“Conclave” and “Wicked” Lead with Critics Choice Nods – Blog

by Nathaniel R

Hot on the tail of the Golden Globe nominations, The Critics Choice has weighed in on the cinematic year, picking the thriller from the Pope’s selection. Conclave and the first half of Evil based on both the Broadway phenomenon and the long-running bestseller that inspired it as the “most” commendable title. They each collected 11 nominations. (Full disclosure: I remain a member, but I trust that my ballots are not generally reflected in consensus, which always feels—at least to me—closer to Oscar predictions than passion votes.)

BEST PICTURE…

• A complete unknown
• Anora
• The Brutalist
• Conclave
• Dune: Part Two
• Emilia Perez
• Nickel boys
• Sing Sing
• The fabric
• Evil

Nine of the ten choices were also nominated for Best Picture Globes – the only film that missed out on the Globes but was hit here was Sing Sing. The Globe nominated for Best Picture isn’t it found on the CCA list: September 5, Challengers, and A real pain

There is still at least a small race for the top ten with Oscar voters.

BEST ACTOR

• Adrien Brody – The Brutalist
• Timothée Chalamet – A complete unknown
• Daniel Craig – Queer
• Colman Domingo – Sing Sing
• Ralph Fiennes – Conclave
• Hugh Grant – heretic

With the exception of Hugh Grant in Heretical this is exactly the Golden Globe list of Best Actor Drama (Grant was the only member of the Globe nominees for Best Actor, Comedy to make it, replacing Sebastian Stan, who was nominated for Globes in both Drama (Apprentice) and comedy (different man) categories.

In such a thin year for Best Actor, it looks pretty certain that the Oscar line-up will be Brody, Chalamet, Craig, Domingo and Fiennes. It’s a shame the decision-makers in A Real Pain’s campaign didn’t face the facts that it’s a film with two leads, as Kieran Culkin would still have been nominated. I truly believe this in my heart.

BEST ACTRESS

• Cynthia Erivo – evil
• Karla Sofia Gascón – Emilia Pérez
• Marianne Jean-Baptiste – Hard truths
• Angelina Jolie – Maria
• Mikey Madison – Anora
• Demi Moore – The Drug

In an interesting twist to the usual outcome, this category resembles the Golden Globe category for Best Female Comedy or Musical more than it does the Drama category. Eric suggested in the Globes post that this year’s Oscar list might be skewed in this direction, and here we have the first suggestion that he might be right. This list is bad news for Amy Adams and Saoirse Ronan, who continue to lose heat in this race (despite being overall award favorites)

Marianne Jean Baptiste is the only nominee who was not nominated for the Golden Globes.

Is this lineup bad news for Nicole Kidman in Baby girl? Or is it that we vote so early? I am aware of that Baby girl hit festivals, but on the CCA screening app it wasn’t in (all these nominees were). I definitely wanted to see her work before I voted. With both the Globes and CCA offering more nominees than the Oscars, we can’t yet say for sure who might be dropped (or added) in January.

BEST ACTING

• Yura Borisov – Anora
• Kieran Culkin – A real pain
• Clarence Maclin – Sing Sing
• Edward Norton – A complete unknown
• Guy Pearce – The Brutalist
• Denzel Washington – Gladiator II

While Kieran Culkin sweeps this category (sigh), it’s at least a small consolation that most other people with buzz are actually in supporting roles.

BEST ACTOR

• Danielle Deadwyler – The Piano Lessons
• Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor – Nickel Boys
• Ariana Grande – Evil
• Margaret Qualley – The Fabric
• Isabella Rossellini – Conclave
• Zoe Saldaña – Emilia Perez

…the same cannot be said for Supporting Role, where four of the six nominees could easily be argued to be leading roles. For the record, I did not vote for any of these women, as I steadfastly do.not.fuck with category cheating, no matter how much I love a show. I voted for Juliette Lewis in the scrub, Joan Chen in Didiand… I forget who the third* was, it’s been a long day. But even this year it feels oddly thin on strong supporting roles for women (all of whom would have been ignored anyway given the abundance of leads campaigning here.

* For the record, we have only allowed 3 nominees per category for our individual ballots.

BEST YOUNG ACTRESS

• Alyla Browne – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
• Elliott Heffernan – Blitz
• Maisy Stella – My Old Ass
• Izaac Wang – Didi
• Alisha Weir – Abigail
• Zoe Ziegler – Janet Planet

A decent list, if not consistently strong across the shortlist. I will vote for either Izaac Wang or Zoe Zeigler in the end (both were on my submitted ballot). Flash is really thoughts with prices voters, which is a shame, because in craft categories at least it is quite worthy.

BEST BEAUTIFUL ENSEMBLE

• Anora
• Conclave
• Emilia Perez
• Saturday evening
• Sing Sing
• Evil

As the only real precursor to the SAG Awards slate in this category, it will be interesting to see which of these films make it there: Anora, conclaveand Emilia Perez feel safe, but you never know with SAG (remember when The mail missing?). Will they be moved by the fact that the inmates are playing themselves Sing Sing? Will they choose Saturday evening‘s multitude of quick portraits although that movie seems to have lost all best movie heat? Will they go after September 5 even though the Critics Choice group passed?

Of these nominees Evil is far from it the laziest voice, as the only commendable performances come from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, who would of course be amply covered in the individual acting categories. I love Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Bowen Yang and Jonathan Bailey () as famous actors as much as the next person — I really does — but arguing that these achievements are laudable is really push it just because the movie is enjoyable. It wouldn’t even make my top 15 for best ensemble, and I’m a fan of it!

Dune Part Two, The Brutalist, September 5, Queerand even Challengers (which would have flatlined without its delicious three-way chemistry) was easy to pick up without even having to go past the busy titles this group already saw.

BEST Instructor

• Jacques Audiard – Emilia Pérez
• Sean Baker – Anora
• Edward Berger – Conclave
• Brady Corbet – The Brutalist
• Jon M. Chu – Wicked
• Coralie Fargeat – The Fabric
• RaMell Ross – Nickel Boys
• Denis Villeneuve – Dune: The Second Part

With 8 nominees… well, whatever.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Sean Baker – Anora
• Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum, Alex David – September 5
• Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold – The Brutalist
• Jesse Eisenberg – A real pain
• Coralie Fargeat – The Fabric
• Justin Kuritzkes – Challengers

September 5 was not embraced by the CCAs, so its inclusion here is notable.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Jacques Audiard – Emilia Pérez
• Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox – Wicked
• Greg Kwedar, Clint Bentley – Sing Sing
• RaMell Ross & Joslyn Barnes – Nickel Boys
• Peter Straughan – Conclave
• Denis Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts – Dune: The Second Part

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Jarin Blaschke – Nosferatu
• Alice Brooks – Wicked
• Lol Crawley – The Brutalist
• Stéphane Fontaine – Conclave
• Greig Fraser – Dune: Part Two
• Jomo Fray – Nickel Boys

I included Vermiglio on my ballot because jesus christ that movie is beautiful. And Russian DP Mikhail Krichman is very underrated as DPs. I hope more international auteurs start begging to work with him; they should.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

• The Brutalist
• Evil
• Conclave
• Nosferatu
• Gladiator II
• Dune: Part Two

I knew it had no plea to be nominated, but I voted for it Problemista in this category. Not sure I understand the minimalist Conclave inclusion or its polar opposite in anything acting for Gladiator II.

Given that the CCAs loved The fabricit’s strange not to see it break into this category, as its production design is easily one of its most successful elements

BEST EDITING

• Sean Baker – Anora
• Marco Costa – Challengers
• Nick Emerson – Conclave
• David Jancso – The Brutalist
• Joe Walker – Dune: Part Two
• Hansjörg Weißbrich – 5 September

Though Dune didn’t have to do much to stay in the conversation (considering it’s a sequel to a big-ticket player), it’s nice to see another early release still being considered in these year-end races. In other words: happy to see Challengers pop up.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

• Lisy Christl – Conclave
• Linda Muir – Nosferatu
• Massimo Cantini Parrini – Maria
• Paul Tazewell – evil
• Jacqueline West – Dune: Part Two
• Janty Yates, Dave Crossman – Gladiator II

I’m starting to think that what we need more than all these 6-8 nominated award categories from so many groups is a division between contemporary work and everything else, since contemporary work so rarely has a prayer in a lot of craft categories, regardless how excellent the work is. Remember when Room could not be arrested for Production Design in its year despite its brilliant design to make the film work. And every year we see very well designed character specific costumes go unrewarded if it’s in a modern movie. I’m not saying they’ll make my lineup (I have so many movies yet to see) or that I haven’t also gone all period or fantasy in this category for most years, but it would be nice for people to acknowledge contemporary work more often.

So, in short, I want to shout out Anora‘s Jocelyn Pierce, Problemistathis is catherine george Challengers‘ JW Anderson, The fall guyis Sarah Evelyn, Love Lies BleedingOlga Mills, and The room next door‘s Bina Daigeler for interesting or spot-on character work this year in modern costumes.

BEST HAIR AND MAKEUP

• Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
• Dune: Part Two
• The fabric
• Evil
• Nosferatu
• A different man

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

• Gladiator II
• Evil
• Dune: Part Two
• Better man
• The fabric
• Planet of the Apes Kingdom

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

• Flow
• From the inside out 2
• Memories of a snail
• Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
• The wild robot

Nice list.

BEST COMEDY

• A real pain
• Deadpool and Wolverine
• Hit Man
• My old ass
• Saturday evening
• Thelma

Nice to see Thelma 🙂

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

• Everything we imagine as light
• Emilia Perez
• Flow
• I’m still here
• Kneecap
• The seed of the holy Fig

This category tends to be volatile in precursors, which is exactly how we want (all) categories to be. But this year there seems to be some consensus. Four of the films crossover with the Globe selections: All We Imagine As Light (not eligible for the corresponding category at the Oscars), Emilia Perez, I’m Still Here and Seed of the Sacred Fig.

Globe nominees The girl with the needle (Denmark) and Vermiglio (Italy) still feels very likely as competition, as we do not yet know the composition of the Oscars’ 15-covering finalist list.

BEST SONG

• “Beautiful That Way” – The Last Showgirl – Miley Cyrus
• “Compress / Repress” – Challengers – Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
• “El Mal” – Emilia Pérez – Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Camille
• “Harper and Will Go West” – Will & Harper – Kristen Wiig
• “Kiss the Sky” – The Wild Robot – Maren Morris
• “Mi Camino” – Emilia Perez – Selena Gomez

I’m happy with “Beautiful That Way”. Good song. But I’m sorry Flash‘s “Winter Coat,” which actually gets an entire stage to itself (unlike so many song nominees who feel superfluous to their films even when they happen to be good songs), doesn’t have a ton of buzz.

BEST SCORE

• Volker Bertelmann – Conclave
• Daniel Blumberg – The Brutalist
• Kris Bowers – The Wild Robot
• Clément Ducol & Camille – Emilia Pérez
• Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – Challengers
• Hans Zimmer – Dune: Part Two

What is your favorite and least favorite among these nominees?