The Oscars are back, and this year’s Academy Award for Best Picture slate is one of the strongest in years. From foreign films to domestic box office champions, a movie for everyone is found in the set of nominees. In anticipation of the 96th Academy Awards on March 10, News Editor Spencer Friedland (26C) and Asst. Arts & Life Editor Alex Gerson (27C) ranked and reviewed every film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
- ‘Maestro’
Although “Maestro” (2023) will be remembered for the memes of Bradley Cooper’s attempt to win the Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, it is still a fine film. Cooper fully devoted himself to becoming Leonard Bernstein, the famous Jewish conductor, and portraying his complicated love life. Perhaps the best performance comes from Bernstein’s wife, Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), who adeptly portrayed the pain her husband’s infidelity and constant deception caused. However, the film falls flat in developing the characters. It begins with Bernstein as a genius conductor who is unfaithful and ends with him being a promiscuous genius conductor. Ultimately, “Maestro” is a failed attempt at creating an Oscars-worthy film. It was supposed to deliver Cooper to glory but instead provided an endless stream of memes.
- ‘American Fiction’
Cord Jefferson’s debut feature film “American Fiction” (2023), an adaptation of Percival Everett’s 2001 novel “Erasure,” is near the bottom of the pack of the Academy Award for Best Picture nominees, but it is not a bad movie. In fact, “American Fiction” struggles most because it fails to mesh two separate but equally affecting storylines together. The story follows Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), a frustrated Black writer, as he gains fame through his anonymously published book that is a satire of Black stereotypes. While he writes the book sarcastically, the general public takes it seriously. The movie also follows Monk as he navigates his troubled familial and romantic relationships. While the book and relationship storylines are well done on their own, Jefferson never effectively made the social satire and family drama work together to enhance the movie.
- ‘Barbie’
Putting aside the debate on whether director Greta Gerwig and star Margot Robbie were snubbed for the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Actress, “Barbie” (2023) is one of the most impressive achievements in recent Hollywood history. The fact that a movie based on a doll got made, touched on important themes of feminism and identity and became the highest grossing film at the box office in 2023 is a quasi-miracle unto itself. Additionally, “Barbie” is extremely entertaining, with gorgeous set design and a funny, well-written script. While some moments lack effectiveness — the Will Ferrell storyline could be completely cut — “Barbie” succeeds in its goal more often than it falls short, and for that it deserves an Academy Award for Best Picture nomination.
- ‘The Holdovers’
Alexander Payne’s quiet, warm and funny film “The Holdovers” is the most heartfelt movie at this year’s Academy Awards. The film focuses on loneliness as it follows boarding school teacher Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) supervising Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a student whose mom opts to go on a trip with her boyfriend instead of inviting her son home for winter break. The film, set in the 1970s, also features Da’Vine Joy Randolph playing Mary Lamb, the cook for the school’s cafeteria, who is grieving the loss of her son during the Vietnam War. While it may lack cinematic bravura, “The Holdovers” features a fantastic triumvirate of performances. Giamatti delivered his best performance in years, Sessa demonstrated his acting ability in his silver-screen debut and Randolph seems guaranteed to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. While it might not be pushing any bounds, “The Holdovers” is an incredibly touching and worthwhile movie.
- ‘The Zone of Interest’
This year’s second-best World War II film is absent of war, bombs and politics. Instead, Jewish filmmaker Jonathan Glazer focused on Rudolf Höss, the man in charge of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, and his family. “The Zone of Interest” (2023) looks at the idealistic life the Höss family has created right beyond the walls of the death camp. The main crux of the film is not the Holocaust but the family attempting to remain in their beautiful home as Höss is called away to Berlin. What makes “The Zone of Interest” so unsettling is the subtle horror of Auschwitz prisoners screaming, followed by gunshots, which the characters casually block out. The film makes the viewer’s skin crawl in a completely original way. “The Zone of Interest” allows the audience to imagine horror, even without the characters acknowledging the terror that benefits them.
- ‘Past Lives’
“Past Lives” is perhaps the most surprising film of 2023. In playwright Celine Song’s silver screen debut, she managed to create a muted love story akin to Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” (2003). The film centers around Nora Moon (Greta Lee) and her love triangle that began during her childhood in South Korea. The love dilemma revamps after Nora has moved to the United States and got married. Her childhood crush Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) upends her life, visiting her in the United States and creating a mix of anxiety and curiosity about what could have been. The film ends with Nora sitting at a bar sandwiched between her two possible loves. Through understatement and subtlety, “Past Lives” realistically portrays Nora’s attempts to deal with the mixed emotions of an alternate life.
- ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’
“Killers of the Flower Moon” (2023) is both completely in line with director Martin Scorsese’s legendary filmography and unlike anything he has made before. It focuses on the real-life Osage Indian murders, a plot by white citizens close to the Osage Nation to murder them for their oil wealth. The film follows Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro) as they plot the deaths of Ernest’s Native American wife Mollie Burkhart’s (Lily Gladstone) family. While Scorsese’s work has often focused on organized crime, he grappled with some unknowns when detailing the crimes in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” In the film’s final scene, Scorsese himself appears on screen and says that Mollie’s obituary made no mention of the Osage Indian murders. The director seemed to admit that no matter how hard he tried, only so much can be done to honestly portray the stories of the Osage Nation, a community to which he does not belong. Nevertheless, Scorsese did his best to authentically depict the Osage Indian murders. Still, some have criticized the movie for not giving enough voice to the Osage Nation — Scorsese knew this, and in the self-aware last scene, gave his own acknowledgement of his shortcomings.
- ‘Anatomy of a Fall’
French director Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” (2023) presents the strongest script of the Academy Award for Best Picture slate. It follows Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) as she faces trial for the alleged murder of her husband — some think he fell off of the roof, some think she pushed him. As the trial unfolds, the layers and complications of their marriage are revealed until they reach a crescendo when a recording of one of their fights is played for the court. The fight scene is captivating with unbelievable writing and performances. The argument is depicted so honestly that it feels almost voyeuristic to watch. For a film that seems like a standard courtroom drama, “Anatomy of a Fall” transcends the genre through its incredibly layered and complex script as well as a brutally honest and precise performance from Hüller.
- ‘Poor Things’
In many years, some people would consider “Poor Things” (2023) to be the best film of the year. The fact that this film sits at No. 2 is to no fault of its own. Director Yorgos Lanthimos departed from his normal, eerie-toned horrors to create a dark comedy focused on the true nature of human beings. The film hangs on Emma Stone’s performance as Bella Baxter, a child stuck in an adult’s body, experiencing the world in the way a child would. It compares John Locke’s assertion that all men are born with a blank slate and Thomas Hobbes’ theory that men are born “inherently wicked,” ultimately siding with the former. “Poor Things” has the most magnificent set design in recent memory, drawing from “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (1920) and other Silent Era German expressionist cinema. Stone turned in possibly the best performance of the year and carried “Poor Things” to becoming the runner-up in 2023, which was an amazing year of film.
- ‘Oppenheimer’
What more is there to say about “Oppenheimer” (2023) that has not already been said? Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Christopher Nolan and company have been sweeping every award show, and the film looks like a sure-fire candidate to be this year’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (2022). “Oppenheimer” tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man who made the world stand still when he began the nuclear arms race as the father of the atomic bomb. “Oppenheimer” defined a cultural moment with its box office showdown against “Barbie,” driving people to the movies and contributing to the box office’s fourth-biggest weekend of all time. Nolan’s creation drove cinephiles, history nerds and casual viewers alike to their local theaters. The film perfectly balances the inner mind of Oppenheimer with the historical significance of the creation of the atomic bomb. Even though half of the film is in black and white, with significant portions set in a small room with nothing but a table, Nolan still masterfully engages the audience throughout the film’s three-hour run time. What Nolan was able to do is nothing short of remarkable, and “Oppenheimer” launched his brand recognition into a realm that perhaps no director has ever been in: a singular director who guaranteed big returns.
