When it comes to movies, the given rule of thumb is that any “serious” award contenders are released in the final few months of the year (as close to the airdate of the awards as possible). You can stretch as far back as the summer and still be considered for technical awards like visual effects and costuming, but it’s not like you’re going to win Best Picture or anything at that point. But as for the movies released early in the year, amidst a wasteland of last year’s holdovers and Valentine’s Day stunt releases, nobody’s going to vote for them.
Granted, there have been some exceptions to this, but they generally only serve to prove the rule: out-of-left-field surprises and insurmountable juggernauts of filmmaking that easily overshadowed anything and everything released later in the year. These are you’re Silence of the Lambs (1991) and your Bravehearts (1995).
Generally speaking, though, regardless of quality, later releases get the sort of Oscar attention that earlier releases do not — and that’s a real shame, seeing as how some of the best movies released in any given year come from those early Spring and Summer months. So when the Oscar voters cast their lot in to name the best picture nominees for 2018, I ardently hope that they keep these astounding achievements in mind.
Annihilation — So-called “genre” films rarely get the kind of attention that they deserve with the wider film community, so it’s no wonder that so few of them ever try for a serious Oscar campaign. And more’s the shame, because so much of science fiction in particular are thoughtful, meditative reflections on where we may be going as a society and the kinds of serious-minded questions we will soon have to face, such as what it means to be human and who we even are as individuals.
In Alex Garland’s directorial follow-up to the critically lauded Ex Machina (2015), he turns his contemplative gaze inward to get at the heart of both of these questions. The answers are as fascinating as the characters whose lives hurl toward the unknown ends of their answers. Visually stunning and conceptually enthralling, Annihilation is a sprawling epic that tackles many of the core themes and ideas of the genre while never failing to feel unbeholden to any of its compatriots in either approach or execution.
Black Panther — Although it seems as if the Academy’s “Best Popular Film” category has well and truly put the kibosh on Black Panther‘s Oscar ambitions, Marvel, myself and a number of others remain at least tentatively hopeful that the film’s quality and importance will speak for itself when the time is right. Its release, and de facto frontrunner status for the award’s top prize, launched discussions of the next Oscar race all the way back in February and every new film that has been released since has had to weigh itself against the superhero movie’s unimpeachable quality.
Even then, the Academy seems ready to give popular movies like Black Panther their fair due at their ceremony. The incoming classes of diverse Oscar voters have proven almost as receptive to the idea of a Blockbuster Best Picture winner as general audiences themselves have been. In a push that started with The Dark Knight’s (2008) unceremonious snubbing a decade ago, voters have nominated movies like Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) for Best Picture and Logan (2017) for best screenplay. And with Black Panther‘s mature treatment of its themes of colonialism, isolationism, Afro-futurism and the succession of power, it surely ranks among the best and most complex films ever made in its genre (to say nothing of those made in this year).
BlacKkKlansman — Despite its late-summer release date, it’s obvious that Spike Lee has his eyes on the prize at the end of the film industry’s still far-off awards season. Throwing his hat back into the ring of “serious” filmmaking — perhaps for the first time since his overlooked classic Do the Right Thing (1989) nearly thirty years ago — he has done so with aplomb.
His complex and celebrated narrative of Black code-switching and incendiary racial tension, which traces the legacy of last year’s Charlottesville riots with the decades-old practices of the KKK, is undoubtedly one of the timeliest and most powerful films released this year. But the real question is, will the Academy see it that way (they have, after all, been here before, and turned up wanting when faced with the likes of Lee’s own Do the Right Thing).
Hereditary — Horror films rarely do well at awards shows. Same goes for first-time filmmakers. The Academy in particular prefers to award veteran (and previously overlooked) filmmakers well after they’ve proven themselves to be more than a flash in the pan (and certainly after they’ve moved past “genre filmmaking” and into the realm of “serious” dramas). But the new Academy seems more eager than ever to commend fresh voices and so-called “low art” than ever before (case in point: last year’s Get Out).
If there is any justice in the cinematic world, Hereditary will at least be nominated for Best Picture (and Best Actress). It is one of the most exciting, assuredly paced and smartly shot films of the entire year. Its complex narrative, which actively bucks any cursory-level suggestions of being about demonic possession, is a real standout in a year seemingly filled with nothing but standout films. Everybody going to bat for A Quiet Place this year should reconsider throwing their support behind this masterclass in American filmmaking.
Sorry to Bother You — This sure was a surprise, wasn’t it? An almost aggressively anti-Hollywood film in both content and style, Sorry to Bother You channels the best of absurdist theater in this scathing satire of everything from capitalism, racial code-switching and the exotification of Black identity.
I never would have thought of this as a serious Oscar contender — very few of the films I fanatically love ever do (see also: Mother!) — but early rumblings suggest that that might be exactly what it is. Between its exciting new director to its abrasively unique perspective on the world we live in, it might just appeal to enough of the right people to become a major force in the conversation come the end of the year. And, I have to admit, I want nothing more than to see what Boots Riley of all people will come up with for an acceptance speech.
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