shorts categories, which isn't nothing). To be clear, I’d be fine with either of them winning, but the themes in Flow put it a step above for me personally, and I’d love to see that little black cat get some well-deserved love for navigating its complex ideas so beautifully. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR The Nominees:
Will Win: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain Could Steal: N/A Dark Horse: Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown Should Have Been Nominated: Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing For a minute, it didn’t seem as though that fifth spot in this category had any concrete candidate. Jonathan Bailey landed the SAG nod, but so did Jeremy Strong, whereas Guy Pearce was the one who missed out for his work in The Brutalist, so which would prevail with the Academy? Then, just before nominations were due to be announced, there was a slight surge in momentum for The Apprentice, bolstered by the increasingly international Academy, and widening the voting field of view yielded slightly different results to come up with a five I was comfortable with, despite knowing that meant Clarence Maclin would get unfairly passed over for his incredible performance in Sing Sing. Personally, I think Pearce or Strong should be walking away with this, but it’s a foregone conclusion after his awards season sweep that Kieran Culkin will bring A Real Pain its only guaranteed award of the night. It’s a terrific performance in an otherwise just pretty great movie, but I just find myself more impressed with the ones I already mentioned (apart from Jonathan Bailey). BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS The Nominees:
Will Win: Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez Could Steal: N/A Dark Horse: Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown Should Have Been Nominated: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Nickel Boys or Margaret Qualley, The Substance Nominations in Best Supporting Actress weren’t easy to predict. Would the Academy forget about Felicity Jones due to not watching the second half of The Brutalist? Did Isabelle Rossellini have enough impact in her short amount of screen time to stick in voters’ minds? Could Monica Barbaro become to first member of Top Gun: Maverick’s supporting cast to garner a performance Oscar nomination following that film’s release? We all got our answers once the nominees were announced, but it is a shame that at least one or two of those answers came at the expense of both Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor’s soulful work in Nickel Boys and Margaret Qualley’s career-best work in The Substance. Either would have been a worthy contender in this category, but just like with Best Supporting Actor, the awards season clean sweep is sure to culminate in Zoe Saldaña taking home the award for being the only part of Emilia Pérez actually worth any Oscar nominations at all (and we can all still pretend it’s actually for her work as Neytiri in the Avatar films). BEST ACTOR The Nominees:
Will Win: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist Could Steal: Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown Dark Horse: Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice Should Have Been Nominated: N/A While Timothée Chalamet did end up taking home the SAG award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, voting for the Oscars had already closed by the time that ceremony aired, so his true-to-self, frank speech wouldn’t have won over any voters despite how refreshing it likely was for actors to hear one of their own state that actually, he is trying to be counted among the greats. It’s not impossible that Chalamet is that film’s sole win of the night, especially not with the press run he’s been on lately (one of the all-time great press runs in recent memory for a single performer) and the fact that he’d be the youngest winner ever – breaking the record set by fellow nominee Adrien Brody in 2003 – but this new Academy has been showing us since Olivia Colman’s surprise Best Actress win back in 2019 that it doesn’t necessarily care what precedent or narrative works best, or even whether someone’s won an Oscar already (remember Emma Stone last year?). Brody’s performance is simply undeniable, his best since he won in 2003 for The Pianist, and I find it highly unlikely that the A.I. accent non-troversy actually affected many Academy members who were planning on voting for him anyway. Still, in a toss-up where both candidates end up cancelling each other’s votes, watch out for Sebastian Stan’s banner year to sneak in a major upset here, if there is to be one at all. BEST ACTRESS The Nominees:
Will Win: Demi Moore, The Substance Could Steal: Mikey Madison, Anora or Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here Dark Horse: N/A Should Have Been Nominated: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths Not only should Marianne Jean-Baptiste be nominated in this category, she should be in the lead for a win (and if you read our 2025 Friendly Film Fan Awards, you know true justice was done there). Personally, I’d be okay with either Mikey Madison or Demi Moore taking this one, and with her SAG award in hand, it looks like Demi Moore is finally going to get her flowers (though don’t be shocked if Mikey Madison’s BAFTA win comes in handy here). There’s not really a Dark Horse candidate in this race anymore what with the brand-new controversies Karla Sofía Gascón seems to hand the Emilia Pérez PR team every other day, but if Fernanda Torres managed to capture a split-vote decision up the middle to take the stage, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. She is incredible in I’m Still Here, and it would be just as worthy a win as the other two likely candidates. BEST DIRECTOR The Nominees:
Will Win: Sean Baker, Anora Could Steal: Brady Corbet, The Brutalist Dark Horse: James Mangold, A Complete Unknown Should Have Been Nominated: Denis Villeneuve, Dune: Part Two The Academy has snubbed Denis Villeneuve in Best Director for his Dune films in favor of far less worthy candidates twice. Let’s read that again. The Academy Awards has snubbed Denis Villeneuve in Best Director for his Dune films in favor of far less worthy candidates…TWICE. At this point, I’m expecting them to blank out on nominations for Dune: Messiah altogether. Regardless, Brady Corbet should be winning this award for bringing such an extraordinary vision to life on such a small budget with such an epic scope, and there’s a small chance he still does take the win in a split Director/Picture ceremony, as the Academy has been known to do more than a few times recently. However, with the DGA win having gone to Sean Baker for his direction of Anora, and given his star has finally risen to the mainstream, it seems likely that the Academy will finally “anoint” him with a win here not only for that film but for his body of work up to now, the same way they did Christopher Nolan last year despite his already having major mainstream success beforehand. Still, the real point of this category is that the Academy has snubbed Denis Villeneuve in Best Director for his Dune films in favor of far less worthy candidates…twice. (Also, who did Luca Guadagnino piss off at AMPAS to get both of his films this year and all of his films since Call Me By Your Name completely ignored in every category?) BEST PICTURE The Nominees:
Will Win: Anora Could Steal: The Brutalist or Conclave Dark Horse: A Complete Unknown Should Have Been Nominated: Sing Sing There are more than a few worthy contenders in Best Picture this year, give or take an Emilia Pérez stinking up the whole row, but with its PGA victory well in hand, Anora seems poised to take this win all the way to the finish line. Personally, I would like to see The Brutalist take it, and wouldn’t be surprised to see Conclave slowly crawl its way to a win here, but given Edward Berger was left out of Best Director, without an ensemble award to anchor it, the only way it could achieve success would be to pull a Spotlight, winning only Screenplay and Picture – tough, but not impossible, especially with its recent wins at SAG and BAFTA. The most interesting wins in terms of what Best Picture means to the filmmaking world as a whole and the doors those wins would open would come from a victory for Nickel Boys or The Substance, but the latter is still an unusual thing for the Academy to nominated in the first place, and the former barely squeaked in with only an Adapted Screenplay nomination to its name outside of this field. Even an I’m Still Here win would make for a rather interesting result, as it would indicate that the internationality of the Academy is far stronger than previously thought. All that said, Sing Sing’s absence from this field is a travesty, especially considering more than a few Academy members have outright admitted to simply not having watched it at all. In any just world, it wouldn’t simply be a nominee, it would be a Moonlight-esque nominee with a real shot at taking down the big candidates for a surprise win. Alas, A24 dropped the ball on its release; a summer window may have actually helped it stay in the conversation. And those are our predictions for the 97th Annual Academy Awards! What are you predicting to take home the gold? Anything you’re hoping pulls off an upset? Let us know in the comments section below, and thanks for reading!
- The Friendly Film Fan  The Friendly Film Fan Names the Victors in 9th Annual Race! Hello, all, and welcome back to The Friendly Film Fan! Hopefully you’ve all had a chance to catch up with our Friendly Film Fan Awards nominees over the past couple of days, and what a fun ride it’s been getting to do all of this smack in the middle of Oscar season, demonstrating to the Academy that no matter how much they ignore Challengers or under-nominated Dune: Part Two, some of us still watch everything we nominate for awards at the end of the year. With the Oscars just two days away and the bulk of our awards coverage pivoting to that over the rest of the weekend, it’s time to unveil the winners for the 9th Annual Friendly Film Fan Awards! Winners will be marked in bold alongside their fellow nominees in each category and paired with a brief description of how we chose each one. Let’s get started!  Best Sound Design:
Before most people see a movie, they hear it. The opening studio logo music, or the audio design playing over those same logos as they flash across the screen to let you know the film you’re watching means business. Think of Mad Max: Fury Road, Edge of Tomorrow, or a surprising amount of action comedies that begin in the same fashion. Some movies’ sounds, though, stick with you long after the credits have rolled. The visceral whiz of a sniper shot, the cacophony of an explosion, the cracks of gunfire during a raid in a major city. Civil War doesn’t just show you what kind of movie it is, it lets you hear what kind of world it inhabits, and every tension-filled sequence in it uses sound to its maximum potential.  Best Visual Effects:
While there were some more realistic VFX on display this year, nothing served up visual spectacle on the big screen quite like Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two. From the sandworms to the spice harvesters to any number of created environments, no film produced a better blend of CG and practical effects to immerse the viewer into its world than this one. It doesn’t just intrigue or surprise its audience; it demands their awe. It may be an obvious choice, especially in a category often full of obvious choices, but who says it isn’t also the right one?  Best Screenplay:
This category we struggled with for a good long while. We loved the back-and-forth banter in Anora, the layered jabs at other characters in Challengers, the raw humanity of Sing Sing, and the nuanced dysphoria in the dialogue of I Saw the TV Glow. One film, though, managed to combine all of these elements while staying entirely true to its tightrope of tone, and that’s Aaron Schimberg’s masterful dark comedy A Different Man. Not only does this film contain some of the most layered and thoughtful dialogue of the year, it’s also quite funny in a lot of unexpected places where almost any other film would fall completely apart. We absolutely adored its insightful commentary on self-image, insecurity, and obsession, and can’t wait to see what Aaron Schimberg puts his pen to next.  Best Score:
The opening sirens of The Brutalist and the strings section of Nosferatu’s scoring band may go far harder than they need to, but no movie score quite defined the year in movies or the film it came from like that of Challengers, which comes to us from Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, their finest work since The Social Network. Borrowing a lot from some particular tracks of that latter film, Reznor & Ross have not only brough electronic scoring to a whole new level in film, but might have resurrected the idea of techno music in movie soundtracks single-handedly. Between this and the release of Charlie XCX’s Brat album, clubs all over the place have plenty of new material to work with, but this particular film score is where it all came back.  Best Character Design:
Costume Design is one thing, but combining it with Makeup & Hairstyling to create fully realized characters through looks alone is another thing entirely. If both elements aren’t working together in perfect harmony, the visual look of a movie can fall apart rather quickly. Luckily, the team behind The Substance was not only able to create some truly grotesque body horror imagery, but also able to style that horror appropriately for every minute it appeared on screen. Even when the body horror wasn’t rearing its ugly head, the costuming and styling of the film lent so much weight both to the characters in the film and the message it so clearly wants to send.  Best Production Design:
Don’t get us wrong, the physical sets in Wicked – including those Tulip fields – were indeed astoundifying, and the design of the sietches in Dune: Part Two looked great, but neither of them truly held a candle for us against the building of an entire Roman colosseum in which to stage epic combat sequences. Beyond that, however, every other piece of each set in Gladiator II lends to that design’s impact, especially when juxtaposed against the practical sets of palaces, stables, and the Roman streets themselves. Even if there were other films we enjoyed more on the whole, there was no created world which felt more fully immersive than that of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator sequel.  Best Film Editing:
Another egregious snub by the Academy in favor of an over-nominated musical and another over-nominated musical, Dune: Part Two might well be the most perfectly edited film of the year, masterfully paced and beautifully cut. Not a single moment goes by without feeling fully realized, and not one scene or character included in the adaptation feels short-changed as a result of the film’s storytelling. They say that performances are made on set, but the movie is made in the edit bay, and if we had our way, Joe Walker would have walked away with a second Oscar by Sunday’s end.  Best Cinematography:
It was yet another days-long struggle in this category as we went back and forth between three different candidates, all of whom would have been worthy winners, but in the end, despite the novelty of Nickel Boys’ approach to its storytelling and the grandiosity and scope of The Brutalist, we couldn’t help but fall head over heels with the cinematography of Robert Eggers’ adaptation of Nosferatu. Cinematography is more than just how a shot is framed or how a camera moves; it’s also lighting design and color grading, which lenses to use and when, light and shadow. Jarin Blaschke demonstrates with Nosferatu that not only does he know these tricks of the trade, he’s better at using them than most DPs will ever become, and his collaborations with Eggers should become entire courses in film classes across the globe. We can’t wait to hear what project he attaches himself to next.  Best Stunt Ensemble:
It would have been easy to give the Best Stunts award to the movie that celebrates stunt work, and in some fashion, it would deserve that win; after all, The Fall Guy does feature some incredible stunt work, but for our money, there was no more visceral or thrilling stunt work than in India’s action sensation, Kill. Sure, it’s mostly hand-to-hand fight choreography along the narrow corridors of a passenger train, but it can be difficult to keep upping that sense of danger once you’ve pulled out the move of narrowing the field of view; even Bullet Train’s characters didn’t stay on the train the entire time. Kill not only manages this task with one of the wildest title card drops of 2024, but consistently and constantly continues to innovate on the moment in which it finds itself by introducing some of the most bone-crunching stunts found outside of a John Wick film.  Best Acting Ensemble:
Anora’s ensemble made us laugh, Sing Sing’s made us cry, Dune: Part Two’s held us in awe, and Nosferatu’s took us to places we didn’t even know they were capable of taking us. But Conclave gave us the messy, Mean-Girls-in-the-Vatican-esque gossip show we never knew we needed, and they delivered in spades as a collective. Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini, John Lithgow, Sergio Castellitto, Carlos Diehz, and Lucian Msamati all turn in some of the best work of their careers in a collection of scenes designed specifically for each one of them to have a moment to shine. In any hands but Edward Berger’s, Conclave could have turned into a self-important slog, a needless lecture on the meaning of faith and its importance to the world, but with him at the helm, and this ensemble waiting in the wings, it turned out to be one of the best times audiences had at the movies all year.  Best Supporting Actress:
Margaret Qualley is far from a breakthrough performer, with appearances in Tarantino, Shane Black, Claire Denis, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Ethan Coen films, but The Substance takes her to a whole other level. Her sheer confidence and magnetism is the driving force of the film’s second act, her hubris the impetus for beginning its third. This may not be a breakthrough per se, but it is a star-making performance, the kind that’s sure to catapult a steadily rising actress to superstardom in just a few short years, and it’s high time we gave her her flowers not only for all the work she’s already done, but for the mega-star that was born in front of our very eyes as we “pumped it up.”  Best Supporting Actor:
Sometimes supporting performances are instantaneous star-makers; other times they’re discoveries that yield something deeper and more meaningful than just fame or notoriety – they introduce us to souls bursting with talent and ready to show us a deeper side of ourselves; that’s Clarence Maclin, the greatest gift Sing Sing has to offer its viewers. Maclin imbues the film with the humanity it so desperately clings to, refusing to let its cast become caricatures and likewise denying its audience the opportunity to think about its cast in that way. He is the anchor on which the most crucial elements of the film sit, and he’s more than up to the task of holding the script’s weight in his own lap. For these reasons and more, he is our choice for Best Supporting Actor.  Best Actress:
How does one understand the people around oneself who are so angry, so thorny, so unhappy with everything that they make everyone around them miserable? Perhaps we’re not meant to understand, and there is no answer to this question, yet we cannot say that they are any less human than us; that’s the thesis at the heart of Mike Leigh’s deceptively cutting Hard Truths, and it’s that sort of person that Marianne Jean-Baptiste brings so vividly to life in a performance one truly has to see to believe. Jean-Baptiste shouldn’t just be nominated for an Oscar this year, she should be winning it. Fortunately, there’s something better for her at the Friendly Film Fan Awards: our undying support and respect for her work, and the love of two brand-new superfans.  Best Actor:
Saying that someone has won an award before has never made sense to us as a reason not to award them again, and one area in which we feel the Academy will agree with us is in the fact that there was no better performance this year than that of Adrien Brody in The Brutalist. (Yes, we know about the A.I. accent modification – we also know that so little of it was used so as to be relatively ineffective when paired against the performance as a whole, so let’s be normal about that.) His best turn in film since 2002’s The Pianist under a director no one’s ever heard of or should ever speak the name of again, Brody fully embodies the character of László Tóth, and brings a sense of real identity to who Tóth is both as an artist and as a human being. It’s a performance for the ages in a film that’s sure to stand the test of time, and we’re delighted to award him our pick for Best Actor.  Best Director:
To carry out a vision so epic, bold, and grandiose on a budget of just $10 million is an insane feat, so it’s no wonder that Brady Corbet is our selection for Best Director for his work on The Brutalist. To pull the performances out of his actors that he did, to keep the whole thing at the scale it was, and to shoot it in a way that not only honors its architectural roots but also understands the purpose of those roots, Corbet might be the next great American epic auteur. In much the same way some other winners on this list didn’t breakthrough but became stars based off their work last year, Brady Corbet is sure to become a household name, and we’ll be anxiously awaiting his next project.  Best Picture:
If you were privy to our Top 10 Films of 2024, you likely knew where this was going, but did you know this was actually the most difficult award apart from Cinematography to choose? Sometimes our Best Picture winners are more optimistic, more uplifting, more indicative of the hope humanity can have for itself with the right ingredients, but in times such as these, it’s worth remembering that the American dream – for too many people – has always been a lie, and that the promise of a better life in coming here for many immigrants is not only broken soon after arrival, but twisted to become a promise of nightmares as exploitation and usefulness to capital overtakes their lives, rendering them mere cogs in a money-crunching machine rather than human beings from whom we must seek to better understand humanity itself. Beyond merely being a portrait of an artist struggling against the forces that want to cheapen and rush his work until it turns into something else entirely, the thesis of the immigrant is the most powerful element The Brutalist has to offer, and in case anyone was wondering, yes, its ending is not only distinctly representative of that journey, but of the anti-Zionist’s struggle as well. For all these reasons and more, The Brutalist is our pick for Best Picture of the Year. And those are our winners for the 9th Annual Friendly Film Fan Awards! Do you agree with our picks? Let us know in the comments section below, and thanks for reading!
- The Friendly Film Fan  The Friendly Film Fan Celebrates the Best in Cinema of 2024 Hello, all, and welcome back to The Friendly Film Fan! Well, it’s finally that time, time to reveal our picks for the most award-worthy films of 2024, and unveil at last the nominees for the 9th Annual Friendly Film Fan Awards! If you've been keeping up with our Instagram throughout the day, then you’re already aware of what this list contains, but for those of you who as of yet have not had a chance to catch up, a brief explainer. The Friendly Film Fan Awards are those awards which are decided upon by us at The Friendly Film Fan, both nominations and winners. We look forward to this so greatly every single year, and we’re so excited to be back presenting what would essentially count as our Oscar picks were we to decide what actually got nominated. For each category, we follow the Oscars rule of selecting five nominees per category except Best Picture, for which we nominate ten films. These nominees will not always match our Top 10 Movies of the previous year due to that list being driven more by what our “favorite” films were, rather than what was the “best” in as objective a sense as one can have. There are sixteen total categories, two of which are not reflected by the Oscars, those being Best Acting Ensemble and Best Stunt Ensemble, with the screenplay category encompassing both adapted and original works, as well as the Best Character Design category functioning as an umbrella over both Costume Design and Makeup & Hairstyling. Some of the cuts we’ve had to make to adhere to this arbitrary rule of five broke our hearts in two, but nevertheless, we persisted, and finalized our nominations as of just last night. So, without further ado, and with great thanks to those of you who have been keeping up with our Instagram annnouncements today, here once more are your 9th Annual Friendly Film Fan Nominees! Best Sound Design:
 Best Visual Effects:
Best Screenplay:
Best Score:
Best Character Design:
Best Production Design:
 Best Film Editing:
Best Cinematography:
Best Stunt Ensemble:
Best Acting Ensemble:
 Best Supporting Actress:
 Best Supporting Actor:
Best Actress:
Best Actor:
Best Director:
Best Picture:
What do you think of these nominations? Are you rooting for any particular movies to win? Let us know in the comments section below, and keep an eye out for your Friendly Film Fan Award winners, which we will announce on 2/27! (Time TBD.) Thanks for being with us!
- The Friendly Film Fan |
