Oscar Volley Finale: Best Picture!

The Oscar Volley series concludes with Nathaniel R, Nick Taylor, and Abe Friedtanzer talking Best Picture...

Would the DGA 5 have been the Best Picture 5 if there weren't 10?

NICK TAYLOR: Hello hello! We convene here on the precipice of the 98th Academy Awards to discuss its most above-the-line category, Best Picture! Trade’s reporting says One Battle After Another is leading the pack with Sinners hot on its neck. Rather than starting with the frontrunners, let me ask a different question: who do we think would have made this lineup if Best Picture was still only five nominees?

NATHANIEL R: As mentioned in the Best Director volley I am firmly of the belief that it would have been one of those occasional dull years where the Academy's Best Director matched Best Picture exactly... no lone wolves. So my answer is Sentimental Valley, Sinners, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, and One Battle After Another. Since we'll never know vote totals I suppose it's in the realm of possibility that Sentimental Value or Marty Supreme would have fallen to (shudder) Frankenstein... but I also highly doubt that. The five films up for Best Director are surely THE films of the season. Or is my dislike for Frankenstein coloring my judgment? 

When it comes to this question I also like to the think of the ramifications of other categories. We have seen a narrowing of nominated films since the expanded era began in 2009, in that if you're in the Best Picture mix you're often everywhere. We always joke in Oscar circles about "Most" rather than "Best" in various categories but I think the same holds true for Best Picture... with the caveat that MOST refers to how many people actually watched it. In this regard, Frankenstein definitely qualifies and maybe it would have dislodged Sentimental Value but I doubt it given the latter's impressive four acting nominations haul. 

Frankenstein © Netflix

ABE FRIEDTANZER: I personally predicted Frankenstein to bump Marty Supreme in the Best Director race, so I could definitely see that one making the cut considering its impressive below-the-line haul. I had been concerned about Sentimental Value after all the domestic-skewing precursors but it seems it was popular after all. Given how DGA tended to match Best Picture rather than Best Director, I’m still not sure given that Trier didn’t make the cut there but I’m inclined to think that Frankenstein would indeed have replaced Marty Supreme.

Just as Nick started us off in a direction other than the likely winner, I want to mention the films that have no chance of winning since they’ve still accomplished something by getting this far.

Train Dreams is surely the biggest small-scale success story this year, especially after Sing Sing, from team Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, didn’t make the cut last year. F1 is the mainstream representative of these nominees, and its inclusion was far from a sure thing (I didn’t predict it). Hooray for the longevity of the blockbusters, which do serve their purpose! And Bugonia had an interesting awards season trajectory, never quite bubbling over to mega popularity but performing pretty well in the end. The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value will duke it out for Best International Feature, and Frankenstein will dominate the technical races. Marty Supreme seems poised to replicate what happened last year with A Complete Unknown - a solid nominations haul leading to zero wins.

That brings us to the three films that could still win. Do you both agree with my assessment of the rest?

HAMNET © Focus Features.

NICK: One Battle, Sinners, and Hamnet strike me as the ironclad nominees. Sentimental Value is the respectable fourth. I want to believe The Secret Agent would have somehow edged out Marty Supreme, but I bet Frankenstein would have actually obliterated that twink if someone was going to. Bugonia, F1, and Train Dreams are very happy to be there, especially since there’s a non-zero chance all three go home with nothing to their names.

Hamnet winning would genuinely shock me, though I agree it’s the only dark horse left in this race. It’s also one of the only Best Picture nominees virtually guaranteed at least one Oscar via Jessie Buckley’s well-deserved Best Actress prize, along with Frankenstein’s likely victories for best/most in Production Design, Costumes, and Makeup & Hairstyling. I agree that Marty Supreme seems to have lost a lot of steam, with Timmy’s awards heat doused by the one-two buckets of Michael B. Jordan’s SAG win and Wagner Moura’s superior campaigning. The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value are facing off for International but could each win the male acting categories. How many races are we expecting Sinners and One Battle to win throughout the evening, and who has any hope of sneaking past them?

THE SECRET AGENT | © Neon

This leaves us with One Battle vs Sinners, and while I’m 99% certain Anderson has this in the bag, Sinners has held on surprisingly well as a legitimate threat. Both films have a lot of the same narrative selling around technical virtuosity, unique stories, filling different imagination gaps around past and present Americas, genre blending, and diverse stories (quote unquote), not to mention they’re supremely profitable and have proliferated pop culture writ large in major ways. There’s no reductive “head vs heart” or “studio vs indie” dichotomies to impose. The passion is real. Which makes me wonder, how many awards can Sinners win and still go home without Best Picture? Will the Oscars be a nail-biter? 

NATHANIEL: You know what else is similar? They both come from Warner Bros... so allow me to be sad again that whoever ends up absorbing WB will surely put an end to their  century plus history of Major Studio Magnificence. Warner Bros is still able to make original films into blockbusters and cultural events and what other studio can still do that these days?  

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER vs SINNERS it is

One thing that is eternally frustrating about Oscar season is that you can go from being really into a picture to rooting against it.  Sinners is my 12th or 13th favourite of the year (which means I love it since I see a LOT of movies). Iniitally I was so happy that it was successful... but 16 nominations was absolutely ridiculous (it would be for any film since no film is the best at everything). This nail-biter situation is worrying me because a month ago I was so happy to prepare myself for a 'share the wealth' kind of night... my favourite kind of Oscar night! --  but with the way Sinners is surging at the moment I'm beginning to fear a massive haul instead.. I think winning too many Oscars and in the wrong categories can really mess with your legacy and Sinners might be one of those pictures.

If it must win more Oscars than any film needs to I'm really hoping that it swipes Costume Design and Production Design from Frankenstein and Original Song from KPop Demon Hunters rather than Best Picture from the very worth OBAA but strangely it doesn't seem to have heat in those particular craft categories despite stellar achievements therein. But even if Sinners wins multiple acting Oscars (which seemed impossible a month ago and now seems quite possible indeed) I will still be holding my breath until the last envelope is opened. Cabaret did lose to The Godfather despite 8 Oscar wins and Gravity did lose to 12 Years a Slave despite 7 Oscar wins and Mad Max Fury Road did lose to Spotlight despite 6 Oscar wins and so on. 

SENTIMENTAL VALUE © NEON

ABE: I'm all for stats, so I appreciate those three critical points of comparison. I wasn't around in 1972, but I do think that, with both latter examples, the Best Picture-winning film was never *that* popular, and I'd also add in CODA's 3 wins to Dune's 6 (even though The Power of the Dog was initially the frontrunner that year).

I'm personally very excited about Sinners. I held off for a while before I saw it after missing in its initial release and then waiting for an ideal audience, and I loved it so much more than I expected. I'm not sure I see it sweeping all the categories even if it does win Best Picture. Frankenstein seems to be so technically admired, and Sinners just has original screenplay and score sewn up with cinematography likely too. Jordan's SAG win makes me feel more confident about the film overall rather than his chances, even if I'd be thrilled if he took it. There are too many horses in that race, and I'm not even 100% sure that Chalamet is out yet.  Sentimental Value's Skarsgård feels far enough ahead for supporting actor, even if Penn's BAFTA-SAG combo (without Skarsgård as an opponent at the latter) might make him stronger than before. And Mosaku, who would be a fully deserving winner, didn't have Madigan as an opponent at BAFTA and also has Taylor to contend with, which makes me doubt her chances.

The biggest argument I have for not predicting Sinners is that there isn't enough going against One Battle After Another. Before everyone saw it, they sarcastically said they were going to see the best movie of the year (or a longer period) and then pretty much affirmed just that after they saw it. It feels like too much of an auteur film to lose, even if Sinners is a sensation. That they're both from the same studio further complicates matters because they are backing both horses. But, like Baby Reindeer and Adolescence winning at awards show after awards show until the end of the cycle, we're not at the finish line yet. One Battle After Another still has the top industry prize to win. Even something like 1917, which got overtaken by a fan favorite (Parasite) whose appeal can be compared to Sinners, wasn't at the level of One Battle After Another. It's a juggernaut, and I don't think it can be stopped.

NICK: "There's not enough going against One Battle After Another" kinda sums up my take on this category. Sinners *could* win, for any number of good reasons, but One Battle has all the heat, a frontrunner that never got supplanted even with ample time for someone to knock it off-track. My friend Ale has compared Sinners vs OBAA to The Piano vs Schindler's List, and I find that comparison so appropriate. Whatever happens, both films are going to win multiple Oscars and be ensconced in cinema culture for . . . . forever? If we're taking conservative estimates here.

Good for them, even if I find Sinners to be a wildly uneven experience. All of this should have happened to Coogler and Jordan ten years ago for Creed, but if this means they can keep making gutsy films (together and apart) for as long as they want, so be it! Better late than never! Which sort of applies to perennial Oscar bridesmaid Paul Thomas Anderson, who's deserved to win a couple trophies by now, and who I can't wait to see win for his best movie.

Anyway, all this to say One Battle would be my vote to win, with The Secret Agent as a close second. Do either of you guys have any last thoughts on this category? I'd love to share my own picks for best film of the year, but I'd hate to cue the orchestra before anyone has time to wrap their speeches up.

NATHANIEL: You are both giving me hope that One Battle can still prevail... it's just seemed, I don't know, quiet of late but perhaps I'm over-estimating the SAG Actor Awards? And it's not like One Battle left that empty-handed... it just felt like it did since Sean Penn didn't show up.

ABE: It seems I’m the only one of the three of us who’s rooting for Sinners to win even though I don’t think it’s going be to happen! Penn’s absence is to me an indicator of why he won’t ultimately win, that said, Mickey Rourke had a better narrative in 2008 and still lost to him.

SINNERS © Warner Bros

Sinners was always going to win the SAG ensemble prize. It hasn’t taken down OBAA anywhere else of significance, which suggests that, in a competition, voters will choose the latter.

NICK: At the end of the day, I think this is still very much One Battle's award to lose. Sinners is a worthy silver medalist, all the more impressive for being such an unexpected force. I would not have guessed she could do it, yet here we are! Most nominated film ever.

Allow me to inelegantly slide to shouting out some of my very favorite films from this year, since we seem to be approaching the end of this conversation. My two picks for film of the year are both documentaries about recent tumult in and around Russia, Mystslav Chernov's 2000 Meters to Andriivka and Julia Loktev's My Undesirable Friends Pt. 1. The former is a harrowing piece of wartime reporting, giving its embattled Ukranian soldiers humane depth even when their lives and their struggles seem doomed. It's also the most technically impressive doc I've seen since Feras Fayyad's The Cave - I can't imagine how painstaking it must have been to assemble that soundscape or negotiate color and light, but it's stunning and direct without ever being affected. My Undesirable Friends is deeper and fleeter than much shorter films (almost anything is shorter), capturing the way years of conflict and upheaval can take place in only a few days or weeks. Loktev tracks dozens of faces, each person knowing full well they could get vanished the next day. Its televisual structure and style feels appropriate to the world these underground reporters live in. The relentless momentum of the editing and the increasingly immobile camera placement matches the sense of an already-constricting vice choking off more and more air. Supremely incredible films, each a detailed document of a specific conflict while still resonating with today's political nightmares.

Beyond them, I'd have loved to see Sirat make the leap from International Film to Best Picture along with The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value. Laxe's film and Mascha Schilinski's Sound of Falling stand out as two of the year's most formally audacious filmmaking achievements, with surprising reservoirs of tender human connection amidst a lot of upsetting scenarios. Rungano Nyoni's On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is one of the best films too few people have seen, a multi-pronged indictment of cultural misogyny with an unpredictable shape and a cast as deep and engrossing as One Battle's. For American cinema: Roofman and Eddington have lingered mightily, and I wish they'd made any headway once awards season started in earnest. Meanwhile, I'm so happy to see The Alabama Solution in Oscar's Best Documentary field, and I hope it wins. Also, where were Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk or The Tale of Silyan in the Doc longlist? Baffling omissions.

I could go on for days, but do either of you boys have a closing statement?

NATHANIEL: Hey, this isn't the Best Documentary Feature volley! Everyone knows that I love Roofman (in my Best Picture list) and I blame it's poor awards season performance squarely at the feet of... well... everyone, since films that don't reek of prestige or feel IMPORTANT in some all caps  kind of way tend to get the shaft no matter how well executed they are in media and critical and industry circles. But all things considered, with the exception of that across the board snub for the genius No Other Choice,  I think the Best Picture list is as good at could have possibly been given the types of films that Academy voters and media voices alike are willing to champion. 

I'm happy that the season ends shortly and I''ll be happier still  if One Battle After Another takes the final prize of the evening... even if I don't want any single film to win One Oscar After Another. Crossing my fingers for a share the wealth finale to this long season. 

ABE: I’ll just call out a few of my favorites from this past year which never got their due. Deaf President Now! is an excellent documentary that truly speaks to the Deaf experience in its filmmaking. NEON was all about international films this year but forgot all about The Life of Chuck and Splitsville. Focus got three Best Actress nominations but didn’t put any energy into the hilarious The Ballad of Wallis Island. Two films were never going to be awards players - Relay and Freaky Tales - made a major imprint on me. And how is The Testament of Ann Lee not the nominations leader with all its technical brilliance? 

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER © Warner Bros. It will definitely win Oscars. But how many?

But back to Best Picture, this has been a fun conversation. Let’s see if OBAA can continue its dominance this season or if Sinners can topple it.

All Oscar Volleys: 

• BEST DIRECTOR, with Ben Miller and Nathaniel R
• BEST ACTRESS with Lynn Lee and Nick Taylor
• BEST ACTOR, with Cláudio Alves and Eurocheese
• BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS with Eric Blume and Nick Taylor
• BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, with Nathaniel R and Cláudio Alves
• BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY, with Lynn Lee and Ben Miller
• BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY, with Eurocheese and Abe Friedtanzer
• BEST CASTING, with Nathaniel R and Abe Friedtanzer
• BEST EDITING, with Lynn Lee and Eurocheese
• BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY, with Eric Blume and Cláudio Alves
• BEST COSTUME DESIGN, with Cláudio Alves and Nick Taylor
• BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN with Eric Blume and Ben Miller
• BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM with Eric Blume and Nathaniel R

Comments

[Flowers By Irene]

This year US cinema gave to the world a lot of good movies but there isn't any masterpiece. So, aside Frankenstein I think that we have the real best from 2025 in this line-up. There isn't a clear division between excellent movies and bad movies, they're all very good (aside Frankenstein). Maybe Hamnet has even some cult vibes.
Of the two at this point usual representatives of the international front I think that The secret agent is almost a masterpiece, while Sentimental Value is beautiful but very awards baiting and very near to US taste.
I'm a little disappointed that The voice of Hind Rajab wasn't in conversation also for best picture and that it barely was nominated in the International category. This is quite a mystery to me and I don't think I want to full understand it.
Paul Thomas Anderson will finally get the Oscars that almost every of his movies deserved. One Battle is not my favorite from him, but hey, we live in a world where CODA won best picture, so I won't complain.

Final ranking.

Immense love:
1)The secret agent

Great:
2)Sinners
3)One Battle after another
4)Hamnet
5)Sentimental value

Very good, but very thought for the Oscars season:
6)Marty Supreme
7)Bugonia
8)Roy: a live well lived... sorry, I mean Train Dreams

No:
9) Frankenstein

Didn't watch F1 and honestly I don't give a f**k.