The American Film Institute announces its top ten tomorrow, and I’d wager it’s probably the most “important” precursor to the Best Picture race, with the exception of the Critics’ Choice. It used to be that AFI announced much earlier and thus, their predictive influence mattered more, but they’re basically on top of each other this year, with AFI tomorrow and the Critics’ Choice on Friday.
One Battle After Another has now won the Gothams, the New York Film Critics and the National Board of Review. Have any other movies won both of those?
For just the Gothams and the New York Film Critics we have:
2004–Sideways (Million Dollar Baby won the Oscar)
2009–The Hurt Locker (won Best Picture)
For the New York Film Critics and the National Board of Review, we have:
Killers of the Flower Moon
Zero Dark Thirty
The Social Network
You have to go back to 2007 to find a year where one movie won both of those and then the Oscar for Best Picture, No Country for Old Men, one of the greatest films ever made. Things were very different then, but the combination of the elite film critics and the more populist NBR makes that a potent combo for One Battle After Another.
Does it matter than the NBR snubbed Hamnet? Not really. The Shape of Water wasn’t chosen by them and it still won. But it does tell me that unless something comes along to sour the Paul Thomas Anderson movie there is nothing slowing down that train. I threw up a little in my mouth when I saw they did what the NYFCC did and gave Sinners Screenplay. I’m embarrassed for them and I can’t believe this is even happening but there isn’t much I can do about it (I’ll be writing more on this tomorrow).
What I do know is that the AFI is influential because of the demographics of the hand-picked judges who select the best films of the year. They are reflective of the Academy and the industry writ large — wealthy elites, sophisticates, people who listen to NPR and read the New Yorker types. But they really do seem to have it down when it comes to influencing Best Picture.
The only film that won the NBR and Best Picture in the expanded ballot era was Green Book.
For a brief, fleeting moment there I thought NBR would be the one group that offered us some kind of off-ramp from the nightmare that is about to unfold (at least to me) where Hollywood rewards the one film that wasn’t successful because it “sends the right message” and further alienates Hollywood and the aristocracy from the rest of the country (they don’t see it that way but I do). Also, the years where one movie wins everything are always agony unless it’s a great movie like Oppenheimer. This one will be One Self Righteous Speech After Another.
Here are our predictions for the AFI Top Ten:
Sasha Stone
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Bugonia
Frankenstein
Jay Kelly
Train Dreams
Weapons
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Special prize: It Was Just An Accident or Sentimental Value
Scott Kernen
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Hamnet
Frankenstein
Marty Supreme
Jay Kelly
Wicked For Good
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Weapons
K-pop Demon Hunters
Jeremy Jentzen
One Battle After Another
Hamnet
Frankenstein
Jay Kelly
Wicked
Sinners
F1
Marty Supreme
Avatar
Is this thing on
We’ll see how it goes…
Alas. Anyway, here are the charts.
