As in previous years, here is the format. We (“we”) are going to go through a bunch of categories, both the traditional ones and a few of my own creation that replace categories in the real awards that I don’t care about. I’m debuting a new category this year, Best Stuntwork, which is something the actual Oscars should’ve done a long time ago and bizarrely continue to refuse to. But I can!
For each category, I’ll list my top five (called the “contenders”) from 2023, and then crown/award a winner. As of this writing I’ve seen 55 films released in 2023, which means I’ve seen most, but not all, of the major relevant movies from that year. Sorry Nyad.
So without much further ado…the Pauls!
Best Visual Effects
The Contenders
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Godzilla -1
Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning
Oppenheimer
If this were a bang-for-your-buck award Godzilla -1 would be the obvious runaway winner here; it is astonishing what they managed to do for the budget that in a Hollywood superhero movie wouldn’t even cover the generic blue sky beam in the climax. And in a sense, this sort of is a bang-for-your-buck award, in that I’m giving this not to the movie that had the most visual effects (not even close) but the one that did the most with effects it did have. And boy did Oppenheimer have quite a bang.
Best Film Editing
The Contenders
All of Us Strangers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
The Zone of Interest
There’s maybe a hint of irony to the fact that the two movies truly vying for this award are both so long that they became the butt of jokes throughout awards season. But as far as I’m concerned, both Oppenheimer and our winner more than justified their runtimes. I’m glad nothing further was edited out of Killers of the Flower Moon and the people complaining about it should go back to watching ten second TikToks of people falling over or whatever else their childlike attention span can deal with. See I told you this might get moodier and more annoying.
(Though if you need to watch it, or any movie, in multiple chunks, that’s cool)
Best Costume Design
The Contenders
Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
Napoleon
Poor Things
Priscilla
I try to get a decent mix of different kinds of costumes here, and although I wasn’t able to get a future-y one in (the only movie even sort of in the running there was The Creator), and this is a little more period-piece-y than I would like, I’m still satisfied with this list. And despite (or maybe because of) the rest of the contenders being a little more straightforward–well, maybe not Poor Things–I’m going with by far the most imaginative of this group. Honestly Barbie might win just on the virtue of Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House outfit alone.
Best Cinematography
The Contenders
Killers of the Flower Moon
Napoleon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
The Society of the Snow
Is it weird if I actually find this a slightly underwhelming group? Considering the quality of 2023 as a film year (and, as we’ll get into more, this was a great year) I’m actually not blown away by the sheer look of many movies this year and so this was unusually hard to winnow down. Or maybe it’s just that I’ve already seen the movie that will almost certainly win this category next year (one hint: it’s Spicy).
Anyways, I’m going with Killers of the Flower Moon, which looked great!
Best Scene
The Contenders
Christmas–All of Us Strangers
Exploring the Museum–Elemental
The Attack on Ginza–Godzilla -1
The Dragon Breath–John Wick: Chapter 4
The Florida Fight–The Killer
Marty’s Coda–Killers of the Flower Moon
Austerlitz–Napoleon
The Trinity Test–Oppenheimer
Waiting for the Uber–Past Lives
Gwen Returns Home–Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The first of my original categories, annually the most difficult to narrow down, and not coincidentally the only one with ten contenders. Hopefully, if I’ve written this correctly, if you’ve seen the movie you’ll know what I’m referring to here, and if you haven’t it won’t be a spoiler. One-per-film rule is in effect.
Anyways, as always there were some very tough cuts (apologies to a couple great musical scenes including “I’m Just Ken” and the “No Diggity” scene from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and all of these scenes are amazing. But there just was never any question, honestly from the moment this movie was announced, what the winner would be. It’s The Trinity Test from Oppenheimer. Like, duh.
(or maybe not so duh, in one early shortlist I made for this year I had a different placeholder, the incredible scene from Across the Spider-Verse. I thought better of it, but still)
Best Production Design
The Contenders
Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
Napoleon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
I have called this the Wes Anderson category in the past, and I did see Asteroid City, but idk I just…didn’t like it that much? Maybe it should still be in here, but the way I decide these things a contender needs to be particularly outstanding (or the competition weak) to get in from a movie I’m mixed-ish on, so Wes takes a year off here.
This one really comes down to two movies. I basically need to decide whether the film-long excellence of Poor Things (which, look, I’ve never been to Portugal but I’m pretty confident it doesn’t look like that) can overcome the absolutely fantastic (but only in part of the film) Barbieland from Barbie. Well, given which of those two got capitalized I guess I made my choice, but it was a tough one.
Best Stuntwork
The Contenders
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
The Iron Claw
John Wick: Chapter 4
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning
Napoleon
Okay, did I add this category in part just to make sure I’m able to give an award to one of my favorite movies of the year, John Wick: Chapter 4? I mean, in part yeah, sure, but I also do genuinely believe that this should be a part of the real Oscars, and I should give it out as well. To be clear, this category encompasses stunt work as a whole, whether it is done by the actors themselves or professional stuntworkers. Which, usually some of both.
Best Sound
The Contenders
John Wick: Chapter 4
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse
The Zone of Interest
Stacked group of movies that (spoiler alert) will be coming up as a fivesome again later, but this is maybe the single easiest choice of this entire project. It just absolutely positively has to be The Zone of Interest, a film that more than maybe any I’ve ever seen before is made by its sound design. Its incredibly disturbing and memorable sound design.
Best Use of Music
The Contenders
Barbie
Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3
The Killer
Killers of the Flower Moon
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Anatomy of a Fall almost made it just by virtue of the P*I*M*P cover from the first scene, but I couldn’t quiiiite get there. And if this was “Best Use of the Smiths, Specifically” I could give this one to The Killer, but alas I can’t really go anywhere but Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse for this. I actually think that one of the few ways that Across is a step back from Into the Spider-Verse is both the quality and deployment of its soundtrack, but given that imo Into has maybe the best soundtrack of the past decade that’s not saying much.
Best Animated Feature
The Contenders
The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Speaking of. Did I say just moments ago that Best Sound was the easiest choice of the night? Well I may have lied about that, because for reasons that will be increasingly obvious from here on out, this one is by far the easiest. It’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
(In case you’re wondering why there are only three contenders here, this is the one category that I allow fewer than five contenders. There can be five, but if not enough movies meet a sort of minimal quality threshold–basically, do I give them a 3.5/5 or higher on Letterboxd, then there can be, and often is, fewer. This year, it’s three).
Most Enjoyable Film
The Contenders
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3
John Wick: Chapter 4
Napoleon
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
What movie did I have the most pure fun seeing in theaters this year? Heavy dramas and complex thinkers, you ain’t invited to this category. And MAN do I want to give this to John Wick: Chapter 4, which was the only movie I saw twice in theaters this past year and is just an absolute f’in blast. My goodness.
BUT I just cannot deny that the most fun I had this year in a theater was seeing the superlative Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
(Napoleon might seem a little out of place here, but I’m a Napoleonic history fan and had a grand old time with this movie. Is it perfectly historically accurate? No, but only lame dorks care about that)
Best Screenplay
The Contenders
The Iron Claw
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
After spending the first decade+ doing this getting frustrated at the difference between adapted and original, I ditched it entirely a few years back and have never looked back. Who cares whether and to what extent there was source material–how was the writing in the movie?
Turns out, really really good for a lot of 2023 movies. But nowhere more so than Killers of the Flower Moon, which made some incredibly smart choices adapting a fairly straightforward book into a wildly ambitious and successful screenplay.
(All of Us Strangers was a shoe-in for a spot here, probably The Iron Claw’s, for 95% of its runtime, but I hated the ending.)
Best Performance by an Animal, Idea, or Inanimate Object
The Contenders
Snoop the Dog–Anatomy of a Fall
The Owl–Killers of the Flower Moon
The Dragon’s Breath Shotgun–John Wick: Chapter 4
The Bomb–Oppenheimer
Fate–Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Extremely tough not to give this to one of the goodest boys in movie history, but sorry Snoop I just cannot quite do it. Because this one just kinda obviously has to go to something that functions both as a compelling idea and a memorable object: The Bomb from Oppenheimer
Best Vocal Performance
Leah Lewis–Elemental
Bradley Cooper–Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3
Shameik Moore–Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Jason Schwartzman–Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Hailee Steinfeld–Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
I, uh, liked the voice acting in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. And even with three contenders from the same movie I feel like I’m snubbing a dozen great performances by going with the three most important ones. I also feel like picking a winner is damn near impossible and I have written this paragraph with all three of the contenders as the winner before deleting them. But the one that felt the most right was Hailee Steinfeld who has basically become the definitive Gwen Stacy and is fully deuteragonist in this film.
(if I instituted a one-per-film rule here like I do for Best Scene, Jackie Chan from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Florence Pugh from the dubbed version of The Boy and the Heron would probably get in. I also liked Mamoudou Athie a lot in Elemental, just not as much as his co-star)
Scene Stealer of the Year
The Contenders
Keith David–American Fiction
Hiroyki Sanada–John Wick: Chapter 4
Tilda Swinton–The Killer
Cara Jade Myers–Killers of the Flower Moon
Casey Affleck–Oppenheimer
This category is for someone who was not in the film for long but made a far-outsized impression. Someone you’ll remember from the film even though they were only in a scene or two (which, Sanada might be stretching this a bit for JW4 but whatever)
There were probably ten people I considered from Oppenheimer and I almost flooded the zone with Oppenheimer nominees like I just did with Across the Spider-Verse nominees in voice acting–Hartnett, Branaugh, and Pugh all definitely were in the running–but I given the strength of the other contenders here I couldn’t quite do it. And our winner isn’t even from Oppenheimer; instead its Keith David, who is only in one scene in American Fiction but it’s easily the best one, in large part because of him.
Newcomer of the Year
The Contenders
Ayo Edebiri–Bottoms
Dominic Sessa–The Holdovers
Jeremy Allen White–The Iron Claw
Quintessa Swindel–The Master Gardener
Charles Melton–May December
This category, also known as the “Wait Who’s That???” Award, this one is returning from last year with a few tweaks. The spirit of this award is a (relative) film newcomer who I have not seen in a movie before and who really stood out. I was a little dissatisfied by last year, where it felt a little condescending to give it to the already experienced and 40-something Tenoch Huerta just because I hadn’t seen him in the many Latin American films he’d been in. So starting this year, just because I, Paul, have not seen someone does not qualify them if they’re an experienced screen actor but that experience just happens to be overseas (thus disqualifying, for example, Adele Exarchopoulos and Franz Rogowski from Passages)
Anyways, a very The Bear heavy lineup this year–and could’ve been even more so if Molly Gordon (a late cut) made it from Theater Camp (where Edebiri was also great). And no, I have not (yet?) seen The Bear. Still, I’m going with a non-bear, Charles Melton who was absolutely the best part of a movie I was otherwise a little mixed on, May December
Best Ensemble
The Contenders
All of Us Strangers
The Iron Claw
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
The Society of the Snow
My version of the finally soon-to-be-real best casting award, this one goes to the best overall body of acting. This award heavily favors big casts, so smaller movies like, well, All of Us Strangers have to have truly exceptional acting to get in here. A clear weak link–like Jerrod Carmichael in Poor Things can doom a movie in this category as well.
Maybe not surprisingly, this year is a heavyweight grudge match between the clear two best (live action, oops spoilers. Or is it??) films of the year. But Killers of the Flower Moon had a weak link or two–not totally the actors fault, necessarily, but Brendan Frasier and John Lithgow felt like they teleported in from a different movie for a scene. One scene, but having even a tiny weak link is enough this year to lose to Oppenheimer, which had none.
(I’m choosing to blame that awful West Wing-ass JFK line that Alden Ehrenreich delivers on the script)
Best Supporting Actor
The Contenders
Ryan Gosling–Barbie
Robert De Niro–Killers of the Flower Moon
Charles Melton–May December
Matt Damon–Oppenheimer
Teo Yoo–Past Lives
Look, I know it’s almost uncomfortably ironic given, well, you know, but I’m not even going to pretend to have a preamble here because Ryan Gosling was just the best part of Barbie. He’s honestly, genuinely maybe a little too good in the movie, because I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to have a brewski beer with Ken in the Mojo Dojo Case House.
(If Downey seems like a notable omission here, it feels weird to me too. I love Downey, one of the most charismatic movie stars of the last 20 years. But maybe it was just because his scenes were the weakest part of Oppenheimer, but I didn’t love him in the film and thought Damon was genuinely a stronger supporting performance)
Best Supporting Actress
The Contenders
Clair Foy–All of Us Strangers
Da’Vine Joy Randolph–The Holdovers
Maura Tierney–The Iron Claw
Vanessa Kirby–Napoleon
Adele Exarchopoulos–Passages
Really strong group this year, and the final spot here (Tierney’s spot) had like five people who were right there. My contenders this year are very different from the actual Oscarn nominees, with only one in common…though I didn’t see either Nyad or The Color Purple so this is no slight to Jodie Foster or Danielle Brooks. (Mild slight to Emily Blunt and America Ferrera, I guess).
Still, I am completely in agreement with the Oscars–and maybe literally every other awards body this year–in thinking that the supporting actress performance of the year was pretty clearly Da’Vine Joy Randolph. I know I just used this turn of phrase, but she was the best part of The Holdovers, a movie I otherwise only mildly liked.
Best Actor
The Contenders
Andrew Scott–All of Us Strangers
Jeffrey Wright–American Fiction
Paul Giamatti–The Holdovers
Cilian Murphy–Oppenheimer
Mads Mikkelson–The Promised Land
It seems like every year there’s an international acting performance or two that sneaks into this piece at the last minute as I do a bit of international film catchup in February and early March (a lot of international movies come only very briefly, if at all, to Seattle in theaters so I have to wait for them on streaming. None of this year’s films were great overall (unlike, say, The Worst Person in the World a few years ago), but dang it if Hannibal himself, Mads Mikkelson didn’t win be over.
But as the lack of bold font may have indicated, he’s not our winner. No, we have to venture from Denmark over to Ireland to find our winner here. And it’s not the Irish actor you may have been expecting–as good as Murphy was, I thought the male performance of the year was actually his countryman, Andrew Scott in All of Us Strangers (I told you I liked the acting in that movie–Paul Mescal and Jamie Bell weren’t too far off the Supporting Actor contender stage).
I have a bit of a weird relationship with Andrew Scott on screen. Like a lot of Americans, I saw him first (well, first that I remember–he’s apparently in Saving Private Ryan for like five seconds) as Moriarty in the BBC Sherlock series, and I absolutely haaaated his bizarre, twitchy performance. But in beverything I’ve seen of him since–like the Priest in Fleabag, or the jaded Lieutenant in 1917–he’s been excellent. So I guess I can just blame Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat which, fine by me.
Best Actress
The Contenders
Sandra Huller–Anatomy of a Fall
Margot Robbie–Barbie
Lily Gladstone–Killers of the Flower Moon
Greta Lee–Past Lives
Emma Stone–Poor Things
This category has some big, fun performances–Stone and Robbie, obviously, but also Huller in her own way in Anatomy of a Fall. But I think the reasonably clear winner here is also the quietest. Lily Gladstone, the pride of Mountlake Terrace, gives an absolute all-timer interior performance as the heart and soul of Killers of the Flower Moon, quietly outshining a big (maybe a little too big) performance from co-star Leonardo DiCaprio.
(Sandra Huller was almost on this twice, for The Zone of Interest, which is pretty good for an actress I had never heard of until about nine months ago (hey I’ve never pretended to be an expert on respected German actresses who frequently appear in French films)).
Best Director
The Contenders
Martin Scorcese–Killers of the Flower Moon
Christopher Nolan–Oppenheimer
Celine Song–Past Lives
Yorgos Lanthimos–Poor Things
Jonathan Glazer–The Zone of Interest
I hope the new stunt category is good enough for Chad Stahelski, who honestly did an amazing job directing John Wick: Chapter 4. Probably no surprise given the rest of this piece, but once again we come down to a two person race here. But this time, despite Nolan’s absolutely incredible work on Oppenheimer, this one goes to our favorite octogenarian director (sorry Ridley Scott, Napoleon should have been better): Martin Scorsese for his late career masterpiece Killers of the Flower Moon. I’d honestly take another hour, why not. Keep it coming.
Best Picture
The Contenders
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The Zone of Interest
Really, really strong year for movies. Easily the best post-pandemic, and it would be up there with the best of this century. Three movies are currently in my personal top 100, which given that I’ve seen north of 2,100 movies at this point is starting to actually mean something. And there were six other films that I gave four stars to on Letterboxd, and I’m pretty stingy.
In many ways, it felt like a grudge match between Killers of the Flower Moon and Oppenheimer, two absolutely superlative period-piece films by extremely lauded directors about great American sins (or is that last part true of Oppenheimer? Ymmv). I loved both, and further had an absolute blast Barbenheimer-ing. For the record, I did Oppenheimer first, then Barbie a couple hours later. And yes, I had not one but two theme-appropriate shirts.
But as you may have noticed, neither of those is our winner. Instead, for the second time, after Inside Out back in the 2016 awards, I’m giving Best Picture to an animated movie: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Both Across and its predecessor (which, if I were redoing these things in retrospect, is probably the winner in the 2019 awards over First Man) are just shockingly good, tremendously entertaining and propulsive and funny while being deeply sensitive and moving character pieces about family, friends, and fate. Just great stuff.
(I actually have John Wick: Chapter 4 ranked subjectively ahead of both The Zone of Interest and Poor Things, but even I have to admit that it’s maybe, just maybe, not quite the achievement as an overall film. It’s gotten a lot of love here though, deservedly)
And…well, that’s all I got. It’s a tiny bit weird writing this final part knowing that I have already seen what will, barring a huge (though very pleasant) shock, be the winner of a lot of these next year. May the Spice flow, in 2025.
The Final Tally:
All of Us Strangers: Five Contenders and one Paul (Best Actor for Andrew Scott)
American Fiction: Two Contenders and one Paul (Scene Stealer of the Year for Keith David)
Anatomy of a Fall: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
Barbie: Five Contenders and three Pauls (Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Supporting Actor for Ryan Gosling)
Bottoms: One Contender and zero Pauls
The Boy and the Heron: One Contender and zero Pauls
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
Elemental: Three Contenders and zero Pauls
Godzilla -1: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3: Four Contenders and zero Pauls
The Holdovers: Three Contenders and one Paul (Best Supporting Actress for Da’Vine Joy Randolph)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: One Contender and zero Pauls
The Iron Claw: Five Contenders and zero Pauls
John Wick: Chapter 4: Six Contenders and one Paul (Best Stuntwork)
The Killer: Three Contenders and zero Pauls
Killers of the Flower Moon: Fifteen Contenders and five Pauls (Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Screenplay, Best Actress for Lily Gladstone, Best Director for Martin Scorsese)
The Master Gardener: One Contender and zero Pauls
May December: Two Contenders and one Paul (Newcomer of the Year for Charles Melton)
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
Napoleon: Seven Contenders and zero Pauls
Oppenheimer: Fourteen Contenders and four Pauls (Best Visual Effects, Best Scene for The Trinity Test, Best Performance by an Animal, Idea, or Inanimate Object for The Bomb, Best Ensemble)
Passages: One Contender and zero Pauls
Past Lives: Six Contenders and zero Pauls
Poor Things: Six Contenders and zero Pauls
Priscilla: One Contender and zero Pauls
The Promised Land: One Contender and zero Pauls
The Society of the Snow: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: Eleven Contenders and five Pauls (Best Use of Music, Best Animated Feature, Most Enjoyable Film, Best Vocal Performance for Hailee Steinfeld, Best Picture)
The Zone of Interest: Four Contenders and one Paul (Best Sound)
That’s twenty-nine movies with at least one Contender and ten with at least one Paul, down from thirty and fourteen respectively from last year. Given how top heavy this year was with the big 3, I’m not surprised that that’s how it turned out.
For a complete list of what I've seen from 2022, in fluid and arbitrary order of overall preference, click here: https://letterboxd.com/teddroe/list/2023/ . Note that I keep updating these lists when and if I see more, so if there are more than 55 films there it means I’ve seen something since writing this.
Now, just for fun:
Most Undernominated: Four for the Zone of Interest seems a little light for a Best Picture nominee, but I’m going with The Boy and the Heron, a movie I liked a lot. But there are intrinsically fewer spots for animated movies, and this year it was just overshadowed by the Best Picture winner.
Most Overnominated: Definitely Napoleon, a movie I liked more than most people but still didn’t like that much.It had the fifth spot in a bunch of categories.
The Most Clearly Made By A Committee at Disney Award: Wish wasn’t terrible, but it has at least as many obvious studio notes as it does lines of dialogue.
Best Movie You’d Never Know I’d Seen by Reading This: I ended up not seeing a lot of the weirdly plentiful corporate biopics that came out this year (like Flaming Hot and Blackberry), but I did see and like Air.
The “That’s Exactly How You Should Make a Dungeons & Dragons Movie” Award: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves had simply no business being as good as it was. And yes, I did see it with my D&D group.
The Inside Llewyn Davis Award for Most Contenders Without a Win: Napoleon, with seven but a weak seven.
The “Well, That Sure Was a Movie” Award: The Super Mario Bros. Movie sure was a movie.
Movie I Promise I Saw But Couldn’t Find Anywhere On Here For: Asteroid City was…fine.
Worst Movie Represented: Probably Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, but even that wasn’t bad and was another one that was…fine. Speaking of…
The The Last Jedi Award for Insanely Polarizing Movie That I Thought Was Basically Fine: Oh look it’s Saltburn o’clock! The Marvels might qualify for this one too.
The “Eww” Award: Caelee Spaeny very successfully made Priscilla seem like the little girl she was when Elvis met her in Priscilla. Guys, I’m not sure about that Elvis fellow.
The “Whoops We Committed To a Problematic-At-Best Actor for a Major Superhero Movie Without Doing Full Due Diligence” Award: A tie between The Flash and Ant-Man and the Wastp: Quantumania
Worst Piece of Crap I Saw from 2023: So, uh, DC, about that Shazam sequel, what, uh…what happened there?
The “The Prosthetic Nose Was Not the Problem” Award: I was absolutely bored stiff by Maestro. But I will say, it was cool to learn about the origin of Lydia Tár’s mentor.
Movie I Should Be Most Ashamed of Not Seeing Before Writing This: On sort of two ends of the spectrum, either Showing Up or The Taste of Things for artsy fartsy ones, and maybe Wonka or The Color Purple for studio movies. I even like musicals, but they just got lost in the late-year shuffle.
Special Award for Achievement Using Fish-Eye Lenses: Well, you can’t say that Poor Things doesn’t have a look!
The Award for Shattering My Previously Rosy Vision of What Being Stranded for Seventy Days in the Remote Alps Would be Like: The Society of the Snow
The “Not Sure Why I Didn’t Like It More” Award: Man, on paper The Killer has a LOT going for it. I was looking forward to seeing it all year, and went opening day to a theater in NYC. But I just…kinda liked it? Maybe this one will be unlocked on rewatch, I don’t know.
The “The Ending Absolutely Tanked It” Award: For 95% of its runtime All of Us Strangers was well on track to be up there with the Big 3 for a favorite of the year and maybe even an all-time favorite, but I hated hated HATED the ending. Oops, all ghosts! That it’s still in my top 10 is a testament to how great the rest of the film is.
The “They’re Wrong” Award: I’m not sure why Elemental got such a tepid response, it’s not top tier Pixar but I thought it was very good.
The “I’m Wrong” Award: Other than Maestro I didn’t actually dislike any of the big critical darlings this year, but there were a few I was only mildly positive on, including Asteroid City and May December. But I’m giving this one to The Holdovers, which a lot of people absolutely loved but I merely kinda liked. I’m probably just wrong.
The Irritating Backlash Award: This one is a little different than most years but oh my god the dorks have to shut up about Napoleon being historically inaccurate. I know he never shot a pyramid with a canon, whatever, it looked cool.
Movie I Probably Would Have Liked More if Into the Spiderverse Didn't Exist: Awarding this one for the third year in a row, this time in a year with a Spider-Verse movie, and it goes to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem which was fun and good but would’ve felt, and looked, way more fresh a few years ago.
That’s All Folks!
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