Written and Edited by Ethan Jones

This weekend will mark the 97^th Academy Awards, and what an Awards Season it has been. While the past few years have seen clear favourites going into Oscar night – the Everything Everywhere All At Once sweep, the unstoppable force of Oppenheimer – this year is baffling, to say the least. Any one of … five films could realistically win Best Picture, whether that be Brady Corbet’s three-hour epic The Brutalist, Edward Berger’s papal thriller Conclave, or Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez, a film whose reputation as the 2025 Oscar villain continues to inspire both revulsion and reverence in equal measure.

Who will win? Who knows. Will everyone agree? Absolutely not. Should Challengers win Best Picture? I personally think so, but neither I nor the Academy Awards are the focus of this particular article, which instead hands the reigns of Awards Season glory over to the Warwick Film and Television Studies department. We’ve had the Golden Globes. We’ve had the Critic’s Choice Awards. We’ve had the PGAs, DGAs, SAGs and every other guild under the Sun. Finally, the last precursor of Awards Season is upon us: the ReelTalk Alternative Oscars.

Best Film

WINNER: Challengers – 10 total votes (2 staff, 8 students)

Dune Part: II – 7 total votes (1 staff, 6 students)

I Saw the TV Glow – 7 total votes (4 staff, 3 students)

Anora – 6 total votes (2 staff, 4 students)

The Brutalist – 5 total votes (2 staff, 3 students)

The Substance – 5 total votes (all students)

Wicked – 4 total votes (all students)

Hard Truths – 4 total votes (1 staff, 3 students)

Despite the Academy’s own best efforts to snub Challengers entirely (more on this later), it has won ReelTalk’s Award for Best Film with 10 total votes. It was Luca Guadagnino’s first film of 2024 – his second of which, Queer, only received one vote – and was originally intended to release at the tail-end of 2023, ultimately being delayed as a casualty of the 2023 strikes. Likewise, Dune: Part II was also a casualty of these strikes and yet managed to come in second place with seven total votes, tied with Jane Schoenbrun’s magnificent I Saw the TV Glow. Sean Baker’s Anora, a delightful comedy with promising Oscar prospects, received six total votes, followed swiftly by The Brutalist and The Substance, each of which is horrifying in its own very special way. The Substance, notably, was an exclusively student-led campaign, as was crowd-pleasing musical Wicked, which tied Mike Leigh’s incredibly touching dramedy Hard Truths with four votes apiece. These eight films are certainly not exhaustive of our department’s incredibly varied tastes, however: both Furiosa and Kneecap nabbed three total votes, while a number of films received two, including Nosferatu, Love Lies Bleeding, All We Imagine as Light and Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.

Best TV Show

WINNER: Baby Reindeer – 6 total votes (3 staff, 3 students)

Hacks – 3 total votes (1 staff, 2 students)

Severance – 3 total votes (1 staff, 2 students)

Fantasmas – 3 total votes (all students)

Arcane – 3 total votes (all students)

Compared to the votes for Best Film, the race for Best TV show was far more varied and eclectic, with over 37 different shows receiving one vote apiece. Ultimately, however, Baby Reindeer – a black-comedy created, written, and starring writer-comedian Richard Gadd – won the day with six total votes, followed by a number of shows that tied with three votes each. This includes the surrealist comedy Fantasmas, season three of Hacks, and season two of Arcane, an animated action-adventure show based on the video game League of Legends. Notably, S2 of Severance, released this past January, also released three votes, indicating a very early groundswell of support for the acclaimed Apple TV+ thriller as it heads into a year-long run of Emmy campaigning. Elsewhere, a number of shows received two votes each, including the Netflix rom-com Nobody Wants This, spy thriller Black Doves, social deducion game show The Traitors, and even the Christmas Day Gavin & Stacey special despite the original show ending in 2010. Critical favourites House of the Dragon, The Penguin, Shrinking and The Bear – which came joint-second in our poll from last year! – only received one vote each, as did lesser known titles such as the BBC sitcom Alma’s Not Normal, the Drag Queen comedy Smoggie Queens, and Netflix Romantic-Drama One Day.

Best Director

WINNER: Brady Corbet, The Brutalist – 4 total votes (all staff)

WINNER: RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys – 4 total votes (1 staff, 3 students)

WINNER: Denis Villeneuve, Dune: Part II – 4 total votes (all students)

Bertrand Bonello, The Beast / COMA – 3 total votes (all students)

Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine as Light – 2 total votes (all students)

Luca Guadagnino, Challengers / Queer – 2 total votes (all students)

There have only been six total instances of a two-way tie in Oscar history. Today, we break new ground with a three-way tie for Best Director, split across Brady Corbet’s enormous undertaking with The Brutalist, RaMell Ross’s breathtakingly innovative filmmaking in Nickel Boys, and Denis Villeneuve’s staggering work on Dune: Part II. Of the three, only Corbet has been nominated at the official Oscars, but all three are enormously deserving in their own ways. Bertrand Bonello, to this extent, came in second place with three total votes, nominated for both his work on The Beast and COMA. Meanwhile, Payal Kapadia was our only female director to receive multiple votes for her work on All We Imagine as Light (although The Substance’s own Coralie Fargeat, herself nominated for an Oscar, did receive one vote), with Luca Guadagnino’s joint-work on both Queer and Challengers, despite the latter winning our Best Picture prize, joining her in the two-votes club. Of the numerous directors to earn one vote, Clint Eastwood’s sturdy work on Juror #2 was recognised by one student, as was Jesse Eisenberg for A Real Pain, Jon M. Chu for Wicked, and Dev Patel for Monkey Man.

Best Screenplay

WINNER: Conclave – 4 total votes (2 staff, 2 students)

I Saw the TV Glow – 3 total votes (1 staff, 2 students)

Anora – 3 total votes (all students)

Challengers – 2 total votes (all students)

Hard Truths – 2 total votes (1 staff, 1 student)

The Brutalist – 2 total votes (1 staff, 1 student)

The Substance – 2 total votes (1 staff, 1 student)

Writer Peter Straughn’s incredibly taut work on Conclave – an adaptation of the Thomas Harris book of the same name, and current frontrunner at the Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay – won our poll for Best Screenplay with four total votes. Hot on its heels, both I Saw the TV Glow and Anora, each an incredibly original, vivid piece of work, received three votes apiece, while four total films tied with two votes: Challengers, Hard Truths, The Brutalist and The Substance. It is certainly an eclectic mixture of films, ranging from epic musings on Americana (The Brutalist) to quiet British dramedies about depression (Hard Truths) and the spectacularly wild body horror ramblings of The Substance. Elsewhere, A Real Pain, which just recently won for the BAFTA for Best Screenplay, received one vote, as did Yorgos Lanthimos’ incredibly peculiar Kinds of Kindness and the surrealist comedy Problemista.

Best Lead Performance

WINNER: Mikey Madison, Anora – 6 total votes (2 staff, 4 students)

Marianne Jean-Baptise, Hard Truths – 5 total votes (1 staff, 4 students)

Adrien Brody, The Brutalist – 3 total votes (all students)

Demi Moore, The Substance – 3 total votes (1 staff, 2 students)

Cynthia Erivo, Wicked – 2 votes (all students)

Colman Domingo, Sing Sing  – 2 votes (all students)

For the first year ever, we decided to change our Acting categories from Actor/Actress into Lead/Supporting. With that in mind, Mikey Madison’s star-making turn in Anora has been deemed the Best Leading Performance of 2024 by the Warwick community, a much deserved recognition that seems poised to extend onto Oscar night as she rolls down the red carpet as a major favourite to win Best Actress. Marianne Jean-Baptise, to this extent, was a former favourite to secure a Best Actress nomination but ultimately didn’t make the cut, which makes her much-deserved nomination here, coming in second place with five votes, a much-needed form of redemption. Meanwhile, both Adrien Brody and Demi Moore tied for third place with three votes apiece, with Brody giving a truly epic performance in a truly epic film and Moore grounding The Substance, a truly bonkers horror film, with her uncompromising presence and star power. Cynthia Erivo’s excellent performance in Wicked and Colman Domingo’s incredibly soulful work in Sing Sing both received two votes, while a variety of talented performers – including Saoirse Ronan’s career-best work in The Outrun, Lea Seydoux’s acclaimed performance in The Beast, and the tour-de-force trifecta of Wallace, Gromit, and the dastardly Feathers McGraw – just narrowly missed out with one vote each.

Best Supporting Performance

WINNER: Denzel Washington, Gladiator II – 3 total votes (2 staff, 1 student)

WINNER: Yuriy Borisov, Anora – 3 total votes (2 staff, 1 student)

Chris Hemsworth, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – 2 total votes (1 staff, 1 student)

Ariana Grande, Wicked – 2 total votes (all students)

Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice – 2 total votes (all students)

Our joint winners for Best Supporting Performance could not really be more different: Denzel Washington provides a masterclass in pure movie-star swagger throughout Gladiator II, captivating every moment of screentime, whereas Yuriy Borisov is far more reserved and quiet throughout Anora, revealing the brilliance of his performance in smaller shifts and turns. Regardless, both performances are unequivocally excellent, as are the three roles that only narrowly missed out and came joint-second. Chris Hemsworth brings an impish mania as the villain of Furiosa. Ariana Grande provides a pitch-perfect comedic performance in Wicked. Jeremy Strong absolutely rolls through The Apprentice and steals every morsel of movie as he does so. Curiously, Strong’s Succession co-star and odds-on-favourite to win Best Supporting Actor, Kieran Culkin, only received one vote, with Zoe Saldana, the odds on favourite to win Best Supporting Actress, getting overlooked entirely. Jesse Plemons, meanwhile, received one vote for his one-scene-wonder appearance in Civil War, as did Clarence Maclin for his work on Sing Sing, Lily Rose-Depp for her turn in Nosferatu, and Jack Haven, my personal pick, for their astonishing performance in I Saw the TV Glow.

Worst of the Worst

LOSER: Emilia Perez – 10 total votes (2 staff, 8 students)

Kraven the Hunter – 2 total votes (1 staff, 1 student)

Sweeping this Award in an absolute landslide, Emilia Perez, currently entering Oscar night with thirteen total nominations, has been designated as the absolute worst of the worst for 2024 by our community, and it really wasn’t even close. Only Kraven the Hunter, clinging onto second-place, received multiple votes as well, but it still lost to Jacques Audiard’s perpetually baffling musical by over eight votes. A number of films received one vote each, including Red One, Borderlands, Immaculate, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Joker: Folie a Deux. Meanwhile, a select-few performances were especially singled out, ranging from Zoe Saldana in Emilia Perez to Christopher Walken’s performance as the Emperor in Dune: Part II, Jeff Goldblum’s Wicked Wizard, and even our own Best Lead Performance winner, Mikey Madison.

Most Snubbed

WINNER: Challengers – 9 total votes (2 staff, 7 students)

Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths  – 4 total votes (1 staff, 3 students)

Denis Villeneuve, Dune: Part II – 2 total votes (all students)

Once again winning by a landslide, Challengers, our pick for Best Film of 2024, has unsurprisingly been declared the biggest snub, owing to its complete lack of Oscar nominations, in partqicular for Best Original Score, which for a long time it was favoured to outright win. Marianne Jean-Baptiste, our runner-up for Best Lead Performance, is once again the runner-up here, followed swiftly thereafter by Denis Villeneuve, who has gone 0-for-2 in Best Director nominations for his ongoing Dune trilogy (despite the two films having 15 total Oscar nominations between them). Daniel Craig’s performance in Queer was also singled out as a snub, as was the complete omission of films like Juror #2, Hit Man and Kinds of Kindness. Some of our voters were even more specific, however, citing Kneecap’s lack of an Editing nomination and Conclave’s miss from Cinematography as among the year’s biggest blunders.

21^st Century Best Picture Winners In-Review

By the end of the 97^th Academy Awards, we will officially have 25 Best Picture Winners from the 21^st Century. However, not all Best Picture winners have been created equal, and our polls certainly reflected that. Chiefly, Parasite ran away with the poll for the “Best” Best Picture winner of the century so far, storming ahead with 12 total votes. Tied for second place, Moonlight, Everything Everywhere All At Once and Chicago all received four votes each, although even if all their votes were added together, they would still barely tie with Bong Joon-ho’s trailblazing masterwork. Alternatively, the race for “Worst” Best Picture winner was far closer, albeit there were two very clear favourites: Paul Haggis’ Crash, which famously beat out Brokeback Mountain, and Peter Farrelly’s Green Book, which Spike Lee famously described as “not my cup of tea.” Eventually, Green Book’s lukewarm dramedy was narrowly declared the ultimate loser, beating out Crash with nine votes to seven. Six Best Picture winners received votes in both categories, although only Everything Everywhere All At Once proved divisive enough to garner multiple supporters on both sides. To any extent, a number of notable winners squeaked by completely unscathed by either campaign, including Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, and Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave.

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This year, as I said up top, has been a very strange one for the Oscars, but through our polls we awarded some truly exceptional pieces of work from 2024. Whether films won big, like Challengers and Anora, or were simply happy to be nominated, there was a lot to celebrate from the past year in film and television. We had a lot of crossover with the Academy Awards, but they nonetheless left a lot of worthy winners out, including Hard Truths, I Saw the TV Glow, The Beast, Challengers and many, many more. Consequently, we thank everyone who participated for their contributions to these awards and for joining us in celebrating a wide range of truly wonderful work from the past year of film and television!