The 13th Annual Team Experience Awards: NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCEMENT!

by Cláudio Alves

THE BRUTALIST | © A24

The Brutalist leads the nominations for the 13th annual Team Experience Awards. Brady Corbet's Oscar player scored in seven categories, including Best Picture, Director, and Actor. The film premiered on digital today, so if you missed it in theaters, it's time to give this epic a look. Many other Oscar frontrunners appeared on our ballots, with every one of AMPAS' Best Picture nominees featured in one category or another. As always, it's a fascinating mix of prestige fare and outré offerings, awards magnets, and obscure titles that got here on the basis of a few writers' burning passion. These awards are a testament to the variety of opinions featured on The Film Experience, having been voted by several members of its team. With the notable exception of Nathaniel, whose Film Bitch Awards are another matter altogether.

Discover the full list of nominees in 20 categories after the jump…

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Split Decision: "The Brutalist"

In the Split Decision series, two of our writers face off on an Oscar-nominated movie one loves and the other doesn't. Today, Nick Taylor and Abe Friedtanzer discuss The Brutalist...

NICK TAYLOR: Hi Abe! I hope the cinematic year of 2024 and the numerical year of 2025 have been treating you well! Today we’re here to talk about The Brutalist, which is one of my favorite films from 2024 and one of the most nominated films at this year’s Oscars. Because this is the Split Decision series, I’m gonna guess you are not a fan of this film, or you’re at least more ambivalent about it than I am. But an object this self-consciously huge deserves to be argued about, and I would love for you to start us off by sharing what you think of The Brutalist.

ABE FRIEDTANZER: Hey Nick! I will say that I didn’t hate this film, and even found much to admire about it. I saw it at a morning press screening at the Toronto International Film Festival back in September, so early enough to not have heard much about it and to be able to fully appreciate it. I knew very little of the story, and so naturally my interest was piqued. As soon as the film ended, I wanted to research the true story, only to find out that its events were invented. I had seen Brady Corbet’s previous film Vox Lux (which I hated with a passion) as well as The Sleepwalker (directed by Mona Fastvold with a screenplay by her and Corbet, a role reversal of their duties on this film), which I liked much more. From what I could find, and have been able to since, it doesn’t seem like either of them are Jewish or have any Jewish heritage. Those two factors have irreversibly impacted my perception of the film and made it hard to truly process it in a positive way...

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DGA, CCA, PGA: Has the race changed or was it always a free-for-all?

by Nathaniel R

Chicken or egg? Egg or chicken? Have the last two weeks of the Oscar race and the very recent prizes from the Directors Guild, Producers Guild, and Critics Choice Awards changed the game or were the upcoming 97th Academy Awards always this much of an "anyone's game" free-for-all wherein Anora, The Brutalist, and Emilia Perez all felt possible as the dominant film?  I myself would argue for the latter. The Golden Globes (Emilia Perez dominated with 4 wins) are never the final chapter in any Oscar race, just one of its booziest most memorable chapters.

The dominant story for a week or so was the deflation Emilia Perez's, done in by a social media scandal which opened a very large window for the film's many naysayers to crash through. But it's important to remember that first industry voters loved the trans cartel musical to the breathy tune of 13 Oscar nominations...

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Team Experience Oscar Prediction: Final Scores

by Cláudio Alves

No one predicted I'M STILL HERE in Best Picture. | © Sony Pictures Classics

We're still reeling from this morning's Oscar nominations announcement but it's time to check predictions and assess the numbers. Like last year, various members of the Team Experience put forward their best guesses. While the point of this exercise is to see how different folks see the race, it's also a little competition of sorts, with a pundit ranking at the end. Overall, our collection of writers did better than last year, averaging a 75% success rate when excluding those tricky short film categories. These predictions also help us grasp what the day's big surprises truly were, both in terms of shocking selections or notorious snubs. Without further ado, here's the final score…

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Some Positive Thoughts on Our Oscar Nominees...

by Eric Blume

EMILIA PÉREZ | © Netflix

Each Oscar nomination morning, there’s always that moment of sadness or anger over our favorites being left out of the race.  It’s part of the fun of the awards season really…righteous indignation feels damn good!  And I’m sure, for all of you, this year was no exception.  There’s always something to gripe about on how the Academy did someone dirty, or how they’re sheep about following the trends, etc.

BUT, let’s have some fun and look at some of the positive things about this year’s nominees…

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