2025 Oscars predix

In contrast to last year's Oppenheimer steamroller, this year's Oscars cap an ever-dynamic, wildly shifting race in which there are pretty much no certainties except for the fact that Kieran Culkin is winning Best Supporting Actor. It's definitely more fun this way, though hell on nerves if you've got any money riding on the outcome. Fortunately, I have nothing to lose but my pride; and I know I'll be in good company since I'm generally going with the (very tenuous) consensus picks. For a slightly broader range of opinions, I refer you to the collected predictions of my fellow Film Experience team members.

BEST PICTURE

Will win: Anora...probably?

Should win: The Brutalist, which could win.

Dark horse: Conclave

BEST DIRECTOR

Will win: Sean Baker, Anora

Should win: Brady Corbet, The Brutalist

Dark horse: Corbet - and I'd think him likelier if I didn't get the sense that he's not as well liked as Baker and has sometimes come across as a bit too self-important.

BEST ACTOR

Will win: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist.

Should win: I can't argue with a Brody win, though I would love to see Ralph Fiennes finally get an Oscar - and he was excellent in Conclave.

Dark horse: Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown, though I really hope this doesn't happen. He was good but not nearly as good as either Brody or Fiennes.

BEST ACTRESS

Will win: Demi Moore, The Substance

Should win: I haven't seen The Substance (can't do body horror), so I'm not really in a position to say.

Dark horse: Folks are talking up Mikey Madison's firecracker star turn in Anora, and she does have momentum from recent precursor awards - but I think the real dark horse here is Fernanda Torres' quieter but equally powerful performance as the unlikely fighter of government oppression in I'm Still Here.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Will win: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

Should win: Razor's edge close between Ed Norton's Pete Seeger in A Complete Unknown and Guy Pearce's American tycoon in The Brutalist, but I give the very slight edge to Norton. He captures the soul of Seeger in a way that transcends mimicry, and that Chalamet never quite achieves with Bob Dylan. (In fairness, some of that is due to the way Dylan is written, or maybe even the way he actually is: unknowable.)

Dark horse: None

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Will win: Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Perez

Should win: Saldaña is eminently worthy, though my personal favorite of the five nominees is Monica Barbaro's knockout turn as Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown.

Dark horse: Some are saying Isabella Rossellini will get a career nod for Conclave, but I just don't think she was given enough to do to overcome Saldaña (who was arguably more of a co-lead).

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Will win: Anora

Should win: A Real Pain

Dark horse: A Real Pain

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Will win: Conclave

Should win: Nickel Boys

Dark horse: A Complete Unknown

OTHER CATEGORIES

International Feature: I'm Still Here

Animated Feature: The Wild Robot, though Flow could upset

Documentary: No Other Land, though Porcelain War also has a good shot

Cinematography: The Brutalist

Editing: Conclave

Production Design: Wicked

Costume Design: Wicked

Makeup & Hair: The Substance

Visual Effects: Dune: Part Two

Score: The Brutalist

Song: "El Mal" from Emilia Perez

Sound: Either A Complete Unknown or Dune: Part Two; I keep waffling on this one

Animated Short: Haven't seen any of the nominees this year, but based on others' descriptions I'm going out on a bit of a limb and predicting Magic Candies. It's not the consensus pick but it sounds like it's the best of the bunch, and sometimes the best does win this category!

Documentary Short: The Only Girl in the Orchestra

Live Action Short: A Lien

Top Ten Movies of 2024

2024 was an odd year in film for me, in that I liked the majority of the movies I saw but didn’t love any of them. It suffers by comparison to 2023, when I loved or really liked not only my top ten but at least ten more that would have easily made my list in any other year. Indeed, as the current movie awards season approached I found myself kvetching about its meager and uninspiring crop of contenders after 2023’s embarrassment of riches. But the truth is that 2024 was a solid enough year in which I ended up liking several movies I didn’t expect to like while generally also liking but not loving the movies I was most excited to see. The result is a weird flattening of the curve: once I identified my top five(ish), I found it really hard to rank the next five to ten in any meaningful order.

Per usual, there were many movies I missed in theaters and have not yet seen on streaming, including Sing Sing, The Substance, The Apprentice, Gladiator II, Queer, Babygirl, The Room Next Door, Hard Truths, Vermiglio (actually, I don’t think that one has opened yet in a theater near me), and Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. Also, documentaries remain my blind spot; I’ve basically seen none, unless you count National Geographic’s (heartwarming!) Billy and Molly: An Otter Love Story.

With these caveats, here are my top ten movies of 2024, followed by a second band of “alternates”/honorable mentions, and a third band “worth seeing.”

1. CHALLENGERS

I’m as surprised as you that this ended up being my #1, but for my money it was the most purely enjoyable film I saw all year. I’ve been a bit cool on director Luca Guadagnino till now, but I really dug this sleek, sexy romp featuring a trio of sleek, sexy tennis players (Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist) who just can’t seem to quit each other, even as their careers take sharply different turns. Theirs is a love triangle, yes, but a complicated one, with the balance of power perpetually shifting like a good tennis match. It makes for a compelling watch, propelled by the dynamic cinematography and pulse-pounding Trent Reznor-Atticus Ross soundtrack and capped by an exhilarating ending that shouldn’t work yet somehow does.

2. THE BRUTALIST

A sweeping Film with a capital “F” that swings for the fences and doesn’t quite make it – more of a triple than a homer – but you have to admire its ambition. Up-and-coming director Brady Corbet spins an engrossing tale of a fictional Hungarian Jewish architect (Adrien Brody) who emigrates to the U.S. after WWII and attracts the interest of a rich industrialist (Guy Pearce). The latter commissions him to build a cultural center, a project that drags on for decades due in part to the architect’s unwillingness to compromise his vision, in part to circumstances beyond his control. Part Great Man narrative, part interrogation of the American Dream, and part meditation on the long shadows of the Holocaust, it's no wonder the movie runs 3.5 hours, including a 15-minute intermission; the wonder is that it held my attention the entire time, even if not everything about it works. Extra kudos go to the spectacular production design and cinematography (plus, ok, a dash of AI) that managed to create, on a very lean budget, compelling images of a visionary architectural work that never actually got built! The acting, too, is spectacular: Brody delivers an impressive performance, at once impassioned and nuanced, while Pearce almost steals the show as the tycoon whose superficial charm can’t hide the darkness beneath.

3. SEPTEMBER 5

A lean, tight, absorbing newsroom procedural that’s less about the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre than the making of the massacre into a live TV event. Shot from the perspective of the ABC Sports crew that ended up covering the attack, it touches lightly on classic questions about journalistic ethics but is fundamentally more interested in showing the actual nuts-and-bolts work behind the scenes that captured and to some degree shaped an especially dark day in 20th century history. It succeeds due in large part to a fine cast that includes John Magaro as the guy in charge of the control room that day, Ben Chaplin as his immediate boss, Peter Sarsgaard as Roone Arledge, then-President of ABC Sports (later of ABC News), and Leonie Benesch as the translator and only German in the room. (Wisely, the film doesn’t cast anyone as Jim McKay, relying instead on archival footage of his broadcast.) But just as much credit goes to the painstaking physical recreation of the control room and its operations, which gives the film its sheen of authenticity and tangibly analog feel.

4. A REAL PAIN

Full disclosure: going into this movie, I was not at all looking forward to spending a couple of hours (ok, 90 minutes: points for trimness!) with a Jesse Eisenberg nebbish and a Kieran Culkin loose cannon whose neck you want to wring after five minutes. Yet I found myself totally won over by this road trip/odd couple movie about a pair of Jewish American cousins who embark on a tour of Holocaust sites in Poland as half bonding session, half tribute to their recently deceased Polish grandmother. Yes, the two actors play to their respective types – Eisenberg the neurotic but conventional one, Culkin the charismatic but manic one who veers wildly between charming and exhausting. But they display a convincing rapport, while Eisenberg (who wrote and directed) manages to strike the tonal balance just right between the awkward comedy of Culkin’s shenanigans and the seriousness of grappling with a heritage of trauma, both historical and personal. The supporting cast – playing the rest of the tour group – is also quite good. And Poland never looked so lovely as it does through the lens of DP and Warsaw native Michal Dymek.

5. GHOSTLIGHT

This indie gem – about a construction worker (Keith Kupferer) who works through a devastating personal loss by participating in a community theater production of Romeo and Juliet – largely flew under the radar last year, but deserves broader recognition. Let’s just say I’m glad I had the foresight to bring a packet of Kleenex to my show because I used almost all of it before the movie was over. Not because it’s sad – though the shadow of tragedy hangs over it, both on and off stage – but because it’s an incredibly moving slow-burn catharsis for an emotionally closed off guy who finds a channel for his grief and anger. The relevance of the play to his own life is a bit too on the nose, but the stellar performances by Kupferer and the rest of the cast make it ring 100% true.

6. ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT

This was a film that grew on me over time. Set in current-day Mumbai, it quietly illuminates the lives of three women of different generations and backgrounds who work at a hospital. Each is dealing with her own source of heartache or emotional stress, which director Payal Kapaydia depicts with an interesting mix of intimacy and detachment. In the final act, the trio make a trip to a village by the sea, where they all manage to find catharsis and communion. Kapadia paints an exceptionally delicate and lyrical portrait not just of the challenges faced by women in modern India but of the incredibly disparate, multicultural, multilingual, more than slightly lonely vastness that is modern Mumbai.

7. NICKEL BOYS

Confession: I haven’t been able to bring myself to read the Colson Whitehead novel about two black boys – one idealistic, one cynical – who become friends at a “reform school” (read: institute for state-sanctioned abuse) in 1960s Florida. So it’s probably good for me that director RaMell Ross takes a highly aestheticized approach to such grim, even gruesome subject matter. He chooses to film in first person perspective, switching back and forth between the two boys and one of them as an adult, 20 years later. He also chooses to convey much of their horrific treatment via suggestion rather than direct depiction. Both of these choices work surprisingly well, even if the film feels almost too lyrical and impressionistic as a result – like a cross between Malick and Moonlight. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and avoids the trap of misery/trauma porn in favor of lifting up the connection between the boys.

8. THELMA

June Squibb (still going strong at 90+) finally gets her spotlight as the eponymous heroine of this delightful comedy, whose response to getting scammed is to hunt down her scammer – with the help of a fellow elder (Richard Roundtree) and notwithstanding the best efforts of her worried family to deter her. Josh Margolin’s debut feature is a very funny yet empathetic look at the challenges of growing old, with Thelma having to learn her limitations even as she rises above them. The movie isn’t perfect – it depends on some creaky plot contrivances, chiefly involving a scooter (partly for the sight gag effect, partly to introduce Roundtree’s character) and a gun, and it drags a little in the middle section – but it’s so endearing its flaws ultimately don’t matter. Squibb is fantastic as Thelma, while Roundtree deserves equal props for the grace, dignity, and warmth he brings as her straight man. This was his last film, and a hell of a high note to end his career.

9. THE BIKERIDERS

Another surprise inclusion here; what can I say? Jeff Nichols’ loose chronicle of the rise and fall of a motorcycle club in 1960s and early ’70s Chicago has really stuck with me. It’s more about vibes and images than plot, as one might expect from a film literally based on a photo book, but they’re damn good-looking vibes and images, anchored in damn good-looking – and more importantly, just damn good – actors. Once again, the Brits show they can do heartland America better than most Americans: Tom Hardy and Jodie Comer are great as the leader of the group and the wife of his protégé, respectively. Meanwhile, Austin Butler, as said protégé, looks way too pretty and well coiffed even when he's getting beat up, but exudes enough charisma that we understand just why neither of them can let go of him. The movie is exceptionally good at capturing mood and is often surprisingly funny, even as its portrait of biker culture grows inevitably darker and uglier.

10. Tie:

FLOW

There’s something at once mystical and familiar about this Latvian animated film centered on a cat whose world is overtaken by a biblical-scale flood and who ends up seeking refuge on a drifting sailboat, along with a very random assortment of other animals that include a dog, a capybara, a lemur, and a huge white crane-like bird. There’s no dialogue – the animals all sound and behave remarkably like their real-life counterparts (except for the fact that no one tries to prey on each other) – and no real plot, though plenty of moments of tension, suspense, humor, and even transcendence. You could read all kinds of allegorical meanings into their incredible journey, or you could just treat it as a beautiful dream. I’m inclined to the latter view though I can appreciate the former.

and

CONCLAVE

I resisted including this one in my top ten because it’s basically a potboiler – based on the novel by Robert Harris about the intrigue-laden election of a fictional pope – dressed up as something more profound than it is. Here’s the thing: it’s a really entertaining potboiler, directed with flair by Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front), that also offers a fascinating character study of a seemingly low-profile, dedicated servant of the church (a terrific Ralph Fiennes, as the cardinal presiding over the process) whose intentions and motivations are more complex and conflicted than they initially appear. It’s also exquisitely crafted, from the strong cast – including Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow, among others, as competing cardinals who range across the ideological spectrum – to the striking cinematography and meticulous production design. And whatever you think of its jaw-dropping dénouement, its final message of empathy, balance, and humility carries a particularly poignant resonance at a time when these qualities seem to be not only disappearing from our public discourse but openly derided.

Honorable mentions:

Janet Planet

The semiautobiographical debut feature of playwright Annie Baker – tracing one summer in the life of a pre-adolescent girl and her hippie-ish single mom (Julianne Nicholson) in early 1990s western Massachusetts – is not for those with a short attention span or intolerance for ellipses. But if you’re patient you’ll be rewarded with a beautifully studied portrait of a particular moment and place in time and a close mother-daughter relationship observed through the loving but critical eyes of the daughter.

Maria

The final installment of Pablo Larraín’s trilogy about Very Famous Women Going Through Turmoil – in this case Maria Callas, played by Angelina Jolie – looks like a cross between museum exhibit and high-end perfume commercial (not a bad thing, actually). But it achieves surprising emotional depth by shifting between flashbacks to the soprano’s prime and her final, futile efforts to recover her lost voice. Jolie brings a startling delicacy to the pathos of those last days without losing the inherent magnetism of a larger-than-life superstar.

Dune: Part Two

Visually and aurally, it’s a knockout; and it’s undoubtedly an intelligent and skillful adaptation of notoriously difficult-to-adapt material. However, its overarching cold, ceremonial tone – making everything feel at once heavily manipulated and utterly predetermined – also prevented any real emotional investment on my part, in contrast to the more human-scaled urgency of Part One. More thoughts here.

Also worth seeing:

Anora; Emilia Perez; I’m Still Here; The Seed of the Sacred Fig; A Complete Unknown; Saturday Night; The Order; The Wild Robot; A Different Man; Hit Man; Fly Me to the Moon; Wicked

2024 Oscars predix

For a fantastic year in movies that yielded one of the strongest Oscar Best Picture nominee lineups in recent memory, the actual Oscars race is turning out to be a bit of a snoozefest. Oppenheimer has steamrolled its competitors all season and is almost certainly taking home the most awards (including picture and director) tonight. All of the acting awards are pretty much locked up, and while the screenplay awards have a little more room to surprise, they're trending towards heavy favorites. Still, I can't complain too much given the high quality of most of the nominees and likely winners. I just hope the ceremony offers some unexpected moments (in a good way), since the awards themselves aren't likely to provide any.

BEST PICTURE

Will win: Oppenheimer

Should win: My personal favorites were The Holdovers and American Fiction, but I think Oppenheimer would be a worthy winner.

Dark horse: There just isn't one this year.

BEST DIRECTOR

Will win: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

Should win: Nolan - this is his best film in a long time.

Dark horse: Once again, there isn't one. Nolan or bust.

BEST ACTOR

Will win: Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer, which surprises me a bit since it's a very good but very reserved performance. Yet he's been dominating all the precursor awards.

Should win: Look, I'm a longtime Murphy fan, but I would give this to Paul Giamatti for career-best work in The Holdovers. Even better would be a tie between Giamatti and Jeffrey Wright, who also delivered career-best work in American Fiction. And honestly, I'm a little sad Bradley Cooper never really got any traction for Maestro.

Dark horse: Again, none, though Giamatti still has a tiny sliver of a chance of an upset.

BEST ACTRESS

Will win: Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon

Should win: Where the fuck is Margot Robbie for Barbie?

Dark horse: Emma Stone could still win for her tour de force performance as woman-child Bella Baxter in Poor Things, but my gut says the Oscar's going to Gladstone.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Will win: Robert Downey, Jr., Oppenheimer

Should win: Ryan Gosling, Barbie - though I am sad Willem Dafoe did not get nominated for his lovely turn in Poor Things.

Dark horse: None

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Will win: Da'Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

Should win: Randolph, although I haven't seen The Color Purple (Danielle Brooks was nominated) or Nyad (Jodie Foster).

Dark horse: None

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Will win: Anatomy of a Fall

Should win: Anatomy of a Fall

Dark horse: Past Lives

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Will win: American Fiction (I'm switching last minute from Oppenheimer since most of the pundits seem to be saying AF, which would be just dandy with me!)

Should win: American Fiction

Dark horse: Poor Things

Other Categories

International Feature: The Zone of Interest

Animated Feature: The Boy and the Heron, though Across the Spider-verse could overtake it

Documentary: 20 Days in Mariupol

Cinematography: Oppenheimer

Editing: Oppenheimer

Production Design: Poor Things, though Barbie could sneak in here

Costume Design: same

Makeup & Hair: Maestro

Visual Effects: Godzilla Minus One

Score: Oppenheimer

Song: Billie Eilish, "What Was I Made For?" - Barbie

Sound: Oppenheimer

Animated Short: War is Over!

Documentary Short: No idea, but others seem to be predicting The Last Repair Shop so I'll go with that.

Live Action Short: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar - check it out on Netflix, it's delightful!

Top Movies of 2023

What a difference a year makes! About this time last year I was bemoaning my lack of enthusiasm for the movies of 2022, including most of the likely Oscar contenders. While there were a number of very good films that year, there just weren’t many that truly thrilled or delighted me. In 2023, by contrast, I felt like a kid in a candy store. It’s true that “Barbenheimer” aside, the year was back-loaded with nearly all of the best movies dropping in the last quarter. However, it felt front-loaded for me in that four of the films I saw at the Middleburg Film Festival in October ended up in my top five of the year. Even more tellingly, I would recommend the vast majority of the films I saw in 2023. There were a few disappointments (Killers of the Flower Moon among the most notable), but many more that met or exceeded my expectations. The result is a lot of “honorable mentions” that in another year would have made my top ten.

The usual caveats: I didn’t see any documentaries in 2023 – though I want to see Menus-Plaisirs: Les Troisgrois, Occupied City, American Symphony, and Anselm – or nearly enough foreign language films, which don’t usually stay long in theaters around here but tend to take longer to hit streaming. Still, I’ll stand by my choices any day. These films enthralled me, moved me, rocked me with laughter – sometimes all three. I share them in the hope that they did or do the same for you.

1. Tie:

AMERICAN FICTION

Writer-director Cord Jefferson delivers a gangbuster of a debut feature with this highly entertaining satire of the literary establishment and the politics of racial representation. Based on a novel written over 20 years ago by Percival Everett, it’s if anything even more current today; think less angry, more wry mash-up of Spike Lee’s Bamboozled and Radha Blank’s The 40 Year Old Version. Jeffrey Wright is outstanding as protagonist Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a highbrow middle-aged black American writer who writes a ghetto porn novel as a bitter joke...only to see it meet with an effusive reception beyond his wildest imagination. This may be the funniest movie I saw all year; while the satire starts out quite broad, it develops more shading and nuance as it goes on and is deftly interlaced with the more realistic dramedy of Monk’s strained relationship with his family.

THE HOLDOVERS

In what may be Alexander Payne’s softest and sweetest film (in a good way!), Paul Giamatti delivers a career-best performance as a curmudgeonly terror of a history teacher at a boys’ prep school in the early 1970s. Stuck with looking after the few boys who are left behind to spend their Christmas holidays at the school, he builds a slow, mutually begrudging bond with the brightest and most troubled of them (Dominic Sessa), as well as the school cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) who’s mourning the death of her son in Vietnam. Both Sessa and Randolph are excellent, but it’s Giamatti who elevates the film to the next level. He somehow manages to be at once the antithesis of Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society and his natural heir – no mean feat.

3. ALL OF US STRANGERS

Andrew Haigh (Weekend, 45 Years, HBO’s Looking) once again confirms why he’s one of my favorite writer-directors working today. In his latest film, a London-based writer (Andrew Scott) finds himself visiting his long-dead parents (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy) – or incarnations of them at the point when he tragically lost them – around the same time he begins a relationship with his younger neighbor (Paul Mescal). The parent storyline is loosely based on a Japanese novel; the romance is all Haigh, layering on the perspective of a Gen X gay man whose personal and generational trauma have made it hard to open up to love. Both narratives eventually meld into a haunting, deeply poignant meditation on grief and missed connections. I’m making the movie sound like a downer, but it isn’t really; it works a strange magic that holds you in its grip right up to the end.

4. OPPENHEIMER

Amazingly for a film clocking in at 3 hours of (mostly) men talking, testifying, and writing on chalkboards, Chris Nolan’s take on the “American Prometheus” never once flags or drags; if anything, it’s almost too frenetic, especially initially, in its cross-cutting between different stages of Oppenheimer’s life. It does eventually settle down into a compelling portrait and Nolan’s best film in years. His depiction of the race to build the first A-bomb is particularly riveting, though he somehow manages to generate almost equally high drama and tension from congressional and security clearance board hearings. Boosted by a large and excellent cast, the film ultimately derives much of its power from Cillian Murphy’s spare yet magnetic performance as a man who for all the renown and intense scrutiny he drew remained a profound – and profoundly conflicted – enigma.

5. ANATOMY OF A FALL

Ostensibly a murder mystery and courtroom drama about a man who fell to his death (or was he pushed?), Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner is at its core an almost clinical dissection of a troubled marriage and the difficulty of reconstructing the truth from inevitably subjective and incomplete accounts. By turns chilling, harrowing, and unexpectedly funny, the film sharply underscores how impossible it is to truly understand a relationship from the outside – and sometimes from the inside, too. Sandra Hüller is terrific as the prime suspect, as is Milo Machado-Graner, the young actor who plays her son.

6. THE BOY AND THE HERON

As far as I’m concerned, Miyazaki can keep un-retiring if he continues to create films like this. A gorgeous, moving fantasy about a boy whose grief over his mother’s death leads him to a series of otherworldly adventures, it held me rapt from start to finish and also made me laugh out loud without ever breaking the spell. True, the ending felt a little rushed, and I never entirely untangled how the different worlds in the story were linked. But for me, at least, the film’s best experienced as a dream vision, which means figuring out its internal logic matters less than submitting to its surreal beauty.

7. POOR THINGS

In this retelling of Frankenstein through the fisheye lens of Yorgos Lanthimos, the “monster” is a female beauty (Emma Stone), appropriately named Bella, who provokes not terror but a desire to control her even as she stubbornly seeks freedom and self-actualization. Based on the novel by Alasdair Gray, the film’s a colorful funhouse romp, tricked out with characteristic Lanthimos deadpan humor, lots of sex, and a visually inspired reimagining of an alternate-universe, vaguely steampunk-ish version of Victorian-era Europe. It’s a fascinating watch, and Stone is fierce, fearless, and wonderful as the insatiable Bella, though the performance that affected me most was that of Willem Dafoe as her damaged and damaging, yet surprisingly sympathetic, creator.

8. ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT'S ME, MARGARET

Despite never having read the Judy Blume classic, I fell in love with this adaptation, which captures all the joys and anxieties of being a pre-adolescent girl with both humor and empathy and not one whiff of preciousness or condescension. I expected no less from director Kelly Fremon-Craig, who previously wrote and directed the delightful The Edge of Seventeen and, as with that film, gets wonderful performances from her young stars – especially Abby Ryder Fortson as the titular protagonist. Rachel McAdams delivers fine supporting work as Margaret’s equally displaced and disoriented mother, and the film does a nice job evoking the cultural era (NY/NJ circa 1970) without letting it distract from the timelessness of the narrative.

9. MAESTRO

Say what you like about Bradley Cooper’s latest passion project (and it seems many have nothing good to say about it), I found it an impressive directorial and acting follow-up to A Star is Born. Less a biopic than a kaleidoscopic look at the life of Leonard Bernstein, its emotional fulcrum is his loving but complicated marriage to Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan). Both Cooper and Mulligan are top-notch and really sell their characters at each point of their lives; the cinematography, too, is seriously virtuosic and rangey work that doesn’t feel like showing off so much as channeling Bernstein’s exuberance. It helps if you don’t treat Maestro as a movie “about” either Lenny or Felicia but about their relationship. On that level, I think it works beautifully.

10. SHOWING UP

With Kelly Reichardt, it’s always about the little things. Here she provides a glimpse of a few days in the life of an artist (Michelle Williams) who’s struggling to put together a show while dealing with the distractions of no hot water, tensions with her family and with her more successful frenemy (Hong Chau), and a wounded pigeon (yes, a pigeon). Like Reichardt’s other films, this one isn’t driven by plot – there isn’t really one – but by her unsentimental yet empathetic observations of a character, her community, and the dynamics therein. It’s the kind of quiet little film that sneaks up on you long after you’ve seen it and other, flashier movies have faded. It’s also a thought-provoking reminder of how much of making art is about...well, showing up.

Next 10 / Honorable mentions: Barbie; The Zone of Interest; Past Lives; Perfect Days; The Teachers’ Lounge; Fallen Leaves; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; Suzume; Joy Ride; Asteroid City

Also a passing word in defense of two blockbusters that weren’t: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and The Marvels. Were they great films? No. Did they need to be made? No. Still, both were both rollicking fun and didn’t take themselves too seriously, and both deserved to perform better than they did – especially the much-maligned Marvels.

And finally, a shout-out to two 2022 films that I did not see until 2023 but that would surely have made my top 10 for 2022 if I had seen them in time:

Return to Seoul

Cambodian-French director Davy Chou’s gorgeous air kiss of a film charts the fitful odyssey of a restless young Korean-French woman (Ji Min-Park), adopted by a French couple as a baby, who finds herself in Seoul and ends up looking for her birth parents. After that first visit, the narrative flashes forward, a few years at a time, to her subsequent return trips. Each time she brings a radically different outward persona but the same big question mark about what she really wants – an elusiveness that would be frustrating were it not for Park’s startlingly assured performance. The film’s vibes are part Lost in Translation, part Wong Kar-Wai, part Korean comedy of manners – but what Chou delivers is his own uniquely rich evocation of the disorienting experience of visiting one’s country of origin for the first time.

The Quiet Girl

In this tiny gem of a film, a young Irish girl is sent by her sprawling, largely uncaring family to live for a while with distant relatives; they treat her with simple kindness and attention, and she thrives under their care. And that’s it: the kind of small, quiet, precisely observed film that carefully avoids easy sensibility only to hit you with ALL THE FEELINGS by the end. I still tear up at the memory of the last line.

How Had I Never - 2023

For someone who loves movies as much as I do, there are a lot of well-known films – including way too many stone-cold classics – that I’ve never seen. There are a few reasons for these gaps, the main one being that I'm very bad about watching movies at home; I strongly prefer to see them in theaters. A corollary reason is that I invariably prioritize the hot new release that’s just hit theaters rather than the classic I’ve been meaning to watch for years. Nevertheless, I do try periodically – if sporadically – to play catch-up through home viewing.

This year’s “how had I never seen” list was shaped largely by two phenomena: (1) the end of Netflix’s DVD program (RIP), which resulted in a cascade of long-deferred DVDs from my queue; (2) my participation in online guess-the-movie games Framed and AFI’s Get the Picture, which regularly surfaced films I knew I should have seen but had not. The result is an odd mix of classic noir, French New Wave, Mel Brooks, silent films, and animated films. All were worth watching, though the three that really exceeded my expectations, as noted below, were Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro, Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr, and Agnès Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7.

**My Neighbor Totoro (1988) – Now my favorite Miyazaki. What I found most striking is how gentle it is, in the best possible way. It never makes light of the fears or fancies of childhood, but spins them into exhilarating and ultimately reassuring fantasy.

Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) – My introduction to Alain Resnais. Frankly I found it a little hard to gin up sympathy for a woman whose great lost love was a Nazi and the new lover we never really get to know, but the two actors sell it, especially the great Emmanuelle Riva.

Laura (1944) – Was expecting something more like Rebecca; glad I did not know in advance about the main plot twist. Clifton Webb gives All About Eve's George Saunders a run for his money as the controlling, gay-coded web-weaver.

Close-Up (1990) – One of Abbas Kiarostami’s earliest and perhaps best-known “docufiction” films; plays like a straight-up documentary until you look closer. Thought-provoking.

Blazing Saddles (1974) – Some belly laughs for sure, but as always with Mel Brooks, I found the jokes hit-or-miss and the plot felt like an afterthought. I did, however, enjoy the literal breaking of the fourth wall. Also, unpopular opinion: I really don’t get Madeline Kahn or why people find her funny.

Rififi (1955) – Darker and more brutal than I was expecting for a 1950s heist film. But damn riveting, right up to the climactic mad drive and final shot.

Double Indemnity (1944) – Billy Wilder + Raymond Chandler + Barbara Stanwyck + Fred MacMurray (playing deliciously against type) + Edward G. Robinson (who very nearly steals the show) = seedy noir perfection.

Lilo & Stitch (2002) – Weirder than I was expecting, in a good way. Also not expecting the film would make me cry like a fool. Disney should make more movies like this.

Frankenstein (1931) – Weird tonal shifts in some of the village merriment scenes, but what you remember is the iconic scenes, which have lost none of their power even after almost a century.

Bride of Frankenstein (1934) – Slightly preferred to the original; it’s campier in some ways, but overall more tonally consistent, and the plight of the Monster cuts sharper and deeper.

Young Frankenstein (1974) – OK, I think this is the best Mel Brooks I’ve seen, though maybe that’s because it’s a pretty straight-up parody of both Frankenstein and Bride?

**Sherlock Jr. (1924) – What a delight! Meta before meta was really a “thing” in movies. The movie within the movie is sheer brilliance.

The Double Life of Véronique (1991) – Gorgeous, and not only because of Irène Jacob (although I don’t think anyone can watch this and not fall in love with her). The final reveal of the literal puppet master is a bit creepy, though.

A Fish Called Wanda (1988) – A fun caper, but as someone who grew up with a Yorkshire terrier, I found one of its running gags slightly traumatizing.

**Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) – Oh, this was so great! My first Agnès Varda, and by far my favorite nouvelle vague film. Feels like it could have been filmed today.

Last Year at Marienbad (1961) – This film practically parodies itself as an overly rococo example of the Resnais brand of nouvelle vague. It is, nonetheless, haunting.

Modern Times (1936) – A classic for a reason; the social themes still bite today.

Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) – The spiritual sequel to My Neighbor Totoro, with the same gentle sensibility if a touch less whimsy. This is appropriate, given that it’s about the transition to adolescence/ young adulthood.

2023 Oscars predix

I'll be honest: it's been hard for me to get excited about this year's Oscars. That's largely reflective of my general lack of enthusiasm for the movies of 2022, not so much any particular beef with the nominations. Four of the Best Picture nominees were in my own top ten for the year, and two in my top five - not a bad batting average at all for the Academy. But for the most part this year's crop doesn't inspire the same depth of support that my favorites usually do. I'm simply not as emotionally invested this year; I haven't even seen all of the BP nominees, for the first time in at least 15 years. Sorry, Triangle of Sadness and Avatar 2, I just couldn't find the time for you, no matter how many glowing testaments I read to the brilliance of your social satire or your visual effects, respectively.

That said, it's the Oscars, so I can't not care at least a little; it's a reflex. And there are aspects of this year's race I'm very pleased about - most notably, the unexpected dominance of what was probably the most bonkers and most inspired movie I saw last year, Everything Everywhere All at Once. If someone had told me last year it was going to be the BP frontrunner, I'd have assumed they were smoking the same drugs the Daniels were when they wrote the script. But here we are, and I couldn't be happier.

Let's get down to brass tacks, shall we?

BEST PICTURE

Will win: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Should win: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Dark horse: All Quiet on the Western Front, which might peel off just enough of both the international voters and the older, more conservative voters; The Banshees of Inisherin also has a fighting shot.

BEST DIRECTOR

Will win: The Daniels (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert), Everything Everywhere All at Once

Should win: The Daniels

Dark horse: Martin McDonagh, Banshees

BEST ACTOR

Will win: Seems to be down to Brendan Fraser, The Whale, and Austin Butler in Elvis, though my gut says it's going to Fraser.

Should win: Colin Farrell, Banshees, though I'd be happy with a Fraser win, and I'm also a big fan of Bill Nighy's lovely, delicate turn in Living.

Dark horse: Farrell

BEST ACTRESS

Will win: A real nailbiter between Cate Blanchett for Tár and Michelle Yeoh for EEAaO. I'll say Blanchett by a hair.

Should win: I haven't seen either de Armas' or Riseborough's performances, but Blanchett's is a master class in both playing a larger-than-life character and stripping her down to nothing - her best work since Blue Jasmine. That said...my heart wants Yeoh to win.

Dark horse: I really don't see it being anyone other than Yeoh or Blanchett

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Will win: The one true lock of the night - Ke Huy Quan, EEAaO, both for the performance and for the comeback story of the year, if not the decade

Should win: Quan. He was the heart to Yeoh's soul in EEAaO, or maybe it was the other way around? He deserves the fairy tale ending to his fairy tale season. But first let me shed a tear for Paul Dano, who was incredibly NOT EVEN NOMINATED for his best-in-show performance in The Fabelmans.

Dark horse: None

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Will win: A toss-up between veterans Jamie Lee Curtis and Angela Bassett; I think Curtis has the edge

Should win: They're all worthy, but my personal fave is Stephanie Hsu as the tormented daughter in EEAaO

Dark horse: Kerry Condon could sneak in for Banshees if JLC and Bassett split the "legend!" vote

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Will win: Banshees

Should win: EEAaO for sheer inventiveness

Dark horse: Eh, I think it's gotta be either EEAaO or Banshees

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Will win: Women Talking

Should win: I'm not wildly jazzed about this category, but of this group I'd give it to Women Talking

Dark horse: All Quiet on the Western Front

Top Ten Movies of 2022

Some years are better for movie lovers than others. 2022 was not one of the better ones. At least not for mainstream English language “prestige” fare, aka Oscar bait films, that get proper theatrical releases.

This was frankly a bit of a surprise for me, given how strong 2020 and 2021 were for exactly that kind of film. The dropoff could be due to a number of interrelated factors: delayed impact of the pandemic; the ongoing shift from theaters to streaming services for non-franchise films and character-driven dramas; and the broader decline of medium-budget prestige pics and the generally anemic box performances of those that do get released, which only feeds the other trends. But there’s also the simple fact that so many of the 2022 films that seemed promising on paper turned out to be critical duds. (I’m looking at you, Amsterdam, Babylon, Empire of Light, and The Whale – all of which I skipped due to poor reviews.)

Whatever the reason, the dearth of traditional awards contenders is reflected in the dominance of this year’s Oscar nominations by the delightfully out-there Everything Everywhere All at Once, German war movie/literary adaptation All Quiet on the Western Front, nihilistic chamber drama/black comedy The Banshees of Inisherin, and the action megablockbuster that “saved” the movies, Top Gun: Maverick. I saw those movies, and enjoyed or at least appreciated them. There were other bright spots, too, which I’ll highlight below. But for the most part, there were very few that I really loved or that knocked me flat. And that’s okay – like I said, some years are like that. I just hope it doesn’t turn into a trend.

First, before I get to the list for 2022: a special shout-out to two exceptional films that were technically released in 2021, but didn’t come to theaters near me until 2022. There are always a few of these – usually, as in this case, non-English language films – that fall between the cracks of my top ten lists. But particularly given what a weak year it was, I wanted to highlight them.

Compartment No. 6

I saw this tender and engaging little Finnish film – about a Finnish student who finds herself sharing a compartment with a young Russian laborer on a long train ride from Moscow to Murmansk, circa 1997 – the same day I saw Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (which, unlike Compartment, got Oscar nominated for Best International Feature). I liked both very much; yet Compartment is the one that’s lingered longest and that I think of the most often. It starts out as a kind of anti-Before Sunrise, as the two protagonists initially seem utterly incompatible – she’s reserved, gay, and worried about her relationship with her Russian girlfriend, while he’s an obnoxious boor who kicks things off by getting drunk and sexually harassing her. However, over the course of their journey they build a bond of affection and maybe something more. The movie really captures the drab, claustrophobic feel and forced intimacy of a post-Cold War Russian train, but also the unexpected moments of connection and camaraderie that develop as a result. It’s a wistful tribute to the idea that individual humanity and empathy can bridge gaps of nationality, class, and cultural identity.

Petite Maman

This tiny gem of a French film by Celine Sciama (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) centers on a little girl who meets and befriends a doppelganger in the woods outside her grandmother’s house. While that may sound creepy, it’s anything but. To say more would be to give too much away – not that that’s stopped too many other reviews from revealing the central conceit – except that the film itself doesn’t really try to hide what’s going on. It’s more interested in the emotional terrain explored by the girls, which ends up being both slightly melancholy and utterly charming.

And now, my top ten movies of 2022:

1. FIRE ISLAND

You heard it here: This is the best Jane Austen screen adaptation since the mid-1990s one-two punch of Amy Heckerling’s Clueless and Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility. Joel Kim Booster’s contemporary gay spin on Pride and Prejudice is, simply put, a delight. Come for the clever reimagining of the Austen classic and/or the satirical skewering of 21st century gay social hierarchies; stay for the sweet chemistry between Booster and Bowen Yang, who play the movie’s Lizzy and Jane (with a touch of Charlotte).

2. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

An apt title for “the Daniels’” latest cinematic swing for the fences, wherein Michelle Yeoh, as a long-suffering laundromat owner named Evelyn, literally saves the world (all worlds) by channeling all of her character’s different existences across multiple universes. Wildly trippy, hilarious, exhausting yet exhilarating, it’s crammed with tributes to everything from moody Wong Kar-Wai romances to wu xia films to The Matrix and (I kid you not) Ratatouille. The result can feel overstuffed, but it holds together thanks to the wonderful performances of Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan as Evelyn’s husband, and Stephanie Hsu as her daughter/adversary. Ostensibly a multiverse action fantasy, at heart it’s a testament to deep familial love and, in particular, the complex relationship between an Asian mother and daughter. I guarantee you’ve never seen a movie quite like this before.

3. TÁR

Not just the tale of the downfall of a sexual predator or a vehicle for the great Cate Blanchett, Todd Field’s magnum opus is a satire of the classical music world, a ghost story/horror movie, and an unsparing but not completely unsympathetic portrait of a seemingly perfectly au courant woman who, without even realizing it, has fallen fatally out of step with her times. It’s nerve-jangling and, when you least expect it, cruelly funny; it’s definitely longer than it needs to be, but Blanchett is so mesmerizing you almost don’t notice. Field is careful to avoid telegraphing any judgment as to Tár’s (heavily suggested, never “proven”) guilt and whether her comeuppance is overdue justice or a byproduct of our social media-driven culture. Both could be true, and the fascination of the film lies in pondering whether it matters.

4. TOP GUN: MAVERICK

Yes, it’s just as much of a military recruiting poster and wish fulfillment fantasy of American machismo as the original TG was. Yes, it’s still centered on the bonding and conflict between white men, with women and POC in visible but ultimately dispensable roles. Yes, it hits all the beats you’d expect it to; yes, the airfighting sequences are the strongest element and the romance the weakest; and yes, Tom Cruise once again saves the day. And you know what? It was easily the best, most satisfying theatrical movie viewing experience I had in 2022. What’s most impressive is how it manages to take the same basic themes and narrative tropes as its predecessor and make it into something a thousand times better.

5. SHE SAID

Directed by Maria Schrader (who helmed the 2021 charmer I’m Your Man and the Netflix series Unorthodox), this dramatization of how NYT reporters Jodi Kantor and Meghan Twohey helped bring down Harvey Weinstein does an excellent job capturing the dogged shoe-leather work of investigative journalism in the grand tradition of films like Spotlight, The Post, and of course All the President’s Men. Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan are solid as Kantor and Twohey, as are the always-reliable Patricia Clarkson and Andre Braugher as Times editors Rebecca Corbett and Dean Baquet. However, the real show-stealers are the actresses playing Weinstein’s victims, especially Samantha Morton and Jennifer Ehle. In just a few scenes they capture the pain, fear, and impotent rage of all the women who were bullied and manipulated into silence by one powerful creep and the complicity of an entire industry.

6. AFTERSUN

The debut feature of Charlotte Wells stars Paul Mescal (my latest One to Watch, now an Oscar-nominated actor) and newcomer Frankie Corio as a young father and his 11-year-old daughter on holiday in Turkey, circa late ’90s. There’s no real plot here; this is a movie about remembering and how memories of a loved one can be at once indelible and fragile, vivid with emotional truth even as the facts are fragmented by unexplained blanks. Sequences of the unlikely pair’s vacation, idyllic on the surface while cross-hatched with small but telling tensions underneath, are intercut with glimpses of the daughter as an adult 20+ years later, trying to piece together her recollections of a dad she clearly feels she never fully knew. Quiet and lovely, the film reminded me a bit of Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere – but hits a deeper chord. Mescal and Corio have an appealing and believable chemistry that leaves a pang when their time together comes to an end.

7. DECISION TO LEAVE

Park Chan-Wook’s lush homage to Vertigo (and other Hitchcock films) may be less outré than some of PCW’s previous works, but still exhibits plenty of his stylized violence, twisted plotting, and dark humor. Some may feel, not unfairly, that it’s more style than substance, designed to seduce rather than endure. What gives the film is emotional heft, though, is the first-rate acting by Park Hae-il as an insomniac detective and Tang Wei as the murder suspect/femme fatale who becomes the object of his obsession. Their faces have stayed with me long after the details of their machinations faded.

8. THE FABELMANS

Steven Spielberg’s contribution to the ever-expanding “Director Looks Back at his Youth” canon, is less interesting as an autobiography of Spielberg than as a canny reflection on the incredible, at times discomfiting power of filmmaking. Gabriel LaBelle is compelling as the teenage Spielberg stand-in, and Michelle Williams may have gotten most of the awards attention, but for my money the perpetually underrated Paul Dano is the most affecting as the proto-computer engineer dad who tries to be supportive of his loved ones despite not really understanding what makes them tick. While the pacing is a bit uneven, the ending is note-perfect, thanks to a memorable cameo that film nerds will love.

9. THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN

Martin McDonagh goes back to his roots with this tale of human folly and existential angst, set on a remote island off the coast of Ireland in the 1920s, in which a brooding musician (Brendan Gleeson) abruptly cuts off his longstanding friendship with a nice dimwit (Colin Farrell) who stubbornly refuses to accept being ghosted. Not surprisingly for McDonagh, the script feels a bit like a play – think Waiting for Godot if Vladimir suddenly stopped speaking to Estragon – but opens up nicely with some beautiful cinematography and thematically significant references to the concurrent Irish Civil War. Farrell and Gleeson are terrific, with strong supporting turns by Kerry Condon as the dimwit’s much brighter sister and Barry Keoghan as the town misfit. Overall, it’s a moving if bleak – and unexpectedly bloody – meditation on mortality, relationships, and what it means to endure.

10. AFTER YANG

This gently futuristic parable about a family struggling to decide what to do with their failing android companion probes quietly yet thoughtfully into the big questions of mortality, humanity, our relationship with technology and how it impacts our relationship with each other. Like Kogonada’s other work (e.g., Columbus), it’s a beautifully composed meditation that both exhibits and requires patience and careful attention to detail. Its contemplative, measured tone put me in mind of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Klara and the Sun.

Honorable mentions: Women Talking; Turning Red; Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery; The Woman King; RRR

Have not seen but want to see: Corsage; EO; Armageddon Time; Elvis; Marcel the Shell with Shoes on; Living; more than a few non-English language films or documentaries

Do not want to see, thank you: Triangle of Sadness; Avatar 2