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    Awards Season

    CultureMap film critic’s guide to the 10 Best Picture Oscar nominees of 2024

    Alex Bentley
    Jan 23, 2024 | 8:55 am
    Matt Damon and Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer

    Oppenheimer leads the way for 2024 Academy Awards nominations.

    Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures

    The nominations for the 2024 Academy Awards have been announced, with 10 films vying for Best Picture. Leading the way is Oppenheimer with 13 nominations, followed by Poor Things with 11 and Killers of the Flower Moon with 10.

    As a refresher, we're sharing what we had to say about each of the nominees in our reviews, published when the films were originally released.

    This year's Oscars ceremony will take place on Sunday, March 10.

    If you missed catching any of these films, Cinemark will host its annual Oscar Movie Week festival from Monday, March 4 through Sunday, March 10, when they'll screen nominees for Best Picture, Live Action, and Animated Short Film.

    Here's the list, in alphabetical order:

    American Fiction
    Based on a book called Erasure by Percival Everett, an English professor at the University of Southern California, American Fiction offers up a variety of over-the-top satirical moments while also telling a heartfelt family story. Writer/director Cord Jefferson (nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay) is able to combine the disparate parts together by giving each their own proper showcase. Star Jeffrey Wright (nominated for Best Actor) is the perfect actor to portray the lead character of Monk, as he’s well-known enough to be a great leading man, but not so much of a star for his fame to override the nuances of the role.

    Anatomy of a Fall
    The film lives fully up its title, fully examining the circumstances leading up to the death of a father, as well as the somewhat turbulent life his family of three led. But at no point in the film’s 152-minute running time does writer/director Justine Triet (nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay) tip the scales in favor of one point of view over another. Anatomy of a Fall is not so much a whodunit, but a deep dive into how and why such a thing ever happened in the first place. While speculation is rampant in the film, it’s the lack of clarity that keeps the viewer engaged.

    Barbie
    As with Barbie herself, Barbie is several things at once: A self-referential ode to the many types of Barbies, Kens, and other dolls; a fun romp with double entendre jokes and song-and-dance sequences; and an examination of outdated gender politics. Writer/director Greta Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach (nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay), while definitely straying far from early collaborations like Frances Ha, still make the story their own, delivering commentary that wouldn’t come from many other filmmakers. Star Margot Robbie is, of course, perfect casting as Barbie, a fact that is referenced on several different occasions in the film itself.

    The Holdovers
    The second collaboration between director Alexander Payne (nominated for Best Original Screenplay) and star Paul Giamatti (nominated for Best Actor), The Holdovers has an enormous number of small pleasures and heartbreaks. Payne and writer Hemingson are just as interested in touching your heart as they are in making you laugh. While echoing some of Payne's earlier films, it becomes its own thing thanks to its unique central trio of characters, the setting in the cloistered environment of a boarding school, and its slowly-evolving story that reveals a ton of heart. Giamatti and Payne seem to share a certain sensibility that leads to a great performance.

    Killers of a Flower Moon
    Given his long and award-laden career, it’s tempting to give writer/director Martin Scorsese (nominated for Best Director) and co-writer Eric Roth the benefit of the doubt, that they have the best of intentions in telling this particular story about white people trying to steal oil rights from the Osage tribe. But it’s difficult to get around the idea that the film puts the bad guys front and center instead of the Osage. When the victims of the crimes are omnipresent and not afforded the background scenes that make them into fully fleshed-out characters, it removes almost all emotion and cheapens the story.

    Maestro (not reviewed)
    Writer/director/star Bradley Cooper's biopic about composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife, Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), had a surprisingly strong showing in the Oscar nominations, nabbing nods for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Original Screenplay, along with three others in technical categories. Still, it is considered a longshot to win any of those awards, as other films have dominated those categories at other award shows.

    Oppenheimer
    The first biopic for writer/director Christopher Nolan (nominated for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay) is still true to his inimitable style, flitting around to the different eras of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life often and quickly. In another filmmaker’s hands, the story might come off as dry and stodgy, but the pace with which the film is edited, as well as the propulsive - and now, Oscar-nominated - score from Ludwig Göransson, gives it the feel of a thriller for much of its running time. Cillian Murphy (nominated for Best Actor) commands every second he’s on screen, employing a unique not-quite monotone and straightforward delivery that keeps him riveting throughout. The implications of the story are dire, but the filmgoing experience watching it transpire is anything but.

    Past Lives
    Writer/director Celine Song (nominated for Best Original Screenplay) does her level best to imbue the conversations between lead characters Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) with a lot of meaning, but those chats are often disjointed and stilted. Any good romance, even one that never really was, needs to impart those feelings to the audience, and their scenes together never reach that necessary level. The style of filmmaking and the generally good acting keeps Past Lives watchable even as its central story doesn’t have the intended impact.

    Poor Things
    The latest from writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos (nominated for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay) is one of the strangest stories about giving a woman agency (sexual and otherwise) that’s ever been put on screen. There is little in the film that is not unsettling, and because it’s a constant parade of oddities, it also becomes one of the funniest movies of the year in the process. The film puts the audience on their heels through its audio and visuals, including steampunk/futuristic elements, a dissonant soundtrack, and more. Star Emma Stone (nominated for Best Actress) puts it all out there, literally and figuratively, with her performance, accomplishing a feat of which few others are capable..

    The Zone of Interest
    Written and directed by Jonathan Glazer (nominated for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay), the film almost perfectly encapsulates the banal form that evil can take. Villains, and especially Nazis, are typically portrayed as over-the-top or obviously depraved, but here the malevolence reveals itself in how normally it’s treated by those perpetrating it. Where the film gets its power is in what it doesn’t show or shows with no one commenting upon it. Glazer has made a World War II film that doesn't feel like a retread, showing Nazis and Nazism in a new light while still demonstrating how appalling their influence can be.

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    Movie Review

    Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first but not by much

    Alex Bentley
    Dec 4, 2025 | 1:24 pm
    Five Nights at Freddy's 2
    Blumhouse
    Five Nights at Freddy's 2

    Blumhouse Productions first made their name with the Paranormal Activity series, establishing themselves as a leader in the horror genre thanks to their relatively cheap yet effective movies. In recent years, they’ve added on “soft” horror films likeM3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy’s to draw in a younger audience, with both films becoming so successful that each was quickly given a sequel.

    Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 finds Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) still recovering from the events of the first film, with Abby particularly missing her “friends.” Those friends just so happen to be the souls of murdered children who inhabit animatronic characters at the long-defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, children who were abducted and killed by William Afton (Matthew Lillard).

    A new threat emerges at another Freddy Fazbear’s location in the form of Charlotte, another murdered child who inhabits a creepy large marionette. Mike, distracted by a possible romance with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), fails to keep track of Abby, who makes her way to the old pizzeria and inadvertently unleashes Charlotte and her minions on the surrounding town.

    Directed by Emma Tammi and written by Scott Cawthon (who also created the video game on which the series is based), the film tries to mix together goofy elements with intense scenes. One particular sequence, in which the security guard for Freddy Fazbear’s lets a group of ghost hunters onto the property, toes the line between soft and hard horror. That and a few others show the potential that the filmmakers had if they had stuck to their guns.

    Unfortunately, more often than not they either soft-pedal things that would normally be horrific, or can’t figure out how to properly stage scenes. The sight of animatronic robots wreaking havoc is one that is simultaneously frightening and laughable, and the filmmakers never seem to find the right balance in tone. Every step in the direction of making a truly scary horror film is undercut by another in which the robots fail to live up to their promise.

    It doesn’t help that Cawthon gives the cast some extremely wooden dialogue, lines that none of the actors can elevate. What may work in a video game format comes off as stilted when said by actors in a live-action film. The story also loses momentum quickly after the first half hour or so, with Cawthon seemingly content to just have characters move from place to place with no sense of connection between any of the scenes.

    Hutcherson (The Hunger Games series), after being the true lead of the first film, is given very little to do in this film, and his effort is equal to his character’s arc. The same goes for Lail, whose character seems to be shoehorned into the story. Rubio is called upon to carry the load for a lot of the movie, and the teenager is not quite up to the task. A brief appearance by Skeet Ulrich seems to be a blatant appeal to Scream fans, but he and Lillard only underscore how limited this film is compared to that franchise.

    Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first film, but not by much. The filmmakers do a decent job of making the new marionette character into a great villain, but they fail to capitalize on its inherent creepiness. Instead, they fall back on less effective elements, ensuring that the film will be forgettable for anyone other than hardcore Freddy fans.

    ---

    Five Nights at Freddy's 2 opens in theaters on December 5.

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