#Oscar project

[astonishinglysane]

Oscar Rankings - 1948

The wrong movie won this year — despite being adapted (and perhaps too freely abridged) from Shakespeare, Hamlet just can’t hold a candle to the first three movies on this list. I was really expecting to love The Red Shoes, but I mostly just found it boring. My ranking:

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Johnny Belinda

The Snake Pit

Hamlet

The Red Shoes

[astonishinglysane]

Movies I’ve Watched - 2025

36/?: Wicked (2024) - watched 2/16/25

There was probably very little this movie could have done to win me over. I am not familiar with the musical, but based on the fact that every song here sucks, I will assume that I would not be a fan. But this is an ugly and long-winded adaptation. It is badly lit, badly shot, badly choreographed, and badly designed. The Wizard of Oz is almost 90 years old and eats Wicked’s lunch across the board. None of the magic and wonder that make the original an enduring classic exist here. The songs all follow the modern musical formula, and sound like they are orchestrated by an American Idol backing track.

WICKED (2024)

[astonishinglysane]

Movies I’ve Watched - 2024

87/?: One Night of Love (1934) - watched 3/25/34

This is a thoroughly mediocre movie which unfortunately dispenses with the most likable characters after the first fifteen minutes. There is a lot of opera, which Grace Moore sings well (for the most part). It is interesting how often, in old movies with love triangles, the woman ends up with the wrong guy and it’s supposed to be a happy ending. Obviously they were not considered the wrong guy back then, so there is something about the assumptions about what love is and what makes a good partner that does not translate to the modern day.

[astonishinglysane]

Oscar Rankings - 2024

Update: The right movie won!

This was a great year for movies. I would be happy with any of my top five winning, and I found it really hard to rank them because they are all so different. I would accept numbers 6 or 7 winning, but be less enthusiastic. A Dune 2 win would be baffling, and if either of my bottom two when I will be actively disappointed. (I will update this post with the winner after the ceremony tomorrow.) My ranking:

Anora

The Substance

The Brutalist

Nickel Boys

I’m Still Here

A Complete Unknown

Conclave

Dune Part 2

Emilia Perez

Wicked

[astonishinglysane]

Oscar Rankings - 1977

Come on. Obviously Star Wars is the best movie here. Even leaving aside hindsight about the rest of the series, the first Star Wars movie does an amazing job of world-building without a lot of clunky exposition. Annie Hall and The Goodbye Girl are good examples of character-driven 1970s filmmaking, while The Turning Point and Julia are bafflingly bad examples of it. My ranking:

Star Wars

Annie Hall

The Goodbye Girl

The Turning Point

Julia

[astonishinglysane]

Movies I’ve Watched - 2024

280/?: The Lion in Winter (1968) - watched 9/30/24

The movie is full of great actors devouring the scenery, including a young Anthony Hopkins and a baby Timothy Dalton. The script gives everyone a lot of opportunities to deliver memorable dialogue, but there are some editing and directing oddities that keep this from being a truly great film. Still, worth it for the performances.

THE LION IN WINTER (1968) dir. Anthony Harvey

[astonishinglysane]

Oscar Rankings - 1969

This is a pretty weak year. The right movie won, but the only movie that gave it real competition is Z. My ranking:

Midnight Cowboy

Z

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Anne of the Thousand Days

Hello Dolly!

[astonishinglysane]

Oscar Rankings - 1950

This is a good solid year. Any of the top three would have been respectable winners, and the other two are slight but enjoyable. My ranking:

Sunset Boulevard

Born Yesterday

All About Eve

King Solomon’s Mines

Father of the Bride

[astonishinglysane]

Oscar Rankings - 1931/1932

This is a really strong year, although the winner doesn’t do much for me. Grand Hotel should be my jam, but for some reason it doesn’t equal more than the sum of its parts. These movies are all good, with the worst, Bad Girl, only being as bad as “so-so.” My ranking:

Five Star Final

One Hour With You

The Champ

Grand Hotel

Arrowsmith

The Smiling Lieutenant

Shanghai Express

Bad Girl

[astonishinglysane]

Movies I’ve Watched - 2025

22/?: The Substance (2024) - watched 2/1/25

I was not looking forward to this because I am not a fan of body horror, but it didn’t bother me much (the thing that actually made me the most squeamish was a needle being repeatedly inserted into an infected wound). Anyway, I loved this. It has a strange heightened style obviously influenced by Kubrick, and although it is not subtle in its message I don’t think it needs to be. Demi Moore must have done some psychological work on herself, because 15 years ago she was the number one example of an actress afraid of aging, and here she gives a generous and emotionally brave performance while also allowing herself to be shot and lit very unflatteringly. I didn’t expect to cry at this movie, but the line “You are the only part of me that’s lovable” got me. There is a lot to unpack here. The ending may mean, “chasing youth too much turns you into a monster,” but I think it’s more complex than that — becoming monstrous sets you free.

In the meantime, take care of yourself.

THE SUBSTANCE 2024, dir. Coralie Fargeat

[astonishinglysane]

Oscar Rankings - 2005

I’ve watched 2/3 of all the Best Picture winners at this point, and Crash is the worst so far (and I don’t know what’s left that could beat it). Brokeback should have won this year, and if not, Good Night and Good Luck. would also have made a respectable winner. Honestly, any of the others would have been preferable to Crash. My ranking:

Brokeback Mountain

Good Night and Good Luck.

Capote

Munich

Crash

[finifugue]

'the F1 movie needed to have Brad Pitt fuck his female engineer because there needed to be sexual tension!' BORING. If they wanted sexual tension they should've made it historically accurate and true to real life and had Brad Pitt fuck his teammate

[astonishinglysane]

Oscar Rankings - 1978

This is a decent year, although all the movies are very 1970s (complimentary at the top of the list, derogatory at the bottom). My ranking:

The Deer Hunter

Midnight Express

Coming Home

Heaven Can Wait

An Unmarried Woman

[astonishinglysane]

Movies I’ve Watched - 2025

23/?: Emilia Perez (2024) - watched 2/2/25

What a bizarre movie. One of the worst musicals I’ve ever seen… no one can sing, or at least they can’t sing the droning, melody-less songs they’ve been given. I can’t understand why this was made a musical in the first place, because the story would work without the songs. I do think there is the seed of a good movie here — the idea of someone transitioning and then trying to undo the harm they caused in their previous life is interesting. Unfortunately the execution is a mess.

Emilia Pérez (2024)

[astonishinglysane]

Oscar Rankings - 1949

This was a solid year — all these movies are at the very least enjoyable. I think The Heiress and Twelve O’Clock High are a cut above the rest, but All the King’s Men is still a respectable winner. My ranking:

The Heiress

Twelve O’Clock High

All the King’s Men

A Letter to Three Wives

Battleground

[astonishinglysane]

Oscar Rankings - 1967

This year has four good-to-great movies that pushed the boundaries of film at the time, whether by content, theme, or technical achievement. Yet it also has one of the worst examples of the last gasp of the dying studio system. My ranking:

The Graduate

In the Heat of the Night

Bonnie and Clyde

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Doctor Dolittle