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When Sinners director Ryan Coogler went to the movies as a child, he would smuggle in some snacks - and get particularly creative with the cinema's drinks machine.
"I'm not a big soda person, but when they started to let you mix and match the drinks, I got involved with that," he told Amy Poehler's Good Hang podcast recently.
Decades later, Coogler's taste for combining a wide variety of flavours can be seen in his genre-defying best picture contender, which blends blues music with vampire horror against the backdrop of the 1930s Mississippi Delta.
Sinners could take several statuettes at this weekend's Oscars, but it faces tough competition from co-frontrunner One Battle After Another, in a genuinely exciting year for the awards race where several categories are too close to call.
Here are 17 fun facts to sink your vampire fangs into ahead of the Academy Awards this Sunday.
1. Zootopia 2 is this year's highest-grossing nominated film, having taken a staggering $1.86bn (£1.39bn) worldwide.
But the animated franchise has a different title in Europe - Zootropolis. That's because of Givskud Zoo in Denmark, which registered the trademark "Zootopia" in the EU in 2009, seven years before the first movie was released.
Other box office smashes nominated this year include Avatar threequel Fire & Ash, which has taken $1.48bn (£1.11bn), while the highest-grossing film in the best picture category is racing thriller F1, which made $632m (£472m).
2. Emma Stone has broken two records this year.
Aged 37, the Bugonia star is the youngest woman ever to earn seven Oscar nominations, overtaking Meryl Streep, who was 38.
Stone has also become the only actress whose first five Oscar nominations are all for films which were also nominated for best picture.
In the space of 11 years, she has been recognised for her roles in Birdman, The Favourite, Bugonia, La La Land and Poor Things - winning for the latter two.
3. Frankenstein has been two centuries in the making.
There is a 207-year gap between Mary Shelley's 1818 novel and Guillermo del Toro's 2025 film adaptation for Netflix.
That's one of the biggest gaps between source material and film adaptation in the history of the best picture category. Those ahead of it include:
Tom Jones (1963), based on the original 1749 novel - a 214-year gap
Hamlet (1996), based on the 1601 play - a 395-year gap
O Brother Where Art Thou (2000), based on Greek poem The Odyssey, written around 700 BC - a 2,700-year gap
4. Chase Infiniti has cinema in her blood.
The breakout star of One Battle After Another has been destined for a film career since the day she was born.
The 25-year-old was named after Nicole Kidman's character in 1995's Batman Forever, Chase Meridian, and Buzz Lightyear's catchprahse in Toy Story: "To infinity and beyond."
Benicio del Toro, Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall and Chase Infiniti speak onstage during the 32nd Annual Actor Awards in LA on 1 March. Del Toro is wearing a tux, Taylor has a strapless grey and beige dress on, Hall is wearing a white and diamante dress, while Infiniti has on a gold chainmail dress.
Chase Infiniti (right, with her One Battle After Another co-stars) gets her name from two movies
5. Miriam Margolyes is getting some long overdue Oscars recognition.
The British actress stars as the titular character in A Friend of Dorothy, nominated for best live action short. But Margolyes has never been nominated as an actress, much to her annoyance.
"I should have been nominated but I wasn't," she told Graham Norton with characteristic candour. "I was very angry about it."
Margolyes said she should have been recognised for her role in Martin Scorsese's 1993 period drama The Age of Innocence. "I was marvellous in it," she reflected. "And the reason I wasn't nominated was because of Winona Ryder.
"What happened was, [Ryder] was nominated as a supporting actress instead of a leading actress. And if she'd jolly well kept herself to herself and been nominated as a leading actress they would have nominated me in supporting. I was livid."
Miriam Margolyes, award winning actress and writer, attends the Oxford Literary Festival 2025 on March 29, 2025 in Oxford, England
Miriam Margolyes stars in a nominated short film - just don't mention Winona Ryder
6. Several nominees are very loyal to their directors.
Four of this year's lead acting nominees have been recognised for films that are directed by their long-term collaborator. The four inseparable pairs are:
Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater (who have made nine films together)
Michael B Jordan and Ryan Coogler (five)
Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos (five)
Renate Reinsve and Joachim Trier (three)
7. Jessie Buckley could become the first Irish winner of best actress.
Previous nominees from Ireland include Saoirse Ronan and Ruth Negga, while Brenda Fricker won best supporting actress in 1989. But no Irish star has yet won the leading actress category.
Having already scored best actress at the Critics Choice, Golden Globe, Bafta and Actor Awards, Buckley is likely to become the first actress to sweep the category at all five ceremonies since Renée Zellweger for Judy in 2020.
8. Brad Pitt has broken a 35-year trend.
The US actor's racing thriller F1 appears in several technical categories, but also scored a surprise best picture nomination.
The film made it into the top category despite not having any corresponding nods for directing, screenplay or acting.
The last film to do this was Beauty and the Beast in 1991.
9. KPop Demon Hunters are going for (double) gold.
The Netflix smash hit is the favourite to win two categories - best animated feature and best original song for Golden, performed by the movie's girl group Huntr/x.
Two other films have previously pulled off this double - 2010's Toy Story 3 with its song We Belong Together, and 2013's Frozen with its inescapable earworm Let It Go.
10. Rose Byrne, Kate Hudson and Amy Madigan are flying solo.
All three actresses scored the only nomination for their respective movies - If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Song Sung Blue and Weapons.
Madigan has a decent chance in the supporting actress category. But it's an uphill battle - only five actors this century have managed to pull off a win as their film's sole nominee.
They are Julianne Moore (Still Alice), Charlize Theron (Monster), Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Christopher Plummer (Beginners) and Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona).
11. Timothée Chalamet is the youngest actor since Marlon Brando to score three Oscar nominations for acting.
Brando was 30, the same age as Chalamet, when he achieved his third nomination in 1954.
It's possible Chalamet could win this year for Marty Supreme, but he has lost momentum in recent weeks. (Brando notably didn't win until his fourth nomination, for On the Waterfront.)
Chalamet has already missed his chance to be the youngest-ever winner. That record is held by Adrien Brody, who won aged 29 for The Pianist in 2001.
Marty Supreme star Timothée Chalamet is up for best actor, but has lost some momentum in recent weeks
12. Only three Norwegian actors have ever been nominated for an Oscar - and two of them are from this year.
Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas are both nominated for their performances in family drama Sentimental Value.
The only other Nordic actor recognised by the Academy is Liv Ullmann - who was nominated for both The Emigrants (1972) and Face to Face (1976).
13. One Battle After Another is Leonardo DiCaprio's 12th movie to be nominated for best picture - drawing him level with Robert de Niro.
The Godfather Part II (1974) was de Niro's first appearance in the top category, before he continued his streak with films such as Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Joker and The Irishman.
DiCaprio's first appearance, meanwhile, was for 1997's Titanic, continuing through The Departed, Inception and Django Unchained.
Both actors notched up another one when they appeared together in 2023's Killers of the Flower Moon.
Meanwhile, One Battle director Paul Thomas Anderson could pull off a rare Oscars trifecta by personally winning three Oscars for writing, directing and producing - a combo that has only been achieved by 10 other filmmakers.
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning, Stellan Skarsgård, and Renate Reinsve accept Best Intergen/Foreign for Sentimental Value onstage during the 2026 Annual Movies for Grownups Awards with AARP in Los Angeles. They are all wearing black.
Sentimental Value stars (left to right) Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning, Stellan Skarsgård, and Renate Reinsve
14. Wagner Moura has joined an exclusive club.
The Secret Agent star joins the select group of best actor nominees from films entirely spoken in languages other than English.
The others are Javier Bardem, Marcello Mastroianni, Giancarlo Giannini, Max von Sydow, Gérard Depardieu, Massimo Troisi, Antonio Banderas and Roberto Benigni (who is the only one to win, for 1997's Life is Beautiful).
15. Mind the gap! Several nominees have been on an Oscars break.
Song Sung Blue star Kate Hudson is nominated for the first time in 25 years, while One Battle After Another star Benicio del Toro's nod comes 22 years after his last.
Weapons star Amy Madigan, meanwhile, is nominated for the second time, a whopping 40 years after her first nomination, for the aptly named Twice in a Lifetime.
She's not far behind Judd Hirsch, who holds the record thanks to the 42-year gap between his nominations for Ordinary People (1981) and The Fabelmans (2023).
Delroy Lindo and Wunmi Mosaku pose at The 2026 Independent Spirit Awards at Hollywood Palladium on 15 February in Los Angeles, California
Sinners stars Delroy Lindo and Wunmi Mosaku are nominated in the supporting categories
16. Delroy Lindo is up for best supporting actor despite not even being nominated at the Bafta, Golden Globe and Actor Awards.
This happens every now and again - the last actor to pop up at the Oscars without any major precursor recognition was Andrea Riseborough for To Leslie in 2022. But it's very rare that an actor with only an Oscar nomination goes on to win.
If Lewisham-born Lindo takes home the prize, he'll be the first actor to win an Oscar without an earlier nomination since Marcia Gay Harden for Pollock in 2001.
Lindo's co-star Michael B Jordan could also break a record if he repeats his recent Actor Award (formerly SAG) win at the Oscars.
No lead actor has ever won the Actor Award and Oscar without also winning anything at the Golden Globes, Baftas or Critics Choice Awards.
17. Hamnet is following in EastEnders' footsteps.
Despite having a mostly original score, Hamnet director Chloe Zhao chose a 20-year-old piece of music for the film's emotional final scene.
She isn't the first to invoke the emotive On The Nature of Daylight by composer Max Richter - it has been used by countless directors over the last two decades in their efforts to make audiences cry.
You might have recognised it from its use in Arrival, Shutter Island, The Last of Us, Stranger Than Fiction, The Handmaid's Tale, The Innocents... and, perhaps most importantly, an episode of EastEnders.
This year's Oscars have finally given us the Shakespeare and Albert Square crossover we've always wanted.
The Academy Awards take place on Sunday (15 March).
Eight surprise takeaways from the Oscar nominations
12 things we spotted in the Oscars class photo
Oscars 2026: Nominees list in full
How to watch the Oscar-nominated films
Michael B Jordan upends Oscars race as Sinners wins big at Actor Awards
Here’s How to Watch 'Sinners' Ahead of the 2026 Oscars on Sunday
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Following the success of Black Panther and Creed, director Ryan Coogler returned last year with Sinners, an original vampire thriller. Set in 1930s Mississippi and starring Michael B. Jordan in a dual role, the film unfolds as both a supernatural tale and an exploration of family, tradition, and Black Southern culture—and now, the film has officially made history at the 2026 Academy Awards, earning a total of 16 Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. It is the most-nominated film in the history of the awards show.
Sinners, which premiered in theaters last April, marks the fifth collaboration between Coogler and Jordan. This time, Jordan plays twin brothers—Smoke and Stack—who return to their hometown hoping to leave their past behind. But what awaits them is even more: a town haunted by vampires and other monsters.
Despite the high-concept premise, Coogler sought to root the film in raw emotion. Inspired by the loss of his uncle James and the family stories he heard growing up, Sinners merges bold, stylized filmmaking with deeply personal history. “For me, the movie started with my relationship with my uncle who is from Mississippi,” Coogler told LeBron James in a conversation for Interview Magazine.
“He was the older male figure in my life... When I was working on Creed in 2015, he passed away. I had already made a film about the Bay with Fruitvale [Station], I was making a movie about Philly, I made a couple of movies about Wakanda, and now I’m coming back home in a different way. I’m looking at the American South, which is, outside of the continent of Africa, where Black people call home.”
Though it tackles themes of Black displacement, resistance, and resilience, Sinners also makes space for humor, tenderness, and lots of blood. “At first I thought Sinners was going to be a small genre film, but [the more] I learned I was like, ‘Oh, this thing has to actually be massive’ for it to feel right, to do it justice,” Coogler told IndieWire.
And it sure was massive. In addition to earning over $300 million at the box office, Sinners received critical acclaim, landing on many best-of lists and winning Cinematic Box Office Achievement at the 2026 Golden Globe Awards. In addition to the Oscar nods for Best Picture and Best Screenplay, the film earned nominations for Best Actor (Jordan), Best Supporting Actress (Wunmi Mosaku), Best Supporting Actor (Delroy Lindo), Best Directing (Coogler), and more.
Technically, the film is pretty ambitious. Coogler shot it using ultra-widescreen formats—Ultra Panavision 70 and IMAX 65mm—giving it the immersive scope of a Hollywood epic, with an intimate touch. It’s a format Coogler chose deliberately to honor the theatrical experience. “I want people walking out of the theater and thinking, ‘Man, I had a full meal. They really care about the medium,’” he told LeBron James in Interview. Coogler also made an 11-minute video with Kodak, which went viral, explaining his filming process in intricate detail.
Key Points
EW speaks with 4 anonymous Oscars voters who reveal their spicy reactions to this year's race.
On Timothée Chalamet's campaign and recent anti-opera comments, one actor tells EW: "F--- that guy!"
Almost all chose Jessie Buckley to win Best Actress, but many were split on Supporting Actor.
No phrase better provides a snapshot of the energy surrounding the end of the 2025-26 awards season than the one uttered by an Academy voter Entertainment Weekly anonymously surveyed about their Oscars picks: "Oh, yeah. F--- that guy."
That guy in question is former Best Actor frontrunner Timothée Chalamet, whose Marty Supreme campaign hit a roadblock in recent weeks after its star received criticism over what many felt were smug comments about his work — which he later followed up by making a heavily criticized jab at audiences losing interest in other art forms like opera and ballet.
"It's so trashy. Punching down on artists who make a fraction of what he makes, yet have spent 10 to 20 years honing their craft? I'm sorry, you know, this guy is not Philip Seymour Hoffman. And Philip Seymour Hoffman would certainly never punch down on opera or ballet dancers," the actor continues. "That's an entitled dude. I'm sorry. I lost a lot of respect for him."
It's clear: Managing one's words is a key step in any star's delicate ballet-dance through Oscar season, which this year has welcomed a wide range of contenders into the foray.
From Michael B. Jordan and Jessie Buckley to Sean Penn, this year's crop spans major blockbusters with cultural impact (Sinners) to prestige dramas (Hamnet) and, even, a mix of the two (One Battle After Another). The Academy also implemented a new rule, which requires all voters to have seen every film in a specific category before casting their ballot.
But, as one director anonymously tells EW, they're not all being honest about their results.
"I think it's a noble initiative," EW's director says with a laugh. "I think you should obviously watch everything before you say, 'This is the best of this group.' But, you know, when the movies are 13 hours long, everybody's lying this year. I can guarantee that."
What we can promise, however, is some super candid explanations from our roster of secret balloters. Ahead of Sunday's 98th Academy Awards telecast on ABC, read on to see what EW's panel of Oscars insiders voted for — and their candid reasoning for why.
See EW's full list of 2026 Oscar predictions
The Actor: A star on screens big and small, this performer has appeared in an eclectic wealth of projects for decades.
The Director: An accomplished filmmaker working on both major studio productions and smaller, critically lauded specialty films.
The Editor: This behind-the-scenes professional has shepherded box office smashes and prestige titles into the pop culture conversation.
The Publicist: A mastermind of marketing responsible for publicizing a range of top-tier titles and the A-list stars in them.
The Actor: Of course, it was Amy Madigan for Weapons. I loved her in this role. It's always great when someone who you've watched for years gets this moment, and it's fantastic work. I look at it strictly as performance [over genre]. Actors, we take the work we can find, and we do the same level of preparation for horror or drama. We bring the same effort and energy, whether it’s Martin Scorsese directing or a new director.
The Director: I’m voting for Sinners across the board, so Wunmi Mosaku. One Battle After Another was heavily marketed on Teyana Taylor’s name, and then she was gone [after 30 minutes] and I was waiting for her to turn up. Very surprised she was missing…. I have to admit, I watched Weapons on an airplane. I'm shocked by the Oscar nomination, even though I think it's a fantastic performance, but when you look at Sinners, it's talking about race and ownership and history, and it's flipping every sort of aspect of the genre on its head by doing something different. Weapons didn't have that, you know? Weapons was like, "Oh, yeah, this is gonna be about the crazy lady." I’ll be honest, I didn’t recognize Amy Madigan. I thought it was maybe a man dressed up as a woman. I thought it might be a very homophobic Silence of the Lambs-type situation!
The Editor: A couple of times on my ballot, I’ve selected performances in films I did not like because I thought what the person in the role did was noteworthy. [Similarly], an underwritten or unbelievable or uninteresting character made believable or interesting by the actor is noteworthy. So I gave Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in Sentimental Value the nod here, because that movie I found really dull and kind of pointless. I don't need to watch another movie about an aging director. Aside from that, I thought her character was grounded. Both lead actors kept me linked to some kind of real psychology through their performances, not through the writing. Inga is what I will remember from that film.
The Publicist: Amy Madigan. She made the film, which was uniquely shot and written, but that performance was one for the ages. I also think it's wonderful for a veteran actor. The fact that she could be rewarded for a film that’s seemingly out of the comfort zone of Academy voters is [important] and I wanted to reward that. Elle and Inga, I think, were incredibly deserving. It was a challenge between them and Amy, and I'm so happy that Inga has this moment, and I hope she's booking eight million things.
The Actor: Stellan Skarsgård. I've been a fan of his forever. Chernobyl is the best miniseries ever made. He was so brilliant. What I really liked about him in Sentimental Value is the complexity of his relationship with his daughters. You could see it play across his face, yet he's funny, he's charming…. Just an incredible, empathetic, and sophisticated performance.
The Director: Nobody watched Frankenstein. Nobody could get through that movie. I'm gonna go with Benicio Del Toro, just because of that whole sequence of them hiding the kids and getting the kids out and moving them from place to place. I loved watching him, every second. I also don't want Sean Penn to get it because I'm still mad at him for how he treated Madonna. I think he is going to win, unfortunately.
The Editor: I voted for Delroy Lindo in Sinners, because his role stood out to me in that film. It was the most memorable performance and it confirmed what I already knew about him as an actor I've loved and followed for years and have always felt deserved more recognition. I wouldn't necessarily highlight Sinners as the film, but it does feel like one that is more about the actor, rather than me being particularly in love with that character and that film. I think he did just about as good a job as anybody could possibly have done with it, and it stood out. In comparison to the other nominees, I can't really say the same thing. These are not any of the roles I would've highlighted this year for supporting actor, but of the nominations, I’d be thrilled if Delroy won.... I have trouble finding just about anything about One Battle After Another remarkable, including Sean Penn’s performance. It's fine, but it felt very cartoonish, much like the rest of the movie. I think Sean did a fine job in a role that I find simplistic. I didn't go into the Academy thinking I’d vote based on career prizes, but that's where we are with these nominees. I don't need to give Sean a career prize the way I would like Delroy Lindo to get one.
The Publicist: Stellan Skarsgård. His performance could have been a very easy, one-note performance. He layered his performance with subtlety. I thought it was excellent. Sentimental Value is one of my favorite films of the year and certainly one of my favorite films of all time. Stellan is getting my vote for that. I was also happy to see Delroy Lindo get in.
The Actor: I voted for Jessie Buckley. It's the best film of the year, and she carried that film on her back. The quiet moments, the grief, the slow dawning of realization that her husband had written this piece as a way of dealing with his grief and her anger. A performance for the ages, absolutely. I feel terrible for Rose Byrne, though. She should win the Oscar because her work is beyond. It's so good. She’s the whole movie. I know Jessie carried Hamnet, but If I Had Legs I’d Kick You rests in Rose’s closeups, it's entirely her performance. It’s just so interior. It's so beautiful. Those are performances of the decade. I don't even talk about last year and Anora and all that stuff. Last year's performance [from Mikey Madison] doesn't even touch what these two women did. Mikey did good work, but I'm like, I haven't thought about that movie since.
The Director: I’m voting for Jessie Buckley because she's so in the moment and so good. She was very real and I appreciated her natural face that could move and emote. I found Jessie refreshing. Emma Stone is never bad and she throws herself 100 precent into whatever she's doing. She’ll always have my heart from Easy A. It just felt like the story of Bugonia was, okay, this is gonna be a s---y American version of Parasite. I adore Rose Byrne, but that movie, I was put off by the director’s Q&A, where she was like, "You can tell that I don't have exposition in my movie. I trust my audience to know what's happening.” I was like, don’t trust me. I don't know what the f---‘s going on!
The Editor: I don't have issues with any of the actors. I just had to select something with the most nuance or unexpected depth. I think what Rose Byrne did was remarkable. I could think about and rewatch Jessie Buckley’s performance the most in Hamnet and find new layers of what's going on for that character, more so than the others. I think that probably comes down mostly to the script and the directing, honestly, more than the skill of any of the actors…. I truly have no idea what Kate Hudson is doing in this category. It's nothing against her in particular. I just don't know how that role in that film would've gotten selected, other than I guess a lot is driven by campaigns.
The Publicist: This was probably the toughest category for me. Jessie Buckley did exceptional work in Hamnet. However, I was completely, surprisingly won over by Kate Hudson in Song Sung Blue. Watching her juggle the magnitude of, it's a real story, it's in someone's story, and being an actor. As somebody who I feel like I haven't seen on screen for quite some time, I thought it was a remarkable, fearless performance.
Best Actor
The Actor: Michael B. Jordan got my vote. Playing twins, you get two roles for one. It's almost unfair, you know? Like, wait, that guy played two guys!? So, Michael absolutely got it, but I looked at his body of work. This guy has been killing it. I remember him in The Wire as this skinny kid, and he’s just grown so beautifully. His work in Sinners is powerful, physical, just exciting.
The Director: 100 percent Wagner Moura. So good. He’s just so watchable and so beautiful. His performance was so beautiful.
The Editor: I chose Wagner Moura. He carries the movie and is sort of inscrutable and fascinating the whole time. He seems to effortlessly embody the time and place. He brings complexity to moments that seem effortless. That’s always fascinating to me. I found that movie fascinating as a way to approach a complicated historical subject. It's impossible to imagine the movie without him…. I have a ton of respect for Michael B. Jordan, and I'm sure [his role in Sinners] was technically difficult, playing the two characters, but I wasn’t particularly moved by it.
The Publicist: Michael B. Jordan. Two roles, which absolutely could’ve been an exercise in special effects. He created distinctive characters in these brothers. Watching his eyes, watching him emote, he brought a lot to the screen. I saw the movie a second time, just to watch him again. I was bowled over by him. I think there was an arrogance to Timothée’s campaigning that, in the year 2026, no one wants to hear or see somebody say that they deserved this Oscar. It felt tone deaf and really disappointing, because I love that movie.
Best Director
The Actor: This was a hard one. Sinners is just that movie. It did so much, and I voted for Ryan Coogler. Chloé Zhao created a masterwork, but so did Ryan. The technical filming with the twins, blending it, the performances, he just steered so many great performances out of people. This guy's been killing it.
The Director: Did people nominate Paul Thomas Anderson — who is a fantastic director — for this movie, or is it one of those movies where, you know, it’s like when we gave Martin Scorsese the award for The Departed? It wasn't his best movie, but it was kind of one of those, “Oh, we should've given one of these earlier.” When you think about the economy of storytelling, it's so beautifully directed, the car chase scene, the ups and down, the locations and how he picked them — all of it's so beautiful. And then you’re like, "But this overall story… what?” I kept waiting for something deeper.
I'm going to pick Ryan Coogler because I think what he did was phenomenal, even though I know Paul's gonna win…. I became so aware of how I had seen so many movies with the crazy Haitians and the Voodoo stereotypes, and the Black people singing tribal chants and dancing around like that. And the fact that Ryan Coogler flipped it so effortlessly, so that the creepy, scary dance was a white, Irish folk song. It was brilliant. I've seen the exact opposite of that scene in too many movies. That was so skillful and subtle. This is such a personal movie and such a big canvas and genre. It was beautiful to watch an artist wrestle with what, what it means and form and content and how they're related.
The Editor: You may find flaws in my logic, but the flip side of the career vote is voting for someone whose career could benefit the most. I think I went the other way, which is voting for the one that is certainly one of the best directed films in general, which is Hamnet. Chloé Zhao definitely deserves this nomination for this film, whereas I don’t feel the other four belong in this category. I think of Paul Thomas Anderson as one of the few directors who seems to be able to marshal any budget, regardless of past box office, and not someone who needs the director recognition in this way. I’m perplexed by PTA's last four films. Licorice Pizza and One Battle After Another both feel potentially harmful to the world. It’s not just, politically, extremely regressive — and sort of gleefully so — he seems to be reveling in thumbing his nose at people who want to find political saliency in his works. It almost seems like an “F-you” to the audience who might want that.
The Publicist: I voted for Paul Thomas Anderson. It’s his time. It's an exceptional film, so well-made, so well-directed. He’s an auteur, a genius. It's his time, and I can’t wait to see him hold a little gold man. I think Ryan can win. That being said, I want to spread the wealth. I want to acknowledge as many of these films as I can.
The Actor: Hamnet got my vote. Secret Agent, Marty Supreme, I just didn't rank those. F1 is at the bottom, and Marty Supreme is right next to it. If there were two bottom placements, I would put them both together. I loved [the Safdies’] Good Time, this energetic work where you're dropped into this cauldron of chaos and characters. I'm just tired of that. Marty Supreme tired me out. I like actors who play unlikeable characters, but this guy, I’m rooting against him. I just didn't want to see it anymore. (BBC)