The 14th Annual Team Experience Awards: “One Battle After Another” is our champion! Three cheers for PTA!!!

by Cláudio Alves

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER | © Warner Bros.

Later tonight, we’ll have a new batch of Oscar winners to celebrate. But, for now, let us rejoice for the Team Experience Awards, voted on by the site’s writers, sans Nathaniel, who has his own Film Bitch Awards. It’s likely some of these victors may echo AMPAS’ picks, as One Battle After Another is our champion, after having tied with Sinners in nominations, twelve apiece. As ever, there are some ties to report as our voting body is quite small, with Supporting Actress and Costume Design the tightest races of the lot. Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent fans will also have reason to rejoice, with each flick scoring three prizes. Indeed, half of our winners come from international cinema...

THE SECRET AGENT | © Neon

BEST PICTURE

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER
Paul Thomas Anderson, Sara Murphy & Adam Somner

BEST DIRECTOR

Kleber Mendonça Filho, THE SECRET AGENT

HAMNET | © Focus Features

BEST ACTRESS

Jessie Buckley, HAMNET

BEST ACTOR

Wagner Moura, THE SECRET AGENT

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, SENTIMENTAL VALUE

...and...

Teyana Taylor, ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Stellan Skarsgård, SENTIMENTAL VALUE

BEST ENSEMBLE

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT
Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr, George Hasgemzadeh, Delmaz Najafi & Afsaneh Najm Abadi

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT | © Neon

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Kleber Mendonça Filho, THE SECRET AGENT

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Paul Thomas Anderson, ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

SOUND OF FALLING | © MUBI

BEST FILM EDITING

Andy Jurgensen, ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Fabian Gamper, SOUND OF FALLING

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Jack Fisk & Adam Willis, MARTY SUPREME

SINNERS | © Warner Bros.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Ruth E. Carter, SINNERS

...and...

Malgosia Turzanska, HAMNET

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING

THE UGLY STEPSISTER, Thomas Foldberg & Anne Cathrine Sauerberg

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH, Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon & Daniel Barrett

THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE | © Searchlight Pictures

BEST MUSIC

Daniel Blumberg, THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE

BEST SOUND

SIRĀT, Amanda Villavieja, Laia Casanovas & Yasmina Praderas

AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH | © Universal Pictures

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH
James Cameron & Jon Landau

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM

THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR
Geeta Gandbhir, Sam Bisbee, Nikon Kwantu & Alisa Payne

BEST FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

SENTIMENTAL VALUE
Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, UK

SENTIMENTAL VALUE | © Neon

FUN FACTS & FIGURES:

• If One Battle After Another wins the Best Picture Oscar, it’ll be only the fourth time AMPAS and the Team Experience agree on the best of the year. Last time it happened was six years ago, when both groups picked Parasite.
• This is the third time there’s a tie in Best Supporting Actress. It happened before in 2022, with Kerry Condon and Dolly De Leon, and then again in 2023, with Rachel McAdams and Rosamund Pike.
• Inga Ibsdotter Lilleeas and Stellan Skarsgård are the first Scandinavian performers to win at the Team Experience Awards.
• Though three of his films have won in some categories, this is the first time Paul Thomas Anderson himself is a Team Experience Award winner.
• Kleber Mendonça Filho and Wagner Moura are the first artists from Latin America to win their categories. The Secret Agent is also the first Portuguese-language film to win a Team Experience Award outside of the Film Not in the English Language prize, which I’m Still Here won last year.
• Interestingly enough, two Kleber Mendonça Filho pictures have won the Film Not in the English Language category before – Aquarius and Bacurau.
• Sentimental Value is the first Norwegian production to take Best Film Not in the English Language.
• Food for thought: In our Best Picture preferential ballot, Sentimental Value ended up below The Secret Agent, and It Was Just an Accident. However, in a simpler, single-vote ballot, it won Best Film Not in the English Language.
• This is the third year in a row that Best Original Screenplay has gone to a non-English Language Film, following Anatomy of a Fall and Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World.
• For the second year in a row, an Iranian cast wins our Best Ensemble category.
• Despite having only one nomination, Marty Supreme, The Testament of Ann Lee, and The Ugly Stepsister all won their races.
• For the first time ever, we have a tie in Best Costume Design. While Malgosia Turzanska is a first-time winner, Ruth E. Carter previously won for 2018’s Black Panther and 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, just like at the Oscars.
• Avatar: Fire and Ash marks the first time a photorealistic animated film, usually considered live-action by the industry, has won our Best Animated Feature category.
• Sirat is the first Spanish film not directed by Pedro Almodóvar to win a Team Experience Award.
• Of the 44 features nominated for Team Experience Awards this season, 13 won at least one category. The biggest loser is No Other Choice, which lost all six races where it was nominated – Picture, Director, Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Visual Effects, and International Film.

SIRĀT | © Neon

And that’s it for the 14th annual Team Experience Awards. What do you think? You can find the complete list of nominees HERE and check out the awards' history HERE.

Comments

[Arnaud Trouvé]

Bravo for honoring the cast of IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT !

Happy Oscar day !!

[Frank Zappa]

Attention Shoppers: Category Fraud in Aisle 6!

[Mr Ripley79]

You could have gone against the grain and chosen someone other than Jessie Buckley who is not giving anything on the level of a Liz Taylor in Virginia Woolf or a Charlize in Monster or even a non winner like Lange in Frances,the hype for this performance has been something I haven't understood this year at all.good winners otherwise.

[Cláudio Alves]

Arnaud Trouvé -- Thank you, and happy Oscars!

Frank Zappa -- As the person who counts the votes, you can't imagine how frustrating it was to see the category fraud winning out in front of my eyes. Worse still, our runner-up was Jacob Elordi.

Mr Ripley79 -- I like Buckley in HAMNET, though I didn't vote for her. Indeed, she won by the widest margin of any acting race in the Team Experience Awards this season. All the other categories were tighter, yet she won by a landslide.

[César Gaytán]

"Sirat is the first Spanish film not directed by Pedro Almodóvar to win a Team Experience Award"

I mean... LOL

I know everybody loves Almodovar but do you really think that Spanish cinema starts and ends with him?

And if we would like to consider other countries we are gonna discover that the cinema from spanish language countries is totally ignored in lists and awards so, it would it be a great idea to have a filter or specification about the criteria that you are teaken with this award because like the Oscars, instead of showing that is a global recognition claiming the most "exclusive" art that you are going to watch, it looks like an elitist eye about cinema

[Cláudio Alves]

César Gaytan -- I can't speak for the rest of the Team Experience, but I do know about Spanish cinema and love much of it way beyond Almodóvar. Indeed, I've written about it multiple times on this site, including words on films by Erice, Laxe, Simón, Patiño, Serra, and many others. In fact, this year, I voted for Albert Serra's AFTERNOONS OF SOLITUDE in multiple categories at the nomination stage, yet it only made it into Documentary. Hell, I also vote for the ICS awards, and we've honored plenty of Spanish cinema lately, including Erice's CLOSE YOUR EYES, Iriarte's FOREMOST BY NIGHT, Patiño's SAMSARA, Serra's AFTERNOONS OF SOLITUDE, Laxe's SIRAT, and Mateus' LAST NIGHT I CONQUERED THE CITY OF THEBES. This bit of trivia was just that, a bit of trivia.

The criteria for these awards are "works that were released in the US during the calendar year, whether in theaters, streaming, or PVOD."

I can't control what the rest of Team Experience watches or what they vote for. And sadly, widely distributed work by more accessible or famous auteurs will always get recognition over those who the general media landscape and awards voters love less, especially on a site like this, where awards season coverage plays a big part in what attracts readers and writers. I am genuinely sorry that the Team Experience Awards may not reflect the wide array of cinema available, but I don't know how to fix that. Nor do I think the results are that outrageous, even if I do take your accusation of an "elitist eye" seriously. All I can promise is that I'll try to continue covering Spanish-language cinema at festivals and maybe intensify my efforts to discuss such films in other contexts, too, mayhap a piece on Buñuel or Erice or Saura or a number of other directors if there's a justification for it.

[Frank Zappa]

As the person who counts the votes, you can't imagine how frustrating it was to see the category fraud winning out in front of my eyes. Worse still, our runner-up was Jacob Elordi.

Oh, Cláudio, I feel for you...

[Robert G]

"BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING

THE UGLY STEPSISTER, Thomas Foldberg & Anne Cathrine Sauerberg"

I know that's right.