WEEKEND SPECIAL: Fixing The Oscars, 2000-2014

Yet Another Way I Wasted My Time In Prison

I am a major Academy Awards guy. You can tell by my contributions to The Film stack Oscars Roundtable, where I joined several luminaries to talk about tonight’s Oscars presentation. Click to enjoy!

The 2025 FilmStack Oscars Round Table

The awards showcase two of my favorite interests: movies and sports. It’s immensely satisfying when you see two or three movies in a day, and you struggle to compare them. Well, what if they were ranked by how many gold statues they’re given? It’s completely nonsense, and I tune in every year, even though all of us have trouble remembering what won the last five Best Picture awards. I also can’t remember the last team to win the NBA Finals. It was the Wizards, right?

Historically, they’ve made choices that don’t always pass the smell test. There’s a reason for this: the Academy does not watch movies. Most people in the Academy are too busy making movies, or they’re genuine philistines. Samuel L. Jackson, an Academy member and genuine film fan, has admitted that he votes for his friends, and when they’re not nominated, he gives the ballot to his butler. I imagine a lot of the people in the Academy aren’t movie people at all – they’re probably a lot like former Quibi CEO Meg Whitman, who, in an infamous and hilarious Quibi profile piece a few years back, talked about reinventing television while grudgingly admitting she doesn’t watch much TV at all.

Movies have to be submitted to the Academy for consideration – if you wanted to be a disruptor from within, you can’t write-in “Madame Web” for Best Actress because it wasn’t submitted. After submissions are accepted, the studios do their best to market to the award voters with expensive publicity, dinners, screenings, screeners, and probably a chance to shake hands with someone. And obviously the people behind “Avatar” have more money to do this than the distributors of that tiny indie you liked that was released earlier in February.

So what if you went back and fixed the Oscars? When I was down, I engaged in this experiment. In fact, I did it without any help from the internet, only a few booklets and research books. I had time to spare, so I decided to fix the Oscars during the 2000’s, a period where I watched as many movies as the average Academy voter, and likely even more. I’m now going to piece through the redone Oscars from 2000 (where they awarded the movies from 1999) to 2014 (the last year I watched the Oscars as a free man until my eight and a half year prison sentence). A few caveats:

-Only main categories. Sorry, fans of Best Sound Design.

-Though the number of Best Picture nominees has fluctuated over the years, I’m going with the Hard Ten that was established a few years back. Yes, these are my choices, but even if I disagree with your ten, we should be doing our best to get ten movies we love out to the public. The whole point of this is that everyone gets to see and enjoy more movies. Who cares if we disagree?

-I am mindful of category fraud. Forest Whitaker, the man, the myth, the Ghost Dog, won Best Actor for “The Last King Of Scotland”, where he plays a supporting role. In my Oscars, he would not be eligible for Best Actor.

-There are no documentaries here. I like and respect them very much, but I have a blindspot for several. I also have never felt right comparing fiction and non-fiction filmmaking, I feel they’re completely different disciplines. I also have a blindspot for animated films, because I have been an adult male during this period, and I just don’t watch many of them. I am an adult male, and I have been doing adult things. Like watching Marvel movies.

-My hopes are to expand the canon ever so softly. So that means a lot of international films. But it also means a lot of genre films, as far as comedies, horror movies, etc. Particularly in regards to performances.

-I tried my best to be accurate to the movie’s American release date, which is often different to the year credited to the film online. For example, I very much wanted to mention Isabelle Huppert’s work in “Abuse Of Weakness” as one of the greatest performances I have ever seen, but I snuck up to the New York Film Festival to see that in 2013 – the film didn’t receive a proper commercial release until the next year.

-I would love to listen to arguments.

Now, onto THE YEAR 2000!

BEST PICTURE (all hypothetical winners in bold)

Being John Malkovich
Election
Eyes Wide Shut
Fight Club
The Insider
The Matrix
Run, Lola, Run
The Straight Story
Topsy-Turvy
The War Zone
“American Beauty” took home the prize that year. It’s a curious movie, because it aged poorly, then suddenly well, and then poorly all over again. Upon a re-evaluation, it doesn’t stand a chance, given that this is one of the great film years. This was so long ago – do you go with the movie you liked the best (“Being John Malkovich”) or the movies that basically came true (“The Matrix”, “Fight Club”)?

“The Insider” by the way is the only survivor from the original group of five nominees, which also included the wan “Cider House Rules”, the jejune “The Green Mile”, and the still pretty good “The Sixth Sense”. Just because I eliminated you doesn’t mean I think you made a bad movie, guy.

In the end, I favored the bleaker-than-bleak “The War Zone” over a few great movies, including the all-you-can-eat riches of “Magnolia”, the camp majesty of “All About My Mother” and the sticky morality of “Three Kings”, but you really can’t lose with 1999.

(Have Not Seen: I actually feel comfortable here, I’ve seen most of what 1999 has to offer, and I had to choose between some very obscure titles)

BEST DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson, Magnolia
David Fincher, Fight Club
Spike Jonze, Being John Malkovich
Stanley Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut
Michael Mann, The Insider
Jonze and Mann are the only holdovers from this group, as I booted Sam Mendes for “American Beauty”, Lasse Hallstrom for “The Cider House Rules” and M Night Shyamalan for “The Sixth Sense”. Not sure why they couldn’t give Kubrick respect for absolutely nailing his last movie. I accept criticism of Anderson and Fincher being, “It’s BEST Directing, not MOST Directing.”

BEST ACTOR
Russell Crowe, The Insider
Richard Farnsworth, The Straight Story
Terrence Stamp, The Limey
David Strathairn, Limbo
Denzel Washington, The Hurricane
Actually saved three performances from the original nominees in Crowe, Farnsworth and Denzel. I do honestly believe these movies are the best work Crowe and Washington have ever done, but I really would go back and honor the Equalizer over creep Kevin Spacey giving a fun variation on the Smarmy Jerk he perfected for years. Strathairn is an underrated veteran who only has one nomination, for “Good Night, And Good Luck”, so this would be for some underrated low-key work. I didn’t want to swap out Sean Penn in “Sweet And Lowdown” because it’s a very funny performance, but Terrence Stamp in “The Limey” is a super-quotable delight.

BEST ACTRESS
Annette Bening, American Beauty
Nicole Kidman, Eyes Wide Shut
Franka Potente, Run, Lola, Run
Hilary Swank, Boys Don’t Cry
Reese Witherspoon, Election
Bening, Moore and category winner Swank return. I’m hot-and-cold on the Swank reprisal – it’s a very good performance in a strong movie from an actress who, forgive me, I don’t think is normally very impressive. But it is kind of… I guess drag drag? Does that make sense? Perhaps I am underqualified.

Regardless, I don’t know how you ignore Witherspoon for this. Again, not a performer that thrills me too much, but one who showed up for Alexander Payne’s deadly satire loaded for bear. As for Potente, she’s quite good in the dramatic sequences, but I do think physicality is something that is ignored as far as performance. If an actor stays silent for a period of time, but you can’t stop looking at them, this seems to be the mark of an interesting performance.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Michael Caine, The Cider House Rules
Tom Cruise, Magnolia
Jude Law, The Talented Mr. Ripley
Al Pacino, The Insider
Brad Pitt, Fight Club
I do remember this moment in the original telecast, when Michael Caine graciously accepted the award by turning it into an opportunity to salute his fellow nominees. A classy gesture, and I kind of feel bad I have to undo it. Truth was, this was such a hard category. I hated cutting Haley Joel Osment for “The Sixth Sense”, and I was juggling the fates of both original nominee Michael Clarke Duncan for “The Green Mile” and Ray Winstone for his terrifying turn in “The War Zone”. The list of omissions goes on for too long.

That’s largely because of category fraud. I’ve no doubt the studios considered Pacino and Pitt’s work to be in the Lead Actor category, even though both are playing flashy supporting roles. As people who lost out on a nomination to Tom Cruise the first time around will tell you, it’s hard to crowd out those leading men.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Toni Collette, The Sixth Sense
Cameron Diaz, Being John Malkovich
Catherine Keener, Being John Malkovich
Samantha Morton, Sweet and Lowdown
Alfre Woodard, Mumford
I saved Collette, Keener and Morton, and I ditched the showy award-winning turn from Angelina Jolie in “Girl, Interrupted” and Chloe Sevigny’s too-understated (as usual for her) character work in “Boys Don’t Cry”. Can you believe Woodard hasn’t gotten an Oscar nomination yet?

Honestly, I’m stuck between Collette, Keener and Morton in this category, all three are excellent. I was smitten with Morton for a good long while because she had the most honest eyes in the profession. Keener, though – she’s TERRIFYING in “Malkovich”. In the end, I think Collette’s understated work grounds “The Sixth Sense” nicely – I think I’m saying several things when I remark that a Shyamalan movie hasn’t had such a strong performance since.

2001
BEST PICTURE
Almost Famous
Amores Perros
Bamboozled
Beau Travail
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Dancer In The Dark
Requiem For A Dream
The Virgin Suicides
Wonder Boys
You Can Count On Me
I don’t feel bad about eliminating the winner, “Gladiator”, nor do I feel bad about the Weinstein-purchased “Chocolat” not making the cut (though I actually do enjoy the latter). But this was the year Steven Soderbergh, my favorite filmmaker, got TWO movies in the competition, and I had to sadly junk “Erin Brockovich” and “Traffic”, two movies with considerable merits. “Traffic” was considered the weightier of the two back then, but I do believe now that “Brockovich” is the more honest movie.

I’m glad the end result is pretty diverse. Movies in Spanish and Mandarin, two female-directed films – this would be a killer marathon of movies. Thinking back, “You Can Count On Me” is maybe the sentimental choice – moreso than these other films, it really touched a part of me inside. But “Bamboozled” is definitely the one you look back on and wince, because so much of that movie proved Spike Lee a prophet.

(Did Not See: Quills, Billy Elliot, Together, Girlfight, Happy Times, All The Pretty Horses)

BEST DIRECTOR

Daren Aronofsky, Requiem For A Dream
Claire Denis, Beau Travail
Curtis Hanson, Wonder Boys
Ang Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Stephen Sodbergergh, Erin Brockovich
I left out Ridley Scott and Stephen Daldry, the latter who seemed to have a hold on Oscar voters he never had with critics or audiences. One Soderbergh nomination remained – I think I chopped out his “Traffic” nomination because of how dumb color-coding Mexico bleached yellow really was. That became the Mexico Default Filter for years.

BEST ACTOR
Christian Bale, American Psycho
Eric Bana, Chopper
Michael Douglas, Wonder Boys
Mark Ruffalo, You Can Count On Me
Forest Whitaker, Ghost Dog: Way Of The Samurai
All due respect to Russell Crowe and Tom Hanks, who jousted for this award back in 2002 (Crowe won), but I think this is a collection of five-star performances. Ruffalo has never topped his sensitive sweetie in “You Can Count On Me”, Douglas has never been funnier than he was in ‘Wonder Boys” and Bale and Bana are giving LEGENDARY performances as maniac killers. And then, obviously, there’s Ghost Dog. I’d lean towards Bale here, though I confess, I frequently lean towards Bale as one of the best of a generation.

BEST ACTRESS
Bjork, Dancer In The Dark
Ellen Burstyn, Requiem For A Dream
Laura Linney, You Can Count On Me
Natasha Lyonne, But I’m A Cheerleader
Julia Roberts, Erin Brockovich
Michelle Yeoh, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Okay, dammit, we’re cheating… this category gets six nominees. And this is while eliminating Joan Allen (for the otherwise-lousy “The Contender”) and Juliet Binoche (a queen, no context needed) from the previous nominations. Bjork beautifully runs the gamut for “Dancer In The Dark”, it’s a heartbreaking turn. Liiney, the Thinking Man’s Sex Symbol, finds nuance in every flinch and shrug alongside her costars. Burstyn brings the absolute thunder in “Requiem” and Michelle Yeoh is Michelle Yeoh, while Lyonne gave a star-making turn and I’m not sure why it wasn’t more clearly recognized. I will say that, outside of the obnoxious Hollywood spectrum, Julia Roberts was fierce, funny and lovable in “Brockovich”, it really is her career peak.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Willem Dafoe, Shadow Of The Vampire
Benicio Del Toro, Traffic
Benicio Del Toro, The Way Of The Gun
Albert Finney, Erin Brockovich
Tobey Maguire, Wonder Boys
Maybe it’s a little wild to stack Del Toro’s award-winning work from “Traffic” with his turn in a forgotten crime caper from the same year. And to that, I say, why is it forgotten? Del Toro in “The Way Of The Gun”, a very entertaining though needlessly complex crime thriller from the director of the last few “Mission: Impossible” movies, gives one of my all-time favorite performances, with only a minimum of dialogue. So much of what he says is in a smirk, a squint or a gaped mouth. It’s a bonafide movie-star turn, hinting at another reality where Del Toro became a sexy matinee idol. I kept Dafoe and Finney from the original nods – can you believe they nominated Willem Dafoe for playing the dude who played Nosferatu? But I went with a wild-card in Maguire, who is living out his own discomforting coming-of-age narrative within Michael Douglas’ selfish mid-life crisis, playing the creep at every college party you’re hoping doesn’t get too close.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jennifer Connelly, Requiem For A Dream
Connie Nielsen, Gladiator
Jada Pinkett-Smith, Bamboozled
Catherine Zeta-Jones, Traffic
Zhang Zi-Yi, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
I took a clean broom to this category’s original nominees, and I have zero regrets (sorry winner Marcia Gay Harden, who typically delivers no matter what size of role). Connelly is one of those stupid Oscar narrative decisions – a year after snubbing her for “Requiem”, they made up for it with an Oscar for “A Beautiful Mind”, where she was stuck playing yet another Suffering Wife For An Important Man. The other performers in this category do what they should – they all over-shadow a legitimately legendary male co-star (yes, I am calling Damon Wayans legendary, yes maybe it’s a push, but he was Homey The Clown, so a bit of respect is merited).

2002
BEST PICTURE
Gosford Park
Fat Girl
In The Mood For Love
Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
The Man Who Wasn’t There
Memento
Mulholland Drive
Pulse
The Royal Tenenbaums
Trouble Every Day
A lacking year for the Oscars that I gave a hearty kick in the butt. “A Beautiful Mind”, the soapification of John Nash’s mental problems, was the winner – I jettisoned that, “Moulin Rouge!” and “In The Bedroom”. This year is rich in classics, but also top-heavy. I found myself reaching back to “Lord of the Rings” to include it, as I am not particularly into those pictures, but I recall deeply respecting “Fellowship” for being the fleetest and most entertaining of the trilogy. Sorry, nerds. I know you can’t let go of your eighteen different endings in part three.
(Did Not See: Millennium Actress, Wreckmeister Harmonies, The Circle, The Piano Teacher, Iris)

BEST DIRECTOR
Robert Altman, Gosford Park
Catherine Breillat, Fat Girl
Peter Jackson, The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
Wong Kar-Wai, In The Mood For Love
David Lynch, Mulholland Drive
I think about the Oscars too much, but I especially think about this category and this year every day. Back then, the milquetoast Ron Howard somehow won this in a category against Ridley Scott, Peter Jackson, Robert Altman and David Lynch. How did he not feel like he hacked the world at that point? He should have retired because at that point his life had peaked. I want to go back in time to check that envelope.

Anyway, sorry, Ridley Scott. I really like you, but, come on. I’m not putting you over Wong Kar-Wai. Never happening, no way. Not even for “My Blueberry Nights”.

BEST ACTOR
Gene Hackman, The Royal Tenenbaums
Tony Leung, In The Mood For Love
Jack Nicholson, The Pledge
Haley Joel Osment, A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Will Smith, Ali
I just gave Denzel another Oscar, and here I take one away. See, Washington won in this category for “Training Day”. But Alonzo Harris is the supporting character in “Training Day”, the lead is Ethan Hawke’s Jack (who was wrongly nominated in Best Supporting Actor). Category fraud. I’m not a Trump cabinet member – when I see actual fraud happening, I don’t get rich off it, I do something about it. Washington, Russell Crowe, Tom Wilkinson (“In The Bedroom”) and Sean Penn (“I Am Sam” - yikes!) get the boot here.

Instead, I make room for surprising snubs. Among late-career turns, Nicholson’s work in “The Pledge” is by far his best, a seriously intense, lived-in turn. I’m frankly stunned they left Hackman out in the cold for what would have been his last nomination before his early retirement – rest in peace, Royal Tenebaum. And Osment has such a difficult role in “A.I.” People forget that playing robots convincingly is hard! In Spielberg’s sci-fi thriller, he gives off supremely creepy vibes as a creation trying to figure out how to act normal, be normal. Heartbreaking work from the kid.

BEST ACTRESS
Maggie Cheung, In The Mood For Love
Emmanuelle Devos, Read My Lips
Sissy Spacek, In The Bedroom
Tilda Swinton, The Deep End
Naomi Watts, Mulholland Drive
Halle Berry made history winning Best Actress that year for “Monsters Ball”, but, can we talk? Halle Berry is not a good actress. Histrionic, superficial, often untethered to any reality, Berry is a total ham. Beauty in movie stars is something either to display or overcome, and she’s too clumsy and undisciplined to do either. Berry seems like a cool lady, and big blockbusters have truly done her wrong, but no.

You know who leans into the glamour of her beauty? Maggie Cheung. And you know who complicates it? Naomi Watts in “Mulholland Drive”. It’s a complete mystery why, this particular year at the Oscars, “Mulholland Drive” received a sole nomination, for Best Directing. It’s like a begrudging admission that the movie is great, but we didn’t like it. How do you miss Naomi Watts going from anonymous to superstar within one tiny, campy audition/seduction scene?

Watch “Read My Lips”, from “Emilia Perez” director Jacques Audiard. It’s a romantic heist movie. Devos, one of France’s most fascinating leading ladies, plays a mousy, deaf bank employee who is recruited by a sexy criminal (Vincent Cassell) for her lip-reading skills in order to rob the bank. Are they partners, or just French sex buddies that sometimes share a cigarette?

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Steve Buscemi, Ghost World
Alex Descas, Trouble Every Day
Ben Kingsley, Sexy Beast
Ving Rhames, Baby Boy
Denzel Washington, Training Day
Relax, Denzelites. I’m not doing this because I think “Training Day” is a very good movie (it’s not), but because yes, Denzel’s work in this movie is so good that it somehow tricked people into letting Antoine Fuqua spend the next couple of decades making expensive crap that doesn’t even make a profit. People keep giving Fuqua a chance in the hopes somehow, like a flower from a grave, a performance half as good as Denzel Washington in “Training Day” will lift up one of his movies. Fuqua has a Michael Jackson biopic coming this year or possibly next, by the way. Prepare to be embarrassed that you danced to such an awful movie.

Some trivia by the way: in the real world, Steve Buscemi has never received an Oscar nomination. Which is fine, because I assume they’re building him a statute instead. In the end, I flirted with Gary Oldman’s unbilled turn as the satanic Mason Verger in “Hannibal” but opted for Descas, a calming influence on the best film of the French New Extremity period.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jennifer Connelly, A Beautiful Mind
Anjelica Huston, The Royal Tenenbaums
Helen Mirren, Gosford Park
Maggie Smith, Gosford Park
Robin Wright, The Pledge
Honestly, I was kind of at a loss for this category. We don’t give Huston enough respect, though.

2003

BEST PICTURE
Adaptation
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
Memories of Murder
Morvern Callar
The Pianist
Punch Drunk Love
Spirited Away
The 25th Hour
What Time Is It There?
Y Tu Mama Tambien
What an amazing year for foreign film. Way to sleep through it, Academy! The Oscars this year nominated five English-language films in this category. Maybe it’s in the spirit of fairness that I kept one of them, though unfortunately it’s the one by a rapist. I realize I’m going with deep cuts with stuff like “Atanarjuat”, which is basically a high-octane Inuit chase film, but something everyone should see (moreso that the Academy’s Best Picture pick, the middling “Chicago”). Those of you complaining that there are no blockbusters here would be wise to note that “Spirited Away” made $359 million worldwide, and then you’d also be wise to stop speaking.

(Did Not See: All Or Nothing, The Son, Dolls, In This World, The Quiet American)

BEST DIRECTOR
Alfonso Cuaron, Y Tu Mama Tambien
Bong Joon-ho, Memories Of Murder
Zacharias Kunuk, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
Spike Lee, The 25th Hour
Tsai Ming-liang, What Time Is It There?
Lynne Ramsay, Morvern Callar
Cheated again, went with six. Call the Oscar Police! Oh, this is a noted clean sweep of white guys – sorry that Pedro Almodovar didn’t survive the category purge, but I’m not so sorry about Martin Scorsese. And Stephen Daldry and Rob Marshall seem like representatives of the industry’s mediocrity, both continuing to fall upwards after a number of dubious flops – I kicked them out for their work on “The Hours” and “Chicago”, respectively. Out of all the new nominee pools I created, this particular one is by far the most optimistic.

BEST ACTOR
Adrien Brody, The Pianist
Nicolas Cage, Adaptation
Edward Norton, The 25th Hour
Sam Rockwell, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Robin Williams, One Hour Photo
And… I guess we’re back with white guys! In fact, the only other names I was considered were all white guys, including Jack Nicholson in “About Schmidt”, George Clooney in “Solaris” and Steve Coogan in “24 Hour Party People”. This is folly! Speaking of folly, Nicholas Cage is playing Charlie and Donald Kaufman in “Adaptation”. Technically, aren’t those two performances? If so, for which performance did Cage receive his earlier nomination for? This is why awards for acting are dumb, by the way.

BEST ACTRESS
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Secretary
Salma Hayek, Frida
Emily Mortimer, Lovely And Amazing
Samantha Morton, Morvern Callar
Marina de Van, In Her Skin
An infamous award, because Nicole Kidman won that year for “The Hours”. As anybody who remembers that movie knows (all twelve of us, by the way), she couldn’t have done it without that ridiculous prosthetic nose. Kidman, who I like very much, needed a slab of makeup and that fake nose to even approach the emotional reservoir found by Emily Mortimer in “Lovely And Amazing”.

I dumped Diane Lane, Julianne Moore and Renee Zellweger from this category, swapping them out for more complex, dynamic and ultimately less-likable turns. A hat-tip to de Van, a former Francois Ozon collaborator who starred in and directed “In Her Skin”, about a woman with an insatiable hunger for her own epidermis.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Chris Cooper, Adaptation
Willem Dafoe, Auto Focus
Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs Of New York
Ray Liotta, Narc
Christopher Walken, Catch Me If You Can
Again, another example of category fraud. I’m not sure why the studio campaigned for Daniel Day-Lewis’ volcanic turn as Bill The Butcher in Lead Actor when he’s the villain of the piece, a supporting character to Leonardo DiCaprio’s Amsterdam Vallon. He would have sailed to an easy win in this category against Chris Cooper, who was still a fairly-deserving winner. I kept Walken, by the way, because.

Had to make some heartbreaking choices here, removing John C. Reilly for “Chicago” and Paul Newman for “Road To Perdition” from the original nominees. But “Narc” was arguably Liotta’s best work onscreen, and my skin still crawls thinking of Dafoe constantly, eagerly dropping trou in “Auto Focus”.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Toni Collette, About A Boy
Viola Davis, Solaris
Rosario Dawson, The 25th Hour
Susan Sarandon, Igby Goes Down
Maribel Verdu, Y Tu Mama Tambien
All those great actresses in those movies, and yet I’m gonna pretend “Chicago” and “The Hours” never happened. I also eliminated Kathy Bates from this category – always felt she was a juggernaut, but she’s too much of a punchline for me in “About Schmidt”. Davis is so haunted and disturbed in her relatively little screentime in “Solaris” that it still perturbs me today thinking about it. And Verdu, Verdu, I could write poetry about Verdu, the 21st century Mrs. Robinson.

2004
BEST PICTURE
Blind Shaft
City Of God
Demonlover
Elephant
Friday Night
Irreversible
Kill Bill Vol. 1
Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World
A Mighty Wind
Peter Pan
Piping hot take: I think PJ Hogan’s live-action “Peter Pan” does what “Lord Of The Rings” did, but only better. It died a quick death at the box office, but this is a good time for a reappraisal, and my apologies to Peter Jackson. Very happy to find a space for “A Mighty Wind” amongst a pretty intense group of depressing little films – “A Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow” is probably the movie moment of that year. I booted “Lost In Translation”, “Mystic River” and “Seabiscuit” because those movies combined do not equal one “Demonlover”.

(Did Not See: The Barbarian Invasions, My Life Without Me, Running On Karma, Whale Rider, In America)

BEST DIRECTOR
Olivier Assayas, Demonlover
Fernando Merielles, City of God
Gaspar Noe, Irreversible
Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill Vol. 1
Peter Weir, Master And Commander
In case you don’t remember, “Return Of The King” swept the awards that year (including this category), and it was considered a victory for the nerds, But this nerd was blasted through the back of the theater by Tarantino’s first chapter of “Kill Bill”, and I wondered exactly why he hadn’t been doing action movies this entire time. The Oscars surprised everyone that year by giving a nomination to Fernando Merielles – I continued that, but I left behind Clint Eastwood for “Mystic River”. This was a year of provocations, and Clint’s warmed-over paperback pulp wasn’t gonna cut it.

BEST ACTOR
Christian Bale, The Machinist
Russell Crowe, Master And Commander
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dirty Pretty Things
Paul Giamatti, American Splendor
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Owning Mahowny
I liked the original nominees, but this was just a really exciting year for lead male performances. So goodbye to Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack in “Pirates Of The Caribbean”, adios to sad-eyed Bill Murray in “Lost In Translation”, au revoir to Jude Law’s panicked silent expressions in “Cold Mountain” and Sean Penn… well, he won for “Mystic River”, but he was better (and not nominated) in that year’s “21 Grams”, so I can sleep easy here.

I’m a sucker for stunts and gimmicks, so I love the spirit glue and wigs and fake guts that make up this category. Christian Bale lost approximately a million pounds for “The Machinist”, and yes, I was destined to reward him (I can’t even lose ten). Paul Giamatti is completely transformed as Harvey Pekar, and Hoffman wears a thick, tough mustache in one of his less-heralded roles. Crowe somehow wasn’t nominated for “Master And Commander” even though, in this movie, he’s the absolute DUDE (I’d say he’s worth TWO Maximuses in this). And Ejiofor was a stranger to me, so when I saw him in Stephen Frears’ moody drama, I sat up and wondered, woah, who is THIS guy?

BEST ACTRESS

Connie Nielsen, Demonlover
Charlotte Rampling, Swimming Pool
Charlize Theron, Monster
Uma Thurman, Kill Bill Vol. 1
Naomi Watts, 21 Grams
Okay, how and why did we not nominate Uma? She almost killed herself playing this role, and there were TWO chances to grant her some Oscar gold, and ya missed? What more do you want an actress to do??

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Benicio Del Toro, 21 Grams
Jason Isaacs, Peter Pan
Ben Kingsley, House of Sand And Fog
Peter Sarsgaard, Shattered Glass
Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai
I feel I’m a broken record about this, but again, I never thought much of Tim Robbins, another heavy-handed ham. He won this year in “Mystic River” on the strength of a big speech he makes at the foot of a staircase about how guilt makes him feel like a vampire, a scene that always made me wince for its on-the-nose obviousness. Sorry, Tim, turn in your Oscar.

I’m fixing up some category fraud here, as Kingsley was distinctively the villain in “House Of Sand And Fog”, a reasonably-entertaining suspense thriller that devolves into above-average Lifetime fare once Ron Eldard takes over the third act. Kingsley is typically terrific in this, though, and belongs in this group, though they originally nominated him in Lead Actor. Isaacs is here for what may be the best movie Captain Hook of all time.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Shohreh Aghdashloo, House Of Sand And Fog
Patricia Clarkson, Pieces Of April
Hope Davis, American Splendor
Gina Gershon, Demonlover
Catherine O’Hara, A Mighty Wind
Full disclosure: I unabashedly love “Cold Mountain”, and tried to sneak it in here. Couldn’t do it! Renee Zellweger won in this category for “Cold Mountain”, but I think she gives a ridiculous over-the-top performance. It’s so strange that I love that film, because she and my favorite actor (Philip Seymour Hoffman) give maybe my least favorite performances in the movie.

Good point for me to say a word about “Demonlover” for those who don’t know it. It’s an ice-cold globetrotting cyber-thriller about bloodthirsty female executives fighting over control of a multimillion dollar hentai company. While the plot spirals into all sorts of elaborate directions, the movie’s fever keeps running at a subterranean chill, set to the music of Sonic Youth.

2005
BEST PICTURE
The Aviator
Before Sunset
Birth
Collateral
Dogville
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Kill Bill Vol. 2
Primer
Sideways
Spider-Man 2
Not a terribly-strong year for movies, really, but if you’re a movie lover, EVERY year’s a great year for movies. I surgically removed the pedestrian “Ray” and the awful “Finding Neverland” from this group, while also passing over “Million Dollar Baby”, which I still think is one of the strongest Clint efforts of the last couple of decades. At least y’all know I’m not a snob – this is the only category of anything that features both Spider-Man and Che Guevara.

(Did Not See: A Very Long Engagement, 3-Iron, Goodbye Dragon Inn, Crimson Gold, Bad Education, Downfall, Vera Drake, Being Julia)

BEST DIRECTOR
Jonathan Glaser, Birth
Michael Mann, Collateral
Martin Scorsese, The Aviator
Walter Salles, The Motorcycle Diaries
Quentin Tarantino, KIll Bill Vol. 2
“Birth” is an absolutely devastating movie, about a woman stalked by a little boy who claims to be her dead husband. Jonathan Glaser takes a dead-serious approach to this film, and you somehow forget about the ludicrous premise. It’s the best sort of nominee for this category – a vision that completely transcends it’s premise.

BEST ACTOR
Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
Will Ferrell, Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy
Jamie Foxx, Ray
Paul Giamatti, Sideways
Val Kilmer, Spartan
I tried, but I could not find a spot for Gael Bernal in “The Motorcycle Diaries”, which suggests what kind of year it was. Neither could I bring back nominees Don Cheadle for “Hotel Rwanda” nor Leonardo DiCaprio for “The Aviator” (really the first time I was convinced this kid was now a serious adult actor). But I couldn’t ignore Val Kilmer, who is practically eight Jack Bauers in “Spartan”, his last great performance.

It’s probably Eastwood’s greatest performance as a leading man, too. I feel a little bad stacking it alongside Ron Burgundy. But I do feel Burgundy is Ferrell’s lasting legacy. Endlessly quotable, inventively stupid, Ron Burgundy is every warning you’ve ever heard about America. How resonant was Will Ferrell’s work in “Anchorman”? We freaking elected Ron Burgundy as President. Twice.

BEST ACTRESS
Nicole Kidman, Birth
Nicole Kidman, Dogville
Connie Nielsen, Brothers
Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby
Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
There’s only so many actors that had the year Nicole Kidman did in 2004. Naturally, the Oscars ignored her for both these performances, instead bestowing a second Oscar on Hilary Swank, which, I get it. Still, “Dogville” and “Birth” could easily be considered the two best movies of that particular year, twenty years ago. And by the by – why didn’t any of you notice that intense heater Connie Nielsen was on for a few years?

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Paul Bettany, Dogville
Thomas Haden Church, Sideways
Tom Cruise, Collateral
Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby
Clive Owen, Closer
I kept Church, Freeman and Owen, but I also fixed some category fraud. Originally Jamie Foxx got his second nomination of the year in this category for “Collateral”. A sneaky move by the studio to score the guy a twofer, but he’s the main character in that movie! We should have seen Tom Cruise, as a murderous silverfox, surface here instead. Meanwhile, in a movie loaded with great performances, Bettany in “Dogville” is basically playing every Republican right now pretending to not be hard-right. A truly scummy performance.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, The Aviator
Irma P. Hall, The Ladykillers
Laura Linney, Kinsey
Sophie Okonedo, Hotel Rwanda
Naomi Watts, I Heart Huckabee’s
I left off Virginia Madsen (“Sideways”) and Natalie Portman (who, as a seductress in “Closer”, gives off a not-ready-for-primetime vibe). It seems like “Huckabee’s” has been forgotten as one of the funnier movies of the current century. Naomi Watts’ dawning reawakening as the spokesmodel for a big box store is a real eye-opening delight. We did not properly appreciate Watts in her prime.

2006
BEST PICTURE
Brokeback Mountain
Caché
Good Night and Good Luck
A History Of Violence
Keane
Last Days
Munich
The New World
Oldboy
The Squid And The Whale
“Crash” is the worst Best Picture winner maybe of all-time, so it’s not coming back. I wasn’t wholly impressed by “Capote” at the time, so that didn’t return either. What’s left is a pretty solid top ten, though it is interesting that over this period of time, there were less prominent female filmmakers from which I could choose. This is a great collection of movies, regardless. I confess, “Oldboy” blew my mind in the theater. But twenty years and one disappointing remake later, why is this movie not considered a household name and a mainstream classic? What does it say about the twenty-first century and film tastes? Wish I knew, but it seems nonsensical to me that I can mention “Oldboy” to a layman and get a blank stare in return.

(Did Not See: Tropical Malady, Head-On, The Intruder, Election, Mrs. Henderson Presents, Transamerica, North Country, Junebug)

BEST DIRECTOR
Michael Haneke, Caché
Wong Kar-Wai, 2046
Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
Terrence Malick, The New World
Chan Wook-Park, Oldboy
Woah, can you imagine such a lineup? Three Asian superstars, three super-distinct visions. It can’t be underestimated that Haneke’s “Cache” is a blood-curdling thriller. Ron Howard was going to remake it a while back, but fortunately, the movie gods stepped in to save us.

BEST ACTOR
Terrence Howard, Hustle And Flow
Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
Damian Lewis, Keane
Choi Min-sik, Oldboy
Viggo Mortensen, A History Of Violence
My favorite actor was Philip Seymour Hoffman, but I wasn’t ready to anoint him for EVERYTHING. He was the Best Actor winner this year, but I chucked him, Joaquin Phoenix’s Johnny Cash impersonation and David Strathairn’s Edward R. Murrow turn, because I generally prefer fully-formed performances to mimicry. I kinda want to believe Viggo is playing a real guy. Highest degree of difficulty for Lewis, who played a homeless schizophrenic while shooting guerilla-style at the Port Authority, trying to be authentic while always looking behind him for too-curious cops.

BEST ACTRESS
Juliet Binoche, Caché
Claire Danes, Shopgirl
Q’orianka Kilcher, The New World
Laura Linney, The Squid And The Whale
Naomi Watts, King Kong
This was another clean sweep of this category, in a year without a lot of standout lead actress performances. Reese Witherspoon took home the gold for “Walk The Line”, though I don’t think her performance matches this crew. Danes never got her due for “Shopgirl”, which surprised me – it’s based on a Steve Martin novella, but despite the laughs it’s an honest and undramatic portrayal of depression.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
George Clooney, Syriana
Clifton Collins Jr., Capote
Isaach de Bankole, Manderlay
Ed Harris, A History Of Violence
Owen Kline, The Squid And The Whale
I always thought the original nominees here were a little wonky. Sure, Clooney in “Syriana” makes sense. Matt Dillion in “Crash” seemed like they had to pick someone in that cast to ride, he’s not any better or worse than anyone else in that film (well, he’s better than Sandra Bullock). Then you had Paul Giamatti for “Cinderella Man”, which feels more like a make-up pick for snubbing him for “Sideways”. Jake Gyllenhaal for “Brokeback Mountain” tracks, I have no issue with that. And then William Hurt, who people went gaga on for “A History Of Violence”, even though Ed Harris is by far the more terrifying screen presence in that film (to say nothing of Stephen McHattie). The way Ed Harris spits out the name “Joey Cusack”, like a piece of gum he has to expel, is both unsettling and more than a little funny.

I remember being primarily blown away by Kline in “The Squid And The Whale” as far as kid’s performances. The real-life son of Kevin was probably going through years of therapy in only one brief shoot, but he’s deceptively funny and always thoughtful, even in a movie loaded with ringers. I’ll never forget the vaguely ironic glee he shows when he proudly tells his father he’s a “philistine.”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Maria Bello, A History Of Violence
Michelle Monaghan, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Amy Ryan, Keane
Sharon Stone, Broken Flowers
Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” often gives credit to the boys, but while the story itself is misogynist in its obnoxious paternalism, that doesn’t limit Monaghan from giving a funny, sexy star-making performance. Weisz was the deserving winner here, but this is a strong collection of actresses, Bello in particular giving career-best work.

2007

BEST PICTURE
Children of Men
The Death Of Mr. Lazarescu
The Departed
The Fountain
Inland Empire
L’enfant
Letters From Iwo Jima
Perfume: Story of a Murderer
The Prestige
United 93
I brought back Scorsese and Eastwood from the last group because I’m classy like that. One thing about me is that I can’t shake “The Fountain”, Darren Aronofsky’s often-ridiculous go-for-broke fantasy saga that Warner Bros. treated like a foreign disease back in the day. I recently re-watched it and it still titillates and thrills me. The Dardenne Brothers are here, and there’s even a slice of New Romanian Cinema. And “Perfume” would be the first Best Picture nominee to ever end in a massive orgy. I think. It’s been a while since I’ve seen “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner”. “Babel” has been eliminated, because I just can’t, and “Little Miss Sunshine” is back to being a lightweight trifle and not literally one of the five or ten best movies of that year.

(Did Not See: Still Life, Catch A Fire, Old Joy, After The Wedding, The Lives Of Others, Blood Diamond)

BEST DIRECTOR
Darren Aronofsky, The Fountain
Alfonso Cuaron, Children Of Men
Paul Greengrass, United 93
David Lynch, Inland Empire
Martin Scorsese, The Departed
A real mainstream-y group of juggernauts here. Scorsese won in a “Departed” sweep, but I think regarding a voting bloc, he’d have a tougher time against this crew. Greengrass originally made it despite “United 93” being snubbed in the other major categories – irregular treatment from the Oscars, but accurate if you’re going to nominate a wider pool of films.

BEST ACTOR
Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat
Johnny Depp, The Libertine
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
Hugh Jackman, The Fountain
Ken Watanabe, Letters From Iwo Jima
Yep, you’d want to quibble with this, and I’m all ears. I kicked out Leonardo DiCaprio (“Blood Diamond”), Will Smith (“Pursuit Of Happyness” and Peter O’Toole (“Venus” – a mercy nomination for an only ok movie). The year’s winner was Forest Whitaker for “The Last King Of Scotland” – category fraud, which he pulled off because that film’s lead, James McAvoy, was easily overwhelmed by Whitaker’s presence.

Kept Gosling, added Jackman, a realistic on-screen crier, and Watanabe, who I had to be reminded wasn’t honored for this performance. I am not a big Johnny Depp fan (then and now) but I really enjoy his disgusting, deplorable performance in “The Libertine” and I respect that he took the role shortly after “Pirates Of The Caribbean” – he was never as bold afterwards. And Cohen’s Borat is such a high-wire act of a performance. It’s comedic stunt after comedic stunt, played with a straight face, but it’s not just character work. It’s also a character designed to manipulate and reveal facets from everyday people, while still remaining its own falsehood. Brilliant work.

BEST ACTRESS
Maggie Cheung, Clean
Laura Dern, Inland Empire
Helen Mirren, The Queen
Kate Winslet, Little Children
Rachel Weisz, The Fountain
I think Rachel Weisz is maybe the ultimate manic pixie dream girl in “The Fountain”, but she brings reality to a role that is clearly written and conceived by a Wife Guy. I brought back Mirren and Winslet from the original five, but added Laura Dern in David Lynch’s final movie. “Clean” is slept on, but Maggie Cheung gives a powerful lived-in performance as a woman trying to clean up her drug habit while still remaining moviestar-glamorous.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children
Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
Jack Nicholson, The Departed
Nick Nolte, Clean
Forest Whitaker, The Last King Of Scotland
Alan Arkin, who I’ve always enjoyed, nonetheless won a Pity Oscar here for “Little MIss Sunshine”. I have to be the bucket of cold water that takes that away (and I also eliminated the idea of Mark Wahlberg, Oscar Nominee, because come on). Eddie’s back, so is Haley, and I brought in Nicholson, because I still think Jack’s is the funniest and liveliest performance in “The Departed”, and it seemed strange the movie’s previous sole acting nomination went to the leader of the Funky Bunch. Fixing category fraud, Ghost Dog wins this Oscar.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Adrianna Barraza, Babel
Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi, Babel
Frances McDormand, Friends With Money
I will say that “Babel” gave some great opportunities to various supporting actresses, and I think the Oscars got this right with nominations for Barraza and Kikuchi. This is a thin group, though “Friends With Money” has a very funny ensemble, and I think Nicole Holofcener’s movies deserve a little more love.

2008
BEST PICTURE
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
Black Book
Grindhouse
I’m Not There
No Country For Old Men
Once
Paprika
There Will Be Blood
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Zodiac
Dynamite year for American film. I subtracted “Michael Clayton”, “Atonement” and “Juno”, three films I think are okay-to-good, because there was greatness to add. People say the music biopic should be dead, and then they keep seeing them. Maybe if we nominated “I’m Not There” and “Walk Hard”, it really would be dead. And yes, “Grindhouse” is nominated as a full double-feature with trailers and everything. One of the best times anybody can have at the movies.

(Did Not See: The Last Mistress, Secret Sunshine, Talk To Me, Lust Caution, Control, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Syndromes And A Century, Colossal Youth, 4 Months 3 Weeks And 2 Days, In The Valley Of Elah, La Vie En Rose)

BEST ACTOR
Casey Affleck, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will be Blood
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises
John C. Reilly, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
FYI, I wanted to find space for Jeff Goldblum’s sublimely ridiculous turn in “Adam Resurrected”, but the year was too loaded. I did very little maneuvering here, saving Clooney, Day-Lewis and Mortensen, and calling up Affleck, who was previously and pointlessly relegated to Best Supporting Actor in the Academy despite being the titular Robert Ford. And while no one was going to deny Day-Lewis, a little bit of respect for John C. Reilly, who not only gives the comedic performance of a lifetime but also legitimately learned how to be a rock star for this movie.

BEST ACTRESS

Julie Christie, Away From Her
Anna Faris, Smiley Face
Ashley Judd, Bug
Laura Linney, Savages
Carice Van Houten, Black Book
Winner Marion Cotillard, who I really like, nonetheless did not make the cut here. Neither did Elliot Page for “Juno”, who I felt gave more of a precocious-child performance rather than something more impactful – that script is just so much triviality intertwined with incidence, I was never truly into “Juno”. I never liked “Savages” either, to be honest, but I think Linney gives a funny, heartbreaking performance. They nominated Cate Blanchett to slay in a lackluster sequel (“Elizabeth: The Golden Age”) when Carice Van Houten was RIGHT THERE. Also, yes, I’m serious about Faris. Her work in “Smiley Face” is maybe one of the all-time great comedic performances of this era. She’s been under-utilized.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men
Chris Cooper, Breach
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie WIlson’s War
Tommy Lee Jones, No Country For Old Men
I love this particular group of nominees. All respect to those I excised from the category – Hal Holbrook in “Into The Wild”, the late, great Tom Wilkinson in “Michael Clayton” – but I had to go for a double-dose of Hoffman just completely devouring his costars. He received the nomination for “Charlie Wilson’s War” because that was viewed as such an Oscar guarantee that people forgot that Hoffman would swallow Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts whole. But to watch Hoffman go to town on Ethan Hawke in “Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead” is to watch a master conduct his symphony. Jones’ omission from Oscar talk was the craven opportunism of the studio not wanting to siphon off support from Bardem, the obvious frontrunner, and as such is clearly strategy versus quality. I went with quality. Speaking of, it’s a guarantee that if Cooper had an Oscar push for “Breach”, they would have wrongly campaigned him in Lead Actor.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Margot At The Wedding
Eva Mendes, We Own The Night
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton
This is one of the things I’m talking about when I talk about “fixing” the Oscars. An unwritten rule is that, if a co-star is less impressive than a leading actor in a movie, they won’t campaign for the co-star if the leading actor is more impressive, but roadblocked by a much more competitive category. In other words, I think “We Own The Night” belongs to Joaquin Phoenix, who is excellent in it, and I think Eva Mendes is really good in it too but not on the same level. But Best Supporting Actress is a much less competitive category during this year, so Mendes’ excellent work has to be featured, even if Phoenix didn’t make his own final five.

Nonetheless, there’s a train of thought that the Best Supporting nominees should typically (but not always) be giving the best performances in their movies, and I think that’s true of Blanchett, Ryan and Swinton, who were holdovers from the original nominations. And while Nicole Kidman is the titular “Margot”, I think this is another granular Jennifer Jason Leigh performance that deserves respect.

2009
BEST PICTURE
Ballast
Che
The Dark Knight
The Fall
Happy Go Lucky
Let The Right One In
My Blueberry Nights
Snow Angels
Synecdoche, New York
Wendy And Lucy
Okay, I just wiped that Best Picture slate entirely clean. This was a weak year, folks! I really disliked these nominees, particularly winner “Slumdog Millionaire”, which embraces such a toxic form of capitalism in it’s wispy-thin love story structure. Gone too are the pedestrian “Milk” and “Frost/Nixon”, while “The Reader” was a movie I don’t think anyone liked back then, never mind now. The only nominee I respected that year was “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button”, and even so, not enough to break through to this ten.

This is an imperfect list, but I think it’s interesting. I’m not die-hard on “The Dark Knight” like the nerds, but I think the Academy had to reach really really far to not honor the film given what they nominated instead. It’s here as one of Hollywood’s most exciting arguments for fascism yet – superhero movies are fascist, news at eleven. This was a year for weaker films from filmmaking masters, and I have no problem acknowledging as much. As for “Synecdoche”, it still blows me away after all these years, but I suppose I just happen to be an enthusiastic Kaufman fan. And yes, that is the entire two-part Che Guevara movie, both “Guerilla” and “The Argentine”.

(Did Not See: Waltz With Bashir, Australia, Hunger, Red Cliff, The Visitor, Changeling)

BEST DIRECTOR
Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, New York
Mike Leigh, Happy Go Lucky
Kelly Reichardt, Wendy And Lucy
Stephen Soderbergh, Che
Tarsem, The Fall
I’m glad that Mubi recently found a way to rescue “The Fall” from obscurity, though I’m sad they had to do so. That’s one of the most visually-bonkers movies of this era, a gorgeous ode to storytelling and fantasy. I guess we’re gonna have to do that more often as we move along. Yes, this is an all-new slate – I kept none of the previous nominees, which included Danny Boyle, David Fincher, Gus Van Sant, Ron Howard and Oscar blackmailer Stephen Daldry. Instead I honored directors, who, you can see, bled to realize their impossible visions through five very ambitious, often counterintuitive movies.

BEST ACTOR
Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Synecdoche, New York
Sam Rockwell, Snow Angels
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Benicio Del Toro, Che
Strange group of nominees for this category, and I got rid of almost all of them. Sean Penn won for his Harvey Milk performance, but it really seemed like the award was Mickey Rourke’s to lose, up until Mickey Rourke started doing Mickey Rourke things near the end of his awards campaign. I am surprised they couldn’t give a shout-out to Clint Eastwood so I’ve remedied that. And one of these is true: either Sam Rockwell gives the same performance in everything and I love it, or I don’t know much about acting but people don’t appreciate Sam Rockwell enough. Either way, nominate him every year.

BEST ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Sally Hawkins, Happy Go Lucky
Frances McDormand, Burn After Reading
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Michelle Williams, Wendy And Lucy
I’m of two minds about “Doubt”. Yes, I think it’s less of a movie and more of an acting battle between Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the sort of two-hander that reminds more of professional wrestling than theater. And I think Streep and Hoffman are absolutely throwing haymakers at each other for a full two hours. I kept Streep and Hathaway from the original lineup, but I lost Melissa Leo, who is really good in “Frozen River”, a movie I 100% saw and 100% do not at all remember.

I do recall during that awards season that Hawkins seemed like a lock for her ray-of-sunshine performance. It’s beyond me why she didn’t receive every accolade in the world. And McDormand and Williams are interesting cases – rightful Oscar favorites that nonetheless were not nominated for these, two of their best performances. The winner this year, by the way, was Kate Winslet for her execrable turn as an illiterate Nazi pederast in “The Reader”, really one of the most misjudged movies of the year.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
Richard Dreyfuss, W.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Dennis Hopper, Elegy
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
I kept Downey, Hoffman, and Heath Ledger – after all the Joker hype, yes, Ledger is that good. Josh Brolin for “Milk” and Michael Shannon for “Revolutionary Road” were both strong performances by actors I love that I nonetheless chopped away. Instead, I added Dreyfuss’ dyspeptic Dick Cheney in “W.” and Dennis Hopper’s heartbreaking work in the Philip Roth adaptation “Elegy”, a performance I’ve weirdly carried with me longer than I’d expected.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Rosemarie Dewitt, Rachel Getting Married
Deborah Harry, Elegy
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Rachel Weisz, My Blueberry Nights
I kept Cruz, the winner, as well as Henson, losing the “Doubt” double-act of Viola Davis and Amy Adams. If that movie is a wrestling match, Adams is distinctively undercard material. And I’m not like the Academy – you can’t fool me into nominating a performer in Davis who basically only has one scene. Dewitt is one of my favorite character actresses and I would have given her some credit here, while Weisz just blew the doors off “My Blueberry Nights”, a movie I like far too much. Also, as you can tell, I am a Blondie fan.

2010

BEST PICTURE
Bright Star
The Headless Woman
In The Loop
Inglorious Basterds
Julia
A Serious Man
Sugar
35 Shots Of Rum
Where The Wild Things Are
The White Ribbon
This was the first year the Academy expanded the field to ten nominees, so of course, I only preserved two of them – Tarantino’s “Inglorious Basterds” and the Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man”. I thought about “Avatar” until I realized I wasn’t broadcasting this and therefore was not beholden to any advertisers. That’s why more than half of these hail from different countries, and even the English-language ones have a smattering of other dialogues spoken. Hey, remember when everyone was woke as hell and no one cared?

(Did Not See: Fish Tank, I Am Love, Treeless Mountain, Lorna’s Silence, Still Walking, Broken Embraces, Of Time And The City, A Prophet)

BEST DIRECTOR
James Cameron, Avatar
Jane Campion, Bright Star
Claire Denis, 35 Shots of Rum
Michael Haneke, The White Ribbon
Lucrecia Martel, The Headless Woman
I know, I did weird stuff here. Gone are Jason Reitman (“Up In The Air”), Lee Daniels {“Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire”), Quentin Tarantino and, woah, Kathryn Bigelow? Well, I wasn’t trying to replace a female with a female, it just happened to work out that I had three female nominees here, and the winner was the great Jane Campion. I had to include James Cameron in here because “Avatar” is some voodoo-level stuff. Nobody else’s version of “Avatar” is worth watching, what he accomplishes in those movies with those dopey scripts is some sort of black magic.

BEST ACTOR
Matt Damon, The Informant!
Ben Foster, The Messenger
Tom Hardy, Bronson
Michael Stuhlbarg, A Serious Man
Robin Williams, World’s Greatest Dad
I completely junked this entire category. Jeff Bridges won for “Crazy Heart”, but this category seemed filled with actors who could give these same performances in their sleep, like George Clooney (“Up In The Air”), Colin Firth (“A Single Man”) and Morgan Freeman (“Invictus”). Similarly, I thought Jeremy Renner was out-acted in “The Hurt Locker” by Anthony Mackie.

Stuhlbarg did some of my favorite acting that year, but this is a fun group all the same. Damon and Williams, giving outwardly comedic performances on the surface, had the toughest jobs. Both turns have to be funny but believable, characters who are real people struggling under the weight of a cavalcade of lies, setups both farcical but real. Hardy was all about ridiculous gimmicks meanwhile, and Foster – typically volatile – here had to be intense, moody and inwards.

BEST ACTRESS
Maria Bello, Downloading Nancy
Isabelle Furhman, Orphan
Charlotte Gainsbourg, Anarchist
Maria Onetto, The Headless Woman
Tilda Swinton, Julia
Again, a clean sweep of this category. No more of that Sandra Bullock nonsense, as a tarted-up contemporary Southern slave herder in “The Blind Side”, a joke of a movie that somehow everyone took seriously during the Obama years. Here, we respect horror, with Furhman and Gainsbourg doing their best work alongside geysers of blood. I’m surprised Swinton fans never bring up “Julia”, where she’s awfully funny as a desperate alcoholic making every wrong decision someone compromised by booze can make.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Peter Capaldi, In The Loop
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Tobey Maguire, Brothers
Fred Melamed, A Serious Man
Christoph Waltz, Inglorious Basterds
Surprisingly slim year for this category. I brought back winner Waltz and Harrelson, but otherwise… I dunno, you tell me. Happy to lose nominee Stanley Tucci, giving an odious camp performance as a pedophiliac murderer in “The Lovely Bones”.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Marion Cotillard, Public Enemies
Anna Faris, Observe And Report
Melanie Laurent, Inglorious Basterds
Mo’Nique, Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire
Samantha Morton, The Messenger
No need to double-dip on “Up In The Air” nods when Mo’Nique is in town. I deeply respect that she spit on the whole campaign process and told everyone, rightly, that the work is the campaign. Of course, sounds like they punished her afterwards, because she’s barely been in anything since. Faris, meanwhile, has a line reading where, when asked if she’s okay, she replies, “Physically yes, psychologically NOOOOOOOOO!” that has left me laughing for years.

2011
BEST PICTURE
Animal Kingdom
Another Year
Dogtooth
Enter The Void
Inception
Life During Wartime
Mother
The Social Network
True Grit
White Material
Ten nominees this year, and I retained three in “Inception” (every critique is right, and yet), “The Social Network” (sent us warning signs all those years ago) and “True Grit” (the rare remake superior to the original). If anything, the Oscars celebrate middlebrow culture, so it’s worth the shock to the system to let in more transgressive material like “Dogtooth” and “Enter The Void” – the latter is very much like “Avatar” for adults, but ones with drug problems. Or opportunities.

(Did Not See: Incendies, Sweetgrass)

BEST DIRECTOR
David Fincher, The Social Network
Yorgos Lanthimos, Dogtooth
Mike Leigh, Another Year
Gaspar Noe, Enter The Void
Claire Denis, White Material
Tom Hooper won this award, and eventually Best Picture, for “The King’s Speech”. He went on to direct “Cats”. I rest my case. I also eliminated Darren Aronofsky for “Black Swan”, his most popular movie but I’d argue a lesser one for him. And there go the Coens and David O. Russell, the latter who brought his typical comedic chaos and little else to “The Fighter”. In their place? The rebels and miscreants.

BEST ACTOR
Javier Bardem, Biutiful
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Anthony Mackie, Night Catches Us
Edward Norton, Leaves Of Grass
Edgar Ramirez, Carlos
It was an exceptional year for film, but not a strong one for leading men. I expelled the winner Colin Firth because “The King’s Speech” is interminable and I find Firth to be everything “proper” about boring, polite cinema. Also gone was Jeff Bridges (not the lead character in “True Grit”, category fraud) and James Franco for “127 Hours” (come on, dude). Bardem and Eisenberg are returnees from the nominations. I threw in Ramirez’s dumb, sexy turn in “Carlos”, Anthony Mackie’s strong work in the sharply political “Night Catches Us” and Edward Norton’s charming dual role as a college professor and his supergenius redneck twin brother in “Leaves Of Grass”, a deceptively-smart pot comedy. Yes, I’m just gonna go by the weird rule that, with this nomination, we’re honoring both performances as one.

BEST ACTRESS
Isabelle Huppert, White Material
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Emma Stone, Easy A
Rachel Weisz, Agora
This is a loaded group, even porting over only Natalie Portman, the category winner, and Lawrence, establishing her brand early in her career. Weisz is particularly good in the little-seen historical epic “Agora”, one of those big-budget-via-questionable-financiers international productions as 4th century teacher and philosopher Hypatia, hypnotizing her smitten students (Max Minghella, Oscar Isaac) as she battles the pressures of the waring Christians. It’s the only blockbuster seemingly about trying to protect a library. Definitely a brainy historical epic more people should have seen.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale, The Fighter
Andrew Garfield, Never Let Me Go
John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone
Richard Jenkins, Let Me In
Kevin Kline, The Extra Man
Bale was the winner here for his incredible and, for him, predictably-transformative turn in “The Fighter”. I saved him and Hawkes, and dropped Jeremy Renner (“The Town”), Mark Ruffalo (“The Kids Are All Right”) and Geoffrey Rush (“The King’s Speech”). I’m glad I got Kline in here, even though the studio probably would have pushed him in Lead Actor (he’s massive on the poster compared to the film’s actual lead, Paul Dano). Kline is always good, and frequently better than his material. In “The Extra Man”, he’s playing basically the cultured man’s Ron Burgundy, and he’s hysterical.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Allison Janney, Life During Wartime
Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Lesley Manville, Another Year
Naomi Watts, Mother And Child
All due respect to “The Fighter” ladies (particularly Leo, who earned her Oscar with a number of proudly garish For Your Consideration ads) but Manville gave the year’s saddest, most gutting performance. I left out Helena Bonham Carter from “The King’s Speech” and Jacki Weaver from “Animal Kingdom”, and I withdrew Hailee Steinfeld due to the category fraud of her actually being the film’s lead character.

2012

BEST PICTURE
Certified Copy
Contagion
The Last Circus
Margaret
Meek’s Cutoff
Melancholia
Tree Of Life
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Warriors Of The Rainbow – Seediq Bale
We Need To Talk About Kevin
I tried so hard to get Sion Sono’s four-hour “Love Exposure” in here, but there was room for only one four-hour foreign language epic. That one would be the John Woo-produced “Warriors Of The Rainbow: Seediq Bale”, a breathtaking historical actioner that actually runs close to 280 minutes long. This is a wild year for movies, with only one of the nine actual nominees carried over in Terrence Malick’s “Tree Of Life”.

I am cheating, of course. Some of these are nominated in their “finished” form though they were released in America incomplete. The aforementioned “Seediq Bale” chopped over 100 minutes from its runtime, “Margaret” thrives in it’s later three-hour edition, and, you may not know this, but Alex de la Iglesia’s “The Last Circus” is actually a re-edited version of 1989’s “Batman” but with no Batman and two Jokers. That’s not really true, but it kind of is? Plus, there’s “Contagion”, a fun escapist thriller back then and an absolute horror show today.

(Did Not See: A Separation, Shame)

BEST DIRECTOR
Abbas Kiarostami, Certified Copy
Terrence Malick, Tree Of Life
Lynne Ramsay, We Need To Talk About Kevin
Stephen Soderbergh, Contagion
Lars Von Trier, Melancholia
I didn’t mention earlier that this was the year swept by Michel Hazanavicius and “The Artist”, which… huh? How did everyone go gaga over a really cute one-note gag? Hazanavicius and star Jean Dujardin have previously linked up for a couple of “OSS 117” movies lampooning the spy genre, a much more compelling meta experiment than the genteel “The Artist”. Whatever the case, just as it happened in real life, here “The Artist” gets wiped off the board. Malick is the only survivor from a purge of the Best Director nominees, a batch that includes Woody Allen (“Midnight In Paris”), Alexander Payne (“The Descendants”) and Martin Scorsese (“Hugo” – Marty making a movie about movie history and just DARING Academy voters).

BEST ACTOR
Antonio Banderas, The Skin I Live In
George Clooney, The Descendants
Wagner Moura, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within
Brad Pitt, Tree Of Life
Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
Pitt was actually nominated this year for “Moneyball”. But I think everyone neglected his best performance, that and any year, in “Tree Of Life” as an enigmatic, terrifying father. This wasn’t a particularly strong year for Lead Actor, but I only saved Clooney from the actual nominees, sandwiching him in between a couple of great foreign language turns that deserve more credit. How about Michael Shannon, though? All these years into the Shannon experience, you can look back on the devastating “Take Shelter” and realize only he could give that performance.

BEST ACTRESS
Juliet Binoche, Certified Copy
Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter
Oliva Colman, Tyrannosaur
Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin
Charlize Theron, Young Adult
This is amazing. This was one of the toughest five I had to come up with, and none of these were honored by the Academy. All five nominees were dumped. Winner Meryl Streep was an odious Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady”, Michelle Williams was a wholly unconvincing Marilyn Monroe in “My Week With Marilyn” and Rooney Mara was simply a poor xerox of Noomi Rapace in the remake of “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”.

The five new ones, there’s not a weak link among them. I’m miffed I had to leave out Anna Pacquin in “Margaret” and Kirsten Dunst in “Melancholia”, two stellar performances driving two of the most intense movies of the year. I am picking Queen Binoche here, but you can’t go wrong with any of these five.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Albert Brooks, Drive
Jude Law, Contagion
Ezra Miller, We Need To Talk About Kevin
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
A tough category, this one. I dropped Kenneth Branagh (maybe the third best performance in “My Week With Marilyn”), Jonah Hill (same deal for “Moneyball”) and Max Von Sydow for “Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close” (a movie no one likes). The winner, Christopher Plummer (“Beginners”) sticks around, as does Nick Nolte (“Warrior”) giving a performance as if he thinks he’s about to die.

A wicked collection remains. Law in particular is interesting, because he’s playing the type of fake-reporter dirtbag that is now everyone on the internet. And I’m not certain how pronouns work as far as acting categories, but Ezra Miller is downright terrifying in “We Need To Talk About Kevin” – thanks to Miller, the movie also has the alternate title, “NEVER HAVE KIDS.” I hated passing over Mark Ruffalo for soulful work in “Margaret”, Viggo Mortensen smoking a succession of phallic pipes in “A Dangerous Method”, Philip Seymour Hoffman fuming quietly through “Moneyball”, Bruce Greenwood constantly pointing in the wrong direction in “Meek’s Cutoff” and Peter Mullan, genuinely upsetting in “Tyrannosaur”.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Viola Davis, The Help
Keira Knightley, A Dangerous Method
J. Smith-Cameron, Margaret
Kim Wayans, Pariah
Kate Winslet, Contagion
First of all, I don’t like anything about the optics of “The Help”, but Viola Davis was nominated in Lead Actress when Emma Stone was the lead. Davis is Supporting, and she’s great, though she spends the movie giving a great performance while also silently stewing over how this crap is beneath her. I have no problem with Davis wiping away the nominations of winner Octavia Spencer or Jessica Chastain (the latter of whom I kept confusing for Bryce Dallas Howard’s character).

Knightley gives a wild, full-bodied performance here, while Wayans is the quiet, grown-ass center of “Pariah”. Smith-Cameron is every exasperated mother of every entitled young girl, and there’s Winslet, in an unshowy role as a competent bureaucrat painfully squeezed out by other bureaucrats.

2013
BEST PICTURE
Amour
Django Unchained
Holy Motors
Killing Them Softly
Lincoln
The Master
Moonrise Kingdom
Neighboring Sounds
No
Zero Dark Thirty
Not a bad year for the Academy – I swiped four of their nominees, and completely ignored the winning film, “Argo”. Feels like there’s a strong political element to a lot of these. I sleep uneasily knowing “Zero Dark Thirty” is pro-war on terror propaganda, and actually upsettingly convincing propaganda. The great movies give you much to discuss, and much with which to disagree respectfully. I wanted to be the Kool Kid who discounted later-career Spielberg, but every couple of movies, he hits a home run. Worth unpacking – who talked the Academy into getting “Amour” in there?

(Did Not See: ACAB, The Turin Horse)

BEST DIRECTOR
Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
Andrew Dominik, Killing Them Softly
Michael Haneke, Amour
Pablo Larrain, No
Ang Lee, Life Of Pi
Lee won this award, and I think it’s worth acknowledging that “Life Of Pi” is probably the greatest and most visually-stunning 3D effort on the big screen yet. He beat Spielberg and Haneke (impressive) as well as David O. Russell (not super impressive) and Benh Zeitlin (just lucky to be here). I like him in this group, but it’s hard to shake the vibes of “Killing Them Softly”. “Life Of Pi” uses technology to create that immersive feel, but “Killing Them Softly” genuinely seems smelly and makes you have to itch yourself.

BEST ACTOR
Gael Bernal, No
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Sean Penn, This Must Be The Place
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight
They had it easy this year at the Academy, with top-tier performances by Daniel Day-Lewis, Joaquin Phoenix and Denzel Washington. I shouldn’t say that about Day-Lewis since he wasn’t actually there – the Spielberg film is actually acted out by a fully-reanimated Abraham Lincoln back from the dead. Fun fact. I left out Bradley Cooper for “Silver Linings Playbook” and Hugh Jackman for (the best thing about) “Les Miserables”, which let me include Bernal. As for Sean Penn, I’m glad I let him in here for a bonkers movie that’s basically “Robert Smith, Nazi Hunter”.

BEST ACTRESS
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Marion Cotillard, Rust And Bone
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts Of The Southern Wild
Michelle Williams, Take This Waltz
Jennifer Lawrence won this award for “Silver Linings Playbook”, though I will insist that she’s far too young and miscast in the part. I kept three of the nominees and parted with Lawrence and Naomi Watts from “The Impossible” (nominated for Best Swimming, I guess). Found a spot instead for Williams, giving yet another strong performance in a career filled with them. And then there’s Jacques Audiard’s “Rust And Bone”, where Cotillard plays a suicidal woman who has her legs eaten by a killer whale at a SeaWorld show, and the movie just gets wilder from there.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Gerard Butler, Coriolanus
Thomas Haden Church, Killer Joe
Leonardo DiCaprio, Django Unchained
James Gandolfini, Killing Them Softly
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
I’m not sure how anyone wins in this category against Hoffman’s volcanic turn as Lancaster Dodd in “The Master”, the kind of performance that makes an actor want to quit and go into welding. Somehow, he actually lost to Christoph Waltz in “Django Unchained” – not only have I rectified this mistake, but I swapped out Waltz for DiCaprio, the superior of the “Django” supporting performances.

This category ended up being a dumping ground for decent performances from aging legends, but I pulled out Robert DeNiro (“Silver Linings Playbook”), Tommy Lee Jones (“Lincoln”) and Alan Arkin (“Argo”). Instead, I threw some credit towards Butler, an action fixture who somehow nailed the original Shakespeare in “Coriolanus”, one of those original-text-contemporary-setting adaptations. And while I think Gandolfini is heartbreakingly messy in “Killing Them Softly”, I’d be remiss in not mentioning he’s also superb in David Chase’s half-great rock memorial “Not Fade Away”.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Isabelle Huppert, Amour
Laura Linney, The Details
Brit Marling, Sound Of My Voice
Frances McDormand, This Must Be The Place
Of the five nominees, I kept Helen Hunt, ignoring the insubstantial roles for Jacki Weaver (“Silver Linings Playbook”) and Amy Adams (“The Master”), as well as the thirsty ham of Sally Field (“Lincoln”) and category winner Anne Hathaway (“Les Miserables”). Not the strongest year, but I’m glad there was a spot for Marling (as a deadly-calm cult leader) and Linney (a wildly funny performance in a movie that also features the best Tobey Maguire performance).

2014

BEST PICTURE
Bastards
Before Midnight
Computer Chess
Drug War
The Grandmaster
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis
Like Someone In Love
Spring Breakers
Upstream Color
Only Spike Jonze’s “Her” survived this nominee purge, the lone survivor out of nine. The winner this year, the last year before my arrest, was “12 Years A Slave”, which I felt was too operatic and affected as far as those types of narratives. I went a lot more colorful with this group, acknowledging Johnny To here and letting him stand side-by-side with Wong Kar-Wai. The no-budget “Computer Chess”, for the record, is about nerds settling into a hotel conference about a.i. In the 1980’s a concept that makes the film’s low-key insights into interpersonal relationships more relevant by the day.

BEST DIRECTOR
Shane Carruth, Upstream Color
Joel And Ethan Coen, Inside Llewyn Davis
Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
Spike Jonze, Her
Wong Kar-Wai, The Grandmaster
I didn’t slip “Gravity” into my top ten, but I have no problem porting Cuaron over as this category’s winner, and the lone directing carry-over. Cuaron the director proves himself here to be superior to Cuaron the screenwriter (both himself and his son as co-writers). Beyond that, I’m pleased with this collection of masters as such. Carruth is the one who ended up torpedoing his career by being an abusive jerk, unfortunately, but he leaves two amazing movies behind. Left behind were nominees Steve McQueen (“12 Years A Slave”), David O. Russell (“American Hustle”), Alexander Payne (“Nebraska”) and Martin Scorsese (“Wolf Of Wall Street”).

BEST ACTOR
Christian Bale, American Hustle
Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips
Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis
Mads Mikkelsen, The Hunt
Joaquin Phoenix, Her
It felt like people became annoyed about Tom Hanks rolling out of bed and getting an Oscar nomination for what felt like decades. They forget that he hasn’t won since the nineties, and every once in a while, he gets hafted – I was stunned to not see him up there for “Captain Phillips”. To a lesser extent, I was also surprised the Academy liked “Her” so much but found no praise for Phoenix, who gives an unusually sensitive, pained performance. And why didn’t they give love to Oscar Isaac for learning how to become a rock star in “Inside Llewyn Davis”?

I kept Bale among the year’s nominees, even if his inclusion was, at the time, a surprise to some. I’m pretty high on Bale, and seeing his heartbreak during the “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” sequence when Amy Adams arrives as Bradley Cooper’s date is the stuff that used to fuel big glamorous Hollywood movies. I left out winner Matthew McConaughey for his stunty work in “Dallas Buyer’s Club”, ornery Bruce Dern in “Nebraska”, Leo’s goofball antics in “Wolf Of Wall Street” and Chiwetel Ejiofor in “12 Years A Slave”, frankly the type of humiliating performance I hope to not have to see any more. I’m due for a re-watch, but when I sat through “12 Years A Slave” back then, I spent a lot of the runtime thinking, “Nope.”

BEST ACTRESS
Amy Adams, American Hustle
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock, Gravity
Judi Dench, Philomena
Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha
Cate Blanchett in “Blue Jasmine” coming down on the Oscars is like Cate Blanchett coming down on Asgard in “Thor Ragnarok”. She took Woody Allen’s words and turned them into a symphony. This is basically the same list as the original nominees, with Gerwig subbed in for a seemingly gratuitous Meryl Streep nod for “August: Osage County”.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips
Bradley Cooper, American Hustle
James Franco, Spring Breakers
John Goodman, Inside Llewyn Davis
Dwayne Johnson, Pain And Gain

Get outta here, Jared Leto.

Look, it feels like it’s a very of-the-moment decision to just neglect “Dallas Buyer’s Club” and “12 Years A Slave”. But I feel comfortable about it because of the quality of those movies – “Dallas Buyer’s Club” was never convincing for me, and “12 Years A Slave” left me with a bad taste based on its maximalist approach. Along with Leto, I left behind Michael Fassbender’s slave runner in “12 Years A Slave” and Jonah Hill for “Wolf Of Wall Street”, and I held onto Abdi and Cooper and, more importantly, Cooper’s perm.

This is kind of a messy group instead. I really do believe Johnson is an irritating screen presence, but “Pain And Gain” is by far his best work and funniest performance. I get the critiques of Franco’s RIff Raff riff in “Spring Breakers”, but I think he truly embodies the spirit of the movie. And Goodman brings a bit of savage negativity in his brief moments in “Inside Llewyn Davis”, just a Coen regular completely killing it.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Rosario Dawson, Trance
Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine
Nicole Kidman, Stoker
Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years A Slave
Margot Robbie, Wolf Of Wall Street
Nyong’o and Hawkins survived my purge, and I took out Jennifer Lawrence (“American Hustle” – again, too young for this role), Julia Roberts (“August: Osage County” – y’all remember this one?) and June Squibb (“Nebraska” playing a typical plucky old lady role). I didn’t care for “12 Years”, but Nyong’o’s performance absolutely rings true every moment she’s onscreen.

Robbie rightfully became a star after her scintillating turn in “Wolf Of Wall Street”, and Kidman is giving full-on camp in “Stoker”, an underrated erotic thriller. But Dawson is the beating heart of Danny Boyle’s loopy “Trance”, a sexed-up “Inception” variation where James McAvoy can’t seem to remember that his sexy therapist is the key to locating a secret buried deep in his memory.