by Christopher James

Many things may have changed in the past year, but one thing remains the same. The show must go on and the Team Experience Awards must continue! If there's one perk of staying quarantined in one's home for a full year, it's that there is ample time to watch movies. Before Nathaniel reveals all of his Film Bitch winners for the year, the rest of the writers at The Film Experience gathered together to vote on our favorites of 2020 (and the first two months of 2021). Nathaniel will be staying with the calendar year eligibility (plus US festivals) but the Team is using Oscar eligibility rules with one exception: we also decided to consider Small Axe in our awards as five separate films.

In the end, nothing was a match for Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman, which earned the most wins (4) and nominations (11) from the bunch. While that may have taken the top prize, the team nominated fifty movies across 21 categories. Check out the nominees and winners after the jump...

BEST DIRECTOR

BEST ACTRESS

BEST ACTOR

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

• Birds of Prey
• Emma (WINNER)
• Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
• Mank
• Promising Young Woman

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• Boys State
• Collective
• Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
• Dick Johnson is Dead
• Time (WINNER)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

• Onward
• Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon
• Soul
• The Wolf House (WINNER)
• Wolfwalkers

BEST ENSEMBLE

• Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
• Minari
• One Night in Miami
• Promising Young Woman (WINNER)
• The Trial of the Chicago 7

BEST FILM EDITING

• Da 5 Bloods
• The Father (WINNER - TIE)
• Promising Young Woman
• Tenet
• Time (WINNER - TIE)

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

• Emma
• Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
• Mank (WINNER)
• Promising Young Woman
• The Twentieth Century

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Mank
• News of the World
• Nomadland (WINNER)
• Small Axe: Lovers Rock
• Tenet
• The Wild Goose Lake

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING

• Birds of Prey
• Emma
• Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (WINNER)
• Mank
• Promising Young Woman

BEST MUSIC (PRE-EXISTING OR ORIGINAL)

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

• The Invisible Man (WINNER)
• Mank
• The Midnight Sky
• Possessor
• Tenet

BEST SOUND

• Da 5 Bloods
• Mank
• Small Axe: Lovers Rock
• Sound of Metal (WINNER)
• Tenet

BEST UNRELEASED FILM

• Days
• I Carry You With Me (WINNER)
• Nine Days
• Shiva Baby
• Summer of 85

SOME FUN STATISTICS...

• Across our Team Experience ballots, 225 movies were mentioned throughout all of the categories. Specifically in Best Picture, there were votes cast for 76 films.
• Our Best Picture lineup featured an animated feature (Soul) and a film not in the English language (Ghost Tropic). Despite making it into Best Picture, neither film won their specialized categories. Soul lost Best Animated Feature to The Wolf House and Ghost Tropic lost Best Film Not In The English Language to Bacurau. 
• Four out of five of the Best Directing nominees are women!
• Time had a perfect score, winning both categories it was nominated for (Best Documentary Feature and Best Film Editing).
• We saw two ties this year. There was a tie for winners in Best Film Editing. Additionally, there was a tie in the nomination process for Best Cinematography, which is why it has six nominees.
• Ma Rainey's Black Bottom had the most nominations without making it into Best Picture (7).
• Ghost Tropic, Palm Springs and Soul all made it into Best Picture with only one other nomination each.
• Best Sound was the biggest landslide in voting. Sound of Metal prevailed winning 71% of the vote. The next closest competitor only had 14% of the vote.
• All acting, directing and screenplay nominees received at least one 1st place vote.
• The preferential voting for Best Picture went five rounds before Promising Young Woman prevailed. It was not always ahead in every round. The category was a nailbiter. 
• Among last year's Best Unreleased Film category, only The Wild Goose Lake showed up in this year's Team Experience Awards. 

What were your favorite movies of the year? Share with us in the comments below. And if you'd like to know more about the team, check out the About page - Nathaniel is looking for new voices, too