Best Pictures #125: 2025 (98th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Train Dreams

 by A.J.

Best Pictures #125: 2025 (98th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Train Dreams

“The world needs a hermit in the woods as much as a preacher in the pulpit.”

I suppose you could describe Train Dreams as an arthouse film, though that is a loaded term; even my guard goes up when I hear about an arthouse movie. Train Dreams is not conventional; it is not mainstream. There are none of the typical beats that fill an average American movie. Such moments and tropes would ruin a gentle and sensitive movie like this. Sometimes a critic will call a movie they love a gem. Well, this movie is a gem; something to be treasured and appreciated and shared. Each time you look at it from just a slightly different perspective, it reveals something new and wonderful and enchanting. 

The plot, to the extent that there is a plot, is extremely simple. Joel Edgerton plays Robert Grainier, a logger living in the Pacific Northwest during the early decades of the 20th century. That's it. He is a quiet and shy person but on a rare trip to church he meets Gladys (Felicity Jones). Actually she introduces herself to him. Robert does not seem like the type to do such a thing himself. They are a wonderful match and have a daughter, but Robert spends much of his time away on logging jobs. He and Gladys plan to save money to turn their land into a farm, but things do not go as planned.

Joel Edgerton is great as the lowkey Robert. His face shows us that he is a simple man who still has deep thoughts and emotions going on beneath the surface. Robert knows that there is more meaning to life and existence and nature. He also knows that he doesn't know how to make sense of the larger meaning behind everything or how to even start contemplating it. 

Robert is haunted by his inadvertent participation in the murder of a Chinese railroad worker; he asks what the man did and is never given an answer. He asks a fellow logger, the aged Arn Peoples (William H. Macy), whose folksy wisdom likely comes from a lifetime of experiences he probably would rather not have had, if a person can be followed by the bad things he does in his life. Arn says that he's seen bad people be lifted up and good people be brought down but if he had the answer he would be sleeping next to someone better looking than Robert.

William H. Macy is a nice, lively addition as the folksy would-be philosopher Arn. His thoughts, which he is very ready to share, are not esoteric or cryptic. Only when asked about his family does he obfuscate and become cagey; that tells us all we need to know. Gladys risks becoming more of a symbol than a character but Felicity Jones gives her warmth and substance, even with relatively little screen time.

Any screenwriting or film professor will tell you not to use narration, that it is a crutch and you must show, not tell. Of course, there are many examples of good narration that adds to a movie without condescending to the audience or taking away from the performances. This is one such example. The narration here is wonderfully spoken by Will Patton, a character actor so prolific that, yes, you have absolutely seen him before. He also read the audiobook of the novella by Denis Johnson so perhaps him being the narrator is no big surprise, yet it in no way diminishes the great effect of his superb skill at bringing words to life (Patton has also read several other audiobooks and his narration makes them worth listening to). The narration along with the masterful Oscar nominated cinematography by Adolpho Veloso and the ethereal but not out of place score by Bryce Dessner give Train Dreams its poetic qualities. 

The influence of the films of Terrence Malick (Badlands and especially Days of Heaven) can be seen and felt in Train Dreams. However, and this may be heresy to some, I feel that director and co-writer Clint Bentley surpasses Malick (at least the recent films) in that Train Dreams is more than a philosophical exploration of existence and meaning. This film ponders these things too of course, but it hits on a subtle but no less affecting emotional and almost spiritual level. Train Dreams might seem like a slight movie since it is about the life of a rather ordinary, obscure man but that does not mean that his life or the film are not something special. Train Dreams is one of the best movies I have seen in quite some time. I can’t wait to see it again. 

Train Dreams is available to stream on Netflix.

Nominees: Marissa McMahon, Teddy Schwarzman, Will Janowitz, Ashley Schlaifer, Michael Heimler, producers

Director: Clint Bentley

Screenplay: Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar; based on the novel by Denis Johnson

Cast: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon, William H. Macy

Production Companies: Black Bear, Kamala Films

Distributor: Netflix

Release Date: November 7th, 2025

Total Nominations: 4, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Adapted Screenplay-Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar; Cinematography-Adolpho Veloso; Original Song-"Train Dreams", Music by Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner, Lyric by Nick Cave

Best Pictures #124: 2025 (98th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Sinners

by A.J.

Best Pictures #124: 2025 (98th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Sinners

"A sinner like me, I can't ask for more than that."

I used to say that a genuinely good horror movie only comes along every 5 years or so. Thankfully, the last few years have proven me wrong. 2025 was a good year for horror movies, but the clear stand out was writer-director Ryan Coogler's Sinners. It was a box office and critical hit, a rare combination for a horror movie. It is also rare for the Academy Awards to recognize a movie released in the first half of the year. It is even rarer for the Academy to recognize horror movies. So, it is very remarkable and exciting that Sinners not only received Oscar nominations, but received 16 nominations including Best Picture, the most of any film in Academy history. This is fitting because Sinners is a most remarkable and special film. 

In his 5th collaboration with Ryan Coogler (after Creed and the Black Panther movies to name a few), Michael B. Jordan plays gangster twins Smoke and Stack in 1932 Mississippi. After 7 years in Chicago they return to their hometown loaded with cash, Irish beer, Italian wine, and a secret trunk to set up a juke joint, have a good time, and watch the money flow in. They reconnect with friends and lovers, not all of whom are excited to see Smoke and Stack return. They also take in their teenage cousin, Sammie (Miles Caton), nicknamed Preacherboy, who is supremely gifted at the guitar and playing the blues, which sets him at odds with his stern preacher father. 

There are two halves to Sinners and any film with this kind of structure, especially one where the tone and even genre shift drastically, risks being uneven or a letdown in one way or another. From Dusk Til Dawn is a perfect example of this: the general consensus is that the first half of the movie with the gangster brothers is superior to the vampire action second half. The two halves are so distinct that they seemingly have little to do with each other and many people wished the whole movie was just about the gangster brothers. Sinners does not suffer from this problem. It does not feel uneven or disjointed. All of the character work and relationships of the first half of the movie are not thrown out for the second half. The actions and fates of the characters are informed by everything that has come before. Coogler’s Oscar nominated original screenplay never goes on autopilot. 

The marketing was secretive about just what specific type of horror faced the characters. Yet, it was never meant to be a secret, and certainly isn’t now, that this is a vampire movie. The film itself only speaks of evil and devil in vague terms at first. Aside from some quick imagery at the beginning, nothing supernatural happens for the first 40 minutes, but Sinners is not hiding that it is a horror movie. It takes its time getting to the horror but it does not waste that time. 

A prologue tells us how there can be people so gifted at making music that it conjures spirits of the past and the future and it can also attract evil. Sammie “Preacherboy” is such a person. The film's signature sequence of has Preacherboy’s music fulfilling the promise of the prologue in a dazzling and transcendent scene that should not work, that would be silly and pretentious in a lesser movie, but all of the right notes are hit in just the right way and the result is movie magic. 

Preacherboy is also the lynchpin between the story of the brothers and their nightclub and the assault of vampires who are drawn by his music. The mysterious party crashers are led by Remmick (Jack O'Connell), who also plays and enjoys music and speaks about equality and unity, about relieving pain and saving people. The best villains never see themselves as villains but Remmick only barely conceals his sinister and monstrous nature. More than victims and blood, he seeks to consume an entire person and their gifts and background and culture. The vampires have a collective mind, but it is clear that Remmick’s clan is not a round table.

Michael B. Jordan makes playing twins seem easy. It helps that they are dressed similarly but distinctly (Smoke wears blue; Stack wears red) and after their introduction they spend time apart allowing their personalities to grow. Jordan’s performance is what distinguishes the twins. It is no surprise he has earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination. It is also no surprise that the other standout performance comes from Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim, a drunken blues musician whose drunkenness and weary face show the pain and tribulations he has endured. Lindo has earned a Supporting Actor nomination, surprisingly the first of his long and impressive career. 

Sinners fits nicely under the pretentious term “elevated horror” that gets applied to arthouse horror films that receive awards and are liked by serious, scholarly critics. This is an “elevated horror” movie in the same way that Leonard Maltin describes the Astaire/Rogers musicals of the 1930’s as escapism that elevates the soul. The truth is that Sinners is a great movie whether you want to analyze it for themes and subtext or want to watch a tense, bloody vampire movie. Ryan Coogler made a horror movie that exceeds all expectations, as a horror fan I can’t ask for more than that. 

Sinners is streaming on HBOmax.

Nominees: Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian, Ryan Coogler

Director: Ryan Coogler Screenplay: Ryan Coogler Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O'Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Delroy Lindo Production Company: Proximity Media Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures Release Date: April 18th, 2025 Total Nominations: 16, including Best Picture Other Nominations: Actor-Michael B. Jordan; Director-Ryan Coogler; Original Screenplay-Ryan Coogler; Supporting Actor-Delroy Lindo; Supporting Actress-Wunmi Mosaku; Cinematography-Autumn Durald Arkapaw; Production Design-Hannah Beachler (production designer), Monique Champagne (set decorator); Costume Design-Ruth E. Carter; Editing-Michael P. Shawver; Makeup and Hairstyling-Ken Diaz, Michael Fontaine, Shunika Terry; Original Score-Ludwig Göransson; Original Song-"I Lied to You", music and lyrics by-Ludwig Göransson, Raphael Saadiq; Sound-Chris Welcker, Benjamin A. Burtt, Felipe Pacheco, Brandon Proctor, Steve Boeddeker; Visual Effects-Michael Ralla, Espen Nordahl, Guido Wolter, Donnie Dean; Casting-Francine Maisler

Best Pictures #118: 2025 (98th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Marty Supreme

Best Pictures #118: 2025 (98th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Marty Supreme

“I have a purpose. If you think that it's some kind of blessing it's not. It means I have an obligation to see a very specific thing through.”

In 2025 the directorial team of the Safdie brothers (Benny and Josh, whose previous films include much lauded and extremely tense Uncut Gems) each released their solo directorial efforts: Benny with the sports biopic The Smashing Machine and Josh with Marty Supreme, inspired by, but not based on, real life table tennis player Marty Reisman. It would be reductive and inaccurate to call Marty Supreme a sports movie, but like all great sports movies it is not really about the sport. This is a character study equally fascinating and frustrating because while Marty Mauser is very talented at table tennis, his real passion is the next win. This, more than any of the misfortunes and misadventures that Marty encounters, is the great conflict of the movie. Yet, no matter what the Oscar nominated original screenplay by Safdie and Ronald Bronstein throws at Marty, somehow he comes up with a plan and, somehow, no matter how absurd or stressful things get, it is all very entertaining.

Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) is on his way to a stable, average life in New York City in the 1950’s. He works in his uncle’s shoe store and is such a good salesman that he is about to be made manager; but the job is only a way for him to make money to pay his way to compete professionally in the emerging sport of table tennis. Perhaps this is a mild spoiler, but he loses that tournament–he’s quick to blame the type of paddle, not the talent of his opponent–and spends the rest of the movie scheming and hustling to come up with enough money to enter the next global tournament and prove that he really is the best in the world. 

If Marty seems frustrating and annoying that’s because he is, but Chalamet's performance and natural charisma go the distance required to make the character and the movie work. There are three things in Marty’s favor. 1) Chalamet’s screen presence: Marty talks fast and big with a mixture of boasts, lies, and bent truths. Chalamet really makes us feel that the next big, epic win is just around the corner; he just needs to get around the corner first. 2) Chalamet’s youthful look: Marty is 23 and each mistake and misadventure feels like a chance for him to learn something. 3) Marty is genuinely, supremely talented at table-tennis/ping-pong and may actually be the best in the world; the only thing standing in the way of a spot in the professional big time is himself. 

Although, to be fair, not all of the obstacles Marty faces are his own doing. Marty catches the attention of a wealthy businessman Milton Rockwell (Kevin O'Leary, AKA Mr. Wonderful of TV's Shark Tank), who sees the potential for profits in a new field, but wants Marty to take a dive. (Marty’s affair with Rockwell’s wife, Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), a movie star of yesteryear preparing for her stage comeback only sets up more complications and is Marty’s own doing.) A series of random and ridiculous events has Marty looking after and then almost immediately losing a stranger's dog to a deranged farmer who insists the dog is his. Rachel (Odessa A'zion), his now married childhood friend turned lover and mother-to-be of Marty’s child, tries a hustle of her own and gets Marty wrapped up in a dog ransom scheme with violent gangsters. In so many other movies a plotline involving gangsters and a shootout would feel like a contrived way to force action and "raise-the-stakes”–a favorite term of unimaginative studio executives and screenwriting professors. Here, however, it makes eye-rolling sense; of course Marty Mauser would manage to get mixed up with violent gangsters over something like a dog.

Though firmly set in a realistic 1950's, the soundtrack utilizes music from the 1980's and a score evocative of that later time period. This shouldn't work. It should feel like forced retro hipness, but the music choices hit at the core feelings of particular scenes in such a way that it does not matter if the music is period accurate or not; it is emotionally accurate. 

No matter how stressful, frustrating, or absurd the movie gets, it never feels like an assault on the audience or the main character. It feels like we are watching a flawed person deal with their mess instead of watching a fictional character get slapped around for the sake of shock value. Marty Supreme earned an impressive 9 Academy Award nominations, including: Best Picture, Best Actor for Chalamet, Director for Josh Safdie, Original Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography, and the brand new Casting category. It may not be my first choice to win any of these categories but it is a worthy film. Marty Supreme is a rare thing these days: a major studio movie for grown ups. 

Nominees: Josh Safdie, Ronald Bronstein, Eli Bush, Anthony Katagas, Timothée Chalamet, producers

Director: Josh Safdie

Screenplay: Ronald Bronstein & Josh Safdie

Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A'zion, Kevin O'Leary

Production Companies: Central Pictures

Distributor: A24

Release Date: December 25th, 2025

Total Nominations: 9, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Actor-Timothée Chalamet; Director-Josh Safdie; Original Screenplay-Josh Safdie, Ronald Bronstein; Cinematography-Darius Khondji; Editing-Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie; Production Design-Jack Fisk (production designer), Adam Willis (set decorator); Costume Design-Miyako Bellizzi; Casting; Jennifer Venditti

Best Pictures #103: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Killers of the Flower Moon

by A.J.

Best Pictures #103: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Killers of the Flower Moon

"Can you find the wolves in this picture?"

David Grann’s captivating nonfiction book, The Killers of the Flower Moon, about the series of murders of members of the Osage nation in Oklahoma in the 1920’s unfolds like a mystery. Director and co-writer Martin Scorsese’s epic length adaptation makes clear who the killers are right from the start. They are not masterminds—criminals in Scorsese movies rarely are—but they are white in reservation country and powerful, or close to power, and corrupt. When oil is discovered on the Osage land, its people become wealthy and make good lives for themselves. The catch is that many Osage are declared legally “incompetent” and are restricted access to their own money without a (white) guardian. Wolves in sheep's clothing circle and then the murders begin.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart, a World War I veteran with a stomach injury who returns to Oklahoma looking for as little work as possible. His uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro), a wealthy and powerful cattle baron, who doesn’t mind if you call him “King'', sets him up with a job as a chauffeur, one of many who drive wealthy Osage clients. Ernest’s regular customer is Mollie (Lily Gladstone), a full blood Osage, who he falls for and eventually wins over. They marry, meaning that Mollie’s oil “headrights” will go to Ernest if she dies. If her sisters and mother die before her, their oil rights will go to Mollie then to Ernest. Uncle “King'' Hale is pleased with this.

Ernest is a different kind of role for DiCaprio, who turns in one of his best performances. Ernest has his own kind of charm and insists to his uncle that he’s not thick, but he is a dimwit. His love for Mollie seems genuine but he does not see that Hale pushed him to pursue and marry Mollie. He also has no problem following his uncle’s order to kill off certain Osage tribe members, even Mollie’s sister. His inner toil and conflict about what is happening arrives far later than they should have, in part because he is dim and in part because he doesn’t want to admit it to himself, but it makes for some strong and powerful scenes from DiCaprio. 

We spend less time with Mollie than Ernest or Hale, but she is the sympathetic center of the movie. In her early scenes she is quiet and reserved but with an easy to detect liveliness underneath. In the scenes where she must ask her banker, a proud member of the KKK, for her own money she conveys a quiet disdain and defiant dignity. She is diabetic and Hale has arranged for her to receive special insulin shots, with an extra ingredient he’s told Ernest to add. 

Why did the Osage not see that Hale was a villain? Many scenes of Killers of the Flower Moon reminded me of Henry Hill’s words in Scorsese’s Goodfellas, “...nobody ever tells you that they're going to kill you, doesn't happen that way... your murderers come with smiles, they come as your friends, the people who've cared for you all of your life.” William “King” Hale spoke Osage, knew and respected their customs, went out of his way to become involved in their lives, and even contributed $1000 to the Osage fund to investigate the killings. De Niro, giving one of his best performances in a very impressive career, is excellent as a wolf in sheep’s clothing; a gentle, avuncular personality who expressed nothing but concern and respect for his Osage neighbors while conspiring with lowlife scum to kill them. The setting and clothes are different but he is still just a greedy gangster. 

There is no way around Killers of the Flower Moon’s intimidating runtime of 3 ½ hours—actually 3 hrs 26 min but that may as well be 3 ½ hours—but it earns its epic length and uses it wisely. The murders did not happen in a spree but spread over years and we see only a handful of them. Life continues, happily even, and then one night someone is shot, then one day a woman succumbs to the “wasting sickness.” Jesse Plemons as Agent Tom White of the newly formed Bureau of Investigation—now the FBI—does not show up until just over 2 hours into the movie. His part is not big but Plemons is a welcome presence because a new chapter of the story begins and perhaps now relief is at hand.

Scorsese is synonymous with gangster movies and has been accused of glamorizing the criminal lifestyle. He has admitted that to a certain degree this is necessary to show the allure of the criminal life. However, the bulk of any of those movies is dedicated to showing that though these characters find wealth and power, and are at times relatable and even funny, they are not good people and their reckless, destructive, violent behavior was not worth anything. With his later movies like The Departed (2006), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), The Irishman (2019), and now Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), Scorsese has gone out of his way to not glamourize these characters in any way at all. There is nothing appealing about De Niro’s “King” Hale; he is only a rich and endlessly greedy man. Ernest is an average guy but a puppet, not in control over anything about his life. Every other criminal they deal with, even if they are memorable–and indeed many are–they are not admirable in any way, even if they provide some dark comic relief.

The film’s epilogue, which I won’t go into detail on, is maybe the most striking and even experimental piece of filmmaking Scorsese has ever done. It is jarring and even confusing at first. The film makes a self aware and reflective comment on itself and asks the audience to do the same. The final line, spoken softly and plainly, lands like a gut punch, staying with the audience long after the credits roll. This is a difficult film, an entertaining film, a challenging film, a great film. Scorsese is a magician who, in what should be his sunset years, continues to amaze. 

Best Pictures #102: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Poor Things

by A.J.

Best Pictures #102: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Poor Things

“I have adventured it and found nothing but sugar and violence.”

Poor Things is a strange and unusual movie and yet it tells a familiar story with familiar themes. It is a fable of a simpleton who goes out into the world, has new experiences, and inadvertently exposes the nonsense and hypocrisy of society that we all accept as normal. It is the approach and execution by director Yorgos Lanthimos and the stunning work by the costume designer and production designers that make Poor Things enjoyably outlandish and memorable. 

This dark, fractured fairy tale mixes elements of Frankenstein and Candide together in a steampunk blender. Emma Stone plays Bella Baxter, a living experiment who moves and sounds like a toddler-like creature though she has the body of an adult woman. She is the creation (of sorts) of mad scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), who is her father figure and does not mind that Bella’s nickname for him is “God.” He enlists Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), one of his university students, to track Bella’s development. She learns and matures and of course Max falls in love with her, but Godwin’s lawyer, Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), whisks her away on a tour of Europe with the promise of experiencing life outside of Godwin’s house and laboratory. And so Bella’s journey of enlightenment and eroticism begins. 

Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo’s perfectly over the top performances are a large part of why Poor Things works at all. Stone is great at the broad comedy required. More importantly, she makes Bella’s resilient optimism believable instead of naive or annoying. It’s clear from his very first scene that Wedderurn is a lascivious cad of questionable scruples and also a bit of a buffoon; Ruffalo’s cartoonish take on this character is just right. Bella and Wedderburn’s tour of Europe begins in Lisbon and consists of lots of sex, which Bella calls “furious jumping,” and then more sex. (This film is certainly not shy about sex and nudity.) As Bella learns and experiences more of the world and other people she becomes harder to control and Ruffalo really lets his character’s petulant and buffoonish side take over with great comic results. Even with all the sex and nudity the most interesting parts of Bella’s journey are her encounters with a fellow couple on a cruise, a wizened older woman played by Hanna Schygulla and her younger traveling companion played by Jarrod Carmichel, and her return to London where her optimism and shunning of cruelty are tested.

Unusual though the characters and story may be, it is the production design and costumes that make the film eye-catching and memorable. The look is a highly artificial late Victorian steampunk fantasy version of the world, and it is a feast for the eyes. The scenes on the Mediterranean cruise, especially at night, have an enchanting, surreal aesthetic. Production designers Shona Heath and James Price have done some stunning work and have rightfully received Oscar nominations. Likewise, Bella’s costumes with huge puffy shoulders by Holly Waddington, also Oscar nominated, help create the bizarre fairy tale vibe. 

There are many points where Poor Things could lose a viewer. The use of a fisheye lens and swish pans, favorite techniques of Lanthimos, are jarring and mostly unnecessary since the production design, costumes, and makeup effects are already doing the heavy lifting in creating the unusual aesthetic. However, the element that may be a strange step too far and downright off putting for some involves Bella’s backstory. I’m not sure if this qualifies as a spoiler as it is revealed relatively early on, but I will write about it now. Dr. Godwin tells Max about how one day he found the fresh corpse of a pregnant woman who jumped from a bridge into a river to kill herself. Unable to resist the scientific possibilities, but wanting to respect the woman’s wish to be dead, he put the brain of the unborn baby into the woman’s head and brought her to life. Hence Bella’s toddling and broken speech. Though she learns and matures quickly, just as Frankenstein’s Monster did, there’s a certain uneasiness to men fawning over Bella, whose mental development is still in progress, especially in the early scenes. 

Poor Things has been described by many as a feminist film about a young woman taking agency over her body and her mind. This is certainly true. However, I would certainly not contradict anyone who found its brand of feminism fishy, seeing as how it is about a simple minded woman whose journey of enlightenment and self-realization involves lots and lots of very casual sex. It might come as no surprise to some that the main creative voices behind the movie are all male: director Yorgos Lanthimos, screenwriter Tony McNamara, and Alasdair Gray who wrote the novel. 

Yorgos Lanthimos, whose previous films include Dogtooth, The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and the Oscar nominated The Favourite, is no stranger to offbeat and challenging subject matter. Somehow Poor Things almost feels like a departure for him since it lacks the grim darkness of his previous films. Bella’s ever flowing optimism and belief in kindness are the heart of the story and make this an ultimately optimistic, life affirming film.