the friday five | 02 28 25

special oscars edition

Typically on Fridays, Montage recommends five things that I am currently enjoying. In preparation for the 97th Academy Awards this weekend, today’s Friday Five will look a little different. Today I am highlighting my personal nominees for some of the major Oscars categories, and who I would personally give the hardware to.

This is the Friday Five: Oscars Edition for Friday, February 28, 2025. Thank you!

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Best Original Score

The actual Oscar race is a lot of fun this year with quite a bit still up in the air two days before the big game, which is surprising considering what a shit show the nominations are. No category reflects this better than Original Score, which not only doesn’t include Challengers (??) but does include Wicked (????), the music for which was fully written in 2002. Choosing my own nominees did highlight to me how much weaker this year’s slate of scores does seem to be, though, compared to the transcendence of the past couple of years. My core four were obvious—Blumberg, Ishibashi, Smerilli, and my beloved Reznor & Ross—but then I had to go hunting for the fifth. Then I thought: didn’t Problemista have a fun score… and well, yes! It does! And then I remembered I actually saw Lia Ouyang Rusli perform at a Riker’s protest over the summer in some random empty lot in Chinatown shortly after we moved to New York. OK sure! 👍

My nominees:

Daniel Blumberg, The Brutalist
Eiko Ishibashi, Evil Does Not Exist
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Challengers
Lia Ouyang Rusli, Problemista
Umberto Smerilli, A Different Man

🏆 My winner: Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Challengers

Best Editing

Have you seen Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat yet? It’s had a long and rapturous run at Film Forum since the fall, when they kept extending it because it was popular, then extending it again because it got the Oscars nom…now I think it just lives in theater 3 permanently. For good reason, too, if you ask me—it’s pretty righteously astonishing, chronicling the rise and assassination of Patrice Lumumba through the lens of Cold War politics, African imperialism, and bebop jazz with some of the slickest editing I’ve seen in years. Soundtrack does at times feel like a whole different film language, especially for a documentary, using rhythm and music and sound to educate and entertain in equal measure. This slate honestly might be the strongest five of my whole list, though; any one of them could take the crown and I wouldn’t be sorry. Special shout out to Jack Bensinger’s work on the hyperspecific and gloriously rendered Rap World.

Sean Baker, Anora
Jack Bensinger, Rap World
Rik Chaubet, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Catalin Cristutiu, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
Nicholas Monsour, Nickel Boys

🏆 My winner: Rik Chaubet, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

Best Cinematography

A very obvious winner lol (lol as in lol, not Lol as in future Oscar winner Lol Crawley), but special shout out to Sean Price Williams’s decision to film Between the Temples from the POV of a dentist getting right up in there. Really love the look of La Chimera, too; all that environmental light is just so gorgeous.

Jarin Blaschke, Nosferatu
Jomo Fray, Nickel Boys
Hélène Louvart, La Chimera
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Challengers
Sean Price Williams, Between the Temples

🏆 My winner: Jomo Fray, Nickel Boys

Best Supporting Actress

A weak year for supporting actresses, if you ask me, evidenced perhaps though not necessarily by who’s going to end up taking home the Oscar (red pantsuit innocent). I originally had an easy win here in Carol Kane, but then I talked myself into her performance in Between the Temples actually being a lead. I do love Michele Austin in Hard Truths just as much as I love everyone in Hard Truths about the same beyond MJB, who is towering. To be honest, none of these nominees completely blow me out of the water—I landed on Dolly because I really like the nuance she brings to a role that could in other hands become much wackier or more annoying; she kills the big dinner scene at the end especially.

Michele Austin, Hard Truths
Dolly de Leon, Between the Temples
Carol Duarte, La Chimera
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Nickel Boys
Tilda Swinton, Problemista

🏆 My winner: Dolly de Leon, Between the Temples

Best Supporting Actor

I guess my heart wants to give this award to Jack Haven, who is devastating in his big hypnotic TV Glow monologue—but *spoilers* I’m giving Justice Smith flowers later on so I thought I’d spread the love. And Pearson is, obviously, a total revelation. I want to see him in everything, stat. Don’t you all just love Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Nosferatu, by the way?? This is the exact kind of simpering loser role he should be giving us more often—it was especially funny to walk out of that movie and right into five different Kraven the Hunter posters in the theater lobby. I think everyone is basically good in Nosferatu, but ATJ was the standout for me.

Jack Haven, I Saw the TV Glow
Chris Hemsworth, Furiosa
Adam Pearson, A Different Man
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nosferatu
David Webber, Hard Truths

🏆 My winner: Adam Pearson, A Different Man

Best Actress

A clear winner here, though for basically the entirety of 2024 I had Ilinca Manolache locked in, what she’s doing in DNETMFTEOTW rocked me that hard. Quick side note I couldn’t not nominate Comer here, though you could argue she’s supporting (she’s not) or she’s doing too funny a voice (it’s just funny enough). I think Comer is one of our greats, and she’s been woefully underserved and underappreciated in film—it seemed like The Bikeriders was going to do what The Last Duel couldn’t in bringing sturdier recognition to her work, but alas the movie just isn’t very good. But she crushes it, as always, and to be honest you get used to the voice right away.

Jodie Comer, The Bikeriders
Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths
Carol Kane, Between the Temples
Mikey Madison, Anora
Ilinca Manolache, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World

🏆 My winner: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths

Best Actor

A ridiculously strong year for Actor—like, here’s who didn’t make my cut: Faist, Schwartzman, Hartnett, Powell, Fiennes, Magaro. And still somehow the Oscars filled up more than half the ballot with total duds (Fiennes innocent; never saw Sing Sing but I assume Colman’s good in it as always). I’m not saying my five is better, but obviously I think it’s better because I chose them. Did you all watch Rebel Ridge yet? Don’t you want to watch a star being born before your very eyes? Remember how great Plemons is in every part of Kinds of Kindness, but especially part one? Obviously this was Josh O’Connor’s Very Big Year. And I can’t imagine I will ever watch The Apprentice, but there’s zero chance Sebastian Stan’s done better work in the past decade+ than A Different Man. And even with all that swirling around… it has to go to Justice Smith. There was no way it wasn’t go to. A demanding, sensitive, layered, scary good performance in a movie that asks for so much. The last ten minutes, of course, are all fireworks.

Josh O’Connor, La Chimera/Challengers
Aaron Pierre, Rebel Ridge
Jesse Plemons, Kinds of Kindness
Justice Smith, I Saw the TV Glow
Sebastian Stan, A Different Man

🏆 My winner: Justice Smith, I Saw the TV Glow

Best Original Screenplay

Never have the five best original screenplays of a year been more thuddingly obvious lmao. Banger on banger on banger.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Evil Does Not Exist
Radu Jude, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
Mike Leigh, Hard Truths
Jane Schoenbrun, I Saw the TV Glow
Aaron Schimberg, A Different Man

🏆 My winner: Mike Leigh, Hard Truths

Best Adapted Screenplay

Much, much tougher. Had to scrape a fifth from somewhere (Nosferatu), and even with Conclave, which I didn’t love, I was basically like I haven’t read the book but sure, the guy made it kind of funny what can I say. Those other three are just superb.

Pedro Almodovar, The Room Next Door
Robert Eggers, Nosferatu
John Grimonprez, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
RaMell Ross & Joslyn Barnes, Nickel Boys
Peter Straughan, Conclave

🏆 My winner: RaMell Ross & Joslyn Barnes, Nickel Boys

Best Director

A really terrific year for interesting, conceptual, prismatic, personal, and classical direction—so of course the Oscars nominated snoozers and are likely going to give it to the snooziest. I felt pain leaving Jane Schoenbrun off here, so consider them and Hamaguchi tied for my fifth slot—though wildly different movies, both serve endless and patient surprises in pursuit of extremely thoughtful and original visions. No one, obviously, came close to what Radu Jude built with Do Not Expect Too Much, though, at least not for me—I spent all year macheteing through the brambles of meaning that movie offers up, and my rewatch at MOMI last month only reignited my love for it.

Luca Guadagnino, Challengers
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Evil Does Not Exist
Radu Jude, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys
Alice Rohrwacher, La Chimera

🏆 My winner: Radu Jude, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World

Best Picture

Let me know if you want my Mubi login at some point to watch Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World. I think you’ll love it—and even if you hate it, I think you’ll find a lot to hate about it. Sometimes…let’s be honest…that’s even more fun! (But I do think you’ll love it.)

Challengers
A Different Man
Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
Evil Does Not Exist
Furiosa
Hard Truths
I Saw the TV Glow
La Chimera
Nickel Boys
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

🏆 My winner: Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World