AARON BILGRAD MOVIE AWARDS 2026

BEST MOVIE I WENT TO SEE EXPECTING A FUN ’80s-STYLE VAMPIRE ACTION FLICK, THOUGHT WAS… FINE, BUT WAS THEN PROMPTLY INFORMED BY EVERYONE THAT I HAD JUST SEEN THE DEFINING MASTERPIECE OF THE 21ST CENTURY: SINNERS.

Sinners originally appealed to me because I miss thrilling 80s/90s action horror-movies like The Lost Boys. These movies are simple… ‘there are vampires’ and we have to ‘kill these vampires’. Throw in some engaging characters like Jason Patrick’s signature brooding dude with 80s haircut and Kiefer Sutherland’s brooding dude with 80s haircut and this very much excites me (Side Note: Jason Patrick and Kiefer Sutherland’s characters in The Lost Boys might be the two most humorless characters of that decade — despite Sutherland’s ‘You’re eating maggots, Michael’ prank with the Chinese food.) Anyway, show me a movie where a bunch of people are trapped inside being attacked by nefarious supernatural forces outside and I’m in. Give me From Dusk Till Dawn, Dawn of the Dead, Demon Knight, The Mist, all of it — love it! That’s the energy that I thought Sinners was going to provide.

What I got was something more (or arguably less) ambitious. The story centered around a young blues guitar prodigy going on an adventure with two wanted criminals, Smoke and Stack,  both played by Michael B. Jordan (because there is no way the movie would have worked if they had two different actors). And, as a dirty secret that no Sinners fan will ever admit –Smoke and Stack are essentially the exact same character. It didn’t really matter if Smoke or Stack was talking — they were interchangeable, unlike other twin-based movies where an actor has to portray two very different roles. Even Adam Sandler showed better range in his horrible ‘play-both-parts’ Jack and Jill. (Side Note: I’ve always been a super fan of Michael B. Jordan from The Wire, but save for a few movies as he was coming up and then Black Panther, is he ever in a supporting role? Will he ever be? It just seems like he refuses to be anything but a leading man, and usually a badass no less. Ryan Coogler apparently refuses to make a movie without Michael B. Jordan on the poster looking earnest and dominant).

The first 75 minutes of Sinners are a slow burn as the group makes their way across Mississippi en route to opening a new nightclub that is a safe place for partying. We are introduced to several characters who should not have been nominated for Oscars (I love Delroy Lindo, but this was not a showcase of his talents. He should have won for his bold performance in Da 5 Bloods) — and there are certainly some ‘seen-it-before’ themes of the Jim Crow era South, but the whole time I was waiting for the vampire stuff, which suddenly felt like it wouldn’t fit in this movie. In fact, when the vampire stuff started, it kind of appeared like a Deus-ex-machina — like it didn’t belong in this film, and the screenwriter, confused where to go with the story, was like, “Um… now Vampires!!”. In fact, and this is controversial, I’m not sure the movie would have worked on its own WITHOUT introducing vampire tropes at the end. It almost begs the question of whether any movie trying to make an important social commentary now needs to sprinkle in a few werewolves just to get people to show up.

This movie reminded me, and others, of From Dusk Till Dawn, the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez vampire film from the late 90s. Dusk did a far better job of executing the slow burn, character-rich first half and electrifying vampire attack at the end.  In fairness, Sinners is well shot and does have an amazing dance scene in which the director creatively envisions a mix of many key African American music genres over the next century all in one room together — showing that all music and cultures build off one another (at least that was my takeaway).

While I thought head vampire, Jack O’Connell, stole the show, yet he was oddly the only actor from this movie curiously not celebrated and not nominated for anything, the actual vampire stuff was pretty tame and full of trite conventions I and many horror fans alike had seen many times. Sinners definitely shouldn’t be praised for moving the horror or even vampire genre forward. As a horror movie, it’s not a winner, but I applaud that they tried to make something interesting with the first 3/4 of the film. And that was my humble, harmless, just-paid-$20 opinion on the film after I saw it.

Then… I left the theatre, and for the next six months, I was told that what I watched was a modern masterpiece full of brilliant metaphors, layered analogies, profound symbolism, subtle cultural nuance, daring subtext, intellectual depth, philosophical commentary, bold narrative experimentation, and genius filmmaking that apparently only the truly enlightened could appreciate. I’m pretty adept at picking up on what messages a movie is trying to convey, and while I thought that the glowing red pupils was a nice, new aesthetic touch for vampires, I did not view this movie as an intellectual experience. THEN… I observed Sinners set the record for the most Oscar nominations ever. Geez, all this for a movie that couldn’t decide if the sun killed the vampires or not.

By way of analogy, to show how this cultural reaction to Sinners made me feel, it’s as if the below were the review for the 1998 Wesley Snipes vampire-action film Blade:

Viewed through a sufficiently reverent lens, Blade transcends its surface as a vampire film and becomes a meditation on liminality, power, and identity. Blade himself operates as a dialectical figure, both inside and outside the vampiric elite he hunts. The vampire hierarchy mirrors entrenched class systems, while blood functions as symbolic currency, hinting at the extraction of vitality by powerful elites. Beneath the leather coats and martial spectacle, the film quietly explores the tension of existing between worlds and the uneasy search for belonging. In this light, Blade reveals itself not merely as genre entertainment, but as one of the most important cinematic achievements of the twentieth century.

Frankly, I thought the coolest part about Sinners was the colorful sweater Michael B. Jordan was wearing when the film fast forwarded at the end to 1992. A lot of people thought they looked cool in that type of sweater during the early 90s. The costume department got that one right. I wonder what the sweater was supposed to symbolize.

BEST MOVIE THAT REVEALS HOW LOW OUR EXPECTATIONS FOR MOVIES HAVE BECOME: WEAPONS

Horror movies today seem to fall into 1 of 3 categories, and they are marketed as such.

CATEGORY 1: STARTLE FESTS. These are horror movies that are made to feel like walking through a haunted house in which you are startled at least 30 times throughout a 2-hour period. Sly camera movements, ghouls in the mirror, and screeching orchestral booms create the ‘jump scare’. The movie is almost immaterial — all that matters is that you are startled. Think The Conjuring franchise. It’s like someone sneaking up on you and grabbing your shoulders over and over. 

CATEGORY 2: DEEPLY DISTURBING. These are horror movies with concepts or imagery so sick and gross that a certain type of moviegoer can’t help but be drawn to it. Movies like Human Centipede or the new Terrifier series, or any torture porn film like the Saw series, where the kills are intentionally beyond gory knowing that the moviegoer is getting off on seeing it. They make a lot more of these movies than you would expect, but only a handful of them ever become a big office draw.

CATEGORY 3: CLEVER PREMISES THAT CREATE INTRIGUE AND HAVE A MARKETING HOOK. These are the movies that are driving me nuts. They connote “Here is a premise that will make [bored person] buy a ticket, but once we get their money, screw ‘em.” Sometimes they can be alright, but most of the time, the creative success was coming up with a compelling premise that can get your film made squarely because investors believe that “quality” is second to “marketing’. These are movies like It Follows (a ghost follows you until you die) Smile (when you see someone smiling, you die), A Quiet Place (if you make a sound, you die), and Weapons.

The tagline on the posters and billboards for Weapons read, “Last night at 2:17 am every child from Mrs. Gandy’s class woke up, got out of bed, went downstairs, opened the front door, walked into the dark…and they never came back”. This premise, along with the fact that I liked Zach Creeger’s previous film, Barbarian, compelled me to see the film at my local AMC (as intended by the development exec). After 30 minutes of trailers, Nicole Kidman talking about the magic of the movies, and that irritating Coca-Cola ad about the couple on a date imagining they are in a variety of movie genres… Weapons began.

It started with a kid’s voice-over that pretty much read the premise from the movie’s poster. I had an uneasy feeling seeing/hearing this, and I couldn’t quite identify it. Then I realized what it was — it was the physical sensation of ‘disappointment’. Why did the film need to tell me this exact premise when that’s why I theoretically came to see it? Sure, I get how other people didn’t know anything about the movie coming in, but I can’t relate to people, cinephile-wise, who don’t pay attention to this stuff and just go to the movie their friend wanted to see (this is the “I-go-to-the-movies-to-escape’ moviegoer — i.e. 99% of people who go to movies. I am the snobby antagonist to these people. They hate me).

I’m not saying Weapons was a completely bad movie per se, but what’s upsetting me in 2026 is that we are propping up movies that would have otherwise been merely sub-average. Moreover, we are willing to overlook trite aspects of the film or concepts that didn’t work at all. As long as the movie triggers some type of visceral response (e.g fright or “whoa, oh my god”), the movie gets a thumbs-up pass. It doesn’t matter that the story isn’t functioning correctly, or that Weapons felt like a first draft of a screenplay, or that a lot of the scenes feel like fluff to justify the existence of a film before the pesky obligation of resolving the story in the end.

A few examples of this from Weapons: (1) all the miscellaneous nightmare clown jump scares; (2) the non-linear storytelling that many critics, both professional and instagram critics alike, showered with high-praise, calling it ‘a fascinating, brilliant, and incredibly unique way to tell a story’, when really it’s just telling the story out of order; (3) the extremely cliche, done-to-death concept idea of taking someone’s belonging (e.g. a pencil or keychain) and using it to create a spell used to control them — and (4), likely the best example of them all: the scene where Josh Brolin is about to run into the woods, turns around, and sees an enormous AR-15 RIFLE  hovering above his house with the with the time 2:17 glowing in red. I’m all for strange, interesting, artistic ideas — that is the right of any artist, but this BIG-GUN concept was capital ‘R’ random bullshit. Also, as we come to learn, the kids disappearance at 2:17am was completely arbitrary, yet the script tries to create a ‘Lost-style’ mystery where everything might be a clue. But there really isn’t a mystery. The mystery component of the film feels fake. In fact, when the cartoony villain Gladys shows up midway through the film, I, and most people in the audience, quickly and easily predicted “Yeah, she did this somehow”. We find out how and what she was up to shortly after, but the mystery of “Why 2:17am?” is completely irrelevant. Telling this story from the vantage point of the teacher and then the cop and then a homeless guy is all arbitrary and just served as filler to get us to the last 20 minutes — which people thought was “Cool!”

The script for Weapons sold for a whopping $38 million. There is no need to argue whether or not Weapons was a good script (it’s not), but a major reason for the sale is some group of executives likely instantly had a vision of how the film could be marketed. And for an industry that is desperate to get people to the theater, a good marketing premise trumps a good movie any day. Sure, the movie needed to be entertaining enough to create word-of-mouth to make a hit, but I believe they knew there were enough elements to draw a crowd with low expectations to get all giddy about it.

Some of you reading this may think I’m a wet blanket, or question why I would go to the extent of deconstructing something so trivial. But I think it’s because it seems like filmgoing audiences are comfortable expecting far less from the movies they see.  The definition of ‘good’ used to be a movie being an 8, 9 or 10. Now it seems that if it can be better than a 3, it’s “good”. So when something comes along that has a mirage of originality to it, regardless of its sloppy execution, it gets celebrated and revered and more of this stuff gets made. I think this is quite telling about how numb we have become as culture on account of all the disturbing things happening in our real lives outside of the movies.  We don’t even have time to discern what might be “good” or “bad”. If it simply distracts us from our own thoughts, that’s enough for a thumbs-up.

BEST MOVIE THAT I JUST CAN’T SEEM TO WORSHIP AS MUCH AS OTHERS: ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

To complete this trifecta of “Overrated Movies Of The Year”, we have One Battle After Another. I need to put a caveat on this section that I am a HUGE Paul Thomas (PT) Anderson fan. He is one of a handful of writer/directors that had a major influence on me wanting to pursue a life in the arts. I remember being floored and so inspired walking out of the theater after Boogie Nights/Magnolia. I mean, this is my guy. His films throughout the past 20 years have been hit and miss, but there is no need to analyze all of those right now. However, I did notice that PT’s approach towards his writing has changed. He seems to either want to be super serious (Phantom Thread, The Master) or very playful and irreverent (Licorice Pizza, Inherent Vice). This is all well and good, and I liked aspects of these films, but I always walked out of the theater feeling a bit ‘unsatisfied’ (took me 2 minutes to find the right word).

In One Battle After Another, it felt like he was trying to combine those two tones (i.e. serious/hard-hitting and sardonic/humorous). Again, no problem with this, and I admire the attempt. However, my first instinct on how I judge movies, before any specific critique whatsoever, is ‘how did I feel watching that film’ and ‘how did I feel when that movie was over’. After One Battle ended, my first, potentially shameful reaction was… “I didn’t really like that movie”. This honestly made me feel guilty because I also felt like I SHOULD like it.

Over the next few months, the movie became the instant front-runner to win Best Picture. Whenever I would discuss it with film crowds (or even non-film crowds who just watch The White Lotus n’ such), One Battle was the first film out of their mouth to receive an enormous amount of praise. “I loved it!”, “It’s brilliant!!”, “Oh My God, That Was Incredible!!!”. One passionate film goer even said it’s the best movie he had seen in 20 years and had already seen it in the theatre 4 times. I’m usually confident when defending my position on why I did not care for a movie, and am quick to point out reasons, but in this instance I became insecure. Man, what did I not see that they saw? Because I couldn’t shake my original reaction (“I didn’t really like that movie”).

So, in fairness to all my film lovers and out of respect for PT Anderson, I watched it again. This time around I acknowledged that it was very well made technically with creative and elegant cinematography, but the story, characters, and tone were still not resonating with me. Thus, I will try and humbly address a few things that people said they admired, and my take on those items. I spoke with another friend who shared my sentiments, and when he said he didn’t really care for One Battle, I noticed he first looked over both of his shoulders, ostensibly to make sure nobody in Los Angeles would hear what he was about to say, and leaned in closer to me to say something to the effect “I don’t see what the big deal is”. At that moment, I actually felt like a member of the French 75, DiCaprio’s vigilante group featured in One Battle After Another, and we were ironically dissenting against the oppressive pro-One Battle acolytes.

People said “It’s great because it’s about detention centers and ICE and what’s going on today.” I thought “Kind of” and also… “So what?”. The first 30 minutes showcase the resistance group’s activist radicalism, but the rest of the movie is pretty much one long chase scene. Additionally, the only reason DiCaprio and his partners are in any danger is exclusively fueled by Sean Penn’s personal vendetta against them. I’m fine with this because it’s a movie, but if you want to say it’s a brilliant cultural commentary, it certainly doesn’t take place in reality.

People said “I loved the writing”. I thought Paul Thomas Anderson is a great writer, but the tone he chose for this movie took me out of the film many times. I wanted to find the right word, and the word I would use to describe the writing and tone of One Battle is “zany”. The movie just felt too zany to me. And zany does not mean ‘funny’ or ‘witty’, it means ‘eccentric’, ‘crazy-silly’ and ‘absurd’. And this happened early on, within the first 10 minutes, when Teyana Taylor holds a gun to Sean Penn and says “Get Up”, but she is actually referencing that she wants him to prove he can get an erection on the spot. Again, I’m fine if this is the story you want to tell, but I had to readjust my brain into what type of movie I was watching. Teyana Taylor was also zany, firing a machine gun while 8 months pregnant and begging DiCaprio to have sex by a bomb before it went off in 2 minutes. It’s a creative choice, and I’ll respect it, but it’s zany. While I love Benicio Del Toro as an actor, he merely felt like a caricature always with something zany to say as well.  In fact, my favorite character in the movie, the only one I thought had real depth, was the stoic Mexican smuggler who agreed to take DiCaprio’s daughter to another group of smugglers, who he knew would certainly traffic her. I loved his reserved performance and the reveal that he had a conscious (i.e. “I don’t take kids”) and ultimately decided to rescue the girl. If the movie had been more in this serious tone with this type of character, I think it truly had the potential to be special. But instead, I’m watching DiCaprio and his daughter make trite dialogue about ‘pronouns’. Not good.

People said “I loved Sean Penn’s character”. I thought Penn’s acting was good, and I’m fine if he wins Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars, but I found his character to be so over-the-top in a movie that was presenting as an intensely serious drama. Also, his motivation to catch DiCaprio’s gang year’s later and kill his potentially illegitimate African American daughter is primarily because he wants to be invited into the super exclusive and clandestine white-supremacist organization, The Christmas Adventurers Club. Again fine, I get it and I’ll go with it, but because I didn’t really understand who his character was given his histrionics, I didn’t understand why being a part of of this racist elite club meant so much to him. In fact, I had a guilty thought while watching the film that I wished there was a separate movie all about the inner-workings and characterizations of this elitist club, because their dialogue and acting was quite funny, and I was bummed when we had to go back to watching DiCaprio and his daughter.

And one final note on Sean Penn’s character and the odd tone and writing of this movie in general. When Penn is delivering his daughter/DiCaprio’s daughter over to the smuggler to send her to her death, she is wildly kicking and screaming in fear. Penn angrily eggs her on to get even madder and then says, “I’m sorry it had to end this way. If you had any manners, we might have gotten to know each other”. But he had pretty much always planned to have her killed on the suspicion that she was his illegitimate daughter, so why would he even consider saying something that had even a shred of tenderness? Is he insane to think that they would have a daddy/daughter relationship for the hour it takes to hand her over to her death. I guess I’ll never know, and maybe I’m still seeing the whole film wrong, but I simply couldn’t get a grasp on who these characters were or what the movie wanted to be.

All in all, my primary gripe is that if people didn’t know this was a Paul Thomas Anderson movie going into it, giving it instant ‘cred’, and earning the casting of a big star like DiCaprio, I’m not sure anyone would care about it. It will likely win best picture (it’s neck and neck with Sinners, and, admittedly, Sinners winning would piss me off far more — because at least a One Battle victory could be viewed as career honorary award for PT Anderson), but I liked every movie on the list below better than One Battle After Another. 

AND HERE ARE THE BEST MOVIES I SAW THIS YEAR IN DESCENDING ORDER
(#1 Being The Best)

14) NUREMBERG
This movie centers around the nazis on trial at Nuremberg, with the film focusing on the relationship between Hitler’s second in command, Hermann Gohring (impressively played by Russell Crowe) and a prison psychologist (played by Rami Malek). Through a series of tense meetings in Gohring’s jail cell, Rami profiles Gohring’s psyche in order to assist the prosecution, who is in a must-win position to ensure that the world is made aware of the travesty of the Holocaust and that the nazi leadership are properly punished. Nuremberg received no Oscar nominations nor even much critical fanfare, yet it felt and looked like a standard studio film that would be nominated for Best Picture in 1992. The movie just barely made my list because it’s a good movie for what it is, has some dramatic, battle-of-wits courtroom dialogue between the prosecutor and Gohring, and I thought Russell Crowe and Rami Malek’s main performances were genuinely captivating (and Leo Woodall is also quite good). Ultimately, the film does provide an interesting evaluation as to how an atrocity like the Holocaust could happen again given the mentality of the people who could give it life.

13) SORRY, BABY
A sharp and quite funny piece from writer/director/star Eva Victor about a grad student who suffers a sexual assault by her very likable and charming professor. The movie examines how this affects her over approximately a 10-year span. Despite the subject matter, the writing is wry and humorous at times, namely a long scene where she discusses her trauma with an attorney during a juror selection process. This movie definitely had a voice, and you have to wait until a poignant monologue at the end to find out the source of the title.

12) K-POP DEMON HUNTERS
K-Pop is probably the only super successful movie this year that actually deserves its high rating (i.e. it’s the only film that’s not overrated… it’s properly rated). I have to hand it to any movie that has a vision and makes it work no matter how bizarre the premise sounds. To inspire anyone who has their own crazy idea, K-Pop also became the most popular movie or show EVER on Netflix. Admittedly, I got a little lost in the mythology about how the Korean Pop music was used to defeat the demons (even though I’m sure any 5-year old could explain it to me), but the music is pretty outstanding, and I can definitely understand how this film took off. “Golden” became the super #1 hit song and got an Oscar nomination (even though I think “What It Sounds Like” is the better song), and I thought the film’s theme of being fearless about your identity is something that both kids and adults could use right now. I’m fine with this movie getting all the accolades it received, because it oddly feels like a global pop cultural phenomenon that might have some spiritual nutrition to it.

11) IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT
Winner of the grand prize Palm D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, this is an excellent and intelligent film from Iranian director Jafar Panahi. Tragically, the film was deemed propaganda by the Iranian regime which led him to serve jail time. The movie has a creative and simple premise in which a man’s car breaks down, he has to find a late night service station, and the mechanic he meets suspects this man might actually be the guy from the Iranian military regime, who senselessly tortured him and his fellow activists.  The mechanic knocks the man out and kidnaps him with the intent to torture and kill him. However, as it’s been a long time, he’s just not absolutely sure it is, in fact, the same guy who tortured him in the past. The movie then sees him rally up people from his past, who are all living their own lives now, hoping to see if they can identify the man before killing him. It’s a great script, leading to an exciting and well-earned climax. (Amazon Prime Rental)

10) FRANKENSTEIN
This is the first Guillermo Del Toro movie that didn’t annoy the shit out of me. I am of the opinion that all funding of Del Toro’s movies, as well as their accompanying marketing campaigns, should be immediately retracted and spent on building new day care centers in underprivileged areas. His movies are always such a show-off fest of visual spectacles, elaborate sets, and goofy, bug-eyed creatures usually with some very thin characters at the center. However, with Frankenstein, since he is utilizing excellent source material, he actually made a pretty decent film. Jacob Elordi gives an excellent performance as Frankenstein’s monster, the storytelling structure was quite engaging (i.e. the first half is from Frankenstein’s perspective and the second half is from the monster’s), and I was never bored from the beginning until the end. In fact, I was quite engaged. That’s worth something. For his next project, I would like to see Del Toro, a rather talented director often dubbed a “visionary”, have one vision without a creature he can humanize. It would be nice to see him try humanizing a human instead. (Netflix)

9) SENTIMENTAL VALUE
This Norwegian film has a uniquely creative premise about the subtle exploration of a family broken apart by their alcoholic and philandering father (expertly played by Stellan Skarsgard), who also happens to be a famous and highly acclaimed film director. In an attempt to get back into the good graces of his daughters, the father writes a new film that is about his own past and his relationship to his daughters. He wants his eldest daughter, a local theatre actress, to play the lead. She refuses, resulting in his daughters watching from the outside as their father tries to make a film just to show them he understands the error of his past behavior. The film has some terrific performances (although I’m not sure Elle Fanning merited a Best Supporting Actress nomination given her limited screen time — this nom should have gone to Sally Hawkins in the horror film, Bring Her Back. Fellow freaks who saw that one, am I right?) — but the degree to which you enjoy Sentimental Value will come down to how much the film’s premise resonates with you. In any event, this is the second best film of the year to examine how the power of creating art can have a profound effect on the human spirit. (Amazon Prime Rental)

8) LURKER
A movie I wanted to see simply because I love the lead actor Theodore Pellerin. I saw him a Showtime series called On Becoming A God In Central Florida, and while this show about pyramid schemes was very wonky and didn’t really work, his charisma and plain oddity made him one of the actors I would watch no matter what they are in. He’s got whatever ‘it’ is. Lurker centers on a super fan (Pellerin) who is obsessed with a pop star (played by Andrew Madekwe who gives a brilliantly subdued performance) and manipulates his way into the pop artist’s inner circle, oddly becomes the pop star’s muse, and does anything possible to remain in his orbit. The movie is engaging throughout, if even in uncomfortable ways, and explores a very interesting theme: how people will sell their soul and identity just to be even slightly tangential to any type of fame. This brand of hanger-on relationships are prominent in the entertainment industry, but also in any place where people perceive that being part of a certain crowd will translate into their own success. (Amazon Prime Rental)

7) TRAIN DREAMS
Based on a novella by Denis Johnson, this is one of those meditative films that avoids being pretentious and actually works quite well. It revolves around a lumberjack, played by Joel Edgerton, in the state of Washington in the early part of the 20th century. The film is beautifully shot and focuses on the mini stories centered around lumberjack interactions with his fellow jacks. But all of this is amidst the larger narrative of a fire on his land resulting in a serious dilemma that he doesn’t know if his wife and daughter are dead or just missing. Living in relative isolation, he holds out hope that they will eventually come back. However, the movie is really an introspective look on the passing of time and what might actually bring joy or hope in an otherwise void existence… and we can all relate to that feeling somehow. A very intelligent film that is worthy and indicative of a classic Best Picture nomination — long before the academy took bribes to nominate race car movies. (Netflix)

6) THE SECRET AGENT
One of the best attributes of good film is how much you think about it after it’s over. Most movies, even if they are intense/shocking/impactful/depressing/etc quickly exit the mind after watching (This is how I felt about Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia this year. Thanks for the entertainment and the noble attempt to be relevant to the current zeitgeist, but I went home that night and watched an old episode of the sitcom Blossom and forgot all about Bugonia). However, this Brazilian film continues to sit with me several days after I saw it. Wagner Moura, another actor with no shortage of charisma, gives a muted, but emotionally deep performance as a government dissenter on the run from a corrupt businessman. He must take on different identities and aliases in an attempt to stay safe, but is also forced to abandon his young son. The Secret Agent also has a relaxed, but enjoyable vibe that keeps you glued to the picture even when it gets a little slow. While the runtime is admittedly too long, the director was unafraid to let scenes and concepts heavily breathe, sometimes going on for fifteen plus minutes… but it also works very well. Additionally, he makes a very gutsy choice in how he ends the film, which I found refreshing and deeply resonant. I should also mention that this film is a 3,000x better exploration into how ordinary Brazilian citizens were forced to cope with a highly corrupt and sinister dictatorship government in the 60s and 70s than last year’s obnoxious and pretentious “I’m Still Here”, which I wrote about HERE. Ultimately, this is a sophisticated and artful film showcasing the importance of preserving and not forgetting the memories of the past from the individual’s perspective, because if we allow authoritarian regimes to keep official record of it, injustice can continue unobstructed. (Hulu)

5) THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR
This documentary is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The film’s very existence, insofar that absolutely everything from a criminal incident is documented, is the very reason why a racist killer was convicted and justice was served. The entire film is made up exclusively of police body cam footage (i.e. no interviews, no talking heads, no voiceover, no B-roll). It follows ongoing reported incidents on disputes in Ocala, Florida between two neighbors: An older, crotchety white woman, Susan Lorenz, and her black female neighbor, Ajike Owens and her children. Susan continued to report that Ajike’s kids were playing in her yard and making insults toward her.  The police showed up many times, but the kids stated that they were only playing sports near her yard. The matter escalates over weeks as Ajike confronts Susan about harassing her kids, until one night Owens storms over to Susan’s house, knocks on her door, and Susan fatally shoots her. Susan claimed self-defense, but the police investigation uncovers a variety of details that the shooting was pre-meditated (based on when the 911 call came in and when the shooting occurred, it was clear that Susan used the fact that Ajike was banging on her door as an excuse to shoot and kill her. We even see all the police questioning that details how the killing was in fact intentional. The documentary is also extremely disturbing, as police body cam captures the exact moment when the kids are told that their mother did not survive the shooting. To see this play out is about ten steps north of devastating. My main takeaway from this documentary was that if all this footage didn’t exist, detailing all the incidents and confrontations that led up to this unnecessary death, there is likely a very good chance that Susan would have gotten away with cold blooded murder, as she could play the part of ‘terrified-white-old-lady’. If they didn’t have all this footage, they wouldn’t have enough evidence to convict her. So think about how many senseless, racially driven hate crimes did not result in adequate punishment simply because people believed the white person’s claim of “They were afraid for their life” – which sadly many people would believe, and there wouldn’t be ample visual record like this documentary to prove otherwise. (Netflix)

4) TWINLESS
This gem of a film from writer/director James Sweeney is an original comedy about two strangers who connect over the agony of losing a twin when they meet at a twin-loss grief support group. Sounds funny, right? Well, I found myself laughing out loud by myself, which is incredibly rare, and I can’t remember the last time I found a movie to be legitimately funny. I even watched several scenes twice. While the characters are multi-dimensional and very likable, the movie also has a creative, non-linear storytelling structure, providing surprises that kept me highly captivated by the plot as well. Another high note of the film is Dylan O’Brien’s portrayal of both twins (the alive one and flashbacks of the now-deceased twin). He has incredible range to play one depressed, brooding, and rather dumb twin, and one twin who is flamboyantly witty and hilarious. I mention this because I compare Dylan O’ Brien’s performance(s) of both twins to Michael B. Jordan’s performance(s) of both twins. Since Michael will likely win best actor at the Oscars for playing “two people”, I really feel justified in sounding the alarm again that I still insist that Michael B. Jordan is playing the same character twice. They even have the same accent and their lines seem interchangeable (e.g. “Be Careful, Smoke” — “I Will, Stack” – so stupid). In other words, Twinless is the far superior ‘twin’ based movie of the year. Highly recommend (Hulu)

3) GIRL YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE
This is the winner of the “Whoa, that movie was way better than it needed to be” award. Yes, it is a musical biopic of Milli Vanilli — famous for the pop hits “Girl You Know It’s True, Baby Don’t Forget My Number, Blame It The Rain, and Girl I’m Gonna Miss You”. Admittedly, I really have a new appreciation for just how good those songs are. Milli Vanilli owned the pop charts from 1988-1990, and were later disgraced when it was revealed they didn’t sing their own songs; that they were only an act that fooled everybody. But this movie dives into who Rob and Fab were as people, their stories on their rise to fame, how their career came to be, the music producer behind the scam, the real singers and musicians on the tracks, and the dramatic and depressing aftermath when the scandal was revealed. And through all this, the movie is utterly fun from front to end and has a strong grip on it’s playful yet also serious tone. The acting in this film, namely the two leads portraying Rob and Fab, is outstanding. The acting simply didn’t need to be this good, but the director really tried on this one, and this movie unexpectedly delivers two of the best and most heartbreaking scenes of the year. The movie also isn’t short — it’s over 2 hours, and I’ve watched it twice already. It made it to #3 on this list because even when I watched Oscar bait type films like Sentimental Value and Train Dreams, I was still like “that Milli Vanilli movie was better than this”. (Amazon Prime Free Streaming)

2) MARTY SUPREME
I had high hopes for this film and I feel like it delivered on said hopes. Regarding the Safdie Brothers, I’m in a rare category of cinema lovers who wasn’t crazy about Uncut Gems, but I certainly admired Josh Safdie’s original filmmaking style to make the audience feel as nervous/anxious as the characters are. Thus, a movie about an arrogant and cocksure ping pong prodigy seemed like a very good time. Timothee Chalamet is definitely becoming the next great American actor, as despite his very public persona, I am able to embrace him when he hides in these characters. The first 75 minutes of this movie are quite electric and there is never a dull moment. And while some people had issues with it, I personally thought the casting of Mr. Wonderful (Kevin O’Leary) from the TV reality show Shark Tank was a fantastic idea. I imagine Safdie felt that this is the exact type of sleazebag persona that he wanted in an antagonist, and I thought O’Leary was charismatic and more fun to watch than if Safdie had cast a “real actor” (i.e. it would have been boring watching someone like Jeff Daniels in that antagonist role). The entire multi-scene plan to seduce Gwenyth Paltrow was such an incredible sequence, and I loved the scenes that brought texture to the film (i.e. that Holocuast flashback with the bees and honey — that was a nice touch and a true story). I would say the only thing keeping this film at #2  on this list was the presence of some fluff in the middle; namely the hustle with Tyler The Creator, whose character I felt the film could have done without, and the entire “gotta find the dog” storyline. Those stories felt distantly on the outskirts of the main story and made the movie drag a bit. However, the last act of the film was very exciting when this poignant stylized character film became a legitimate sports movie. I truly thought this was a great film, and I feel like it’s deserved praise and accolades got buried by all the lofty regard for the over-rated dream team of One Battle and Sinners. Marty Supreme is a masterful achievement in casting, pacing, and bringing a character and vision to life. (Amazon Prime Rental)

1) HAMNET
It was tough to decide a true #1 film this year, so I asked myself the question, “Which movie had the most emotional impact on me?”, as I feel like that is one of the hardest aspects for any film to achieve — to really affect you in a way that you can’t stop thinking about the film even a few days after. I didn’t know anything about this movie going into it. I’m not a Shakespeare fan, and I didn’t expect this film to resonate with me as much as it did. After I finished it, and after I cried quite a bit, I thought to myself, “Man, compared to Hamnet, that 1998 film ‘Shakespeare in Love’ was really just as terrible as I thought it was back then. How the hell did that beat Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture? Harvey Weinstein sure is good at Oscar campaigns”  But I also thought: “I didn’t think someone could make something this legitimately brilliant and touching about Shakespeare”. The movie is based on a historical fiction book which imagines how Shakespeare and his wife Agnes would have dealt with and been affected by the true life premature death of their son Hamnet. I am also a fan of Chloe Zhao’s work, namely Nomadland (even though we have to forgive for doing that awful Marvel Eternals movie for the money). But she is truly a super talent in storytelling and getting the most incredible performances from her actors. Jessie Buckley easily gives the best acting performance of the year and deserves the best actress by a mile, although it’s a shameful ‘award-giving’ tragedy that Paul Mescal wasn’t nominated for Best Supporting actor, just so the Academy could make room for another unnecessary Sinners nomination. It’s also worth noting that I rented and started watching Hamnet at about 11:30pm, and given it’s 2 hour run time, I had planned to stop it halfway through and watch the rest the next day. Yet the film was so engaging and powerfully sad that I knew it would be an artistic sin to stop it halfway; that it deserved to have its whole vision presented at once. I’m glad I did because the third act climax is also incredible in every regard. Hamnet is a testament to the power of creating art to serve as a form of healing either yourself or try and connect with another person’s grief in a way that might help them take even one step towards recovery. Even as the high tide of AI appears like it will subsume organic creativity, Hamnet is an important reminder that we should all attempt to create some form of artistic self-expression, even if it’s something small or short that might make a meaningful and potentially vital impact on another person. (Amazon Prime Rental)

To read Aaron Bilgrad Movie Awards from past years, click HERE