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Which Nomination Deserves to Win Best Picture ?

Many Oscar nominations and predictions coming March 10th, 2024!
Many Oscar nominations and predictions coming March 10th, 2024!
Neona Hill-Herrera

2023 has been a very interesting year for film and cinematography, and the Oscars are right around the corner. The nominees for 2024 have already been announced, so who deserves to win the award?

The most common genres among the nominations were comedy, drama, and crime. By combining the scores of IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic the movie with the highest score was Celine Song’s “Past Lives”.

Past lives is a story about love, and destiny that was described as “beautifully layered” and “sticks with you long after you see it” on Rotten Tomatoes by critic Michael Cook .

With a budget of $12 million, it made $22.8 million at the box office. While it’s a great movie, it’s surprising that “Past Lives” took the highest overall score of the 10. While “Past Lives” has a great story behind it, the movie benefits from being a romance/drama which is the most common genre for award winning films, while some others are more ambitious and have more staying power by capturing the viewers attention with a different approach to film.

Another highly rated movie this year was “Poor Things” directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Poor things is a Comedy/Sci-fi film. Following Bella Baxter, she is resurrected by a scientist after her mothers suicide, where her infant brain was put into the mothers body.

The story quickly evolves into insanity with more twists around every corner. Movies about the idea of resurrection and what it would look like, but this movie does it in a very memorable and emotional way. With a plot that is different from modern media it’s no wonder “Poor Things” was the third-highest rated film.

Another nominated Comedy is “American Fiction.” The movie is filmed, written, and directed by Cord Jefferson and Based on the 2001 novel “Erasure” by Percival Everett. The film follows a struggling novelist/processor who writes a satire on stereotypical “black” books and ends up having his piece mistaken by the “liberal elite” and published to both high sales and critical praise. This film is a very honest story about the struggles to break free of stereotypes and racism.

Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” has the highest chance of winning the award even though it is the second highest scoring movie out of the 10. Oppenheimer is a thriller/mystery film based on the real J. Robert Oppenhimer and the creation/testing of the nuclear bomb. The story is described as, “both summoning awe for what it took to build the bomb and for the changes it wrought” by seasoned movie critic Keith Phipps who gave the movie a 4.5/5.

Oppenheimer is able to impressively show that even though there is no action and mostly dialogue, there are still ways to use the film language to make a film engaging, and with a 3-hour runtime that is no small feat.

Oppenheimer has 13 nominations under its belt this year. It is viewed as the audience’s favorite film this year and it is difficult to find a mostly negative review on it. Christopher Nolan has made a name for himself with his complex storytelling and Oppenheimer may be his finest work to date.

Every movie in the nominations category deserves the award but only one will win. My personal guess is that Oppenheimer is going to win based on how many nominations it got.

About the Contributors
Nevin Herndon
Nevin Herndon, Staff Writer
Nevin Herndon is a 12th Grader and an older brother of a demon-child. He is also on the GVTV team. He lives in Santa Clarita where there is simply not enough in-in-outs. When it comes down to it, he loves talking about news/controversy about video games along with other virtual media. To Nevin, being a student Journalist gives him an outlet to talk about things he's passionate about where it would be difficult to discuss otherwise. Out of all the English classes, he thought journalism was the best option and tries to demote as much free time as possible to make sure everything is of the highest quality. Of course that can make him a perfectionist from time to time. Working in “Campus News” as a staff writer means he has to cover what is happening around the school and cover topics that are more informative than anything else.
Neona Hill-Herrera
Neona Hill-Herrera, Section Editor
Neona is a senior here at Golden Valley High School and the Section Editor for the CEPAT News Team for the Grizzly Gazette. She transferred over here during her Junior year and was quick to get involved with school activities. She's very passionate about journalism and making people aware of the world around them. GVTV has helped with her interest in student journalism. Her favorite thing to write about is music and the art to be found in it. Though music can’t be classified as a hobby, making music,  playlists and writing about it is Neona’s. When she graduates high school she would like to attend University of Oregon possibly majoring in Education. She dreams of landing a job as either a High School English teacher or elementary teacher to help sculpt young minds about music, art and culture.