50. Diane Warren: Relentless (Best Original Song)
Just as Diane Warren will always receive an Oscar nomination so long as she’s eligible, her films will likely always be at or near of the bottom of my rankings. This year’s wasted nomination comes in the form of Diane Warren: Relentless, a celebrity vanity doc focused on its subject’s long and fruitful career. The film hits all the expected beats that can be gleaned from a Wikipedia page, including segments on Warren’s rocky relationship with her mother, and her love of animals. The talking heads – mostly singers and music producers who’ve worked with her before – essentially repeat the same notions: she has a tireless, sometimes grating, work ethic, but the results are always worth it. One sometimes wishes the Academy would just spare us all and give her an Oscar already, but Diane Warren: Relentless isn’t worthy of recognition of any scale.
49. Jurassic World: Rebirth (Best Visual Effects)
Jurassic World: Rebirth became the first entry in the franchise to receive any Oscar recognition since Spielberg’s films, and while last year’s film was a mild improvement over the most recent trilogy, there’s really nothing to be found in this installment to justify its existence. Scarlett Johannsen, Jonathan Bailey, and Mahershala Ali do their best in a film that feels like a studio mandate to pit humans against dinosaurs at all costs. At least director Gareth Edwards and screenwriter David Koepp manage to keep lame callbacks to previous films out of this one. Sure, the VFX are big-screen worthy, and the action scenes are inventive, but there’s nothing particularly evolutionary to be found anywhere within Rebirth.
48. Arco (Best Animated Feature)
Independent animation took two steps forward with last year’s Animated Feature winner Flow, but take one step back with Arco. Beyond director Ugo Bienvenu’s uninspired story about a time-traveling kid who has to find his way home again, the film simply isn’t appealing to look at. With a simplified, pre-CGI Disney animation style, the film harkens back to the era with its storytelling. The English dub features a dual voice performance where both Mark Ruffalo and Natalie Portman voice a robot, but if you’re not able to see this version, you’ll be out of luck with one of the few positive elements to be found with Arco.
47. The Girl Who Cried Pearls (Best Animated Short)
On one level, I admire the craft and dedication which went into making The Girl Who Cried Pearls. The only stop-motion animated nominee this year has a certain aesthetic that’s easy to appreciate – a kind of early-twentieth century setting which lends to minute details in its craft. The film tells the story of a poor boy, a greedy jeweler, and a girl who literally – you guessed it – cries pearls. It’s hard to parse if there’s a larger point which directors Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski are trying to make, but if the film exists as a sort of generational fable or fairy tale, it’s still not terribly interesting.
46. Viva Verdi! (Best Original Song)
There’s not much to object to within Viva Verdi!, a light documentary about how essential it is to find your passions, regardless of one’s age. Director Yvonne Russo’s film follows the residents of Giuseppe Verdi’s retirement home for musicians, opera singers, and artists of all kinds, depicting in detail their past and present circumstances. But the entire thing can’t help but feel like an extended segment pulled from “CBS Sunday Morning”, with little intrigue, surprise, or deep cultural relevance below the surface. Yes, the arts are worth cherishing, and Verdi’s grand accomplishment deserves the spotlight, but I’m not sure it ever rises to the caliber of a deserving Oscar nominee.
45. A Friend of Dorothy (Best Live Action Short)
Once A Friend of Dorothy sets up its premise, writer-director Lee Knight throws any subtlety or surprises out the window. The film centers on a wayward youth who unexpectedly befriends a lonely, elderly widow and she helps awaken his love for the arts. Treacly as this all may be, the film becomes even more cartoonish once the woman’s self-centered grandson makes an appearance and assumes he’ll eventually inherit her fortune. You can probably fill in the blanks on where A Friend of Dorothy goes from here, and while the film is well performed, it could have used a second pass for a more interesting look at a multi-generational friendship.
44. Sirāt (Best International Feature)
One of the standouts from last year’s Cannes film festival has the hook to be an interesting experience, but Sirāt too often feels like an exercise in misery. It’s a simple enough logline: a man ventures through the desert rave scene, hoping to find his missing daughter. Oliver Laxe makes the film a full sensory experience, as Kangding Ray’s thumping techno score envelopes the viewer as the journey becomes more and more harrowing. But I struggled to understand Laxe’s full purpose once the film ends, instead finding a series of unfortunate events with no greater thematic relevance.
43. The Ugly Stepsister (Best Makeup and Hairstyling)
A historically accurate, horror-leaning take on the Cinderella fairy tale which The Ugly Stepsister provides is admirable enough, but there isn’t much more to explore within this version of the story. To be fair, the film earns its nomination for Best Makeup & Hairstyling, especially in the later portions when the body horror goes front and center. But this is not just a new version of The Substance, for the uninitiated, as it explores a different cultural perspective to beauty, and the lengths we’ll go to attract the opposite sex.
42. Song Sung Blue (Best Actress)
I like Kate Hudson. I like Hugh Jackman. I’ve liked most of director Craig Brewer’s films. So why am I so low on Song Sung Blue? It could be its surface-level depiction of Hudson’s depression/painkiller addiction after an unfortunate accident. It could be its familiar story of chasing your dreams, no matter your age, where Jackman and Hudson form a Neil Diamond tribute band simply for the love of performing. The film does go down smoothly, in part because of its many musical interludes and the aforementioned performances. But anyone looking for a deeper look at a true story with some unexpectedly dark turns would probably be better suited checking out the documentary of the same name.
41.Children No More: Were and Are Gone (Best Documentary Short)
I won’t complain at all about the subject matter within Children No More: Were and Are Gone, as it’s one I stand with and sympathize with immensely. That is, the genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza, and the daily, indiscriminate killing of children since 2023. The film looks into a group of Israeli organizers, whose form of protest is silently displaying the photos of the kids killed by the IDF not just in Gaza, but in Iran and Israel. You would think that you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who disagrees with such a sentiment, but we often see how angry and hostile the Israeli public becomes once they encounter the demonstrations. Unfortunately Children No More never really digs deeper beneath the surface of the movement, to show how it’s affected the country on a larger scale, or the lives of the people who choose to participate. Instead, we’re left with the simple but effectively imagery of what’s been lost at home and abroad.
The Movie State 