It’s that time of year again. The time where I frantically try to watch as many Oscar nominees as possible before the ceremony in an effort to stay on top of what’s new in movies and what’s worth celebrating. Inevitably, there’s some really good stuff left off of these lists that deserves celebration as well, and that’s why I do this post. Without getting too deep into my own psyche about why I do any of this, let’s just get right to it.

Movies I Recommend That Were Not Nominated

Challengers

This is my favorite movie of 2024. The most criminal omission is in the score category, where Trent Reznor delivered not only the best score of the year – both in its composition and its use in the film, but redefined what a movie score could be for me. The decision to score this film with progressive house/trance music is inspired. It brings an energy to the film that would be dearly missed if this were scored with a more traditional classical composition. In addition to all this the score itself is just banger after banger.

But my admiration for this movie doesn’t stop at the score. Were I a voting academy member, I would have put this in Picture, Director, Screenplay (fun fact: the screenplay was written by the husband of the screenwriter of last years Past Lives, which also centers on a love triangle. Makes you wonder!), Actress for Zendaya, Supporting Actor for both Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor, as well as Cinematography, Editing, and Costume Design. The lack of any nominations for this movie is the one omission from this years slate that is truly baffling to me – I have no idea how they missed this.

The Bikeriders

This was another personal favorite of mine from last year. A smaller movie, less splashy than many of this year’s best picture contenders, but one that I thought had a lot of chops and was beautifully rendered. I would have loved to see this get represented in the Adapted Screenplay category. The film was adapted from a book, but the book contained only photos and a series of interviews conducted by an ethnographic journalist (portrayed in the film by Mike Faist) who was studying the culture of midwestern 1960s biker gangs. As much as I appreciate the movie as a whole, I think what’s most impressive is how writer/director Jeff Nichols took the source material, which was mostly just fragmented images and exerpts, and made it into a compelling narrative. Plus you get to see Tom Hardy and Jodie Comer have a contest about who can do the crazier voice.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Story

Example number 10,000,000 of why we need a stunt category at the Oscars is Furiosa. While this film does suffer from a few of the same pitfalls that woe other legacy sequels like Gladiator II (a film that is markedly not on this list), where it shines is in George Miller’s ability to continue innovating and iterating on the brand of action established by Fury Road. A few moments in this film dropped my jaw in the theater and left me doing my dumb “I love movies” smile for long stretches.

It’s What’s Inside

While at first this movie has the glimmering shine of a disposable Netflix original, I actually found it to be super fun and engaging. It’s a really fun screenplay and the playful style of cinematography and editing is also refreshing to see. Light sci-fi mixed with a high concept based on familiar party games just made for a great ride. And besides, it was only acquired by Netflix, not produced by them.

Rebel Ridge

Speaking of fun Netflix movies, Rebel Ridge offers some of the best grounded action in recent memory, as well as some airtight scene composition. I just loved how thoughtfully devised each scene is. You’ll find yourself wondering why a character is doing something, only for some rock solid reason to be revealed just as you were pondering reasons.

Civil War

I know I detailed my reservations about this movie in my original review, but I have to say as I continued to think about the movie, it’s only grown in my estimation. The final act’s raid scene is immensely riveting and the episodic second act is a little more charming than I initially gave it credit for. This could have slid into Sound, Editing, or even Picture, but alas.

Movies I Didn’t Make It To, But Wish I Did

As always, 2024 was a year full of travel and long hours at my “real” job, so I didn’t get a chance to see everything that I wanted to just yet. Here is a short list of movies that I haven’t seen yet, but that I’m excited to get to when I can

• Babygirl (interesting gender power dynamic exploration with Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson)
• Heretic (thought provoking horror concept centering a strong Hugh Grant performance)
• I Saw the TV Glow (a millennial’s treatise on 90s and 00s television culture?)
• Hundreds of Beavers (absurdist Buster Keaton-esque comedy)
• The Fall Guy (A big blockbuster with movie stars? And it’s good?!)
• The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (documentary about a boy with terminal illness who finds genuine community in online gaming)
• Will and Harper (Will Ferrell processes his long time friend’s transition)
• The People’s Joker (a trans allegory parody of the Batman villain, made from crowd-funding without the approval of DC comics or Warner Brothers)
• Union (documentary about an Amazon warehouse attempting to unionize that has been blackballed by every major studio)

Movies that Perhaps Got More Love than they Needed

Last year I had a section here for “Movies that were nominated but still snubbed”. However, I actually think this year’s slate got a lot right, and I don’t have too much more to praise about the movies that were recognized. I do think I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the phenomenon of movies getting nominated for Best Picture that might otherwise go down as a pretty cool movie that people generally liked, but because of their praise at the Oscars fell under more scrutiny and ended up with a worse reputation for it. I think movies like Conclave, or The Substance or Wicked can definitely fall into this category this year. These are all generally well liked (my personal feelings about Wicked notwithstanding), but especially after their best picture nominations, have come under scrutiny for one thing or another and now appear to have a more mixed response. Perhaps in a non-strike year these movies don’t get into the best picture race at all, and perhaps they would be better remembered for that.

No movie represents this more than Emilia Pérez. I ultimately found this movie to be unsuccessful, but I appreciated that it was trying to do something unique and dump as much stylization as possible into its 2 hour runtime. I can understand the recognition for Zoë Saldaña and also for Karla Sofía Gascón. I could see it slipping into the 5th spot for cinematography even. But this film has 13 nominations (the same number as Oppenheimer last year) including Picture, Director, Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, and even score (the most unforgivable, the music is actively bad). The unilateral praise for this movie is honestly puzzling. If they end up recognizing this as Best Picture of the year I think it will only serve to further alienate the casual movie fan from the likes of the academy, in addition to skipping over some really cool movies that came out this year.

Overall, despite my above complaints, I’m generally satisfied with this year’s nominations and I’m hopeful that we’ll have a good set of winners as well. Stay tuned for my next piece on what will win and what should win.