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.
