Here’s the format, mostly unchanged. Normalcy and all. I’m going to run through a bunch of categories and give my top five for the period of 2020-2021 combined, which I’m calling the five “contenders,” and then I’ll give a winner. The categories are mostly the normal awards ones with a few extras of my creation to replace categories I don’t like or don’t see many of (hello, live-action shorts). One category, Best Line, is gone this year because there are just too many films I watched too long ago to remember individual lines of dialogue. It may or may not be back. As always I’ve seen many but far from all of the relevant films so if your favorite goes unmentioned here, maybe I just didn’t see it. Or maybe it sucks.
Best Visual Effects
The Contenders:
Dune
Godzilla vs. Kong
The Green Knight
The Suicide Squad
Tenet
If it was a weird two years for movies generally, it was an especially weird two years for blockbuster films, the kind that are usually recognized in this category. They were pushed back, and when they came out a bunch of them kinda didn’t look very good (hello WW1984, the last time you’ll be mentioned in this thing). Even the Marvel movies from the last few years seemed to have kinda shitty special effects, though maybe that’s just fatigue at their house style.
This is basically a three way race between Dune, The Green Knight, and Tenet. The former is easily my favorite of the three (far, FAR from the last time you’ll see it’s title here), the middle did the most with the least, but I’m going with Tenet here. I wasn’t wild about the film generally, maybe because it confused me about as much as any movie ever has, but man are the special effect setpieces spectacular.
Best Film Editing
The Contenders:
Dune
The Father
The Last Duel
Licorice Pizza
West Side Story
Some pretty different movies in this category, which despite the hours of YouTube documentaries I’ve watched on it is the one I still suspect I am most ignorant about. What’s good editing? I...think I can have an educated opinion about it? Maybe? Anyways, the correct answer here is Dune. Why? Well, honestly a huge part is of all the 2.5 hour monstrosities that Hollywood foisted on us over the last few years (did the pandemic make people lose their ability to tell tight stories? What’s going on?) this is the only one where I was surprised that it was already over. That’s a credit to a lot about the movie, but the editing is definitely a big part.
Best Costume Design
The Contenders:
Dune
The Last Duel
Last Night in Soho
Licorice Pizza
Nightmare Alley
I’m weirdly passionate about this category this year, and there were a bunch of movies with awesome costume design that didn’t quite crack the top 5. As always, with this category I try to have a mixture of period pieces with more contemporary films and at least one or two fantasy/sci-fi films. This year was exceptionally easy to do so because there were at least 2-3 excellent examples of each of those three, but for the winner I’m going with one that split the difference between contemporary and period piece and gets a few what I’ll call Phantom Thread bonus points for being about, in part, costuming: Last Night in Soho.
Best Cinematography
The Contenders:
Dune
The Green Knight
Last Night in Soho
Mank
Nomadland
In contrast to the last category, this actually was an oddly shallow field, which is especially weird because I love nothing more than to dwell on the cinematography of films. One possible Contender, The Tragedy of MacBeth may have made it except the boxy aspect ratio (which is sort of arguably part of the cinematography) annoyed me. I’ve given it’s place for the obligatory black and white spot to Mank as punishment.
But for the winner, let’s not overthink this. It’s Dune. Best dunes, easy.
Best Scene
Annually the hardest category to cull down, this year is especially difficult because for a few of these movies I saw them nearly two years ago. Which makes it tough to remember what happened at all, much less which individual scenes were great. But I’ve done my best, and as usual how this works is I try to keep the “title” of the scene as specific but non-spoiler as possible so that, if you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The “no two scenes from the same movie” rule is in effect again, which may or may not have mattered. As always, this category and this one alone gets ten Contenders
The Contenders:
The Graduation—Another Round
The Harkonnen Attack—Dune
The Last Duel—The Last Duel
The First Visit to the 60s—Last
Night in Soho
Jon Peters’ House—Licorice
Pizza
The Bus Fight—Shang-Chi and
the Legend of the Ten Rings
Welcome to the
After/Beforelife—Soul
The Bar Scene—The Suicide
Squad
The Big Dance—West Side
Story
Time-Stop Fantasy—The Worst
Person in the World
I feel a little weird about the winner from this year, because it’s a remake of a very famous scene from a previous version of the movie, but whatever. The Big Dance scene from West Side Story was just fantastic film-making, even if it was based on fantastic film-making from the 1960s.
Best Art Direction
The Contenders:
Dune
The French Dispatch
The Last Duel
Licorice Pizza
The Tragedy of Macbeth
It’s tough to imagine that there is a year that a Wes Anderson movie comes out and it doesn’t win this category, which might as well be named after him. But though The French Dispatch did indeed have fantastic art direction, and would probably be the runner up if I did that (don’t give me any ideas, myself), Dune just had some of the best set design ever. Just fantastic stuff.
Best Sound
The Academy decided to combine editing and mixing (or re-combine, I guess), and frankly I’m confused by the distinction every year so I’m happy to follow suit.
The Contenders:
Dune
The Green Knight
Greyhound
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
The Sound of Metal
I thought the sound in The Sound of Metal was the best and most interesting part of that movie and worthy of the award, but again I just cannot deny the (desert) power of the sound in Dune. FWWOOOOMMMM
Best Use of Music
The Contenders:
Dune
Last Night in Soho
Soul
The Suicide Squad
West Side Story
In a very very strong year(s) for musicals it’s a bit of shame that the winner here isn’t a full musical, though West Side Story is a very strong contender. Also shoutout to Edgar Wright and James Gunn, two of the kings of the needle drop. But the winner here is Soul, a movie that is, in part, about how and why music is important to people. It’s real good. Speaking of:
Best Animated Feature
The Contenders:
Encanto
Luca
The Mitchells vs. The Machines
Soul
Wolfwalkers
I saw five, and exactly five, animated movies in 2020-21 that were better than okay and, well, the list above is them. But two of them were even better than that and it a clear tier to themselves, including our winner, which is not in fact Soul. Instead, it’s the always fantastic Tom Moore and Cartoon Saloon’s Irish fable Wolfwalkers. Also known as the movie that led to me getting Apple TV+. (Also Ted Lasso is good.)
Most Enjoyable Movie
Simple category that seeks to answer a simple question: What’s the most fun I had watching a movie from 2020-21?
The Contenders:
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Dune
Licorice Pizza
Palm Springs
Shang-Chi and the Legend of
the Ten Rings
Shang-Chi is the best superhero movie of the last couple years even with a pretty flawed third act, Palm Springs a great high-concept romcom, Licorice Pizza an extremely enjoyable hangout movie, and the Borat sequel some of the most I’ve laughed in a movie in quite a while. But again, let’s not overthink this. Dune ruled hard.
Best Screenplay
Once again I’m combining adapted and original, and once again despite temptation I’m limiting myself to five.
The Contenders:
Another Round
The Last Duel
The Power of the Dog
Red Rocket
The Worst Person in the World
It’s not usually the kind of film you think of for this category, but our winner is Ridley Scott’s fantastic The Last Duel. The reason the film works is its script, written by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and, crucially, Nicole Holofcener. I’ll admit I’m a sucker for the gimmick where the three divergent point of view sections of the film were written by a different person: Damon wrote the part from his own character’s point of view, Affleck wrote the one from Driver’s, and (again, crucially) Holofcener wrote the section from Comer’s. Collaboration!
Best Performance by an Animal, Idea, or Inanimate Object
The Contenders:
Alcohol—Another
Round
The
Doll—The
Lost Daughter
The
Van—Nomadland
The
Pig—Pig
Narcissistic
Personality Disorder—Red
Rocket
I’m reluctantly leaving the Gom Jabbar from Dune off this list because I wanted to type “Gom Jabbar” a bunch of times, but hey look I found a way to do it anyways. Strong list this year as always, but this is a pretty easy choice. What a performance by Alcohol in Another Round!
Best Vocal Performance
The Contenders:
Stephanie
Beatriz—Encanto
Oliver
Platt—I’m Thinking
of Ending Things
Abbi
Jacobson—The
Mitchells vs. The Machines
Sean
Bean—Wolfwalkers
Honor
Kneafsey—Wolfwalkers
If he were in it just a little more I might honestly go with Platt for the rare combo performance of “voice on the phone/animated bleeding pig” but he really only has about 10 lines. Bean and Kneafsey split the substantial Wolfwalkers vote and so I’m going with Stephanie Beatriz, who is great and totally unrecognizable from her Brooklyn 99 role in Encanto.
Scene Stealer of the Year
The Contenders:
Matthew
Macfayden—The
Assistant
Jason
Momoa—Dune
Bradley
Cooper—Licorice Pizza
Ana
de Armas—No Time to
Die
Kathryn
Hunter—The Tragedy of
Macbeth
This is the category for the actor who was not necessarily in the movie enough for a full supporting performance, but who came in and just threw 100 mph fastballs during their limited screentime. And this year that goes to an actress I’d never heard of before watching the movie (though I had, after looking at her IMDB, seen her in a few small roles), Kathryn Hunter, who threw absolute heat in her 2-3 scenes as the witches in The Tragedy of Macbeth.
Best Supporting Actor
The Contenders:
Troy
Kotsur—CODA
Delroy
Lindo—Da 5 Bloods
Ben
Affleck—The Last Duel
Steven
Yeun—Minari
Anders
Danielson Lie—The
Worst Person in the World
This was a strong category this year with some tough cuts, including Tony Leung giving one of the best acting performances in an MCU movie to date in Shang-Chi and Jessie Plemons for two different movies (I’m Thinking of Ending Things and The Power of the Dog). As a reminder I completely disregard official acting category decisions for these, which is why I have Steven Yeun here instead of Actor like he was at the Oscars (the story was about the whole family, not his character).
As much as I want to go with Affleck—who was legitimately great in The Last Duel, to the point I’m shocked that he didn’t get actual awards buzz (was it the hair?)—and as reluctant as I am to give this to a performance that’s among the most recent I watched (gotta be some recency bias) I just can’t go with anyone other than Anders Danielsen Lie’s fantastic performance as a mildly problematic cartoonist/nuanced love interest in The Worst Person in the World.
Best Supporting Actress
The Contenders:
Caitriona
Balfe—Belfast
Reika
Kirishima—Drive My
Car
Jessie
Buckley—The Lost
Daughter
Amanda
Seyfried—Mank
Youn
Yuh-Jung—Minari
Maybe a bit weaker pool but there were some tough cuts here too, including Kristen Dunst from The Power of the Dog (definitely the 6th) and two different same-film pairs: Suzanna Son and Bree Elrod from Red Rocket and Ariana DeBose and Rita Moreno from West Side Story. For the winner of this one though I’m going to follow the Oscars lead and go with Youn Yih-Jung as one of the all-time film grannies in Minari
Best Actor
The Contenders:
Mads
Mikkelson—Another
Round
Oscar
Isaac—The
Card Counter
Anthony
Hopkins—The
Father
Adam
Driver—The
Last Duel
Simon
Rex—Red
Rocket
Some tough cuts of course (including many of the actual Oscar nominees, kinda interesting that only one of my five was nominated IRL), but I’m pretty happy with this group. And again I’m tempted to go with the representative from The Last Duel (Driver, like Affleck and also like, well you’ll see in a second, was fantastic in it) but ultimately the performance that stuck with me most from 2020-21 was Oscar Isaac’s very understated but intense turn in The Card Counter. Paul Schrader always gets good performances out of his male leads, and this one was no exception.
Best Actress
The Contenders:
Olivia
Colman—The Father
Jessie
Buckley—I’m
Thinking of Ending Things
Jodie
Comer—The Last Duel
Frances
McDormand—Nomadland
Renate
Reinsve—The Worst
Person in the World
This one is about as deep as it’s ever been, and two very deserving performances are kicked out by me having watched I’m Thinking of Ending Things and The Worst Person in the World on the last weekend before writing this. One of those performances is probably from an already-nominated actress—Colman was almost as good in The Lost Daughter as in The Father in a weird pandemic movies named after a family member duology. It does kill me to have to leave off Cristin Milioti’s fantastic performance in Palm Springs, she had a spot for a year-and-a-half until this weekend.
For the winner though this is another one that the Oscars got right, and no not for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, a movie that I’m not convinced a single person who wasn’t involved in production or (apparently) is an Academy member watched. No, the correct answer here is Frances McDormand in Nomadland.
(p.s. shoutout to double nominee Jessie Buckley, can’t wait to try and decide if Men is too scary to watch in theaters for me)
Best Ensemble
The Contenders:
Dune
Judas and the Black Messiah
The Last Duel
The Power of the Dog
Spider-Man: No Way Home
This is the acting category easiest for blockbusters to get into, because it’s not unusual for them to have big stacked casts but no one real standout performance. Sure enough we got two of those this year, including our winner, which had a huge cast stacked to the spice harvester with top actors giving great—if, often, brief—performances: Dune
Best Director:
Thomas
Vinterberg—Another
Round
Denis
Villeneuve—Dune
Florian
Zeller—The Father
Ridley
Scott—The Last Duel
Chloe
Zhao—Nomadland
The last time I did this, aaaaallll the way back in the beforetimes of early March 2020, I said that 2019 had a pretty clear top 5 films for me that were all pretty close to each other and a cut above the rest of the year (in the same tier, basically)*. I’d probably now say that The Irishman and Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood are both a bit higher than the other three, but the point that there were a clear top 5 stands.
Not so this year. 2020-21 only had two films that I gave 4.5/5 stars (and no 5/5), and even those two were not that strong; I have no 2020 or 2021 films in my personal top 100. And not to spoil next year’s Pauls, but after having seen only three 2022 films 2022 I already have one (I think. It’s a whole process, there’s a ceremony and everything). Meanwhile the next level down, the 4/5 films, are also not particularly numerous or strong, leading to a much weaker overall top 5 than usual, though with more possible contenders too.
Anyways, that’s all to say that there were really only two directors I considered for this, and films for best picture. And as I have with the last couple years, I’m splitting the winners. The best director of 2020-21 was Denis Villeneuve for Dune, an absolute triumph of big-budget blockbuster film-making and direction.
*this is probably where I should mention that my first draft of this thing included Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which showed up in a lot of categories. I have a really hard time deciding what year movies like Portrait belong in; it was released wide in Europe in 2019, but not until February 2020 in the U.S. and even then only in a limited release. I have a long-standing policy of ignoring festival releases (if it debuts at Cannes or wherever in 2013 but comes out in theaters in 2014, it’s a 2014 release notwithstanding that IMDB and Letterboxd and Wikipedia call it a 2013 movie), but I really waffle on movies that come out in their native countries the year prior to a U.S. release. Usually it doesn’t really matter for this exercise, but it did this year—Portrait would have won a number of categories, been a contender in a bunch more, and been a threat to win the whole thing. And I saw it too late to discuss it in the 2020 Pauls, where it would absolutely have come up a lot as well; it’s in the same tier as the other five/two (see above).
Ultimately I decided to treat Portrait and others like it—including an important film for this year, The Worst Person in the World, which didn’t come out in the U.S. until 2022—as debuting in the year they hit theaters in their home country, regardless of where that country is. I reserve the right to change my mind on this though.
Best Picture
The Contenders:
Dune
The Father
The Last Duel
Nomadland
The Worst Person in the World
All five of the Best Picture Contenders released in 2021, which kinda goes to show how weak—for good reason, but still—2020 was (although the best 2020 movies, Another Round, Wolfwalkers, and Soul, weren’t that far off this list). But as discussed above, there were really only two possible choices: Dune, and our winner, Ridley Scott’s magnificent The Last Duel, which works as a character study, a medieval action movie, and an examination of unfortunately contemporary themes of sexism. It’s really really good.
Anyways, that'll about do it. Thanks for joining me after a long, long layoff, and see you next year. Hopefully.
The Final Tally:
Another Round: Five Contenders and one Paul (Best Performance by an Animal, Idea, or Inanimate Object for Alcohol)
The Assistant: One Contender and zero Pauls
Belfast: One Contender and zero Pauls
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: One Contender and zero Pauls
The Card Counter: One Contender and one Paul (Best Actor for Oscar Isaac)
CODA: One Contender and zero Pauls
Da 5 Bloods: One Contender and zero Pauls
Drive My Car: One Contender and zero Pauls
Dune: Thirteen Contenders and Seven Pauls (Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Sound, Most Enjoyable Film, Best Ensemble, Best Director for Denis Villeneuve)
Encanto: Two Contenders and one Paul (Best Vocal Performance for Stephanie Beatriz)
The Father: Five Contenders and zero Pauls
The French Dispatch: One Contender and zero Pauls
Godzilla vs. Kong: One Contender and zero Pauls
The Green Knight: Three Contenders and zero Pauls
Greyhound: One Contender and zero Pauls
I'm Thinking of Ending Things: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
Judas and the Black Messiah: One Contender and zero Pauls
The Last Duel: Eleven Contenders and two Pauls (Best Screenplay, Best Picture)
Last Night in Soho: Four Contenders and one Paul (Best Costume Design)
Licorice Pizza: Six Contenders and zero Pauls
The Lost Daughter: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
Luca: One Contender and zero Pauls
Mank: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
Minari: Two Contenders and one Paul (Best Supporting Actress for Young Yih-Jung)
The Mitchells vs. The Machines: Three Contenders and zero Pauls
Nightmare Alley: One Contender and zero Pauls
No Time to Die: One Contender and zero Pauls
Nomadland: Five Contenders and one Paul (Best Actress for Frances McDormand)
Palm Springs: One Contender and zero Pauls
Pig: One Contender and zero Pauls
The Power of the Dog: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
Red Rocket: Three Contenders and zero Pauls
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
Spider-Man: No Way Home: One Contender and zero Pauls
The Sound of Metal: One Contender and zero Pauls
Soul: Three Contenders and one Paul (Best Use of Music)
The Suicide Squad: Three Contenders and zero Pauls
Tenet: One Contender and one Paul (Best Visual Effects)
The Tragedy of Macbeth: Two Contenders and one Paul (Scene Stealer of the Year for Kathryn Hunter)
West Side Story: Three Contenders and one Paul (Best Scene for The Big Dance)
Wolfwalkers: Three Contenders and one Paul (Best Animated Feature)
The Worst Person in the World: Five Contenders and one Paul (Best Supporting Actor for Anders Danielsen Lie)
That's forty-two movies with at least one Contender and thirteen with at least one Paul, up eighteen and up one from two years ago. Given that there were two years combined here the much higher total number maybe isn't surprising; the pool of films was at seventy-three when I wrote this, compared to the high-forties to mid-fifties that it usually is for one year. It is maybe surprising that that only translated to one more movie with a win, although there may have been a lot more winners had Dune not hoovered up all the technical categories.
For a complete list of what I've seen in both 2020 and 2021, in fluid and arbitrary order of overall preference, click here: https://letterboxd.com/teddroe/list/2020/ and here: https://letterboxd.com/teddroe/list/2021/. Note that the lists are updated as I see more movies, so if there are more than twenty-eight and forty-five respectively it means I've seen stuff since writing this.
Now, just for fun:
Most Undernominated: This one has to be The Power of the Dog, which is probably something like the tenth best movie I saw in 2020-21 and is even strong in the kind of ways that get you Contenders like acting and cinematography but just didn't quiiiiite make it into the top five of a bunch of categories. It only got two Contenders but wasn't that far away from matching that in just Best Supporting Actor, as Jessie Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee both made it close to the final list.
Most Overnominated: Gotta be Last Night in Soho, which was a pretty big disappointment but mostly because the script has big problems in the second half. But damn did it look and sound good.
The Inside Llewyn Davis Award for Most Contenders Without a Win: Licorice Pizza with six. Makes sense tbh.
Best Movie You’d Never Know I’d Seen By Reading This: In the Heights was really good!
Movie I Promise I Saw But Just Couldn’t Find Anywhere On Here For: King Richard was totally fine.
Award for Worst Time to Lose Your Virginity to the Guy Who Just Murdered Your Brother Like Twenty Minutes Earlier: West Side Story
Worst Movie Represented: Probably Godzilla vs. Kong, which was stupid but fun enough and had great CGI. Also reverse shoutout to The Sound of Metal, which I did not care for at all.
Best Multi-Lingual Production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya: Very close call in a crowded field but Drive My Car gets it by a hair.
The The Last Jedi Award for Insanely Polarizing Movie That I Thought Was Basically Fine: There isn’t a great one for this category this year, but maybe House of Gucci? I don’t know if it was “insanely polarizing” but people did seem to really love or hate it and I thought it was fine.
Most Accidentally Aptly-Named Leading Man: Gary Oldman, who was indeed an old man playing someone 20+ years younger, in Mank.
Worst Piece of Crap I saw from 2020-21: Artemis Fowl. Hooo boy. An almost impossibly poorly made movie for a fairly major studio release.
Best Performance by a Character Not Actually In the Movie: Hey have I told you about Bronco Henry?
Movie I Should Be Most Ashamed of Not Seeing Before Writing This: Probably either Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom or C’mon C’mon. I think I did a pretty good job.
Best Joke in a Bad Movie: Either the general who charged for snacks in the White House in Don’t Look Up, or the complete omission of the country of France in The King’s Man despite the movie being in part about the World War I Western Front.
Most References to Desert Power: Man Dune continues to clean up
The “Not Sure Why I Didn’t Like It More” Award: I had a weirdly negative reaction to Nightmare Alley, a movie that on paper I should have really loved and that a lot of critics who I usually agree with loved. Idk, maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it.
Hottest Parents Where Neither of them Die In the Movie Thus Disqualifying Oscar Isaac and Rebecca Ferguson in Dune, Daniel Craig and Leah Seydoux in No Time to Die, and Tony Leung and Fala Chen in Shang-Chi: Jamie Dornan and Catriona Balfe in Belfast
Biggest Disappointment: Man, why was Tenet not better.
The “They’re Wrong” Award: The Last Duel fuckin’ rocked. It has its defenders, but not that many.
The “I’m Wrong” Award: Aside from the aforementioned Nightmare Alley, Promising Young Woman just did not work for me and maybe should have.
Most Intentionally Uncomfortable Age Gap Romance: Red Rocket. Mickey is a huge piece of shit!
Most Unintentionally Uncomfortable Age Gap Romance: Licorice Pizza. I don’t, uh...quite get what PTA was going for there.
Most Inexplicable Plot Point: The Bodysurfing Boyfriend in Wonder Woman 1984
The Irritating Backlash Award: I’m very happy to announce that this category will not be awarded this year.
Movie I Probably Would Have Liked More if Into the Spiderverse Didn’t Exist Award: Spider-Man: No Way Home. Also the winner of the Least Convincing Hiding of a Major Plot Development, yeah no Marvel we definitely didn’t know that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield would be appearing.
Best Performance By Maya Rudolph as a Concerned Mom in a CG Animated Movie: The Mitchells vs. The Machines by a hair over Luka. Speaking of…
Most Artistic License by a Biopic: Boy Luca took a LOT of license with the story of Luka Doncic.
Scariest Door: The basement door from I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Yeesh.
The end!
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