A female member of the Academy’s 719-person documentary branch who has no connection to any of this year’s nominees, granted a cloak of anonymity in return for candor, speaks with THR about her ballot.
Best picture
I put Frankenstein at number 10 because I haven’t seen it, which is unfair, but I ran out of time and decided to check the box indicating that I had so that I could support other films. F1 was not for me — I watched about 45 minutes of it, and I didn’t need to watch more. I’m a huge fan of Yorgos Lanthimos, but Bugonia, while I admired its ambition and performances, did not work for me. I liked Train Dreams and thought it was visually beautiful, but I grew a little tired of the character’s point of view and didn’t find it especially unique. Marty Supreme was a great ride, but it ultimately felt like more of the same stuff we’ve seen from the Safdies, even if this one was just Josh. I admired The Secret Agent’s performances and design, but was not as captivated by the narrative as I wanted to be. Hamnet was emotional and beautifully rendered, but a bit overwrought — I didn’t want Jessie [Buckley] turned up to a 10 the entire time. To me, One Battle After Another, Sinners and Sentimental Value are all best picture-worthy. I loved One Battle, but there were flaws — I heard from a lot of friends in the Black community that they were troubled by the character Perfidia Beverly Hills, and I really hear that. With Sinners, I was leaning forward in my seat with my mouth open for the entire movie — it was so ambitious, profound, provocative and entertaining. But at the end of the day, I put Sentimental Value on top because it was, to me, exquisite, nearly perfect, and my kind of movie.
VOTE: (1) Sentimental Value, (2) Sinners, (3) One Battle After Another, (4) Hamnet, (5) The Secret Agent, (6) Marty Supreme, (7) Train Dreams, (8) Bugonia, (9) F1, (10) Frankenstein
Best director
I found [Sentimental Value’s Joachim] Trier’s direction of his actors and design of his film to be outstanding — but I have to go with [Sinners’ Ryan] Coogler. The director is the conductor of all of the crafts that go into a movie, and Sinners was so gorgeously conducted, such a big swing, so ambitious and so unique.
VOTE: Ryan Coogler, Sinners
Best actor
[Timothée] Chalamet is great in Marty Supreme, but the character felt a bit redundant after the prior Safdie films. Michael B. Jordan is incredible in Sinners. Wagner Moura’s performance in The Secret Agent is the main reason to watch that movie. I was very tempted to vote for Leo [DiCaprio for One Battle]. But Ethan Hawke’s performance in Blue Moon is inspired, magnetic, almost magical.
VOTE: Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon
Best actress
Rose Byrne brought everything to If I Had Legs I’d Kick You — I mean, with the way the filmmaker chose to focus on her face, she was mesmerizing, and it was a tour de force. But I felt that [Sentimental Value’s] Renate Reinsve gave the most stunning performance of the year. She just got into my heart.
VOTE: Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
Best supporting actor
Sean Penn is incredible [in One Battle], as he usually is. I love Stellan [Skarsgård] in Sentimental Value, who is also always so good. But for me, it was between Delroy [Lindo of Sinners] and Benicio [Del Toro of One Battle], and I went with the Sensei because of the way in which I understand Benicio helped to craft that character. I saw some interviews about how he brought to PTA all of these ideas about the apartment and other things, and how they really worked together to build that character, who is the spiritual heart of the film. I have friends to my left who felt it made fun of activism, and friends to my right who found it to be too celebratory, and I would always point to Benicio’s character as an ideal for this moment — someone with deep community ties who knows how to open doors and make things happen. I’ll never forget that performance.
VOTE: Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another
Best supporting actress
While I’m a fan of One Battle After Another, Teyana Taylor’s character was tough for me to swallow. Wunmi [Mosaku, in Sinners] and Amy [Madian, in Weapons] are great. Though I loved Sentimental Value, I don’t think Elle Fanning had much to do. But Inga [Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Fanning’s costar] is getting my vote. The nuance that Inga and Renate Reinsve brought to that sibling relationship was incredible, and the scene of the two of them in the bedroom is one of the best-performed scenes of the year.
VOTE: Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value
Best adapted screenplay
I liked Train Dreams, but I saw the lack of a well-explored female point-of-view as a weakness. As an adaptation, Hamnet is incredible, but it just felt overwrought to me. I haven’t read the source material of One Battle, and I understand the film veers pretty significantly from it, but even so, the characters are so compelling and the story is so of the moment.
VOTE: One Battle After Another
Best original screenplay
I liked the Blue Moon screenplay, but without Ethan doing with it what he did, it’s less remarkable. Obviously, Sinners is strong in my book. But I went with Sentimental Value because of its exquisitely-observed exploration of family relationships.
VOTE: Sentimental Value
Best animated feature
When my kids were little I used to be much more up to speed on this category, but now I’m not, so I’m sitting it out.
VOTE: Abstain
Best documentary feature
Cutting Through Rocks is the kind of film that the doc branch has been celebrating too much in recent years — it’s not extremely well-made, it underserved its central character and it lacked gravitas. But I’m happy to report that the other four nominees are fantastic. The Alabama Solution, Come See Me in the Good Light and The Perfect Neighbor, in particular, are incredibly well-crafted, feel urgent, and teach us something about human nature. Any of those three could win and it would be fine with me. The Alabama Solution is an incredible piece of journalism and I’m really glad that HBO has supported it and it’s getting the love it’s getting. Come See Me in the Good Light changed the way I look at love and dying, and I could see voting for it if The Perfect Neighbor wasn’t in the running. But The Perfect Neighbor left me gobsmacked. It’s an innovation of the form, with incredible characters, and captured the American imagination when it was released. Geeta [Gandbhir, the director] is beloved in the doc branch, is a good human, and has played the award season game very well, positioning herself as a leader in the Academy on key issues of our time.
VOTE: The Perfect Neighbor
Best international feature
I’d heard so much hype about It Was Just an Accident that when I saw it I was a little underwhelmed, sadly — maybe I was expecting something more intense. Sirāt is so thrilling, but it’s not quite as full a meal as some of the others. Again, I loved The Secret Agent’s main performance, directing and style, but I was not as drawn in, from a narrative perspective, as I was by The Voice of Hind Rajab and Sentimental Value. The Voice of Hind Rajab is an imperfect but extremely compelling and urgent film for this moment. But ultimately, Sentimental Value is one of the best movies of the year. The filmmaking and performances were extraordinary. It reminded me of another one of my favorite international movies from a couple of years back, Anatomy of a Fall, in terms of its exploration of complex family relationships and female characters. It has it all.
VOTE: Sentimental Value, Norway
Best casting
All of the nominees were incredibly well cast, but here is a place where I felt I could recognize Marty Supreme. Those New York characters and faces were just brilliant and one of my favorite things about that movie. They provided another layer of storytelling to it.
VOTE Marty Supreme
Best cinematography
Again, I haven’t seen Frankenstein, but I’ve seen the four other nominees, so I decided to vote. Marty Supreme, like all the Safdie films, is thrilling — they have such an incredible visual style — but I’ve seen it before from them. Train Dreams is beautiful. One Battle was shot so incredibly, especially the chase scene. But I went with Sinners. The [surreal] sequence in the dance hall is one of the most unforgettable sequences of the year.
VOTE: Sinners
Best costume design
Even though I haven’t seen Frankenstein, I feel like I know enough from the marketing to know that its costumes are not the sort of thing that would grab me. Of the others, Sinners is the obvious choice — the costumes were a huge part of the storytelling, telling us who the characters were and weren’t.
VOTE: Sinners
Best film editing
Marty Supreme is very flashy in terms of its editing, and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, again, I felt like I’d seen it before in other Safdie movies that I liked more. Sinners and Sentimental Value are two of my favorite films of the year, but I’m not sure that they deserve to be recognized for their editing as much as other things. With One Battle, you buckle in and the two hours and 40 minutes or whatever breeze right by. The pacing is very impressive.
VOTE: One Battle After Another
Best makeup and hairstyling
I unfortunately have to sit this one out because I’ve only seen one of the five nominees.
VOTE: Abstain
Best original score
I’m sitting out this one because I just don’t have time to listen to the scores a few times and make an informed decision.
VOTE: Abstain
Best original song
Same thing here as score.
VOTE: Abstain
Best production design
No-brainer: Sinners.
VOTE: Sinners
Best sound
The sound design in One Battle was awesome — it takes place in so many different environments. But Sirāt is a really special film that deserves some recognition, and this is one of the craft areas in which it excels.
VOTE: Sirāt
Best visual effects
It would be easy for me to just vote for Sinners, but I haven’t seen any of the other nominees, so I can’t do it.
VOTE: Abstain
Best animated short
I ran out of time and did not get to see the nominees.
VOTE: Abstain
Best documentary short
I’m a little mystified by the state of play for doc shorts. It seems like nobody watches them and streamers just buy them to try to get a piece of hardware. In general, the quality of the craft is not very high. None of these five were particular standouts to me. But I voted for Geeta’s film [Gandbhir also co-directed The Devil Is Busy].
VOTE: The Devil Is Busy
Best live-action short
Same as the animated shorts.
VOTE: Abstain
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