I’d like to thank my hairdresser, God and the Academy for nominating 10 films that aren’t total embarrassments. Every contender for best picture comes with enough critical and/or commercial heft to have at least some argument for the throne (make that the papal ring). But all claims are not equal. So let’s rank the 10 nominees from least to most deserving.
I’m not trying to rain on the parade of the millions of mini-Elphabas out there who swooned to see Cynthia Erivo sing about the difficulties of being green. “Wicked” succeeded in being catchy, colorful and pop-uuuu-lar. That said, it’s a trifle on the scale of this 10-story whipped cream cake. By the endlessly drawn out last act, I’d had my fill. And frankly, I’m not happy with the accounting wizard who decided this movie needed to be split into two parts.
Good on James Mangold for tracking a bit of mud on Bob Dylan’s legacy, the kind of irreverent derring-do the movie’s own Johnny Cash celebrates. Timothée Chalamet’s Dylan is equal parts callow and brilliant, a truth-teller who hides behind his own emotional walls, a small man inside of a giant talent. Lesser biographies pick sides; Mangold trusts us to find our own path through the mire, while noting the particular risk of being a wunderkind hoisted up into a deity. But ultimately, the storytelling is too conventional. The biopic genre needs to go electric — and the movie that did that best this year is “Better Man.”
“Emilia Perez” has a bold hook and three of this year’s best scenes. Its ideas, alas, go skin deep. Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez belt about their emotions plenty — their performances, particularly Saldana’s, are genuinely good — but the movie’s Teflon slickness lets all their big feelings about transformation and love and loyalty slide right off. You can’t honestly tell me you care about which woman winds up in charge. That “Emilia Pérez” has bulldozed its way to becoming this Oscar season’s major contender proves the power of moxie and marketing über alles.
Coralie Fargeat’s spattergore dramedy is as shallow as the Hollywood it’s satirizing. If not for Demi Moore literally and figuratively carrying “The Substance” on her cleaved back, it wouldn’t be on this list at all. Moore is the movie — she’s lived the movie — and I’ll be first on my feet to cheer if she manages to claw and scrape and bleed her way to seizing a gold statuette. As mixed as I am on the film itself, I appreciate that the Academy is embracing not just a horror movie, but a gleeful Grand Guignol that defiles the Walk of Fame twice.
OK, Brady Corbet. You’ve got our attention. “The Brutalist” is a staggering and worthwhile epic that needed to scale back just a bit, like a building with one too many gargoyles. No matter, there are worse things than coming close to greatness. Corbet made jaws drop when he revealed that he made this three-and-a-half-hour mammoth for less than $10 million. People might start flinging zeros at him now in the anticipation of working with the next Christopher Nolan. Like his fictional architect, I hope Corbet remembers that he can afford to be his own man.
‘Nickel Boys’ is a priceless investment in shaping a new cinematic language, using the camera to make a political story feel personal. The director RaMell Ross stays faithful to the intentions of Colson Whitehead’s 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning book about two Black teens trying to survive a violent reform school in the Jim Crow-era South, yet his poetic, fragmentary images reshape the novel into a visual haiku. The movie struggles a bit whenever the characters start talking — his cast is talented, but the straight-to-camera execution of the monologues is clunky, with pauses that feel as though they’re added by a stage actor waiting for applause. Still, I’d bet a million nickels that Ross will use the clout of this nomination to create more marvelous works.
“Conclave” deserves to win Best Movie to Watch on a Plane, and I mean that as a major compliment. This popemobile is a gas, a great ride that veers nimbly between smart and silly. Audiences were thrilled to watch the flock of cardinals peck each other’s eyes out over which one of them is the next rightful pope, and some viewers certainly put down their popcorn long enough to reflect on exactly what kind of person deserves to slide into the papal slippers and shape the lives of 1.3 billion believers. Do I think “Conclave” should nab the big prize? No. But I’d happily give ambitious crowd-pleasers like it a standing ovation every month.
Bravo to the voters for elevating Walter Salles’ Brazilian period drama into the big show. “I’m Still Here” travels us to groovy 1970s Rio de Janeiro to befriend a wealthy, loving family who throw their mansion’s doors open for everyone, until the new regime’s secret police barge inside. This movie asks two key questions: How do we know when things are bad? And how do we fight? The lead, a mild-mannered housewife and mother of five (well-deserved lead actress nominee Fernanda Torres), looks fragile but uses her particular set of skills — dignity, warmth, presentation — to strike back in ways the dictatorship doesn’t know how to parry. In one stand-out scene, she simply insists on smiling for a camera.
My only issue with this nomination is that by now, writer-director Sean Baker should have already gotten at least two. Better late than never. “Anora” thrusts the boy-meets-girl, rich-meets-poor setup of the best classic screwball movies into the 21st century when an exotic dancer decides to drop her guard for the son of a Russian oligarch — to believe, despite all her soul-wearying champagne room encounters, that fairy tale romances do exist. Quip for quip, “Anora” is the most raucous movie of the year, but it’s in the silent stretches at the end when you really hear the film’s heartbeat.
Sixty years ago, when Frank Herbert published his monumental sci-fi novel, the Academy giving its top prize to a studio-made epic like “Dune: Part Two” would have been an easy call. It’s “Lawrence of Arrakis,” a staggering investment in costumes and sets and shooting days that testifies to what this business can do when it funds giant swings. But “Dune” shouldn’t win simply because it costs more than half of the films on this list added together. It should win because Denis Villeneuve has packed every frame with care, craft and sticky questions about humanity’s thirst to put its faith in false messiahs. The second half of the story is twice as smart and complex as Villeneuve’s first “Dune” film, released in 2021, yet somehow it’s wound up with only half the Oscar nominations. I suspect the film’s Old Hollywood heft might be why it’s being taken for granted, but this cerebral blockbuster will still be standing tall decades from now, when films of this magnitude may no longer exist.
From the Oscars to the Emmys.
Get the Envelope newsletter for exclusive awards season coverage, behind-the-scenes stories from the Envelope podcast and columnist Glenn Whipp’s must-read analysis.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
