The Films of 2018. The 19th annual FiLM BiTCH Awards
PICTURE | ACTING | VISUALS | AURALS | EXTRAS | SPECIAL | SCENES
AND THE NOMINEES ARE...
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Best Actress
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Glenn Close
"Joan Castleman" THE WIFE |
Toni Collette "Annie" HEREDITARY |
Olivia Colman "Queen Anne" THE FAVOURITE |
Melissa McCarthy
"Lee Israel" CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? |
Carey Mulligan
"Jeanette Brinson" WILDLIFE |
 For an actress of volcanic power, Close surprises, working with faint embers and a nuanced slow burn this time. In her best performance in 30 years she's working through this highly private woman's mysteries, compromises, and decisions. It pays off; her eruption is sublime. |
 Long before King Paemon entered the picture Collette was an actress with access to supernatural gifts. She calls on all them this time - inspired gesture, psychological depth, and those entertaining line readings for this bravura star turn. "I am your MOTHER" |
Yes, she's very funny as this eccentric queen. But her genius comes in the way she turns on a dime, no, spins the coin really, between tragedy and comedy until they blur together. She's blinded by pain, flattery, grief, and the ego and entitlement of her own royal position. | She's often found broad comedy in abrasive characters, but here she forgoes easy laughs or "likeability". Yes, the courtroom speech is amazing but so are those sharp stabs of fear and self-pity in her voice when she's ranting: She's 51, jobless, and terrified. |  Dialing this one way up, she's giving the kind of risky, bold, star turn that we weren't sure she had in her given her measured earlier work. She's juggling as much as Jeanette. Drunk, exhausted, lonely, nervous. Underneath it all, boy, is she pissed off at the hand life dealt her. |
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Finalists: Charlize Theron is inspired in Tully, her body, face, and voice, all working to paint a rich portrait of a very specific problem. Other women I wish I could nominate were the sharp-tongued perfect Rachel Weisz and the psychologically slippery Emma Stone in The Favourite and Regina Hall's everywoman trying to hold it together in Support the Girls. What a year! Semi-Finalists: Nicole Kidman Destroyer, Michelle Pfeiffer Where is Kyra?, and Elsie Fisher in Eighth Grade. With apologies to a who slew of people including Rachel Weiz (again) and Rachel McAdams in Disobedience, Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick in A Simple Favor, Viola Davis in Widows and more in what was truly an incredible year for leading ladies. |
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Best Actor
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| Zain Al Rafeea "Zain" CAPERNAUM |
Bradley Cooper "Jackson Maine" A STAR IS BORN |
Ryan Gosling "Neil Armstrong" FIRST MAN |
Ethan Hawke "Reverend Toller" FIRST REFORMED |
Alessandro Nivola "Dovid Kuperman" DISOBEDIENCE |
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One of the most transcendent film-carrying child performances we've ever seen. Lacerating truth and emotionally present throughout --even when Zain is exhausted and vacant. "Your words have stabbed me in the heart"
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For totally immersive character building and shocking vulnerability. Everything is always there: the distracting ear issues, the well of sadness, music and drink as escape, and that reach for Ally, the one and the last chance. |
He remains our single greatest minimalist movie star, burrowing in boldly to Neil Armstrong's stoicism, but so gifted that you can still read the troubles, the love, the drive and the grief, just under the recessive surface. |
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Finalist: Ben Foster in Leave No Trace Semi Finalists: Joaquin Phoenix in You Were Never Really Here, LaKeith Stanfield in Sorry to Bother You, John David Washington in BlacKkKlansman, Daniel Giménez Cacho in Zama, Cory Michael Smith in 1985, John C Reilly in Stan & Ollie |
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Best Supporting Actress
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| Sakura Ando "Nobuyo" SHOPLIFTERS |
Mackenzie Davis "Tully" TULLY |
Elizabeth Debicki "Alice" WIDOWS |
Claire Foy "Janet Armstrong" FIRST MAN |
Regina King "Sharon Rivers" IF BEALE STREET... |
| For nailling that lived-in vaguely feral state of life on the margins, and the tender way she lights up when tasked with mothering a lost child. But most of all that melancholy balance of practicality and love. |
Tasked with a high wire act of playing both character and idea, Davis never loses balances. Light and odd, a manic pixie dream girl's weird cousin, she gifts the film curiousity and wonder in the face of a humiliating grind. | For perpetually vivid emotional beats. She makes a traditional 'finding your inner strength' arc feel spontaneous and even personally unsettling. Alice doesn't yet know what she's capable but is there anything Debicki can't do? |
Foy attacks the role like she's never heard of a "stock character" before. With Gosling she makes this marriage feel like a true meeting of equals, lifting the stakes on the ground to match the ones in the sky. Wonderful. | For grounding warmth and the sheer force of righteous honesty in her line readings. Bonus points: Puerto Rico. That plaintive reach for Victoria, "daughter," and the heartbreak when she knows she's gone too far. |
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Finalists: Jun Jong-Seo so bewitchingly lost as "Shin Hae-mi" in Burning, Nicole Kidman's mama lion energy, delicious twang and hidden wit as "Nancy Eammons" in Boy Erased, Nina Arianda continuing to be a non-pareil scene stealer as "Ida" in Stan & Ollie, and Michelle Yeoh for her intimidating gravitas as "Eleanor Young" in Crazy Rich Asians Semi-Finalists: Haley Lu Richardson as "Maci" in Support the Girls, Anne Hathaway as "Daphne Kluger" in Oceans 8, and Michelle Williams as "Avery LeClaire" in I Feel Pretty |
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Best Supporting Actor
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| Sam Elliott "Bobby Maine" A STAR IS BORN |
Richard E Grant "Jack Hock" CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? |
Michael B Jordan "Erik Killmonger" BLACK PANTHER |
Alex Wolff "Peter" HEREDITARY |
Steven Yeun "Ben" BURNING |
| He charges into the film with as much control and purpose as Bobby grabbing Jackson's face to tell him what's what. Bonus points: those devastating final notes (only 12), particularly the one in the driveway. |
What a scamp! Grant elevates an already wonderful film with comic timing, emotional nuance, and a meaty character work. He finds every flicker of shifts in feeling in that strange friendship without fussing over it. |
'Marvel has a villain problem' they've always said... and correctly, too. But Michael B Jordan problem solves like crazy. That missionary zeal, childish grudge, and physical bravado are a dangerous mix. | Genre performances rarely receive the accolades they deserve. He's making you believe in the unbelievable and unthinkable. Bonus points for the can't-process-this catatonia peppered throughout. So creepy and right. |
It's not swagger that he moves with but the moneyed ease. Yeun sells all the mandatory Gatsby -like qualities but the magic ingredient is that casual manipulativeness and the most disturbing yawn in film history. |
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Finalists: Hugh Grant for having a winking ball as the vain and hammy "Phoenix Buchanan" in Paddington 2, and Raúl Castillo for the raw toxic ego, wounded child, and thwarted life of "Paps" in We the Animals Semi Finalists: Nicholas Hoult as "Harley" in The Favourite, Robert Forster as "Bert" in What They Had, Russell Hornsby as "Maverick Carter" in The Hate U Give, Russell Crowe as "Marshall Eammons" in Boy Erased, and Colman Domingo as "Joseph Rivers" If Beale Street Could Talk |
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