BEST MOVIES OF 2020
- Thomas
- Jan 21, 2021
- 21 min read
This has been a weird and terrible year in so many ways for so many people. I don't know where to go with that.
Being laid off for most of the year, and movies being released at home for a good chunk of it has let me watch around 150 2020 releases, including the majority of the prestige releases. I don't want to say that's a positive, or a silver lining, but I definitely enjoyed it.
There are, of course, some that I that received some critical acclaim, such as Beasts Clawing at Straws, I was at home, but, Liberté, Los Lobos, I Wish I Knew, Sibyl, I’m No Longer Here (Ya No Estoy Aquí), A Sun, The Traitor, The Life Ahead, City Hall, Love and Monsters, Spaceship Earth, On the Record, Kid Detective, Kindred, A Thousand Cuts, Crip Camp, Hamilton, The Truth, Zombi Girl, The White Tiger, Uncle Frank, Inconvenient Indian, The King of Staten Island, The Beastie Boys Story, Weathering with You, MLK/FBI, Ham on Rye, Happiest Season, Gunda, 76 Days, The Grand Bizarre, and The Truffle Hunters
Anyway, here's the stuff I liked the most this year:
BEST PICTURE OF 2020
25 WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME
It’s a title that screams ‘Liberal-Class American Apologia’ but it is anything but. It’s an excellent and shockingly emotional one-woman show about the limits and blindspots of the US Constitution and the suffering it has caused. It’s brilliant, tight, funny, and incredibly thoughtful.
24 THE PLATFORM
What a grotesque and brilliant social commentary. It has all the incisiveness and brutality of Snowpiercer without that messy and kind of silly third act. Excellently performed by the cast of unfortunates, it’s a meditation on inequality that can be fairly didactic, but doesn’t let that didacticism distract from the horrific story. It’s 100% worth checking out if you can handle the gore, and a very sad animal death. It’s a nice compressed version of what the last handful of years have been like.
23 THE INVISIBLE MAN
After years of being a complete scaredy-cat, I have really come around on horror. I’m still a complete coward, generally needing to only watch horror movies in broad daylight, but I’m coming along. The Invisible Man is the best of a strong bunch of horror movies this year. Directed by Leigh Whannell who made the phenomenal Upgrade in 2018 it’s an absolutely brilliant update of the original Invisible Man story. Folding in themes of abuse and the haunting spectre of trauma, it is so much more than the thrills.
22 BOYS STATE
Boys State is a documentary about a massive meeting put for high school students to simulate running for office and forming government. When I saw this, I joked that it was the scariest horror movie of the year. There are moments of uplift, and it follows these interesting and ambitious young men, but it also shows the darkness that ambition is capable of producing. We see how they learn to lie, connive, and warp reality for their benefits. They all have an interest in politics, and have learned from how they’ve seen politics run. There’s some hope in there, but it’s a thrilling and fascinating harbinger of what is to come.
21 WOLFWALKERS
Wolfwalkers is a wonderful movie. It’s the first I have seen from the critically acclaimed Irish animation company Cartoon Saloon and I now want to see more. Blending a difficult time in Irish history with Irish lore and fairy tales, the film follows a young girl transplanted to the emerald isle from England who gets entangled with a woodland wolfwalker. It's visually stunning, and manages to cut some new paths in the animated fairy tale genre.
20 BLACK BEAR
This is a movie that still kind of puzzles me. I wasn’t 100% sure where I stood on it after viewing, but it hasn’t left my head since. The film is split into chapters, kind-of-sort-of telling the same story in different ways. It’s not something I’ve seen before, but it’s razor sharp.
The performances are uniformly excellent, from the three leads to the cast of supporting characters who appear in the second part. Aubrey Plaza, however, towers above them all as an emotionally unstable actress whose instability is not helped by her husbands mind games. It’s a pretty mind-blowing performance, and not something I expected from Plaza who has typically worked within the comedy world. The film is not perfect, but once you get into the second phase of the film, it’s gripping. I might revisit this and look back and say “what was I thinking?” but for now something that has stuck around in my head for so long deserves a mention.
19 BAD EDUCATION
Cody Finley has a good grasp of tone. Both this film and his previous, Thoroughbreds, are excellent black comedies. As dark as Thoroughbreds was, at least it was pure fiction. The villains of Bad Education are very real. Hugh Jackman gives his best performance, by far, as the supremely competent, beloved, and kind-of vain principal of a successful high school when a finance scam is uncovered by an intrepid student reporter. It’s terrific, smart, and keeps you on the edge of your seat.
18 EMMA.
The very last film I saw in a movie theatre, I got to leave with a very positive experience. I’m a novice when it comes to Jane Austen and her stories (despite a visit to Bath, UK’s awful tourist trap Jane Austen museum). It’s gorgeous, bright, and so much fun. The performances that director Autumn de Wilde draws from the cast are uniformly excellent. Anya Taylor-Joy’s charisma makes, who on paper seems like a despicable character, actually pretty likeable. She comes off more as incorrigible rather than a nuisance. That is until she doesn’t, and the note change is handled perfectly. This is aided by a supporting cast with Johnny Flynn, Miranda Hart, and Mia Goth who round out a quartet of some of the best performances of the year. Bill Nighy’s hilarious Mr. Woodhouse is just a cherry on top of it all. It’s a tad long, but it’s far more fun than I would have expected.
17 THE ASSISTANT
Kitty Green takes a very cold and calculated look at a day in the life of, what is essentially, an unwilling enabler of abuse. Julia Garner, who is excellent and controlled, plays the titular aide to a big movie producer. Though never seen, he floats over the film like a dark cloud. Garner and the other assistants work to appease and please their boss because of their own aspirations in life. This means, at times, feeding young ambitious women to the man. The film is so reserved, and so tense. There is a key scene in which the tension of silence is broken, not even completely, and it is unbearable. The movie came at a very important time just at what now appears was, unfortunately, the end of the “Me Too” movement. It is an excellent example of how the culture of silence, and the need of self-preservation lets people in power twist even the most unwilling into sullen allies.
This was one of the last movies I saw in theatres before the pandemic, and I’m glad I did. People often think that only the bigger and flashier movies benefit from being in cinemas. But this is a prime example of how a smaller, claustrophobic film benefits from a dark room where you are not allowed to divert your attention. It makes the film feel so much more relentless.
16 THE CLIMB
Hilarious, smart, and more emotionally developed than your standard buddy comedy. Following a pair of friends over the course of several years through ups and downs, the film is split into chapters that tend to take place in single locations and often use long flowing takes not letting you look away from the, at times, unbearable awkwardness.
15 PALM SPRINGS
I waited a long time to finally watch Palm Springs, half because I knew my partner would be interested, and she wasn’t laid off like I was. The other half, entirely steeped in prejudice, was even after I saw all the raves I couldn’t fathom that what was at heart a romantic comedy would be that good. I was quite wrong. Borrowing the time-loop narrative popularized in Groundhog Day, Palm Springs ads an extra twist to it as Andy Samberg accidentally gets another attendee of the wedding he is cursed to relive trapped in the loop too.
This creates a whole new dynamic as our character entry-point has a, not so wisened, guide whose apathy and resignation are challenged by a newcomer. That newcomer, played very well by perpetually underappreciated Cristin Millioti, is cursed to relive her lowest point infinitely. The film is funny and thoughtful. Samberg handles the material reasonably well, but kind of leaves you wishing someone with a bit more skill was there to handle the heavier stuff. It's still a very good, and very funny film.
14 NEVER, RARELY, SOMETIMES, ALWAYS
I respect the film’s disinterest in sentimentality. A story like this could have been tuned to really plug at the heart strings, but Eliza Hittman doesn’t fall into those traps. There’s an emotional asceticism is personalized in the film’s main character. She is shut off and guarded. This makes the few times that something breaks through her tragically young armor that much more crushing and effective. Though it does pump those moments full of emotion, this method also means taking a very ascetic procedural view the rest of the way, whether that works for you or not is likely a matter of taste. It did not always work for me, and ended up keeping me at arms lengths for chunks of the film. She keeps everyone, including the viewer, outside. It’s the flaw of the film that really prevented me from being fully on board, but it is still a terrific film and a tragic tale about the barriers to health care that many women face.
13 FOURTEEN
It’s small, could be called sedate, but it’s just beautiful. It follows a pair of friends over the course of the titular fourteen years. One is a teaching assistant who seems to have her life some sort of ‘together’ and her childhood friend who is struggling to maintain. It’s about how friends grow together and apart, and the pain of not being able to help the ones we love. It’s a brilliant and thoughtful film.
12 SOUND OF METAL
Darius Marder’s first feature takes a premise that is ripe for melodrama, and strips it all out, leaving only raw emotion. With the help of three first-rate performances from Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, and relative newcomer Paul Raci, he builds a complex and heartbreaking story of a recovering addict who loses the thing that might have saved him. Marder uses a loose camera that feels present without falling into any of the traps that style can bring. The film is so much about being present and learning to be present, that style that lends itself so well to intimacy and immediacy works in tune with the themes of the film. It never needs to stretch too hard for emotion, or to manipulate, it’s turns feel authentic.
11 SHIRLEY
A kind-of biopic of renowned horror writer Shirley Jackson, the film follows a young couple that moves in with Jackson and her gregarious professor husband. It’s almost as much a remake of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf as a biopic of Jackson as the elder couple seems to toy with the younger. Elizabeth Moss and Michael Stuhlbarg as Jackson and her husband Stanley Hyman are excellent. You immediately understand the young wife’s infatuation with Shirley, and hunger for her approval. There’s a bubbling charisma stuffed under the grumpy exterior. Stuhlbarg is so good at moving back and forth beyond the line of charming and smarmy. The tone and hazy look of the film work so well to put us in Odessa Young’s mind as she becomes enmeshed with these two charismatic figures and begins to lose a grip on her husband.
10 THE VAST OF NIGHT
Such a cool movie. It follows a pair of young folks in a small New Mexico town in the 1950s trying to chase down a mysterious noise. It’s a simple premise, and either due to budget or intent, avoids any grandiose set-pieces. This makes it a tight, thoughtful, and funny thriller about a potential first contact. There’s a dazzling long-take mid-film that is a prime example of how such a shot can be a credit to a film rather than intrusive. Director Andrew Patterson wrings so much tension out of conversations, it’s a work of brilliance.
9 POSSESSOR
How to describe Possessor? Well, it sounds on the surface like the kind of mid-budget action thriller that came out in the early 2010s and starred Ryan Reynolds or Kevin Costner. Usually with a prestige actor like Tommy Lee Jones or Ben Kingsley taking a paycheque in a supporting role. The premise is very simple, but where Brandon Cronenberg goes with it makes it something far more special, and incredibly gory. The story centres on the increasingly prefect Andrea Riseborough as the assassin, and her latest job is to inhabit Christopher Abbott, an outsider who is able to get close to her target. While Riseborough struggles with her commitments to work and family, Abbot struggles with the other human inhabiting his skull. Filling the simple story with pathos, terror, and some insane visuals, it fills out to one of the most entertaining movies of the year.
8 TOMMASO
Tommaso is a partially autobiographical film from Abel Ferrara, blurring the lines of reality and story even more, his wife and daughter star opposite his neighbor Willem Dafoe. Dafoe’s central performance is the engine of the film. He is as excellent as ever, playing a filmmaker whose ego comes into conflict with his real life. He loves his wife and daughter, but his dreams betray his sense of grandeur and martyrdom. He struggles to work, it seems, when there isn’t at least a little drama in his life. If you buy in to the very intimate story that is being told, then it wraps you up.
7 ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI...
I was essentially waiting for this release to finish up my list. I was looking forward to it quite a bit. My expectations were tempered after seeing Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, whose stageiness was very hard to get past. But boy did this hit hard. The film really captures the grandeur of this meet-up, these four titans of American culture coming together for a night, without ever losing sight of the four humans. The four leads are excellent together, Regina King clearly has an excellent handle with actors. It evades the common dangers of stage to screen adaptations by feeling so much more natural, and playing with the quiet moments so well. It's a powerful film.
6 LOVER'S ROCK
This was another film whose praise I took with skepticism. Less because I doubted that Steve McQueen could work any material into something thoughtful, but a ‘celebration of love and music’ didn’t seem like something I would be likely to connect with, being a curmudgeon. I was surprised, not just by how much I fell into the film, but by the fact this exists. Its short, very wisely so, to compress all the events of a house party into a 70-minute hangout akin to some of Linklater’s slice-of-life works. The difference is the significance of the space that is being represented. As part of McQueen’s Small Axe series of films presenting a slice of West Indian life in England, Lovers Rock presents one of the spaces of congregation and leisure that was so vital to the community. This was a black owned, black operated, and black friendly place where young folks from the community could gather safely for a good time. The safety of this gathering is tenuous, however, not just from threats within as we see, but also with the threat of whiteness looming outside the house. It is hinted at in the film, and shown more clearly in the fourth film of the series Alex Wheatle. The film accomplishes so much in terms of story, setting, and character in those 70 minutes in a way that doesn’t feel rushed, it feels as leisurely as the party itself. The film is also home to one of the scenes of the year when the MC ends Janet Kaye’s Silly Games, but leaves the sound off, and the entire party sings the song again. It’s a moment of absolute beauty.
5 BLOW THE MAN DOWN
If you ever hear the term ‘worldbuilding’ in film, Blow the Man Down is a perfect example of worldbuilding done right. A neo-noir tale of two sisters who cover up a murder in their small New England fishing town, it is so rich with detail and specificity. It has drawn many comparisons to the Coen Brothers due to the tone and construction of the film, and though the inspiration is clear an undeniable, it does not feel for a moment like a tribute act. Co-writers and co-directors Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy put together a pitch perfect genre film with a great cast anchored by Margo Martindale and includes a Greek chorus of singing fishermen. There is so much I don’t want to talk about because it was so fun to discover on my own. It’s a wonderful film.
4 I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS
My review recently may have been pretty mixed. I really loved the look, the performances, the feel, and some of the thought behind the film. But it was not as emotionally engaging as I would have hoped, which counts for a lot. The thing is, despite my initially mixed reaction, the film hasn’t really left my head. Writing about it helped me formulate why I liked some parts of it so much. There’s so much brilliance in here that even if I lose my handle on the emotional centre of the film, an issue of construction and not Jessie Buckley’s excellent performance, I still quite liked it. If you can get past the puzzle-box nature of the film, it becomes so much more interesting to watch this unfold.
3 FIRST COW
This strange year of film releases may be a blessing for Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow. It’s a small film, opened early in the year, and in most would have likely been passed over and forgotten in the rush of awards season releases. Maybe it’s the altered release schedules, or maybe the film just has extraordinary staying power. It’s a bittersweet, thoughtful little film that follows a traveler trying to establish a life in the as-of-yet uncolonized Pacific Northwest, who befriends a Chinese migrant attempting to do the same. When the titular first cow is brought to the territory, they devise a plan to steal milk and sell baked goods. There are elements about the corrupting influence of capitalism, and the desperation of pioneer life, but most of all it’s about a friendship, about how little acts of kindness, how little things in a difficult and dark world can mean so much. It’s beautiful.
2 KAJILLIONAIRE
Miranda July’s movies, on the surface, seem like they would keep me away with their quirky tweeness, but that has not at all been my experience. There’s such a sincerity, and such a love for the characters in her films. She thinks of them so fully as people who are worth her time, that they feel authentic rather than recycled archetypes. The film follows a family of small-time con artists who live in an incredibly insular world, that is until they invite a relative stranger to join them on a con. This creates friction with the daughter of the troupe played by Evan Rachel Wood in one of the year’s best performances. She has been raised by Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger (both great too) more as an associate than a daughter, and the damage that has caused comes to the forefront when she sees her parents treating a relative stranger with similar manners. The introduction of Gina Rodriguez’s bored and up for an adventure interloper challenges her position in the ‘family’, and her perspective of the world. It’s a wonderful, funny little heartfelt film with four tremendous performances.
1 MINARI
This is the film this year that stood out above the rest as the one that shook me the most. It’s a beautiful, funny, and sadly heartbreaking story of a Korean family that moves to Arkansas from Los Angeles to pursue the father, Jacob’s (Steven Yeun, excellent), dreams of being his own man. He plans to do this by starting a farm to grow Korean vegetables to cater to the growing Korean population in the US. This, however, means separating from all their friends and family, and living in virtual isolation in rural Arkansas. The film is so rich and beautiful, so honest, and heartfelt. The film is presented through the eyes of the son David (Alan Kim who is absolutely fantastic, like the rest of the cast), a child doted on due to a heart murmur. He watches how his father’s struggle, and the compromises they must make for his dream eat away at the family. The mother Monica (Yeri Han who hasn’t received her fair credit for a great performance) brings her mother to live with them to help watch the children much to David’s chagrin.
It’s a wonderful story of ups and downs, of outsiders trying to make it. The disappointments of unmet expectations, the burdens we place on ourselves. Early in the film when they arrive at the chicken hatchery where Jacob and Monica will work, David hopes just in the meantime, David asks his father about a smokestack. Jacob tells David that the male chickens don’t taste very good, and they don’t lay eggs, so they aren’t useful. So always be useful. It’s a comment that clearly made an impact on writer/director/David, Lee Isaac Chung, and it does on us too. It sets up the weight of everything that is to pass.
It’s a truly great film, and the best movie of 2020.
Honourable Mentions (alphabetical): Another Round, Birds Of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), His House, Mangrove, Martin Eden, Residue, Saint Frances, She Dies Tomorrow, Shithouse, Sorry We Missed You, The Nest, and The Twentieth Century
The Next Tier (Above Average, alphabetical): A White, White Day, Alex Wheatle (Small Axe), American Utopia, Ammonite, An Easy Girl, Babyteeth, Beanpole, Blood Quantum, Borat 2: Subsequent Moviefilm, Collective, Colour Out of Space, Da 5 Bloods, Dick Johnson is Dead, Education (Small Axe), Freaky, Host, House of Hummingbird, I'm Your Woman, Mr. Jones, On the Rocks, Red Penguins, Red, White, Blue (Small Axe), Rewind, Rocks, Sea Fever, Soul, Swallow, The Beach House, The Forty-Year Old Version, The Old Guard, The Painter and the Thief, The Rhythm Section, The True History of the Kelly Gang, The Way Back, The Wolf of Snow Hollow, The Surrogate, The Wild Goose Lake, Vitalina Varela, Vivarium, and The Wolf House
Movies I liked the Least (alphabetical): Eurovision: Fire Saga, Fantasy Island, Midnight Sky, Nimic, Mulan, Selah and the Spades, The Hunt, The Lodge, The Painted Bird, The Social Dilemma, Unhinged, and Wonder Woman 1984
BEST MALE LEADING PERFORMANCE
1. Riz Ahmed – Sound of Metal
2. Delroy Lindo – Da 5 Bloods
3. Mads Mikkelsen - Another Round
4. Willem Dafoe – Tommaso
5. Luca Marinelli – Martin Eden
6. Steven Yeun – Minari
7. Hugh Jackman - Bad Education
8. Kingsley Ben-Adir
- One Night in Miami...
9. Leslie Odom Jr.
- One Night in Miami...
10. Shaun Parkes - Mangrove
Honourable Mentions: Chadwick Boseman – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Jesse Plemons – I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Jude Law – The Nest, John Boyega – Red, White, and Blue, Ingvar Sigurdsson – A White, White Day, Alan S. Kim – Minari, Ivan Massague – The Platform, Christopher Abbott – Black Bear, Cooper Raiff - Shithouse, Obinna Nwachukwu – Residue, Rob Morgan – Bull, Sope Dirisu – His House, Ben Affleck – The Way Back, and John Magaro – First Cow
BEST FEMALE LEADING PERFORMANCE
1. Viola Davis
– Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
2. Frances McDormand – Nomadland
3. Elizabeth Moss – Shirley
4. Evan Rachel Wood – Kajillionaire
5. Aubrey Plaza – Black Bear
6. Julia Garner – The Assistant
7. Carrie Coon – The Nest
8. Jessie Buckley
– I’m Thinking of Ending Things
9. Elizabeth Moss – The Invisible Man
10. Eliza Scanlen – Babyteeth
Honourable Mentions: Kate Winslet – Ammonite, Andrea Riseborough – Possessor, Kelly O’Sullivan – Saint Frances, Yeri Han – Minari, Vitalina Varela - Vitalina Varela, Paula Beer – Undine, Tallie Medel – Fourteen, Cristin Milioti – Palm Springs, Hong Chau – Driveways, Rhada Blank – The Forty-Year-Old Version, Debbie Honeywood – Sorry We Missed You, Haley Bennett – Swallow, Anya Taylor-Joy – Emma, Jasmine Batchelor - The Surrogate, Dylan Gelula - Shithouse, Ji-hu Park – House of Hummingbird, Odessa Young – Shirley, Margot Robbie – Birds of Prey, Wunmi Mosaku – His House, Bukky Bakray – Rocks, and Imogen Poots – Vivarium
BEST MALE SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE
1. Paul Raci – Sound of Metal
2. Michael Stuhlbarg – Shirley
3. Christopher Abbott – Possessor
4. Aldis Hodge - One Night in Miami...
5. Matthew McFayden – The Assistant
6. Franz Rogowski – Undine
7. Johnny Flynn – Emma
8. Richard Jenkins – Kajillionaire
9. Ben Mendelsohn – Babyteeth
10. Bill Murray – On the Rocks
Honourable Mention: Orion Lee - First Cow, Eli Goree - Cassius Clay, Malachi Kirby – Mangrove, Sacha Baron Cohen – Trial of the Chicago 7, Yahya Abdul Mateen II – Trial of the Chicago 7, Arliss Howard – Mank, Charles Dance – Mank, Toby Wallace – Babyteeth, Brian Denehey – Driveways, Marwan Kenzari – The Old Guard, Mattias Schoenaerts – The Old Guard, Bill Skarsgard – The Devil All the Time, Nicholas Hoult – True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Sarsgaard – Mr. Jones, Michael Dorman – The Invisible Man, Chris Messina – Birds of Prey, Carlo Cecchi – Martin Eden, Lars Ranthe and Thomas Bo Larsen - Another Round, Andrey Bykov – Beanpole, and Bill Nighy – Emma
BEST FEMALE SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE
1. Youn Yuh-jung – Minari
2. Olivia Cooke – Sound of Metal
3. Margo Martindale
– Blow the Man Down
4. Amanda Seyfried - Mank
5. Mia Goth – Emma
6. Debra Winger – Kajillionaire
7. Alison Janney – Bad Education
8. Miranda Hart – Emma
9. Sonia Braga – Bacurau
10. June Squibb – Blow the Man Down
Honourable Mentions: Norma Kuhling – Fourteen, Vasilisa Perelygina – Beanpole, Jessica Cressy – Martin Eden, Gina Rodriguez – Kajillionaire, Anette O’Toole – Blow the Man Down, Marceline Hugot – Blow the Man Down, Sarah Gadon – Black Bear, Thomasin McKenzie – Lost Girls, Talia Ryder – Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Never, Jane Adams – She Dies Tomorrow, Alice Kridge – Gretel & Hansel, Gayle Rankin – The Climb, and Letitia Wright – Mangrove
BEST DIRECTOR
1. Lee Isaac Chung – Minari
2. Miranda July – Kajillionaire
3. Kelly Reichert - First Cow
4. Steve McQueen - Lover's Rock
5. Bridget Savage Cole and
Danielle Krudy - Blow the Man Down
6. Regina King - One Night in Miami...
7. Brandon Cronenberg - Possessor
8. Abel Ferrara - Tommaso
9. Darius Marder - Sound of Metal
10. Charlie Kauffman - I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Honourable Mention: Eliza Hittman - Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always, Kitty Greene - The Assistant, Leigh Whannel - The Invisible Man, Lawrence Michael Levine - Black Bear, Cory Finley - Bad Education, Andrew Patterson - The Vast of Night, Josephine Decker - Shirley, Michael Angelo Covino - The Climb, Cathy Yan - Birds of Prey, Max Barbakow - Palm Springs, Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia - The Platform, Alex Thompson - Saint Frances, Amy Seimetz - She Dies Tomorrow, Ken Loach - Sorry We Missed You, Dan Sallit - Fourteen, and Matthew Rankin
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1. Lee Isaac Chung – Minari
2. Miranda July – Kajillionaire
3. Andy Siara – Palm Springs
4. Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy – Blow the Man Down
5. Andrew Patterson and Craig W. Sanger – The Vast of Night
6. Dan Sallitt – Fourteen
7. Kitty Green – The Assistant
8. Kelly O’Sullivan – Saint Frances
9. Eliza Hittman – Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always
10. Jericca Cleland, Will Collins, Tomm Moore, and Ross Stewart - Wolfwalkers
Honourable Mention: Tomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm - Another Round, Merawi Gerima – Residue, Amy Seimetz – She Dies Tomorrow, Pete Doctor, Mike Jones, and Kemp Powers – Soul, Paul Laverty – Sorry We Missed You, Darius and Abraham Marder – Sound of Metal, Lawrence Michael Levine – Black Bear, Rhada Blank – The Forty-Year-Old Version, Sean Durkin – The Nest, Matthew Rankin – The Twentieth Century, and Remi Weekes, Felicity Evans, Cooper Raiff - Shithouse, Jeremy Hersh - The Surrogate, and Toby Venables – His House
BEST SCREENPLAY ADAPTED FROM PRE-EXISTING MATERIAL
1. Kelly Reichardt and Jonathan Raymond – First Cow
2. Charlie Kaufman – I’m Thinking of Ending Things
3. Kemp Powers - One Night in Miami...
4. Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin – The Climb
5. Leigh Whannell – The Invisible Man
6. Eleanor Catton – Emma
7. Sarah Gubbins – Shirley
8. Mike Makowski – Bad Education
9. Maurizio Braucci and Pietro Marcello – Martin Eden
10. Christina Hodson – Birds of Prey
Honourable Mentions: Shaun Grant – True History of the Kelly Gang, Simon Blackwell and Armando Iannucci – The Personal History of David Copperfield, Christian Petzold – Undine, and Richard Stanley and Scarlett Amaris – Colour Out of Space
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
1. Christopher Blauvelt – First Cow
2. Kseniya Sereda – Beanpole
3. Lukasz Zal
– I’m Thinking of Ending Things
4. Todd Banhazl – Blow the Man Down
5. Lachlan Milne – Minari
6. Christopher Blauvelt – Emma.
7. M.I. Littin-Menz – The Vast of Night
8. Stefan Duscio – The Invisible Man
9. Lol Crawley – The Devil All the Time
10. Karim Hussain – Possessor
Honourable Mentions: Shabier Kirchner – Lovers Rock, Leonardo Simoes - Vitalina Varela, Zach Kuperstein – The Climb, Vincent Biron – The Twentieth Century, Sturla Brandth Grovlen – Shirley, Joshua James Richards – Nomadland, Tomasz Naumiuk – Mr. Jones, Jay Keitel – She Dies Tomorrow, Maria von Hausswolff – A White, White Day, Robert Leitzell – Black Bear, Vladimir Smutny - The Painted Bird, and Michael Lathan – The Assistant
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN EDITING
1. Matthew Hannam – Possessor
2. Nels Bangerter – Dick Johnson is Dead
3. Chris Dickens and Steve McQueen – Lovers Rock
4. Andy Canny – The Invisible Man
5. Jay Cassidy and Evan Schiff – Birds of Prey
6. Mikkel E.G. Nielsen – Sound of Metal
7. Harry Yoon – Minari
8. David Barker – Shirley
9. Mark Vives – Blow the Man Down
10. Mark Czyzewski – Greyhound
Honourable Mentions: Matthew Rankin – The Twentieth Century, David Rosenbloom – The Way Back, Scott Cummings – Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always, Julia Bloch – His House, Fabio Nunziata – Tommaso, Kate Brokaw – She Dies Tomorrow, Kelly Reichardt – First Cow, Kitty Green and Blair McClendon – The Assistant, Terilyn A. Shropshire – The Old Guard and Matthew L. Weiss – Black Bear
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTION DESIGN
1. Beanpole
2. The Twentieth Century
3. I’m Thinking of Ending Things
4. About Endlessness
5. The Painted Bird
6. Mulan
7. Gretel & Hansel
8. The Platform
9. Vitalina Varela
10. Minari
Honourable Mentions: Emma, Birds of Prey, The Personal History of David Copperfield, Underwater, Mr. Jones, First Cow, Soul, Possessor, Tenet, Sea Fever, Blow the Man Down, The Devil All the Time, and His House
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN
1. Beanpole
2. Mulan
3. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
4. True History of the Kelly Gang
5. Lovers Rock
6. Birds of Prey
7. First Cow
8. Emma
9. The Twentieth Century
10. Shirley
Honourable Mentions: His House, Minari, The Nest, The Personal History of David Copperfield, Gretel & Hansel, Underwater, Mr. Jones, Blow the Man Down, The Devil all the Time, Mank, and Bad Hair
BEST ACHIEVEMENT OF MAKE-UP AND HAIR
1. First Cow
2. Possessor
3. Beanpole
4. True History of the Kelly Gang
5. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
6. His House
7. The Devil All the Time
8. Shirley
9. The Twentieth Century
10. Mangrove
Honourable Mention: Da 5 Bloods, Birds of Prey, Blood Quantum, The Nest, Mr. Jones, Gretel & Hansel, Sea Fever, Blow the Man Down, The Platform, The Outpost, Lucky Grandma, Bull, and Mank
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE (playlist of samples to the right)
1. Emile Mosseri – Minari
2. Erick Alexander and Jared Bulmer – The Vast of Night
3. William Tyler – First Cow
4. Jordan Dykstra and Brian McOmber – Blow the Man Down
5. Emile Mosseri – Kajillionaire
6. Bruno Coulais - Wolfwalkers
7. Daniel Pemberton – Birds of Prey
8. David Schweitzer and Isobel Waller-Bridge – Emma
9. Michael Abels – Bad Education
10. Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux and Peter Venne – The Twentieth Century
Honourable Mention: Tamar-Kali – Shirley, Rob Simonsen – The Way Back, Benjamin Wallfisch – The Invisible Man, Giulio Carmassi and Bryan Scary - Black Bear, Richard Reed Parry – The Nest, Mondo Boys – She Dies Tomorrow, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – Soul , Colin Stetson – Colour Our of Space, Jim Williams – Possessor, and Roque Banos – His House
BEST USE OF PRE-EXISTING MUSIC
1. Lovers Rock
2. Blow the Man Down
3. I’m Thinking of Ending Things
4. Nomadland
5. Shirley
6. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
7. Babyteeth
8. Emma
9. The Nest
10. Birds of Prey
Honourable Mentions: Wolfwalkers, Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always, True History of the Kelly Gang, Palm Springs, Soul, and The Vast of Night
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
1. The Invisible Man
2. Colour Out of Space
3. Possessor
4. Birds of Prey
5. Tenet
6. Underwater
7. The Platform
8. Greyhound
9. The Old Guard
10. His House
Honourable Mentions: The Mortuary Collection, Blood Quantum
BEST SOUND
1. Sound of Metal
2. The Vast of Night
3. The Invisible Man
4. Lover’s Rock
5. I’m Thinking of Ending Things
6. Ma Raney’s Black Bottom
7. Underwater
8. Possessor
9. Greyhound
10. The Platform
Honourable Mentions: The Twentieth Century, Swallow, Sea Fever, The Whistlers, and His House
BEST ANIMATED, DOCUMENTARY, OR SHORT FILM
1. Wolfwalkers (Animated)
2. Boys State (Doc)
3. What the Constitution
Means to Me (Doc)
4. Dick Johnson is Dead (Doc)
5. Bloody Nose Empty Pockets (Doc/Fiction)
6. American Utopia (Doc)
7. Wolf House (Animated)
8. Oulla (Short)
9. Collective (Doc)
10. Soul (Animated)
Honourable Mentions: David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (Doc), Red Penguins (Doc), Rewind (Doc), Time (Doc), I love You, I Love You (Short), Athlete A (Doc), Desert One (Doc), and Self Portrait (Short)
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