Parasite - 6 nominations

Best Motion Picture of the Year - Sin-ae Kwak, Bong Joon Ho

Best Achievement in Directing - Bong Joon Ho

Best Original Screenplay - Bong Joon Ho, Jin Won Han

Best International Feature Film - South Korea

Best Achievement in Production Design - Ha-jun Lee, Won-Woo Cho

Best Achievement in Film Editing - Jinmo Yang

This film was the wildest film I saw last year.  It starts off simply enough, the son of an impoverished family finds a job as a tutor for a wealthy family's child.  Seeing opportunity in the household and a fragile mom managing it, the tutor begins to sabotage other household employees and recommending her own family members into those roles.  When the wealthy family takes a vacation, the poor family housesits together and discovers some unexpected surprises left behind by one of the former employees.  When the situation begins to spiral out of control, it's shocking what the desperate people trapped in the house will do to protect themselves.  That's all I can tell you without completely spoiling what makes Parasite shockingly original and like nothing any of us have ever seen before.

This is South Korea's first success in the International Feature category, and boy did it score big.  It could very possibly become the first ever to win the Best Picture award (it has some stiff competition in 1917).  I'm not sure that I would call this film the Best Picture, but without a doubt, it deserves to be in the Top 5.  I loved it, and I have yet to talk to anyone who didn't.  This is another one of those rare times when a Best Picture nominee has NO acting nominations, and that speaks to the quality of the film making here.

Bong Joon Ho is also the writer of another weird film that was utterly engaging, Snowpiercer.  If you liked Parasite, I think you'll also appreciate the genuine originality that came with this other film.

Watch the trailer: