The Oscars are right around the corner, and I’ve finally caught up with this year’s eight Best Picture nominees. These Academy Awards are as weird as the year that they’re celebrating, and it’s simultaneously easier and harder than ever to watch the Academy’s selected films: four of them are available on subscription-based streaming services, while the other four can only be seen in low-capacity cinemas or digitally rented for above-average prices. Below, I’ve compiled my thoughts on the eight films competing for this year’s top prize and ranked them from worst to best.
8. Promising Young Woman
5 total nominations: Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Film Editing, and Best Picture
Emerald Fennell’s rape-revenge saga is a narrative and thematic mess that fails on almost every conceivable level. Carey Mulligan stars as a woman who sets out to avenge the assault and death of her best friend by trying to change society, one drunken altercation at a time. Mulligan’s performance is fine, but can’t save her character from the sloppiness of the writing and direction, neither of which can decide if the protagonist is a badass girlboss (ugh) or a tragic, victimized antihero with dubious morals. The film strikes a jarring imbalance of campy visual metaphors, dark comedy sequences, painfully overt moralizing, and failed attempts at bleak dramatic realism, which all feel like they cancel each other out.
It’s a movie full of intriguing ideas and righteous objectives that can’t figure out how to communicate its messages, which subsequently makes it seem like it doesn’t understand what kind of movie it is at all. “Nice guy” rape culture and the corrupt institutions that enable it deserve unending critique, punishment, and exposure, but this movie doesn’t effectively provide much of that. It doesn’t offer the satisfying catharsis that other rape-revenge movies might, nor does it supply the sobering realism that its director intends. It instead feels like a movie specifically designed to make men realize how terrible male behavior can be, because it’s not emotionally moving, empowering, or thought-provoking beyond its very basic, explicit assertion that rape is bad. Based on the positive reception, it seems that a lot of people needed to hear that simple message, so I can’t fault it for opening people’s eyes to the urgent topics at the movie’s core, but those topics deserve much more care, depth, and empathy than this film is able to provide. (Many more spoilery thoughts here.)
Now playing in theatres and available for rental on all digital platforms.
7. Mank
10 total nominations: Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound, Best Production Design, Best Makeup & Hairstyling, and Best Picture
David Fincher’s exploration of Citizen Kane’s politicized journey to the screen boasts numerous charms, including Amanda Seyfried’s portrayal of Marion Davies, a stellar score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, a gorgeous rendering of Old Hollywood, and Fincher’s usual technical strengths, such as effective camera movement, precise editing, and dynamic blocking. But what, exactly, is the point of Mank? It seems that David Fincher and his late father Jack, who penned the script nearly thirty years ago, had two primary goals: to explore the fascinating events that inspired Citizen Kane, and to honor the titular screenwriter, who apparently doesn’t receive enough credit for his contributions to the medium.
The first goal is a lot more interesting than the second, because it allows the filmmakers to dive into 1930s studio politics — or, more accurately, national politics weaponizing studios. Fincher sheds light on William Randolph Hearst’s media manipulation that ultimately helped determine California’s political fate, which also not-so-subtly parallels our contemporary Fox-controlled system that uses similar tactics of spin and misinformation to skew electoral outcomes ––which would make for a riveting movie if Citizen Kane didn’t already communicate similar ideas with more artistry and urgency almost eighty years ago. Fincher’s film doesn’t really break any new ground that Welles and Mankiewicz didn’t already cover — instead, it just seems to amplify their ideas with a more obvious tone. The only concept that Mank adds to the conversation is that Citizen Kane itself was subject to political scrutiny, which works better as an indication that Welles and Mank were right all along (or as a piece of trivia) than as a premise to build a new movie around. The political side of Mank, then, seems redundant despite its intriguing charm.
The second goal — to immortalize and pay respect to the fiery screenwriter — doesn’t really succeed, either. Herman Mankiewicz barely feels like a real person in this movie, largely because of Gary Oldman’s cartoonish performance. His casting may be the number one issue with this film — I genuinely have no idea why anyone would cast a 62-year-old British antisemite (yes, really) to play a Jewish American in his early thirties and forties. Maybe it’s the script’s fault, though, as it frames its hero as a witty firebrand who’s always the smartest guy in the room (and, hilariously, is the only Best Picture nominee without a screenplay nomination, despite being about screenwriting). He rarely makes mistakes and always knows the right thing to say, yet his vague political convictions (which manifest more as sarcastic contradictions to whoever he’s talking to, regardless of the left-right divide, than any actual beliefs) make him an underdog. These polarized contradictions mean that the film expects us to believe that he’s essentially a helpless genius who deserves sympathy for his circumstances and admiration for his wit. And despite his constant smartassery, his dialogue rarely amounts to any genuine indication of character. He functions as a machine for quips and criticisms instead of a human being.
Available on Netflix.
6. The Trial of the Chicago 7
6 total nominations: Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Song, and Best Picture
Aaron Sorkin doesn’t display much growth as a director in his sophomore outing, but The Trial of the Chicago 7 still packs a solid political punch –– a strength that his films have lacked since his early career. The filmmaker constructs the story, which follows the protests and police brutality outside the 1968 Democratic Convention, in such a way that intentionally parallels our twenty-first century police state. Sorkin’s bread-and-butter, courtroom theatrics, are undeniably entertaining but don’t work nearly as well as they do in A Few Good Men, primarily due to a more convoluted story and decidedly less-flashy performances. Instead, Chicago 7 finds more power in the scenes outside of the courthouse, especially in the engrossing sequences where the filmmaker cleverly blends flashbacks with behind-the-scenes strategizing from the defendants.
The film’s progressive characters and themes don’t really fit Sorkin’s political tendencies –– his repeated romanticization of American institutions and ideological norms make him an oddly centrist choice to tell this particular story –– but he still manages to pose intriguing, if basic, questions about divisions within the progressive movement and the best strategy for radical reform. And there are definitely several more factors that are cause for serious hesitation –– the absurd mishandling of the Black Panthers feels like a hesitant afterthought, the final scene is one of the tackiest that Sorkin has ever written, and the cast skews both too old and too British for a fundamentally youthful, American story.
Available on Netflix.
5. Judas and the Black Messiah
6 total nominations: Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (2x), Best Cinematography, Best Original Song, and Best Picture
Angelica Jade Bastién’s piece at Vulture perfectly sums up this film’s numerous flaws: it’s incredibly broad and emotionally distant, with actors too old for the parts and big-money studio ties that directly defy Fred Hampton’s Marxism. While that last part is absolutely true, I also think it’s wild that Shaka King, Ryan Coogler, and the rest of the filmmakers were able to use Warner Brothers’ money — and its parent company’s direct-to-consumer distribution platform, HBO Max — to broadcast a story that sympathizes with the Black Panthers and explicitly shows the violent white supremacy of the American government, even if it fails to communicate the vitality of the Party’s tenets and the human specifics of its members. It’s not a spectacular work of dramatic art, but it still functions as a valuable introduction to Fred Hampton and his peers for new generations of allies that still aren’t being taught these stories in school. I think this is one of the stronger entries in the ever-increasing “Wikipedia films” genre — movies that straightforwardly depict fascinating historical events without taking many artistic risks or adding much to the broader conversation about said events. But I think that widening the conversation is a worthy enough cause to justify a movie’s existence when it covers a subject as vital as this one, even if it oversimplifies or waters down its historical material.
Of course, it helps when two of the most exhilarating young actors play the co-leads in any movie. Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield both maximize the potential of their respective characters within the restrictive confines of this particular project. The former carries himself with powerful, melancholic resolve, selling every word of Hampton’s electrifying speeches in a performance unlike anything he’s done before; meanwhile, the latter embodies the frantic turmoil of a frightened man trapped in an impossible situation, whose desperation evokes sympathy despite its emotional distance, making the audience understand how someone could choose the greater of two evils.
This film does waste enormous potential — the brief looks into Hampton’s personal life barely scratch the surface, consequently making his romantic subplot feel more arbitrary than emotional, while Bill O’Neal somehow has even less personal context than Hampton. The twin protagonist approach leaves both arcs cold and undercooked despite the rich source material. The ultimate problem here is the length, as the filmmakers attempt to do justice to too many people and events in too little time, resulting in a cursory glance at all of them that can’t go in depth. If the industry insists on co-opting this story for art and entertainment, then it at least deserves a massive miniseries to flesh out its players. Yet even a cursory glance at this material is a worthwhile endeavor, especially when a performer as strong as Kaluuya brings it to life.
Now playing in theatres and available for rental on all digital platforms.
4. Nomadland
6 total nominations: Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, and Best Picture
So many American films, both great and forgettable, define their characters by their occupations. Work is so fundamental to our culture that it’s omnipresent in the stories we tell. It’s almost radical, then, to see how Chloé Zhao captures American life with so little interest in defining people by their jobs. In Nomadland, which explores the lives of road-dwelling wanderers in the American Southwest, work is entirely incidental, serving as an unspecific means to an end — to put cash in your pocket and keep you fed — rather than an essential character trait. Instead, with utmost care and empathy, Zhao paints people as collections of memories and agents of forward momentum, made up of complex relationships with spaces, objects, and the people who cross our paths. We’re delicately tied to our homes, our environment, and the countless faces that populate them.
Over the course of the film, Zhao gives so many non-actors beautiful moments to exist, emote, and speak their respective truths. Frances McDormand should stick out like a sore thumb among them, but her quiet persistence allows her to seamlessly blend into these vivid communities and melt into sweeping, gorgeously-photographed landscapes. She’s extremely effective as the audience surrogate, creating natural opportunities for people to tell their stories, but she also works as a complex character in her own right.
Available to stream on Hulu.
3. The Father
6 total nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, and Best Picture
Why aren’t more stage adaptations like this? Florian Zeller elegantly captures the unique electricity of a theatrical production by building his film around Anthony Hopkins’ devastating performance and enhancing it with subtle cinematic flair. Every facet of the film, from its dizzying production design to its intimate camerawork to its precisely confusing editing, helps us further understand the protagonist’s fragile mental state. Everything combines for a poignantly discombobulating effect that makes the movie intentionally difficult to follow in a way that echoes its subject’s disorientation, while still providing just enough information to keep us on our toes — and also to remind us that no cinematic experience can genuinely capture the torment that haunts dementia victims every day.
Hopkins’ quiet, emotional performance further cements him as one of the all-time greats. He’s as commanding as ever, yet miraculously avoids feeling overly showy or unnatural, nailing the tragic, paradoxical balance that defines so many dementia cases: a weariness that can only come with old age combined with intermittent reversions to childlike dependence, fear, and emotional volatility. He and Zeller are commendably unafraid to make this central character intensely prickly or even downright cruel at his lowest moments, complicating our feelings towards him without ever losing our sympathy. It’s a heartbreaking piece of theatrical filmmaking that’s perfectly attuned to the mighty performance at its center.
Now playing in theatres and available for rental on all digital platforms.
2. Sound of Metal
6 total nominations: Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and Best Picture
Immensely empathetic and triumphantly bittersweet, Darius Marder’s narrative debut follows a drummer as he struggles with hearing loss. Riz Ahmed gives an enormously emotional lead performance with a minuscule amount of dialogue, using his endlessly expressive eyes to perfect effect. In a role that could easily drift into predictable explosiveness in its biggest scenes, Ahmed only has one major outburst, then spends the rest of the film quietly mourning his character’s loss. Even in the scenes we can hear, his crying is nearly silent, which is far more realistic and heartbreaking than the huge breakdowns we’re used to seeing from other actors. And there’s never a moment in which you feel like he’s pretending to not hear — he thoroughly convinces you that he cannot in every single scene. He’s backed up by a wonderful Olivia Cooke, who movingly embodies the concern of a loved one who wants the best for their partner, but doesn’t know how to fit into the new equation. And the remainder of the cast, which includes numerous hearing-impaired actors, gives earnestly natural performances, with Paul Raci as a clear standout — he’s a steady beacon of hope in the film’s darkest moments.
It’s easy to temporarily understand fragments of the protagonist’s experience thanks to the amazing sound design that echoes his own limited hearing, which gives a strong sense of the chilling isolation created by muffled silence. It’s a phenomenal effect that further enhances a movie that’s already so full of loneliness, conflict, and hope. I’m kind of amazed at how many great 2020 movies captured the essence of the year — along with Soul and Palm Springs, Sound of Metal nicely distills the overwhelming anxiety of a cataclysmic life shift, as well as the gratification of coming to terms with the new normal and appreciating the smallest simplicities.
Available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
1. Minari
6 total nominations: Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Score, and Best Picture
A gorgeous cinematic breath of fresh air. It’s a warm memory of childhood that never feels nostalgic or overly sentimental, and a clear-eyed reflection on the difficulties of chasing the mythological American dream. The family dynamic is beautifully natural, full of prickly and tender interactions in equal measure, and their conflict feels refreshingly subdued — it’s mostly internal, and borne out of mismatched expectations and misplaced priorities instead of melodramatic tragedies and outright betrayals. Lee Isaac Chung cleverly loads about ten Chekov’s guns that all bring enormous tension to the quietest scenes, but only fires one by the end of the film, which makes his story seem all the more lifelike, as fear constantly lingers but rarely manifests.
It’s practically impossible to pick a favorite performance because the cast is so uniformly fantastic and expertly balanced, with each member inhabiting a distinct mode of quiet, honest desperation. And Lachlan Milne’s cinematography and Emile Mosseri’s score add further texture and emotion to every appropriate moment. If you can only see one awards contender before Sunday, this ought to be it.
Now playing in theatres and available for rental on all digital platforms.
My fave so far, and that’s saying something. Makes me want to see ‘em all.