Mama Let's Rank

It’s Hollywood’s biggest night. You know the drill. Unless you don’t, because I accidentally abandoned this project for a full calendar year (sorry).

If you’re new here, I’m gonna rank Best Picture nominees and be a little bitchy in the process. I’m hungover today! This will be a healing and meditative exercise!

I’ve decided to add a new component here - in an effort to offset my bitchiness with kindness and positivity, I’ll be awarding each nominee one unique Bald Ann Dowd Award (BADDIE). Nobody will be going home empty-handed. Let’s begin.

10.) F1

By the time I was 24, each of my parents had received a cancer diagnosis while in their mid-to-late 40s.

I worry that I cite this fact too often in casual conversation and that, to others, it’s become too integral a part of my identity. I don’t want to be defined by a series of experiences so brash and unpleasant that the mere mention of anything I did or saw between 2022 and 2025 can instantaneously kill the vibe of any party, concert, parade, funeral, etc. etc. etc.

However, I bring it up here to highlight the fact that, at 26 years old, I’ve likely spent more time pondering mortality than many of my peers in the highly-coveted 18-34 advertising demographic. And I am now wracked with grief over the fact that I spent 2 hours and 40 minutes of my one wild and precious life watching F1. The time has evaporated in front of my face. Just like that. Poof. Gone. I am young and alive in New York City and my boobs will never look as good as they do right now and I spent 160 full minutes of my fleeting time on earth staring at a series of car-related clips that are significantly less visually dynamic than MarioKart cut scenes.

And let me say this - I loathe Brad Pitt for all of the basic human-decency-related reasons you’d expect, but I’ll concede that he’s delivered some genuinely great performances throughout his career. This is not one of them. He is astonishingly unwatchable in this movie. And he whips out his his Inglorious Basterds ‘a-rriver-derci’ voice at random and confusing intervals. The only good thing about his presence in this movie was the fact that spent the full runtime getting severely mogged by Damson Idris, Javier Bardem, and Kerry Condon. How special.

There is nothing here. This is not a movie worth seeing at all, much less discussing after the credits have rolled. At least the 3 years of my early-to-mid 20s spent crying in cancer treatment centers taught me that you can drink a bunch of MiraLAX if your insurance doesn’t cover legitimate colon prep. I gained nothing nearly as useful from sitting through F1.

F1 receives the 2026 BADDIE for Feature Film Less Pleasant Than Getting A Preventative Colonoscopy At 23 Years Old While All Your Friends Are Out Partying And Having Fun.

9.) Frankenstein

I like to believe that Mary Shelley wrote her 1818 novel in the hopes that it’d one day be adapted for a comfortable second-screen viewing experience.

Jacob Elordi is genuinely outstanding in this movie, and if he walked away with the gold statue tonight (he won't), I’d be legitimately excited. Everything else about this overlong adaptation was forgettable, except for the moment when the monster says, out loud, that maybe Victor Frankenstein was the real monster all along. I was really grateful for that part because I probably wouldn’t have picked up on the overarching theme while watching Family Guy on my phone during the movie.

I, admittedly, remember very little else about this movie. It offered no novel or interesting perspective on a story we’ve seen adapted repeatedly in the last few years alone (see: 2024 Best Picture nominee Poor Things, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s most recent directorial effort The Bride!, and startling reminder that we as a society are never safe from the unwed Sprouse, Lisa Frankenstein). Instead, the project felt disappointingly familiar and restrained — especially compared to Del Toro’s earlier works — and ultimately reminded me of Wicked, another visually upsetting and drawn-out film that I disliked despite the undeniable talent of the people involved in its creation. I call for a moratorium on writing run-down clock towers into adapted screenplays!

I will admit that I enjoyed some of the gross ooey gooey anatomical stuff, though. They shoulda let Sarah Squirm take a crack at this one!!!!

Frankenstein receives the 2026 BADDIE for Tallest Guy We’ve Managed To Capture on Camera.

8.) Train Dreams

I called this a 90-minute American Express commercial, and Twitter crucified me for it. So I’ll admit that I was wrong: this movie is actually 110 minutes long.

Train Dreams benefits from being 48 minutes shorter than Frankenstein, which has bumped it up to #8 in my ranking. I appreciate any piece of art that attempts to grapple with complex emotions, and I genuinely enjoyed Joel Edgerton’s performance, but I’m perplexed by nearly every storytelling decision made here. The vague, saccharine, matter-of-fact voiceover completely sanitizes the messiness of grief while holding us at arms length from the protaganist with whom the entire movie hinges on viewers empathizing. Joel Edgerton is sad. Joel Edgerton is chopping down a tree. Joel Edgerton is thinking about his dead wife uttering vague words and phrases ripped directly from a Hallmark card, backlit as hell against the kitchen window.

Okay! That’s great!! Make me care!!!

When I expressed this gripe with the film, a bunch of crisis actors online pretended that I said “voiceover as a storytelling device is unequivocally bad and therefore Barry Lyndon sucks” so they could pretend to be offended by my inconsequential distaste for an unmemorable Netflix original. In the weeks and months since the debacle, many others have expressed opinions similar to mine without, I assume, receiving death threats in their DMs. I guess being a trailblazer is a cross I have to bear.

Train Dreams receives the 2026 La Croix Award For Movie That Barely Exists.

7.) Hamnet

A lot of people online are acting like Chloe Zhao personally broke into their houses and stole their family members’ government documents and replaced all the Ls in their names with Ns and then shot everybody in the head and left.

I’m also seeing a lot of “Jessie Buckley is doing Acting 101 exercises” discourse from swaths of anonymous Twitter users who would be too scared to post a 15-second front-facing TikTok lip syncing words that another, more interesting person said first. Buckley is phenomenal in this movie and I think her inevetable win tonight will be well-deserved.

The nature shots are beatiful. The pacing is stilted. Jessie Buckley and Jacobi Jupe are transcendent. Paul Mescal reciting “to be, or not to be, that is the question” is dreadful. The sincerity is refreshing. The people who will see themselves reflected in these characters are people who desperately need the comfort of seeing themselves reflected in these characters.

Did I love this movie? Not quite. Did I hate this movie? Not by any means. I may revisit it in the future. I may even read the book to see what’s up with that whole thing. Everybody just shut up, please. Especially if you’re going out of your way to ride for Train Dreams.

Hamnet receives the 2026 BADDIE for We Got A BOGO Deal On Child Actors Who Are Brothers.

6.) Bugonia

I saw Bugonia after work on a random rainy night at AMC Orpheum 7. I booked my ticket toward the end of the movie’s theatrical run, which meant that myself and 4 fellow moviegoers were ushered into an odd, ugly, and uncharacteristically narrow underground theater. We were so far away from all the people, cell service, and (apparently) bed bugs. I was wearing denim jeans.

Funnily enough, these were incredibly apt viewing conditions for this film — one about madness, isolation, weird vibes, and alienation (no pun intended). I had a pretty good time despite my denim-related discomfort and the space’s menacing energy.

I must admit that I remember very little about the details of Bugonia. I moreso remember how I felt while watching it (see above), and the handful of discrete images that left an impression on me - The bees. The basement. The spaghetti. Emma Stone’s bald head. Alicia Silverstone on life support after eating deadly nightshade. The incredible Barbarella-esque alien spaceship. Stavvy!

Bugonia never shocked me in the way I believe it was intended to. I don’t say this as a brag or an assertion that I’m smarter than the craftsmen behind this film or Save The Green Planet (I’m not. I’m significantly dumber, I promise). I just say it to highlight the fact that, aside from a smattering of enduring images and an all-timer performance from Jesse Plemons, I found myself a bit underwhelmed by what unfolded in front of me. Of course Emma Stone is (SPOILER ALERT) the alien. What a dull and un-Yorgos film this would be if she were just a regular human woman. I thought it was pretty good, but not great. But that may be more of an indictment of me than the film itself. IDK!

Bugonia receives the 2026 BADDIE for Best Male Performance in A Supporting Role - Stavros Halkias.

5.) Sinners

You can just listen to I Lied To You (Radio Edit) any time you want. You can unlock your phone and open Spotify and hear Miles Caton perform I Lied To You (Radio Edit). Did you know that? Did you???

I really like this movie!! And I had a fucking blast watching it in a theater!!!

Coogler’s screenplay is original as hell. He executed his vision with commendable attention to detail, weaving together Hoodoo, Black music, Religion, and the cultural diversity within the Mississippi Delta to interrogate questions of gender, race, art, ownership, and assimilation. How is Black art co-opted? Who benefits from assimilation? Who feels empowered to make risky decisions? Why are they forced to make them? Who is disproportionately impacted?

The highs are high - The eerie moments in the church. The shots of Louisiana’s sprawling landscape. Miles Caton’s voice. Mary killing Stack. The The Thing-esque garlic test. Annie’s true death. Smoke’s (fucking awesome) slaughter of the Klansmen. Smoke reuniting with Annie and the baby. All the post-credits stuff that I missed on first viewing and had to watch on HBO months later. The general horniness!

Two small gripes, though:

1.) I wish that Annie and Pearline got to be more fully-realized characters. Who are these women outside of their romantic and sexual entanglements with the men of the film? They are both so beautiful and interesting and electric! Let us sit with them for a moment longer, I beg!

2.) The way everything looks during the big moment inside the Juke Joint. The musical number sounds gorgeous (have I mentioned that I think Miles Caton has one of the most beautiful voices of all time?) and the aspect ratio change is electric, but the scene ultimately has Wicked Blocking Disease despite being the centerpiece of the film. I say this with love! I say this because I want to have a better view of what’s going on!!

Ultimately, watching Ryan Coogler stand in front of audiences and speak passionately about film — explaining formats and aspect ratios in a way that got people excited about the most granular and nerdy parts of film — thrilled me. One of the coolest guys we have championing the moviegoing experience. What’s better than that?

Sinners is not without flaw, but It’s far better to take big swings than to make Train Dreams. This should win Best Original Screenplay, and I’ll be very satisfied if it snags Best Picture.

Sinners receives the 2026 BADDIE for Where The Hell Did This Guy Come From And Why Isn’t He In Everything All The Time - Miles Caton

4.) One Battle After Another

Right off the bat: I’m not a PTA loyalist. So jot that down RIGHT now.

You could argue about the politics of OBAA until the cows come home (many people have been doing this for months on end, purely for the love of the game), but that seems like a boring and fruitless endeavor to me. PTA is well aware of the limitations his white-guy-ness imposes on him as a person, father, and filmmaker, and he plainly pokes fun at these limitations by way of the film’s washed-up-revolutionary protaganist, Bob. The Black women in this story bear the brunt of Bob’s apathy and helplessness. They end up in dangerous situations from which they don’t have the luxury of easily removing themselves. They protect themselves and each other by making complicated and oftentimes unsavory choices. These are all valid observations, and they act as building blocks for a good enough movie, but PTA isn’t trying to posit any ideas that haven’t already been explored with more depth and effectiveness elsewhere. This is a film about revolutionaries, but it’s not meant to be a revolutionary text.

One Battle feels more like a time capsule to me, and it’d make for a dynamite 2025 double-feature with Ari Aster’s Eddington. The Bob learns how to use an iPhone of it all in One Battle is a bit more saccharine and eye-roll inducing than the bleak abyss we’re left gazing into at the end of Aster’s latest, but both films reveal something true about the constant fear, anxiety, and mania of day-to-day life in our current world. Both films are mirrors rather than playbooks.

Overall, OBAA’s cinematography and direction here are stunning (I’ve thought about the car chase scene every day since I saw it in November), and the film’s 3-hour runtime zooms by in what feels like a tight 90. Chase Infiniti, Teyana Taylor, and Regina Hall all deliver incredibly layered performances, bringing to life three characters who easily could’ve ended up feeling cliche and one-dimensional. Sean Penn is great. Leo and Benicio Del Toro are deeply, deeply funny. The father/daughter stuff made me cry!!!!!

Not PTA’s best by a long shot (Phantom Thread forever), but pretty fucking good.

One Battle After Another has received the 2026 Hamnet Award For Everybody Please Stop Fighting About This Fucking Movie.

3.) Sentimental Value

As a The Worst Person In The World die-hard, my expectations were sky-high going into this one. I don’t think Joachim Trier ever quite matches the highs of his 2021 opus here, but the movie is gorgeous regardless.

I love a movie about family. I love a movie about women. I love to watch emotionaly stunted people try to communicate with each other through their art. I love an exploration of generational trauma and the ways in which it seeps into every facet of our lives.

Staring into the big, beautiful eyes of Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas made me cry. Watching Stellan Skarsgard hand a copy of The Piano Teacher to a child made me laugh so hard I thought I was going to pass out. A gorgeously written, acted, and shot film that toes the comedy/drama line in the way only a Trier joint can. Yay!

BREAKING NEWS: Sentimental Value has received THREE 2026 BADDIEs -

• Jay Kelly Real Person Award - Rachel Kemp

• Best Actress in A Supporting Role - Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas

• Best NYFF Film Screening To Get Covid At

2.) Marty Supreme

I suspect that this movie would be bumped down several spots in my ranking if not for the lead performances of Timothee Chalamet and Odessa A’zion, who are endlessly watchable even during moments where the movie drags.

Josh Safdie and Jennifer Venditti’s commitment to casting real + unique faces, Jack Fisk’s astonishing production design, and Daniel Lopatin’s propulsive synth score (side note: it’s a genuine disgrace that Lopatin’s work was shut out of this year’s race much like Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s iconic-to-me Challengers score in 2025. What does this voting body have against synths??? The Academy needs to get cooler and sexier NOW!!!) all really made this work for me. But I totally understand the detractors. If you’re not somebody who fucks with the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink (I fucing hate this phrase, by the way, but other words are escaping me at the moment) Safdie sensibility, this will be an excruciating watch. Stuff happens and keeps happening and none of it is pleasant. Luckily, I’m most comfortable in my own skin when I’m on the verge of a panic attack, so watching this film in theaters felt like a trip to the spa.

The highlight of Marty Supreme is, without question, the (true) story Marty forces his friend to tell about a Holocaust survivor who regularly covered his body in honey and let his fellow prisoners lick it off for sustenance. This moment reveals so much about Marty: The flippant way in which he is willing and able to evoke Jewish trauma. His eagerness to recount a deeply tragic story of sacrifice and dignity as a means of furthering his selfish ambitions. Masterfully done. I think about it often.

I ultimately found Marty to be a combination of Good Time and Uncut Gems that drags slightly more than both and never quite matches the highs of either predecessor (though the bathtub falling through the ceiling comes pretty damn close). That’s a tough bar to clear, though. Still a great movie.

Marty Supreme Christmas Day!!!!!!!!

Marty Supreme receives the 2026 BADDIE for Best Use Of Sticky Substances In A Major Motion Picture - Honey, Semen

1.) The Secret Agent

If nobody got me, I know that the beautiful and proud nation of Brazil got me!!!!

I watched a screener of this film in my childhood living room while my parents noisily prepared dinner, and it still managed to knock the air out of my lungs. A 2025 release that truly, genuinely deserves to win Best Picture.

There’s very little I can say about this masterpiece that hasn’t already been said by smarter and more articulate people. At a time when history is actively being denied and rewritten by the worst among us, a film about preserving memory despite authoritarianism’s insistence on impeding preservation and devaluing humanities feels (and is) completely vital. Daniella Mazzio wrote beautifully about this idea, and everybody should go read her piece.

Very glad this film exists. Very sad I didn’t get to experience it on the big screen.

The Secret Agent receives the 2026 BADDIE for BEST PICTURE!!!! DUH!!!

Happy Oscars Day <3