Only four days until the ceremony and I\u2019ve watched all ten of these now, so it\u2019s time for a ranking session, and it wasn\u2019t easy. Read on for some controversial (and some less controversial) placements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
10 Killers of the Flower Moon<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Okay, so let\u2019s start off with the controversial. Scorsese\u2019s latest did nothing for me, and, like his previous effort The Irishman<\/em>, it didn\u2019t warrant its hefty running time. He\u2019s certainly capable of making long films that are high quality (see: Silence<\/em>), but this ain\u2019t it. Lily Gladstone is fully deserving of the Best Actress nomination, but all the other big players fall flat. The trailer got me really hyped for this one, but the end result just didn\u2019t deliver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 9 Maestro<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bradley Cooper\u2019s latest didn\u2019t impress too much either. It felt Oscar baity in a particularly disingenuous fashion, in a similar vein to Cooper\u2019s A Star is Born<\/em>. But, as with the previous entry in this ranking, the main female lead puts in a standout performance worthy of a Best Actress nomination. After all, this is Cary Mulligan we\u2019re talking about. She\u2019s great in everything, even if the overall film she stars in isn\u2019t particularly great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 8 Anatomy of a Fall<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t hate this film, per say, but it did leave me a bit cold. Not just because it\u2019s set in an isolated mountain in southern France, just because the courtroom drama film it quickly turns into didn\u2019t really grip me. I also had meandering thoughts about comparisons to Marriage Story<\/em> in terms of themes, but then realised that it\u2019s not really like Marriage Story<\/em> at all since one of the partners starts off dead (Whoa there, that\u2019s not spoiler, it\u2019s part of the plot). But that\u2019s by the by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7 American Fiction<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now we\u2019re onto the films that I genuinely really liked and were rather difficult to order. Jeffrey Wright puts in the performance of his career as Theolonious \u2018Monk\u2019 Ellison, imbuing the embittered academic with warmth, comedy and pathos. It\u2019s great to see Wright step out into a lead role, and he\u2019s supported by a wide range of talent, particularly Sterling K Brown, who got a deserved Oscar nod as Monk\u2019s estranged brother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 6 Poor Things<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was disconcerting to see Yorgos Lanthimos dabble with a bit of mainstream fare with his Best Picture nominee The Favourite<\/em>, despite the film\u2019s brilliance. The Lobster<\/em> and The Killing of a Sacred Deer<\/em> were a special kind of eccentric, and Poor Things<\/em> delivers that in spades. Emma Stone puts in her finest performance yet as the reanimated Bella Baxter, and is fully deserving of her Best Actress nomination. Also, whacky Mark Ruffalo is fun too, although it\u2019s a shame that Willem Defoe didn\u2019t get much awards recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5 The Holdovers<\/p>\n\n\n\n There seem to be a lot of career bests this year, and The Holdovers<\/em> is no exception. Paul Giamatti has usually stayed out of the limelight in his filmography, but The Holdovers<\/em> proves that he needs to get out there a heck of a lot more. He also has the rare gift of a genuinely fascinating face, which is put to great use with the camera\u2019s various close-ups of his furious and exasperated expressions. It\u2019s disappointing that charismatic first-time actor Dominic Sessa didn\u2019t get an Oscar nod, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4 Barbie<\/p>\n\n\n\n No, this didn\u2019t make the number one slot. He\u2019s just Ken, after all. In another Oscars ranking, maybe he\u2019d be a ten (but yeah, Ryan Gosling did make it into the Best Supporting Actor category, so that\u2019s something). It would\u2019ve been a travesty if this didn\u2019t make it into the nominees, even though it\u2019s unlikely to get the gong. Greta Gerwig made a comedy that\u2019s full of zany, funny performances, and it justifiably blew up the box office. It\u2019s pink. It\u2019s proud. It\u2019s Barbie<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3 The Zone of Interest<\/p>\n\n\n\n This one, not so much pink. More of a bleak colour palette filled with plenty of dread, fear and tension courtesy of some genius compositions from Mica Levi combined with some fascinating sound design (this is deserving of the Best Sound Design gong). Like Jonathan Glazer\u2019s previous masterpiece Under the Skin<\/em>, it forces the audience to put the pieces together with minimal dialogue, and it allows them to bask in the terror as happy family scenes take place just a wall away from the atrocities in Auswitch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2 Past Lives<\/p>\n\n\n\n Celine Song\u2019s film just feels like it\u2019s from a whole different world. If you hop onto Wikipedia, you\u2019ll notice that it\u2019s described as a \u2018romantic drama\u2019. But it\u2019s so much more than that. It deserves a lot more recognition than it\u2019s getting at the Oscars. It\u2019s insane that Song isn\u2019t in the Best Director category. This quiet masterpiece is the director\u2019s debut feature, and it\u2019s a crying shame to see her (and Greta Gerwig) snubbed by more recognised faces. Anyway, it\u2019s a fantastic film from an exciting new talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1 Oppenheimer<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wow! Surprise! Who expected this to get the number one spot in my ranking? Most people, probably. While it\u2019s definitely Christopher Nolan\u2019s most \u2018Oscar-y\u2019 film to date, that doesn\u2019t detract from the fact that he\u2019s crafted a masterful work of cinema, which also exhibits Cillian Murphy\u2019s best performance to date. It\u2019s fantastic to see Nolan\u2019s muse finally get his deserved spot in the major role, imbuing the tortured scientist with angst, tragedy and despair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Only four days until the ceremony and I\u2019ve watched all ten of these now, so it\u2019s time for a ranking session, and it wasn\u2019t easy. Read on for some controversial (and some less controversial) placements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1484,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1483\/revisions\/1484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}