Recapping The 98th Academy Awards
I’m taking a rare break from the slog of writing my book to comment on this year’s Oscars. As always I instituted a film club, listing the biggest films, recruited my wife and we cranked out what appeared to be the most relevant and interesting films so that I can give you some flaming hot takes about the four biggest categories.
For some reason, the Oscars are in March. It feels strange doing a retrospective of 2025 three months into 2026, but that’s Hollywood, I guess.
As with last year’s blog, here’s my thoughts:
Best Picture
WINNER: One Battle After Another
Verdict: Justified
Leonardi Di Caprio was excellent, a man on the edge looking for his daughter and going from one bad situation to another. My favourite moment was knowing that his delusion stoner paranoia was justified and having to leave everything he knows in less than five minutes.
My Pick: Sinners
Best Actress in a Leading Role
WINNER: Jessie Buckley – Hamnet
Verdict: Travesty
This hype train for this one was unstoppable going into the show, but I didn’t understand it all. Firstly the film was slow and depressing, a high brow version of Bohemian Rhapsody which hit all the classic biopic beats, without the creativity.
The sets were impressive, but the film felt like the sort of thing you could see on BBC One at anytime, an extended TV show. I found Jessie Buckley grating, screaming for most of the first half of the film, doing loud childbirth or mourning her child there was nothing understated.
My Pick: Emma Stone, Bugonia.
One of the most bizarre films I’ve ever watched, aliens and women’s hair being shaved off. If we have given the Oscar to Charlize Theron for getting fat and ugly for Monster, surely Emma Stone shaving her head has to count for something?
Stone was magnetic in every scene, watching her process the actions of increasingly unhinged Jesse Plemons were amusing.
Best Actor in a Leading Role
WINNER: Michael B. Jordan – Sinners
Verdict: Deserved
My Pick: Michael B. Jordan – Sinners
It was only with a second watch of Sinners, when I truly appreciated this performance. Stack and Smoke feel like distinct people and I had no trouble who was who in each scene, layered. If it was up to me, he would get two trophies.
It was a strong year for the Best Actor category, it was conceivable that Leonardo Di Caprio could have won for One Battle After Another and it would have been fair. For a film with so many strong and violent characters, he was the least strong, but the most interesting with a clear motivation.
Best Director
WINNER: Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another
Verdict: Fair
A great deal of the Oscars is waiting until the Academy decides you’re ‘due’, after being nominated 11 times, Paul Thomas Anderson finally got his Oscar. One Battle After Another, is a brilliant film and fully deserving to win, but you could argue that Boogie Nights or There Will Be Blood are stronger films and this makes up for it.
My Pick: Ryan Coogler, Sinners
The care and attention to detail to create 1930s rural Mississippi for this film has to be appreciated. As well as pulling off the rare film set in this era that shows the reality of life for Black people back them, without being making the characters exist just to make a point about how racism is bad. I think it’s this and Idlewild that pull this off.
I suppose we need to wait a decade or two until Ryan Coogler gets his own trophy.
