Oscar Blitz 2025 – Best Picture (VIDEO)

It’s been a hell of a ride, folks. Between wildfires, delayed nominations, the myriad controversies surrounding the leading candidate, and the recent tragic passing of Gene Hackman that won’t make the In Memoriam montage because there’s not enough time to recut the whole thing, this has been one of the most tumultuous run-ups to the Oscars in history. Even the pandemic ceremony ran smoother at times. Add in general anxiety about the state of our country and the world (today we literally witnessed our two leaders verbally berating the President of Ukraine for not being more “grateful” to them after they called him a dictator and publicly sided with the murderer who invaded his land), a prolonged lack of work, and the fact that I’ve been sick all week, and you can safely say it’s been a whirlwind.

And yet, here we are. We made it. In spite of everything, we were still able to cover 23 categories, 36 feature films, and 15 shorts without missing a beat. It has been another successful Blitz, with wall-to-wall breakdowns, anecdotes, rankings, and a fair few four-letter words. In less than 48 hours, it’ll all be over, the winners determined and the hardware doled out. Somehow, with all the other shit going on and one of the shortest seasons ever, we got there.

There’s only one more bit of analysis left to get to, and as always, it’s the biggest prize of them all, Best Picture. As has become tradition, all 10 nominees were weighed according to my convoluted formula to figure out what is the most thorough, complete, and superlative production, rather than the movie I simply liked the best (though they often coincide). Last year I nearly burned myself out doing two jobs at once while also maintaining the blog and trying to beat deadlines to create weekly videos. This year, I actually kept ahead of things, finishing the videos with days to spare, and while it’s sucked to not have regular income, I was able to keep the stress of the workload pretty low, and post on 43 consecutive days (and counting).

Sometimes, it’s the little things that get you through, and that’s what this was for me this year. Doing the Blitz represented normalcy and a respite from the world. It cost me a fair bit of sleep, as it always does, but it gave me something to look forward to every day, which is what movies in general are supposed to do. I’d say that 2024 was, at best, an unbalanced year, with the vast majority of the quality only coming out during Awards Season and creating a huge glut of content during the holidays. Still, even with all the problems, we got through it. It took a great deal of dedication and patience, but we got there, and the process even became its own form of personal escape. That’s how we endure through all of life’s trials and tribulations, and how we’ll persist in the face of all the challenges to come. Nothing left to say. Let’s wrap up the reactions.

This year’s nominees for Best Picture are… in the video below!

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As always, I want to thank each and every one of you for taking this trip with me. The film industry has a lot of issues at the moment, as does the Academy Awards as a ceremony. But you know what, the Oscars are still the pinnacle achievement of the artform, and it remains a uniting factor for discussion and fandom, no matter how shitty things get on the periphery. The more we engage with each other, the more we increase our enjoyment, and the better the odds are that the ship will be fully righted. So again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

My Rankings:
Are in the video. Like, it’s 90% of the video by design.

Who do you think should win? Vote now in the poll below!

Up next, the breakdowns are done, but there’s one last piece of business before Oscar Night, and that’s to do our best to divine how this thing will actually turn out. I didn’t have time to do a video this year, so we’ll return to the classic style of picking our winners right here in print. It’s the annual Predictions post!

Join the conversation in the comments below! What do you think makes for a true “Best Picture” candidate? What’s the most important film element in your eyes? Who wants to finance my surefire Oscar-winning project, a musical about a non-binary Dr. Moreau-type who solves world hunger through ritual clown sacrifice? Let me know!