Best Supporting Actress
Gwyneth Paltrow, 53, Marty Supreme Welcome back, Ms. Paltrow; it’s been too long. In her first major film role in six years, the Oscar-winning actor reminds us why no one can match her icy-hot mix of detached cool and pent-up desire as she serves and volleys with Timothée Chalamet’s precocious ping-pong phenom.
Regina Hall, 54, One Battle After Another Sometimes you need to turn down the volume to hear something clearly. And that’s exactly what Hall does as the battle-hardened revolutionary Deandra in Paul Thomas Anderson’s thriller. Her character’s reticence speaks louder than words ever could.
Amy Madigan, 75, Weapons In what may go down as the year’s most surprising — and terrifying — jack-in-the-box performance, the Hollywood veteran messes with the audience’s expectations as Aunt Gladys. It’s probably best to avoid further spoilers here until you’ve seen Weapons. And you should!
Sigourney Weaver, 76, Avatar: Fire and Ash Thirty-nine years after James Cameron turned Weaver into the ultimate rock ’em sock ’em action hero in 1986’s Aliens, the duo reunites for this third installment in the record-breaking blockbuster franchise. The director and his muse bring out the best in each other once again — Weaver soars as the fiery and empathetic Kiri.
Helen Mirren, 80, Goodbye June When looking for an actor to command the screen as the ailing matriarch of a messy family during the holidays, first-time director Kate Winslet, 50, knew exactly whom to call. Smart move: There’s nothing Mirren can’t do.
Best Screenwriter
Paul Thomas Anderson, 55, One Battle After Another Sometimes it’s so easy to admire PTA’s technical virtuosity as a director that we overlook his gifts as a storyteller. Not here. In a movie that closes in on three hours, he never loses sight of where he’s going or the dazzling journey he’s taking us on to get there.
Noah Baumbach, 56, and Emily Mortimer, 54, Jay Kelly Baumbach has always been a master at turning small, intimate moments into acts of poignant grace, but in Jay Kelly, his partnership with actor-screenwriter Mortimer allows George Clooney, 64, to tap into even deeper reserves of emotional force.
Bradley Cooper, 50, Will Arnett, 55, and Mark Chappell, Is This Thing On? As Will Arnett navigates a midlife crisis through stand-up comedy on-screen, the three-man team of screenwriters behind Is This Thing On? deftly juggle humor, disappointment, and bittersweet wisdom without a single false move.
James Vanderbilt, Nuremberg Better known for his work on popcorn blockbusters, Vanderbilt takes a more intimate route in Nuremberg, tackling one of the most chronicled trials of the 20th century and making it feel like a thrilling new discovery.
Julian Fellowes, 76, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale England’s master of the upstairs/downstairs dramedy of manners returns to bid a final farewell to the Crawley family. It’s a wonderfully sweet and deliciously tart goodbye.
Best Ensemble
Nuremberg Writer-director James Vanderbilt assembles a dream team — Russell Crowe, 61, Michael Shannon, 51, Rami Malek — to plumb the depths of one of history’s darkest nightmares. Even the smallest supporting turns feel note-perfect.
One Battle After Another Sure, Leonardo DiCaprio, 51, Sean Penn, 65, and Benicio del Toro, 58, provide the requisite marquee star power, but director Paul Thomas Anderson’s biggest surprise with is how artfully he chose his the female leads, including Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall, 54, and arguably the film year’s biggest breakout, Chase Infiniti.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery Colorful ensembles with outlandish motives are the key to any decent murder mystery, but writer-director Rian Johnson goes a step further, matching his Southern-dandy sleuth, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, 57), with a who’s who of suspects and rubberneckers that includes Glenn Close, 78, Jeremy Renner, 54, Kerry Washington, Thomas Haden Church, 65, Josh Brolin, 57, and Josh O’Connor. Who cares whodunit when the cast is this much fun?
Jay Kelly George Clooney, 64, is the topliner here, and he’s every bit as good as you’d expect. But don’t sleep on the subtle grace notes that pros like Billy Crudup, 57, Laura Dern, 58, and, best of all, Adam Sandler, 59, bring to this poignant drama about self-discovery and reckoning with the past.
Rebecca Ferguson in “A House of Dynamite.”
Eros Hoagland/Netflix
A House of Dynamite It’s only natural to want to look away from a tick-tock thriller about imminent nuclear apocalypse. Too bad Kathryn Bigelow’s stunning cast — Rebecca Ferguson, Tracy Letts, 60, Greta Lee, Jared Harris, 64 — make it impossible to take your eyes off the screen.
Best Intergenerational Film
Rosemead A never-better Lucy Liu, 56, stars in this laughter-through-tears drama about an ailing immigrant woman trying to protect her troubled teenage son (Lawrence Shou) while simultaneously trying to protect others from him.
June Squibb in “Eleanor the Great.”
24/Courtesy Everett Collection
Eleanor the Great In first-time feature director Scarlett Johansson’s cross-generational caper, the ageless June Squibb, 96, is a whirlwind as an elderly woman who bends the truth to the breaking point after moving in with her daughter and grandson.
Rental Family Brendan Fraser, 56, is fantastic as an American expat in Japan who reluctantly goes to work for an agency that hires out actors to play stand-in family members for clients looking to work through their issues. But his relationships with a young fatherless girl and a long-forgotten film star end up becoming more than an act.
Sentimental Value Stellan Skarsgård, 74, plays a famous Scandinavian movie director and neglectful father who tries to bridge the divide he’s created with his two daughters (Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) due to his career.
The Lost Bus In this underseen, white-knuckle Paul Greengrass thriller, Matthew McConaughey, 56, is fantastic as a desperate school bus driver who teams up with a dedicated teacher (America Ferrera) to save 22 children from a deadly inferno.
Best Period Film
Nuremberg Writer-director James Vanderbilt’s powerful courtroom drama chronicles the behind-the-scenes morality play of the Nuremberg trials, calling Nazi leaders to account for their monstrous atrocities during WWII.
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere This behind-the-music biopic about the long night of the soul that led to Bruce Springsteen’s stark 1982 masterpiece Nebraska stars The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White as the Boss and, in flashbacks, Stephen Graham, 52, as his overbearing father.
Michael B. Jordan in “Sinners.”
Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Sinners Director Ryan Coogler brings the Mississippi Delta of the 1930s to muddy, malevolent life in this metaphor-rich horror movie about race, religion and the many guises the devil wears.
Marty Supreme New York City in the 1950s comes to vibrant, open-all-night life in this neon-lit tale of a cocky, young ping-pong prodigy (Timothée Chalamet) who sets out to defy the naysayers and skeptics.
Dead Man’s Wire In director Gus Van Sant’s tense hostage thriller, 1977 Indianapolis is the setting for a stranger-than-fiction story about a financially desperate man (Bill Skarsgård) who takes a mortgage broker prisoner in one of the most bizarre standoffs of the era.
Best Documentary
My Mom Jayne Actor Mariska Hargitay, 61, examines her surprising family history in this rich, revelatory documentary about the complex life and legacy of her movie-star mother, Jayne Mansfield.
Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost Actor Ben Stiller, 59, rummages through the photo albums and scrapbooks of his late parents, comedy duo Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, to pay tribute to them while trying to figure out who they really were.
Cover-Up A deep dive into the life and work of legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, 88, the fearless reporter who exposed the horrific My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.
Riefenstahl Leni Riefenstahl was an indisputably talented filmmaker whose movies also happened to glorify her most famous subject, Adolf Hitler. The troubling question that Andres Veiel’s stunning documentary poses is: Just how aware was she of the Nazis’ atrocities?
Becoming Led Zeppelin The iconic rock band’s origin story is told through stunning archival footage and fresh new interviews, chronicling how they came together in 1960s England and proceeded to take over the world, one teenage fan at a time.
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