The OTwo team share what movies they'd like to see nominated for an Oscar this year.
Wicked: For Good - Katie Byrne (Reviews Editor)
Wicked: For Good arrived in cinemas one year after its predecessor, expanding the cultural and commercial impact that made Wicked (2024), the highest-grossing musical film adaptation. Following Oscar wins for Costume Design and Production Design last year, award-worthy craftsmanship is displayed once again.
Filmed back-to-back, the two-part adaptation represents a remarkable production achievement. For fans, it comes as no surprise that the second act leans into darker, more emotionally complex territory. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande bring profound depth and maturity to Elphaba and Glinda in For Good, delivering performances full of care, presence and emotional truth. What’s more, the decision to record musical numbers live on set, enabled the film’s second installment to capture raw, spontaneous, and emotional moments that powerfully resonated on screen. The striking tonal evolution in Wicked: For Good successfully illuminates Erivo and Grande’s dedication to being fully present and connected to their characters, their world, and their craft.
As the Academy Awards approach, For Good shines as a visually compelling and emotionally resonant feature. As we continue to hold space for the lyrics of defying gravity, it’s worth knowing that there's truly no place like the Oscar’s stage for the incredible cast and crew of Wicked: For Good.
Sentimental Value - John O’Connor (News Editor)
In a year marked by an influx of promising international features during awards season, there is, true to Oscar tradition, only one non-English-language film being taken seriously: Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value. It has emerged as this year’s anointed international contender, a four-leaved clover in a crowded field. Yet the familiar question remains whether the Academy will follow form; lavishing a single international film with numerous nominations, only to stop short of awarding it any statuettes on the night. A win for International Feature (Norway) seems almost guaranteed however.
Sentimental Value has the potential to break this mould. When sisters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) reunite with their estranged, eccentric father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), an over-the-hill director, old wounds resurface, both personal and artistic. Gustav offers Nora what he frames as the role of a lifetime: to play herself, living through their family’s history and pain in a film he hopes will serve both as a long-awaited comeback and a cathartic familial reunion.
Trier’s and Eskil Vogt’s screenplay breathes life into characters hiding behind artistic processes before being liberated by its expression - words of deflection and extraction that deserve to be nominated. The main ensemble, Reinsve, Ibsdotter Lilleas, Skarsgard, and Elle Fanning are deserving of nominations also. Their performances drive home the film’s sentiment and emotional impact on screen and hopefully on to the Oscar stage as Sentimental Value collects its flowers.
Sinners - Mary O’Leary (Travel Editor)
Rarely does a movie truly reignite and reimagine a genre. Released this past spring, Sinners, written and directed by Ryan Coogler, achieves both while also authentically representing Black American communities which are hardly ever seen in blockbusters. Thus, the film’s awards success is much welcomed.
Sinners is a vampire horror, calling back to traditional vampire mythology and lore which have been largely absent from the genre over the last decade. Coogler skillfully weaves past mythos (in particular, the rule stating vampires need permission to enter a building) to explore gentrification, racism, and cultural persecution.
The history of storytelling and music are embedded in every frame, particularly in how they relate to characters and their communities. In representing music, time, and communal exchange in this way, the film speaks to a wider audience’s relationship with cultural erasure and oppression. The film is vying for the Oscar for Best Original Score which it rightfully deserves.
A masterclass in culture and its relationship to character motivations, horror mythology, and politics, Sinners has earned its place in the Best Picture and Original Screenplay races. Furthermore, the movie restores entertainment and joy to a genre which, in recent years, has focused on creating fear. It is fun and scary and heartbreaking enough to challenge your relationship with your culture’s past, present, and future.