Oscar Thoughts

The 97th Academy Awards will be handed out later today, and unlike previous years, in which I’ve taken the time to watch not only the best picture nominees but some selections from the down-ballot, and write up thoughts on each one, this year I’m just not feeling it. Nor does it seem like I’m alone in this. Between large chunks of LA burning down, a strong best actress contender blowing her chances by turning out to be an unrepentant racist, the pope fixing to die just as a movie about the subsequent process becomes a strong best picture contender, and the US government trying to dismantle itself, it really feels as if the universe is telling us to pay less attention to the movies nominated for an Oscar, and more to the reality they claim to depict.

Not helping matters is that this is probably the most milquetoast best picture ballot I’ve seen in years. The Oscars are, of course, a middlebrow award by their very definition. They are an award that recognizes the best in the subset of movies that get nominated for an Oscar. Which does not simply mean that certain types of movies—genre movies, experimental movies, wannabe blockbusters that did not quite bust the block—need not apply, but that there’s a certain runway, a path that runs through festivals and critics’ associations and particular Hollywood PR companies, without which even a work that has “Oscar movie” stamped all over it has little chance of garnering the kind of attention that gets you on the ballot.

But the thing is, even if you allow for this limitation, the Oscars can still recognize great work. Movies that become cultural commonplaces, whose premise is inextricably woven into the broader conversation, whose characters come to feel like cherished friends. I don’t think any of the films nominated for the 2025 Oscar are going to have that sort of longevity. For the most part, I won’t be mad if any of them takes home the best picture trophy. But I also strongly suspect that within a few years, “who won best picture in 2025” is going to be a moderately challenging trivia question.

Having said that, it’s only fair to admit that there are three best picture nominees I haven’t seen. In one case—A Complete Unknown (dir. James Mangold)—that’s because of a complete lack of interest. In two others—I’m Still Here (dir. Walter Salles) and Nickel Boys (dir. RaMell Moss)—it’s because of a lack of access. The latter film, in particular, is one I’m eager to watch, since I deeply admired both the Colson Whitehead novel on which it’s based, and the previous attempt to bring one of his novels to the screen. It’s possible that if I’d watched one or all of these movies, my lukewarm attitude to this year’s nominees would have altered—though perhaps not, since none of them have an actual chance of winning.

Next up, we have the blockbusters. Movies that exist primarily to bring in a lot of money and shore up a franchise, but which were made with enough artistry, and whose characters and imagery have amassed enough cultural cachet, that they get let into a club that wasn’t designed for them. Dune: Part Two was probably seen, around this time last year, as something of a victory lap, a triumphant follow-up to the first half of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s monumental space opera, which stunned and delighted both fans of the book and people accustomed to looking down on science fiction. But though its reception upon release seemed to match the enthusiasm of its 2021 predecessor, in the intervening period—perhaps because its stars spent the year promoting more personal projects; perhaps because Villeneuve’s adaptation turns a definitive ending into an Empire Strikes Back-style cliffhanger; perhaps because in his zeal to amass the very respectability that makes the film an Oscar contender, Villeneuve has filed off much of what makes the novel weird and distinctive—it seems to have dwindled to a footnote, to the point that I was a little surprised when it made it onto the ballot at all.

The same fate might befall the second part of Wicked next year, but the first part (dir. John Chu) still has the glow of success, originality, and topicality on it. There’s certainly a lot to praise in this adaptation of a Broadway musical based on a novel based on the cultural phenomenon that is The Wizard of Oz. It has two diva-level central performances, from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. It manages to stretch out the musical’s first act into a movie that is longer than the stage production as a whole without feeling slack or padded or boring. And, without perhaps entirely meaning to, it has somehow managed to be the most blatantly anti-Trump movie on the best picture ballot. Against all of this, however, there is still the core problem that Wicked is a thoroughly mid musical with largely forgettable songs. Watching the movie is a solid substitute to shelling out for the stage show, but you’re still better off with almost any other example of the genre.

The next group of best picture nominees might be described as the “buyer’s remorse” gang. There’s a few like this every year: movies made outside the Hollywood studio system, without huge stars or big names behind the scenes, that get embraced by festivals and tastemaking critics. Little by little they snap up awards, audience attention, and sometimes even big bucks, until suddenly they become awards season juggernauts. At that point, when the underdog has transformed into the favorite, there’s often a tendency to pause and go “wait, really? Haven’t we, maybe, gone a bit too far?”

The Substance is a classic example of this type. Sure, it’s fun to see a horror movie get a best picture nomination, and all the more so because director Coralie Fargeat, whose energetic, gleefully demented visuals are 90% of the reason the film works, has made it onto the famously laddish best director ballot. But against that we have the fact that this is a movie that pats itself on the back for its progressiveness while truly having nothing to say; a movie that stretches a 90-minute story into a 140-minute bid for prestige. And sure, it probably isn’t going to win best picture (or best director), but the fact that it has amassed enough gravitational pull to potentially claim best screenplay (despite the screenplay being the film’s weakest point) and best actress feels more than a little ridiculous.

Still, better to be The Substance than Emilia Pérez, a film that has, with almost dizzying speed, become a generational Oscar villain, spoken of in the same tones as Crash or Green Book. When I reviewed the film here late last year, I thought my take—that it was an energetic, compelling piece of filmmaking whose themes of reinvention and moral awakening did not bear much scrutiny, and whose depiction of gender transition, while well-intentioned, was so ignorant as to slide right into transphobia—marked me out as a bit of a hater. Now, amidst the vitriol that has been directed at the movie as wider, non-festival audiences have discovered it, it probably makes me look like a hopeless stan. Well, so be it: I still think Emilia Pérez is a fun time at the movies (and I’d take its songs over Wicked‘s any day of the week). But I certainly agree that between its handling of the trans experience and—as subsequent critics have pointed out—its ignorant-to-the-point-of-disinterest depiction of Mexico and its crime problems, it probably shouldn’t have tied Mary Poppins and Fellowship of the Ring for number of Oscar nominations. It’s almost a relief that star Karla Sofia Gascón has tanked the film’s chances by being such a lowlife.

All of which leaves us with three potential winners that have managed to clear all the hurdles of respectability, popularity, and lack of controversy that stand between an Oscar nominee and the little golden man. And, to be fair to the Academy and its voters, these are three very different movies that represent different aspects of mainstream filmmaking, and different paths to Oscar glory. Sean Baker’s Anora is the come-from-nowhere, slightly-controversial choice, a fast-moving, slyly funny character piece about a sex worker who marries a client, only for his oligarch parents’ henchmen to descend on her and demand she disappear from his life. It’s virtually a perfectly crafted movie, from the performances—Mikey Madison is the standout as a woman whose shallowness and frivolity gradually melt away to reveal a core of steel, but both her man-child husband and the increasingly panicked goons who become her companions match her beat for beat—to the deliberately chaotic staging of multiple screaming fights, to the wonderfully enigmatic final scene. But for me, all that craft feels in service of very little. I enjoyed watching Anora, but when the credits rolled, I couldn’t have told you what the whole thing was ultimately about.

In contrast, Conclave (dir. Edward Berger) is so classic an Oscar movie that one is almost surprised that the filmmaking machine of the 2020s is still capable of producing it. It’s a character drama, starring some beloved actors at the top of their game, focused on an esoteric but compelling situation, whose action is driven mostly by conversation and conflicts of personality. Watching it, I found myself thinking of The Crown, another deeply granular examination of a hidebound, tradition-obsessed organization that handles its topic with so much intelligence and sensitivity that you can fool yourself into thinking it’s being critical, when actually it’s nothing of the sort. (Even the film’s “shocking” ending is, I would argue, a great deal less controversial than its creators clearly believe.) And, like The Crown, Conclave is the sort of movie you can recommend to your mom, safe in the knowledge that she will be neither bored nor alienated by it. Twenty years ago it probably would have been a shoe-in for the Oscar, and in 2025, with so many other apparent front-runners having fallen by the wayside, it is still my bet to take the crown. But if you’re looking for exciting, groundbreaking cinema, look elsewhere.

Which brings us to The Brutalist (dir. Brady Corbet), a film that, in another year, with another distributor, with a different release date and some bigger names, might have been another Oppenheimer. The two films share, in fact, many similarities: both mega-sized epics about mid-century creative geniuses whose work easily allegorizes to filmmaking. Both astonishing showcases of cinematic verve and craft, deployed in the service not of bombastic action, but of serious ideas about history and culture. Both Great Man character studies smart enough to poke at that concept, while still retaining a great deal of admiration for their subject. It’s easy to see why The Brutalist hasn’t had the kind of reach Oppenheimer did. Without the global name recognition of both Christopher Nolan and J. Robert Oppenheimer, without the instantly-gripping focus on the atom bomb, without Barbie to draft off, there is simply no way to attract billion-dollar-grossing audiences to a movie about a fictional modernist architect trying to exorcise the trauma of the Holocaust through his work. But this is a great shame, because The Brutalist is much smarter than Oppenheimer. It has more to say about creative labor, about the challenges of doing one’s work in the maw of capitalism, and about living with the scars of WWII. (Also, Felicity Jones gets to play the Long-Suffering Wife of a Great Man as someone with personality, interests, and a point of view, as opposed to the non-entity Emily Blunt was saddled with as Kitty Oppenheimer.) It probably says everything we still need to know about this year’s underwhelming Oscar race that whereas Oppenheimer ran the table last year, The Brutalist—the only film of the bunch that I expect to find myself still thinking about after this evening—is at best an also-ran.