1. Blade Runner 2049
2. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
3. Kong: Skull Island
4. Dunkirk
5. War for the Planet of the Apes
Sound Editing is the literal sounds themselves, and the craft behind their creation. All the movies listed here are accomplished, but the textured nature of what Blade Runner 2049 does to your ears earns my vote.
1. Baby Driver
2. Dunkirk
3. Blade Runner 2049
4. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
5. Wonderstruck
Sound Mixing is all about audio levels and synchronizing. If you've seen the action-packed, soundtrack-indulgent wonderland that is Baby Driver, I probably don't need to explain any further.
1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
2. The Shape of Water
3. The Darkest Hour
Sure, we're just gonna dust this one off from the last Guardians that came out and was robbed of this award in 2014. Water's Fish Man looks great, and as far as fat suits go, Darkest Hour's is top notch. But I'm headed to space with this one.
1. Phantom Thread
2. Lost City of Z
3. Blade Runner 2049
4. The Beguiled
5. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Not only are Phantom Thread's costumes gorgeous and immaculate, but the whole movie would fall apart if they were any less tactile and sublime. The fabrics practically leap off the screen.
1. War for the Planet of the Apes
2. Blade Runner 2049
3. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
4. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
5. Kong: Skull Island
It feels like a retread handing this one to yet another Apes movie, especially when 2049's effects are so diverse and astounding, but War marks yet another giant leap in motion capture technology, Caesar never looking any less real than Woody Harrelson.
1. Phantom Thread
2. Dunkirk
3. Coco
4. The Shape of Water
5. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
This one is honestly close for me, as the top four entrants all have strong cases to be the winner (sorry John Williams, I guess you'll just have to be content with your shelf full of Oscars). Water truly has a lovely, romantic score, and Coco's original songs give the movie its emotional core. In any other year, they might be the picks, but I have to narrow this one down to the two compositions that most influenced the way we watched their respective films. Hans Zimmer's ticking clock of a score ratchets up tension to almost unbearable degrees, but Johnny Greenwood's Phantom Thread numbers are a massage to the ears that add to the movie's lavish nature, and get the nod because I'd actually listen to them outside of the viewing experience.
1. Blade Runner 2049
2. The Shape of Water
3. Phantom Thread
4. Dunkirk
5. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
As many shots as I like to take at The Shape of Water, its production design is truly jaw-dropping, and by far my favorite single element of the movie. That said, Blade Runner 2049 is one of the most impressively mounted futuristic epics you'll ever see, entirely too immense and atmospheric and beautiful to pass up.
1. Dunkirk
2. Baby Driver
3. Lady Bird
4. John Wick Chapter 2
5. I, Tonya
Shouts to Lady Bird, whose razor-sharp editing still hasn't gotten enough credit for propelling the film, but this one has to be a two-horse race. The action scenes in Baby Driver are kinetic and electric, but Dunkirk maintains momentum through nearly two hours while the intensity only rises. That doesn't happen unless you make the right cut just about every time out.
1. Dunkirk
2. Blade Runner 2049
3. Lost City of Z
4. Good Time
5. Columbus
Something feels wrong about not just handing Roger Deakins every prize ever, but as alluded to above, his stellar work on Blade Runner is almost difficult to untangle from the astounding production elements. A quick aside about my 3-5 picks, as none were ever even considered for Oscar: The lush jungles and shadowy hallways in Britain are more than enough to tickle the pupils in Lost City of Z, as are the hypnotizing symmetry of Columbus, and the neon-splattered madness of Good Time. But I'm going with the sheer feat of filming all of Dunkirk's war-time mania with the grandeur (and the hassle) that IMAX cameras provide. It has the literal look of a classic film.
1. Last Flag Flying
2. Lost City of Z
3. Call Me By Your Name
4. Wonder Woman
5. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (yes, I know I'm cheating)
I sneered on Oscar nomination morning when I saw the line-up of Adapted Screenplay nominees, especially the inclusion of The Disaster Artist, whose script is the main thing holding it back. Then I tried to make my own list, and... let's say I'm a little more sympathetic. This is a race between the top two (Wonder Woman would be higher if not for the entire Ares plot line), and while I enjoy the ambition and expanse of Lost City of Z, Last Flag Flying takes a tragic premise and finds a way to include humor, rage, nostalgia, and humanity. P.S. Sacred Deer is based on an ancient Greek myth. Fight me about it.
1. Get Out
2. Phantom Thread
3. Coco
4. The Square
5. Lady Bird
Never has a category been so stacked, and yet the winner so obvious. These are all tremendous feats of screen writing in such a wonderful number of different ways, but Get Out is a tight-rope act, mashing so many familiar yet oddly-fitting elements into a narrative that not only functions, but lodges itself into the brain of nearly everyone who sees it.
1. Phantom Thread
2. The Florida Project
3. Lady Bird
4. Get Out
5. Good Time
The only category I add every year because I simply can't make sense of why the Oscars wouldn't include it (notice I subtracted seven others), every movie here has tremendous performances from top to bottom. The untrained actors that constitute the bulk of The Florida Project's cast have the desired effect of making every single moment appear more like a documentary than a narrative film, but the three-headed monster of Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, and Lesley Manville simply cannot be beaten.
1. Chris Pine---Wonder Woman
2. Barry Keoghan---Killing of a Sacred Deer
3. Lawrence Fishburne---Last Flag Flying
4. Michael Stuhlbarg---Call Me By Your Name
5. Benny Safdie---Good Time
Let me be candid; the Best Supporting Actor crop from last night's ceremony was astonishingly bad. We're starting out fresh, and including Safdie's emotionally riveting portrayal of mental illness, Stuhlbarg's laid-back intellectual and his tear-jerking Oscar reel speech, and Keoghan's chilling sociopath. But Pine's work is Wonder Woman is the stuff that movie stars are made of; charming, funny, charismatic, sexy, and lovable enough to get the water works going as the film nears its conclusion. People tend to look past performances with this amount of inherent star wattage, but there are plenty of thespians who can get down and dirty with their 'craft,' and precious few who could pull this off. And yes, Fishburne is category fraud, but it's the kind Oscar commits all the time, so I'm running with it.
1. Laurie Metcalf---Lady Bird
2. Lesley Manville---Phantom Thread
3. Michelle Pfiffer---mother!
4. Betty Gabriel---Get Out
5. Catherine Keener---Get Out
Keener and Gabriel might have limited screen time compared to their combatants, but they each power a scene or two that will remain iconic for years to come. Pfiffer is just having a blast, seemingly the only one attuned to the gaudy nature of the film she's acting in. Manville is a lioness, controlling and commanding without ever raising her voice beyond a hush. But come on, this is Metcalf's award, one of the most believable and lived-in screen mothers we'll ever see, a mixture of tenderness and judgment that never fails to ring true.
1. Daniel Kaluuya---Get Out
2. Daniel Day-Lewis---Phantom Thread
3. Robert Pattinson---Good Time
4. Steve Carell---Last Flag Flying
5. Claes Bang---The Square
Bang is self-effacing and hilarious, yet maintains enough dignity to serve as our guide through his film's crazy world, while Carell's soft-spoken suffering would rather let his eyes and tone of voice lead us. Pattinson acts like he's wearing a jacket made of fire in Good Time, a rabid maniac of a performance that couldn't be better juxtaposed against Day-Lewis' exacting, ego-centric portrayal of pomp and circumstance incarnate. But similar to Pine, I can't help but be swayed by a movie star performance, Kaluuya's captivating presence and endless emotional range providing the key that unlocks Get Out.
1. Vicky Krieps---Phantom Thread
2. Haley Lu Richardson---Columbus
3. Margot Robbie---I, Tonya
4. Sally Hawkins---The Shape of Water
5. Saoirse Ronan---Lady Bird
Hawkins has always been a lively performer, and sticking her in her very own silent film showed us just home much expression she can wring out of her body and face. Robbie doesn't have to wring anything out; she's given an actor's dream of a canvas to work with, portraying a character through three+ decades of life without ever seeming false. Ronan and Richardson are playing young women at a crossroads, and carry with them all the elation and fear and desire that that entails... but what's that saying from The Wire? You come at the king, and you best not miss? Krieps goes toe-to-toe with one of the great actors of all time and doesn't even budge, a paramour at first just happy to be seen who slowly realizes all that she deserves, and just how to take it.
1. Christopher Nolan---Dunkrik
2. Sean Baker---The Florida Project
3. James Grey---Lost City of Z
4. Denis Villenuve---Blade Runner 2049
5. Jordan Peele---Get Out
Playing in a decidedly smaller sandbox than his competition, Peele crafts a classic from the ground-up, shaping images and coaxing performances that will remain in the popular imagination until the end of time. Villenuve and Grey made all-out epics, the size and scope of their offerings just as spell-binding as the grace with which they execute their visions. They create world to venture into, while Baker takes something recognizable and dingy, but puts it through a kaleidoscope where there's beauty and fun residing right next to pain and compromise (and does so while guiding some of the year's best performances from untrained actors). They're all great, but none reached the purely cinematic level of achievement that Nolan did, crafting a war epic unlike any other, and holding audiences in a vice grip from start to finish.
1. Dunkirk
2. Get Out
3. Lost City of Z
4. Blade Runner 2049
5. Phantom Thread
6. The Florida Project
7. Coco
I like Oscar's tactic of nominating anywhere between five and ten films, and only wish they would use the entirety of the scale more often. These are the seven films that affected me most deeply from last year, wether it be emotionally (Coco and The Florida Project), intellectual (Get Out and Phantom Thread) or by the sheer majesty of cinema (Lost City of Z and Blade Runner 2049). But I will never forget how bafflingly intense my first exposure to Dunkirk was, and while its thematic or personal ambitions might not be as lofty as other films listed here, it is the dictionary definition of movie magic.
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