The Best Picture Nominees, Ranked

We’re just one week away from the Oscars, and there are still some races that feel very up in the air. Best Picture has turned into a two-horse race between Sinners and One Battle After Another, each of the Best Actor nominees have taken home different “precursor” awards, and on top of it all the Academy still has a penchant for silliness. Ahead of the moment of truth, I decided to rank the Best Picture nominees in my preferential order (that's how the Academy votes, after all), and shout out a couple of “lesser” nominees that are still worth your time:

Honorable Mentions:

• Weapons (B): Horror isn’t really a genre I spend much time in, pop horror like this even less so; even from my distance, I can tell it’s been a cool decade for original horror, and this movie breaking through to the Oscars in Supporting Actress is good for movies. I enjoyed this movie’s anthological, chapter-based approach and was interested in the central mystery. It’s very fun, violent, unpredictable, but far too reliant on jump scares though still a cut above other versions of this kind of thing.

• Sirat (B): Coming out of the Golden Globes and following the Oscar shortlists, this film was popping up everywhere. I was excited to check it out given its comparisons to Wages of Fear, one of my all-time international favorites, and thought the idea of a bunch of rave-goers traversing obstacles across the desert would be exciting; instead, it’s quite punishing, a bit to a fault. I love some good nihilistic cinema, but its heaviness leaned too far to drabness for me.

• Blue Moon (B+): A charming nominee for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay that’s anchored by a stunning Ethan Hawke performance. It’s a chatty, disarmingly sad tale of a witty, flawed, charismatic artist being left behind by his collaborator, and the world, in real time.

• It Was Just an Accident (B+): The winner of the Cannes Palme d’Or prize, this film’s Oscar chances faded hard as the season unfolded, leaving it only picking up nods for Best International Feature and Best Original Screenplay. The story of its making – illegally, under the oppressive regime’s nose – is as complex as the film itself, which plays as a slowed-down revenge thriller that morphs into an ethical dilemma bolstered by excellent acting and restrained filmmaking.

10. F1

• Nominations: Picture, Visual Effects, Editing, Sound

• Grade: C+

• Thoughts: This movie is a lot of fun. Its Best Picture nomination was quite a shock. It’s very pop in its sensibilities (and soundtrack), loosely plotted, very cliche, but is stuffed with incredible racing scenes. Fast! Loud! Dumb! Good?

9. Frankenstein

• Nominations: Picture, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Score, Costumes, Makeup, Production Design, Sound

• Grade: C+

• Thoughts: I was as intrigued as anyone when I heard that Guillermo Del Toro was adapting Frankenstein, and that Oscar Isaac would be portraying Dr. Frankenstein. I was a little skeptical when I learned it would be coming from Netflix, but they made The Irishman so maybe it would be another all-timer. It’s not. The performances, except for Jacob Elordi as the monster (naturally, in a Del Toro movie) are flat, as is most of the filmmaking.

8. Bugonia

• Nominations: Picture, Actress, Original Score, Adapted Screenplay

• Grade: B-

• Thoughts: Another Yorgos Lanthimos – Emma Stone pairing, another great performance, strong sense of style, and delivery of provocative ideas. I was very impressed by the energy in the early going of the film, and the way it recasts “girlboss” CEOs and outsider, incel conspiracy theorists to directly confront the moment we’re in. As the film progresses, it abandons its most fascinating ideas in favor of raw shock value, and so doesn’t land the plane in my book. Its two leads give staggering performances that alone are worth it.

7. Hamnet

• Nominations: Picture, Actress, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, Costumes, Production Design, Casting

• Grade: B

• Thoughts: Watching the film, I found myself mixed on Zhao’s impressionistic approach to a story so driven by characters and their tragedies compared to her previous Oscar fare Nomadland, which was more about experience. Similarly, I was very moved by Jessie Buckley’s performance but found her character thin; suffering, and possibly healing, is all she does. Despite all that, the film is full of spellbinding moments, and I would still recommend it.

6. Sentimental Value

• Nominations: Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Lead Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress x2, International Feature, Editing

• Grade: B+

• Thoughts: Naturally, it takes a foreign country to make the best family drama of the year at a serious level of prestige, it’s not something we do as much here anymore. Kind of kidding, kind of not. I really liked this movie! Trier drifts between capturing realism, allowing his characters to be eccentric, tragedy, comedy, and a cynical look at moviemaking with aplomb. If you’re looking for the top-to-bottom collection of best subtle acting this year, you could do a lot worse than starting here.

5. The Secret Agent

• Nominations: Picture, Actor, International Feature, Best Casting

• Grade: B+

• Thoughts: I’m inclined to like any well-made and well-acted political thriller/drama but wasn’t prepared for how freshly original this one would be! Wagner Moura gives an amazing performance that perfectly anchors the film as it jumps between timelines and takes a few bizarre (though entertaining) tonal digressions. It’s also got a gut-punch of an ending that brings the film’s main thrust into focus: how the most important and tragic stories can get buried beneath sensationalist lies, and potentially fade from memory entirely during times of persecution.

4. Train Dreams

• Nominations: Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Original Song

• Grade: A-

• Thoughts: Wow! This film takes several chapters out of Terrence Malick’s book, particularly Days of Heaven, and absolutely makes the most of them. It’s ponderous without ever feeling TOO slow, beautiful without ever feeling unnaturally grand, and is infused with longing, sadness, and reflection in almost every frame. I was deeply, deeply moved.

3. Marty Supreme

• Nominations: Picture, Actor, Director, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Costumes, Production Design, Casting

• Grade: A-

• Thoughts: An ace! This movie is quite the knockout – Josh Safdie keeps the madcap neurotic energy of Uncut Gems firing in this tale of a charismatic, slightly toxic hustler who plans to use his international ping-pong prowess as a way out of poverty; life, naturally, gets in the way. The mile-a-minute filmmaking is superb, but the conversation begins and ends with Chalamet’s performance; he’s, well, supreme.

2. Sinners

• Nominations: Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Costumes, Editing, Makeup, Production Design, Sound, Visual Effects, Casting, Score, Original Song

• Grade: A-

• Thoughts: It’s so great that this movie exists, had the commercial and critical reception it did, and refused to vanish from the popular consciousness so the Oscars could (at least through nominations) recognize it among the signature movies of the year; it deserves it. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more original movie with this kind of star power and cultural impact that has THIS much on its mind, almost to a fault. It’s a mashup of period drama, blues musical, and vampire horror that reflects the cultural stew of its Delta setting and is as stuffed with eccentric and interesting characters as it is technical filmmaking prowess and ideas. The real miracle: it works.

1. One Battle After Another

• Nominations: Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor x2, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Score, Production Design, Sound, Casting

• Grade: A

• Thoughts: I’ll have to come clean about my own biases here: I’m in the tank for basically everything Paul Thomas Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio have each done, and I so I was predisposed to like this movie. I loved it. In his 10^th movie, Anderson is still showing new colors; here, he’s a surprisingly capable action filmmaker and marries that with his penchant for comedy to surprising effect here. The tension, dread, action, and comedy all mesh without diluting each other. Its look at contemporary social issues is treated as film’s tapestry against which these characters clash and fight their own personal battles without sacrificing the film’s topicality. One other thing: it flies by.

I’ll be back once all the dust on Oscar night settles – as for the two-headed Best Picture race, clearly I’ll be happy either way!