In terms of predicting the winners for the 95th Academy Awards, doing so this year is considerably more difficult than it was in recent years. There are genuine horse races in most of the acting nominations, with only comeback kid Ke Huy Quan in Everything Everywhere All at Once considered a lock for Supporting Actor. Outside of that race, the only other safe bets are "Naatu Naatu" from RRR winning Best Song, the German film All Quiet on the Western Front getting the win for International Feature Film, Avatar: The Way of Water winning for its beautiful visual effects, and Guillermo del Toro winning his third Oscar for his version of Pinocchio. Most other awards are anyone's guess, with several nominees in each category gaining momentum but not having it in the bag.
So many questions will be answered tomorrow: Will the younger, hipper Everything Everywhere All at Once prevail, or will the older, more establishment-friendly The Fabelmans pull an upset? Will the Academy award the sharp theatricality of Martin McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin script or the popular absurdity of the Daniels' in Everything Everywhere All at Once? Will it be Top Gun: Maverick or All Quiet on the Western Front for Sound? Elvis or All Quiet on the Western Front for Cinematography? Babylon or (again) All Quiet on the Western Front for Production Design? Austin Butler or Brendan Fraser? Michelle Yeoh or Cate Blanchett? Jamie Lee Curtis or Angela Bassett or Kerry Condon? The only sure thing is that there will likely be no shocking moments at this year's ceremony like last year's...well, you know.
I wish I could say something about how they're all good films, and I'd be perfectly happy with anyone of the winners, but alas, 2022 was not my favorite year for the movies. I have some thoughts. So, without further ado...
54. Blonde
Actress in a Leading Role (Ana de Arnas)
Blonde, the adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' novel about a fictionalized take on the life of Marilyn Monroe, is grotesquely aggressive and almost unbelievably full of itself. It's truly a struggle to make it through to the end of this film; it must have taken me a week to do so, and the only way I could achieve such a feat was by eventually breaking up the viewing into installments of about five or ten minutes a day. Ana de Arnas, the film's star, has made a career of fantastic performances, but her work here as Monroe is not one of them. Oscar nominations for acting are often called out for celebrating not necessarily best acting but "most acting," and De Arnas's acting here certainly qualifies as the latter, with an enormous amount of screaming and crying, rinsing and repeating. Even if one is a fan of her performance in this film, it's hard to see how any of the other actors are doing any good, especially Xavier Samuel as Cass Chaplin and Evan Williams as Eddy Robinson. No other movie on this list seems to be trying so hard to be so bad like Blonde does.
53. Babylon
Costume Design (Mary Zophres), Original Score (Justin Hurwitz), Production Design (Florencia Martin, Anthony Carlino)
Babylon has often been described as "divisive" (even it's director
knows it is), but calling it that really begs the question: Who are the fifty percent of viewers who actually like such a film? A second-rate attempt to recreate what worked in
Singin' in the Rain and a variety of other films that explored early Hollywood, there's not a single good performance in this film, and it must be said that this is the goofiest performance ever of Margot Robbie's career. Never before has a film so accurately summed itself up than in
Babylon; in this case, it's Brad Pitt's Jack Conrad, who summarizes a film he's starring in as follows: "It's shit. Another giant swing toward mediocrity." Perhaps summing up
Babylon that way would be too much of a compliment.
52. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Animated Feature Film (Dean Fleischer Camp, Elisabeth Holm, Andrew Goldman, Caroline Kaplan, and Paul Mezey)
Now that I've got my complaints against Blonde and Babylon out of my system, I feel I've exhausted myself of complaining about some of these other films, but I will find at least some energy to complain about the overrated bore that is Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Unlike with Blonde and Babylon, I am not plagued by the recency factor with Marcel the Shell with Shoes On in my lack of appreciation of this movie, a film about a talking shell being interviewed in a mockumentary. That does not mean I liked it a whole lot better. I was bored by Marcel the Shell with Shoes On almost as much as I was by Blonde and Babylon, and I really struggled to I can't understand why everybody (or anybody) liked this movie; I liked nothing about it.
51. Bardo, False Chronicles of a Handful of Truths
Cinematography (Darius Khondji)
A lot of films directed by Alejandro Iñárritu can be on the insufferable side, but Bardo, False Chronicles of a Handful of Truths takes the cake. "Self-indulgent and pretentious" is how the Wikipedia article on it describes the reaction to the film. With a title like Bardo, False Chronicles of a Handful of Truths, how can it not be? It pretends to care if its audience recognizes how apparently self-aware and absurdist it is. The plot is meaningless, there is little (if any) emotional appeal to the film, and it's just a film directed by Iñárritu in which he's finally being called out for going overboard.
50. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Animated Feature Film (Joel Crawford and Mark Shift)
The good thing about this totally unnecessary sequel is that its animation style, inspired by Akira and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and at times tonally influenced by Spaghetti Westerns like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West, is unlike anything else we have seen in the Shrek franchise, especially the first Puss in Boots film in 2011, which at that point had begun to look flat and stale. The bad news is that this follow-up is overly morbid, and there's not one laugh in the entire thing. Antonio Banderas has always been charming as this character, but it's not enough to save the film, especially from the annoying voice acting of Harvey Guillén. One would think that after almost twenty years, certain jokes would get old, but don't tell that to Dreamworks. They may have a new animation style, but it is literally the same jokes they were doing in 2004.
49. Tell It Like a Woman
Best Original Song ("Applause" by Diane Warren)
Tell It Like a Woman is an American-Italian anthology film consisting of seven short stories directed by women. In addition to the United States and Italy, other entries included were filmed in India and Japan, and the cast includes actors like Marcia Gay Harden, Eva Longoria, and Jacqueline Fernandez. Unfortunately, it starts with a surprising misfire with a short directed by Taraji P. Henson and starring Jennifer Hudson in a really unimpressive, distracting performance. Fortunately, some of the films are at least a little better, most notably one featuring Ann Watanabe as a single mother of two young children and their daily routines in Japan. The incomparable Diane Warren received her fourteenth nomination for Best Original Song this year, and although she finally received an Honorary Oscar last year (an award she had "been waiting a long fucking time for"), she is unlikely to win yet again this year. If she didn't win for songs like "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us" and "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," she's not going to win for a song like "Applause."
48. Elvis
Actor in a Leading Role (Austin Butler), Cinematography (Mandy Walker), Costume Design (Catherine Martin), Film Editing (Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond), Makeup and Hairstyling (Mark Coulier, Jason Baird, and Aldo Signoretti), Production Design (Catherine Martin, Karen Murphy, and Bev Dunn), Sound (David Lee, Wayne Pashley, Andy Nelson, and Michael Keller), Best Picture (Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Gail Berman, Patrick McCormack, and Schuyler Weiss)
I was hoping we were long past the era of dry biographical films of entertainment legends, but I was wrong.
Elvis continues this tradition and doesn't care if you're bored by it or not. Tom Hanks as Tom Parker is very...odd, I guess, would be the word, covered in Oscar-nominated makeup and really wanting you to know how many acting choices he made during filming. (It hasn't helped him much. Hanks has received
three Razzie nominations for worst acting this year, including for his performance in
Elvis.) But the saving grace of
Elvis is Austin Butler in the title role, just straddling the edge enough between originality and impersonation. At the end of the day, the film is yet another example of a movie that was way less interesting than its
trailer.
47. Empire of Light
Cinematography (Roger Deakins)
Predictably, Empire of Light—taking place mostly in a lavish but deteriorating cinema in the early 1980—is a gorgeous one to look at, with a color palate by Roger Deakins many will recognize from a lot of the films he' shot, but the film's story leaves much to be desired. It has a few big names (Olivia Coleman, Colin Firth) and a big director (Sam Mendes, who also wrote the screenplay), but it's unfortunately a bit of a bore, with overly showy performances and not much else. What exactly is the point of this movie? For the guy who gave us Road to Perdition, Skyfall, and 1917, it's fair to say that Empire of Light doesn't come close to matching his previous work.
46. The Whale
Actor in a Leading Role (Brendan Fraser), Actress in a Supporting Role (Hong Chao), Makeup and Hairstyling (Adrien Morot, Judy Chin, and Annemarie Bradley)
For those who think A24 can do no wrong, they may want to consider viewing
The Whale. Surely, even those who haven't seen it have at least heard of it, mainly because Brendan Fraser, ever since he received a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival last September, has been all over the place promoting it. In
The Whale, Fraser plays Charlie, a reclusive, self-loathing, six-hundred-pound man apparently eating himself to death and desperate to find redemption from his daughter, whom he abandoned years ago. You've likely also heard of the controversy regarding the film, namely the sort of pseudo-empathetic nature of this story directed by Darren Aronofsky and written by Samuel D. Hunter, who adapted it from his 2012 play, and the fat suit. Beyond that, Sadie Sink's performance as Charlie's psychotic daughter is basically the same note throughout the film's entirety. A consensus, however, is that Hong Chao as Charlie's nurse friend who cares for him is great; so, too, is Samantha Morton as his ex-wife.
The Whale, which I suppose has its heart in the right place, left me feeling kind of dumbfounded, and I'd like to end by quoting Glenn Weldon's
criticism of it all: "It's just a thread of self-righteousness, or a kind of delusional nobility, a kind of sense of, you're welcome."
45. Night Ride
Live Action Short Film (Eirik Tveiten and Gaute Lid Larssen)
Night Ride, the Norwegian short film directed by Eirik Tveiten, is a film that also has its heart in the right place. Tveiten told the
New Yorker (whose YouTube channel you can view it) that the story is about everyone's responsibility to help those who are being harassed. Those are noble intentions, indeed, but the end result is one that left me feeling uneasy at times. Even if it didn't, the whole thing starts off so nonsensically, as a woman is too cold to wait for a tram that will park for half an hour, so she decides to steal it. If the whole film is about standing up to tormentors against vulnerable people, why start off that way? One thing I really enjoyed about the film, however, is Sigrid Kandal Husjord's performance as Ebba, the main character.
44. Women Talking
Original Screenplay (Sarah Polley), Best Picture (Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, and Frances McDormand)
Women Talking is quite...talkative. Your mileage for non-stop dialogue will really help determine how much you like or don't like a film like this. Adapted for the screen by Sarah Polly from a 2018 novel by Miriam Toews about women in a Mennonite community debating whether or not to leave their homes after being brutally sedated and raped by men in their community (I really wish that no such event served as the inspiration for such a novel and film, but I regret to say that such a thing
did happen), its strengths lie in the acting of its cast. Many have lauded its bigger stars like Rooney Mara and Claire Foy, but I would like to praise Judith Ivey and Sheila McCarthy as the community elders. Despite the commendable acting, the film can be quite boring.
43. Living
Actor in a Leading Role (Bill Nighy), Adapted Screenplay (Kazuo Ishiguro)
Living is an unlikely film. It is a British remake of a somewhat famous 1952 Japanese film called Ikiru ("to live" in English), which was inspired by Leo Tolstoy's 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich. The story is about a dying bureaucrat (played here by Bill Nighy) who suddenly decides to devote his final days to actually improve the lives of regular people. But much like the original film, in my humble opinion, Living is dreadfully boring and overrated. True, there are a few moving moments when the protagonist decides to positively use what remaining time he has left, and Nighy, who's made a career of playing affable, larger-than-life characters, certainly gives us a different type of performance than we're used to seeing from him. But the non-stop whispering tone of his character only makes the film feel even more never ending.
42. How Do You Measure a Year?
Documentary Short Film (Jay Rosenblatt)
The documentary short How Do You Measure a Year?, directed by Jay Rosenblatt (who was also nominated in this same category last year for his experiences bullying a classmate in When We Were Bullies), is a film in which he has edited together footage of his annual interviews of his daughter, Ella, one her birthday from the age of two to eighteen. Ella is quite candid, though sometimes predictably bored (when she's an infant) and reserved (when she's a teenager), and she discusses some of the highs and lows in their father-daughter relationship. This whole experience surely makes for a therapeutic experience for the both of them. For the average viewer, though, I'm not sure it's worth the thirty-minute time investment.
41. The Sea Beast
Animated Feature Film (Chris Williams and Jed Schlanger)
Look, I totally understand why many animators are furious at how the Academy sees them. I get it. But I have to sum up The Sea Beast by calling it not necessarily a cute film but one that will likely be enjoyed a lot more by its young viewers than their parents. What parents will like are things like the voice cast (namely Karl Urban and Jared Harris), who are mostly fine. But they may also shrug at some of the usual beats that are there: messages about how humans and not beasts of the sea are (or often are) the real enemies, we all have to respect nature, and things like that. However, The Seat Beast is undeniably one of the most forgettable of all the nominees this year, and it's in large part to the fact that the sea beasts aren't remotely interesting. Why not embrace some realism? Greenland sharks are estimated to live as long as 250-500 years, so why not have have one of them be the sea beast at the heart of this film and not that awkward red thing?
40. The Ice Merchants
Animated Short Film (João Gonzalez and Bruno Caetano)
Each year, the Oscar-nominated animated shorts tend to have the most wonderful otherworldly animation, and
The Ice Merchants, directed by Portuguese director João Gonzalez (his third film), is no different. The dialogue-less film, about a father and son who parachute into town in order to sell ice, took Gonzalez about
two years to make after starting it as a student project. Since then, the film has been on a roll, winning forty-four prizes at over one hundred festivals, including the Leitz Cine Discovery Prize for short film. Should it win the big one? Well, it's not my favorite of the five nominees. For one, the film is a bit impenetrable in its first half, with the unique animation not doing enough to make up for its flaws. Fortunately, the film, as its stakes rise during its climactic scene, eventually becomes more engaging.
39. An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It
Animated Short Film (Lachlan Pendragon)
For its clever concept and painstaking stop motion animation, student filmmaker Lachlan Pendragon (who also voices the main character) certainly deserves a nomination for this postmodernist tale of a bored office worker who is told by an ostrich that (you guessed it) the world is fake, and he starts to believe it. Why? The real-world dimensions of animation manifest in front of his eyes: he can see the green screen, his face starts to fall off, and there's even a human hand chasing. The film's humor, which seems influenced by that of Taika Waititi (there's even an officemate of the protagonist who sounds like him) is copiously used here, and while it might not actually ever provoke laughter, it's humorous enough.
38. Ivalu
Live Action Short Film (Anders Walter and Rebecaa Pruzan)
Given the shockingly high rate of violence against young people in Greenland, it is understandable that Ivalu, about a missing indigenous girl, would be a harrowing subject. Sometimes the film is better when it allows the viewer to theorize about what has happened. At any rate, Ivalu proves yet again that it often is better to hire untrained actors for an experience of verisimilitude, as actor Mila Heilmann Kreutzmann as the protagonist really helps elevate the film.
37. An Irish Goodbye
Live Action Short Film (Tom Berkeley and Ross White)
An Irish Goodbye is a poignant black comedy about two brothers who reunite in rural Northern Ireland after their mother's death. The two start to quarrel. Turlough (Seamus O'Hara) lives in London, while his brother, Lorcan (James Martin), wishes to remain on the family farm, but Turlough insists that he goes to live with their aunt. (Lorcan has Down syndrome.) They attempt to heal their bitterness with a bucket list, seemingly from their deceased mother. If films in this category are not playing on Netflix or YouTube, the winner of the five nominees are usually difficult to predict. Even though it was not my favorite of the five films nominated, it does seem that
An Irish Goodbye, fresh off its BAFTA win last month, is the frontrunner, with
Next Best Picture and
Slant both predicting a win. The only one that could realistically stop it is...
36. Le pupille
Live Action Short Film (Alice Rohrwacher and Alfonso Cuarón)
For much of this nearly forty-minute Italian film shot in Super 16 and 35 mm format about a group of girls at a Catholic orphanage celebrating Christmas, I was not sure if I liked it or not. I admire the film's resemblance to works like the 1993 adaption of A Little Princess (directed by Alfonso Cuarón, a producer of the film, who would nab his sixth win with eleven nominations if Le pupille wins), but the film's suggestions of a link between Mussolini's fascist Italy and Pius XII's Catholic Church are as wearisome as they were in Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio, with both films feeling like they are either clichés or missed opportunities. And the film's chortle about lacking a moral at the end is either a plus or minus, depending on your perspective. Still, it more or less is an engaging, lighthearted, somewhat nostalgic film that some might revisit often at Christmastime.
35. To Leslie
Actress in a Leading Role (Andrea Riseborough)
By now, everyone knows that one of the biggest surprises of these nominations was Andrea Riseborough's nominated performance as Leslie, an addict trying to rebuild her life after losing all her money and being ostracized by her family and community. I had seen the film late last year because I always try to see as many of the top 100 films of the year according to Rotten Tomatoes. (For 2022, To Leslie is currently ranked near the top at number eight.) Part of the surprise is that To Leslie is a pretty mediocre film, and Riseborough's performance, while not bad, isn't all that unforgettable, either. As you can imagine, there is a lot of screaming and crying and that sort of thing; it's very over the top in an Oscar-bait way, but the film did have many powerful friends. What may have added to everyone's shock and anger is that Riseborough's nomination helped keep Danielle Deadwyler of Till and Octavia Spencer of The Woman King off, adding fuel to the fire of arguments that the Academy doesn't like to nominate Black women, and the subsequent investigation at the board meeting only made things more uncomfortable.
34. The Flying Sailor
Animated Short Film (Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby)
The Flying Sailor, the third Oscar nomination for Canadian animation duo Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby, is an animated short film inspired by a sailor's real-life experience during the 1917 Halifax Explosion that killed almost two thousand people. It shows us the sailor (naked for most of the film) going through a a nearly eight-minute somersault through the air (perhaps into another dimension or form of life) while his life flashes before his eyes. The filmmakers used accounts of trauma and near-death experiences to help visualize this sailor's surreal voyage. It's a fascinating interpretation of this actual tragedy, and it's animated creatively, though it is also one of the more forgettable films on this list.
33. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
Costume Design (Jenny Beaven)
The third adaptation of the novel
Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris, this film might charm the socks off many due to its delightful acting from its star Lesley Manville and the Paris scenery, but it also has more than one moment that will likely make you roll your eyes, and the movie can be so bland that you might forget you watched it the very next day. (Beyond that, the better of these types of sugary English movies from last year was
The Duke, with Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren.) Still, it's anti-snobbery, pro-kindness attitude is a pleasant one.
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is a love letter to dresses and the making of them, so Jenny Beaven, who (in addition to winning for
A Room With A View and
Mad Max: Fury Road), also won last year for
Cruella), stands a good chance at winning for all those beautiful dresses.
32. Turning Red
Animated Feature Film (Domee Shi and Lindsey Collins)
Pixar films—at least the best of them—will stay with you after just one viewing. I watched this film on Disney+ early last year (or was it in the summer?), and I confess to not remembering much about it. It doesn't really matter if I wasn't over the moon or not regarding
Turning Red. Some of the
criticism of the film was abnormally bone-headed, but many have noted the success Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell at channeling the mood of early aughts pop music.
31. Aftersun
Actor in a Leading Role (Paul Mescal)
About an eleven-year-old girl on a vacation at a Turkish resort with her father (who is going through a bit of a midlife—or quarter-life—crisis), Aftersun successfully secured a Best Actor nomination for its lead star, Paul Mescsal, as the father. Mescal's performance is good and all, but the more impressive performance is that of Frankie Corio as Sophie, the young girl. The film has been a hit with the critics, ranking at number one in the Sight and Sound top-fifty list (I don't really care; their lists often come across as self-righteous and pretentious), but the first two-thirds of it are just the father and daughter on vacation trying to find ways to occupy their time. Much of the rest of the film has moments that I suppose are up to the audience to interpret, but this often comes across as gimmicky. Look, it's a good movie with two really strong performances, but even though it's only an hour and a half, it sometimes feels like it will never end.
30. Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio
Animated Feature Film (Guillermo Del Toro, Mark Gustafson, Gary Ungar, and Alex Bulkey)
I'm going to go ahead and trust
Honest Trailers that
Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio, the seventy-sixth adaptation of this famous tale in the past three years, is the best (or least bad) of the three versions from last year. The animation is great, no doubt, and it will likely win in this category. (Should Guillermo Del Toro win here, it would be his third Oscar. He also won in 2018 for producing and directing
The Shape of Water.) There are some somewhat interesting attempts to update the story for a more modern audience, this time by adding villainous components of fascism and authoritarianism, favorite targets of Del Toro's. But this
Pinocchio adaptation undeniably grows less interesting as it inches its way to the conclusion, and those songs are almost comically forgettable. Also, Finn Wolfhard's fake (English?) accent is very distracting.
29. My Year of Dicks
Animated Short Film (Sara Gunnarsdóttir and Pamela Ribon)
You have to give the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences credit for nominating a film titled
My Year of Dicks. (I initially predicted the film's title, which provoked a series of giggles when
Riz Ahmed announced it as a nominee on January 24, was a double entendre, and it is, but it's not the one I was expecting.) With rotoscope animation and narrative style that may remind many of the work of Richard Linklater, the cleverly titled coming-of-age animated flick written by Pamela Ribon and directed by Sara Gunnarsdóttir about a teenage girl in Houston's journey to lose her virginity while navigating a sea of disappointing experiences starts a bit shaky but eventually becomes simultaneously intense, chaotic, funny, relatable, and nostalgic.
28. Stranger at the Gate
Documentary Short Film (Joshua Seftel and Conall Jones)
It's probably best if you know as little about Stranger at the Gate as possible going in to see it, especially because where it ends up is probably not where most would expect it to. Therefore, it's difficult to fill up some sentences about a short documentary in which I'd rather not describe the story. Ultimately, though, I can say that this film is a reminder of all the good that can come out of peace, acceptance, and empathy. With that being said, despite its intriguing story, it is perhaps the least memorable of the five documentary shorts nominated this year.
27. Top Gun: Maverick
Film Editing (Eddie Hamilton), Original Song ("Hold My Hand" by Lady Gaga and BloodPop), Sound (Mark Weingarten, James H. Mather, Al Nelson, Chris Burdon, Mark Taylor), Visual Effects (Ryan Tudhope, Seth Hill, Bryan Litson, and Scott R. Fisher), Adapted Screenplay (Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, Christopher McQuarrie, Peter Craig, and Justin Marks), Best Picture (Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, David Ellison, and Jerry Bruckheimer)
I am very happy that so many people took such great joy in a movie (the one that I think most people were expecting to flop but turned into the one that
saved Hollywood). It's just that I couldn't help but being marveled at the thrills of the film while simultaneously feeling underwhelmed by it holistically. The screenplay, which is nominated, is at times laughable, like when Tom Cruise frequently tells his protégé to "do, don't think." But in the script's defense, it later humorously mocks itself in the film's best scene when that logic falls flat on its face as Cruise and Miles Teller shout at each other in the snowy forest. Still, it's remarkable that they made a sequel to an 80s action flick basically no one was asking for anymore and few, I think, had high expectations that turned into a mega blockbuster and one of the most talked-about films of the year. The action sequences involving the jets are unlike anything any of us have ever seen on screen, and the Lady Gaga song is great.
26. The Batman
Makeup and Hairstyling (Naomi Donne, Mike Marino, and Mike Fontaine), Sound (Stuart Wilson, William Files, Douglas Murray, and Andy Nelson), Visual Effects (Dan Lemmon, Russell Earl, Anders Langlands, and Dominic Tuohy)
The Batman tries really, really hard to outdo
The Dark Knight. Writer and director Matt Reeves apparently even
boasted to Christopher Nolan that that was his goal. Achieve it, he did not.
The Batman works on some levels: The score by Michael Giacchino is memorable (yet a bit repetitive), though certainly not to the same level as Danny Elfman's or Hans Zimmer's from previous installments. The makeup effects are stupendous. And the good-cop-bad-cop detective story routine of Robert Pattinson's Batman and Jeffrey Wright's James Gorden is commendable. The performances in general, though, are a bit all over the place, with Colin Farrell as Penguin shining but Paul Dano as the Riddler giving us his most ridiculous performance ever. But much like
Joker three years before it,
The Batman (unlike most other Caped Crusader adventures) is completely devoid of any element of fun, and it increasingly is a big ask for its audience to tolerate its runtime.
25. Avatar: The Way of Water
Production Design (Dylan Cole, Ben Procter, Vanessa Cole), Sound (Julian Howarth, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Dick Bernstein, Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, and Michael Hedges), Visual Effects (Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, and Daniel Barrett), Best Picture (James Cameron and Jon Landau)
Thirteen years after the James Cameron-directed mega-blockbuster Avatar was released, we finally got our sequel (the first of four, apparently). What works with this follow-up, showcasing the Navi couple played by Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña and their four kids (one of whom is a teenager played very distractingly by Sigourney Weaver), is what worked in the first one: its universal themes and anti-colonial message, as well as its stunning visuals, especially the water-based ones. Some of Cameron's most fascinating works (like The Abyss and Titanic) have been about the sea, and this is no different. The film richly deserves to win in the visual effects category. What doesn't work in Avatar: The Way of Water is what also didn't particularly work in the first one: things like narrative and how patronizing the analogies to indigenous culture can feel. And at the end of the 192 minutes, I asked myself if I really had it in the tank to watch three more of these.
24. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Actress in a Supporting Role (Angela Bassett), Costume Design (Ruth Carter), Makeup and Hairstyling (Camille Friend and Joel Harlow), Original Song ("Lift Me Up" by Tems, Rihanna, Ryan Coogler, Ludwig Goransson), Visual Effects (Geoffrey Baumann, Craig Hammack, R. Christopher White, and Dan Sudick)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever places considerable emphasis on mourning and grief given the tragic passing of Chadwick Boseman in 2020. This is a strength of the film, as is its acting (for the most part), mainly Letitia Wright, who takes over the lead role; Dominique Thorne as a new character, a brilliant scientist; Tenoch Huerta as Namor, the anti-hero mutant leading a sea-based people against Wakanda; and Angela Bassett returning as Queen Rasmonda, who could win this year for Supporting Actress. (A lot of attention was made to Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler not being nominated, but one could also make a very strong case that Wright should have garnered more attention for her acting here.) The weak parts of the film are its unjustifiably long length, the unnecessary subplot involving characters played by Martin Freeman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and many of the action scenes, which are often the worst parts of Marvel movies.
23. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
Short Animated Film (Charlie Mackesy and Matthrew Freud)
There are a lot of platitudes about perseverance, kindness, "home is where the heart is," and that sort of stuff in this gorgeous adaptation of Charlie Mackesy's illustrated book about a blossoming friendship between a boy (Jude Coward Nicoll), a mole (Tom Hollander), a fox (Indris Elba), and a horse (Gabriel Byrne). But it's still a neat film. The animation, wonderfully hand-drawn remotely by 120 people in 20 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, is gorgeous, and because it's an Apple TV+ film, given their enormous success last year with CODA winning three Oscars (including Best Picture), I'd say that helps make The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse the frontrunner here. It's a great film to look at, but other than its didactic qualities for younger audience members, it's unlikely to stay very long in adults' memories.
22. Argentina, 1985
International Feature Film (Argentina)
Of the five nominees for International Feature Film,
Argentina, 1985, about the trials of military leaders of the dictatorship, is the most conventional; that's either a plus or a minus, depending on your perspective. One way or the other, there are two things that help the film shine: the film's occasional humor and the presence and performance of Ricardo Darín as the lead prosecutor. Other than that,
Argentina, 1985 can unfortunately feel at times like, as Aisha Harris
put it, a crowd-pleasing Hollywood-esque courtroom drama. How much of that you're into will vary from viewer to viewer.
21. RRR
Original Song ("Naatu Naatu" by M.M. Keeravaani and Chandrabose)
RRR, the Indian epic action/musical flick, is sort of an on-one-hand-on-the-other-hand kind of film. On one hand, its action sequences, particularly in its first half, are thrilling. On the other hand, the film drags tremendously after the big palace attack, essentially feeling like one slow-motion sequence after the other, with CGI tigers aplenty. On one hand, its song "Naatu Naatu" (the frontrunner for Best Song) will long be remembered. On the other hand, none of the other songs will be. On one hand, Ram Charan's acting, especially with all his singing, dancing, fighting, and just plain scowling, are impeccable. On the other hand, most of the other acting (especially all the British actors and their mustache twirling) might cause you to roll your eyes. To sum up, I think if RRR were ninety minutes instead of one hundred and eighty, thereby possibly allowing it to eliminate or at least minimize the aspects I didn't care for, I would've like it a lot more.
20. Glass Onion (I refuse to call it Glass Onion: A Knives Out Story because that is a stupid title.)
Adapted Screenplay (Rian Johnson)
Minor spoilers below.
It was inevitable that Rian Johnson's follow-up to Knives Out, which also earned him an Oscar nomination, would be at least somewhat less interesting than the first. That is certainly the case here (and every other sequel nominated this year), though most viewers seem to love both films in equal amounts. In many respects, I don't blame them. Yes, I found myself considerably less interested in Glass Onion than in Knives Out, especially when it swerves in a completely different direction towards the end of the second act and suddenly becomes a lot talkier. That being said, it's still a murder mystery, which are usually neat, aren't they? The actors, especially Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc and Edward Norton as the Elon Musk-esque douche of the story, all appear to be having a blast. That being said, Janelle Monáe, despite how perfect she is, gives a Southern accent that's a bit too off (to say nothing of Craig's fake drawl, which is becoming tiring), and most of those cameos are just distracting and unnecessary. But the film does get bonus points for providing a surprising and fitting final screen appearance of the late, great Angela Lansbury.
19. The Fabelmans
Actor in a Supporting Role (Judd Hirsch), Actress in a Leading Role (Michelle Williams), Directing (Steven Spielberg), Original Score (John Williams), Production Design (Rick Carter and Karen O'Hara), Original Screenplay (Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner), Best Picture (Kristie Macosko Krieger, Steven Spielberg, and Tony Kushner)
I suppose if you're the single most successful director in Hollywood history, you're allowed to make a biographical film after half a century in the profession. I guess you're also allowed to let that film go on, and on...and on, which is what The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical film that's a love letter to his coming-of-age experiences, his family, and his craft, unfortunately does. Spielberg partisans will certainly be delighted, though, for everything you've come to expect in films he directs—the expression of wonder, the potent lights, fights with fathers (and in this case, mothers)—and every anecdote we've heard from the master himself over the years, such as seeing The Greatest Show on Earth as a boy, making movies with his sisters or fellow Boy Scouts as actors, going through his parents' divorce, and being the target of anti-Semitic bullying, is all there. What's missing is much of the awe that has been so prevalent in many of his previous films; even his recent remake of West Side Story felt fresher. But what does really assist The Fabelmans is its superb acting, especially Gabrielle LaBelle and Mateo Zoryan Francis-DeFord as younger versions of the Spielberg character (named Sam). This year's Oscar race for leading actress is a horse race between Michelle Yeoh and Cate Blanchett, but Michelle Williams as the mother shouldn't be counted out. One more thing: My earliest memory of going to the movies was when I was six, and like little Sammy in this film, my mother mentioned to me before we got to the theater that I shouldn't be too afraid when watching the film. The movie we were seeing: Jurassic Park, directed by Steven Spielberg.
18. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Documentary Feature Film (Laura Poitras, Howard Gertler, John Lyons, Nan Goldin, and Yoni Golijov)
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is a documentary about the artist Nan Goldin, and it focuses almost equally on her formative years developing as an artist (including facts about herself she had never shared before) and her more recent years channeling her rage as an opioid survivor going after the powerful Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma. Both halves of the documentary are about equally interesting, though I suppose I leaned more towards the latter due to its timeliness and wanted to see more of that. Longtime fans of Goldin's, however, may likely feel the opposite.
17. All That Breathes
Documentary Feature Film (Shaunak Sen, Aman Mann, and Teddy Leifer)
All That Breathes is one of many environmental films that could likely leave you feeling gutted by the end. Centering on two brothers who run a bird clinic as a side gig in New Delhi, it's a beautiful yet sad documentary. The brothers are in dire need, as black kites, a gorgeous bird that serves an important ecological purpose but one that is apparently thought of as a nuisance, are increasingly falling from the sky due to the intensive pollution of the city. This pollution and the backdrop of violent Hindu nationalism that could threaten the safety of these two men and their families (the brothers are Muslim) serve as impeding dread over the film.
16. The Quiet Girl
International Feature Film (Ireland)
The Quiet Girl has been on a mighty run since it debuted in Berlin last year. The debut of writer-director Colm Bairéad, it has gone on to become the highest-grossing Irish-language film of all time, as as well as the first Irish film to be nominated for Best International Feature Film. It is also ranked number six on
Rotten Tomatoes and number ten on
Meta Critic for the top one-hundred films of 2022. The beginning part of
The Quiet Girl, about a young, shy girl being sent away to a farm for the summer in 1981 to spend time with distance relatives, may take the patience of a saint, so it might turn off some viewers. However, it's worth the wait, especially to see the acting of the three main performers: Catherine Clinch as the main character, Carrie Crowley as her first cousin once removed, and Andrew Bennett as the husband farmer.
15. The Martha Mitchell Effect
Documentary Short Film (Anne Alvergue and Beth Levison)
Towards the end of the short (sometimes generic) documentary The Martha Mitchell Effect, we hear an archival interview in which Barbara Walters asks Martha Mitchell, the gregarious, genial, potent, and powerful wife of Richard Nixon's Attorney General and campaign manager, how she would like be be remembered in the history books. Mitchell's answers is that she wants to be thought of as someone who served her country. That she is now in part thanks to this Netflix documentary. Like Cassandra long before her, Mitchell's warnings about Nixon and Watergate were dismissed as being symptoms of a supposed mental illness, which is how the term "Martha Mitchell effect" eventually came into being. I confess that while many older viewers may have memories (some fond and some not so fond) of Mitchell's time in Washington, I had never heard of her. (Maybe I should have; Julia Roberts started playing her on Gaslit last year.) Therefore, I'm very happy I got to see this documentary and learn about her.
14. Triangle of Sadness
Best Picture (Erik Hemmendorff and Philippe Bober), Directing (Ruben Östlund), Original Screenplay (Ruben Östlund)
I've always had zero interest in taking a cruise, and that lack of desire was only augmented after viewing the Palme d'Or-winning satirical, eat-the-rich black comedy Triangle of Sadness, written and directed by Ruben Östlund, whose films often are the darlings of the Cannes Film Festival. The film follows a young couple going through ups and downs in three parts, but it's the disastrous cruise for the super-wealthy in the middle of the movie that feature the best moments. With an ensemble cast that includes Harris Dickinson and Charli Dean (who tragically died before the film was released) as the couple, as well as Dolly de Leon, Zlatko Burić, Henrik Dorson, Vicki Berlin, and Woody Harrleson, Östlund's sharp script contains more mature anti-colonial themes than Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avatar: Way of the Water did, but other than the film's runtime, the only other major complaint I have about it is that if your appetite drives you towards this kind of anti-rich black comedy, you're bound to get better quality with HBO's The White Lotus television series.
13. Fire of Love
Documentary Feature Film (Sara Dosa, Shane Boris, and Ina Fichman)
Fire of Love may remind many of recent documentaries that championed lovers of nature, like Playing with Sharks about Valerie Taylor and Becoming Cousteau about Jacques Cousteau. It may also remind some of documentaries that depicted people doing remarkably brave things that many of us would find irresponsible and stupidly dangerous, such as Grizzly Man, about a man living among wild grizzly bears, and the Oscar-winning Free Solo, about a free solo climber. Fire of Love, directed, written, produced, and narrated by Sara Dosa, is a marriage of the two kinds. The film centers on archival footage of French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who appeared to love volcanos (and the thrill of being near them) just as much as they did each other. Despite all the constant beauty of the frequent lava we witness in this archival footage, as well as the internal debates we may or may not be having about the risks of such work, the film is unlikely to stay with viewers (or at least with me) as the other two documentaries I haven't yet discussed.
12. A House Made of Splinters
Documentary Feature Film (Simon Lereng Wilmont and Monica Hellström)
Going into A House Made of Splinters, the only thing I knew about it was that it was about Ukraine. Viewing it two days before the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion, I assumed it would be a film about the tragic war. Yet this film does not center on the conflict, though it exists in its shadows. Instead, A House Made of Splinters, an international co-production with Denmark, Ukraine, Sweden, and Finland, focuses on the experiences of several children in an institution twenty-five kilometers from the frontline run by a few women. The institution houses children whose parents are struggling with alcoholism. Of the four children we see the most, the saddest scenes involve a teenage boy named Kolya, who, though he often gets in trouble with the police, is devotedly helping to raise his siblings in the absence of their mother, whom we only see in one moment as she tearfully embraces him and pleads with him to take better care of himself. It's a remarkable film, but be warned: For those who feel sorrowful from the frequent bad news coming from war in Ukraine, it might be best to avoid A House Made of Splinters.
11. Navalny
Documentary Feature Film (Daniel Roher, Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller, and Shane Boris)
Exciting hardly seems like the most appropriate word for a documentary about the attempted assassination and imprisonment of an opposition figure by the vampiric thug that is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, but there are a variety of scenes in Navalny, about one of the thug's most notable critics, that will stay with you, especially by favorite: Navalny and his associates trapping one of his attempted assassins into admitting over the phone his crime. It's a scene that borders on the surreal and absurd to the point where some (especially pro-Putin critics of Navalny) may shout to the heavens that the whole thing was staged. Critics of the documentary might say the film borders on hero worshipping, especially as it only briefly sails through Navalny's previous controversial alliances with members of the far right in Russia. In terms of predicting the winner in this category, my hunch is that Navalny will win, in part because it's the best and in part because voters may be aching to publicly rebuke Vladimir Putin.
10. EO
International Feature Film (Poland)
Like the documentary Cow from last year, EO, a Polish film inspired by the 1966 French film Au Hasard Balthazar about a donkey's trials and tribulations as it passes from human ownership to human ownership, is a potent reminder of the cruelty human beings place on other species. Thus, animal lovers may understandably find some of these scenes too difficult to watch. Personally, I was mesmerized by just about every scene featuring the title character, and my heart ached as I watched him (or her?) appear helpless, confused, and lost. Viewers may also feel helpless, confused, and lost as they watch this movie, as so many of the human characters deliberately come in and out of the story without much explanation (we often don't see how EO comes under the supervision of a new person); some of these situations work, while some (like Isabelle Huppert's peculiar scenes in which she shows up and starts breaking dishes) don't. The camera tricks, like the powerful red hue that appears once and a while, also feel showy at times. But if one can forgive these flaws, one will be moved (and horrified) by EO.
9. All Quiet on the Western Front
Cinematography (James Friend), International Feature Film (Germany), Makeup and Hairstyling (Heike Merker and Linda Eisenhamerová), Original Score (Volker Bertelmann), Production Design (Christian M. Goldbeck and Ernestein Hipper), Sound (Viktor Prášil, Frank Kruse, Markus Stemler, Lars Ginzel, and Stefan Korte), Visual Effects (Frank Petzold, Viktor Müller, Markus Frank, and Kamil Jafar), Adapted Screenplay (Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson, and Ian Stokell), Best Picture (Malte Grunert)
The second big-screen adaptation of Erich Marie Remarque's anti-war novel (which was eventually banned and burned by the Nazis) about the disillusionment and alienation Germany's Lost Generation suffered through during World War I, this one is surely better than the 1930 version, which took me
several sittings to make it through. That version won Best Picture way back in the day, and while this version is unlikely to match such a feat, it still stands a chance of bagging at least a few Oscars. The sheer scope of this massive film, from its enormous production design to its potent score to its horrifying yet realistic makeup, are quite impressive, as are the powerful reminders of the horrors of war. The only major critique I have of the film is how derivative it sometimes feels; indeed, after a production like
1917 or even
War Horse (both superior films set during World War I), it sort of is a wonder as to why they even bothered making a new
All Quiet on the Western Front.
8. Everything Everywhere All at Once
Actor in a Supporting Role (Ke Huy Quan), Actress in a Lead Role (Michelle Yeoh), Actress in a Supporting Role (Jamie Lee Curtis), Actress in a Supporting Role (Stephanie Hsu), Costume Design (Shirley Kurata), Film Editing (Paul Rogers), Original Score (Son Lux), Original Song ("This Is a Life" by Ryan Lott, David Byrne, and Mitski), Original Screenplay (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), Best Picture (Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, and Jonathan Wang)
Everything Everywhere All at Once is the movie I'm rooting for. I want it to win Best Picture. I want Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan (and maybe Jamie Lee Curtis) to win for their acting. David Byrne already has an Oscar (for co-writing the score for The Last Emperor), but how cool would it be if he won again? I want this film to sweep the Oscars. A science fiction comedy about a middle-aged Asian mom fighting her way through a multiverse should win the top prizes! And yet, I was a lot more underwhelmed by this hit than everyone else once was. To be clear, I find its premise rousing and the first half particularly enticing. But then the movie's schtick gets old. It becomes overly quirky, in my opinion. It's weird for the sake of being weird. I can remember quite a bit about that first half; I remember almost nothing from its second. For a variety of reasons, Everything Everywhere All at Once deserves to win in most of the categories its nominated in; that doesn't mean I'm in love with it.
7. Causeway
Actor in a Supporting Role (Brian Tyree Henry)
In Causeway, Jennifer Lawrence (a producer of the film) plays a veteran who was wounded in Afghanistan and is struggling to adjust back to life in New Orleans. While adjusting, she develops a friendship with a mechanic played by Brian Tyree Henry, who is nominated for Best Supporting Actor. One could certainly make an argument for Henry winning the Oscar for his work here. Like many of the films nominated this year, the story may not stick with you, but the acting will. Along with Lawrence and Henry, other commendable performances are by Linda Emond, Jayne Houdyshell, and Stephen McKinley Henderson. Lawerence is just as great as she always is in this low-key but multi-faceted performance, but I came away thinking a lot more about Henry, and I'm greatly looking forward to his future projects.
6. Haulout
Documentary Short Film (Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev)
Haulout focuses on a marine biologist in arctic Serbia observing a walrus haulout. We first see these walruses the first morning he sees them (presumably), and the images and sounds feel like those seen and heard in otherworldly works of science fiction. These scenes are totally mesmerizing, but something is off. For starters, one wonders why the walruses are there, and why their numbers are so large. Soon, the culprit becomes clear: global warming. The walruses (at a peak of 100,000) are hauling out on the coast due to more limited ice, which they have always relied on for rest. The consequences are dispiriting. Both Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev were born in the Russian arctic and are now based elsewhere (Arbugaeva in London and Arbugaev in Moscow), and yet the viewer can sense how important this story is to them. Fifteen years after the Oscar-winning climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth left viewers shocked and yet filled with hope that something could be done before it was too late, Haulout features no such optimism or call to action, only the facts and a marine biologist's melancholy.
5. The Elephant Whisperers
Documentary Short Film (Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga)
Given the fact that everyone loves elephants, especially baby elephants, I think most viewers would be quite enamored with The Elephant Whisperers. About a couple raising two orphaned elephants in the Mudumalai National Park in India, this tender documentary is a great watch. Just about every frame of the film features elephants, and yet this is one of the most humanist motion pictures nominated. So much of it acutely focuses on much of the human condition: life, love, death, learning, and (like Haulout, EO, and All That Breathes) the consequences we are placing on this planet for other species. The elephants do a lot of the heavy lifting (again, almost everyone loves elephants), but director Kartiki Gonsalves deserves a lot of the credit for crafting such a moving documentary about this couple and their work. It's my favorite of the five nominees in this category.
4. The Banshees of Inisherin
Actor in a Leading Role (Colin Farrell), Actor in a Supporting Role (Brendan Gleeson), Actor in a Supporting Role (Barry Keoghan), Actress in a Supporting Role (Kerry Condon), Directing (Martin McDonagh), Film Editing (Mikkel E.G. Nielsen), Original Score (Carter Burwell), Original Screenplay (Martin McDonagh), Best Picture (Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, and Martin McDonagh)
I might be the only person on the planet who didn't like In Bruges, the last time Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and writer-director Martin McDonagh worked on a project together, so I was delighted that I (mostly) liked The Banshees of Inisherin, the tragicomedy about two friends in 1923 Ireland who suddenly aren't friends anymore and the violent repercussions of their split. This film, with its nihilistic tone and dialogue-heavy scenes, isn't for everyone, but even if people don't care for the story or the film's pace, they should be mightily in awe of its sharp, theatrical script and its performances, particularly the four Oscar nominees. And once you see the film, you'll forever wonder if each of your fingers are worth talking to really boring people.
3. Close
International Feature Film (Belgium)
Close is sort of a queer-adjacent film about two very close teenage boys named Léo and Rémi (played by Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele, respectively) whose friendship starts to unravel after some invasive questions by classmates who insist they're not being mean, which is followed by other teasing and then outright bullying. There is certainly a turning point in the film which potentially could alienate a chunk of its audience; Peter Debruge at Variety complained that the film is "so subtle and sensitive in the first half" before becoming "devastatingly false" and "incredibly, unwelcomely different." That may be a tad harsh, but I suspect it's how many will ultimately feel. Despite that, the acting is superb. Most of the films on this list featured phenomenal acting, but Close probably leads the pack, with Dambrine's being my favorite performance of all the films on this list.
2. Tár
Actress in a Leading Role (Cate Blanchett), Cinematography (Florian Hoffmeister), Directing (Todd Field), Film Editing (Monika Willi), Original Screenplay (Todd Field), Best Picture (Todd Field, Alexandra Milchan, and Scott Lambert)
Tár is only the third film Todd Fields has directed, and yet it's the work of a master. The film has so many things to say about debates over wokeness, cancel culture, power, and gender, and in weaker hands, things have become too convoluted and preachy. True, some have been turned off by what the film may or may not be saying on these issues (Richard Brody in the
New Yorker called it "
regressive"), and Cate Blanchett's performance as a (some might say monstrous) conductor may take a bit of getting used to, but it is an effective one, and other members of the cast deserve praise, as well: Nina Hoss as Sharon, a violinist and Lydia's wife; Noémie Merlant as Francesca, Lydia's assistant; Sophie Kauer as a cellist and Lydia's new favorite; Julian Glover as Andris, Lydia's mentor; Mila Bogojevic as Lydia and Sharon's daughter; and in only one (very memorable) scene, Zethphan Smith-Gneist as a student at Julliard Lydia tangles with. And unlike
Everything Everywhere All at Once, which grows more taxing as it progresses,
Tár gets better and better.
Tár is not a perfect film (it wasn't even one of my favorites of last year), but it is one of the very best of all the nominees.
1. The Red Suitcase
Live Action Short Film (Cyrus Neshvad)
The Red Suitcase, directed by Cyrus Neshvad, is surely the best of the nominated live action short films and one of the best films I've seen in a while. The film is about a sixteen-year-old Iranian girl played by Nawelle Ewad who is sent to meet her middle-aged husband (Sawkaw Gorany) in an international airport in Luxembourg by her father. Scared and unable to communicate with anyone in French, English, or Luxembougish, she hides from the man she's been sold to and tries to escape the airport unnoticed. The film's cat-and-mouse nature sometimes endangers it by engaging in material beneath it, and if the filmmakers weren't careful, it probably would have gone there. But Neshad's direction and Ewad's acting are masterful, and it avoids such pratfalls. The film's championing of a scared teenage Iranian girl going against her conservative family's expectations of her makes this a very timely film, obviously, due to the recent revolt of Iranian women and their supporters, and (much like the Iranian government's brutal retaliation of protestors) the dichotomy between this girl and her "husband" is a painful one. The Red Suitcase is an eloquent reminder of the continuing struggles of women and girls in Iran for their rights, and I hope more people see it to be aware of their fight. I also hope it pulls an upset and wins the Oscar.
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