The 1st Academy Awards 

The 1st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and hosted by AMPAS president Douglas Fairbanks, honored the best films from  August 1, 1927 to  July 31, 1928 and took place on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Tickets cost $5 ($85 in 2022, considering inflation); 270 people attended the event, which lasted 15 minutes. It is the only Academy Awards ceremony not broadcast on either radio or television; a radio broadcast was introduced for the 2nd Academy Awards.

96th Academy Awards  2023

American Fiction  

A novelist who’s fed up with the establishment profiting from Black entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him into the heart of the hypocrisy and madness he claims to disdain.– IMDB

Nominated for 5 Oscars including Best Picture with 56 wins & 166 nominations total.

Worldwide Box Office  # 116 $22,107,944

Mark: I would like to see this at some point, but I’m not gonna pay $20 bucks to do so. I’m a culinary aide and a blogger with a limited audience who sometimes comments on what I write. But here is a review from someone who did see it. Now I’ve been wanting my best man from my wedding to write something for the us for quite some time. And here he is making his writing debut at the Catholic Bard.

Kristin: The Trailer of the film makes me think that the movie will be somewhat silly while also shining a light on how black people are often mistreated and stereotyped even today. I noticed that there was a lot of swearing just in the trailer. I am not a fan of frequent unnecessary swearing in movies. Nonetheless I would like to watch this movie.

Marshall:  Is it better to have substance in your work, or to cater to the whims of culture? In American Fiction, the lead character, a writer, Thelonious Ellison, or “Monk,” is played by the talented actor, Jeffrey Wright. He played a memorable antagonist in the film, Source Code (2011), a film of fond memory opposite Jake Gyllenhaal. In American Fiction, Wright/Monk, is faced with several problems that propel the story along including a suspension of his teaching gig at a university and his mother’s failing health due to Alzheimer’s disease, in addition to several more hurdles. As a writer he writes  books of substance though lacking in popularity. In a lark, he writes a book with no substance though not lacking in popularity, which changes his career and his life. I was able to personally identify with his character with events in my own life. He is also nominated for Best Actor, which he may win! Give this wonderful film a look!

American Fiction is based on Erasure (2001) by  Percival Everett.

Starring Jeffrey Wright (Best Actor Nominee)

In M. Night Shyamalan‘s Lady in the Water (2006)  he starred opposite the Best Pic Nominee The Holdovers’  Best Actor Nominee Paul Giamatti. 

Jeffrey Wright has also starred in The Hunger Games Franchise as a character named Beetee

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) 
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014)  
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (2015)  

The Original The Hunger Games (2012) is based on the dystopian young adult novel (2008) by Suzanne Collins.

2023 saw the film adaptation of the prequel novel  The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes with no Oscar nominations. 

Mr. Wright can also be seen as Jim Gordon in The Batman (2022) 

He can also be seen in 2023’s

Asteroid City directed by Wes Anderson whose film The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is up for Best Live Action Short Film

Rustin (2023) which has an Best Actor Nomination for Colman Domingo as Bayard Rustin

Atrabilious (2023) The film has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on five reviews.

Anatomy of a Fall  

A woman is suspected of murder after her husband’s death; their half-blind son faces a moral dilemma as the main witness.- IMDB

Nominated for 5 Oscars including Best Picture with 90 wins & 189 nominations total.

Worldwide Box Office  # 97 $32,288,322

Mark: I was falling asleep during this film. I found it sort of boring and dull. It didn’t compel me emotionally or intellectually to follow along closely enough to be interested in the murder mystery. I wonder if that is just the way of French culture and or cinema. The most compelling character was the prosecutor who got aggressive with accused murderer in court and accusing her of being bi-sexual and seeking out affairs with other women and thinking that her pattern of writing personal conflicts into her stories is parallel to how murdering her husband mirrors a minor character’s thoughts from her most recent novel. Crazy guy and more vocal and annoying than anyone else in the film. Someone I talked to at work said it was a movie made for movie critics and not the general public. She may be right. Here is another opinion of AOAF.

Marshall: We see the conclusion, but do we see the cause? In the film, Anatomy of a Fall, there are few characters who could have committed the potential act of murder which is the center of the film. I was personally drawn into this mystery which at times seemed like a French version of “Law and Order,”. The cast, especially the German actress nominated for an Oscar, Sandra Huller, who plays a character named Sandra, gave a wonderful performance as a writer with a compelling twist to her personality. One of her lines, as seen in the trailer, “I am not a monster,” said to her son, Daniel, played by Milo Machado-Graner, portrays a woman who consistently states her innocence. But what is the truth? Director and the film’s co-writer, Justine Triet, will let the audience draw their own conclusions on this mystery. The film is co-written by Arthur Harari. It is worth a watch.

Starring Sandra Hüller  (Best Actress Nominee)

Sandra has also starred in the 2023 Best Picture Nominee The Zone of Interest

And  Sisi & I (2023) 

Barbie  

Barbie and Ken are having the time of their lives in the colorful and seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land. However, when they get a chance to go to the real world, they soon discover the joys and perils of living among humans.– IMDB

Nominated for 8 Oscars including Best Picture with 168 wins & 425 nominations total.

Worldwide Box Office  # 1 $1,445,638,421

Mark: Barbie occupies a special place in cinematic history. A film based on a toy that was nominated for several oscars and was also the #1 grossing movie of the year. Don’t think that has happened before or is likely to again. Perhaps the Hot Wheels movie if ever made will prove me wrong.

I saw Barbie in a packed theater that laughed at certain times. The film starts out with a parody of the opening scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey. From there it takes its fantasy world of Barbieland on a metaphysical and literal journey into the real world after Stereotypical Barbie starts thinking about death. The film is self aware of the fictional universe it is apart of , even making reference to the choice of  Margot Robbie playing Barbie in the movie by the narrator. It’s like the Toys in Toy Story got a chance to interact with people in the real world and just stayed there. Barbie did appear in Toy Story 2 in a key comedic role.

There is so much in the film to unpack and dissect. It pokes fun at the male/female stereotypes and the war between the sexes. It has philosophical ponderings, relationship issues, Barbie history, great music and musical dance numbers, spoof, parody and of course references to pop culture. In one of the best gags in the film is a scene in which one of the Kens jumps at the chance to explains to a Barbie the complexities of the Godfather movie is comedy gold. Read Every Reference in Barbie, From The Matrix to The Godfather | Time for more interesting tidbits.

Read More @ Should I Watch Barbieheimer Or Not?

Here’s another thought.

Starring Margot Robbie as Barbi & Ryan Gosling as Ken.

Margot Robbie can also be seen in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City.

Ryan Gosling can also be seen in Remember the Titans (2000) and The 89th Academy Award best pic nominee La La Land with Poor Things best Actress Nominee Emma Stone.

January 1945: Mattel, Inc. is founded by husband-and-wife duo of Ruth and Elliot Handler. 1945’s The Lost Weekend won best pic at the (18th) Academy Awards while the sequel to the (17th) Best Pic ‘Going My Way’, ‘The Bells of St. Mary’, was nominated for best pic of 1945.

Ruth created Barbie on March 9, 1959. The 3rd remake of Ben-Hur won the best pic for the (32nd) Academy awards with these other films nominated. Anatomy of a Murder, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Nun’s Story, and Room at the Top,

 The Holdovers  

A cranky history teacher at a prep school is forced to remain on campus over the holidays with a grieving cook and a troubled student who has no place to go.– IMDB

Nominated for 5 Oscars including Best Picture with 120 wins & 204 nominations total.

Worldwide Box Office  # 80 $42,414,487

Mark: Out of all the Best Picture Nominees this one is the most entertaining straightforward normal film with a decent runtime. I think Barbie is still the overall better film I would want to watch again. The Holdovers looks like it was made in the 1970’s which is the decade that it takes place in. It is a character study of 3 broken people and their interactions with the reality they are living in. If you can get by all profanity and fowl language  mixed with the alcohol and drug intake of the characters, plus their over hormonal thoughts on sexuality and one sacrilegious action with some negative opinions of religious topics you will enjoy this look and glimpse into the minds of these off the wall everyday characters brought to life in this cinematic love letter to an earlier decade. The movie also has heart and someone who makes a sacrifice that changes a another person’s life for the better. Overall it is worth a watch despite some of the moral flaws of the folks we see on screen.

Learn More…

Starring Paul Giamatti

Paul Giamatti can also be seen in

One of my all time favorite films The Truman Show (1998) 

1998’s Best Picture Nominee Saving Private Ryan directed by Steven Spielberg. 

A bit part in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) as the Rhino.

The remake off Planet of the Apes (2001)

The movie takes place in Christmas/New Years 1970/1971. Patton won the (43rd) Best Pic Oscar that year. 

I was born in 1971 the year The French Connection won the (44th) Best Pic Oscar while Fiddler on the Roof was nominated for Best Pic.

Killers of the Flower Moon  

When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under( Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one – until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery. – IMDB

Nominated for 10 Oscars including Best Picture with 114 wins & 393 nominations total.

Worldwide Box Office  # 37 $156,947,982

Mark: I started watching this with Kristin. I thought it was interesting and well done. Kristin thought it was rather dull and didn’t want to continue on with it. Seeing it is 3 1/2 hours long I decided to spend my limited time on earth watching something not quite so long. I’m open to watching the rest of it however, because it is a compelling story. But perhaps reading the book or watching a documentary would be just as interesting. Something like this.

Martin’s last Oscar nominated movie The Irishman (2019) was also good but very long which sucks the interesting air out of the experience of watching it. Why do these movies have to be so darn long?

Here’s Another Perspective

Based on the Non-Fiction book Killer’s of the Flower Moon The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (2017) by David Grann.

David Grann has written several books (I would like to read at some point) that have been made into movies.

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon (Book 2009)  (Film 2016)

Dark Crimes (Film 2016) starring Jim Carrey (The Truman Show).  This film was based on a 2008 article in The New Yorker titled “True Crime: A Postmodern Murder Mystery” found in the book The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession (2010)

The White Darkness. (Book 2018) Apple TV+ announced in April 2022 that this book would be developed into a new limited series starring Tom Hiddleston (Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)).

The Old Man & the Gun (Film 2018)  based on article “The Old Man and the Gun: Forrest Tucker had a long career robbing banks, and he wasn’t willing to retire” found in the book The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession (2010).

Trial by Fire (2018), film directed by Edward Zwick, based on article “Trial by Fire: Did Texas execute an innocent man? found in the book The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession (2010).

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder. (Book 2023)  In July 2022, Scorsese and DiCaprio also acquired the rights to Grann’s 2023 non-fiction book, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder.

Killers of the Flower Moon the movie

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, who was in 70th Academy Award winning film Titanic (1997) and Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award nominated Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Robert De Niro who was in the Academy Award Best Picture Nominees The Mission and Joker.

Lily Gladstone who was in Walking Out (2017) and the award winning First Cow (2019).

Directed by Martin Scorsese who directed the Steven Spielberg produced TV Series Amazing Stories Season 1 episode “Mirror, Mirror” and  the (84th) Academy Award Best Picture Nominee Hugo.

Maestro

This love story chronicles the lifelong relationship of conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein and actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.– IMDB

Nominated for 7 Oscars including Best Picture with 21 wins & 178 nominations total.

Worldwide Box Office  No Information

Mark: It’s amazing how many Oscar Nominated films come from Netflix in this Academy Awards cycle.  Before Netflix changed their password policy, Kristin and I used her parents account to watch movies and TV shows. Once in awhile we can log on and it it will let us watch stuff. It let us stay on long enough to watch Maestro.

About half way through the film I paused it to go to the bathroom and saw we had an hour left and thought, ‘It’s already been an hour?” Kristin remarked ‘What more can happen’, as they were already older at that point in the film. The thing that stood out during the first part of the film was how many cigarettes Bernstein and other characters smoked. I mean there was hardly a scene where he was not puffing away. I think the other memorable moments were where he gave pithy wisdom during interviews.  Those would be worth remembering.

The most important aspect of the film shown was his relationship with his wife which was mostly consistently good throughout their marriage despite his flirtation with other men. Regardless of the touching scenes with his beloved spouse I won’t remember much about this film a year from now. I would rather watch movies that had content written by Lenny then watch a movie about him. It had good acting, cinematography and interesting edits and an interesting style starting in the past in black and white and then moving to color. But that is not enough to have it stand out long after seeing it. In the end I was indifferent to the film. It also had songs by R.E.M and Tears for fears and this one I wasn’t familiar with.

If I ever sign my for Netflix again I will probably watch Maestro and all the other films up for the Golden Statue. It’s interesting that last year Tár another movie about a world-renowned but yet fictitious conductor was also nominated for Best Picture. Bradley’s last directed Best Picture nominated film A Star Is Born (2018), which is the 4th remake of the film (1937, 1954, 1976) , was also about music.

Here’s More Information about the movie vs. real life.

Starring, Directed and Produced by  Bradley Cooper.

It was also produced by Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg.

Bradley Cooper is the voice of Rocket Racoon in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise in the MCU universe. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has been nominated for Best Visual Effects  and also had 10 wins & 77 nominations total.

Worldwide Box Office  # 4 $845,555,777

My quick overall review of it. Overall, despite a few moral problems I had with the film it was another fun filled but violent sci-fi action comic book movie with a lot of heart. It’s a film you will like if you like those types of movies and also if your a fan of the previous films and the MCU.

Bradley Cooper is apparently Catholic.

“I grew up Roman Catholic. I was baptized,” Bradley said. He went on to explain, “I always loved the pageantry of it. A lot of it had to do with loving my father and looking at him wear his tweed blazer to Mass. I loved the way he prayed, so I would pray like he would. Not for any other reason than I wanted to be like my father — I wanted to be like Charlie Cooper. But in so doing, through the ritual of it, I started to have faith in God. Am I a spiritual person today? Yes. I don’t know how I could not be. It’s like saying, ‘Do you breathe?’”-Bradley Cooper On Faith And Being Raised In The Church | Godupdates

Leonard Bernstein  (August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) wrote the music for the  Broadway musical West Side Story which was turned into the (34th) Academy Award Winning Best Picture and the (94th) Academy Award Nominated Best Picture directed by Steven Spielberg. 

Oppenheimer

The story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb. – IMDB  J. Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was the director of the Manhattan Project‘s Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II and is often called the “father of the atomic bomb“.

Nominated for 13 Oscars including Best Picture with 310 wins & 375 nominations total.

WINNER– BEST PICTURE

Worldwide Box Office  # 3 $957,707,605

Mark: One of my favorite movies of all time is one of Christopher Nolan’s first films. Memento. It is a fascinating puzzle piece of a film that brings unique editing techniques to create a cinematic experience with a compelling story that messes with your head. Chris brings that same style to Oppenheimer which tells the history of  a man who changed our world by creating a weapon that could possibly destroy it. The acting is top notch. All the other film categories are top notch as well including the subject matter. What made the movie less enjoyable was  the narrative of the film was too confusing and the main characters talked most of the 3 hour run time. Just like Flower Moon it was way too darn long.  But thanks to Oppenheimer coupling up with Barbie in a once in a lifetime unplanned promotion of their two films, it was propelled not only to critical acclaim but to box office success. I didn’t hate Oppenheimer but I didn’t love it either. I wouldn’t vote for it for best picture, but I wouldn’t be disappointed if it won.

And if you want to dive deeper into the message of Oppenheimer…

Based on the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005) by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

Starring Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer and written, directed, and co-produced by Christopher Nolan.

Cillian Murphy stars as   Dr. Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy.

Christopher Nolan also directed the mind boggling Memento  (2000)

Past Lives

Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrested apart after Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. Twenty years later, they are reunited for one fateful week as they confront notions of love and destiny.– IMDB

Nominated for 2 Oscars including Best Picture with 76 wins & 217 nominations total.

Worldwide Box Office  # 104 $28,937,081

Mark: I have watched 2 out of the best foreign films nominated for best pic and was board and or sleepy during both of them. Maybe this one is great. Japanese films tend to be rather good. But most of those films I like are anime and maybe involve Martial Arts. But maybe those are Chinese films I’m thinking of for the last category. I’m open to seeing it.

Here’s a deeper review of it.

Starring Greta Lee

Her voice was heard in the 91st Academy Award Best Animated Picture Winner Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and the 96st Academy Award Best Animated Picture Nominee Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023).

Poor Things

The incredible tale about the fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter, a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter.– IMDB

Nominated for 11 Oscars including Best Picture with  94 wins & 407 nominations total.

Worldwide Box Office  # 49 $104,898,653

Mark: Marshall says the film is semi-pornographic. So I think that is a hard pass on watching this film as creative and good looking of a film that it is.

Here is a review so you don’t have to see it.

POOR THINGS | Film Threat Reviews (youtube.com)

Based on the book  based on  Poor Things (1992) by Alasdair Gray

Starring Emma Stone  who was as Gwen Stacy in  The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).

Mark Ruffalo who is Bruce Banner / Hulk since 2012 in the superhero franchise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Willem Dafoe who was Norman Osborn / Green Goblin in Spider-Man (2002) and  Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) and Vulko in Aquaman (2018).

He was also in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City (2023)

The Zone of Interest

Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden beside the camp.- IMDB

Nominated for 5 Oscars including Best Picture with 51 wins & 158 nominations total.

Worldwide Box Office  # 113 $23,838,249

Mark: When Kristin and I saw this film in the theater the projection on the screen was lacking brightness and was slightly blurry so you couldn’t read the subtitles very clearly. I told the girl at the concession stand and she said she would let someone know about it. The film stayed dark. This caused my enjoyment of the film to darken as well. It was a slow and quiet movie throughout the run time and the lack of light mixed with the foreign dialogue made my sleep deprived self more drowsy. Kristin actually fell asleep.

Because the subject matter is so important I’m willing to give it another try when it becomes affordable on streaming. Or I could just watch the comparatible film ” The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” which is overall more compelling, better paced and engaging to watch. The ending of Zone was awe inspiring and completely unexpected. I appreciated the film’s message and enjoyed the video I posted about it more than the actual movie itself.

Marshall: This film directed by Jonathan Glazer takes place during the Second World War at the Auschwitz concentration camp. The camp is primarily the haunting background while the life of Rudolph Hoss, played by Christian Friedel, his wife Hedwig, played by Sandra Huller, and his family are the foreground in this interesting look at a man, living two lives. One life as the commander of a notorious death mill, and one life as the family man, rowing his children in a nearby stream. The film has some unique fades to solid colors such as gray, black and red which are added to the jarring tone.

After watching the film, I did some research on the real-life character of Rodolph Hoss, who was raised Catholic just like the Nazi SS propagandist Paul Joseph Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler. Rudolph Hoss actually returned to his Catholic roots and made a potential 180 from his horrific role he played in the Second World War.  He made a confession and received abolition by Fr. Wladysaw Lohn, SJ, who is associated with the Divine Mercy movement which is linked to Saint Faustina and Saint Pope John Paul II. You can learn more at Divine Mercy and the Commandant of Auschwitz | The Divine Mercy He was executed after the war for his crimes which the film did not show.

I include this tidbit of information about his conversion not because  I wish to diminish the death of the multitude of brutality he inflicted on others including  the many murders of Jewish men, women, and children, as well as others such as Saints like Maximilian Kolbe and St. Edith Stein. I am just highlighting the Mercy of God for those lost in the camps as well as a sinner such as Hoss to seek God’s mercy.

It was a unique film, but perhaps not as compelling as other films of the same subject matter.

Learn More…

The Zone of Interest is loosely based on The Zone of Interest (2014) by Martin Amis.

Starring Christian Friedel as Rudolf Höss who was a German SS officer who from May 1940 until November 1943 was the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp and Sandra Hüller who played his wife.

In 13 Minutes Christian portrays  Georg Elser. Georg tried and  failed to assassinate Adolf Hitler in November 1939. The title of the film is drawn from the fact that Elser’s bomb detonated in a venue that Hitler had left just 13 minutes before.

Sandra Hüller plays a woman named Sandra in the 2023 Best Picture Nominee Anatomy of a Fall.

A similar film to Zone of Interest is The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas  (2008) based in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2006) by  John Boyne. 

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (released as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas in North America) is a 2008 historical drama film written and directed by Mark Herman.

Through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a German concentration camp, a forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences. – IMDB

For Awards it had 7 wins & 7 nominations.

Other Movies of Similar Subject Matter Include…

Schindler’s List (1993) is directed and produced by Steven Spielberg.  It was nominated for twelve awards at the 66th Academy Awards, and won seven, including Best Picture, Best Director (for Spielberg), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score.

Life Is Beautiful (1997) won three Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actor for Roberto Benigni, the first for a male non-English performance.

Other Nominated Films I Saw

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3– See Maestro

The 96st Academy Award Best Animated Picture Nominee Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse  is another visually exciting extravaganza of multi-verse superhero colorful animated fun. I wrote more about it here.

Nominated for 1 Oscar and 93 wins & 159 nominations total.

Spider Verse Worldwide Box Office  # 6 $690,615,475

Mario, Dinos, and The Flash Across The Spider-Verse  

Also includes review of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, 65,  and  The Flash

Pixar’s Elemental is the other Animated Best Picture nominated film I saw.

Nominated for 1 Oscar with 1 win & 64 nominations total.

Elemental Worldwide Box Office  # 9 $496,444,308

And Indy 5 has John Williams once again up for an Oscar for his musical genius. Perhaps one day he’ll get the Bernstein treatment and have a movie made about his life.

Nominated for 1 Oscar with 6 wins & 32 nominations total.

44th Golden Raspberry Awards  Nominee

Worst Screenplay

Worst Remake, Rip-off or Sequel

Dial of Destiny Worldwide Box Office  # 16 $383,963,057

Indiana Jones and the Elementals of Pixar  

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One  has been nominated for Best Sound and Best Visual Effects.

Nominated for 2 Oscars with 12 wins & 58 nominations total.

Worldwide Box Office  # 9 $567,535,383

Summer Blockbuster: Mission Impossible?  

I hope to see some of the other nominated films which include the plethora of movies that can be found on Netflix. Full List of Netflix Oscar Nominations in 2024 – What’s on Netflix (whats-on-netflix.com)

Society of the Snow (Spain), The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, May December , Nyad, Rustin, The After, Nimona, and El Conde.

And these non-Netflix nominated films.

Napoleon, The Creator,  Golda, Flamin’ Hot,
The Color Purple, Godzilla Minus One, The Boy and the Heron  and Robot Dreams  

I probably won’t see all the other unique and sometimes hard to find films in these categories.

• Best International Feature Film
• Best Documentary Feature Film
• Best Documentary Short Film
• Best Live Action Short Film
• Best Animated Short Film

Other Top 10 International 2023 Worldwide Box Office
Non-Oscar Nominated Films

# 2 The Super Mario Bros. Movie – $1,361,972,248 
Awards 1 win & 42 nominations
including Golden Globe Noms
Review Link Above

# 5 Fast X – $704,875,015
Awards 2 wins & 12 nominations
44th Golden Raspberry Awards  Nominee Worst Actor
Vin Diesel – Fast X as Dominic Toretto

# 7 Wonka – $625,225,701
Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award 1 win & 31 nominations total
including a Golden Globe Nom
A fun magical film worth watching.

# 8 – The Little Mermaid – $569,626,289
Awards 2 wins & 25 nominations

You’ve Seen What is considered the Best and Most Profitable of the year.

Click on to see the Worst.

44th Golden Raspberry Awards  

The 1st Golden Raspberry Awards were held on March 31, 1981, at founder John J. B. Wilson‘s living room alcove to recognize the worst the film industry had to offer in 1980. For it was a double feature of Can’t Stop the Music, winner of Worst Picture, and Xanadu that inspired Wilson to start the Razzies.

At the (53rd) Academy Awards that year Ordinary People won best Picture.

This Year Here for 2023 in 2024 is what is up for…

Worst Picture

• The Exorcist: Believer
• Expend4bles
• Meg 2: The Trench
• Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey

Shazam! Fury of the Gods

I really liked this film and don’t think it belongs on a Worst of List. Here is my take. Teenage Magical Mutant Heroes   Also includes review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 

  What 2024 movies will be nominated next year?

Maybe

Or Even