98th Academy Awards Recap Thoughts

I have a very simple approach to the Academy Awards. The Oscar's should only be seen as prestigious recommendations. I believe James Rolfe said something to that effect, and I wholeheartedly agree. I haven't seen everything that won or was nominated but looking at the list, I now have a bunch of movies I know to check out. I'm not gonna cover every movie/award but I like reflecting on the movies I saw within the past year. 

Before thinking about what the Academy liked, let's think about what I liked. It's my blog, fuck you. 

I try to separate "favorite" and "best" movie because, I definitely admit, my own biases and tastes don't actually align with what I would also say is the top quality movie. "This is brilliant, but I like this" as Jeremy Clarkson once said. My favorite movie of 2025 was F1. I loved the performances, the story arc the two leads went through, and the cinematography on display during the races was so thrilling. The tone and style was just absolutely up my alley. When I first watched it, I had my problems but the more I sat with it, I liked it more and more. It absolutely deserved to win best sound. The race at the end when Sonny is in his flow state is incredible. All that said, was it the best movie last year? No.

The best movie I saw last year was Sinners, without a doubt. The narrative on display is so meaningful and it presents it in a way that is so unbelievably stylish. I wish I was able to see it in Imax because the audio-visual experience that movie provided was unlike any other. That was my pick for Best Picture. I also wanted Ryan Coogler to win something because he's such a talented director. It totally deserved to win Cinematography, Writing, and Music, and I am very glad Michael B. Jordan won Best Actor. He knocked it out of the park as Smoke. I do think Stack got robbed though. 

As for the winner, I kinda knew going in it was a tossup between Sinners and One Battle After Another. I haven't seen it yet but I did buy it on 4k recently. I'm really curious in this kind of role for Leonardo DiCaprio. I've seen it be described as his "Big Lebowski" role which is really different from what I'm used to seeing him in. Very much looking forward to seeing it. 

As for best animated film, it's kinda hard to argue against Kpop Demon Hunters. I really like that a brand new animated movie that's not based on any existing property can see that amount of success and create such a cultural phenomenon nowadays. Its still not really pushing the medium of animated movies in a way that I really want to see but it's still very much deserved (I'll refrain from going on my modern animated movie rant here lol). This movie is an incredible collaboration of absolute top talent in both the animated movie industry and the Kpop music industry. This was destined to be a success and I'm glad it kinda blew up in Sony's face by selling it to Netflix. That's funny to me. 

I'm honestly surprised Marty Supreme didn't win anything after the incredibly strong word of mouth it got. I'm really excited to see that. Timothee Chalamet is a great actor and it just seems like a really interesting movie. All I know about it is it's a long long movie that turns into something like Catch Me If You Can which is wild to me. 

So yeah that's kinda all I got for the Oscar's. Honestly 2025 was a solid year for movies. If I'm being honest I'm not super jazzed about 2026 movies. There's some good looking stuff like The Odyssey and Project Hail Mary but not a ton beyond that. Personally I'm kinda just jaded with long running franchises. Even though there were a handful of good franchise movies last year like Ballerina and Predator Badlands, I just find myself way more excited for original, ground up movies. I'm not going to say there should be less Hollywood blockbuster schlock, but I just struggle to really get emotionally invested in stuff that I can tell are trying to be some billion dollar cinematic universe. If I'm being real, I just don't see myself truly LOVING stuff like Supergirl, Mario Galaxy, Mortal Kombat 2, Street Fighter, or whatever other brand franchise movie is coming out this year. 

One of my favorite things is when a director gets a "Blank Check" movie. They make one of the most successful franchise movies possible, and afterwards they get the option to make just whatever they want. Go to examples, Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010), The Gray Man (Russo Brothers, 2020), Knives Out (Rian Johnson, 2019), even James Cameron's Avatar. Even though I really don't care for those movies, that's something he's wanted to do for decades. I want more of that out of movies. 

Thanks for reading my rant here. I'm not saying I'm right in that what I want is lacking, but I would love more suggestions. I love watching movies and right now, I'm really wanting unique experiences out of the medium.