Hollywood, hoping to find and spread a bit of cheer today, announced its nominations for the 2025 Oscars. We celebrate with them, because we’re thrilled for most of these nominees. Check out those Animated Features (once again, the best category in the lineup)! But, as usual, we have a handful of gripes.
Actress in a Supporting Role
Where is Danielle Deadwyler for The Piano Lesson? In fact, where is that movie? While we think it’s a contender for adapted screenplay (Virgil and Malcolm Washington), as well as perhaps lead actor (John David Washington), there’s no question Deadwyler (also snubbed for 2022’s Till—die she kick somebody’s cat or something?) should not only have been nominated but she probably should have won.
Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown
Ariana Grande, Wicked
Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez
Actor in a Supporting Role
This is a strong lineup, but Clarence Maclin’s performance in Sing Sing is a painful oversight. As much as we loved Norton, Pearce and Strong, Maclin was better than any of them.
Yura Borisov, Anora
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
The Piano Lesson over A Complete Unknown, but at least Sing Sing and Nickel Boys made the list.
A Complete Unknown: James Mangold and Jay Cocks
Conclave: Peter Straughan
Emilia Pérez: Jacques Audiard; in collaboration with Thomas Bidegain, Lea Mysius and Nicolas Livecchi
Nickel Boys: RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes
Sing Sing: Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley; story by Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin, John “Divine G” Whitfield
Writing (Original Screenplay)
No real complaints, but grateful to see September 5 get some love. This is a stacked category and some real masterpieces are going to go home empty handed.
Anora: Sean Baker
The Brutalist: Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold
A Real Pain: Jesse Eisenberg
September 5: Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum; co-written by Alex David
The Substance: Coralie Fargeat
Music (Original Score)
No Challengers?! Being the best score of the year, we’d have bumped any one of these guys to fit it in. (Nice to see The Wild Robot, though.)
The Brutalist: Daniel Blumberg
Conclave: Volker Bertlemann
Emilia Pérez: Clément Ducol and Camille
Wicked: John Powell and Stephen Schwartz
The Wild Robot: Kris Bowers
Music (Original Song)
Disappointed again not to see Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross get any love here. “Compress/Repress” would have been our pick. We’d probably have given it the Diane Warren slot.
“El Mal” from Emilia Pérez: music by Clément Ducol and Camille; lyric by Clément Ducol, Camille and Jacques Audiard
“The Journey” from The Six Triple Eight: music and lyric by Diane Warren
“Like a Bird” from Sing Sing: music and lyric by Abraham Alexander and Adrian Quesada
“Mi Camino” from Emilia Pérez: music and lyric by Camille and Clément Ducol
“Never Too Late” from Elton John: Never Too Late: music and lyric by Elton John, Brandi Carlile, Andrew Watt and Bernie Taupin
Documentary Feature Film
Great list of films here. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat and Sugarcane are our favorites.
Black Box Diaries
No Other Land
Porcelain War
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Sugarcane
International Feature Film
So happy to see Flow and The Girl with the Needle included here. Emilia Pérez is no doubt the front runner, but you should see all five of these.
I’m Still Here: Brazil
The Girl with the Needle: Denmark
Emilia Pérez: France
The Seed of the Sacred Fig: Germany
Flow: Latvia
Animated Feature Film
Brilliant films, top to bottom. Hard to even choose. The best thing you can do is to watch every one of them immediately.
Flow
Inside Out 2
Memoir of a Snail
Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
The Wild Robot
Film Editing
Challengers really needed to be on this list. We’d give it any of these slots except Anora.
Anora: Sean Baker
The Brutalist: Dávid Jancsó
Conclave: Nick Emerson
Emilia Pérez: Juliette Welfing
Wicked: Myron Kerstein
Cinematography
Finally, some love for Nosferatu. We’d liked to have seen Nickel Boys and The Bikeriders on here, probably instead of Maria and Emilia Pérez, although once again it was a remarkable year for cinematographers and all five of these films are gorgeous.
The Brutalist: Lol Crawley
Dune: Part Two: Greig Fraser
Emilia Pérez: Paul Guilhaume
Maria: Ed Lachman
Nosferatu: Jarin Blaschke
Actor in a Leading Role
Not a ton of surprises here. All solid choices.
Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
Timothee Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice
Actress in a Leading Role
Thrilled for the Demi Moore nomination. There were so many exceptional lead performances this year by women, and the one woefully overlooked all season was Jodi Comer in The Bikeriders. We’d have loved to see her make this list against the odds, but it’s tough to say whose slot she should have taken.
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
Karla Sofia Gascon, Emilia Pérez
Mikey Madison, Anora
Demi Moore, The Substance
Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here
Best Director
Robert Eggers (Nosferatu) should have had James Mangold’s spot.
Anora: Sean Baker
The Brutalist: Brady Corbet
A Complete Unknown: James Mangold
Emilia Pérez: Jacques Audiard
The Substance: Coralie Fargeat
Best Picture
Nosferatu and Sing Sing instead of A Complete Unknown and Dune: Part Two. Thrilled to see The Substance and Nickel Boys recognized.
Anora
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
I’m Still Here
Nickel Boys
The Substance
The 97th Academy Awards, hosted by Conan O’Brien, will air on ABC Sunday, March 2, live from the Dolby Theatre.
But in case that hideous lie is in fact the truth, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite films so far. Lots of great stuff still ahead, but we do always mark the occasion of mid-year with a look back, so here you have it, in alphabetical order, the 15 best films of 2024 so far.
The Bikeriders
Based on Danny Lyon’s 1968 book of photos and interviews of the Chicago-based motorcycle club the Vandals, Jeff Nichols’s tale catches a moment in history. Tom Hardy stalks the screen in a deeply felt performance full of pathos, tenderness and fear. His spiritual opposite, Austin Butler haunts the film, a beautiful phantom forever outside anyone’s grasp. But it is Jodie it is Comer who drives The Bikeriders.
Nichols’s character building and patient, lyrical pace combine with cinematographer Adam Stone’s gritty, gorgeous, picture postcard pastiche for an immersive experience that gracefully echoes the source material. Pages are turned and stakes are raised for these characters, their way of life and the country they call home.
Challengers
The relationship triangle at work in Challengers could probably work outside of a tennis court, but director Luca Guadagnino does wonders with the sports angle for a completely engrossing drama of intimate competition. Anchored around a three-set challenge match between Art Donaldson (West Side Story‘s Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor from The Crown), the film drifts back and forth in time as it immerses us in their series of entanglements with tennis phenom Tashi Duncan (Zendaya).
Zendaya, Faist and O’Connor deftly handle the growth of their characters from fresh-faced teens to hardened adults. All three deliver terrific, well-defined performances, and Challengers quickly becomes a film to get lost in, where you’re happy to be hanging on every break point.
Civil War
Filmmaker Alex Garland uses a road trip to D.C. to bolster Civil War’s very ambitious ideas with tension-filled looks at the heartland. Through an uneasy stop for gas, the visit to a town the war forgot, a marksman’s simple rules of engagement, and a brutal citizenship test from an unforgettable Jesse Plemons, we’re immersed in a war-torn America that seems authentically terrifying.
But it’s all just a prelude to the carnage ahead. Because once it settles in D.C., the film becomes a war movie that will batter your senses with a barrage of breathless execution. As draining as it often is, Civil War is also an exhilarating, sobering and necessary experience. Smartly written and expertly crafted, the film manages to honor the work of wartime photojournalists as it delivers a chilling vision. It’s one beyond left or right, where the slippery slope of dehumanization breeds a willingly and violently divisible America we always professed to be beneath us.
Dune: Part Two
Dune: Part Two is as breathtaking a vision as Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 Part One. And it’s a better film, benefitting immeasurably from the freedom of exposition that weighed down Part One. The sequel rides intensity and action from its opening segment. Villeneuve’s world-building is again a wonder to behold. He immerses us in this world of sand and savagery, providing fully realized reminders of how much Herbert’s original vision has influenced iconic sci-fi tentpoles such as Mad Max and Star Wars.
While Part Two‘s 2 hours and 45-minutes eclipse the first film, you’ll also find more meat on the bone, and the finale sticks a damn fine landing. Overall, there’s just more earned tension, more thrills (get ready for the worms!) and more character arc to keep you invested in this fight.
Evil Does Not Exist
Two years ago, the magnificent Drive My Car became the first Japanese film to garner a Best Picture Oscar nomination, and earned Ryûsuke Hamaguchi well-earned noms for writing and directing. Now he rewards his wider audience with Evil Does Not Exist (Aku wa sonzai shinai), another thoughtful, gracefully intellectual tale that finds him in an even more enigmatic mood.
And though the one hundred six-minute running time might seem rushed for a filmmaker that has favored three, four, and even five-hour films, Hamaguchi’s storytelling here is more patient than ever. Yoshio Kitagawa’s exquisite cinematography often showcases nature’s beauty in wordless wonder, always buoyed by an Eiko Ishibashi score that is evocative and moving.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
George Miller follows up his epic action masterpiece Fury Road with a look at what made our girl tick, what turns of event turned her into the baddest of all badasses. Writing again with Nick Lathouris, who co-write Fury Road, Miller invests more time in plotting than usual, creating a 15-year odyssey rather than a breathless and breakneck few day adventure.
Miller remains as true to his vision of the wasteland as he was back in ’79’s original Mad Max, but there is a depth to the storytelling here that sets it apart. We’ve had four films to see what turned Max Rockatansky mad, made him what he is. Now Miller lays out a single story that serves as both a thrilling prelude to Fury Road and a rich origin story in its own right. Plot does not take a front seat to action, though, so strap in for more glorious road wars.
Hit Man
What better way to have some breezy fun with our identity-challenged times than by embellishing the true-life story of one Gary Johnson? Johnson was a phony hitman in Texas who would don different disguises working undercover work for the police. After a 2001 article in Texas Monthly profiled his adventures, various screenwriters toyed with the project. And though Johnson died in 2022, he can sleep well knowing Richard Linklater and Glen Powell’s Hit Man finally does him proud.
Linklater’s direction is slick and well-paced, with a vibe that recalls a winning mix of Fletch whodunnit, Spy humor and Ocean’s 11 sex appeal. But Hitman still feels very much in-the-moment, with a repeated focus on how our point of view can shape our reality, and how our path to change starts by being honest with ourselves.
That’s right, Powell and Linklater find room for a serious message in Hit Man. But don’t worry, you’ll be having so much fun it won’t hurt a bit.
Immaculate
Working from a script by Andrew Lobel, director Michael Mohan mines the desperate helplessness of Rosemary’s Baby. And star/producer Sydney Sweeney does a fine job of swimming the murky waters of faith, innocence, and the wisdom born of innocence lost.
What’s most stunning is how well two male filmmakers channel female rage. Immaculate digs into the way organized religion constrains, punishes, silences, bullies, vilifies and oppresses women and then unleashes glorious fury. Fearless, cathartic, bloody, beautifully sacrilegious fury.
Inside Out 2
It’s been nine years since Pixar’s Inside Out took us on that wonderful ride through a young girl’s feelings. Almost a decade, and I’m still not over what happened to Bing Bong. Revisiting Riley (voiced by Kensington Tallman) when she hits her teen years seems like a natural exercise. And beyond that, Inside Out 2 delivers enough warmth, humor and insight to make the sequel feel downright necessary.
This is another very clever romp through all that builds the sense of self. The film’s battle between joy and anxiety is relatable for all generations, and it’s filled with levels of creativity, humor, and visual flair that are undeniably fun. Inside Out 2 is a completely entertaining two-hour guide toward understanding – or appreciating – the messy emotions of growing up.
I Saw the TV Glow
Fulfilling the promise of 2021’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, writer/director Jane Schoenbrun’s follow-up, I Saw the TV Glow, is a hypnotically abstract and dreamily immersive nightmare of longing.
Justice Smith (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) is heartbreakingly endearing, while Bridgette Lundy-Paine (Bill & Ted Face the Music) provides a revelatory turn of alienation and mystery. It’s hard to take your eyes of either one of them, with Schoenbrun often framing their stares through close-ups that become as challenging as they are inviting. And that feels organically right. Because Schoenbrun is channelling characters who imagine life as someone else, to again emerge as a challenging and inviting filmmaker with a thrillingly original voice.
Love Lies Bleeding
Awash in the stink and the glory of new passion, Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding treads some familiar roadways but leaves an impression solely its own. Glass blends and smears cinematic gender identifiers, particularly those of noir and thriller, concocting an intoxicating new image of sexual awakening and empowerment. She routinely upends images of power and masculinity, subverting expectations and associations and fetishizing the human body anew.
Anyone who’s seen Glass’s magnificent 2021 horror Saint Maudmay be better prepared for the third act than newcomers to the filmmaker’s vision, but it’s a wild and unexpected turn regardless. It’s quite something—bold, original, and wryly funny in the most unexpected moments. There’s heartbreak and horror, sex and revenge, a little magic and a lot of steroids. Glass’s juice has the goods.
Monkey Man
After directing just two short films, Dev Patel moves to features with Monkey Man, an assured and thrillingly violent story of heritage and revenge. Patel teams with screenwriters John Colle and Paul Angunawela—plus producer Jordan Peele—to take some well known themes and move them progressively forward. Rebelling against the totalitarian tactics of Baba Shakti (Makrand Deshpandi) and the Sovereign Party, a forgotten and oppressed population turns to the Monkey Man for deliverance.
And as much as this feels like an origin story, it is a dark one. Patel has indeed delivered a statement, as much about his filmmaking prowess as it is about his worldview. The statement is grim and bloody, so strap in for the thrilling, visceral rise of Patel and the Monkey Man.
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus
Sakamoto, the Japanese composer and actor who earned Grammys, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, an Oscar and multiple other awards in his legendary career, was nearing the end of his long battle with cancer when he agreed to one final performance. Director Neo Sora – Sakamoto’s son – presents his father’s farewell with minimalistic virtuosity. There is only Sakamoto, his piano, and his wonderful talent, as a cascade of musical beauty fills in all the colors needed against Sora’s rich black-and-white pallet.
Give Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus your time and complete attention, and you will be rewarded. This is a man talking to God through his piano.
Just let your soul be enriched.
Snack Shack
Four years ago, Adam Rehmeier’s Dinner In Americaarrived as a delightfully subversive 90s punk rock rom-com. Snack Shack finds the writer/director still navigating the 90s with hilarious R-rated delight, even as the punk rock ‘tude has been usurped by capitalistic dreams. You’ll know where some of this is going, but Rehmeier’s script delivers foul, horny hilarity, and outstanding turns by both Conor Sherry and Gabriel LaBelle stand out in a letter perfect ensemble. The time stamp is again spot on, with Rehmeier’s freewheeling style crafting an infectious mashup of The Way Way Back, Superbad and Project X.
And most importantly, Rehmeier captures that zest for life on the cusp of adulthood without a whiff of pandering or condescension. The boys will do some growing up during this one crazy summer, and the film will grow up with them. Slowly, parents don’t seem quite as lame, the hijinx aren’t as silly and some important lessons about love, sex, death and friendship hang in the air just long enough to hit just hard enough.
Stop Motion
There will be moments when you’re watching Robert Morgan’s macabre vision Stopmotion that you’ll think you see the twists as they’re coming. That’s a trick. Morgan, writing with Robin King, assumes you’ll catch the handful of common horror twists, but he knows that you won’t predict the real story unfolding.
Aisling Franciosi (The Nightingale) is Ella. She’d like to make her own stop-motion animated film, but instead she’s helping her mom finish hers. Ella’s domineering mother Suzanne (Stella Gonet, very stern) is a legend in the field, and she makes Ella feel as if she has no stories of her own to tell.
Stopmotion delivers a trippy, uncomfortable, and deeply felt tale of a struggling artist. This is a descent into madness horror of sorts, but it’s also the story of an artist coming to a realization about what scares her most.