With something always tantalizingly out of reach, Christian Petzold’s films carry a certain rigor of academic riddles, albeit koans populated by characters nursing their own quiet tragedies. With vibrant interiority, Paula Beer’s melancholic university music student becomes a makeshift bandage for a rural family in the wake of a freak car crash. With a fairy tale quality, it becomes a story of parallel rebirth and healing. The great pleasure is in waiting for the final puzzle piece to fall into place, revealing an unexpectedly richer, fuller whole.

Opening with a dreamlike quality, we first encounter Laura (Paula Beer, Petzold’s current muse) in quiet contemplation of a waterway below an ugly Berlin overpass. Exploring further, she explores the shoreline below where a shadowy stand-up paddler glides past silently, evoking a ferryman traversing the worlds of the living and dead. In her cozy, loose-knit pink duck-emblazoned sweater, she’s a young woman adrift in a fog of her own isolation. Having misplaced her bag, she arrives home to her apartment to a boyfriend annoyed that she’s been out of touch and late for a convertible ride to the countryside for a boating excursion with influential musician friends. Her boyfriend is the sort to pick up an interesting synth, trust his girlfriend to identify the key of a classic Dutch pop song on the car’s stereo, but not sensitive enough to care why she immediately wants to leave rather than spend the day on the lake.

Even here, in approximately the modern day and real world, Petzold’s filmmaking has a surreal yet naturalistic quality. Laura and an older woman standing alone, staring blankly from the curb of a country road, exchange portentous glances as their car speeds by. The encounter will repeat moments before an offscreen car accident causes her boyfriend to exit the film while Laura walks away miraculously unscathed, albeit even further dazed.

That woman, Betty (Barbara Auer, also in her third collaboration with Petzold), is the first to arrive on the scene of the crash. She brings Laura away from the wreckage, back to her house. Of her own volition, Laura requests to stay in the company of this apparent stranger rather than returning to her home or to seek further medical attention. Perhaps more oddly [or merely German civic-mindedness], Betty immediately agrees, setting Laura up with a bed, competently unobtrusive room service, a change of well-fitting clothes, and enrichment activities out of Tom Sawyer like helping to paint her white picket fence. 

From the small disarrays of the country house, calling Laura by the wrong name, and the way that Betty’s estranged husband (Matthias Brandt) and adult son Max (Enno Trebs, both also fellow Petzold three-timers) assume she’s gone off her pills when she invites them to dinner and they find a table set for four, it’s fairly easy to deduce the nature of the unresolved absence in their family’s life. They’re men of few words, mechanics who work from their own shop with a sideline in modifying electronic tracking systems in wealthy clients’ high-end automobiles. More comfortable working with their hands than expressing themselves, their long silences and meaningful eye contact upon seeing Laura speak volumes. It’s a credit to the expressive quality of the entire cast’s acting that so much of the storytelling happens through wordless gestures and silent reactions, but this is especially true for how Paula Beer’s big blue eyes work wonders to connect us to a character whose distresses may be a mystery even to herself. 

As the days of Laura’s respite stretch on, her presence becomes a balm for a fractured marriage. Even as she gets to know Max, sharing beers and listening to music (an impeccable Frankie Valli needle drop) while he repairs a broken bicycle to help her get around, he remains unsettled by her presence. For much of her stay, nothing really happens — meals become less awkward, a dishwasher breaks, the merits of plum cakes are debated — but the oddity of the days stretching on without anyone daring to broach the subject of why she’s there contributes to a sense of quietly mounting unaddressed tension. Amid seemingly aimless summer days soundtracked mostly by breezes and birdsong, Petzold balances coziness with borderline unbearable eeriness.

Neither dream nor nightmare, the spell of must eventually break. As the charade comes crashing down around them all and its absurdity comes into focus, the severance reveals that grief, trauma, and recovery rarely proceed in straight lines. Instead, recalibrations come in fits and starts. Stasis gives way to forward movement in the afterglow of brief surrender to respites of fantasy, be it indulging in echoes from the past or succumbing to an unspecified desire to temporarily disappear from the world. Even upon awaking, shaking off the confusion, the world continues with a new sense of normalcy. You can leave the past behind, but still you can never leave more than you found. 

Miroirs No. 3 continues its theatrical rollout in Seattle this weekend, with screenings at SIFF Uptown.
An earlier version of this review appeared as part of our coverage of the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, where the film had its North American premiere.

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Kristoffer Borgli’s newest film, The Drama, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, is a—you guessed it—drama masquerading as a rom-com, but with only bits and pieces of romance and comedy; instead, as the title suggests, it leans very heavily on the drama.

The film takes place in the week leading up to Charlie (Pattinson) and Emma’s (Zendaya) wedding. Borgli asynchronously tells the story of the happy couple’s dating relationship through memories and stories that so effortlessly encapsulate their love, it’s hard not to fall head over heels for their relationship. And this strong foundation of supporting their future marriage becomes all the more important as their lives begin to fall apart. 

When at a last-minute menu tasting with their best man, Mike (Mamoudou Athie), and maid of honor, Rachel (Alana Haim), the four decide to confess the worst things they’ve ever done. The confessions range from immature mistakes to borderline criminal, resulting in Charlie rethinking his commitment to Emma and her friends turning against her.

One of the worst parts about reviewing this film is maintaining the secrecy of the twists and plot points that beg to be dissected deeper. But don’t worry, I would never dare spoil it for you. I just question the studio’s choice to keep this particular hot-button, triggering topic so under wraps. It’s not that I don’t think they should talk about it; I’m all for dissecting (primarily American) problems, and I think the film handles it fairly respectfully. I just worry about the repercussions for those more closely tied to events similar to the film. But that’s far more a marketing problem than a story problem, and I commend Borgli for tackling important issues and creating a space for hard conversations.

All that said, Emma’s confession is life-altering for Charlie. The two fall apart as their wedding date inches closer and closer. Pattinson brings a deep angst to Charlie as his entire being crumbles under the weight of his new reality. Zendaya is equally impressive, although hers is a more subtle performance as she confronts old feelings and memories, as she also deals with the nerves of being a bride. And yet, through it all, you can feel the real love and connection between these characters.

Borgli plays up the rom-com tropes to juxtapose happy Hollywood endings with the dumpster fire that has become Charlie and Emma’s wedding. But the romance never quite goes away for me. Zendaya and Pattinson have a chemistry that permeates every scene and leaves me hopeful for their future, even as the film is screaming at me to think otherwise. 

Ultimately, The Drama is a story about second chances and how many you’d give to the ones you love. It asks the audience, Are we defined by the worst thing we’ve ever done? (What about the worst thing we’ve ever thought?) Borgli won’t hand you the answer; that’s for you to decide. The Drama is a film that demands to be thought about and discussed long after the theater lights come on, and that is where much of its beauty lies.

The Drama arrives in theaters on April 3
Image courtesy of A24

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After leaving the theater for the latest Super Mario Brothers movie, I thought, “This movie is cool to look at, the animation is impressive, and the story is thin but harmless, and it’s still a fun time. That’s basically what I said three years ago, the last time a Mario movie hit theaters and I feel the same way with this new movie.

The gang is mostly back together: Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt), Luigi (voiced by Charlie Day), Princess Peach (voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy), Bowser (voiced by Jack Black), and Toad (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key). Missing is Donkey Kong but there are a few additions, like Princess Rosalina (voiced by Brie Larson), Yoshi (voiced by Donald Glover) and Bowser Jr. (voiced by Benny Safdie). There’s a few other surprise characters that I won’t reveal because of the reaction at the preview screening I attended. Plus I’m tired of typing “voiced by.”

This story is about Rosalina being captured by Bowser the Younger and Princess Peach must try to save her. Nintendo canon has no familial relationship between Peach and Rosalina, even though they look pretty close to identical. Rosalina has impressive bangs that cover one eye, like she’s a Green Beret. Anyway, Mario, Luigi and the others involve themselves in the plot to get Rosalina back. Even miniature Bowser is along for some of the ride.

No character is crafted particularly well or has any depth. The only thing we learn about Mario is that he’s comfortably in the friendzone with Princess Peach, which isn’t exactly top secret. But if you show me someone expecting character depth in a Super Mario Brothers movie, I’ll show you a fool.

Still, I found myself having a good time. The action sequences are very cool and there were a few good laughs in there. It’ll probably make a bazillion dollars at the box office and I’m fine with that.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie opens everywhere on Wednesday, April 1. Literally everywhere. No joke.

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Amanda Ogle (Rose Byrne) is more like the average American that we want to admit. She has been living out of her car in the painfully expensive city of Seattle for more than six months and just as she finds a job that could pull her out of the mire, someone steals her car. After a little joy ride it’s ditched and towed. If any of you have experienced this, you know that not only do you have a ticket from the city to pay for but an extra salt in the would fee for “storage” at the lot by the private towing company. Even though it wasn’t her doing, the bill was up to her to handle. When you barely have the funds to feed yourself, this fee is untenable. While looking for a place to lay her head and hoping against hope she’ll have transport by the time her new job starts, she goes to the city to right this wrong and get her damn car back. As you can imagine, it wouldn’t be much of a movie if she was successful on the first try. It’s a story of finding hope in a desperate moment and perseverance when someone is trying to beat you down.

I did enjoy the film and being based on a true story gave me pangs in my heart the entire time. Knowing that the legal team for a company would purposely and maliciously go out of their way to make someone suffer (especially someone who is already dealing with enough) is almost too overwhelming to watch much less experience. The fact that she had a teenaged kid in another city that was unreachable without the missing car was broken glass on a poop sundae.

That being said, Tow was a Disney-fied version of reality. It glossed over a lot of the deep trauma and issues that folks like Amanda suffer on the daily even without someone much richer and more privileged making it ten times worse. We find out at one point that she suffers from addiction, had been dry for a while, but with all that was going on fell down again, but it’s almost treated like a moment of dark humor so that the film could remain light and digestible. I get that the times we live in are absolute garbage if you aren’t loaded or have dark skin, but don’t sugarcoat a story that reveals the truth of our times. It’s one thing if you’re trying to keep the film moving along and not lose the audience, it’s another to make light of their lived experience.

Telling this story is important just to know that we should still eat the rich. I appreciated the end where we were quickly introduced to the protagonist’s real life counterpart, her teen and the lawyer who dedicated himself to helping her. It gave the experiences we had just witnessed a bit more heft and an extra heavy moment for Seattleites seeing them sitting on the bench at the pinnacle of Gasworks Park. Worth seeing, but maybe not in the theater.

Tow is in theaters starting this weekend 3/20

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It’s been seven years since the Le Domas mansion went up in flames, but Ready or Not 2: Here I Come picks up right where the first film leaves off—and I mean exactly where it leaves off. We even get an extended version of the final scene from the first film. Immediately after the Le Domas fire, Grace is taken to a hospital where her emergency contact is called, her sister, “biologically speaking,” Faith (Kathryn Newton) is called, and the two have an unwanted family reunion.

If you’re like me (and by that I mean obsessed with crime documentaries), you were probably a little worried about the legal repercussions for Grace (Samara Weaving). The second film tries to address these issues, but before any real legal action can be taken, Grace is thrown headfirst into another fight for her life. After the death of the entire Le Domas family, the High Council must convene for the first time since 1963 to decide who will hold the High Seat. Grace and Faith are drugged and left on a golf course, and in a near fight to the death (à la The Hunger Games), each head of the remaining families who serve La Bail attempts to be the first to kill Grace and claim the High Seat. The games are led by La Bail’s lawyer (Elijah Wood), who keeps everyone in line as they fight for, ironically, a ring of power.

The highlight of this film was the decision to put Grace and Faith in this fight together, which allows for much more character exploration than in the first film. Since Grace isn’t alone in her fight to survive, the audience is able to learn about her past and connect with her feelings. One of the biggest flaws of the first film, in my opinion, was the lack of explanation for many character motivations (aside from simple self-preservation), and Ready or Not 2 seems to swing the other way completely. Grace now has something more to fight for besides herself, adding a deeper emotional layer to the story. Plus, I’m a sucker for a good sister love story.

The cast of new characters introduces more billionaire idiots we love to hate, led by Sarah Michelle Gellar and Shawn Hatosy playing Ursula and Titus Danforth, siblings determined to keep their family in the council’s High Chair, no matter how many rules they have to bend. And my personal favorites, Varun Saranga and Nadeem Umar-Khitab, as the Rajan brothers, club owners who seem to be perpetually living out their teenage fantasies and are woefully unprepared for a real battle. Bringing together multiple high-profile families adds a sense of competition and variety that was missing in the first film.

While the film isn’t immune to the cheesiness and predictability that many horror films fall into, it’s filled with some great campy horror moments that will stay with viewers long after the credits roll. It balances the emotional reconciliation of Faith and Grace, the intense torture they endure, and never takes itself too seriously. No matter how gory or hopeless the story gets, you won’t be able to stop smiling.

One of the best parts of this film is that it works as a standalone story. While the audience gets a bit of background through Grace’s flashbacks at the beginning, those flashbacks aren’t even necessary to understand the plot (not least because every character besides Grace died in the first movie). It’s a story that will appeal to fans of the original as well as newcomers with little or no knowledge of the franchise.

Ready or Not: Here I Come arrives
In theaters this weekend

Image courtesy Searchlight Pictures .

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Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s hotly anticipated adaptation of Andy Weir’s beloved sci-fi novel Project Hail Mary arrives in theaters this weekend. For those (like me) who haven’t read the book but don’t want too much spoiled, the plot is Interstellar meets Arrival as conceived by Looney Tunes. I mean this as a compliment. Set on a grand canvas of outer space with the fates of worlds hanging in the balance, it’s an awe-inspiring visual spectacle whose heart is a story of silly little guys doing their very best.

With recent triumphs in the dexterously inventive animation of the Spider-Verse, co-directors Lord and Miller get the flesh-and-blood equivalent of an animated character with Ryan Gosling, who’s responsible for holding the screen for more than two hours. He’s a perfect fit. Over his career, he’s played a troubled middle school teacher, a lonely astronaut, and a living doll confused about his place in the universe. Here, he finally gets the chance to play those three roles all at once with Ryland Grace, a scientist castaway on a mission to save the Earth, if he can only remember a few key details.

When we first meet Ryland Grace, it’s by way of a rude robotic awakening after a long induced coma. Hair overgrown and bearded, he emerges from a sleeping bag in a full-body latex astronaut undergarment, deeply confused and scrambling through a three-dimensional maze of a spacecraft. A madcap zero-G tour of the facility reveals that he’s the sole survivor of the mission with no idea how or why he’s found himself more than eleven light years from home. 

Gosling’s embodies Grace almost as a living cartoon character: all soft around the handsome edges, floppy hair, glasses askew, a chunky vintage Wolf Cowichan custom Mary Maxim-inspired Fox-emblazoned knit cardigan that I’d kill for rather than pay the eBay prices. Sometimes he’s even in a big yellow raincoat like a Bay Area Paddington. He makes his way through the film’s altered gravity with the mechanics of someone hand-painted into it. It’s tremendously effective. I want that coat, I want the sweater, I even want his haircut. But most of all, I desperately want this doofus scientist to figure out how to save our godforsaken planet, which almost certainly does not deserve the sacrifice of his good-natured ingenuity.

As Grace in Space putters around his starship (The Hail Mary) in a mild brain fog, the Earthbound story of how he came to be out there is revealed in intermittent flashbacks (meant to convey the fits and starts recovery from the fog of deep coma-induced amnesia) Why he remembers stuff like “how to get around a spaceship and fly it around” but not “why am I out here in the first place” is mildly gimmicky but you’ve just got to roll with it. Similarly, our confusion about operational details has to be chalked up to his foggy memory, otherwise this story will drive you insane. Plundering the crew’s vodka and costume reserves, he starts to interrogate himself with a classic “who am I?” whiteboard session [record scratch … you’ll never guess how I got here meme]. 

Big scary science? “Explain it to me like I’m a middle schooler,” you might say. And if so, you’re in luck because that’s exactly what retired microbiologist-turned-classroom instructor Ryland Grace was up to before the scariest thing imaginable happened to him (being asked to revisit your doctoral dissertation by a bunch of scientists decades after you published it). The Sun has begun to dim, an amateur astronomer (Petrova) noticed an infrared line connecting it to Venus, and NASA has just come back from taking a sample. We get the sense that everyone on the planet is worried, but it’s a matter better left for kids to talk about with their parents. We get enough information to set the stage, establish dire stakes, and introduce a ticking clock that’ll mark the end of the planet as we know it within a few decades.

He’s whisked out of the classroom by a hilariously dry Sandra Hüller, perfect for the role of a no-nonsense double Venti coffee drinker leading an international consortium of governments who are suddenly very interested in this Bay Area teacher’s stale old research: the likelihood of extraterrestrial life that isn’t based on carbon and water. It was an idea (or rather a personality) that was too iconoclastic for academia, but one of sudden relevance to the fate of the world. We see him alone in an isolated laboratory making some discoveries about space bugs (sorry, “astrophages”), doing some Home Depot-style improvisations to further his breakthroughs, and eventually getting whisked into becoming a high-level advisor to the long-shot project to send three people on a one-way mission to the one star in the galaxy not being drained by these hungry critters. That humans are out there at all and not a fleet of AI robots is not explained, but feels quaintly optimistic. The explanation of why this particular human is on the mission will have to wait until until deep into the movie to be revealed.

The backstory of science and consortia and progress on earth is clever, but the real show is out there in the stars. Soon after waking, the ship’s only occasionally helpful computer system recognizes another blip out there with them. So begins a series of interactions between the earthly vessel and a gorgeous glittering wireframe spacecraft that’s also visiting the neighborhood. The ships play little cat-and-mouse space chases, get to know each other via cryptic messages tossed across the divide in the alien equivalent of bank tubes, all eventually leading to a close encounter of the best kind, in an umbilical corridor linking two lonely spacefarers.

I marveled earlier about the conception of Gosling’s warm, fuzzy scientist; all the better to contrast with the fellow traveler he meets across it’s when he meets his fellow traveler through a glass partition. A giant five-legged hermit crab seemingly made entirely of rock, and without anything resembling a face, this creature is similarly alone and on a planet-saving expedition. Grace dubs him Rocky, and as they get to know each other through arts & crafts projects, interpretive dance, and computer-assisted translation, Lord and Miller make us fall in love with this craggy creature almost instantly through the power of practical effects, puppetry, and endearing voices. The most deeply I’ve connected to a pet rock since the silent googly-eyed canyon vignette in Everything Everywhere All At Once? Most definitely.

The filmmakers have boasted about the real sets, in-camera effects, and the absence of blue (or green) screens. The result of this physicality is felt throughout, but no more so than in the wondrous creation of Rocky. Theater artist James Ortiz both voices Rocky and served as lead puppeteer (sorry, Lead Rockyteer). Although Gosling ably holds the screen for long stretches as the only human in frame, the presence of an actual “creature” (designed by Neal Scanlan, who won an Oscar for Babe before taking to space with Star Wars), performed by an actual human, on the same set makes this faceless alien a credible co-lead who speaks in charmingly simple computer translations of its own complex language. I would die for this space crab (or at least, to get a plush version to sit on my shoulder).

Working together in fits and starts, the interstellar bromance between Grace and Rocky grows first across the divide and later, via a polyhedral hamster ball, as adorably awkward roommates with access to science labs and a 4DX home theater setup. Eventually, they hatch another long-shot plan that puts them in extreme peril in order to make a major breakthrough. As conceived by production designer Charles Wood, the film’s sets reflect a kind of purpose-built practicality with whimsical inspirations like loosely anthropomorphic robots, and a series of connected corridors whose geometry changes based on the ship’s balletic implementation of artificial gravity. The physicality of the sets makes the big-screen filmmaking all the more breathtaking. Cinematographer Greig Fraser and VFX supervisor Paul Lambert (most recently of the Dunes) leave behind the harsh palette of Arrakis, culminating in a dazzling series of sequences involving swirling spectral clouds of an alien planet: first in a swooning spacewalk scene and later in a pulse-pounding action sequence. Throughout, be it introspection, innovation, or peril, Daniel Pemberton’s evocative choral score compliments stunning visual effects to steer the action and ground the sentimental values.

With a runtime approaching three-hours, I can imagine that people who have never done science might find the stop-and-start discoveries, repetitive, or dull. Those who have had any exposure to scientific work, on the other hand, might be irked with just how quickly and seemingly easily complex breakthroughs abound, let alone the lack of detailed explanations committed to the screen.  For my money, screenwriter Drew Goddard — having previously adapted Drew Weir’s work with The Martian — again strikes the Goldilocks zone. Again and again, the movie teaches us how to watch, shows us how these characters, as they encounter problems, overcome setbacks, and solve problems. That much of the tedium is elided through montage, and the frustrating passage of time is conveyed through stubble, never dissipating the thrill of each eureka moment. 

The film’s highs are very high, be it the special effects of space or the incandescently humane magic of a highly caffeinated Sandra Hüller taking a reluctant turn from her usual solitude to join a karaoke farewell party with precisely the perfect song for the moment. (A little callback to Toni Erdmann?) She’s so terrific in this role, bringing dry comic relief alongside sincere, clear-eyed dedication to saving a world hurtling toward its worst impulses. It’s a movie about introverts making deep connections with few words. Grace and Rocky spend months working together, exchanging the scantest bits of personal information, and become best friends. To me, at least, for better or for worse, this is incredibly relatable. And yes, that space crab made me cry.  (Amaze. Amaze. Amaze. As the cool crabs say.)

With that said, it is a testament to how deftly Lord and Miller play the emotional strings of this unlikely interstellar bromance that I was able to so completely allow the warm fuzzies to drown out my left brain’s nagging screams about individual plot points and operational decisions. I really don’t blame anyone who can’t set these impulses aside so easily, but I also feel a bit sorry for them. The filmmakers are throwing this big, incredible story our way; we just have to be in the right spot to catch it.

Project Hail Mary arrives in theaters on March 19th, see it on the biggest screen you can. (With Seattle’s only true IMAX theater closed in the wake of a real estate transaction, this probably means SIFF Downtown)
Image courtesy Amazon MGM Studios.

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Best Picture

• Bugonia
• F1
• Frankenstein
• Hamnet
• Marty Supreme
• One Battle After Another
• The Secret Agent
• Sentimental Value
• Sinners
• Train Dreams

SunBreak Forecast: One Battle After Another

Josh: One Battle After Another has won almost every possible guild and critics award and seems poised to finally get Paul Thomas Anderson to the promised land. I’d also give it my vote for what should win. I ranked Marty Supreme higher on my SFCS ballot, but it was close. One Battle After Another is a big, bold, funny, and potent swing that meets the moment and I believe it should win this year’s Best Picture Oscar. 

Chris:  I think I’m going to disagree here. Even though One Battle was on my top 10 list, I’m a little more bearish on it than everyone else. You’re obviously correct that it won all of the big awards but I think Sinners might eek out an upset here because it did break the record for most Oscar nominations (it’s so weird thinking of it as an underdog here) and because I thought it was a better and more enjoyable movie. It would’ve been high on my list if I didn’t get around to seeing it until 2026. 

Marina:  I absolutely love Marty Supreme, so much of that film is perfect in my eyes, but something about it just doesn’t feel like it will beat out these other nominees. One Battle After Another is filled with aspects that make a great Best Picture contender: it’s got Leo, a great ensemble cast, action, a socially important (if not on the nose) message, and some beautiful cinematography. It absolutely deserves to win, but my heart will be with Marty. Aslo—can I just say that this is one of the best Best Picture lineups we’ve seen in years??

Josh: Agree completely, a lot of times, it’s easy to get mad at the Academy for their foolish nominations, but I’m such a normie that nearly all of the nominees were in or near my top ten list for 2025. I even liked F1 (sorry, I mean F1 ® The Movie) for what it was! 

 If I were lucky enough to be an Academy voter, I’d have already watched them all and wouldn’t need to cheat the new voting system to submit my rankings as follows: (1) One Battle After Another; (2) Marty Supreme; (3) Sentimental Value; (4) Hamnet; (5) Sinners; (6) Bugonia; (7) The Secret Agent; (8) Train Dreams; (9) F1; (10) Frankenstein. The other big contender here to be an end of the ceremony stunner is Sinners and while it’s not at the top of my rankings, it’s a top-heavy year with most closely bunched in a “would be thrilled to win” tier. 

Tony: Josh, I’m the Biggest Normie Runner-Up this year, with 7 of my Top 10 2025 views getting Oscar nods for Best Picture. The genre nerd in me feels a bit guilty that I’m passing over Bugonia, Frankenstein, and Sinners for the Top Banana–much as I adored all of them. But One Battle After Another represents that relatively rare Best Picture nominee whose idiosyncratic artistry and smarts ride shotgun (harmoniously) with a legitimately crowd-pleasing sense of storytelling and emotional pull. And its ability to stay the course as a coherent work through myriad tonal shifts stands as a minor miracle. 

Best Directing

• Chloé Zhao, Hamnet
• Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme
• Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
• Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value
• Ryan Coogler, Sinners

SunBreak Forecast: Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another

Josh: Paul Thomas Anderson is among my favorite film directors of all time and it’s astonishing that he doesn’t yet have a single Oscar (I am still salty about the year that No Country for Old Men swept past his all-world masterpiece There Will Be Blood). One Battle After Another is absolutely in the upper echelon of his filmography (I’d probably only rank The Phantom Thread higher). Apologies to Ryan Coogler, who made film stocks, perforations, and ratios cool again, but the streak of PTA coming home empty-handed will and should end Sunday. 

Tony: The Always-a-Bridesmaid factor will most likely come into play with Paul Thomas Anderson, whose astonishingly consistent filmography has yet to yield Directorial Oscar Gold. As happy as I’ll be if Anderson wins, though, Josh Safdie’s work in Marty Supreme showcases directorial dazzle and exhilarating go-for-broke energy that’s certifiably infectious.

Chris:  I think it’s a lock for Paul Thomas Anderson for the reasons Josh and Tony give. Still, I think Josh Safdie would get my vote were I to be an Academy voter. It’s been several years since Uncut Gems so I had forgotten how thrilling Safdie movies can be. 

Marina:  Paul Thomas Anderson feels like the perfect contender for a directorial Oscar due to his lack of one and his backlog of amazing films. This win feels long overdue for him and I can see the Academy feeling the same way, regardless of his most recent film. Safdie absolutely deserves this one and I can see this dream of mine becoming a reality. That said, all of these directors have earned the right in my mind to take this one.

Actress in a Leading Role

• Jessie Buckley – Hamnet
• Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
• Kate Hudson – Song Sung Blue
• Renate Reinsve – Sentimental Value
• Emma Stone – Bugonia

SunBreak Forecast: Jessie Buckley – Hamnet

Josh: Jessie Buckley is going to win this and might bring home Hamnet’s only prize. As the witchy wife of Billy Shakes, she channels grief in theater shattering ways that moved me (and everyone in the theater) to tears. 

As much as I adore everything Buckley did to make me weep without tilting the literary adaptation into manipulative melodrama, I’d feel compelled to give my imaginary vote to Rose Byrne, whose tour de force central performance in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You was a singular work of acting that captured the very real comedy and horror of parenting in a way that I can’t imagine anyone else pulling off. She also plays against type along with Oscars co-host Conan O’Brien. It’s a singular feat that shouldn’t work but absolutely does. [The Safdie/Bronstein cinema of anxiety is exceptionally my bag.] 

Tony: At the risk of an upset blowing up in our faces, Buckley’s (great) work in Hamnet feels like a foregone conclusion, Best Actress trophy-wise. 

The only other nominated turn I’ve seen to date has been Emma Stone in Bugonia, so it’s short-sighted as Hell for me to eschew three performances I’ve not seen. But the truth is, I preferred Stone’s work in Bugonia to Buckley’s star turn—if only because the former hinges on a simple is-she-or-isn’t-she conundrum that would be completely deflated if it wasn’t delivered with anything but a perfect balance of ambiguity and vulnerability. Having just won the Best Actress trophy for Poor Things a couple of years ago, she’s the longest of long shots for a second win so quickly.  But in my mind, what she does in Bugonia represents an even more challenging (if much less showy) turn. 

Marina:  I’m not sure I can add anything groundbreaking here on the reasons Buckley will no doubt go home with this award. And absolutely, she deserves it; her portrayal of Anne is truly beautiful. But I will never be over Stone’s performance in Bugonia. As Tony said, this role is really one that could not have worked without perfect balance from Stone. Her performance grounds the film, which otherwise could have felt outlandish. I’d love to see her win this category, but given her win two years ago with Poor Things and the love for Hamnet at previous awards, my money’s on Buckley.

Chris:  There’s no reason to doubt that Jessie Buckley is going to win. Her turn as Anne (nee Agnes) Hathaway was emotionally rich and rewarding. The scene where she watches Hamlet performed from the audience is revelatory. Emma Stone has about the same chance of winning here as I do as she’s already won a Best Actress Oscar for another (and better) Yorgos Lanthimos film but she gave the performance I most enjoyed among the nominees. 

Josh: You guys are so right … and now I kinda feel bad for taking Emma Stone for granted! Whether she’s an “alien-alien” or just an out of this world corporate executive almost doesn’t matter (until it does) in Bugonia’s deliciously tense stand-off. 

Morgen: Jessie Buckley has been incredibly busy (the stellar new release The Bride! for example) and I have yet to see a lackluster performance out of her. The rest of the crew has said it all, but I can’t wait to see where she goes from here. She’s been in the scene for quite some time, but it seems now is her time to shine.

This category is stacked with four great nominees and one Kate Hudson, whose Song Sung Blue I had to quit watching after twenty minutes to prevent anaphylactic shock (the movie might be great, but it is a perfect storm of almost everything in moviemaking that I’m deathly allergic to) and read the incredibly wild plot synopsis on wikipedia instead. Wowzers, how again did Amanda Seyfried get left out of this field? The Testament of Ann Lee was my kind of prestige musical.

Actor in a Leading Role

• Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme
• Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another
• Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon
• Michael B Jordan – Sinners
• Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent

SunBreak Forecast: Michael B. Jordan – Sinners

Josh: I’m by no means a member of Club Chalamet but I think it’s bizarre to make male actors suffer the indignity of getting older before letting them win Oscars, but Timmy didn’t help himself with his frankly bizarre campaign in the rollout of Marty Supreme (a movie that I absolutely adored). He was the rocket fuel that gave Marty Supreme its juice and also happens to have been the face of a parade of highly successful films over the last decade. And like many a best actor winner before him, he underwent a physical transformation in the form of a gross little mustache and prosthetic pockmarks and acne scars on his typically pristine visage.

Chris:  I would prefer Chalamet here because I thought there was so much kinetic energy from his performance and I don’t see my favorite movie of 2025 working without him. I try not to pay much attention to his (or anyone’s) antics but he probably did himself no favors with his comments on opera the other day that offended a particular part of the Internet. 

Josh: Indeed, if there’s one thing the reactive internet prizes it’s opera and ballet and anyone saying that they aren’t a wildly popular and highly attended art form. However, this race has the feeling that it’s going to tilt to a win for Michael B. Jordan, who is indeed very good in Sinners as twin brothers Smoke and Stack. In addition to creating two distinct roles, has the advantage of being one of the handsomest most charismatic men in Hollywood who everyone loves in a movie that everyone appreciates vs. an “upstart” who spent most of the year doing self promotional stunts that seemingly channeled his career-obsessed character in a movie that didn’t come out until Christmas Day and that gave way too many viewers an anxiety attack. A youth-weary Academy had nearly a full year of antics, like screaming from atop the Sphere in Vegas, before ever having a chance to see the goods. 

Marina:  I thought Marty was one of Chalamet’s best performances to date. Though he was an unlikable character, Chalamet is able to show his full range as Marty, something many of his other roles didn’t allow. But unfortunately, the Academy and its awards don’t exist in a vacuum of film, and Chalamet’s comments and general vibe lately will probably cost him this win…if it ever was his to begin with. 

Tony: Yeah, Chalamet’s goofy offscreen antics, and the inherent unlikability of Marty as a character, seem doomed to torpedo his shot at a Best Actor trophy this time out. In the end, though, I side wholeheartedly with the odds-on fave. Even setting aside the challenge of successfully playing twins and imbuing each sibling with distinctive personalities, Jordan gives a magnetic yet nuanced movie-star performance from which enduring cults are made. 

Josh: I’m still dreaming big, but the campaign might be DOA. He might not win a statue, but it should be some consolation that the promotional madness actually worked where it matters: at the box office where the film has made more than a quarter billion dollars worldwide (and it’s only recently opened in Asia). It’s A24’s highest grossing film of all time and they’ve restocked their exclusive merch collection just in time for a second boom. [Don’t I feel dumb for how much I paid for some table tennis balls on eBay for Christmas]. 

Morgen: I’m going out on a limb here and saying that DiCaprio might be the big winner this year. It feels like an “Oscar” pick to me rather than going for the beloved and highly sought Timotheé Chalamet. He is absolutely stunning in Marty Supreme, and I have been singing his praises since I saw it late last year. I always wonder if I favor some of these films based on when I see them, I have a notoriously terrible memory, but I have a feeling this one will stick with me beyond 2025/26 as one of his best roles since Call Me By Your Name.

Actress in a Supporting Role

• Elle Fanning – Sentimental Value
• Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – Sentimental Value
• Amy Madigan – Weapons
• Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners
• Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another

SunBreak Forecast: Amy Madigan – Weapons

Tony: Pushing aside the fact that Chase Infiniti’s work in One Battle After Another was robbed by her being snubbed out of this category, I’m gambling that the One Battle momentum will roll forward with Teyana Taylor benefitting (it also doesn’t hurt that Taylor kills it in a prickly, difficult, riveting manner). But damn, is Madigan’s Aunt Gladys a blast of deliciously comic, unerringly creepy fresh air. Calling a performance iconic is about the laziest superlative you can throw at it, but if the shoe fits…

Josh: I agree, if Chase Infiniti had “run” in Supporting, she’d have been a lock. The way it shook out, though leaves this one of the most up-in-the-air categories! I have no confidence in this prediction, but my sense is that Weapons and Amy Madigan are both warmly regarded in the Academy and it could be the chance to reward both of those. My prediction is that she finally gets an Oscar for her nearly unrecognizable turn as Aunt Gladys. I’d have voted for Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, who unlocks the sometimes chilly Sentimental Value with a quietly revelatory performance. 

Chris:  This one could go any direction but I think Josh is correct. Teyana Taylor was my favorite actor in One Battle so I’m pulling for her here. 

Marina:  I would love to see this award go to either of the Sentimental Value ladies nominated, I don’t think that film could have been what it is without them. But if history is any indicator, I’d bet on Madigan, who gave a wonderful performance in an enjoyable and Academy-loved film.

Actor in a Supporting Role

• Benicio Del Toro – One Battle After Another
• Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein
• Delroy Lindo – Sinners
• Sean Penn – One Battle After Another
• Stellan Skarsgård – Sentimental Value

SunBreak Forecast: Sean Penn – One Battle After Another

Josh: For me, it’s not even close which of the supporting men from One Battle After Another should win. I’d give it to Benicio Del Toro, whose Sensei is a paragon of heart and competence in a loud movie filled to the brim with idiots. A couple small beers to him, forever! But I predict the award will go to Sean Penn as the ramrod-straight walking, sexually bewitched, obsessive evil racist Colonel Lockjaw. It’s a bigger, showier, physical, performance that will issue Penn into the Three Oscar Club (a shadowy cabal even more exclusive than the Christmas Adventurers).

Chris:  I’m going to be pulling for Jacob Elordi here because I thought he had the most difficult assignment here but knocked it out of the park. I really loved GDT’s Frankenstein and am surprised it hasn’t made a bigger splash during awards season. But, yeah, Sean Penn seems safe and inevitable. 

Marina:  This is another one I’m basing heavily on how I think the Academy is viewing these nominees. Penn feels like a perfect Oscar pick and I’d feel confident putting all my chips in for him.

Tony: Penn does feel like the safe bet here: His full-throttle work represents the kind of grandstanding that never fails to charm Oscar voters. And the sentimental horror nerd in me would be elated to see Elordi nail this as a very belated and lateral tribute to Boris Karloff, whose performance as Frankenstein’s Monster nearly a century ago eternally etched itself in popular culture back when horror was considered far more stigmatic than it is now. 

But my heart belongs to Delta Slim, the irascible, drunken blues musician drawn so richly by Delroy Lindo. He represents the soul of the phenomenal dark fable that is Sinners. And though his screen time’s fairly marginal, there’s an entire novel’s worth of living in every syllable, breath, and gesture that informs Slim. 

Sidebar: Jesse Plemons may be closer to a lead in it, but his failing to receive a nod for Bugonia in this category looks like a major miscarriage of cinema justice to these weary eyes. 

Josh: Fully agree on Plemmons. I don’t know what happened there, but my guess is that he and Franken Elordi wrestled for that last slot and the monster won. 

Original Screenplay

• Blue Moon, written by Robert Kaplow
• It Was Just an Accident, written by Jafar Panahi; script collaborators: Nader Saïvar, Shadmehr Rastin, Mehdi Mahmoudian
• Marty Supreme, written by Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie
• Sentimental Value, written by Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier
• Sinners, written by Ryan Coogler

SunBreak Forecast: Ryan Coogler – Sinners

Josh: Sinners is going to win and Ryan Coogler deserves this Oscar, which is reliable Oscar’s Coolest award in the long view of history. What Sinners does in terms of transmuting a vampire story into one about cycles of cultural appropriation, the birth of the Delta Blues, and a thesis about the potency of music to pierce the veil of time, space, and death is beyond remarkable. That it was such a box office hit should be utterly transformative of how more studios operate. But alas, the studio that made it is about to be gobbled up by a nepo baby who used his daddy’s vast fortunes to throw a tantrum until he got his toy.

Chris:  If Sinners doesn’t win Best Picture, this might be its consolation prize, and deserved for the reasons Josh already stated, though I suppose I’m taking a little more of a wait-and-see approach to Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount. 

Tony:  … Coogler seems like something close to a shoo-in here. With One Battle likely stealing some serious thunder Sunday night in other major categories, the layered graphic-novel vividness and genre-hopping of Coogler’s screenplay showcases a first-rate example of the Tarantino Effect (i.e., when an auteur’s heavily nominated movie fails to when any other major categories, the Best Original Screenplay Oscar makes for a fairly satisfying consolation prize).

Adapted Screenplay

• Bugonia, screenplay by Will Tracy
• Frankenstein, written for the screen by Guillermo del Toro
• Hamnet, screenplay by Chloé Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell
• One Battle after Another, written by Paul Thomas Anderson
• Train Dreams, screenplay by Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar

SunBreak Forecast: Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another

Josh: I haven’t read Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland but it seems like a gift to a lot of other films for One Battle After Another to be considered an adapted screenplay. Much as I love the sharp paranoid resonance of what Will Tracy did with Bugonia, Paul Thomas Anderson’s night of one statue after another is likely going to start with winning this much-deserved award. 

Chris:  Truth be told, One Battle is my second favorite Paul Thomas Anderson film adapted from a Thomas Pynchon novel. It’s the likely winner and where my chips are going but I thought GDT’s retelling of Frankenstein was masterful. It’s not the most faithful adaptation but I do think it matches the vibes of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece wonderfully. 

Marina:  I’ve been waiting over 100 years for an accurate (at least in essence) and beautiful adaptation of Frankenstein so I so badly want it to snag Best Adapted Screenplay, but if I know the Academy, I know they’ll love One Battle After Another. Aside from my affinity for Frankenstein, One Battle After Another truly is a great screenplay.

Tony:  So many different tonal and genre plates, spinning so perfectly, all at once. Viva One Battle.

Documentary Feature

• The Alabama Solution
• Come See Me in the Good Light
• Cutting Through Rocks
• Mr. Nobody Against Putin
• The Perfect Neighbor

SunBreak Forecast: The Perfect Neighbor

Josh: Prison abuse, cancer, misogyny, propaganda, neighborhood tragedy. What a wrenching buffet of misery the Documentary Branch programmed for Oscar completists! 

My pick for what will win is The Perfect Neighbor. It’s a stroke of genius that Geeta Gandbhir got her innovative and piercing documentary to be picked up at Sundance by Netflix, home to so many cookie-cutter true crime retellings. Breaking the mold of cheap recreations, talking heads, and AI slop, she instead relies on police body camera footage (working for the victims, for once), she tells the story of a neighborhood crank whose unhinged aggressions end in tragedy. 

This is our game, so I’m giving my should win to a film that wasn’t even nominated: My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow, Julia Loktev’s five-plus hour documentary about independent Russian journalists in the lead-up to Russia’s war against Ukraine. I’m not even sure the episodic film is even a “movie” but for obvious reasons I haven’t stopped thinking about it and these brave young journalists as they struggle with how much longer they can stay in a country they love as every day tilts closer to absurd dictatorial fascism.

Chris:  I think The Perfect Neighbor has this locked up but it’ll be a shame to me. I found myself liking it less the more I thought about it and learned of the filmmaker’s relationship with the subjects. It seems I took a little more nuance away from the film than director Geeta Gandbhir intended. I had a smidge of sympathy for the antagonist who had no business living in a community with other people, particularly children, and more so owning a firearm because she is severely unwell. Plus, I’m not sure what this film is trying to say about Florida’s Stand Your Ground laws because Susan Lorincz was still prosecuted and will almost certainly die in prison. 

An even more infuriating (and better) movie for me was The Alabama Solution, about the prison system that seems to revel in its cruelty and do so with impunity. I don’t think there’s anyone I’ve seen on a screen that is more malevolent than the real life prison guard Roderick Gadson whose monstrousness continues to be rewarded and he has not impacted his employment one bit. 

Tony: My lame, non-documentary-watching ass abstains from this category.

International Feature

• The Secret Agent (Brazil)
• It Was Just an Accident (France)
• Sentimental Value (Norway)
• Sirāt (Spain)
• The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia)

SunBreak Forecast: Sentimental Value

Josh: I’m deeply in the tank for Joachim Trier’s Scandinavian restraint and this delicately filigreed multi-layered story of a family working through multi-generational trauma. With nominations in Best Picture, Lead Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress (x2), Original Screenplay, and Editing, I think it’s got the stuff to win. This team is also due since The Worst Person in the World probably should’ve won them some statues in 2021. [Counterpoint: Brazil is mighty, The Secret Agent is a transportingly great watch and it also has noms in Lead Actor and in Casting.]

Marina:  I agree with Josh, there are so many amazing contenders this year so I’m mostly basing this on the amount of nominations Sentimental Value has in many other categories. Either way, Sentimental Value is worth a watch and absolutely deserves this win.

Tony:  Ill-equipped to pick the Should-Win here as I’ve not seen any. But the buzz around The Secret Agent induces me to place my bets on its victory.

Animated Feature

• Arco
• Elio
• KPop Demon Hunters
• Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
• Zootopia 2

SunBreak Forecast: Kpop Demon Hunters

Josh: Animated feature always gets the short end of my see-em-all Oscar deathrace, so I’m not going to say what should win. However, I am confident that KPop Demon Hunters is going to win. It’s one of the few films that everyone I know has seen (I tried, but couldn’t get past the opening sequence) and one that got Netflix to actually put a movie in theaters to make even more money.

Chris:  KPop Demon Hunters was such a phenomenon that I would be very surprised if it didn’t win here. 

Tony:  Among these, I’ve only seen K-Pop Demon Hunters, so I’m again ill-equipped to call a Should-Win on this. That said, damned if it’s not clever and charming as hell. And it’s a nice way for the many geriatric Oscar voters out there to show their grandkids that they’re hip with the K-Pop Lingo.

Morgen: I might have delved into the animation features more than anyone in our group this year. There were a lot of fantastic contenders that didn’t even make it to the nominations so this is an elite group of films up for the award. It’s difficult to say that one of these is “better” than the other since each is so very different. Even the animation differences is drastic, the closest would be Zootopia 2 & Kpop Demon Hunters. In any case, I think Demon Hunters has been the darling in this category thus far and I don’t see that stopping at the Oscars. I’m overjoyed that something so culturally specific is so widely loved.

Casting

• Hamnet, Nina Gold
• Marty Supreme, Jennifer Venditti
• One Battle after Another, Cassandra Kulukundis
• The Secret Agent, Gabriel Domingues
• Sinners, Francine Maisler

SunBreak Forecast: Sinners

Josh: So fun! A long overdue, new category! 

I predict Sinners takes this, both for the discovery of Miles Catton and for ingeniously casting other well known actors into unpredictable roles. There’s also the matter of finding someone equal to the challenge of playing the deeply charismatic Michael B. Jordan’s identical twin brother, which couldn’t possibly have been easy. As impressive as Francine Maisler’s cast is in Sinners (recognizing that Jack O’Connell is a seductive menace might’ve been a gimme, but kudos for pulling together the likes of Hailee Steinfeld, Delroy Lindo, Wunmi Mosaku in a vibrant supporting cast), my personal vote would go to Jennifer Venditti’s work in Marty Supreme, a film that bursts with interesting faces and personalities, from the unlikely pairing of Timothée Chalamet with Gwenyth Paltrow (who gives her best performance in ages) to the broad ensemble of non-professional actors who are instantly unforgettable. 

Chris:  One of the (many) things I love about a Safdie(s) film is the way that they use nonactors for key roles. I would give this award to Jennifer Venditti for casting Mr. Wonderful as Gwenyth Paltrow’s husband, though my favorite bit of casting was the great (and immensely charming) writer Pico Iyer as the head of the table tennis association. Sinners will probably win, though, and I won’t be mad.

Marina:  I’d almost give Jennifer Venditti the award just for casting Mr. Wonderful as business mogul Milton Rockwell, but all of her casting choices made Marty Supreme what it is (and what it is is my top film of 2025).

Tony: Jennifer Venditti almost deserves this for Marty Supreme, just for casting reformed provocateur auteur Abel Ferrara as one of the most chilling heavies to surface in a movie last year. But the sheer volume of great performances amidst a cast of mostly unheralded/unknown actors in Sinners puts Francine Maisler squarely in my personal Oscar Winner’s Circle.

Cinematography

• Frankenstein – Dan Laustsen
• Marty Supreme – Darius Khondji
• One Battle After Another – Michael Bauman
• Sinners – Autumn Durald Arkapaw
• Train Dreams – Adolpho Veloso

SunBreak Forecast: One Battle After Another

Josh: Whether you saw it in conventional format or in immersive flickering VistaVision, the River of Hills car chase sequence alone is probably enough for Michael Bauman to win the Oscar for Best Cinematography. The rest of One Battle After Another is fully deserving (the sequence of the skateboarders leaping from rooftop to rooftop amid protests may never leave my mind), but were I a voter, I’d give this prize to Autumn Durald Arkapaw. Her work in similarly large format for Sinners is outstanding, using classic lenses and film stocks to capture rich textures of setting and skin tones in often dark and shadowy settings. [It would also end the absurd run of this award having never once gone to a woman.]

Marina:  I almost don’t want to out myself as a self-proclaimed Sinners hater…but I will admit I am less than thrilled about its record-breaking amount of nominations. However, if I’m going to allow it to win one category, it’s hands down cinematography. 

Tony: I swear to God I’m not copycatting you, Josh. But I really couldn’t argue with that Will Win/Should Win nexus. 

I’m a sap for richly-shot genre movies, so I’d also be happy with a dark-horse win in this category for Dan Laustsen’s sumptuous work in Frankenstein. But Sinners’ equally lush graphic-novel aesthetic just feels more vital, immediate, and sensual than any of the other admittedly top-flight nominees here. 

Morgen: While I am an avid fan of Sinners, there’s just something about the gritty cinematography of Marty Supreme. What’s really funny about that is I could not force myself to get into Uncut Gems which has an incredibly similar feel since both had Darius Khondji at the helm. Why did this one hit me differently? It could be Chalamet, it could be the ridiculousness of a serious, gritty movie involving a charming ping pong player, who knows.

Editing

• F1 – Stephen Mirrione
• Marty Supreme – Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie
• One Battle After Another – Andy Jurgensen
• “Sentimental Value” – Olivier Bugge Coutté
• “Sinners” – Michael P. Shawver

SunBreak Forecast: One Battle After Another

Josh: Editing might be the smartest branch with the best taste; being in this category is basically a prerequisite for winning Picture. I like everything in this nicely varied list of nominees but I’d say that because it remains so coherent and effective with so much temporal, geographic, and character cross-cutting means that One Battle After Another both will and should win.   

Chris:  You guys are probably right that this is One Battle’s to lose but I wouldn’t be disappointed to see F1 win the award here. It was a sports film that leaned into all of the cliches but still became something thrilling to watch and the editing is a big reason why. 

Marina:  I can definitely see a world where F1 or Marty Supreme takes this one, but I think Josh is right, this is closely tied to Best Picture and for that I think it’s gotta be (and rightfully so) One Battle After Another.

Tony: Probably putting all of my eggs in One (Battle After Another’s) basket, but I’d be surprised if it didn’t take this one as well. As far as I’m concerned, though, the hypnotic momentum of Bronstein’s and Safdie’s editing for Marty Supreme is the engine that drives the movie, and it straight-up took my breath away. It feels like highway robbery for my Should Win to (most likely) not get the gold in this category.  

Production Design

• Frankenstein – Production Design: Tamara Deverell; Set Decoration: Shane Vieau
• Hamnet – Production Design: Fiona Crombie; Set Decoration: Alice Felton
• Marty Supreme – Production Design: Jack Fisk; Set Decoration: Adam Willis
• One Battle After Another – Production Design: Florencia Martin; Set Decoration: Anthony Carlino
• Sinners – Production Design: Hannah Beachler; Set Decoration: Monique Champagne

SunBreak Forecast: Frankenstein

Josh: Frankenstein’s production is very loud and everyone loves Guillermo del Toro’s social media posts about making detailed little monster models for fun; so it’s probably going to win here. This means that Marty Supreme’s legendary production designer Jack Fisk, who once again created a fully realized world of 1950s New York, Tokyo, and London, will spend another of his 80 years without a much-deserved Oscar. 

Marina:  This is one of my most anticipated categories and not least because the nominees are all beautiful films I’d be happy winning. I’m putting my money on Frankenstein (though I think Sinners is going to be a close runner up) mainly because it’s a beautiful period piece (which the Academy can never say no to) and it’s a remake of many films (in which we’ve seen the Creature created so poorly). But the sheer scope of Jack Fisk’s work on Marty Supreme and the way his vision fully pulled me into the world will make me vote for him every time. 

Tony: Tamara Deverell’s production design on Frankenstein draws heavily from comic book artist Bernie Wrightson’s illustrations, in vivid cinematic brushstrokes, so I’d be happy to see it take the prize. And Fisk has over 50 years of stunning design work under his octogenarian belt, so seeing him get a victory lap for his sterling work in Marty Supreme would tickle me pink. 

That said, I have a bit more faith in Oscar voters recognizing Hannah Beachler’s evocative and immersive production design on Sinners. And technical categories tend to be bestowed pretty heavily on high-volume nominees that get shut out of most major categories by a clear favorite like One Battle. 

Costume Design

• Avatar: Fire and Ash, Deborah L. Scott
• Frankenstein, Kate Hawley
• Hamnet, Malgosia Turzanska
• Marty Supreme, Miyako Bellizzi
• Sinners, Ruth E. Carter

SunBreak Forecast: Frankenstein

Josh: The work in Frankenstein is showier, so it will probably win. But the costumes in Sinners also tell a story without yelling and I’d give Ruth E. Carter my vote here.  

Marina:  Like with PD, I think Sinners will just barely lose this one to Frankenstein (though it would not surprise me in the least if it wins).

Tony:  Shout that Frankenstein story in my ear, Kate Hawley. I devour it with relish.

Makeup and Hairstyling

• Frankenstein
• Kokuho
• Sinners
• The Smashing Machine
• The Ugly Stepsister

SunBreak Forecast: Frankenstein

Josh: My prediction is another crafts category win for Frankenstein, which I didn’t love, but I suspect the Academy will award the impossible feat of making Jacob Elordi look like a super hot monster.  

I will say this was one of the categories where I had the most gaps prior to the Academy Award nominations. I’m glad that this category “forced” me to see Kokuho and spend three hours becoming immersed in the world of onnagata in traditional kabuki theater (as well as learning that Japan has an official designation for “living national treasure”), which is more than I can say for having watched The Smashing Machine. With that said, even though the gory feminist retelling of Cinderella didn’t entirely work for me, I’ll toss my “should win” vote to The Ugly Stepsister, which made it into this category on a relative shoestring budget and skeleton crew of talented artisans.  

Tony:  I’ve only seen two of these nominees, but after a lot of undistinguished monster makeups in the last 30+ years of Frankenstein retellings, the team behind del Toro’s take really seem to have hit on a design that’s beautiful, memorable, and eerie all at once. A myopic but enthusiastic thumbs up.

Sound

• F1
• Frankenstein
• One Battle After Another
• Sinners
• Sirāt

SunBreak Forecast: F1 ® The Movie

Josh: F1 ® The Movie and Sirāt both have a lot of sound, I predict the one about race cars will win (since it was also a Best Picture nominee), but would probably vote for the one about ravers at the end of the world if I had a say. 

Chris:  I stand corrected, the editing and sound are reasons for F1 being more enjoyable than it had any right to be. 

Marina:  Amen to that, Chris. In my opinion, F1 doesn’t belong in Best Picture, but since it’s there, I can’t see it not taking the one category it may have some actual merit in.

Tony:  I haven’t seen F1, but I’ma totally piggy-back on your forecast of it taking the gold here, Josh. Oscar voters: “car vroom-vroom gooood, give Oscar.” But the stunningly layered sonics in Sinners’ masterful juke-joint music montage alone deserve penultimate props. 

Visual Effects

• Avatar: Fire and Ash
• F1
• Jurassic World Rebirth
• The Lost Bus
• Sinners

SunBreak Forecast: Avatar: Fire and Ash

Josh: There’s nothing on any screen that compares to the immaculate and transporting work that James Cameron and his armies of VFX creators put on screen, not even cloning Michael B. Jordan. Avatar: Fire and Ash should and will win. 

Tony:  … I’ve only seen Sinners among this batch, so no Should-Win from me on this one. But it’s a fair bet that the Academy will hand this low-stakes (to most non-nerds, at least) Oscar to the team behind the splashiest visuals in a reportedly highly proficient sci-fi extravaganza.

Original Score

• Bugonia, Jerskin Fendrix
• Frankenstein, Alexandre Desplat
• Hamnet, Max Richter
• One Battle after Another, Jonny Greenwood
• Sinners, Ludwig Goransson

SunBreak Forecast: Sinners

Josh: It makes me irrationally angry that Jonny Greenwood still doesn’t have an Oscar for even one of his film compositions (I just looked up what his score for The Phantom Thread lost to and am irrecoverably crashing out). Somehow, I think Jonny will be fine with all of his money, fame, and success from his little side project band Radiohead because alas, he’ll likely go home empty handed again as Ludwig Goransson will join Sean Penn as a three time Oscar winner, taking home his third statue for his admittedly outstanding fusion of genres that made the sonic texture of Ryan Coogler’s vampire musical Sinners so successful. The man’s a prodigy. At age forty, he’s on track to surpass John Williams’s five wins within a decade, and will probably win one well deserved award after another for the next fifty years. 

Tony:  … What Josh said re: Goransson. And I’ll readily second the huzzahs for (if not the Hulk Smash rage over the snubbing of) Jonny Greenwood. Dude’s welded the experimentation of his band’s latter day output in the service of some of the most singular, striking scores committed to cinematic posterity. 

But I’m an unapologetic fan of succulent, classically rendered film scores in the Franz Waxman/Max Steiner tradition, and Alexandre Desplat’s Frankenstein score scratches that itch for me in grandly cinematic fashion. 

Original Song

• “Dear Me” from Diane Warren: Relentless; music and lyric by Diane Warren
• “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters; music and lyric by EJAE, Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seon and Teddy Park
• “I Lied to You” from Sinners; music and lyric by Raphael Saadiq and Ludwig Goransson
• “Sweet Dreams of Joy” from Viva Verdi!; music and lyric by Nicholas Pike
• “Train Dreams” from Train Dreams; music by Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner; lyric by Nick Cave

SunBreak Forecast: “Golden” – KPop Demon Hunters

Josh: I refuse to acknowledge the validity of this, the worst Oscar category. If I were king of the Academy, I’d can it, if only to end the cruel run of the Music Branch propping up Diane Warren year after year  just to watch her lose, and create a category for Best Music Supervision. 

WIth that said I predict that “Golden” to win, but I’d vote for “Train Dreams” just to see Nick Cave and one of the brothers from The National give an acceptance speech.

Marina:  I don’t think it takes a genius to predict a song from an animated musical about Kpop singers will take this one, but I wish with category was perhaps a bit more specific so Train Dreams could shine here. 

Tony:  A lot of the time, the Best Original Song rides shotgun with the Best Animated Feature Oscar winner. So that makes “Golden” a pretty predictable adjunct to the likely Oscar-winning movie in which it appears. It’s a perky, inoffensive ditty that pops up in a clever, entertaining animated movie: no more, no less.

And yes, the acceptance speech would be great, but for me, “Train Dreams” also marks the only genuinely great song in this bunch. It’s more of an atmospheric tone poem than a legit hummable song, so forget about it winning. But it’s ragged, haunting, evocative of its parent film, and I kinda love it.

Short Films

SunBreak Forecast: Cloudy with a chance of surprises (to us)

Josh: This is where Oscar pools are won and lost, yet none of us did our homework. I did not watch any of these, so I have no predictions. For Animated, I’ll probably pick “Butterfly” at my Oscar party. I’d say would be cool if Geeta Gandbhir won two oscars in one night (she’s nominated for directing Best Documentary Feature as well as co-directing “The Devil is Busy”). For Live Action, I happened to chat with the filmmakers for “Two People Exchanging Saliva” one year during a delayed flight layover on the way into Telluride. They were extremely nice; so I hope they win an Oscar!

Tony:  I am a bad movie geek and did not watch any of these.

Josh: With that whimper toward the finish line, our Oscar Prognosticating and Pontificating is complete. Always a pleasure, on with the show! (And please, Academy, move this ceremony earlier next time around. We can’t sustain the brainrot, hot takes, and faux outrage that bubbles up as campaign season stretches this deep into a fresh year!)

The post Roundtable: 2026 Oscar Picks and Predictions appeared first on The SunBreak.

Full disclosure: For nearly four years now, I’ve dealt with the physical and mental decline of both of my parents, as well as the death of my father in 2024.

Caring for a loved one nearing their exit from this world—and the aftermath when said exit’s complete—represents one of life’s most massive seismic shifts. And undertaking that journey spurs a complex, often contradictory, and sometimes paralyzing mélange of emotions.

It also, from my perspective at least, intensifies art’s impact. Movies that might’ve barely registered on me emotionally before July of 2022 can set me, unexpectedly, to blubbering like a toddler when viewed through that life-altered lens.

Horror movies often tap into the intersection of mortality and grief with a disarming fidelity seldom present in more literal-minded, non-scary mainstream movies. It’s one of many reasons I love the genre. Alongside the rollercoaster endorphin rush and dark escapism that draw me inexorably to them, the best horror films also serve as catharsis of the most profound variety.

Given all the above, I’m the prime audience for Undertone, writer/director Ian Tuason’s feature film debut. It’s even partly inspired by the passing of Tuason’s parents (a heartfelt dedication to them caps off the end credits).

Sure enough, the freshman feature filmmaker delivers a well-acted and often technically ingenious horror film with the laudable goal of being something more resonant and liminal than your average assembly-line shocker. Staunch elevated-horror advocates A24 Films are ponying up their reputation and marketing muscle to distribute the movie. And critical reaction’s been largely positive as of now.

It therefore hurts my heart greatly to be an outlier here. Truth be told, for all its great intentions, promise, and winning elements, Undertone misses the mark from this corner.

Twenty-something Evy (Nina Kiri) serves as caregiver to her unconscious, terminally ill mother (Michele Duquet) in Mom’s large, empty house. Between cleaning up after (and taking care of) her invalid parent, she podcasts about the paranormal from her childhood home with online cohost Justin (an in-voice-only Adam DiMarco) chiming in from the interwebs.

Justin receives an email with ten mysterious audio files, which appear to be documenting a couple descending into madness. And with the playing of each successive file, the podcasters themselves are further drawn into the very dark spell conjured by the audio. Soon, seriously wiggy shit begins going down. And the shadows and ambient noises that envelop Evy’s mother’s home begin to take on a sinister life of their own.

Many of Undertone’s aforementioned artistic choices likely stem from budgetary constraints. Only two human beings are seen on camera through the entire run time, and only one of them appears to be sentient and conscious throughout. Our view never ventures beyond the house’s four walls, and nearly 100% of the film zooms in on Evy alone, as melancholy, curiosity, and raw fear threaten to get the best of her.

Happily, for a good chunk of the film, you barely notice the low budget. Kiri delivers an utterly natural performance, and Evy comes off as a charismatic and empathetic central figure before the end credits roll. The house in which all of the movie’s action takes place emerges as a character in its own right, with the majority of its interior swathed in a darkness that Graham Beasley’s moody cinematography renders almost tactile.

Undertone’s biggest asset turns out to be the mix by sound designer David Gertsman and his team. The soundtrack’s symphony of ambient noises, whispers, disembodied voices, growls, wind gusts, and God knows what else ricochets back and forth across multiple channels, giving this ostensibly modest little chiller a sense of immersion worthy of a movie boasting 20 times the budget. That sound mix alone merits the price of admission, and it’ll flat-out knock your socks off in a theater equipped with a good sound system.

But for all of its audio-visual brilliance, and Kiri’s impressive work almost singlehandedly carrying the entire movie, Undertone’s shortfalls become straight-up frustrating.

The movie’s slow-burn pacing downshifts into sluggishness a bit too frequently. And while I’m generally a fan of horror films that don’t explain everything to death, gaps in continuity, motivation, and narrative cohesion ultimately pole-vault over dream logic and end up rousing more irritation than tension, catharsis, or unease.

The script hints that Evy’s relationship with her mom is fraught, but what’s onscreen offers next to no elaboration. As a result, Evy’s forced to become a bit of a blank slate thanks to the patchy script: We just don’t spend enough time getting to know her, or the dynamic that informed the apparent tension and conflicting emotions between her and her mother.

Tuason’s script lays out at least three disparate, potentially fertile (and potentially bone-chilling) story tangents as the movie goes on. Most of them lead to unsatisfying dead ends. Consequently, the final product feels more like a horror trope clearing house than a fully-realized vision—a potential classic compromised by a lot of cutting to hit its 93-minute running time.

There’s always ambiguity and a sense of incompleteness embedded in a loved one’s decline. And the finality of their death seldom offers the complete closure human beings long for at their collective core. I know. I’ve been there, and am living it right now. I’m genuinely happy that Tuason’s been able to channel his grief into a movie that’s connecting with a significant percentage of critics and viewers. But if anyone’s seeking the closure inherent in a cut of Undertone that takes it from frustratingly incomplete to masterfully realized, it’s me.

Undertone opens Friday March 13 in theaters everywhere. Image courtesy A24.

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Amid a throbbing, speaker-rattling techno soundscape and stunning Moroccan vistas, a father (Sergi López) searches for his missing daughter with his young son and cute dog by his side. Since her disappearance at a rave months ago, these incongruous travelers have been following the circuit in hopes of finding her. Camping in a minivan alongside pilgrims to a druggy dance event that stretches through the night, they hand out flyers while lasers etch patterns onto distant canyon walls.

Director Oliver Laxe immerses audiences into this scene both with striking visuals and an overwhelming techno score that pushed the speakers at the theater I saw it to the edges of their tolerances. It’s a sonic assault, but one in service of conveying the overwhelming environment to which all of these revelers submit themselves, throbbing along in ecstatic movement, finding connections with other like-minded seekers. It’s cliché and true to say that the sound is its own character, especially here, where experiencing the film on a big screen with big speakers is essential. [The work of its sound mixing, editing, and recording has since been recognized by the Academy with a nomination for Best Sound at this year’s Oscars, where it’ll vie for the top prize against big-budget powerhouses like F1, Sinners, Frankenstein, and One Battle After Another.]

As Luis, Sergi López is perhaps the only recognizable face among a cast of new discoveries and non-professional actors. By the time the sun rises over a finally quiet morning, he and his son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), once again have come up empty on their search. They do, however, meet a small band of misfits, amputees, and oddballs on the periphery who mention that there’s yet another, more mythical rave happening even deeper into the desert.

As the outside world begins to crumble due to a dire yet unspecified conflict, the initial rave is hastily dispersed by military police. Luis, Esteban, and their adorable little dog decide to test the limits of their rented minivan and hastily follow this new band of outsiders in their big, well-outfitted, camper rigs across the punishing terrain toward the Mauritanian border. The small group reluctantly becomes unlikely guides through an increasingly perilous journey through the harsh desert, much like the myth of a wire-thin road to paradise that passes over the Inferno of Hell referenced by the film’s title. 

There are surprising moments of sweetness, but the director is no softy. Shot with breathtaking cinematography and anxiety-inducing action sequences, this road warrior parable is ultimately about the stupid, futile fragility of life. The film has hugely affecting sequences that shock audiences from any sense of safety. But unlike some other cinematic provocateurs whose work I often find needlessly cruel to both audiences and characters, I’ve heard Laxe describe the film as one that embraces the inevitability of death as a necessary part of learning to live. The generosity of sentiment in this approach is evident even as catastrophe after catastrophe befalls the characters on their doomed quest.

As a cinematic experience, it is incredible, though I still find myself wrestling with its methods and message. I can barely bring myself to go car camping, let alone to live off the grid chasing sonic and chemical nirvana, so like many horror movies, I found myself able to view it from a touristic distance. While its lessons about the fragility of life are universal, for me, it reinforced a universal truth: no matter how caring and resourceful they are, never ever follow a band of aging ravers to a second location.

An earlier version of this review ran when Sirāt had its North American Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. It is now playing theatrically in Seattle, including a run at SIFF Uptown.

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Long after her death, Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley) takes a lead role in the story of The Bride! Together with a bored, free-spirited, but troubled young woman (also Jessie Buckley) she intends to dispense chaos in order to relieve her spirit of a story that she deems must be told. In a world where she not only wrote about Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, but they were real beings (manifested by her words or created in reality? We’ll never know) she burns to continue the tale that has yet to conclude in her mind.

The monster (Christian Bale), dubbed Franky later in the film, has managed to “live” well beyond one hundred years, far longer than his maker. Desperate for companionship both in mind and body he finds himself a new mad scientist and pretty easily convinces her to make him a partner. After her successful reanimation, Franky tells his new confidant a lie about how she came to be there and the nature of their relationship so she’ll stay near. While it seemed she wanted nothing to do with him intially, she was inexplicably pulled toward him like a magnet and finally accepted her fate. In their own way the two were just looking for a happily ever after, but the walking dead don’t exactly fit in.

Maggie Gyllenhaal has created something incredibly impressive. She asks us to suspend disbelief in some ways but accept harsh realities in others. There are so many aspects to this film that, if done poorly, would have made it an utter failure. The commitment of Buckley to her dual characters, the rich world and its inhabitants the director has so meticulously birthed, the tone and style, it all falls together so messily, yet so perfectly. Gyllenhaal skirts the line between the macabre and grotesque, taking us on an existential journey with a feminist bent. Despite the second imperfect life “Penny” been handed, our protagonist tries to make it her own seeking who she is and what happiness looks like. Not letting anyone dictate what she should do or who she should be, our bride still craves comfort and love, making her heartbreakingly human. Her mate wants to treat her like a possession, ignorant of who she is and what she desires; he simply wants to keep her as his own at all costs. An accurate description of how the film made me feel continues to slip through my fingers, which makes it all the more rich and noteworthy.

I’m not a horror fan, but I thoroughly enjoy a good B movie. Gore doesn’t interest me, but a murder mystery, especially set in mid-century, is enticing. Second-hand embarrassment is my kryptonite, unfortunately for me (and possibly you) The Bride! had loads of it so be prepared. Despite having so many of my personal strikes against it, as the credits rolled up the screen I felt thoroughly satisfied. The film was intriguing, genuinely interesting and surprisingly unique despite the metric ton of retellings Frankenstein’s monster and his soulmate have been a part of. I would not be surprised in the slightest if Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! made its way into many a top ten list as the year closes.

The Bride! arrives in theaters on 3/6/26

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