 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
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 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  by Jacob Jones If you’ve been following the 2025 Oscar race for any amount of time, you’ve likely heard pundits and critics such as myself decree this season as some form of “unpredictable,” “chaotic,” or “completely up in the air.” Not only have these terms been used to describe the race itself, they’ve also been used to describe – at one point or another – almost every category that race encompasses, from Best Animated Feature to Best Actress in a Leading Role to Best Picture itself. With the Golden Globes offering key support in some surprise areas like Best Actress – for which Fernanda Torres won in the Drama category – as well as handing Best Animated Feature to Janus Films’ Flow and Best Original Score to Challengers, momentum began to shift every which way, ultimately culminating in the Oscar nominations, which included both Torres in Best Actress, as well as multi-category nominee Flow in Best Animated and Best International Feature, though Challengers unfortunately score no nominations itself. The international branch of both the Golden Globes and AMPAS also managed to push Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong to nominations for their film The Apprentice, beating out more domestic favorites like Daniel Craig for his role in Queer and SAG nominee Jonathan Bailey, who plays Prince Fiyero in Wicked. Still, even with the Oscar nominations in place, it remained – for a time – entirely unclear who exactly the front-runners were. Would The Brutalist triumph in all expected categories despite its minor AI controversy? Would international behemoth Emilia Pérez survive the eventual onslaught of foot-shooting racism its star and campaign focus tweeted out or spoke aloud without the studio or filmmakers’ prior approval? Was Anora’s lack of an intimacy coordinator as much of a scandal to industry voters as it was to Film Twitter? It seems, for most questions raised by the race to this point, we may finally have some answers (though none have as yet been etched in gold).  PGA, DGA, and WGA The PGA and DGA Awards were held on the same date, February 8, mere miles from one another, both giving their top prizes to Anora, the former for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures and the latter for Best Director of a Feature Film, which was given to Sean Baker. The Producers’ Guild also named The Wild Robot as the Best Produced Animated Feature of the year, and gave its Outstanding Documentary Production win to Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which also took home the BAFTA for Best Documentary despite not even being shortlisted for the Academy Awards or nominated at the DGAs. The Directors Guild instead put their support behind directors Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev for their Ukraine doc Porcelain War, which follows the experience of artists in the country during the current Russian occupation. RaMell Ross was also awarded Best First-Time Feature Film for his adaptation of Nickel Boys, despite the not his first as a director (he was previously Oscar nominated in 2019 in Best Documentary Feature for his actual directing debut, Hale County This Morning, This Evening). Ross was not amongst the Best Directing nominees for this year’s Oscars, though the film did manage to secure nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture. As to the WGAs (which were held on Feb 15), while there were a great number of disqualified films which did not meet the requirements for a nomination – Emilia Pérez, The Substance, and Conclave among them – the winner selections nonetheless did give yet another boost to Anora in Original Screenplay, though A Real Pain is certainly still in play for the Oscar, and Nickel Boys’ Adapted Screenplay victory is unlikely to triumph with AMPAS over Conclave’s all-but-certain dominance in the category.  BAFTAs, Indie Spirits, and SAG Moving on to slightly less consequential ceremonies (save for one), the BAFTAs and the Indie Spirit Awards both yielded some surprise wins on the whole, seemingly splitting two Oscar narratives – one for Conclave and one for Anora – right down the middle, with each film taking home Best Picture from those awards bodies, respectively. Lead actress Mikey Madison and director Sean Baker also picked up Indie Spirit wins in their respective categories, with Madison’s being a repeat of her win at the BAFTAs. Madison wasn’t the only repeat contender, however, as Jesse Eisenberg managed to snag both a BAFTA and an Indie Spirit win for the Screenplay to his film A Real Pain, giving a major boost to his chances at taking home the Oscar in the Best Original Screenplay category. Of course, Adrien Brody picked up another Best Actor win for his work in The Brutalist, a film for which the BAFTAs awarded Brady Corbet its Best Director prize, though Best Casting went to Anora. Still, a running narrative began to emerge that ultimately culminated at the SAG Awards, which streamed live on Netflix last night: don’t underestimate the power of the papacy. (Or, rather, watch out for Conclave). There were some not entirely unexpected surprises at the SAG Awards, chiefly that Timothée Chalamet became the youngest winner ever for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Motion Picture, thus placing his stamp firmly on the race against Adrien Brody for the Oscar, and this wasn’t the only confirmation of an honest-to-god race in an ultra-competitive Oscar category. Demi Moore also took home the SAG Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Motion Picture for her work in Coralie Fargeat’s body horror sensation The Substance, putting her neck and neck with Mikey Madison for an Oscar win this coming Sunday. In fact, the only certainties in above-the-line categories for this year’s Oscars come in the form of Supporting sweeps, those being for Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain) and Zoë Saldaña (Emilia Pérez), both of whom have yet to lose a major award for which they were nominated in the lead-up to the big night. And of course, at the evening’s end, Conclave was awarded Best Ensemble Cast in a Motion Picture, essentially the “Best Picture” prize of the SAG Awards, besting Anora (and leaving that film SAG-less, only the third film after Brokeback Mountain and The Hurt Locker to be so after netting PGA, DGA, and WGA wins.) While it seems unlikely that Conclave’s BAFTA/SAG victory has enough steam this late in the race to conquer Anora’s PGA/DGA/WGA-winning conquest for Best Picture at the Oscars, especially with Oscar voting having closed before the SAG Awards took place, the overall unpredictability of this award’s season indicates that there is one cinematic sin we must fear above all others: certainty. The Oscars will air live on ABC and stream on Hulu on Sunday, March 2 at 7:00 p.m. EST.  - The Friendly Film Fan  by Jacob Jones Well, that was pretty crazy, wasn’t it? Of course, what couldn’t be crazy about the 2025 Oscar Nominations? It’s the Oscars; they thrive on crazy! All jokes aside, now that the Academy has finally unveiled their nominees for the Best in Film of 2024, it’s time to break open that pandora’s box and examine all the surprises and disappointments it holds. To start, the absolute disrespect towards Dune: Part Two by AMPAS’ choice to leave it out of Adapted Screenplay, Makeup & Hairstyling, Costume Design, Film Editing, and of course, Director, is an absurdity I will not stand for. The first film was nominated for 10 Oscars, winning 6, but an even better follow-up only gets half that recognition? I mean, I’m aware of what happened with Empire Strikes Back, but I didn’t think this new Academy was doing the same old song and dance by ignoring sci-fi and giving into such blatant recency bias. More to the point, though, Challengers receiving 0 nominations is a genuine outrage, especially in Best Original Score, in which Wicked seemed to take its place (and I can’t even begin to describe how irritating that is from a musical standpoint). Among other disappointments were Clarence Maclin missing Best Supporting Actor despite its unlikelihood, which indicated early that Sing Sing could likely miss Best Picture (thank you A24 for messing the release strategy up so spectacularly), and of course Emilia Pérez running the table with no less than 13 nominations to its name.  The morning was not without its pleasant surprises, however as twenty-one of my wildcard picks – many of them hopefuls – did end up landing nominations in their respective categories, including Nickel Boys in Best Adapted Screenplay, Alien: Romulus is Best Visual Effects, and both Sugarcane and Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat in Best Documentary Feature. Also, as it turns out, I was right to trust my instincts on a few things, namely that the international contingent of the Academy would show strong support for Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice (for which Jeremy Strong also received a nomination in Best Supporting Actor), and Flow – which comes to us from Latvia – would ultimately land nominations in both Animated Feature and International Feature. I also correctly predicted that September 5 would receive the fifth spot in the Best Original Screenplay category, and that Edward Lachmann would receive Maria’s lone nomination in Cinematography. By far the morning’s biggest surprise, however, came at the tail end of the announcement when the words “I’m Still Here” were read out amongst the nominees. Having not yet seen the film, I can’t comment on whether this is a pleasant or an unpleasant surprise, but it does re-enforce the one consistent thing about this entire awards season: how chaotic and distinctly inconsistent it has always been. Word to the wise: never underestimate the Brazilians, who not only catapulted I’m Still Here into the Best Picture category, but also secured a Best Actress nomination for Fernanda Torres’ work in the film. She now joins her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, who was previously nominated in the same category for her work in Central Station, which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 71st Academy Awards. It would seem now that she, and not Mikey Madison as had previously been thought, is the primary challenger to Demi Moore, whose Best Actress nomination for The Substance is just one of that film’s five (including Best Picture and Best Director for Coralie Fargeat). All told, the ups and downs of these awards races are sure going to be a roller-coaster ride all the way to the finish line when the Oscars air live on ABC and stream for the first time on Hulu on March 2nd. A full list of the 2025 Oscar nominees 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 ANIMATED FEATURE The Nominees:
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM The Nominees:
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE The Nominees:
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? Anything you’re surprised to see or find absent? Any choices that delight you? Enrage you? Let us know in the comments section below, and thanks for reading!
- The Friendly Film Fan  by Jacob Jones Hello, all, and welcome back to The Friendly Film Fan! After multiple emergency delays and a chaotic awards season lead-up, we are less than 24 hours out from the official announcement of the nominations for the 97th Annual Academy Awards. The event will be hosted by Bowen Yang and Rachel Sennott beginning at 8:30am EST/5:30am PST and be broadcast across on both Good Morning America and ABC News Live, as well as available to stream through the Academy’s social network pages and on Disney+ and Hulu. It’s been a long road to this point through the 2024 awards season, and at this point, anything is likely to happen. Clarence Maclin could get his first nomination in Best Supporting Actor. Nickel Boys could bypass Best Cinematography entirely. Emilia Pérez could win Best Picture. Almost four different movies are competing for the number ten spot in the biggest category of the night! No matter what world we wake up to tomorrow, there will always be the inevitabilities of one big surprise and one heartbreaking miss. But before tomorrow arrives, let’s go category by category and attempt to predict what those hits and misses are ultimately going to be. For those of you who are new here or may not be familiar with the ways I predict these awards over here at The Friendly Film Fan: the Oscars has 23 categories, each of which contains five nomination slots (except for Best Picture, which contains ten). Using this knowledge, I predict what I think will be the most likely selections by AMPAS for nominations, even if they don’t match what I personally think would be best (see The Friendly Film Fan Awards nominations for that, coming soon). There are also include three “wildcard” selections, which can range from things I’m hoping for that have just enough of a shot to secure a nomination to things people are severely underestimating in terms of their chances to things that are simply the 6th or 7th most likely to compete in their respective categories. Typically, I do three rounds of nomination predictions here, but as this year has been a bit busier outside of this space than anticipated, I’ve only had time to draft this one list and unfortunately will not be able to break things down category by category as I usually do. I also have not had the time or access to watch everything on the Oscars Shortlists which were released in December, so while I’ve got a pretty good idea as to what’s competing in those fields, less obvious categories such Best Live-Action, Animated, or Documentary Short Film are far less certain than I’d personally like them to be (I more or less tried to go by the consensus picks on those). I’ll be going live on The Friendly Film Fan’s Instagram page shortly before the nominations announcement tomorrow morning, so be sure to follow us over there if you’d like to see how I react to each nomination as they happen! And now, without any further ado, here are my official predictions for the nominations at the 97th Annual Academy Awards! BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT Predicted Nominees:
BEST ANIMATED SHORT Predicted Nominees:
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT Predicted Nominees:
BEST SOUND Predicted Nominees:
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS Predicted Nominees:
BEST ORIGNAL SCREENPLAY Predicted Nominees:
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Predicted Nominees:
BEST ORIGINAL SONG Predicted Nominees:
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE Predicted Nominees:
BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING Predicted Nominees:
BEST COSTUME DESIGN Predicted Nominees:
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN Predicted Nominees:
BEST FILM EDITING Predicted Nominees:
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Predicted Nominees:
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Predicted Nominees:
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM Predicted Nominees:
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE Predicted Nominees:
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Predicted Nominees:
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Predicted Nominees:
BEST ACTOR Predicted Nominees
BEST ACTRESS Predicted Nominees:
BEST DIRECTOR Predicted Nominees:
BEST PICTURE Predicted Nominees:
And those are my predicted nominees for the 97th Annual Academy Awards! What are you predicting gets nominated tomorrow morning? Any that you’re hoping will surprise? Any that you’ll crash out over if they don’t happen? Let us know in the comments section below, and thanks for reading!
- The Friendly Film Fan  by Jacob Jones Ladies, gentlemen, those who identify otherwise, we have arrived. The industry’s kick-off to awards season, a.k.a. the Golden Globes, took place last night, and what a whirlwind of a night it was. Following stand-up comic and show host Nikki Glaser’s stellar opening monologue in which she thankfully avoided the tired cliché of joking that a movie was too long, the new Globes leadership got right to work reminding everyone that this is not the same voting body of years past – the kind that would have nominated The Tourist for multiple awards without ever having seen the film, or boosted Emily in Paris’ profile following a string of bribes from the production. Instead, the night begat a healthy mix of both expected winners and surprise victors in multiple categories, largely on the film side (though television did have at least one upset). Emilia Pérez was the big winner of the night, taking home four statues, including one for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy), and Best Supporting Actress for Zoe Saldaña. In second place came Brady Corbet’s mid-century epic The Brutalist, which took home the other Best Picture award in the Drama category, as well as Best Director, and Best Actor in a Drama for Adrien Brody, who now shoots to the front of the line for an Oscar win (it would be his second, following his work in 2002’s The Pianist). Beyond these wins, however, things start to look a little more spread out on the film side.  Conclave bested Anora in the combined screenplay category, Demi Moore won her first ever acting award in Best Actress (Musical or Comedy) for her performance in The Substance in a stunning blow to Mikey Madison’s awards campaign (also for Anora), and Sebastian Stan managed an upset in the Best Actor (Musical or Comedy) category as well for his incredible work in A Different Man, boosting his profile for the Academy Awards and shouting out The Apprentice – for which he was also nominated – in his acceptance speech. The animated film Flow bested DreamWorks’ The Wild Robot in Best Motion Picture (Animated), effectively shutting the latter out of an Oscar win if it doesn’t pick up some serious momentum soon, and even Fernanda Torres proved that awards pundits have been underestimating her as a serious contender with a win in Best Lead Actress (Drama) for I’m Still Here, which is Brazil’s official submission in the International Feature category at the Oscars. Beyond all of that, Challengers proved that its club dance-esque score by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross is far from dead in the water despite having missed the BAFTA longlists, and Wicked’s only win came in the form of the Cinematic and Box Office Achievement Award. Apart from those wins, the big story of the night was the complete and total shut-out of Anora, which raked in exactly zero wins despite front-runner status in multiple categories. If these new Globes are meant to now be a significant indicator of where the Oscar race is heading, those who have Anora at the top of their winner predictions may want to ease off the gas a bit.  On the television side (which I won’t spend too much time covering), Hulu and FX’s Shōgun cleaned house in the Drama Series categories, picking up wins for Best Series (Drama), Best Actor (Drama) for Hiroyuki Sanada, Best Actress (Drama) for Anna Sawai, and Best Supporting Actor in Any Series for Tadanobu Asano. The Comedy or Musical and Limited Series awards were a bit more spread out, as Max Original Series Hacks took home the awards for Best Series (Comedy or Musical), as well as Best Actress in a Comedy Series for Jean Smart. Over on the Limited Series side, Netflix’s Baby Reindeer racked up two wins for Limited Series and Supporting Actress in Any Series, which went to Jessica Gunning. The big surprise of the night for television was Richard Gadd’s loss to Colin Farrell in the Best Actor (Limited Series) category, the latter of the two winning for his work in HBO’s The Penguin. Jodie Foster and Jeremy Allen White also won their respective categories, Best Actress in a Limited Series and Best Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for their work in True Detective: Night Country and The Bear, respectively.  Overall, it was a solid show this year. Emilia Pérez’s Best Picture win notwithstanding, almost all the winnings were richly deserved, and the shake-ups to the Oscar race make this one of the most unpredictable and interesting races we’ve had in quite some time. We’ll have to see which direction all the guild awards such as SAG-AFTRA, the DGA, the WGA, and the PGA go, but for the time being at least, the starting lineup is tremendously exciting. A full list of all the 2025 Golden Globe nominees and winners is below.  FILM Best Motion Picture (Drama):
Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy):
Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama):
Best Actor in a Motion Picture (Drama):
Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy):
Best Actor in a Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy):
Best Supporting Actress in Any Motion Picture:
Best Supporting Actor in Any Motion Picture:
Best Director (Motion Picture):
Best Screenplay (Motion Picture):
Best Motion Picture (Animated):
Best Motion Picture (Non-English Language):
Best Original Score (Motion Picture):
Best Original Song (Motion Picture):
Cinematic and Box Office Achievement:
TELEVISION Best Series (Drama):
Best Series (Musical or Comedy):
Best Limited Series, Anthology Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television:
Best Actress in a Television Series (Drama):
Best Actor in a Television Series (Drama):
Best Actress in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy):
Best Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy):
Best Actress in a Limited Series, Anthology Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television:
Best Actor in a Limited Series, Anthology Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television:
Best Supporting Actress in Any Television Series:
Best Supporting Actor in Any Television Series:
Best Stand-Up Comedy Performance:
What did you think of the Golden Globes this year? Did they live up to your expectations? Surpass them? Which surprise win was you favorite? Let us know in the comments section below, and thanks for reading!
- The Friendly Film Fan  by Jacob Jones On Tuesday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) unveiled their shortlists for ten below-the-line categories at the 97th Oscars, revealing which films voters had selected as finalists for a nomination in each. Shortlists are a hallowed tradition for the Academy’s voting body and for awards prognosticators, who use these lists as a means of more accurately predicting what will be competing for those coveted gold statues come January. Wicked and Emilia Pérez were the big winners of the day, taking up 4 and 6 shortlist spots each in a strong bid for both movie musicals from Universal Pictures and Netflix. Though there were no major surprises in most categories, a few inclusions (and exclusions) stood out amongst the rest. Notably, Hans Zimmer’s score for Dune: Part Two was deemed ineligible for competition by AMPAS’ music branch – who determined that it contained too much previously published music to be considered original to the film – but the score for Wicked, which adapts Act One of the iconic Broadway musical for the silver screen, does make an appearance in the Original Score shortlist (which includes 20 shortlisted competitors, the most in any category), leaving awards pundits scratching their heads about how it remains eligible, given that much of the music seems to find its origins in the stage version. Other surprises included Alien: Romulus showing up not only in Visual Effects, but also in Sound and Original Score (two categories it was not expected to be competitive in), as well as the film Waltzing with Brando sneaking into the Makeup & Hairstyling lineup for its transformation of Billy Zane into the titular movie icon. Even the corpse of the ill-fated Joker: Folie à Deux managed to eek out a single nod in Best Sound. On the losing side, the unfortunately underseen Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – George Miller’s follow-up prequel to six-time Oscar winner Mad Max: Fury Road – went entirely ignored, missing key chances to remind Oscar voters and viewers of its potential as an awards contender in the craft categories. Less similarly, though still notably, Alex Garland’s Civil War landed a shortlist spot in Best Visual Effects, but not Best Sound, where most awards pundits had predicted it could appear given that the sound editing in the film is frequently lauded as its greatest accomplishment. The Golden Globe-nominated Miley Cyrus song “Beautiful That Way,” which appears in The Last Showgirl, missed the cut for its designated category as well, in a swift reversal to its new awards season momentum, leaving at least one more chance for Kneecap’s “Sick in the Head” to make a surprise appearance. All in all, however, despite the shortlists’ miscarriages of justice towards George Miller and company, they remain full of strong contenders, any number of whom would be worthy of a nomination come announcement morning. A full list of the 2025 Oscar Shortlists appears below. Best Documentary Feature:
Best Documentary Short:
Best International Feature:
Best Makeup & Hairstyling:
Best Original Score:
Best Original Song:
Best Animated Short:
Best Live-Action Short:
Best Sound:
Best Visual Effects:
What do you think of these shortlists? Are there any films you’re surprised made an appearance? Any you’re shocked or disappointed are missing? Let us know in the comments section below, and thanks for reading! - The Friendly Film Fan *"Forbidden Road," from Better Man, has been disqualified from Oscar competition. Its inclusion here is reflective of its appearance in the original iteration of these shortlists.
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