Susie’s Movie Awards: The 12 Who Will Stand the Test of Time
Film critics throughout America are flapping our dodo bird wings the last month of the year, and championing our darlings in cinema excellence. The votes are in!
You’ll see the award winners from my group, the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle, the New York Film Critics Circle, and more.
I’d like to share my favorite dozen films with you, and talk a little about what it’s like to vote on movies these days.
First of all, it’s a marathon.
Most of us watch digital and Blu Ray screeners of a couple hundred hopefuls between Thanksgiving and Xmas. Many people have asked me what the difference is between cramming for Hollywood versus the heyday of Porn Awards, and the answer is: not much. It’s all discipline, note-taking, and lubricating eye-drops.
There used to be lots of film critics— we never thought of ourselves as dinosaurs— because there used to be a lot of journalism. Thousands of movie theaters, dozens of choices each week. Popcorn was KING, baby. No one had to send you a screener, because you could bop around town and live your life wrapped in a celluloid glow.
Remember newspaper ads like this?
Nowadays film watching is an elite activity. If you don’t have the travel wardrobe to attend the festivals in Toronto, Cannes, Sundance, Berlin, and Venice, you won’t see what’s being created— little of it makes theatrical release, limited runs, in major cities. Just looking at the list above makes me realize that without the late Robert Redford, the U.S. wouldn’t even have a film festival of note.
The major movie distributors are also quite suspicious of film critics— they apparently believe that we, the last scribes clinging to the lifeboat, are the source of their pirating problems. Ha! The hoops I jump through to prove I am not selling screener access like hot minks off the back of a truck . . . I have to ask, “Who has the time?”
The studios don’t trust us, but they can’t cop to the real reason. They need our words, haha, the dreaded storytellers, because much to their chagrin, they need a whiff of credibility. Talk about a short supply.
There are two kinds of publicity you can get for movies. You have accolades for “What the Starlet Wore” that accompany the debuts and Oscar campaigns. Funniest film in decades! means: not one joke lands. Searing! equals ennui.
The critics’ circles vote before the Academy, because the Academy members who vote for the Oscars are led around by the nose. They don’t want to lock themselves in a dark room and watch their peers’ movies, they really don’t. They rely on the critics to set a tone, but they want it to be a CREDIBLE tone.
There is pressure to have a “Best Picture” that sweeps the American audience into its arms with great brio, that sings of a universal language.
Yet that is not the sausage cooked in studio kitchens, nor is it the nature of the last angry independent filmmakers’ sacrifice. The first want Bollywood-style receipts; the latter want to make you squirm.
The big movie advertising pushes this year is for One Battle After Another — which I despised— more on that next week. There’s also a lot of juice for Sinners, an original I’m glad I saw, with caveats. It had a truly original idea with fantastic male leads.
I doubt either of them will be talked about in the future of film’s greatest moments. The 21st century of American Theatrical film is on the ropes. You know it, I know it: we had better “TV” than we had movies. And some of the best movies were first released on digital television.
So what stand-alone cinema this year, WILL stand the test of time?
My choices for “Best of 2025” were influenced by two events:
First: most of the top films are internationally financed, and/or inspired, springing from a not-LA imagination. The heat has moved elsewhere. The talent is soaring abroad, even as they feed off the nostalgia for Hollywood’s past. The Oscars really is a strange creature at this point.
And Next: Women have crashed and burned the formerly-all-male Director’s club. The significance is Rosie-Riveter-esque. Yes, they are underpaid; they never would have gotten the chance if the movie industry wasn’t in splinters. Yet they’re the ones with the credibility you hear so much about.
Likely Oscar-nominee Directors: Celine Song, (Materialists) Chloe Zhao (Hamnet), Mary Bronstein, (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You) Eva Victor, (Sorry, Baby) Kelly Reichardt, (The Mastermind), Kathryn Bigelow (House of Dynamite), Nia DaCosta (Hedda), Tamara Kotevska (Silyan).
Avalanche.
You know those nostalgic movie ads I posted above? Not one of those films was directed or shot by a woman. Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to win Best Director in 2010– so recent.
In cinematography, there is no justice if Autumn Durald Arkapaw (Sinners) doesn’t take the 2026 Oscar— it will likely be the most justifiable award on the red carpet. She is the first female D.P. to shoot any movie on large format IMAX film. Also, she is from Oxnard! — which thrills me, as it is the sugar-beet rural town my paternal ancestors once farmed.
The women’s cinematographer cadre— the most dude-heavy of all the film enclaves— includes Mia Cioffi Henry (Sorry, Baby), Alice Brooks (Wicked), and my favorite, Evgenia Alexandrova (The Secret Agent).
Onward . . . Here are the movies I can’t stop thinking about this year:
The Father-Son Movie of the Year
My Father’s Shadow from Nigeria, with real-life brothers as the two tiny siblings who spend a day in Lagos with their handsome father whom they have rarely seen. Their unforgettable day is during a contentious and brutal election in 1993 where everyone is not whom they seem, including their charismatic dad.
I think it should win for Best Actor, Sopé Dìrísù, and Best New Director, Akinola Davis Jr. They are the pride of the British film industry this year, and have already won top awards at festivals like Cannes, Chicago, BFI, Seville, and Gotham Independent.
GET MUBI
I am starting with My Father’s Shadow, because I have one critical piece of advice for movie-lovers this coming year: Subscribe to MUBI. You can subscribe via Amazon, or direct from them. They are the ONLY ones getting the streaming rights to the fantastic international features that will otherwise never come to your town, never be seen on American channels.
MUBI knows you might be doubtful. Hence, they are really cheap, they are offering a generous “free” watching period, and if you have a university email address, you can get an even better deal. They will be so much more important to you than nearly any other streamer you get this year.
The Screwball Rom-Com That Will Remind You of the Old Rob Reiner Days:
Materialists, directed by Celine Song. Celine is so talented. She wanted to SEE a movie about the impossibility of falling in love, the magic of it, the likes of which we never see or believe today.
So she made it. It’s streaming everywhere. Kudos to Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans — all magnificent.
Kids. Swimming Pool. All Hell Breaks Loose.
The Plague, directed by Charlie Polinger.
This is the movie I had put aside, thinking it was some B-movie entry in the Horror department. Boy, was I wrong. In fact, I think they titled it wrong, because there is no “plague” except the near-death experience we all remember as adolescence. It’s about a group of young boys on a water polo team one season, and a turning point.
After I watched this with my lover, after we raved about the ensemble acting of the boys, the incandescent water photography, the remarkable debut for this director/writer— we sat up late in the night, talking about what really happened to us in 7th grade. I said things I’ve never told anyone.
So yeah, it’s that kind of movie.
The Secret Agent - Best Movie of the Year
The Secret Agent won nearly everything at Cannes, because the audience knew it would die on US shores. Unreal. This is classic moviemaking, right up there with Chinatown.
And yet . . . No one knows when Americans will be able to see it on streaming. This is what I mean by living in a shithole country.
It’s Brasil’s Oscar entry for “Best International” but should be on list for best pic/director, (Kleber Mendonça Filho) best original score, best cinematography.
The lead, Wagner Moura, will likely be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, and he deserves it. He plays a former professor trying to get the fuck out of the turmoil of the final years of the Brazilian military dictatorship.
If you liked, say, “All the President’s Men”— you will love this. Even though it takes place in 1970s, it captures the feeling we have today.
It’s been in a few American theaters. If you live in a big city, hunt it down. I think the media giants waiting to see the Critics awards before determining how to stream it. MUBI already has it wrapped up for the UK, so let’s bombard them with requests for the American streaming date. PUT THIS ON YOUR LIST.
The Ultimate Anti-Heist Caper
The Mastermind. I have two words for you: Kelly Reichardt. Everyone says her movies are an acquired taste, and she has certainly acquired me.
Years from now, wunderkind actor Josh O’Connor will be remembered for this, one of the best con-artist psychologies ever. Man, how did he master that American dude in the 70s body language?
Josh plays a lazy entitled nepo baby/husband who seemingly has it all, yet decides to steal some lovely little abstract expressionist paintings from his local sleepy museum. Yeah, a real mastermind. It’s very satiric, (yes I laughed out loud at what he does with his children during the heist), it’s underwater suspense is hypnotic, and it has a punchline like nothing else this year.
On MUBI, once again.
A Man and His Stork
Tamara Kotevska‘s The Tale of Silyan, made in Macedonia, has a chance to be nominated for Oscars in Best Documentary, Best Cinematography, and Best International film. It would happily fulfill each, but more than that, it describes 2 creatures, human and stork, who get one last chance at making meaning in life. Yes, it is beautiful and touching.
National geographic/Disney and HULU are planning to release it on streaming, before Oscars. Another one to save on your list!
I have a separate story coming, next week, of the best documentaries we saw the past year, a VERY rich field. So this is only a taste!
Sirāt
Sirāt is the most haunting film I’ve seen in a long time. Directed by Spanish filmmaker Oliver Laxe. It is screening to sell out crowds all over Western Europe, and if you were in Spain or France this summer, it’s all anyone was talking about.
The story starts with an old Papa and his young son, looking for his daughter who has joined the “international rave circuit” and disappeared. They are desperate. The ravers are a band of vagabonds who set up huge sound systems in the world’s great deserts, and trip their brains out.
So the film begins, with massive sound, massive skies. At first I wondered if I needed to be an electronica fan to enjoy the movie, but you start to realize, no, this is deeper. By the time they reach Morocco, you realize we are set in the future, where the stakes are a lot higher than any one missing person’s survival, or a single note or grain of sand. We are inside a quite vulnerable chosen family who may not make it out.
In a just world, it should be nominated Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Score. Best Sound! NEON got the North American distribution rights, but no word on streaming yet. I would keep my eye on MUBI, although Netflix may realize this is just the kind of international sensation they love to acquire.
Hamnet - Doubt thou the stars are fire, but never doubt I love . . .
Once upon at time there was a playwright named William Shakespeare who wed an older woman in his village everyone called a witch. They were passionate, and Yes, this is history! Will and Agnes had three beloved children, including their darling son, “Hamnet” died at age 11. Their grief was unbearable. And . . . the next play Shakespeare wrote, the greatest tragedy in the English language, was “Hamlet.”
This story was fictionalized in an bestselling book by Irish novelist Maggie O’Farrell, who was then coaxed by sui-generis director Chloé Zhao to co-write the screenplay. Their collaboration is exquisite.
Hamnet is the ONLY one of the prestige films you’ll hear about this season that is everything you’ll hear, and a bag of chips. People will be teaching and re-watching this movie for a long time to come. It is in a different league than any of the other nominees you’ll hear about for Best Picture and Director.
I mean, why not, with its pedigree? I think what viewers will be surprised by how it opens, when these two lovers have no idea who’ll they become, what life holds. It is swashbuckling, it is sexual, it is reckless — and then when the plot turns, your heart will explode.
The work is also, despite the Bard of Avon biography, an Irish love letter of performance and writing. I hope Jessie Buckley wins for Best Actress, Paul Mescal for Best Actor. English actress Emily Watson in Supporting role as well.
This is the only movie I picked that is in wide release in theaters! Eat it up. It will probably reach streaming on Peacock +/or Amazon Prime, in February or March.
Blue Moon - Ethan Hawke, Be Still My Heart
Blue Moon is Richard Linklater’s gift to musical theater, and to Ethan Hawke, for his tour de force as an actor.
I am so proud of Ethan for this— he plays Lorenz Hart, the jilted Broadway partner of composer Richard Rogers, who dumped him for Oscar Hammerstein when Hart’s life went off the rails.
Lorenz was gay in the 1950s, a dwarf, a musical theater genius who created some of the greatest lyrics we’ve ever heard— My Funny Valentine, The Lady is a Tramp, and so much more. (Would Frank Sinatra exist without Lorenz Hart?) Yet, our young lyrical genius drank himself to death at 48— ruminating and ranting like you’ve never seen.
This is story of the night he lost everything, when Oklahoma premiered. Ha! His bitter humor is earned! Kudos also to Margaret Qualley, superb Supporting Actress.
If you watch Blue Moon and wonder if Hawke— and his devoted friend/director Linklater— have decided to save the soul of American actors, you would not be far wrong. Ethan started in the movies young, as a child cutie pie, then later as a Texas heartthrob, always seen as handsome leading man material. Fine, but he wisely decided no one gets out of showbiz alive without putting it all on the line, without surrendering to their craft— and he has. Bravo!
Blue Moon is in wide release theatrically, but not enough people know it. You can rent it online, everywhere, so finally, something good you can see right how minute.
Nouvelle Vague - “To be immortal, and then die”
Yes, Richard Linklatter strikes again. So much respect for this man. I wish his American peers felt his urgency. The man is putting it all on the line: what actually matters in a movie. He has directed two of the best films this year, Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vague.
You can tell Linklater has a bucket list, now that he’s 65. He is going to make his mark on every great film tradition that shaped him.
In the case of Nouvelle Vague, it is a GORGEOUS black and white movie that tells the story of French New Wave creator, Jean-Luc Godard. Godard was the most influential bad-boy in movie history, who almost out of spite, made Breathless, that changed cinema forever. Actors Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg became permanent role models for French sex appeal overnight.
So yes, this is a movie within a movie. We see Godard, a film critic writer who hated mainstream everything (I can relate). He decided in 1959 to “show them all” by shooting a no-rules masterpiece. (Okay, maybe I should do that, too).
We see Linklater recreate scenes from Breathless — what a luxury. You could watch this film with no sound and it would be sublime. The soundtrack is so great, you could listen to it alone. It just sparkles from every angle.
Do I love this movie because I’m a Francophile? I wasn’t sure at first. Or, because I love film history?
I don’t think so. Breathless is doing great on Netflix, who purchased the rights for 4mm. It got an 11-minute standing ovation at Cannes—which yeah, the crowds are groupies—but ELEVEN MINUTES.
Give yourself a treat.
Why I Stopped Worrying & Learned to Love the Bomb
Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite is her love letter to Stanley Kubrick and Dr. Strangelove.
It starts out very straight-ahead thriller, and you think you’re in for a wild “Who’s Going to Save the World?” ride.
We realize, through its breathtaking editing, that we are seeing the same few hours, over and over, through a few different people’s eyes. Someone is trying to end to the world, who is it? All of the Pentagon and Congress, the entire military, are drawn into the web.
Here’s the thing: this movie turns out to be quite unusual for Bigelow. She does not deliver the Final Act you expect, especially considering the earlier “boffo” blockbusters she’s directed. She does something rather experimental and I applaud it. I liked being fucked with. —You’ll see, the critics and ratings on this are VERY divided.
I gasped when we got to Dynamite’s ending and realized she’d taken us to an unknown precipice.
Then, I shouted with delight and watched the whole thing again, from the top, knowing what I know now. I think many will be doing the same.
Hedda: “These Impulses Come Over Me”
One of my favorite actresses is Tessa Thompson. I first really noticed her in “Sorry to Bother You,” and I said, WHO IS THAT.
She is always doing something to blow your mind, and this year, she plays Hedda Gabler in a remake of Ibsen’s 19th century classic.
Ibsen would be dazzled. The name of the film is Hedda, directed by the brilliant poet, the director, Nia DaCosta.
What a little jewel. I say that, because in addition to the rippling plot, the film is suffused in color, in opulence, in decadence. Hedda’s lover is played German star Nina Hoss, and they are the lovers of the year, should there be such a trophy. Also, Best Adapted Screenplay. Astounding design and costume.
Hedda is an iconic character, a trapped and furious bride, who’s been compared in literature as the “female Hamlet.” She is on tear and as Bette Davis said, “Fasten your seatbelts.”
Interesting, eh? — films Hedda and Hamnet are the best historical dramas of the year; they would be in any year.
Playing on Prime, so you can sink your teeth in, immediately.
Honorable Mention: Rosemead
Lucy Liu deserves Best Actress for Rosemead. It’s director Eric Lin’s debut, and I know she is what got this movie developed. What a performance. And the politics could not be more timely.
There are a lot of movies this year about existential collapse, and this is one of the best.
I am so impressed with Liu. She deep-sixed her “Charlie’s Angel” and action movie past, which could not have been obvious. You can tell she in scarfing up the scorched earth.
Yes, Rosemead is based on a real story that takes place in a spot I lived as a young kid, in the San Gabriel Valley. Many Asian-Californians settled there, and in fact, there was an internment camp at the Santa Anita racetrack where my old landlords were once imprisoned. There is a very deep AAPI story in these mountains and what lies below.
Rosemead is a different kind of immigrant story, a Chinese diaspora, a mommy story. I hesitate to tell you more, but Liu gets every detail right. She cracked something open that no one wants to talk about, but is all around us.
Ready to enjoy yourself?
Next week, I’ll reveal which movie at the Oscar deserves your complete contempt. I need sustenance first. I’m so glad I started with what I love.
Whew, it’s time for cookies. Anything to stop typing and indexing films. I feel the need to pour a glass, light a pipe, and watch Season 2, Episode 1 of Law and Order. Who’s gonna stop me?
Love you, love the movies . . . Susie
In Case You Missed It
Brown Butter Apple Baby— a Fat-Washed Christmas Cocktail
I think we can all agree, after the year we’ve had, there’s only one next step we can bear to take. And it’s . . . Fat-Washing. It’s the only thing I have strength for, and I just discovered it over the weekend.
I forgot to add: No one paid me or offered me any treats to review these movies. I am not beholden. And I didn’t use AI to write or research a single word. I want to be taken out on a wild shopping spree now, though. I’m pooped.
Extra Sauce:
I didn’t review “Sentimental Value” bc the folks at NEON wouldn’t send me a digital screener. I hear it’s very good and you can see how film distributors are shooting themselves when they don’t get their assets out to reviewers. Whom does it serve?
“Marty Supreme” is coming out Xmas in theaters, then eventually on AppleTV. It’s an A24 movie, and they are ambitious for Best Actor and Best Picture nods. They sent me a screener the afternoon after our first ballots were due. I don’t vote on what I don’t see.
Again, why the contempt for critics? Why not get it out earlier? Sorry, their “piracy” worries with me and other credentialed critics is absurd. I wrote to AppleTV publicists long ago, without reply. The idea that they don’t need credibility is hubris. Marty is an ambitious movie worthy of criticism, and they aren’t doing their audience or profit margin any favors by hiding the cheese. None of the producers can afford to ignore their dwindling moviegoers
Anything else “obvious” that I didn’t include is bc I did not like it. I do not like Green Eggs with Spam.