KPOP Demon Hunters - 2 nominations

 

• Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song): EJAE (music and lyric), Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu-kwak, Lee Yu-han, Nam Hee-dong, Teddy Park, 24, For “Golden”

• Best Animated Feature Film: Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans, Michelle Wong

KPop Demon Hunters follows a globally famous K-pop girl group who secretly live double lives as elite demon hunters. By day, they perform sold-out arena concerts and maintain flawless public personas; by night, they battle supernatural forces feeding off human emotion and fame. When a rival boy band comes around and begins stealing audience attention, they also and begins exhibiting suspicious, otherworldly abilities, the group discovers that the demons they fight are evolving—and infiltrating the entertainment industry itself.

This film has a tremendous shot at winning both of its categories (sadly, I’d like the Diane Warren song to win) and the animation is magnificent. It takes the best of South Korean razzle dazzle and combines it with a beautiful soundtrack and leverages that into a pretty delightful and impressive film.

Train Dreams - 4 Nominations

• Best Achievement in Cinematography: Adolpho Veloso

• Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song): Nick Cave (music and lyric), Bryce Dessner (music), For “Train Dreams”

• Best Motion Picture of the Year: Marissa McMahon, Teddy Schwarzman, Will Janowitz, Ashley Schlaifer, Michael Heimler

• Best Adapted Screenplay: Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar

Train Dreams is a quiet, sad, beautiful film with powerful performances - it’s a totally different speed than the entire crop of other movies in the Best Picture category. Joel Edgerton plays a railway construction worker who meets and marries Gladys. As the country’s need for logging increases, he transitions to this seasonal work, coming home each year to be with his wife and eventually daughter. When a tragic fire burns down his home, he is haunted by the idea that perhaps his daughter is alive and looking for a way home.

This is not an upbeat movie, but I found it to be wonderful. In the hullabaloo of loud and frenetic stories, Train Dreams changes the pace and makes an impact. If you’re not fond of the slower paced, or of the performances that are as much internal as expressed, then perhaps this wouldn’t be for you. But the scenery alone (and therefore, the Cinematography nom) is worth the price of admission.

 

Sinners - 16 nominations

 

Best Casting: Francine Maisler

Best Achievement in Cinematography: Autumn Durald Arkapaw

Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling: Ken Diaz, Michael Fontaine, Shunika Terry

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score): Ludwig Göransson

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song): Ludwig Göransson (music and lyric), Raphael Saadiq (music and lyric) - For “I Lied to You”

Best Sound: Chris Welcker, Benjamin A. Burtt, Felipe Pacheco, Brandon Proctor, Steve Boeddeker

Best Achievement in Visual Effects: Michael Ralla, Espen Nordahl, Guido Wolter, Donnie Dean

Best Motion Picture of the Year: Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian, Ryan Coogler

Best Achievement in Directing: Ryan Coogler

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Michael B. Jordan

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role: Delroy Lindo

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Wunmi Mosaku

Best Original Screenplay: Ryan Coogler (writer)

Best Achievement in Production Design: Hannah Beachler (production designer), Monique Champagne (set decorator)

Best Achievement in Costume Design: Ruth E. Carter

Best Achievement in Film Editing: Michael P. Shawver

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Identical twin brothers Elijah “Smoke” Moore and Elias “Stack” Moore (both played by nominated lead actor Michael B. Jordan) return home after years in Chicago looking to start fresh by opening a juke joint for the Black community. They recruit family and friends, including a young blues guitarist, but their hopes are soon eclipsed by a deadly supernatural threat in the form of vampires descending on the town. As the night unfolds, survival becomes as much about confronting internal demons as the literal vampire menace. The brothers may not share a fate in the long run, but they certainly share a destiny.

There’s something bafflingly special about this movie, and that’s not just about 16 Oscar nominations, but also that Sinners had nominations in every single category for which it was eligible except one (lead actress), and it didn’t really have a lead actress. Ruth Carter has worked with Coogler before and has won 2 Oscars for Costumes for the Black Panther films, thanks to that association. Ludwig Goransson is also Coogler’s longtime music collaborator who also won an Oscar for the original Black Panther film. Coogler has a talent for assembling a band of exceptionally talented artists in front of and behind the screen, and this film is surely his masterpiece.

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Never Too Late

from Elton John: Never Too Late; Music and Lyric by Elton John, Brandi Carlile, Andrew Watt and Bernie Taupin

A documentary 50 years in the making, Elton John: Never Too Late is exactly the film you think it is. With footage over the superstar's career and talking heads explaining EJ's genius, it is nearly impossible to believe how much he has been through in his life. His musical gift is immeasurable and almost unmatchable, he has done everything a pop star would be expected to do and so much more. Last year, John joined the ranks of the other 19 people officially crowned with the four-fecta, an EGOT, having won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony (and in some cases, multiples of each). This is not going to garner EJ another Oscar, to be sure, but I'm a fan of his music and of his person, and I enjoyed this one so much. Like A Complete Unknown, be sure to watch this film (on Disney+) with forgiving people in the room, because there's no way you'll escape singing along, out loud, to the very best of Sir Elton John.

Sing Sing - 3 nominations

 

• 
  2025 Nominee Oscar

  • Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song)

  • Abraham Alexander 
  • Adrian Quesada

  "Like a Bird"
• 
  2025 Nominee Oscar

  • Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

  • Colman Domingo
• 
  2025 Nominee Oscar

  • Best Adapted Screenplay

  • Clint Bentley 
  • Greg Kwedar 
  • Clarence Maclin 
  • John Divine G Whitfield

Listen up folks! THIS. This is the movie that you want to make time to see. This is the one that opens your heart just a crack to think about the criminals behind the walls of a prison. How easy it is to simply dismiss them, to ignore their treatment, to reduce their lives to just the worst moments of them, It's so much easier to assume that nobody gets convicted who is innocent, and that life behind bars should never have any privileges because those people deserve nothing. And then there are the heroes who work to bring life changing programs to prisons - and the theater program in Sing Sing prison is one of them (and in fact, without jumping the gun, no person who has participated in the theater program has ever returned to the system once getting out of jail).

Sing Sing follows wrongly convicted Divine G who is recruited to the theater program and has a natural aptitude for it. He bonds with his fellow thespians and writers, and he ends up becoming one of the leaders of the program while concurrently fighting for his own release. The professional running the program is played by none other than Oscar nominated Paul Raci, from the Sound of Metal. The most important performance comes from the real Divine G who was one of the Executive Producers and writers, and Coleman Domingo gives the best performance of his career, and probably the best performance of many people's careers. Many if not most of the actors playing inmates are themselves graduates of the real program at Sing Sing, and that tidbit is not clear until the very end of the film - these actors are that authentic.

I don't know why this movie didn't get so much more attention than it did. It's a small independent, and i suspect they simply didn't have the budget to launch a proper Oscars campaign. But that doesn't mean YOU have to miss it. The moment you get the chance, sit yourself down and turn this movie on. You won't regret it.

Emilia Perez - 13 nominations

 

• 
  
  

  • Best International Feature Film, France
• • Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

  • Julia Floch-Carbonel 
  • Emmanuel Janvier 
  • Jean-Christophe Spadaccini
• 
  • Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score)

  • Clément Ducol 
  • Camille
• 
  • Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song), "El Mal"

  • Clément Ducol 
  • Camille 
  • Jacques Audiard
• 
  • Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song), "Mi Camino"

  • Clément Ducol 
  • Camille 
  Jacques Audiard
• 
  • Best Sound

  • Erwan Kerzanet 
  • Aymeric Devoldère 
  • Maxence Dussère 
  • Cyril Holtz 
  • Niels Barletta
• 
  • Best Motion Picture of the Year

  • Pascal Caucheteux 
  • Jacques Audiard
• 
  • Best Achievement in Directing

  • Jacques Audiard
• 
  Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

  • Karla Sofía Gascón
• 
  • Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

  • Zoe Saldana
• 
  • Best Adapted Screenplay

  • Jacques Audiard 
  • Thomas Bidegain 
  • Léa Mysius
  • Nicolas Livecchi
• 
  • Best Achievement in Cinematography

  • Paul Guilhaume
• • Best Achievement in Film Editing

  • Juliette Welfling

Remember when I said that being nominated 4 times for a single movie was pretty impressive? Well Jacques Audiard is nominated 5 times for this single movie, where he seems to have done everything except craft services. Guess what else? The film is nominated for Adapted Screenplay, because Audiard had already produced an opera libretto which was based on a book.

The story follows Rita, a discontented defense attorney who is engaged by a cartel kingpin to give him the cover he needs to transition to being a woman, including helping him fake his own death and relocating his wife and children to Switzerland. Once she has transitioned, she begins to live a new life as a philanthropist and do-gooder (with a hint of corruption on the side), and she decides that she misses her family terribly and asks Rita to bring them back to Mexico to live with her. Her ex-wife rekindles an affair she was having while still married, and adds another layer of complication to this already complicated life. The film reflects on criminality, corruption, family, and the question of whether life truly changes when the core personality does not.

Before I saw the film, I had no idea it was a musical. Selena Gomez turns out to be a non-fluent Spanish speaker who pulls off acting and emoting while speaking the language. Zoe Saldana turns out to be a trained dancer who can also really sing. And those were just the smallest of surprises. Everything about this film is not what you expect it to be, in all of the best ways. I loved it, the music and the songs are excellent and beautifully choreographed. The cinematography was exceptional. I imagine that Selena Gomez was a breath away from a Supporting Actress nomination (which would have tied EP with the three other films in history to garner 14 nominations, the record.) The whole of this film is even greater than the sum of its parts, and its parts are pretty magnificent.