If I Was the Only One Who Voted for the Oscars, Vol. 6
“The world is changing. Reforming. This is your moment.”
Now that I have covered my top ten movies of the year, it is time to move onto one of my favorite posts to write every late winter. My own hypothetical Oscars! As someone who loves lists and spreadsheets and writing, there is just something about chronicling a makeshift history for one of my own hobbies that is just so intrinsically appealing. If you actually read these things, I have all the respect in the world for it.
So, how can we unpack the year in movies for 2023? Well, there is one massive narrative that is begging to be addressed here. The end of the DCEU, of course. Just kidding! You won’t be seeing Shazam, The Flash, Blue Beetle, or Aquaman here. In actuality, I am alluding to the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon that saw two disparate, auteur-driven movies propel each other to profound success at the box office and the critical community. Now, Barbie and Oppenheimer will find success here — in the sixth edition of my own Oscars. (Have I really been on Medium for over six years already?) And so will many other movies.
What an absolute glut for quality filmmaking 2023 was. 2022 was a great year in that it was top heavy with masterpieces, but 2023 just has consistency and quality almost all the way down the long list. The story I’m seeing here in these nominees and winners is one of balance. Many of the movies I loved most in 2023 find themselves with overflowing excellence across these categories, but there is also plenty of balance in awarding the greatness when I can and spreading the wealth as much as possible and as much as is deserved. Even if records still get set. It’s an undeniable smattering of quality movies here, so let’s take a journey together through the year that was and all the memorable moments and people who made it extraordinary.
Best Picture
Asteroid City — Focus
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. — Lionsgate
Barbie — Warner Brothers
Dumb Money — Sony
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 — Marvel
Killers of the Flower Moon — Apple
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning — Paramount
Oppenheimer — Universal
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour — AMC
Wonka — Warner Brothers
As always, this website has already featured my Top Ten Movies of 2023 list, so saving Best Picture for the end would not be the same sort of surprise that the actual Oscars is able to craft it as. I’m really happy with this lineup and still wholly confident that Barbie is the runaway winner. It’s the only genuine five star film here (I gave both The Eras Tour and Guardians five stars, but that is also in regards to the context surrounding them), but still belonging to a sea of extremely high quality options. Barbie is just the undeniable classic that stands out above the rest. It will be a favorite of mine for a long time and you should expect to see it in similar rankings when the decade comes to a close, too.
Previous Winners: The Old Man and the Gun (Searchlight), Avengers: Endgame (Marvel), Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (Disney), Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (Lionsgate), Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24)
Best Young Actor
Kristen Cui as Wen — Knock at the Cabin
Andrew Barth Feldman as Percy Becker — No Hard Feelings
Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret Simon — Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Dominic Sessa as Angus Tully — The Holdovers
Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla Presley — Priscilla
Now, let’s get into the categories that are not already foregone conclusions coming into this article. As I shared some of my nominees and categories with my girlfriend, she paused at this one and asked me what the criteria was for it. To be honest, I’m not sure I can actually define it. I mean, I saw Abby Ryder Fortson in two Ant-Man movies before I saw her in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Andrew Barth Feldman had a pretty memorable guest turn on High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. Yet, these are clearly breakout film roles for them in 2023. I think, ultimately, they have to be genuinely young performers (sorry, Dick Van Dyke, but this category has passed you by!) and I think they also have to be newly leading films when they have not before. I also think you can’t get nominated here more than once. Like, if I was doing this in 2014, I could have nominated Timothee Chalamet here for Interstellar, but in 2017, I would not be able to then also nominate him for Lady Bird. So, these five are all here for the fist time, but if, say, Sessa delivers a stellar turn in a movie in 2026, he is competing at Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor, rather than Best Young Actor. This is the category for breakouts and now they’re here to stay. Anyway, in regards to the actual performances, this is an impeccable group of five. (I even tried to find room for Sunny Sandler and Belle Zhang, who had the best line delivery in all of Joy Ride with her, “Fuck you” and subsequent punch on the playground.) Knock at the Cabin does not work without the precocious curiosity of Kristen Cui as the daughter. The Holdovers does not work without Sessa channeling all the boarding school lineage of his performers before him. Are You There God? does not work without Forston graduating from cute child actor to lovably awkward pre-teen actor. No Hard Feelings does not work without Feldman expertly balancing hesitancy with adoration. And Priscilla doesn’t work in any way whatsoever without Spaeny, in general. Ultimately, I land on Fortson. Not only is her performance astounding, but it’s also in a movie I love so much. I hope we keep seeing more and more of her.
Previous Winners: Alan Kim (Minari), Gabriel LaBelle (The Fabelmans)
Best Directorial Debut
Molly Gordon & Nick Lieberman — Theater Camp
Cord Jefferson — American Fiction
Nick Johnson & Will Merrick — Missing
Adele Lim — Joy Ride
Celine Song — Past Lives
This is a very fun group here! Interestingly, Will Merrick and Nick Johnson are previous winners at these little mock Oscars I do. However, they won for their editing work on Searching. Now, they’ve graduated to being the directors of the standalone sequel to that 2018 John Cho screenlife film. We love a story like that! Another impact directing duo comes from Theater Camp. I don’t know as much about Lieberman (though, I presume he made sizable and important contributions to the film), but Molly Gordon just had a stellar 2023 between this and The Bear. I love to see breakthrough achievements like this from filmmakers whose work I’m already familiar with loving. Adele Lim, for example, worked on Crazy Rich Asians and Raya and the Last Dragon. Cord Jefferson is an alum of the Mike Schur writing tree with The Good Place. Yet, the ultimate winner I side with here is the one who I’d never heard of before the debut film came out. Very few writing credits existed for Celine Song before Past Lives, let alone directing credits. However, not since Lady Bird has a debut feature been this self-assured, this nuanced, and this promising for an impact director with a massive future ahead of her.
Previous Winners: Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter), B.J. Novak (Vengeance)
Best Ensemble Cast
Asteroid City
Barbie
Dumb Money
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
With the Best Ensemble Cast category, I always try to ensure I am not just capitulating to the movies that get to rattle off a long list of A-list names in the credits without giving many (or any) of them anything substantive to do. Fortunately, while four of these movies do exactly that (Killers of the Flower Moon being the exception in that there is massive intentionality behind each of the casting choices, even though it also unites the two Scorsese eras, as DiCaprio meets De Niro), they are also helmed by directors who find substance for even the cameo roles that occupy minimal screen time. Wes Anderson, Greta Gerwig, Christopher Nolan, and Craig Gillespie all have the clout to recruit stars and character actors alike to play in their sandboxes, but they also refuse to let anyone be neglected along the way. As always, I try to pick the winner here as the one that balances actors I like with performances that make the movie what it is. For that reason, I just have to go with Oppenheimer. It was between Barbie and Oppenheimer for me (wasn’t everything this year?), but I think Barbie is just slightly more of the Robbie-Gosling show than Oppenheimer is the Murphy show. I mean, as I was making my Best Supporting Actor long list, I included Matt Damon, Robert Downey, Jr., Josh Peck, David Krumholtz, Alden Ehrenreich, and on and on and on. I loved Nolan’s casting strategy with the film and every single performer delivered — even if, sadly, the leading women (Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh) don’t have as much to relish with as their counterparts. Still, Oppenheimer had the deepest, most impactful bench of any movie this year.
Previous Winners: The French Dispatch, The Fabelmans
Best Acting in a Cameo Role
Casey Affleck as Boris Pash — Oppenheimer
Tom Brady as Himself — 80 for Brady
Bradley Cooper as Marlamin — Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Daniel Dae Kim as Dae Han — Joy Ride
Margot Robbie as The Actress — Asteroid City
Ah, yes, the cameo category where I can find room for people who would never win real Oscars, but can dabble in a little bit of false ceremony in Dave’s world. I mean, come on. Tom Brady? Terrible actor! But it’s a great performance and I get to relive the Patriots — Falcons Super Bowl and, oh yeah, he also brought Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, and Danny Amendola to the party for 80 for Brady. Similarly, Bradley Cooper is also a delightful cameo in Dungeons & Dragons and one that was just truly surprising and unexpected; I still don’t even fully understand why he appeared in the movie, but c’est la vie. Ultimately, people and performances like those are fun to nominate, but I cannot actually get all the way there with giving them the win. Robbie, Kim, and Affleck are just giving more nuanced performances here. Affleck is oozing something deeply sinister and evil that completely reorients the tone of Oppenheimer. Similarly, Kim transforms Joy Ride from a raunchy romp into a heartfelt treatise on identity and found family. Yet, at the end, I land on Robbie. Responsible for anchoring one of the best, most emotional scenes in the entire Wes Anderson oeuvre, Margot Robbie lands a sensational, unforgettable moment from a very small appearance in a sea of movie stars with much more to do in Asteroid City. She is just a remarkable actor and is responsible for helping Asteroid City land gorgeously. It’s the prime example for how powerful a cameo can be.
Previous Winners: Tobey Maguire (Spider-Man: No Way Home), Val Kilmer (Top Gun: Maverick)
Best Acting in a Voice-Over or Motion Capture Role
Bradley Cooper as Rocket Raccoon — Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3
Charlie Day as Luigi — The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Will Ferrell as Reggie — Strays
Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker — Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy — Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
If this happened at the real Oscars, Bradley Cooper would be upset, I feel. The man has taken on the Anne Hathaway lineage of clearly desiring an Oscar and falling short in his endeavors to win one. Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, A Star Is Born. None of these have gotten him there. It doesn’t seem like Maestro will either. And it won’t be doing so at my Oscars either. Instead, he is nominated for Dungeons & Dragons and Guardians of the Galaxy. Them’s the breaks, Brad! You’re too good as Rocket! In addition to him, I’m a big fan of the other four nominees here. Across the Spider-Verse sometimes teetered into territory where it seemed like it was Gwen Stacy’s movie. Courtesy of Hailee Steinfeld’s astounding vocal work, of course. However, I’m giving the win to Jake Johnson’s also astounding vocal work in the movie. Some may consider it to be a make-up Oscar for Johnson (I awarded Josh Brolin as Thanos here in 2018), but it’s not. He is exactly as revelatory here as he was in Into the Spider-Verse. That Peter B. Parker portrayal is absolutely on my Mount Rushmore of Spider-Man performances and it is all Jake Johnson. Charlie Day is perfect Luigi casting and Will Ferrell has hilarious inflections in Strays, but Johnson is one of our most underrated actors and I’m excited to give him his due here.
Previous Winners: Josh Brolin (Avengers: Infinity War), Tom Hanks (Toy Story 4), Jamie Foxx (Soul), Stephanie Beatriz (Encanto), Jenny Slate (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On)
Best Visual Effects
Stephane Ceretti — Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3
Simone Coco & Charley Henley — Napoleon
Janelle Croshaw Ralla & Jonathan Rothbart — John Wick: Chapter 4
Ben Snow — Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Alex Wuttke — Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning
Not all of the best visual effects occur on computers. Sometimes, old-fashioned filmmaking still counts as immaculate visual work for movies! Now, I know computers aided all of the above-mentioned movies. Very few films go through the entire production process without a little bit of an assist from the CGI realm (even if it’s minimal or invisible). Obviously, though, there is more CGI work in something like Guardians of the Galaxy than in something like John Wick. The former is built and rests upon almost entirely digital worlds and realms. The latter is more based on tactile, practical, hand-to-hand combat. Stunt driving and carefully timed practical effects are just as important as CGI, though. Conclusively, I end up choosing the seventh Mission: Impossible film as the winner here because it just blends both so well. It utilizes CGI and digital technology when it has to, but also hearkens back to the franchise’s origins with real-world stunt performances and balletic, choreographed set pieces around the performers. Those Dead Reckoning visuals covered the entire gamut of what action-packed spy thrillers can achieve and, drawing from this, what movies can achieve.
Previous Winners: Christopher Lawrence (Christopher Robin), Dan DeLeeuw (Avengers: Endgame), Jonathan Dearing (The Invisible Man), Nicholas Bateman (The Green Knight), Joe Letteri (Avatar: The Way of Water)
Best Film Editing
Kirk Baxter — Dumb Money
William Goldenberg — Air
Nick Houy — Barbie
Austin Keeling & Arielle Zakowski — Missing
Jennifer Lame — Oppenheimer
The editing accomplished in this category covers such a wide range of purpose. Air feels like an old-fashioned kind of editing that is efficient and effective for what the movie needs — the kind of editing you can imagine lending itself very well to the movie airing on TNT during a cloudy Saturday evening, so you can dip in and out of commercial breaks without ever losing the thread of the film, you know? Barbie is edited in a fashion similar to the punchiest, most high-octane film comedies. Oppenheimer manages to balance concurrent storylines while also holding numerous emotional and thematic arcs across the film without losing the audience in the messiness that could have resulted without the refinery at work every step of the way behind the scenes. Missing continues the incredible, award-winning screenlife editing that propelled Searching to victory here years ago (I still don’t know how they do it so well and so seamlessly). Yet, it’s Dumb Money that seems to blend all of those features and do it so deftly as to elevate the movie than it might otherwise have been. It captures a ton of recent, real-world stories and edits them with both panache and pizzazz, while also embedding the audience in the story as if we are one of the characters. In 2021, we kind of were and it’s a credit to Dumb Money’s careful cutting that the film holds up as well as it does.
Previous Winners: Nick Johnson & Will Merrick (Searching), Monica Salazar (Honey Boy), Matthew Friedman (Palm Springs), Joshua Pearson (Summer of Soul), Paul Rogers (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Best Costume Design
Milena Canonero — Asteroid City
Jacqueline Durran — Barbie
Lindy Hemming — Wonka
Judianna Makovsky — Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3
Jacqueline West — Killers of the Flower Moon
See what I mean about balance? It took us this long to have our first repeat winner! Some may have dismissed the Barbie costume work as being merely derivative of the costumes that were already designed for a line of toys and dolls. However, while there is plenty in Barbie that iterative, there is nothing that is merely commercial. Greta Gerwig mined the annals of Barbie history and Barbie lore to bring what makes the dolls both iconic and consistent to life, while also allowing for plenty of space for Jacqueline Durran to invoke the aesthetic and overall tone of the film through what the characters are wearing (and even mirroring the characters’ journeys in their attire, too). Not to mention, even the mere set photos sparked an entire Barbie-core trend in the fashion world when it came to bright colors, bold patterns, and the utmost confidence of styling yourself like a doll who lives for that kind of thing would. I can’t pretend like my wardrobe wasn’t forever changed by Barbie, too. No matter how many Chalamets you dress up like Gonzo in The Muppet Christmas Carol, you cannot deny an impact like Barbie’s costuming had.
Previous Winners: Sandy Powell (Mary Poppins Returns), Noma Moriceau (Aladdin), Phoenix Mellow (Sylvie’s Love), Paul Tazewell (West Side Story), Jenny Eagan (Glass Onion)
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Alexei Dmitriew & Cassie Russek — Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3
Cliona Furey — Priscilla
Ivana Primorac — Barbie
Nadia Stacey — Poor Things
Wakana Yoshihara — A Haunting in Venice
Over 22,500 prosthetics comprised the makeup and hairstyling world of Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3. Now, I never try to decide my winners in these categories based on which movie did the most in the respective monikers, but that’s an undeniable new record, no? And besides, it’s not like it did the most, but they were all kind of shoddy. They were impressively achieved throughout what might be considered the last great stand of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In addition to crafting brand new worlds and galaxies, Cassie Russek, Alexei Dmitriew, and their team went to supreme lengths to fill and build those worlds with as many original creatures and aliens as possible. The Guardians have always occupied their own little corner of the MCU and the work done in both of these forays helped develop and flesh it out a little more before James Gunn’s tenure in it came to a close. Blending the uncanny with the creative, the prosthetics at play here helped show that Marvel is still capable of great craft when they put the effort into it.
Previous Winners: Kimberly Kimble (A Wrinkle in Time), Frida Aradottir (Little Women), Anna Cash (Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga), Matteo Silvi & Lca Vannella (The Last Duel), Shane Thomas (Elvis)
Best Cinematography
Mátyás Erdély — The Iron Claw
Rodrigo Prieto — Barbie
Rodrigo Prieto — Killers of the Flower Moon
Brett Turnbull — Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour
Hoyte van Hoytema — Oppenheimer
The double nom! Best Cinematography was a challenging one to narrow down. I got the options down to seven, but ultimately had to cut John Wick: Chapter 4 and Asteroid City. I loved the camerawork and shot composition of both of those films, but they just couldn’t quite edge their way in here. Not when you have Barbie channeling Terrence Malick on a park bench or Oppenheimer taking black-and-white depictions (nearly) to the billion dollar club. Or when an emotionally fraught Zac Efron-as-Kevin Von Erich launches himself across a wrestling ring for an agonizing amount of impact and time. Or when cameras whirl around the world’s greatest living performer as she delivers The Eras Tour to hundreds of millions of enthralled Swifties. Or when two people — immortalized disaparately to the darkness of American history — unalike in ignorance, anguish, and the embodiment of evil, find each other in a field, proclaim their love, and feel it hollow itself out between them. From the opening of Flower Moon to its sobering close, double nominee of versatility Rodrigo Prieto’s lensing serves this epic drama with a remarkable vision for the colossal grandiosity of the story and its innate reverence. Killers of the Flower Moon was the longest movie I saw this year and yet, it moved with a crispness of pacing and a breathtaking element of majestic moviemaking. It was the most astonishing cinematography I saw this year.
Previous Winners: Alfonso Cuarón (Roma), Yorick Le Saux (Little Women), Ethan Palmer (Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions), Bruno Delbonnel (The Tragedy of Macbeth), Janusz Kamiński (The Fabelmans)
Best Production Design
Jack Fisk — Killers of the Flower Moon
Sarah Greenwood — Barbie
Shona Heath & James Price — Poor Things
Adam Stockhausen — Asteroid City
Adam Stockhausen — Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
The double double nom! Production Design is a filmmaking element composed of so many different choices. The set decorations, the prop implementation, the backdrops and paintings, the small details that the camera zeroes in on and the ones it leaves out of the foreground, contenting them to be nuggets for devoted physical media purchasers to savor and uncover. All of these decisions and creations make up a consistently underrated, but perpetually rewarding category at the Oscars; it’s certainly one of my favorites. Each of the five nominees [and four of the ones that were reluctantly cut: Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (stop motion!), Anyone But You, The Holdovers, Dumb Money] has their own specific claim for the belt here. When I watched Killers of the Flower Moon, I did not feel like I was in a movie theater. Rather, I felt so immersed, as if I had been transported back to 1920s Oklahoma. When I watched Poor Things, I let out multiple gasps at the pure enormity of the hyper-realized, Jules Verne-esque versions of Bizarro Europe. And, of course, treasure-hunting, swashbuckling adventure movies about archaeologists and history lovers always have quiet, lived-in production design. Dial of Destiny was no exception, as it filled out the worlds of Indiana Jones well, complementing both his sense of adventure and his bookish demeanor (my favorite design might just be that patriotic layout for the streets of New York on the Fourth of July). Yet, this came down to a duel between Asteroid City and Barbie. Now, I’m always going to cherish Wes Anderson’s manicured sets, but this has to go to Barbie. From the moment that Vogue video with Gerwig, Robbie, and Sarah Greenwood dropped, I was enamored with the stylings of the Barbie world. Even that brief glimpse of Ken at sea in the initial teaser trailer was enough to send me into a tizzy. For a long time, I felt that the 1962 To Kill a Mockingbird had the best production design I’d ever seen in a movie. Barbie changed that. It’s an all-timer.
Previous Winners: John Myhre (Mary Poppins Returns), Barbara Ling (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Jason Kisvarday (Palm Springs), Adam Stockhausen (The French Dispatch), Roger Ford (Three Thousand Years of Longing)
Best Sound Design
David Acord — Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3
Richard King — Oppenheimer
Ren Klyce — The Killer
Geoffrey G. Rubay & Michael Semanick — Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Mark Stoeckinger — John Wick: Chapter 4
Best Sound Design, man, I feel like it kind of has to be Oppenheimer here. It is a movie that was literally built around its sound design and around ratcheting up the four-dimensional potential for movies to be as throttling as a wind tunnel or a jet stream can be. IMAX theaters were selling out because people demanded to experience the Oppenheimer effect in the manners designed and planned for by Christopher Nolan. He wanted an immersive, full-tilt experience to have audiences blown away by high-octane character drama and by what is hopefully the closest any of us will ever come to a nuclear detonation. The beauty of Oppenheimer, however, is that both measures were of equal significance to Nolan, who has often been criticized (including by me) for caring more about the bombast than anything richer. In Oppenheimer, the sound is the point and the bombast is the richness.
Previous Winners: Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn (A Quiet Place), Warren Shaw (Uncut Gems), Craig Jackson (Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga), Paul Hsu (Tick, Tick, Boom!), Al Nelson (Top Gun: Maverick)
Best Original Score
Alexandre Desplat — Asteroid City
Ludwig Göransson — Oppenheimer
Daniel Pemberton — Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Robbie Robertson — Killers of the Flower Moon
John Williams — Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
This year, a lot of the scores felt like the meme about the Dune score from 2021. Like, if I had to transcribe the onomatopoeia, it would be something akin to, “BWAAAMPPPPPP.” Just over and over again. This really loud and braying noise that somehow kind of fits the movie, you know? Regardless, I’m not going with any of the scores like that. My winner here is Asteroid City because Alexandre Desplat’s score for Wes’ latest is the only one of the five that I actually took to the next level and added to my regular rotation. I just love the little tinkling that sounds so evocative of a larger universe with grand ideas we can only begin to untangle together as a species. That’s what Asteroid City’s instrumentation sounds like to me. Don’t get me wrong, though. All of these scores are highly fitting for their subject matter and I am certainly elated that John Williams is apparently just in a perpetual state of lying about whether or not he’s retiring. It’s just the Asteroid City music that sticks with me the most. Now, if only we could’ve heard Desplat’s plans for the Barbie score before Mark Ronson took over.
Previous Winners: Marc Shaiman (Mary Poppins Returns), Alan Silvestri (Avengers: Endgame), Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor, & Atticus Ross (Soul), Emile Mosseri (Minari), Justin Hurwitz (Babylon)
Best Original Song
“Dance the Night” by Caroline Ailin, Dua Lipa, Mark Ronson, & Andrew Wyatt — Barbie
“Wings of Time” by Nick Allbrook, Kevin Parker, & Tame Impala — Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
“Meet in the Middle” by Robert John Ardiff, John Carney, Gary Clark, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, & Eve Hewson — Flora and Son
“For a Moment” by Neil Hannon — Wonka
“I’m Just Ken” by Mark Ronson & Andrew Wyatt — Barbie
I mean, I did enjoy Ronson’s score for Barbie, but as you can see, it was clearly more of a soundtrack movie. An original soundtrack, though! We always love those curated bangers. Realistically, I could’ve had Barbie filling this category on its own. “What Was I Made For?,” “Pink,” “Angel,” and “Speed Drive” all made my long list. I wanted to spread the wealth, though, so I eventually settled on my two favorites. We’ve spent the most time with “Dance the Night,” considering Dua Lipa’s original string production could be heard in the first teaser (we just didn’t realize it at the time), but “I’m Just Ken” is in another stratosphere. When we remember the original songs that rounded out movies in 2023, Ryan Gosling’s Technicolor dazzler will be the one that comes to mind first. Considering I also love it as a song that stands on its own even without the entire movie around it (this definitely enhances the anthem, though), it is the right pick to continue the history of this storied category. My only regret is that I couldn’t find room for Wish anywhere. I wasn’t crazy about Wish as a movie, but I loved its music. Especially “Welcome to Rosas”! Ah, well. The other three were just more special to me. John Carney always delivers a memorable original song, Tame Impala’s end credits music for Dungeons & Dragons goes so unexpectedly hard that it elevated the quality of the entire film for me, and Wonka was filled with as many contenders as Barbie was (but this is the only one that mentions apple strudel). Yet, it was Barbie’s to lose for a long while in the second half of this year.
Previous Winners: “All the Stars” by Kendrick Lamar (Black Panther), “Some Things Never Change” by Kristen Anderson-Lopez & Robert Lopez (Frozen II), “Húsavík (My Hometown)” by Fat Max Gsus, Rickard Göransson, and Savan Kotecha (Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga), “Edgar’s Prayer” by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig (Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar), “Good Afternoon” by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul (Spirited)
Best Documentary
Being Mary Tyler Moore — Warner Brothers
Hot Potato — Amazon
Love to Love You, Donna Summer — Warner Brothers
Stephen Curry: Underrated — Apple
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour — AMC
This was kind of a weak year for documentaries, I felt. Maybe I was not looking in the right places, but the only ones I really spent the time checking out were celebrity-driven and largely revolving around archival footage. I wasn’t even that crazy about the Donna Summer doc, to be honest; I just like her music. That being said, even though the real Academy eschewed the starry documentary features, I had a good time with them. Being Mary Tyler Moore was a very well-crafted tribute to a television legend who is no longer with us. Hot Potato was a surprisingly tender recounting of a children’s band that is still with us, but the original members have largely moved on into the next phase of their lives. Stephen Curry: Underrated provided inside access to an NBA legend who is still seemingly in his prime (he has the most made threes of the season so far!), but subverted viewers’ expectations by chronicling his Davidson days far more extensively than his Golden State career. Obviously, though, if Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour was nominated for Best Picture, it’s going to be the big winner here. I don’t know what could’ve filled the fifth slot before Taylor announced that her concert documentary was ready far sooner than most expected. I know it’s super commercial, since it is the highest grossing concert doc ever, but I love Taylor so much that revisiting the performance was like being in a cathedral. Couldn’t look past it; this was euphoric.
Previous Winners: Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (Focus), Chasing Happiness (Amazon), Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (Disney), Summer of Soul (Searchlight), Lucy and Desi (Amazon)
Best Animated Feature Film
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget — Aardman
Elemental — Pixar
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse — Sony
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem — Paramount
Wish — Disney
Pretty solid lineup here, even if none of the entrants are in my all-time pantheon of animation. That’s a high bar, though, and not every year is going to have something like that (though, I think Beyond the Spider-Verse has the potential). And that’s okay because we have a wide array of animated options to enjoy here, without even making the room for the long-awaited Super Mario Bros. movie, which had its moments, but could have been so much more. Similarly, I had a ton of anticipation and hype for Wish, Elemental, and Chicken Run. Wish was the commemorative film for the one hundredth anniversary of Disney, a studio I obviously enjoy quite a bit. However, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed with the middling outcome. I felt the same for Elemental, which excited me as a potential way for Pixar to return to their imaginative, abstract storytelling methods, but ultimately failed to reach its studio’s own history of lofty heights. And, as for Chicken Run, I felt it was a solidly worthy sequel, but it’s hard to recapture that same magic of the original — especially almost a quarter of a century later. Conversely, Mutant Mayhem was a welcome surprise (it’s the first Ninja Turtles story I’ve ever seen!) and Across the Spider-Verse cleared the expectations I attached to it. It took me a bit to come around on Into the Spider-Verse, but once it unlocked for me, this sequel has been one of the movies I’ve most looked forward to. Complete with breathtaking strokes of animation genius and some of the best vocal work in any movie ever, it’s a worthy winner of this category. We’ll have to see if it can go three-for-three whenever Beyond comes out.
Previous Winners: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Sony), Toy Story 4 (Pixar), Soul (Pixar), Encanto (Disney), Turning Red (Pixar)
Best Adapted Screenplay
Kelly Fremon Craig — Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach — Barbie
Matt Johnson & Matthew Miller — BlackBerry
Christopher Nolan — Oppenheimer
Eric Roth & Martin Scorsese — Killers of the Flower Moon
On paper, most of these make sense. A sensible adaptation of one of the most seminal novels of the twentieth century. Focused translations of unwieldy books that immortalize some of the most unheralded, but unabashedly vital moments in recent history. A Social Network-esque depiction of the first cell phone to truly change the world. These adaptations are innately understood by all why studio executives would be approving the screenplays turned in by the auteurs who penned them. Barbie, however, does not make sense. A toy that has been detested in the past by misogynists and feminists alike, spawned a series of straight-to-DVD movies beloved only by those who grew up watching them in solitude, and was most recently turned into a joke by Pixar does not seem like an obvious choice to make a movie about. It seems even less obvious when you learn that Mattel wants to start a cinematic universe with Barbie at the helm and originally considered Amy Schumer to be the one to do it. And then it seems downright impossible when you learn they gave the keys to Mumblecore darlings Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach and basically gave them carte blanche to turn the doll into a treatise on modern-day consumerism and misplaced empathy, as well as an extension of themes developed via Lady Bird and Little Women. The degree of difficulty here was insane, but Gerwig and Baumbach’s work on the story’s foundation transformed what could have been the latest IP effort (like the Dark Universe) into a movie equally worthy of being the highest grossing film of the year, a Best Picture nominee, and my personal favorite. That is wild. But, honestly, it probably wins here even if it only has that killer last line.
Previous Winners: David Lowery (The Old Man and the Gun), Greta Gerwig (Little Women), Kemp Powers (One Night in Miami), Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, & Nicole Holofcener (The Last Duel), Rian Johnson (Glass Onion)
Best Original Screenplay
Wes Anderson — Asteroid City
Alex Convery — Air
David Hemingson — The Holdovers
Nicole Holofcener — You Hurt My Feelings
Celine Song — Past Lives
With all those heavyweights in the Adapted Screenplay, you’d think Original Screenplay would be an easy time, right? Nope! Instead, it is filled with five screenplays that all could have been maudlin, but were instead moving journeys through human emotion and experience with tender perspectives and the occasional stroke of flair. What is better than processing complicated feelings through conceptual storytelling and relatable characters in unrelatable circumstances? I mean, I’ve never been studied by NASA. I’ve never moved across the globe. I’ve never bet my career on a college athlete. I’ve never been to boarding school. I’ve never been middle-aged! Yet, these are just the log lines of the screenplays mentioned above. This is not what they’re about. Rather, they’re about how to continue in life when you realize the life you loved is gone forever. They’re about the ache of being unable to live a dozen lives at once. They’re about finding the right people to see you down a path of living up to your highest potential. About finding human connections in even the most impossible situations and about how to communicate more openly in a relationship that feels like its trust has grown shaky. The best screenplays will always reveal themselves more deeply the more they stay with us. Regarding this, none has stayed with me as much as Asteroid City.
- “In my loneliness, or perhaps because of it, I learned not to judge people. To take people as I find them, not as others find them. And most of all, to give complete and unquestioning faith to the people I love.”
- “He’s furious.”
- “I never had children, but sometimes I wonder if I wish I should have.”
- “Don’t try to understand it. Just keep telling the story.”
- “‘I’m not coming back, Augie.’ Then, you take a picture and start crying, and I say, ‘I hope it comes out.’”
- “Except now there’s an alien.”
- “I’m a widower, but don’t tell my kids.”
These all come from Asteroid City and they’re only seven of many lines of dialogue I’ve not forgotten since seeing the film. And with a story as quality as the dialogue, Asteroid City is the only choice here.
Previous Winners: Drew Goddard (Bad Times at the El Royale), Rian Johnson (Knives Out), Aaron Sorkin (The Trial of the Chicago 7), Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig (Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar), Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Best Supporting Actor
Robert Downey, Jr. as Lewis Strauss — Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling as Ken — Barbie
Tom Hanks as Stanley Zak — Asteroid City
Glenn Howerton as Jim Balsillie — BlackBerry
Mark Ruffalo as Duncan Wedderburn — Poor Things
Look, we don’t need to skim the headline here. It’s clear and it’s been clear for sometime now. The Gosling coronation has arrived. In my big Oscars spreadsheet, I have nominated Gosling eight times (The Notebook, Half Nelson, Crazy Stupid Love, The Big Short, La La Land, The Nice Guys, Blade Runner 2049, First Man) and he has never won (eight!). That is not because he wasn’t deserving, mind you. Rather, it’s because he just always ran up against stiff competition. Sometimes, it’s just how the years shake out. This year, he has some staunch competitors. Hanks is reliably great in his first Wes Anderson role and Downey, Howerton, and Ruffalo are each doing some of the best work of their careers. But this is so much Gosling’s victory that it has not been debated in my mind once. It hasn’t even really been debated since I saw the trailer for Barbie and he spoke to the doctor about needing a “clicky pen.” Whether he’s channeling his former Mickey Mouse Club self or the Kenergy of a doll face down in the mud or Gene Kelly or his own inner ecstasy, he is a beast never before seen in the cinematic landscape. Expert comedic timing, uproarious line deliveries, and an altogether committed performance the likes of which have been unseen since, well, Gosling in The Nice Guys. His performance as Ken is just otherworldly and one of the best to ever grace the big screen. We were all so blessed to have our lives changed forever by what he’s doing in this movie.
Previous Winners: Tim Blake Nelson (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Leslie Odom, Jr. (One Night in Miami), Ben Affleck (The Last Duel), Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Best Supporting Actress
America Ferrera as Gloria — Barbie
Lily Gladstone as Mollie Burkhart — Killers of the Flower Moon
Stephanie Hsu as Kat Huang — Joy Ride
Rachel McAdams as Barbara Simon — Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Mary Lamb — The Holdovers
Lily Gladstone’s performance in Killers of the Flower Moon couldn’t be much more different than Ryan Gosling’s in Barbie, but both share a crucial element: you never wanted to look away from them when they were on the screen. In Gladstone’s case that is even more remarkable, considering she was often sharing the screen with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, two of the all-time titans of movies. But she does! She holds her own against both of them and not that it needed to be viewed through a competitive lens, but it requires such a specific gravitas and emotional heft to be able to be the best part of these scenes. There is so much weight behind even just the smallest of glances she gives in Flower Moon and the only real debate in my mind for her was whether or not she should actually be considered the lead of the film. Ultimately, the truth of history relegates Lily Gladstone to the bedroom for much of the film’s third act. Yet, she is just as much of a powerhouse there, too. Between this and her appearance on Reservation Dogs, this feels like an ultimate “she has arrived” moment for Gladstone, but it is also completely deserving. I just keep thinking back to that scene she shares with DiCaprio in what is basically one of their first “dates.” There is such a presence and such a command of the moment from Gladstone and she makes the movie fully her own right there. It’s a phenomenal turn and one of the best performances I’ve ever seen in a Scorsese film.
Previous Winners: Claire Foy (First Man), Ana de Armas (Knives Out), Saoirse Ronan (Ammonite), Jodie Comer (The Last Duel), Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart — Killers of the Flower Moon
Zac Efron as Kevin Von Erich — The Iron Claw
Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer — Oppenheimer
Jason Schwartzman as Augie Steenbeck — Asteroid City
Lakeith Stanfield as Ben Matthias — Haunted Mansion
Last year, I felt like I had so much overlap with the real Oscars (which is fine!). This year, though, I feel like the Best Actor category is the best evidence to gesture towards to suggest the opposite has happened. Yes, Cillian Murphy appears at both ceremonies (his role of J. Robert Oppenheimer is just so undeniable), but that’s where the Venn diagram narrows. Leonardo DiCaprio had a shot, but it seems like Colman Domingo slid into that fifth position. There was a little bit of Zac Efron chatter that died very quickly after the SAG nominations were announced. The Jason Schwartzman plane never left the runway and I’m pretty sure the Lakeith Stanfield plane was decomissioned by Boeing. But I really like this group of five! Murphy, like I said, is just the whole fulcrum of that movie. As for DiCaprio, it’s kind of hard to articulate what exactly makes his Flower Moon performance aces, but it seems to start with the acknowledgement that he’s reaching for new levels of thespian prowess that even he has yet to uncover. I think the same is true of Efron, but he’s obviously much greener on the path than DiCaprio. Yet, Efron has also been searching for a weighty part like this for a while and now that one has finally come due, I’m glad that he rose to the occasion for it. Hopefully, we’ll keep seeing more challenging and provocative work from him. And that’s right, bitches, I’m nominating Stanfield! What about it? He’s the best part of Haunted Mansion and I wish the whole movie was as high-caliber as he is in it. Truly, I walked out of the theater and couldn’t talk about anything before I talked about how great he was. At the end of it all, though, this is as much a Schwartzman coronation as Supporting Actor was a Gosling one. I’ve nominated him three times before (Rushmore, Shopgirl, and Saving Mr. Banks), but did anyone have as good a year as he did in 2023? Spider-Verse, Quiz Lady, Hunger Games, I Think You Should Leave, Fargo, Scott Pilgrim — he knocked all of these clear out of the park without even bringing Shakespeare into it. Yet, Asteroid City was fully Schwartzman’s. It’s his first time as a lead in a Wes Anderson since 2007’s The Darjeeling Limited and I just love how he maintained the throughline with his creative partnership to properly track the growth of his persona from the youthful precociousness of Rushmore to the weathered, grief-stricken uncertainty of the middle ages in Asteroid City. He is just so affecting and anchoring throughout the whole movie. Schwartzman has always been a favorite of mine and I just loved this showcase he earned and delivered upon.
Previous Winners: Robert Redford (The Old Man and the Gun), Adam Sandler (Uncut Gems), Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), Andrew Garfield (Tick, Tick, Boom!), Austin Butler (Elvis)
Best Actress
Scarlett Johansson as Midge Campbell — Asteroid City
Jennifer Lawrence as Maddie Barker — No Hard Feelings
Greta Lee as Nora Moon — Past Lives
Margot Robbie as Barbie — Barbie
Emma Stone as Bella Baxter — Poor Things
I know everyone lost their minds when Barbie was snubbed for Best Actress and Best Director (more on that in the next category) and I was similarly rolling my eyes at the Academy’s bizarre distaste for celebrating Greta Gerwig’s sustained success, but it’s all good. It’s all made up anyway. That being said, I won’t be making the same mistakes. Not only am I nominated Margot Robbie, but I am also awarding her with the win (her first after four other nominations — The Wolf of Wall Street, I, Tonya, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Babylon) because what she does in Barbie is so difficult and it doesn’t seem difficult because she is so good at it that it seems effortless. Johansson, Lee, Lawrence, Stone — all moving and funny and absorbing in their own ways. But Robbie is all of them and she is also all of her cohorts and her collaborators and all of us, yearning and wishing for deeper meaning and belonging and equity in a world that has promised us none of it. I refuse to even qualify what role she is playing because it does not matter. Robbie stretches for humanity and, along the way, found eternity. It’s a hysterical performance as the leading Barbie of Barbie, but it is also so life-affirming and life-changing if you find it within you to open your heart to it. Thank goodness Robbie did.
Previous Winners: Emily Blunt (Mary Poppins Returns), Saoirse Ronan (Little Women), Elisabeth Moss (The Invisible Man), Rachel Zegler (West Side Story), Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Best Director
Wes Anderson — Asteroid City
Greta Gerwig — Barbie
Paul King — Wonka
Christopher Nolan — Oppenheimer
Martin Scorsese — Killers of the Flower Moon
The last spot here came down to Christopher Nolan and David Fincher, for me. How lucky we were to have so many of our great filmmakers return for some of their career best work in 2023. How lucky we were to have so many to choose from! Ultimately, I sided with Nolan for that fifth spot because I just felt that Oppenheimer was such an incontrovertible achievement and it felt like I’d regret it if I ignored that. I really admired Oppenheimer and I think it’s absolutely some of the best work Nolan’s ever done. It just so happens that the same is true of Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, an enveloping distillation of the director’s ethos. And Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, the most scathing indictment yet of the seedy, evil hull that represents the American foundation. And Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, a thrumming reminder to the world about femininity, masculinity, and the place in between where humans can find humanity and be their best selves. And Paul King’s Wonka, a breathing, charming storybook that continues his mission of restoring manners to a world that has turned its back on civility. None of these movies are the movies they are without the directors helming them. Can we say none of them would work? Perhaps not. It’s impossible to say who could do what with a story. Maybe Gerwig would deliver a lovely Wonka. Maybe Paul King would find a way to turn Oppenheimer into something quaintly British. But regardless of what could have happened, we got to see what did happen from five people with singular visions that delivered what we may one day look back on as the start of a new era at the movies. Anyway, it’s Gerwig. After Barbie, she has become my favorite director to look forward to new movies from because I always feel myself irrevocably changed by what I’ve been lucky enough to see. I would say that I think she might save us all, but perhaps she already has.
Previous Winners: David Lowery (The Old Man and the Gun), Greta Gerwig (Little Women), Pete Docter & Kemp Powers (Soul), Joel Coen (The Tragedy of Macbeth), Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
The Robert Redford Award for Lifetime Achievement
Martin Scorsese
Trying to work your way through Martin Scorsese’s résumé and condense it all is like trying to do the same for Tom Brady. Eventually, you find yourself twenty bullet points deep and the accomplishments in that range would be anyone else’s crowning achievement of an entire career. Scorsese is simply that known and refined. As one of the all-time stalwarts of cinema, Martin Scorsese is one of those directors who could win lifetime achievement awards every year at every ceremony and the populace would nod with appreciation and understand that it is deserving. He is vastly more titanic than this little website, but it only feels right to commemorate him here, as well.
Many have said that Scorsese, in his now fifty-seven year long career, has a unique (except maybe only to Steven Spielberg) ability to produce at least one all-time classic in each decade. In the 1970s, this would be Taxi Driver. In the 1980s, it’s Raging Bull. In the 1990s, it’s Goodfellas. In the 2000s, it’s The Departed. The 2010s has The Wolf of Wall Street and the 2020s now has Killers of the Flower Moon. It’s well-observed, but also neglects a robust filmography of twenty-six narrative features and sixteen documentaries. Beginning in 1967 with Who’s That Knocking at My Door, Scorsese’s career has wound and developed in ways I’d never be able to justifiably articulate in a hypothetial Oscars notepad post. But it’s a career as defined by its variance as it is by its towering importance. When he had the audacity to share that he wasn’t a big Marvel fan, the Internet’s dumbest alleged cinephiles had the audacity to declare that Scorsese’s oeuvre was one-note. Yet, how can one compare tender intimacy of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore to the romantic musicality of New York, New York? Or the horrifying tension of Cape Fear to the family friendly whimsy of Hugo? Anxiety can take different forms from After Hours to The Aviator. Muses can develop from The Color of Money to Gangs of New York. Religion can be prodded, but never solved in The Last Temptation of Christ and Silence. And that’s without even touching upon Mean Streets, Casino, and The Irishman, all legendary in their respective canons.
As a filmmaker, Scorsese will be forever unmatched. Yes, other directors have maintained consistency (if not outright improvement) into their older ages, but only Scorsese has done so while simultaneously deciphering the moral obfuscation that comes from being beholden to the tortured history of the United States. He has chronicled this country from its early immigration to its unsavory double downs and he has done so with the artistic vision that is so singularly ascribed to the career he has sought and built and brandished admirably for himself. From his robust and provocative filmography to his commitment to preserving world cinema for generations to come, there may not be anyone more deserving of a lifetime achievement award than Martin Scorsese and the time is now, in the wake of another opus, to commemorate him eternally.
In my all-time list, Martin Scorsese has received thirteen Best Director nominations, the second most of any director. These were for Mean Streets, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Taxi Driver, New York, New York, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Color of Money, Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Killers of the Flower Moon. He has won three Best Director awards, also the second most, for Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, and The Departed.
Previous Winners: Robert Redford, Richard Curtis, Chadwick Boseman, Emma Watson & Ridley Scott, Emma Thompson & John Williams
Best Scene
The Sydney Harbor — Anyone But You
The Alleyway Balconies — Asteroid City
“I’m Just Ken” — Barbie
The Airport — Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning
“For a Moment” — Wonka
This was a great year for scenes! I mean, Aunty Donna voiced a bunch of dead corpses in Dungeons & Dragons and James Gunn made the tracking shot cool again in Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, but neither are even nominated here! I mean, how could they be when Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell were singing “Unwritten” to each other while a helicopter pulled them out of the Sydney Harbor? That’s just what the movies are all about, folks. That’s why we do what we do! I feel like I always end up coming back to musical moments in this category. Yes, the scene on the balconies between Jason Schwartzman and Margot Robbie was stunningly written and the scene in the airport for Dead Reckoning was plotted perfectly, but I ultimately found myself deciding between two musical numbers for the Scene of the Year honor (and that’s after even deciding between four Barbie moments!). The “For a Moment” number in Wonka is when I first started thinking I was watching a masterpiece; I just adore magical realism that is earnest, heartfelt, and sweet. Yet, the “I’m Just Ken” number in Barbie is when I first started thinking that I was watching what would become one of the greatest movies ever made. I was right.
Previous Winners: Thanos Snaps (Avengers: Infinity War), Portals (Avengers: Endgame), Song-Along (Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga), “When the Sun Goes Down” (In the Heights), The Hallway (The Fabelmans)
With that, one of my favorite articles to write every year has come to an end. Hard to believe this is my sixth one of these! One day, you’ll read, like, Vol. 63 or something and then a Vol. 64 will just never arrive. But I am sure we will get great movies along the way! On that ominous note, may we all have a merry end to our awards season and I send my love to all of you and to Greta Gerwig, especially.
Most Nominations
- Barbie — 15*
- Asteroid City — 12
- Oppenheimer — 11
- Killers of the Flower Moon — 10
- Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3–6
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Wonka — 5
- Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., Poor Things — 4
- Dumb Money, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, The Holdovers, Joy Ride, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Past Lives, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour — 3
- Air, BlackBerry, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Iron Claw, John Wick: Chapter 4, Missing, No Hard Feelings, Priscilla — 2
- 80 for Brady, American Fiction, Anyone But You, Being Mary Tyler Moore, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, Elemental, Flora and Son, Haunted Mansion, A Haunting in Venice, Hot Potato, The Killer, Knock at the Cabin, Love to Love You, Donna Summer, Napoleon, Stephen Curry: Underrated, Strays, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Theater Camp, Wish, You Hurt My Feelings — 1
*indicates a tie of the record with Little Women (2019) and Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) — 15.
Most Wins
- Barbie — 9*
- Asteroid City — 4
- Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse — 2
- Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., Dumb Money, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Past Lives, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour — 1
*indicates a new record.
See also:
If I Was the Only One Who Voted for the Oscars, Vol. 1
If I Was the Only One Who Voted for the Oscars, Vol. 2
If I Was the Only One Who Voted for the Oscars, Vol. 3
