After keeping up a clean streak for over a decade, I managed to miss doing my annual rankings of Best Picture nominees for films that came out in 2024. Honestly, I just wasn't crazy about the slate of films that year, had zero interest in viewing some of the nominees, and was lukewarm at best for many of the films I did watch. And honestly, I was quite busy -- life has a habit of intervening at times. In the end, while I couldn't argue with Anora being one of the better films on that year's Best Picture slate (though I might have gone with Conclave instead), it was a highly underwhelming Best Picture winner, reflecting a very underwhelming set of nominees to begin with.
This year I'm more bullish once again about the slate of nominees, though that does not mean I'll be heaping praise on all of them. Note that my practice is to rank each Best Picture nominee after a single viewing based on my assessment of how worthy they are for the ultimate Oscar category. Note that this is not a prediction of who will win, but rather a statement of how I would vote if I could, along with how I'd rank the also-rans.
As evidenced by 2024, every year is a little different in terms of the collective quality of the films. Sometimes there's a film that is clearly head and shoulders above the rest (think 2023's victory march by Oppenheimer). Sometimes there's a battle royale of multiple highly deserving works, and those are the best years (think Boyhood and Birdman in 2013). Sometimes there's a wide swath of worthy films, but no clear standouts that are going to live in our collective memory forever (think 2014, for which Spotlight captured Best Picture but isn't mentioned much today, but neither are any of its major competition, though The Big Short had arguably the best legs of any of the competitors when it comes to recollections of high cinema from that year and The Martian and Mad Max: Fury Road provided highly rewatchable films).
This year definitely had a stronger slate than last year, but not as uniformly excellent as some past years. I'm not certain that this year will produce any lasting classics. As such, there were just three films I thought were truly great examples of modern cinema, a small middle tier of very well crafted but ultimately lacking nominees, and a sizeable raft of flawed films that I'm unsure will live long in our memories past this year's Oscars ceremony.
10 F1
F1 is an auto racing movie revolving around a lead character who used to be at the top of his sport until having a horrible accident, which pushed him out of high profile racing. No, this isn't
Ford v Ferrari, this is that
other racing movie. He is sought out by an old friend to join his racing team to mentor a young hotshot driver who holds a lot of promise but is still learning how to both be a racing professional and win. No, this isn't
Driven, this is that
other racing movie. The relationship between the two teammates deteriorates and ends up with one driver sabotaging the other in a key race. No, this isn't
Days of Thunder, this is that
other racing movie. There's even a horrible crash that leaves one of the rivals badly burned. No, this isn't
Rush, this is that
other racing movie. Still, they are able to overcome all obstacles, including sabotage from their own investors, to garner a team win. No, this still isn't
Ford v Ferrari. Welcome to the modern world of cinema where many films are pastiches of a combination of prior films, such as how the plot for
Top Gun: Maverick is essentially a co-mingling of the main plot elements of the original
Top Gun,
Star Wars, and
Iron Eagle. Unsurprisingly, the screenwriter for
TG:M was also the screenwriter for
F1.
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| Both films feature lots of cockpit scenes too. |
There's apparently a limit to the variety of plot points that can happen in a racing movie, but this is not to say that
F1 is a bad movie. It's very competently made, well acted, and possessing some great racing footage (though for some reason the crashes pale in comparison to some of its peers in the racing genre). It's a perfectly fine movie that makes for a fine watch. The problem is that's not sufficient for a film to be a serious Best Picture nominee.
F1 does not tell an important story -- as noted, it tells a story that has been told many times before in different forms. It is well-acted, but there is no tour-de-force performance to make this film truly memorable. There were some well-thought out production techniques used to make the racing pop off the screen as much as possible, but the result did not feel particularly revolutionary. Overall, it feels like a good movie that somehow got a nomination and doesn't stand out in any productive way from its fellow nominees.
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| Not that it was all fluff. The decision to include lots of coverage of the support crew throughout the race was a nice added element. |
9 Sentimental Value
I really wanted to put
Sentimental Value higher in this list. It tells a powerful story about family relationships, depression, and suicide, and it features one of my favorite actors, the legendary Stellan Skarsgard. But there are too many issues with its execution holding this film back.
For starters, it meanders. Some directors use filler scenes to create spacing in time or highlight evolution of the situation or create tension. This film does not appear to do any of those, or if it was, its purpose was lost on me. Instead, I found myself mentally re-editing the film to tighten it up and make it flow more, which is not something I'd argue a film should evoke in its audience.
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| These two interact exactly once in the film, and never again. There was zero impact from this scene. And yet the film's extensive running time includes several minutes of this. |
In addition, the film periodically inserts other mechanisms that pulls it away from its ongoing feel of realism, whether its introducing a narrator in two spots or a sequence in which three of the characters are continuously overlaid upon each other such that they seem to constantly morph from one to another. That's not to say these mechanisms are bad to use, but since they are infrequent and don't match the feeling of the rest of the film, it's jarring.
But it's still a worthwhile film that deserved consideration, even if I don't think it's close to being Best Picture for the year. Sentimental Value examines issues of depression and suicide and how they impact and are impacted by our relationships with each other. This is told through a story featuring Hollywood's favorite subjects: movie making and theater. Skarsgard plays a famed auteur director while one of his daughters is an acclaimed actress on both tv and the stage. He's penned his latest (and potentially last) movie script about a character that seems suspiciously like his mother, and he hopes his daughter will play her. Things of course aren't that clean, and other elements become involved. The story itself is great, and the messages it relays are important. It just needed a little better storytelling to be worth a higher ranking.
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| Additional uncomfortable interactions between the two primary characters would have been a good first step. |
8 One Battle After Another
I knew nothing about
One Battle After Another outside of the initial ads, which sold the film as a taut thriller. Instead, the movie is an absurdist tale based vaguely on a Thomas Pynchon satirical novel. This is, unfortunately, much to its detriment. When it starts with an infiltration and liberation of an immigrant detention center along the border, it seems the film will be a rallying point for exploration or at least catharsis from these turbulent times. The cracks start showing quickly, with the revolutionaries seeming more to be adrenaline junkies than true ideological warriors. Then comes the sado-sexual elements of the plot surrounding French 75 leader Perfidia Beverly Hills and Colonel Lockjaw. From there, any seriousness regarding the plot flies out the window with the introduction of a racist cabal of Santa Claus cultists secretly running things behind the scenes. By the time the film's hero, Pat/Bob, shows he is too stoned to remember key pass phrases and offends the delicate sensibilities of a revolutionary communications officer, any hope of there being meaningful discourse from this film is gone. Not that it's necessary for every Best Picture nominee to have something important to say, but coming fresh off the headlines from Minnesota this year into watching this, I felt it was too tone deaf to really be of the moment and otherwise ill-timed to present a spoof of anti-government resistance.
The film really would have benefitted from making Chase Infiniti's Willa/Charlene the main character of the film instead of Leonardo DiCaprio's Pat/Bob. Willa/Charlene has the most interesting arc, learning about what her mother actually was like, discovering key secrets about her father, and figuring out a direction in life. However, much of this takes place in secondary scenes that serve as intermissions between Pat/Bob's often inept attempts to escape pursuit and track down where his daughter is being kept. DiCaprio would have benefitted from this shift as much as the film, as his character is not terribly deep and doesn't get much chance to grow, but a Supporting Actor nominee needs those elements a lot less than an Actor in a Leading Role nominee. It's not DiCaprio's fault that this is not among his top ten performances in his illustrious career -- there was ultimately just not much there to the role to work with.
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| He really did make the most of what was an unsatisfying script. |
One who perhaps did earn an Oscar statue with their performance this film was Sean Penn as Colonel Lockjaw. He manages to be depraved, malevolent, and pathetic all at the same time, which is difficult to pull off. His Lockjaw is a chaos agent thrown into an already volatile mix, and it is his actions that really drives the plot as he pursues his own ambitions and base needs, often in contradiction with each other. Penn makes Lockjaw repugnant and repulsive, yet his scenes are by far the most interesting in the entire film. Without his work, I might have ranked
One Battle After Another even lower, and frankly, it would have deserved it.
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| Benicio del Toro has gotten a lot of buzz for playing the movie's coolest character, and indeed Sensei Sergio is very cool. But without Penn as Lockjaw, there is simply no reason to even watch this movie. |
7 Marty Supreme
So this is what would have happened if Ayn Rand had ever written a sports novel. There are many things to like about
Marty Supreme, including some (but definitely not all) of its performances, its cinematography, and its willingness to experiment a little, but ultimately, I had to put this in the bottom half of the rankings because the story is so awfully static, with as flat an arc for the main character as is theoretically possible, and a cast of characters that show the least amount of human goodness I've potentially ever seen outside of an exploitation film. There is not a character in this film with redeeming qualities, least of all the protagonist, Marty Mauser.
Mauser is an ideal example of the objectivist perspective Rand put into her writing, and I have to wonder whether she would have felt proud of what the film makers achieved or slightly put off by someone stealing her slant. Mauser is a single-minded individual obsessed with having the entire world recognize his greatness in his chosen sport of table tennis. Nothing and no one is as important to Marty as achieving that recognition. In pursuing this goal, he lies, he he steals, he cons people, he gets people injured and/or killed, he causes pain. But to whatever degree he might regret any of this, it pales in comparison to his goal of being recognized as the top table tennis, and to Marty, everyone else is either an aid in that mission or an obstacle to be bypassed or removed. Thanos obliterates half of all life forms in the universe and yet ends Avengers: Infinity War with a higher moral standing than Marty Mauser.
And certainly Mauser has many obstacles to overcome. His complete disinterest in being consistent for the people on whom he depends gets him into trouble over and over again, either because they turn on him directly or they get themselves into trouble either to help him or to make up for his lack of help in addressing their needs. From that sense, there's a certain amount of satisfaction in watching his aims get constantly thwarted. Even in the end when he proves his supremacy to himself, it's a pyrrhic victory that will leave him in obscurity after he has managed to alienate almost everyone in his life. That ending is well earned. He also finds connections with a few individuals for the first time the entire film, an ending that is not at all earned.
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| Yeah, congratulations you prick. |
But the story structure of
Marty Supreme is not its only problem. At 2 hours and 30 minutes, it's overly long, with the ongoing obstacle course that is Marty's quest getting just a bit too repetitive. How often does he need to screw up or be screwed over for the film makers to be satisfied? Apparently a lot. The casting is also at times a bit questionable, as someone thought it was a good idea to have
Shark Tank entrepreneur Kevin O'Leary play a major role in the film, no idea what percentage of the box office he negotiated for. And the film uses a soundtrack that's just confusing, sometimes using period music and sometimes using songs from the modern rock era.
A Knight's Tale's mixture of medieval fife instrumentals and arena rock anthems was far more cohesive.
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| Seriously, who thought this was a good idea? |
If it seems I hated this movie, that's not completely true. I fully recognize why it was nominated. I just don't think
Marty Supreme deserves to win.
6 Train Dreams
Train Dreams is
Marty Supreme's spiritual opposite. While Marty Mauser is an awful human being devoting his life to his selfish goal,
Train Dreams' Robert Grainier is a good man living his life wondering what his purpose is. It is one of those small films that demonstrates clean precision in craft while telling a small, intimate story that makes it onto the Best Picture slate every year and that I end up loving as a result of its near flawless execution and the personal scope of its story.
Robert Grainier is an orphan who, as many orphans have throughout history, grown up directionless without a default path in life to take or rebel against. Robert just moves through life until he meets the great love of his life, Gladys. The home and family they build gives Robert the start of a sense of purpose, that of a father and husband and all-around provider for his family. But it's really Gladys who gives him purpose, proposing ideas of what they might make of themselves. That comes to an end though when Robert comes home from one of his extended trips making money as a logger to find his home engulfed in a wildfire and his wife and daughter missing.
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| Felicity Jones has a talent for playing women who chart the course of their loves' lives. |
From there, any sure path in life ends for Robert. He rebuilds the home and never moves on for fear his family may still be alive and wouldn't be able to find him. He continues to log to earn a living, but finds the men who take to his line of work are getting rougher with each passing year, the old hands dying or otherwise giving up the work due to frailty. The country continues to change around him as well, into something that couldn't have seemed possible in his early days at the turn of the century, now watching John Glenn fly into space and he himself buying a ride in what was by then a vintage biplane.
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| Our greatest living character actor, William H. Macy is the perfect choice to serve as a guide to the perils of growing old. |
I'm spoiling the story here, but the point to
Train Dreams isn't its narrative. It's the journey it takes through that narrative, the sensations and feelings it invokes during that journey, and the common ground it develops for all of us who have ever felt alone while surrounded by people or pondered our destiny while drifting within the currents of life. In its conclusions,
Train Dreams doesn't offer any profound statements about life or fate, but the fact that it provides a canvas for asking questions about them is valuable nonetheless. And providing that canvas as beautiful a backdrop as
Train Dreams does makes for a worthwhile film watching experience.
5 Bugonia
The film world is richer and more interesting for the existence of Yorgos Lanthimos, who continues to make the most insanely imaginative movies of anyone in the industry, this time aided by the fact that he took over for Jang Joon-hwan in making an English-language adaptation of Jang's Korean film Save the Green Planet! after the original director developed health concerns. It is the perfect marriage between film and substitute director, as it fits Lanthimos' style and sensibility perfectly.
Bugonia follows the planning, execution, and inevitable downfall of conspiracy theorist Teddy Gatz's plan to kidnap pharmaceutical CEO Michelle Fuller, who he's convinced is a member of a secret race of aliens, the Andromedans (presumably from one of the billions of planets in the Andromeda Galaxy). Teddy is aided by his cousin Don, who's on the spectrum. It's an incredibly small cast, with only a deputy sheriff who is Teddy's former babysitter and holds a shameful secret, and the great Alicia Silverstone as Teddy's mother who was poisoned by Michelle's company serving as significant characters beyond the core three.
Emma Stone is perfect for these types of films, as shown by her continued appearances and success in Lanthimos-directed pictures. She combines a type of artistic fearlessness along with an acute accessibility that allows her to slip into her roles in these otherwise surreal films effortlessly. Whether she's playing things straight or embracing the bizarre, it feels completely natural, and Stone has to show a lot of range in this particular performance. A task that would be hard to pull off for many actresses she makes look easy here.
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| It will be interesting to see how film historians try to summarize Emma Stone's career in few words. |
Similarly, Jesse Plemons shows that he was the answer Hollywood needed for the untimely passing of the great Philip Seymour Hoffman. They both have that ability to just be like, “yep, this mess of oddities is my character — let me slide right in and disappear into him so you can’t tell I’m even acting.” There were so many roles that it seemed only Hoffman could pull off, but I think Plemons could swap in without skipping a beat on many of them. Here he shows those same skills, making Teddy feel simultaneously imbalanced, rationale, and beleaguered. You feel Teddy is taking completely off base and taking things too far (until, it seems, he isn't) yet at the same time is overwhelmingly vulnerable and in need of protection. In other hands, Teddy could have seemed a single note maniac or a malevolent force in the movie, but Plemons makes him that friend you are worried about but hope for the best on his behalf.
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| You keep doing you, Jesse. We need you to. |
Through all of this chaos,
Bugonia asks questions and makes statements about our handling of our responsibilities to this world and its inhabitants (of all species, phyla, and kingdoms). As you can imagine, the film finds us lacking. But perhaps not always in the ways you might expect.
4 Frankenstein
I will admit I was not excited about yet another Frankenstein remake. I have a soft spot for the old Universal pantheon of monsters, but their basic stories were told -- and told well -- decades ago. Every modern retelling has attempted to put some unfortunate new spin on the classic tales, which is rarely a good idea. These stories are, despite their origins in individually authored works, essentially modern folklore at this point, and changing folklore to fit a new auteur's fancy tends to ignore the great value of folklore being tales that grow and age with a people and not just at the whim of one person. Thankfully, Guillermo del Toro sticks to the heart and spirit of Frankenstein's tale (for the most part), even if bringing a modern sensibility to the storytelling structure itself.
In bringing his own style to Frankenstein, del Toro imbues the world with a certain gothic beauty and level of energy. Despite a two and a half hour runtime, it never feels weighted down or stagnant. The stunning cinematography of Dan Laustsen, paired with the atmospheric score by Alexandre Desplat, heightens that dark and foreboding feeling. Scenes featuring death and the reanimation of the human corpse are affecting without being repulsive. Overall, it is a masterful example of del Toro's ability to put together a strong team of film makers and coordinate all their output into a cohesive whole.
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| I don't think its cinematography will win the Oscar, but it's a beautifully shot film. |
Even with all the craftsmanship put into this film, it is the strong cast that really brings it to life. Oscar Isaac plays tortured, brooding demi-villains as well as anyone in Hollywood, and his Dr. Frankenstein makes all too many mistakes and lapses in moral judgement, but in ways that are accessible and understandable to the audience. Similarly, Jacob Elordi plays a Creature that is simultaneously inhuman and all too human at the same time. His portrayal is engaging enough that del Toro didn't need to change how Elizabeth dies to make the Creature sympathetic, though I suppose given the director's decision to end with a slightly more hopeful ending than the clear tragedy of the novel, some amount of redemption was needed.
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| Nothing says an Oscar Isaac role like an off-center moral core and a haunting past. |
All in all, while I would still lean toward watching the original Boris Karloff films for my
Frankenstein fix, I can recommend this version for my friends who would prefer to see modern film making techniques on display.
3 Sinners
I always pause when I hear about a genre film getting significant buzz as a Best Picture candidate. There have been some incredible genre films that have merited nomination, especially in the last few decades since taking genre films seriously became cool. My reticence is not because a genre film can't be worthy of this top honor. It's because it's very difficult to navigate the structural requirements of a given genre to be both a great genre movie and a great piece of cinematic art that bridges all interests and backgrounds to connect with any audience member anywhere, as that is what great films do.
The Godfather films (both the original and
Part II) are not just masterwork crime stories, they construct a family saga that speaks to the moral downfall of a man that made a choice toward villainy despite feeling he didn't have one. The
Lord of the Rings trilogy (and in particular
The Return of the King) is not just a fantasy epic, it tells a universal tale of friendship, duty, and the will to conquer the longest odds, resulting in even the viewers who are the least excited by elves and dragons tearing up at the "You bow to no one" scene. Sinners does extremely well in its attempt to transcend its genre roots, and almost succeeds perfectly.
I don't think it's much of a spoiler at this point to note that at its genre core, Sinners is a vampire movie. What sets it apart is that while there are lots of vampires baring fangs and victims who fight back (with varying degrees of success), the film invokes a tie to the folklore of the people. Despite the lead actor being Michael B. Jordan as the Smoke/Stack twins, the real key to the plot is their cousin, the burgeoning blues guitarist Sammie. Sammie has a gift with his guitar, and there's a fascinating scene where Sammie plays a blues song that enraptures the entire crowd in the twins' juke joint and pulls on the eternal threads connecting the people with their ancestors as well as with their eventual descendants. It's a fascinating scene and one I looked forward to seeing followed upon, especially once the fore-mentioned vampires show up, noting they were drawn by Sammie's song and performing as a hive mind an Irish folksong of their own, reflecting the origins of their vampire lord. I was prepared for this confrontation to build on its discussion of the importance of stories and culminate in a resolution to the film based in that concept. Sadly, from there, Sinners launches into combat between the humans and the vampires in a mass fight scene straight out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So close to a unique take on the vampire legend, but unfortunately the film makers turned to the traditional genre tropes.
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| This scene is by far the most important not just in Sinners, but possibly among all of the films in 2025. |
Not that this makes
Sinners unworthy of its nomination. Modify the last half hour of the film to better follow up its established theme and it's at least battling it out with my number one film for the imaginary statue I hand out. It deserves all of its technical craft nominations, and I agree with most of its acting nominations (I'll admit I'd have preferred a Miles Caton nod over the one the great Delroy Lindo received). It's a beautiful, well thought out, well acted, well crafted, and well directed film, and I continue to look forward to finding out what's next from director Ryan Coogler, as always.
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| I mean, just look at that. Gorgeous! |
2 The Secret Agent
The Secret Agent is the political thriller and contemporary commentary that
One Battle After Another privately wishes it could be. Despite being a historical movie set 50 years ago in a completely different country,
The Secret Agent has more to tell us about the current state of the United States (and many other countries) than any other 2025 film. This movie features wealthy captains of industry using political sway to enrich themselves and punish those that oppose them. Corrupt officials use their office for personal gain and to maintain power. Public funding is twisted away from goals of education and public good toward personal gain for those who are already rich enough to invest in development themselves. Personal resistance is met with at times extreme peril despite attempting to follow all the rules of law. It is a story that could seem quite frightful to someone looking at it with today's lens, but the film also provides a statement about the importance of confronting (safely, though art) those things that frighten us the most.
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| Nothing like being an innocent man surrounded by corrupt cops who "just want to talk". |
A common complaint I have about many of the nominees is that they're overly long and could benefit from some tightening up. For example, some scenes or dialogue in
One Battle After Another are simply there to tell a joke. Despite its 161 minute running time,
The Secret Agent does not have any superfluous scenes. Every single one seems crafted to be important in world building, plot development, establishing atmosphere, or messaging. Take, for example, the scenes involving a human leg first discovered in the maw of a dead shark, then stolen and dumped by corrupt authorities, and then magically coming back to life and attacking the city's gay population at night (or so the local newspapers say). While the minutes devoted to this surreal scene do have a comedic element to them, they actually provide a means of highlighting the lengths the corrupt government will take to distract the population from the things they really should be worried about. In addition, the scene brings together the residents of the refuge house our on-the-run protagonist resides within so that everyone can start talking, leading to the sharing of past stories and future hopes, driving the plot forward. Comedic scenes are not just comedy in this film. Violence and action are not there just to thrill the audience. Every element serves multiple purposes building a cohesive and taut whole. This is film making in its advanced state.
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| The violence is at least tastefully done as well. |
The film is also helped from some strong acting from its principal, Wagner Moura, who plays a haunted refugee being hunted by agents of a wealthy industrialist, as well as another surprise part. Also of note is Tania Maria as the woman who runs the safe house where the various dissidents live their new lives while waiting for a chance to escape. Moura received a deserved nomination for Best Actor. Maria sadly did not receive a similar nod for Supporting Actress, and honestly I'd support her over most of the actresses who were nominated. Given it was filmed in Portuguese with a little German dialogue mixed in, I'm unsure how many people will actually watch
The Secret Agent, but it is deserving of any attention it will get.
1 Hamnet
I think it's in everyone's best interest to just forget that Chloe Zhao made
Eternals, because when not saddled with a movie universe's continuity and the need to somehow bring Z-level villains to the screen for what is otherwise a family-dynamic film, she really knows how to make masterwork films. I don't know that
Hamnet will win her a second Best Director statue any more than I know it will win her another Best Picture statue, but I will be cheering on if it does, because this is a perfectly made film that reaches the viewer in ways no other nominee does this year. This is movie making and storytelling at its finest.
Zhao starts this film off slowly, as it takes its time defining and deepening the relationship between Anne Hathaway (called Agnes throughout) and her husband William Shakespeare, introducing the pagan magic elements of the plot, and establishing the dynamics of the Shakespeare's children, including the dark prediction Agnes has that one of them will not survive to see her on her deathbed. The film pauses for moments of foreboding and dread of that eventual day, but otherwise presents us a loving family, of a mother who is fiercely independent and protective of her children, of a father who is a tortured artist who finds his work far away from his family, and the lively, creative children who take after their father and are adored by both parents. By the time the film amps up the drama leading up to and following the horrible night when illness takes her child, the characters are not only fully familiar but deeply embraced by the viewer, which is important given the emotions of this tragedy are what make the movie effective and serve as the point the film makes about art.
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| The film also establishes and maintains a motif of dark doorways leading to mystery and often tragedy, and even at the best of times they are presented with a foreboding feeling. Great visual symbolism. |
When young Hamnet dies from the plague, it is portrayed heroically and lovingly, as he lies next to his extremely ill sister, telling her that he will stay beside her and trick death into taking him instead. The pain of William and Agnes is palpable with real conflict arising from the very different ways they process their grief. William pours his grief into his work as so many artists do, while the more pragmatic Agnes grieves in the more traditional sense and is offended by her husband writing and staging a play with their son's name. The emotional climax of the film, when Agnes attends the play and realizes William wrote it not only to honor their son (providing him the moment on stage he'd seen in his dreams) but also to make the world mourn him like they themselves do, is the kind of payoff that every drama attempts to achieve but so few succeed.
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| This entire scene was so beautifully shot and acted. |
I do not know if
Hamnet will achieve any kind of lasting recognition as a modern classic or important film, which is what you hope any Best Picture winner will attain. But I do know it will be making its audience members cry long after so many of its rivals will have faded from collective memory.
