Assessing the Worthiness of the Best Picture Nominees: Which Film Deserves the Coveted Oscar?

(Oscars.org)

Oscar night is fast approaching, and oddly enough, what is normally a predictable category is incredibly uncertain. The prestigious Academy Award for Best Picture could feasibly go to five of the nine nominees, but which of them deserve to be in contention?

Thankfully, this year’s nominees were almost all worthy of their spot. But in a time where Best Picture has the potential to send a strong political message, there needs to be careful balance of quality and relevance.

In order of least to most deserving, here are my thoughts on all nine of the films.

(Focus Features)

9. Darkest Hour

Ah yes, the other Dunkirk movie.

Darkest Hour is a perfectly fine film boasting a fine (and, for better or for worse, soon to be Oscar-winning) performance by Gary Oldman. But compared to its considerably more visceral and groundbreaking cousin, it’s ultimately quite forgettable.

This is by far the most conventional “Oscar movie” of the nominees, and while sometimes these films have the quality to back them up, Darkest Hour just isn’t one of them. Although its inclusion was one of two surprises on the list, it’s both the least likely to win and the least deserving. Darkest Hour does nothing to further cinema as an artistic medium and says very little about the present moment. Consequently, it earns the bottom spot on this list.

(20th Century Fox)

8. The Post

Which brings us to the second traditional “Oscar movie.” Steven Spielberg’s journalism thriller is up there in relevance during our infuriating “fake news” era. The problem is that The Post is a film seemingly more concerned with being a relevant movie than being a great movie, and that’s not a winning formula. Many of the other nominees are very politically charged, but the reason their messages land so well is because they know great storytelling comes first.

The Post is a half-baked egg. The scenes focusing on Tom Hanks’s blue-collar journalism are quite enjoyable, but Meryl Streep’s one-percenter drama is an odd counterpoint and the two sections never quite mix. It’s no Spotlight, and while it can be debated whether that film deserved to win two years ago, it was at least good enough to earn its nomination.

(Fox Searchlight)

7. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Martin McDonough’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri has proved problematic. Many have criticized the film for its handling of racism, and frankly, I think that’s justified. Sam Rockwell’s character may not be completely redeemed by the end, but the film does ask us to consider the possibility of forgiveness. That alone is not a bad thing (I wrote about this in detail after the film’s Golden Globe win), but it’s absolutely not what we need in our current moment.

With every day proving to be a battle to preserve what equality we’ve fought so hard for, maybe it’s better to not give the Oscar to a film that asks us to consider the humanity of a racist. Sure, there’s other elements at play, such as an overarching anger at injustices left unresolved, which might make Three Billboards seem like it plays well (after all, what else is the #MeToo movement than an opportunity for women to finally make their anger heard?). But the other problem is that the film itself doesn’t seem certain of what it’s trying to say. It’s not without its merits, but there are better, more assured films that are more appropriate right now.

(Focus Features)

6. Phantom Thread

Here's one for the cinephiles. Phantom Thread is a tough film to digest, but it can also be incredibly rewarding if you put in the effort.

There is a great lust for cinema on display in Phantom Thread. From the costumes and sets to the score, it’s a treat to take everything in. But more importantly, there’s a sick, twisted, and unexpectedly comical romance at the heart of it all. The story unfolds in a strangely feminist way as Vicky Krieps’s Alma slowly tames Daniel Day-Lewis’s controlling and dominating Reynolds Woodcock in unexpected ways.

Phantom Thread is one of the few nominees that’s here on the strength of its filmmaking alone, and while that may seem like a bad thing in intensely political times, let’s not forget that the Academy Awards, in theory, are awarded based on merit. That’s not the way things work, but the film’s unexpected nomination shows that the Academy still has a place for bold, challenging pieces of cinema.

(Sony Pictures Classics)

5. Call Me By Your Name

Call Me By Your Name won’t be going home emptyhanded (a Best Adapted Screenplay win is all but certain), but I still can’t shake the feeling that it has been underappreciated. Luca Guadagnino’s film is such a quiet, beautiful story of first love, first heartbreak, and times gone too soon. Like the hot, impossibly sensual and sun-drenched Italian summer the film depicts, Call Me By Your Name is a warm, relaxed period of self-discovery that you don’t want to end.

Much like last year’s Moonlight, the emotions that Guadagnino achieves here are incredibly genuine and affecting. With Michael Stuhlbarg’s third act monologue to put things in perspective, we have another great film that reminds us of our humanity, accepts our identity, and encourages us to love, laugh, and live. And really, what better antidote to hatred is there?

(A24)

4. Lady Bird

A win for Lady Bird would be a win for the #TimesUp movement, but also a win for great filmmaking. Greta Gerwig’s coming-of-age story has been partly celebrated for the women in front of and behind the camera (and rightly so), but that’s ignoring the fact that Lady Bird is hilarious, touching, and sincere.

How many great films can actually claim to do justice to the relationships between mothers and daughters? Surprisingly, not many. And this just goes to show how much progress we still have to make, but also how many great stories remain unexplored.

Unfortunately, Lady Bird is likely to go unrewarded on Sunday (the competition in its categories, especially Best Original Screenplay, is simply too fierce), but Gerwig’s film is still destined to become a genre classic.

(Universal)

3. Get Out

If you had told me that Jordan Peele’s Get Out would stand a legitimate chance of winning Best Picture after I first watched the trailer, I probably would have thought you were crazy. Yet here we are, and boy was I wrong.

I really don’t have anything to add to the conversation about this film. It’s great, thoughtful, and original storytelling. A biting satire on upper-class white “progressives” (the kind that, ironically, has made up the Academy for decades), the real horror of Get Out doesn’t come from any of the events that unfold, but rather from the grim realization that the film is barely removed from our own world.

Giving Get Out Best Picture is another opportunity to recognize black voices. And after the year we just had, it’s hard to argue that such a win would go unnoticed.

(Warner Bros.)

2. Dunkirk

Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk has gone largely uncelebrated this awards season (despite being nominated almost everywhere), and while its cultural relevance is much less overt than most of the other films, we should not forget how staggering of a film it is.

Dunkirk has proved to be too unconventional for many people (it is, at its core, an experimental film blown to blockbuster proportions), but what Nolan has accomplished is nothing short of extraordinary. A marvel of visual storytelling, this is undoubtedly the greatest display of filmmaking among the nine nominees. Nolan pushes the language of cinema to new heights, and such a feat deserves to be rewarded.

But beyond the sheer technical audacity of it all, Dunkirk also has a thematic richness that often gets overlooked. A testament to the strength of community, it’s a reminder that we all need to rely on the help of others at one point or another. Even in the face of defeat, this unity persists.

(Fox Searchlight)

1. The Shape of Water

Finally, out of a strong group of nominees, The Shape of Water is the most deserving of the coveted statue because it has both the quality and the relevance to back it up. Guillermo del Toro’s masterful fairytale takes the issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation (seen in Get Out, Lady Bird, and Call Me By Your Name, respectively) and combines them into a stirring celebration of love and otherness. After a year where equality was attacked on so many different fronts, The Shape of Water seems like the ultimate answer.

Beyond that, del Toro’s film is simply an extravagant work of cinema. Simultaneously an homage to the films of yesteryear and something completely inventive, there is so much here to love and all of it is balanced with effortless beauty.

Del Toro’s films have been, by nature, not very Academy friendly. A win for The Shape of Water isn’t just making a progressive political statement, it also shows that a changing Academy (thanks to recent efforts to diversify) can be more progressive in taste, finally acknowledging excellence outside the bounds of what is traditionally considered an “Oscar movie.” Del Toro’s film would be both worthy of the title and send a strong message to the rest of the world. For this reason, I will be rooting for it to win an extremely competitive Best Picture race.