Wilkimen, bienvenue, welcome! to the fourteenth annual Paultacular Bruene awards. This thing is now getting old enough to hold independent annoying opinions. Let's keep it away from TikTok and YouTube.
Mostly unchanged, here is the format. We (that’s supposed to include you, the reader, not be a royal “we”) are going to talk about a bunch of categories, some traditional movie awards and some of my own creation. No new ones this year, but I am retaining Best Stuntwork from last year. I’m also ditching Newcomer of the Year, because I can’t come up with a way to do it that doesn’t feel arbitrary even by the standards of a thing I write by myself about my own taste (like, is it just someone I haven’t seen before? What if I just forgot them?)
Each category gets five Contenders and one Winner. As of this writing I’ve seen 56 films released in 2024, which is, I think you’ll agree, pretty good all things considered.
So without much further ado…the Pauls!
Best Visual Effects
The Contenders
Dune: Part Two
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Hundreds of Beavers
I Saw the TV Glow
Twisters
Over time I’m sort of transitioning this category away from being “most visual effects” to focus more on “best visual effects.” What I mean by that is instead of focusing on sheer polygon count or (more my preference) giant expensive practical effects, I want to also reward movies that may not have a big budget – or in the case of one of the movies here, Hundreds of Beavers, basically any budget at all – but use effects well or artistically or creatively or what have you.
Although, on the other hand, sometimes you just have to give it to a giant movie that also had fantastic visual effects. So, here you go Dune: Part Two
(Alien: Romulus probably gets one of these spots if they had just…omitted that weird and bad uncanny valley Ian Holm appearance)
Best Film Editing
The Contenders
The Brutalist
Challengers
Dune: Part Two
Hundreds of Beavers
Nickel Boys
Editing is another category where it can be easy to fall into a “most” instead of “best” trap, but I don’t think that really applies to any of the Contenders this year. Still, I am going to go with the Contender that in some ways has the flashiest (in a certain sense) editing. The somewhat abstract editing isn’t the reason Nickel Boys worked so well, but is definitely a reason.
Best Costume Design
The Contenders
Dune: Part Two
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Gladiator II
Hit Man
Nosferatu
In this category I always try to have a mix of different types of good costuming, and I like the mix this year. We have a sci-fi movie, a contemporary film, and two period pieces from vastly different periods. And of course our winner, a…whatever the hell Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is.
Best Cinematography
The Contenders
The Brutalist
Dune: Part Two
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Nickel Boys
Nosferatu
Hoo baby that’s a strong batch. I don’t know enough to know why, but at least at the higher end it feels like films are getting better-looking than they’ve been at least since we really transitioned to digital photography. Have the cameras gotten better? Have cinematographers figured out how to exploit digital? Who knows. Actually that was supposed to be a question, let me try again: Who knows? I’m honestly asking.
Anyways, any of these five would be a deserving winner, but also I’ve known what the actual winner would be since literally before I wrote last year’s awards. That’s right, it’s Dune: Part II, one of the best-looking blockbusters – or just films – ever made.
Best Scene
I’ve had the “one per film” rule in place for a while now, and it will remain in effect this year as well. This is also the only category that gets ten contenders. As always, I’ve tried to name these in a way that will not be a spoiler if you haven’t seen the film but will be recognizable if you have. Have I succeeded? Who knows.
The Contenders
0G Blood – Alien: Romulus
The Car Dropoff – Anora
Harrison and Lazslo Exchange Backstories – The Brutalist
First Newport Concert – A Complete Unknown
Summoning Shai-Hulud – Dune: Part II
War Rig Chase – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Macrinus Takes Charge – Gladiator II
Notes App – Hit Man
Entering the Castle – Nosferatu
First Visit to the Station – Rebel Ridge
At the risk of spoiling how a lot of the rest of this thing is going to go, it was very tough to pick one scene from Dune, but ultimately I don’t think any of them quite gets it. Instead I’m going with the scene I’ve thought about most from any film this year by a wide margin, and one of the great endings to any recent movie: The Car Dropoff from Anora
Best Production Design
The Contenders
The Brutalist
Dune: Part II
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
I Saw the TV Glow
Nosferatu
Apologies to Alien: Romulus, an incredibly hard cut in a stacked field here, but it ultimately lost its spot by virtue of my sort of general “inferior overall movie to the competition” tiebreaker. Still, though the field was a tough cut down, there’s a pretty clear winner here, a different sci-fi movie but without aliens (or Aliens) this time. It’s Dune: Part 2
Best Stuntwork
Welcome back to this returning category for year two!
The Contenders
Boy Kills World
Dune: Part II
The Fall Guy
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Gladiator II
I mean, shoutout to everyone else, but this kinda has to go to the movie about stuntwork, right? Shoutout the The Fall Guy, a movie that wasn’t great but that as a a good, original, big budget action comedy with major stars in it should have been a hit and just…wasn’t
Best Sound
The Contenders
Dune: Part 2
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
I Saw the TV Glow
Nosferatu
The Wild Robot
First off, I think I deserve credit for the Oscars combining the two sound categories, which they did years after I blazed the trail. I’m sure their official statement of attribution is coming any time now.
This really comes down to two movies, both of which get great mileage out of having crazy reverb on people (/vampire)’s voices. But as much fun as I’ve been having doing the Orrrrrlock voice, the winner for a different Voice, in Dune: Part 2
Best Use of Music
My category that combines Best Original Score, Best Original Song, and also incorporates strong non-score soundtracks. So yeah, really wingin’ it with this one.
The Contenders
Anora
The Brutalist
Challengers
Dune: Part 2
I Saw the TV Glow
This was a year when a lot of the great needle-drop filmmakers (Scorsese, Tarantino, even like James Gunn) did not have movies out, and I didn’t particularly care for the musicals, both Broadway style (Wiked, Emilia Perez) or biopic (A Complete Unknown, which was fine but I don’t like Bob Dylan’s music that much). Thus, this year leans unusually hard toward the score side of music, which is why I’m going to give this one to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ work in Challengers.
A movie I liked less than some, but the score rules.
Best Animated Feature
The only category that can have fewer than five films, if I did not see five animated films that meet a sort of nebulous quality cutoff. Four made it this year.
The Contenders
Flow
Inside Out 2
Memoir of a Snail
The Wild Robot
Not a particularly strong year for feature animation, in my opinion. Both Inside Out 2 and Memoir of a Snail are followups to two of the best animated films of the century (Inside Out, obviously, and Mary and Max, less obviously) and while both are quite good, neither gets close to its predecessor. Meanwhile Flow, which many people with whose taste I’m generally aligned loved, kinda bored me, though I liked enough of it to (barely) make the quality cut off here.
That leaves our winner, the good-but-not-great The Wild Robot.
Most Enjoyable Film
The Contenders
Dune: Part Two
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Hit Man
Hundreds of Beavers
Nosferatu
What’s the most pure fun I had watching a movie from 2024? Obviously any movie here is going to be one I thought was good, but not every movie I thought was good was a fun romp (hi, Nickel Boys). The first half of Anora would probably make this, and even with a more sober (in more ways than one) second half it’s in spitting distance.
Speaking of spitting, that segue didn’t make any sense. The winner here is the absolutely delightful and hilarious microbudget silent black and white Hundreds of Beavers, one of the funniest and most imaginative movies I’ve seen in years. Other than Dune I sort of suspect this the movie from 2024 that I’ll be most eager to revisit in a few years.
Best Screenplay
The Contenders
Anora
The Brutalist
Challengers
Dune: Part Two
I Saw the TV Glow
I know that adapting something and writing an original screenplay are somewhat different tasks, but also I don’t care. Whatever, a screenplay is a screenplay, and the best one this year is also maybe the most ambitiously trying to be A Great Screenplay. So Brady Corbet might be a little full of himself, whatever he’s earned it for The Brutalist. And there were even parts of the script I didn’t like!
Best Performance by an Animal, Idea, or Inanimate Object
The Contenders
Artistic Creation – The Brutalist
Faith – Dune: Part Two
Dondas the Monkey – Gladiator II
The Rats (Collective Nomination) – Nosferatu
The Substance – The Substance
Shoutout to the 5,000 (not a typo) trained rats with a well-deserved collective nomination for Nosferatu, one (or 1/5000th) of two very good animal nominees this year. I almost went with Dondas, who really submits an award worthy turn and manages to hold his own on screen against Denzel Washington, something plenty of human actors have spectacularly failed at.
But I’m going with something that performs well both as a physical object (well, liquid) as well as a potent idea. That’s right, it’s The Substance from, well, The Substance.
Best Vocal Performance
The Contenders
Miut The Kitty – Flow
Maya Hawke – Inside Out 2
Brian Cox – The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim
Jackie Weaver – Memoir of a Snail
Lupita Nyong’o – The Wild Robot
That’s right, we have our first animal nominated for a vocal performance! Miut isn’t going to win, but this cat – who belongs to Flow’s sound designer Gurwal Coic-Gallas – did an awesome job. Good kitty.
Our winner, however, is not an animal, either the actor or the character. The character is, thought, at least pretty animal-adjacent, Lupita Nyong’o in a movie where for most of the runtime there is one robot and a bunch of animals: The Wild Robot
Scene Stealer of the Year
The Contenders
Jesse Plemons – Civil War
Sergio Castelitto (aka the Vaping Priest) – Conclave
Austin Butler – Dune: Part 2
Ophelia Lovibond – Here
Hamish Linklater – Nickel Boys
The award for a performance that stuck with me even though the role isn’t really enough for a full supporting performance. This year is an easy winner, which is a little weird because it’s from a film I thought was kinda bad overall: Jesse Plemons, who only appears in one scene of Civil War but it’s a) by far the best scene in the film and b) extremely memorable and unsettling.
So what kind of American are you?
Best Ensemble
The Contenders
Anora
The Brutalist
Dune: Part Two
I’m Still Here
Nosferatu
What film this year had the best overall cast, both in terms of quality and depth. Well, that’s a tough one, and actually no it’s not. It was Dune: Part Two and it’s not remotely close.
Best Supporting Actor
The Contenders
David Jonsson – Alien: Romulus
Yura Borisov – Anora
Guy Pearce – The Brutalist
Chris Hemsworth – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Denzel Washington – Gladiator II
A genre-film heavy list this year, but I stand by it. There were a couple others (Bardem from Dune, Dafoe or even Skarsgard for Nosferatu) that were knocking at the door. Really strong year for male supporting performances in good genre movies, I guess.
And our winner is, kinda from one of them (sword-and-sandals being sort of a genre in the way that people use that term): Denzel Washington, who absolutely carried an otherwise merely pretty good Gladiator II. The film really should have been about him.
Best Supporting Actress
The Contenders
Monica Barbaro – A Complete Unknown
Rebecca Ferguson – Dune: Part Two
Adria Arjona – Hit Man
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor – Nickel Boys
Margaret Qualley – The Substance
Margaret Qualley is really treading the line between supporting and (co-lead) here, but I ultimately just does not quite meet the test I use, which is basically “is the movie at least in part about this character?” Not quite, I don’t think, so she’s (barely) supporting.
For the winner here I’m going with my heart, and that’s Lady Jessica herself, Rebecca Ferguson from Dune: Part Two. I think Ferguson gives probably the best acting performance in a film with a lot of good ones, and I’m surprised that she didn’t even get a look by any of the awards bodies. Huh.
Best Actor
The Contenders
Adrian Brody – The Brutalist
Ralph Fiennes – Conclave
Glenn Powell – Hit Man
Aaron Pierre – Rebel Ridge
Colman Domingo – Sing Sing
Not a particularly strong category, and yet there were still some hard cuts. I liked Josh O’Connell quite a bit in Challengers (a movie with three leads, in my opinion), and Timothee Chalamet, while good in A Complete Unknown, got nominated for the wrong film. Still, I couldn’t quiiiite squeeze him in for Dune: Part Two here, the first real upset for Dune all night.
I’m going with the real life Oscars for our winner here, I thought Adrian Brody gave the best male lead performance of 2024 for The Brutalist. And fortunately he is not here to give a speech, so we can just move on.
Best Actress
The Contenders
Mikey Madison – Anora
Zendaya – Challengers
Fernanda Torres – I’m Still Here
Lily-Rose Depp – Nosferatu
Demi Moore – The Substance
The ladies are the opposite of the fellas, in that I think that’s a very strong five but also there were no others that I seriously considered; the closest honestly is probably Caelee Spaeny in Alien: Romulus. And for the winner I am again going chalk here, I can’t believe it. But I agree with Academy voters, I think Mikey Madison gave the best female lead performance this year in Anora.
Hopefully I bought myself some credibility by giving both supporting wins to actors who weren’t even nominated by the actual Oscars.
Best Director
The Contenders
Sean Baker – Anora
Brady Corbet – The Brutalist
Denis Villeneuve – Dune: Part Two
RaMell Ross – Nickel Boys
Robert Eggers – Nosferatu
I’m not going to pretend there is any suspense here, the best director this year was Denis Villeneuve for Dune: Part Two and, as I will discuss in a moment, it was not close.
Best Picture
The Contenders
Anora
The Brutalist
Dune: Part Two
Nickel Boys
Nosferatu
Five-for-five on directors and picture this year, and again I will not pretend there is any suspense here: the Best Picture of 2024 was Dune: Part Two. While the other four films were all very good, none even came close to Dune for me, which you probably gathered quite a while ago by how much it cleaned up in the Pauls.
I’m not sure what, if anything, it means, but was an unusually not-close year, and it’s been since at least the early 2000s (maybe since the Lord of the Rings years) that I had a year with as big of a gap between #1 and #2. Part of that is the strength of Dune, of course, but while Dune is a 5/5 (on the Letterboxd star scale) film for me, it’s not at the very top of my ratings; I have seven films from the 2010s ahead of it on the all-time list I keep (which you can see here: https://letterboxd.com/teddroe/list/top-100/ )
To make matters worse, my second favorite film of the year (Nickel Boys) is a pretty weak number two, only a 4/5. Indeed, I didn’t give any movies this year 4.5 stars, which is very unusual; last year, for example, had one 5/5 and two 4.5/5, while the year before that had no 5/5 but four different 4.5/5. This is some real weakness at the top, after Dune anyways.
Hopefully we get a rebound in 2025, but I guess we shall see. Which, on that note, see you in 2026!
The Final Tally:
Alien Romulus: Two Contenders and Zero Pauls
Anora: Eight Contenders and Two Pauls (Best Scene, Best Actress)
Boy Kills World: One Contender and Zero Pauls
The Brutalist: Twelve Contenders and Two Pauls (Best Screenplay, Best Actor)
Challengers: Four Contenders and One Paul (Best Use of Music)
Civil War: One Contender and One Paul (Scene Stealer of the Year)
A Complete Unknown: Two Contenders and Zero Pauls
Conclave: Two Contenders and Zero Pauls
Dune: Part Two: Seventeen Contenders and Eight Pauls (Best Visual Effects, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Sound, Best Ensemble, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Picture)
The Fall Guy: One Contender and One Paul (Best Stuntwork)
Flow: Two Contenders and Zero Pauls
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga: Nine Contenders and One Paul (Best Costume Design)
Gladiator 2: Five Contenders and One Paul (Best Supporting Actor)
Here: One Contender and Zero Pauls
Hit Man: Five Contenders and Zero Pauls
Hundreds of Beavers: Three Contenders and One Paul (Most Enjoyable Film)
I’m Still Here: Two Contenders and Zero Pauls
I Saw the TV Glow: Five Contenders and Zero Pauls
Inside Out 2: Two Contenders and Zero Pauls
Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim: One Contender and Zero Pauls
Memoir of a Snail: Two Contenders and Zero Pauls
Nickel Boys: Six Contenders and One Paul (Best Film Editing)
Nosferatu: Eleven Contenders and Zero Pauls
Rebel Ridge: Two Contenders and Zero Pauls
Sing Sing: One Contender and Zero Pauls
The Substance: Three Contenders and One Paul (Best Performance by an Animal, Idea, or Inanimate Object)
Twisters: One Contender and Zero Pauls
The Wild Robot: Three Contenders and Two Pauls (Best Animated Feature, Best Vocal Performance)
That’s twenty-eight movies with at least one Contender and twelve with at least one Paul, down very slightly from twenty-nine and up from ten respectively. With how topheavy this year was, I’m a little surprised the number of winners went up
For a complete list of what I've seen from 2024, in fluid and arbitrary order of overall preference, click here: https://letterboxd.com/teddroe/list/2024/. Note that I keep updating these lists when and if I see more, so if there are more than 56 films there it means I’ve seen something since writing this.
Now, just for fun:
Most Undernominated: Of movies that got Contenders, I’m Still Here somehow only got two despite being a top fifteen film of the year for me and the kind of movie that can get a big number. I would say Hundreds of Beavers, which was one of my favorite movies of the year but only got three Contenders, but that one – a black-and-white slapstick comedy with no dialogue made for like $150,000 – is not the kind of film that gets a lot of awards.
Most Overnominated: Five Contenders is a lot for Gladiator 2, a movie I merely liked. Interestingly, last year’s winner of this category was Napoleon, another good-but-disappointing Ridley Scott period piece.
The Most Cynical Franchise Schlock That Sort of Against My Will I Enjoyed Watching: Ugh, Deadpool & Wolverine.
Best Movie You’d Never Know I’d Seen by Reading This: A real winner/loser here this year. Love Lies Bleeding was a top ten film of the year for me, and would be in the 6th-8th range for a ton of different categories, but just couldn’t quite get into the top five in any.
The “The Grossest Scene In a Crazy Body Horror Movie Was Just Dennis Quaid Eating Shrimp” Award: The Substance
The Inside Llewyn Davis Award for Most Contenders Without a Win: Nosferatu, with eleven. The record is twelve, so almost.
The Rotting Schlong Award: This one goes to…Nosferatu! A consolation prize, but a prize nonetheless
The Musical Adaptation That I Didn’t Love But Thought Was Better Than Wicked Award: I seem to be the only person who kinda liked the Mean Girls musical adaptation.
Movie I Promise I Saw But Couldn’t Find Anywhere On Here For: A Real Pain was…fine.
The “Good But Should Have Been Better” Award: Monkey Man. So close to being amazing but just doesn’t quite get there.
The “The Accent Coach Had a Stroke” Award: The Bikeriders.
Worst Movie Represented: I did not care for Civil War, but it did have one dynamite scene.
The The Last Jedi Award for Insanely Polarizing Movie That I Thought Was Basically Fine: I thought Wicked was basically fine. Runner up is Emilia Perez, which I did think was worse than “fine” but not by that much.
The “So, What Was Going On Here” Award: So, what was going on there with Emilia Perez?
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
The “Her Web Connects Us All” Award: Goes to the reverse masterpiece that was Madame Web
Worst Piece of Crap I Saw from 2023: This is probably technically Madame Web but also that movie was amazing so I’m giving it to Megalopolis instead. Although even that movie had some ironic enjoyment, so maybe this should go to Joker: Folie a Deux
The “Wait a Coen Brother Directed This???” Award: Drive Away Dolls. Not…not great.
Movie I Should Be Most Ashamed of Not Seeing Before Writing This: Maybe The Apprentice? Look, I know, but I have to deal with that lunatic irl too much. I also didn’t do great with international movies, so Seed of the Sacred Fig and All I Imagine as Light would be good answers. The Girl with the Needle too.
Special Award For “Whoah There’s A Future Movie Star”: Aaron Pierre for Rebel Ridge. I eliminated the newcomer of the year award, but he would’ve won it.
The “Sort of Risque, But Oversold By the Marketing” Award: Challengers was sold on the promise of a threesome that, mild spoilers, does not occur.
Most Fun Use of Sexy Roleplay: Hit Man
Least Fun Use of Sexy Roleplay: Red Rooms
The “Ruined By the Trailer” Award: Hoo boy, Conclave. Knowing there’s an explosion in the Sistine Chapel makes the rest of the movie way, way too predictable.
The Award for Not quite good Enough In Either Movie To Get a Nomination But He Was Really Good As the Male Lead of Both Juror #2 and Nosferatu, So, Like, Maybe Combined? Nicholas Hoult
The “Not Sure Why I Didn’t Like It More” Award: Saturday Night should have been right up my alley but I only ended up sort of liking it.
The “They’re Wrong” Award: It got good enough reviews and people seem to have liked it well enough, but I thought Hit Man was legitimately one of the best films of the year.
The “I’m Wrong” Award: I’ll give this to Civil War, a film that a lot of critics I respect loved but I thought was kinda bad. I’m probably wrong.
The Doesn’t Quite Fit Any of My Categories But I Liked Ariana Grande in Wicked Award: Ariana Grande in Wicked.
The Irritating Backlash Award: Any time I finish this thing well after the Oscar Best Picture is announced I could probably give it to the winner; there’s almost always a backlash. But I’ll actually give it to The Brutalist, which yes is long and yes is kinda pretentious and yes has THAT scene (which I agree was a mistake) but was also very good.
That’s All Folks
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