Best Pictures #111: 2024 (97th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: I'm Still Here

by A.J.

Best Pictures #111: 2024 (97th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee:

I'm Still Here

“Then one day when we went by, [the house] was completely closed and there was police guarding it.” 

Is it wrong to call a movie about something so devastating and tragic wonderful? That is how I felt after watching I'm Still Here, based on the true story of the Paiva family and what they endured under the military dictatorship in 1970’s Brazil. It would be a disservice to use any of the cliched blurbs and one liners that typically get applied to movies based on true stories: triumphant; powerful; a story about the power of the human spirit. All of these things are true but I’m Still Here is so well-made and so deeply affecting that it stands above prepackaged praise or comparison to other movies. I would not have seen it if not for its Best Picture nomination, but I'm very glad I did because this is indeed one of the best pictures of 2024.

The movie begins with a portrait of family life that is simultaneously idyllic–not idealized–and average. They live in a nice house that is walking distance from the beach in Rio de Janeiro. Their house is filled with relatives and friends. One of the 5 Paiva children adopts a stray dog. The teenagers love rock music, especially The Beatles. They like books, make home movies, and take lots of pictures. The parents, Eunice (Fernanda Torres) and Rubens (Selton Mello) are gentle and warm. Also army vehicles drive by in the background of a day at the beach. The grownups talk about the big news story of a kidnapped ambassador. The oldest teenage daughter and her friends are stopped at a checkpoint, their IDs checked, car searched, and eventually sent on their way. Later she goes to school in London and the family gathers around to watch a home movie she sent of an English winter filled with exotic snow–her letter says that it feels weird not to go to the beach at Christmas. It is a wonderful family moment. Then men in regular clothes with guns arrive at the house and say that Ruebens has to come with them. He gets in a car and is never seen again.

Another movie, a lesser movie, would arrive at this moment sooner. After all, every screenwriting class and book says to make the first act as short as possible, 15-20 minutes, 10 if you can. By delaying the inciting incident director Walter Salles and screenwriters Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega make this movie truly a story about a family–not an event–whose lives are disrupted and forever changed by outside forces in the form of political violence. It was also a wise choice to background the dictatorship and any sense of politics in the extended first act. We get lulled into a false sense of security. I think anyone who watches this movie will secretly hope like I did that we get to just spend the whole movie with the Paivas and whatever they get up to. This only helps to deepen the profound loss and irrevocable change dealt to the family.

In addition to a generous screenplay, the emphasis on characters and family life works so well because of the talent and skill on camera, especially in the incredible and wonderful performance of Fernanda Torres as Eunice. The brilliance of Torres’s performance is in her command of expression. She puts on a brave face for the children while conveying fear and uncertainty to the audience. Eunice endures so much, whether it is her being imprisoned along with her daughter, Eliana, and interrogated and played mind games with—thankfully both are released—or the less direct but no less stinging injustice of not being able to take money out of the bank without her husband, who is not legally dead. The low-key defiance of Eunice, while still ensuring the safety of her children, is unquestionably believable because of Torres.   

A subtle but important part of I'm Still Here is the production design and the costumes and hairstyles. Everything looks like old photographs of the 1970's; that is to say that the characters' clothes and hair, especially on the youths, looks more like the reality of the era. The hip pretty teenagers look like people trying to look like movies and magazines instead of looking like modern people with their hair and makeup done up in a glamorous, retro style. This is true for the adults as well. The same goes for the house and the cars.  Everything looks like it is lived in and used all the time. This goes a long way to setting this true story in a true feeling time and place. Walter Salles's own experiences growing up in Rio as a teenager at this time, especially knowing the Pavia family, no doubt played a major part in capturing the authenticity of this moment in time and these people. In an interview with Variety he recalls, “There was such a vitality to the house. It was a place we all wanted to drift through…Then one day when we went by, it was completely closed and there was police guarding it. You can imagine the shock.”

I'm Still Here is about depressing things but it is not a depressing movie. Receiving a death certificate after decades of legal fights may seem like a morbid triumph, but by this point we know how much it means. Eunice insists that her family smile in photographs, even for a news story about what they have suffered. Those smiles show that they are still a family, still together. Flashforwards deliver a sense of closure and may feel redundant, especially given the epilogue cards, but they are welcome moments. The final scene features an elderly Fernanda Montenegro (Torres’s real life mother who was the first Brazilian actress nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, also for a Walter Salles movie, Central Station (1998); her daughter is the second). It is a small but beautiful moment. This is the kind of movie that seems like homework or eating your vegetables. However, despite its subject matter I'm Still Here is not a chore to get through; ultimately you come away feeling thankful for the experience

Nominees: Maria Carlota Bruno and Rodrigo Teixeira, Producers

Director: Walter Salles Screenplay: Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega; based on I'm Still Here by Marcelo Rubens Paiva

Cast: Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello, Fernanda Montenegro

Production Companies: VideoFilmes, RT Features, MACT Productions, Arte France Cinéma, Conspiração, Globoplay

Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing (Brazil), StudioCanal

Release Date: February 7th, 2025

Total Nominations: 3, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Actress-Fernanda Torres; International Picture

13 Nights of Shocktober: Brotherhood of the Wolf

by A.J.

Night 7: Werewolf Party Night!

“Our people would not be afraid of a simple wolf. The beast is different.”

Brotherhood of the Wolf

The French film Brotherhood of the Wolf is not precisely a werewolf movie. It is a little bit of all kinds of different movies: period piece, mystery, romance, action, thriller, horror, political intrigue, and, of course, kung fu. Also, it is based on a true story. Sort of. For several years during the 1760’s the rural province of Gevaudan was plagued by frequent, vicious attacks by a creature that survivors described as being like a wolf, but not a wolf. The death toll rose so severely (between 60 to 100 victims depending on the source) that King Louis XV sent royal hunters to catch the Beast of Gevaudan. Brotherhood of the Wolf, directed by Christophe Gans, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Stéphane Cabel, dramatizes this event, with extremely broad dramatic license. The result is a movie that looks like a serious epic in terms of cinematography, costumes, and production design, but is actually a big budget B-picture. At times it is absurd, thrilling, and suspenseful; at other times it is downright silly. What I mean by that is, if you don’t take this movie seriously, it is quite fun and entertaining. 

The story is told in flashback as a French aristocrat awaiting his doom from The Terror of the French Revolution uses his final moments to tell the true story of the Beast of Gevaudan. Then we flashback to 1764 and see a woman killed by the offscreen “beast” in a scene that plays like an over-the-top version of the opening of JAWS. Instead of a royal hunter, here King Louis XV sends knight and naturalist (biologist) Grégoire de Fronsac (Samuel Le Bihan), and his Iroquois companion, Mani (Mark Dacascos). Both are veterans of the Seven Years’ War (or French and Indian War as it was known in North America), which France and the Indians lost. After he finds a metal fang, Fronsac realizes that the beast is indeed no mere wolf but is something being controlled by someone. The conspiracy he uncovers involves a mysterious forest cult, suspicious nobles, an always suspicious Vincent Cassel, and, of course, the Vatican. It is all convoluted but the more outlandish this movie gets the more entertaining it gets. By the time a character reveals a monster-like arm, you’d be disappointed if they didn’t. 

Mani fits the cliché of the mostly silent, in tune with the spiritual and natural world Native American. It’s not the fullest portrayal of a Native American but in addition to great action scenes, Mani does have a backstory that fleshes out his character and his presence only enhances the movie. 

There is a camp value to certain things about Brotherhood of the Wolf that works in its favor. The hand-to-hand fight scenes are the most wildly anachronistic element of the whole movie, but they are very much in line with the martial arts inspired, highly choreographed style of a post-The Matrix action movie. Once revealed, the beast proves to be a decent monster, though the shots that use early 2000’s CGI look quite dated. However, even after the look of the beast is revealed the mystery deepens and continues to unfold. Whether it’s the over the top, out of place action scenes or the scenes of romance, intrigue, or horror, every scene works and somehow adds up to a coherent story and a very entertaining movie. 

Brotherhood of the Wolf is available to stream on Prime Video and Shudder and for free on Tubi, PlutoTV, and Kanopy.

Best Pictures #105: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Oppenheimer

by A.J.

Best Pictures #105: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Oppenheimer

“Who would want to justify their whole life?”

A drama about the life of a scientist that is one of the biggest box office hits of the year. One of the greatest accomplishments in science that is also one of its worst. A story that is full of wonder and excitement and also dread and doom. A story about the past that feels like it is about today. A work of commerce that is also art. These things seem paradoxical, but as J. Robert Oppenheimer explains to his lone student about the new science of quantum physics, “It’s paradoxical, and yet, it works.” This is also true of Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s 3 hour epic biopic of the “father of the atomic bomb,” which is indeed a heavy drama but also very entertaining. From start to finish it is a completely engrossing film that leaves a lasting impression on its audience. Nolan has made excellent films before (Memento (2000), The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014) Dunkirk (2017)), but Oppenheimer feels like a crowning achievement; it is easily the best movie of 2023.

This epic historical film features one of the most impressive ensemble casts in recent memory, and yet, at the center is a brilliant performance by Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer. Murphy, a longtime favorite of Nolan, finally gets a starring role in one of the director’s films, and not only that but one upon which the entire film depends. He captures the unlikely charisma of Oppenheimer–or “Oppy” as he affectionately called–and complexities and conflict that he tried to keep hidden. Oppenheimer was an unlikely choice to head up the Manhattan Project, especially given his left wing tendencies (an intellectual interest in communist ideas but not politics, and associations, including romances, with known or former communists), but the man in charge of the secret government nuclear bomb project, General Groves (Matt Damon), knows that “Oppy” is the right man for the job. 

Damon seems like he should be the antagonist; he is a pragmatist concerned with getting the project done and Oppenheimer is the creative idealist, but this actually makes them allies. Damon, who looks quite natural in a general’s uniform, also serves as the film’s sort of comic relief, or at least as a tension breaker. He is like the principal to Oppenheimer’s cool teacher, actually giving him a lot of leeway while keeping the higher ups off his back. Likewise, Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty, is also a pragmatist which also makes her a good partner for him, though they clash just like Groves and Oppenheimer clash. She too is a scientist, a biologist and botanist, but is relegated to the role of wife and mother. “Oppy” is most alive when doing theory work, managing Los Alamos, or talking about science and theory. This is fine for friends and fellow scientists but perhaps it explains why his relationships with his wife and on-again-off-again girlfriend turned mistress, Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), feel very important but not very intimate and is the cause of the discord in each relationship. Both Blunt and Pugh give great performances as strong minded women who find happiness and strife with Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer’s true antagonist is admiral turned bureaucrat Lewis Strauss—pronounced “straws”—who Oppenheimer thinks so little of that he doesn’t even register as a rival. Robert Downey Jr., an immensely talented actor, gives his best and most complex performance in years. Strauss brings Oppenheimer to Princeton, where Einstein already works, seemingly to add to his collection of famous scientists. In interviews, Downey Jr compared his character to Salieri, the composer desperate for acknowledgment and so jealous of Mozart that plotted to kill him in Amadeus. He does a wonderful job playing a modern Salieri, a petty and frail ego, and his Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor is most deserved. 

Strauss’s scenes, set in the 1950’s and shot in black and white, deal with his senate confirmation hearings for Commerce secretary in Eisenhower’s cabinet, but his questionable past treatment of Oppenheimer becomes the focus of the hearings. These scenes are intercut with a different timeline, shot in color, of Oppenheimer technically not on trial but in a hostile hearing to restore his government security clearance, though it is clear to all that the verdict is a foregone conclusion. He reads his life into the record and we see story of his early life and work at Los Alamos in flashbacks. Jumping from timeline to timeline sustains a steady momentum for each story and gives us a fuller understanding of events and the state of mind of the characters. It is also one of the things that keeps Oppenheimer from being a just straightforward biopic.

The supporting cast is a treasure trove of familiar names and faces including: Josh Harnett, Kenneth Branagh, Jason Clarke, David Krumholtz, Rami Malek, Alden Ehrenreich, and the list goes on and on. No matter how big or small the role, each cast member gives a great performance. Nolan and casting director John Papsidera wisely chose performers with distinctive and memorable faces, so even if you don’t remember every minor character’s name you still don’t lose track of them. 

The score by Ludwig Göransson is ever present but not intrusive. It is dramatic and abstract as needed and enhances the emotions and situations on film instead of cuing the audience on how to feel. The cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema is impressive not just because it utilizes the IMAX format to capture the vistas of New Mexico and the stunning splendor and horror of the clouds of fire of the first nuclear test, but also because of how it captures the actors. IMAX cameras lose focus easily, but Nolan and Van Hoytema turned this into an advantage by making great use of close ups–and performers like Murphy, Downey Jr, and Blunt know how make the most of a close up without overacting.  

At times Oppenheimer feels like a heist movie: a couple of characters have an impossible task to achieve in little time and must assemble a team and work out a practical plan. This is where the excitement comes in as Oppenheimer recruits scientists, many of whom are famous in their own right and have theories, equations, and labs named after them. They are in a race to beat the Nazis, who have a two year head start. They are also driven by the thrill of discovery and doing something that’s never been done before. Yet, over every moment looms the weight of the very real and terrible death and destruction of the atomic bomb. There are no scenes of carnage, no real life documentary footage or photos of the effects of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but Oppenheimer, and the audience, fully understand the horror of what has happened. “I have blood on my hands,” he says to an unmoved President Truman and his concerns about the consequences of the atomic age fall of deaf ears.

Nolan focuses the last hour of the movie on what is behind Oppenheimer’s haunted face. His masterful use of filmmaking leaves the audience haunted too. Nolan’s screenplay is based on the biography by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin titled American Prometheus and that is a perfect title for the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh), the Danish physicist who proved Einstein wrong about quantum theory tells Oppenheimer, “You are an American Prometheus. A man who gave them the power to destroy themselves.”

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 #78: 2021 (94th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: King Richard

 by A.J. 

Best Pictures #78: 2021 (94th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

King Richard 

“No, brother, I got the next two Michael Jordans.”

The great thing about sports movies is that you don’t have to understand or even like the sport to enjoy the movie. It helps that most sports movies, at least the better ones, aren’t really about sports but focus on their characters, fictional or real. King Richard is a biopic not really about tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, but about their father, Richard Williams and how he struggled, hustled, and charmed a path for his daughters into the world of professional tennis. Overall, this is a good story with interesting characters because both are real. Richard’s story is of course a part of Venus and Serena’s origin story, but I was caught off guard by just how little Venus and Serena feature in this movie. 

It helps that Richard is played by Will Smith in his best role giving his best performance in a long time. Richard is a big personality and Smith puts his winning on screen persona to work making Richard confident but not arrogant, determined but not obdurate, charming but not cloying. This is not a warts and all portrayal, but it fits the tone of the movie and is satisfying nonetheless thanks to Smith’s solid performance. Venus and Serena’s mother, Oracene 'Brandy' Williams (Aunjanue Ellis with an Oscar nominated performance), has some substantial and memorable scenes that elevate her role beyond the stock  “wife and mother” archetype and make clear to the audience her contributions to Venus and Serena’s training.

Richard works nights as a security guard and spends nearly every available moment taking his daughters to the local tennis courts in Compton, where they are harassed and Richard receives beatings periodically from gang members. His other available moments are spent trying to find a professional coach for Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (Demi Singleton). His pitch is very good, but getting someone to coach two kids for free, and to do it Richard’s way, is a hard sell. The Oscar nominated screenplay by Zach Baylin makes it clear that convincing tennis pros is only part of the challenge. As you might imagine, the Williams’s stand out in the predominantly white and upper class world of tennis. Certain people in the professional circuit seem supportive at first but it becomes clear they see the uniqueness of the Williams sisters’ race, not so much their talent, as a novelty they can exploit. 

King Richard is certainly a step above the typical inspirational sports movie or biopic, true or not, about persevering and overcoming obstacles. It is not formulaic in a paint-by-numbers way, but it follows a familiar pattern. The movie does get repetitive at times with Richard charming then clashing with one trainer, Paul Cohen (Tony Goldwyn) then the next, Rick Macci (Jon Bernthal), and the scenes of training and training. Richard holds back on letting them enter the professional circuit after seeing how kids burn out and break down from the pressure and stress of the tournament cycle. It’s the right decision, but we’ve seen them train and know what they will later accomplish so there is not much tension to the tennis match scenes later in the movie.

If you're like me and know little of the world of professional tennis, you probably, like me, know that Venus and Serena Williams are regarded as two of the greatest and most accomplished athletes in their sport. Richard was right, and that’s not a spoiler. I’ll be honest, King Richard is the film I keep forgetting is nominated for Best Picture. I don’t mean to say that the film itself is forgettable or bad, actually it's pretty good, but unlike its subjects it is not especially outstanding. If King Richard earns Will Smith a Best Actor Oscar that will be the most memorable thing about it. 

Nominees: Tim White, Trevor White, Will Smith, producers

Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green

Screenplay: Zach Baylin

Cast: Will Smith, Aunjanue Ellis, Saniyya Sidney, Demi Singleton, Jon Bernthal, Tony Goldwyn

Release Date: November 19th, 2021

Production Companies: Westbrook Studios, Star Thrower Entertainment, Keepin' It Reel

Distributor: Warner Bros.

Total Nominations: 6, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Actor-Will Smith; Supporting Actress-Aunjanue Ellis; Original Screenplay-Zach Baylin; Editing-Pamela Martin; Original Song-"Be Alive" music and lyrics by Beyoncé, Dixson

Best Pictures #70: 2020 (93rd) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Judas and the Black Messiah

 by A.J.

Best Pictures #70: 2020 (93rd) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Judas and the Black Messiah

“Anywhere there is people, there is power.”

A title like Judas and the Black Messiah tells you not only the kind of relationship the main characters will have but also how it will end. It also sets up the characters as figures of mythic and grand proportions. Fortunately, the approach by director Shaka King, the Oscar nominated screenplay, and the excellent cast emphasize the human elements of this true story. It seems as though everyone involved in making this film knew there was little that they had to do to convey the importance of the story of Chicago Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton and the events that led to his death. This may sound like a heavy film given the subject matter, and at times it certainly is, but, in addition to the people and events depicted, the craft and skill on display in every aspect of the movie make it well worth watching. I was reminded of a Roger Ebert quote: “No good movie is depressing; all bad movies are depressing.” Judas and the Black Messiah is a good movie. 

The film opens with Bill O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) finding himself in an unfortunately ironic predicament. He has been caught by the FBI for impersonating an FBI agent in order to steal cars from unsuspecting bar patrons. Now, real FBI Agent Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) offers O’Neal the choice between going to prison or infiltrating the Black Panthers and becoming an informant. O’Neal takes the deal, eventually working his way to becoming the head of security for the Panthers and the driver for Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya). As he passes information to the FBI, O’Neal also comes to believe in the cause of the Panthers and finds himself greatly conflicted. Stanfield has great emotional scenes with dialogue and quiet moments trying to hold back his conflicted emotions. His character is always under stress, always presenting one persona to Hampton and the Panthers and another to the FBI. His betrayal of Hampton is by no means excused, but Stanfield shows us the emotional and mental state of the man driven to it. 

As good as Stanfield is, the real standout is Daniel Kaluuya as Fred Hampton. He captures the confidence and charisma of the 21-year-old activist, but the screenplay also allows us to see him in private moments like him reciting along to a record of a Malcolm X speech to practice his own oratory skills. Dominique Fishback as Debra Johnson also gives a great performance as Hampton’s fiancé. When she first attends a Black Panther meeting, she is immediately captivated and enchanted by Hampton’s speech. Kaluuya’s performance makes her attraction both to his words and his presence easy to understand. His scenes with her allow for quiet, intimate moments that further show this figure from recent history as a real person. Kaluuya is the frontrunner for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, in part because he is actually a co-lead along with Stanfield, who is also nominated in the Supporting Actor category. 

True stories can make for great films, but great films based on true stories do not necessarily make for great history. I do not doubt the authenticity of the characters or major events depicted or the FBI plot that led to Hampton’s death. I have read and seen enough documentaries to know that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI was motivated by his serious but mistaken belief that the Civil Rights movement was being controlled by communists and had to be stopped before it destroyed the country (here Hoover is played by Martin Sheen in a performance too small to be especially good or bad, however, his makeup is especially bad). Judas and the Black Messiah is the best kind of based-on-a-true-story film: it engaged me with the story and characters, giving me a real sense of what things were like for them, and it makes me want to learn more about the events and people depicted. The film ends with documentary footage and these short clips actually enhance the emotions of the movie instead of undercutting them. If you already know the story of Fred Hampton and the FBI’s insidious campaign against him and the Black Panthers in the late 1960’s, the reason to watch Judas and the Black Messiah is for the incredible performances from Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield. 

This isn’t just another biopic or a reenactment. At times it plays like a tense thriller in the same vein as Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. At other times it plays like a quiet drama. At every moment we are made aware of the social imbalances and injustices that motivate Hampton and the Panthers and come, too late, to move O’Neal as well. It is unfortunate and frustrating that these social imbalances and injustices are still being dealt with today.  Judas and the Black Messiah comes as close as any movie does to bringing history to life.

Nominee: Shaka King, Charles D. King, Ryan Coogler, producers

Director: Shaka King

Screenplay: Will Berson & Shaka King; story by Will Berson & Shaka King and Kenneth Lucas & Keith Lucas

Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Lakeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons, Dominique Fishback

Production Companies: MACRO, Participant, Bron Creative, Proximity

Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Release Date: February 12th, 2021

Total Nominations: 6, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Supporting Actor-Daniel Kaluuya; Supporting Actor-LaKeith Stanfield; Original Screenplay-Will Berson, Shaka King, Kenneth Lucas, Keith Lucas; Cinematography-Sean Bobbitt; Original Song- H.E.R., D'Mile, Tiara Thomas for "Fight for You"