The Oscars are almost upon us! The 98th Academy Awards ceremony is set to air on Sunday, March 15th. When I was younger, I never really knew what was going on with the Oscars. I liked pointing out the few celebrities I recognized walking the red carpet and cheering when the only nominated film I had seen won for Best Animated Feature.
As I’ve gotten older, I recognize more than just a handful of attending celebrities and nominees, and I’ve actually seen more films nominated than just one or two of the Best Animated Feature films. I’m particularly excited for this year’s Oscars because I’ve seen more films nominated for Best Picture than ever before, and many of them are movies that I adore.
Now that I feel I’ve got a grasp on this award season’s Academy-nominated films, I wanted to share my thoughts on some of this year’s Best Picture nominees and make an amateur’s educated guess on what some of the winners will be. Quick disclaimer: I’m not a film critic by any means. I wouldn’t even call myself a cinephile. I’m just a creative writer who is passionate about storytelling and loves seeing movies. I’ve seen most but not all of the Best Picture nominees. I’m sorry, F1, One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Values, and Train Dreams. Before the fateful night, I hope to have watched some of you guys; at least One Battle After Another and Sentimental Value. I make no promises to F1 — I don’t care enough about cars for that.
Bugonia is a satirical psychological thriller directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. It follows two conspiracy theorists (Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis) who kidnap a major tech company’s CEO (Emma Stone) believing that she’s a member of an alien species intending to take over Earth. I love Emma Stone, and after watching the trailer and seeing her jam out in the car to Chappell Roan’s Good Luck Babe! I was already looking forward to seeing it. After seeing the film, did I fully understand it? I don’t think so; did I enjoy watching the film? Yes!
Emma Stone has been nominated for Best Actress, but I was disappointed to see that Jesse Plemmons had not been nominated for the respective male category. I was shocked to see that he had only been nominated for Best Actor at the Actor’s Awards. His performance was the real standout for me. The very last moments of this film were my favorites. Without giving away too many spoilers, I genuinely couldn’t tell if I was being lied to alongside Plemmon’s character. The absurdity of that final moment with Stone’s character was great, and the montage was such an immersive way of showing how many different lives are happening all at once around the world.
As an English major whose favorite book is Mary Shelley’s novel of the same name, I was looking forward to seeing Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. The film closely follows the novel it’s adapted from, telling the story of the egotistically ambitious Dr. Frankenstein, portrayed by Oscar Isaac, and his Creature, played by Jacob Elordi, as they reckon with the fine line between monstrosity and humanity. Frankenstein had a limited theatrical release, and I was one of the lucky few who got to see it in theaters. Witnessing the incredible cinematography and the beauty of del Toro’s gothic world on the big screen was unforgettable — if you have eyes, then you can tell that the film’s Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography is clearly earned.
Frankenstein has fared well this awards season thus far, winning awards for Best Production Design, Hair and Makeup, and Costume Design at the BAFTAs and the Critics’ Choice Awards. They’ve received the same nominations at the Oscars, and I’m especially rooting for the hair and makeup team because of how they transformed Jacob Elordi into the pale, stitched-together vision of the Creature.
Elordi’s transformation into the Creature was largely expressed through his appearance, but his physical performance is what really sold it to me; Elordi has spoken about studying a Japanese dance style called Butoh for the role, which he calls “the dance of reanimating a corpse” to morph how he moved his body. The inspiration is evident when you see how he crawls across the ground chasing a leaf down a stream. Elordi’s physicality, combined with the vulnerability in his facial expressions, makes his character look as if a newborn baby had been placed into the body of a six-foot-five grown man — which is exactly what the Creature is in his most essential form.
Oscar Isaac as Dr. Frankenstein and Mia Goth as Elizabeth were phenomenal, but Elordi as the Creature was the heart and soul of Frankenstein. Elordi won Best Supporting Actor at the Critics’ Choice Awards, and while there’s another actor I’d also like to see take home that Oscar, I would be pleased if he won.
‘Hamnet’
Hamnet was a beautiful and emotionally impactful film, and for the sake of my mental health, I can never see it again. Hamnet, directed by Chloé Zhao, is a dramatic retelling of the life of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife, Agnes (Jessie Buckley), as they grapple with the loss of their son.
I knew that I would enjoy Hamnet based on the subject alone; I’m an English major after all. Hamlet is my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays, and I cry almost every time I see an actor’s rendition of the “to be or not to be” soliloquy. Hamnet felt like a heart laid bare and still beating in the palm of someone’s hand, pulsing with unapologetic vulnerability. The film captured the transformative relationship between humanity and art. We’re drawn to create when we feel sad, overwhelmed, angry, lost, and alone. It’s fictional, but the idea that Shakespeare created Hamlet to mourn his son and keep his memory alive and celebrated for generations is a beautiful example of art’s healing power.
The last hour and a half of this film had me — and my entire theater, based on the constant sniffling I heard — crying, and I had to stop myself from grossly sobbing during the final scenes. The entire cast was amazing, but especially Jessie Buckley, Jacobi Jupe, and Noah Jupe. Jessie Buckley has won Best Actress at the BAFTAs, the Critics’ Choice Awards, the Golden Globes, and the Actor’s Awards. She has to win Best Actress at the Oscars. She embodied Agnes’ journey through motherhood and grief with such tangible emotion. I felt like I could see through her and directly into the character’s heart.
I would be glad to see Hamnet win the Best Picture award. It was nominated at the BAFTAs and the Critics’ Choice Awards, and won at the Golden Globes. However, I know that the widely agreed-upon top contender for Best Picture is One Battle After Another.
The advertising meeting skit that Timothée Chalamet posted on Instagram as a promotion for Marty Supreme caught my interest alongside everyone else on the Internet. The only background on the film my friends and I had going into it was the bright orange ping pong balls and that one jacket every celebrity was wearing.
Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme tells the story of Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), a cocky and ambitious aspiring table tennis player who risks it all to become a champion. Chalamet earned his third Best Actor nomination for this role, following his nominations for A Complete Unknown in 2025 and Call Me By Your Name in 2018. I thought that his performance in Marty Supreme was fantastic because I’ve never hated a movie character more than I hated Marty Mauser. He was dripping with entitlement, self-absorption, and hypocrisy. Chalamet did an excellent job of making Marty feel like the kind of real-life asshole we all know — the kind who doesn’t think twice about ruining people’s lives with an air of nonchalance and full awareness of their selfishness.
Marty Supreme has also been nominated for Best Original Screenplay, but I don’t think the writing is where this film stands out. I felt as if there was a disconnect between the plot and the tone of the film. The way Marty was written and portrayed made me feel like I was supposed to hate him — and I did — but I also felt as if the film wanted me to root for him and hope he succeeded in defeating Koto, and I didn’t. I understand that both can be true at the same time, but it was so extreme on each end that I had a hard time reconciling them.
My friend said that she had been told by one of her friends that it was the ‘most motivational movie she’d ever seen.’ My friends and I spent our car debrief after the film questioning how she possibly could’ve come away thinking that, and we were shocked to see people on the Internet agreeing. Marty Mauser felt like a cautionary tale, not an image of determination to aspire to. I appreciate when a film can inspire discourse and different interpretations, but I think what actually happened in the film and how it wanted viewers to feel were too disjointed.
I saw Sinners opening night on a whim with some friends — I didn’t even have any snacks — and it was one of the best theater experiences I’ve ever had. I proceeded to see it four more times in theaters with practically everyone I know. Sinners is a Southern Gothic horror film directed by Ryan Coogler. It follows twin brothers Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan) returning to their Mississippi hometown to open a juke joint, until an ancient vampire (Jack O’Connell) threatens their plans.
Sinners has made Academy Award history by receiving sixteen Oscar nominations, making it the most nominated film of all time. I’d argue that all sixteen nominations are truly deserved. I’ve never felt more engagement, high adrenaline, and jaw-dropping awe in a theater like I did watching Sinners. The film excellently balances being a grounded, character-driven exploration of Black culture and Blues music in 1930s Mississippi, while also being an epic, action-packed vampire horror thriller. It also incorporates themes of anti-Irish Immigration sentiment to tell a story about forced assimilation and solidarity between marginalized groups. Sinners balances this so well because it’s all interconnected; there is no vampire story without the celebration of blues music, there is no stake in the action without the intricacies of each character’s story.
Michael B. Jordan was nominated for Best Actor for his dual roles. Smoke and Stack have the same face, but they’re completely different people. He wore shoes too small when playing Stack to keep him alert and antsy, and he wore shoes too big when playing Smoke to keep him grounded and slower. This kind of attention-to-detail with physical characterization is what defines an incredible actor to me.
Sinners also received nominations in the Best Supporting Actor category for Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim, the Best Supporting Actress category for Wunmi Mosaku as Annie, and the Best Casting category. The film manages a large cast, but their relationships with one another are the foundation of the film. Smoke and Stack’s older brother-esque bond with Sammie, Smoke and Annie’s and Stack and Mary’s love stories, their community bond with Slim, the Chow’s, and Cornbread — they all feel lived in and emotionally rich. It’s what makes Remmick’s arrival and the plucking off of their numbers feel like real losses. It’s what makes the post-credit scene such a tear-jerker.
Sinners has also received nominations for Best Music and Best Original Song for the track I Lied to You. The musical highlight of this film is the sequence where Sammie sings I Lied to You, also known as the Surrealist Montage. I felt like I was levitating out of my seat watching it. Miles Caton is an incredible performer; the film’s plot hinges on his character being an otherworldly talented and transcendent singer, and he delivers on it. A win for Sinner’s music would feel like a win for Blues music. The scene where Slim tells the story of his friend who was lynched — where his heartbroken moans turn into humming, which turns into a song — brought me to tears. The film gave me a new understanding of Blues music, and you can’t walk away without an honor for the history and emotional weight of the genre.
There are countless more paragraphs I could write about how much I love Sinners, but I think you get the point. The Oscars are historically known for discrediting horror films, but I hope this year they break the pattern.
Get your Bingo cards printed, movie-themed snacks prepped and plated, and your free-trial for whatever random streaming service that will air the event ready for Sunday!