The Online Film Critics Society awards for 2024 are in the books. Sean Baker’s entertaining stripper-meets-Russian-oligarch’s-son dramedy Anora was the big winner (Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay). Movies from our weird movie coverage universe earned a handful of nominations this year. The Substance garnered an impressive six nominations and two wins (Coralie Fargeat for Best Director and Margaret Qualley for Best Supporting Actress), I Saw the TV Glow was nominated for Best Picture, A Different Man got a nomination for Sebastian Stan and a special technical award for makeup, and Vera Drew‘s The People’s Joker was a surprise winner in the Best Feature Debut category. Shockingly, Hundreds of Beavers scored zero nominations, despite my votes and presumably votes from the dozen or so of my colleagues who universally lauded it.

As always, despite the occasional levity in my tone, I take my voting responsibility seriously. I do not put forward weird films at the expense of worthier mainstream candidates just because it’s “my thing.” Here is the list of this year’s winners, along with my choices and a touch of personal commentary. And I apologize that this year, due to personal circumstances, I missed an unusually high number of nominated movies. But I did get in all of the Best Picture nominees, with the exception of Nosferatu (which was not a serious contender for the top prize).

BEST PICTURE

Winner: Anora

Also nominated (listed ranked in final order of votes): The Substance, The Brutalist, Challengers, Nickel Boys, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Nosferatu, I Saw the TV Glow, Wicked

My vote: The Substance

Comments: Clearly a strong contender based on its second place finish and directorial win, The Substance is awards-caliber horror that does not skimp on the squick. The consensus ultimately settled on a more palatable choice with Anora (my personal fifth place pick).

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Winner: Flow

Also nominated (in alphabetical order): Inside Out 2, Memoir of a Snail, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, The Wild Robot

My vote: Inside Out 2

Comments: Confession: I did not see Flow, Memoir of a Snail, or the new Wallace & Gromit, so my vote here doesn’t count for much. Between Inside Out and Wild Robot (which both made my top 20 movies of the year), I picked the more secular-minded choice. Admittedly, Flow, a dialogue-free animation about animals surviving a great flood, seems like it would be up my alley.

BEST DIRECTOR

Winner: Coralie Fargeat, The Substance

Also nominated (alphabetical order): Sean Baker, Anora;
Brady Corbet, The Brutalist, RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys, Denis Villeneuve, Dune: Part Two

My vote: RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys

Comments: Nickel Boys was my last watch of awards season: I literally screened it hours before submitting my ballot, so it may have benefited from recency bias. The film is an experimental and complicated story about two young black men who are sent to a corrupt, segregated correctional facility in Florida in the late 1960s. It’s told in shifting first-person perspectives and features experimental film interludes, mild surrealism, and disorienting flash-forwards. Although I think it falls short of being a masterpiece, it is an incredibly ambitious film that succeeds at what it tries to do, and I though Ross deserved recognition for navigating such an intricately constructed project. Of course, with The Substance being my favorite movie of the year, I have no issue with Fargeat winning, and appreciate that Anora (good as it was) didn’t sweep the Best Picture-Best Director quinella.

BEST ACTOR

Winner: Ralph Fiennes, Conclave

Also nominated: Adrian Brody, The Brutalist; Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown; Colman Domingo, Sing Sing; Sebastian Stan, A Different Man

My vote:  Glenn Powell, Hit Man (not nominated); Sebastian Stan, A Different Man (of the nominees)

Comments: Hit Man may have suffered from being released in May, way outside the awards corridor (and punished for Netflix quickly dumping onto streaming after a token awards-qualifying release). In the summer there was tremendous buzz around Powell’s performance as an undercover hit man, but by the time nominations rolled around he had been forgotten. Still, his role as a mild-mannered professor who begins working for the local police and ends up portraying multiple killers for hire, while engaging in an ill-advised romance with one of his investigatory targets, was a tour de force and the best male lead performance I saw this year by a wide margin. Next up was Stan’s dual performance as a disfigured man and his reinvented post-surgical performance as a now-handsome (but completely unskilled) would-be theater actor. Fiennes was, naturally, excellent as the conflicted but decent cardinal in Conclave desperately trying to ensure a fair papal election while beset by surprises and scandals. Full disclosure: I did not see A Complete Unknown or Sing Sing.

BEST ACTRESS

Winner: Mikey Madison, Anora

Also nominated: Cynthia Erivo, Wicked; Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths; Demi Moore, The Substance; Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here

My vote: Demi Moore, The Substance

Comments: Don’t get me wrong, Mikey Madison was great, another in a long line of Sean Baker’s prickly but sympathetic sex workers. But I thought this race was Moore’s to lose. Her pre-date scene applying makeup before the mirror is already a classic movie moment (and maybe the sequence that won “serious” critics to The Substance‘s side), and struck a chord with many a female film critic. Best Actress would also be a much safer vote for horror-shy critics than Best Picture would. And it’s the best career performance by far from Moore, who leans into type as an aging actress struggling with the pressures of her own declining hotness in superficial Hollywood. OFCS Best Actress was not to be, but I still have hope that the Academy will see things differently. Full disclosure: I did not see Hard Truths or I’m Still Here.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Winner: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

Also nominated: Yura Borisov, Anora; Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing; Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown; Guy Pearce, The Brutalist

My vote: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

Comments: Culkin all the way. The final shot of his face as he transitions from attention-grabbing oddball into post-vacation depression seals it. The only objection is that he probably should have been considered as Best Actor rather than Best Supporting Actor (A Real Pain is about Benji, not David, as the title tells us). Supporting Actor is an unfair fight this season.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Winner: Margaret Qualley, The Substance

Also nominated: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Nickel Boys; Ariana Grande-Butera, Wicked; Isabella Rossellini, Conclave; Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez

My vote: Katy O’Brian, Love Lies Bleeding (not nominated); Ariana Grande-Butera, Wicked

Comments: I’ve been pushing Qualley as an up-and-coming star for a while, and it’s hard to object to another win for The Substance.  But it is strange that she should win in her (admittedly less competitive) category while her superior co-star Moore is passed over. (And note: the Oscars won’t even consider Qualley). Bodybuilder O’Brian was always a long-shot, but she was the heart and soul (and biceps) of Love Lies Bleeding. Ariana Grande was a real comic surprise, and the only bright spot in the overblown Wicked. Full disclosure: I did not see Emilia Pérez.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Winner: Anora

Also nominated: The Brutalist; Challengers; A Real Pain; The Substance

My vote: I Saw the TV Glow (not nominated); The Substance

Comments: Anora, which deftly shifts from sleazy romance to wacky comedy to empathetic epilogue, would have been my second choice. My official pick, The Substance, did win Best Screenplay at Cannes, so it has some juice. But the multi-layered I Saw the TV Glow has continued to haunt me since I first saw it way back in the Spring, and has grown in my estimation over the months; that’s a testament to the enduring strength of Jane Schoenbrun‘s vision of modern loneliness and media-fed alienation. It’s utterly original and truly great.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Winner: Conclave

Also nominated:  Dune: Part Two; Nickel Boys; Nosferatu; Sing Sing

My vote: Nickel Boys

Comments: Adapted Screenplay is always a difficult category to judge, because the voter really should be familiar with the original work to be able to judge the quality of the adaptation; and, to be honest, that’s rarely the case. The fallback position is to judge the quality of the screenplay on its own merits. See my discussion in Best Director for my notes about recency bias with Nickel Boys, but I thought the script here, with its complicated timeline and numerous digressions, represented a huge challenge successfully met (I wonder how challenging a read the Pultzer Prize-winning source novel was)? Although it seems like a relatively easy task to adapt the straightforward linear narrative of Conclave for the screen, it’s a strong script and, I suppose, a perfectly fine choice.

BEST EDITING

Winner: Challengers

Also nominated: Anora; Dune: Part Two; Nickel Boys; The Substance

My vote: Challengers

Comments: The tennis matches in Challengers were unforgettable, very nearly doing for tennis what Raging Bull did for boxing. In my mind, this was not a very competitive category this year—although, shockingly, this film did not earn a single Oscar nomination.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Winner: Dune: Part Two

Also nominated: The Brutalist, Conclave, Nickel Boys, Nosferatu

My vote: Dune: Part Two

Comments: Dune was solid desert landscaping throughout, and I loved the blinding black and white of the Harkonnen planet. Reminder: I did not see Nosferatu.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

Winner: Challengers

Also nominated: The Brutalist, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, The Wild Robot

My vote: Dahomey (not nominated); The Brutalist (of the nominees)

Comments: Dahomey was a wonderfully artistic documentary about the recent return of cultural artifacts (mostly statuary) to Benin. It is, however, a bit of a slog for ordinary viewers. But the one thing I found unquestionably praiseworthy was its majestic, African-inflected score from Wally Badarou and Dean Blunt. Of the nominees, The Brutalist‘s period-influenced dissonant avant-garde classical score seemed to best reflect that movie’s setting and downbeat mood. I saw winner Challengers way back in May and the music made zero impression on me (despite being composed by the top-notch team of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross). I could not even tell you what style it was in without Googling it, so that’s an automatic “no” from me.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN 

Winner: Dune: Part 2

Also nominated: The Brutalist, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Nosferatu, Wicked

My vote:  The Substance (not nominated); Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (of the nominees)

Comments: It was a bit of a surprise to me that The Substance‘s Kubrick-by-way-of-Troma‘s design scheme did not earn a nomination when the movie did so well in every other category. Production design can be a very crowded field, however, allowing competition from sci-fi and fantasy movies that otherwise would not get awards’ sniffs. Dune is an obvious and uncontroversial choice, but I did think George Miller‘s underrated Furiosa deserved recognition somewhere.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Winner: Dune: Part Two

Also nominated: Conclave, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Nosferatu, Wicked

My vote: Dune: Part  Two

Comments: Almost the same lineup as Production Design, and I could have put Furiosa here as well. I prefer Dune by a thread.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Winner: Dune: Part Two

Also nominated: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, The Substance, Wicked

My vote: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Comments: Dune‘s sandworms were great. But Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes uses CGI and motion-capture technology better than any film I’ve ever seen; the expressions on the apes faces look absolutely real, and the action sequences are just as good.

BEST DEBUT FEATURE

Winner: Vera Drew, The People’s Joker

Also nominated: Annie Baker, Janet Planet, India Donaldson, Good One, Anna Kendrick, Woman of the Hour, Josh Margolin, Thelma

My vote: Tomás Gómez Bustillo, Chronicles of a Wandering Saint (not nominated); Josh Margolin, Thelma (of nominees)

Comments: Not really a surprise that a low-budgeted Argentinian magical realist film didn’t gather enough votes to earn a nomination. But it’s a big upset, in my mind, that the microbudgeted The People’s Joker beat out the crowd-pleaser Thelma, with June Squibb and Richard Roundtree in a heartwarming comic tale of nonagenarians getting revenge on scammers. Drew’s got a great success story, though, and it’s hard to begrudge her recognition here. Full disclosure: I have not seen Good One or Woman of the Hour.

BEST FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Winner: All We Imagine as Light

Also nominated: Emilia Pérez, Flow, I’m Still Here, The Seed of the Sacred Fig

My vote: Mars Express (not nominated); All We Imagine as Light (of the nominees)

Comments: The Indian drama All We Imagine as Light got my official vote solely because it was the only film on the list I’d seen, although I have to imagine I would have preferred any of the others. The French hard si-fi animation Mars Express was my favorite foreign-language film of the season, though it had no reasonable shot at a win (or even a nomination, it turns out). My second runner-up would have been Quentin Dupieux‘s Daaaaalí! (which did have an outside shot at a nomination). My third runner-up would have been Santosh, and my fourth runner-up Animalia. It happens like that sometimes; the universe of potential foreign language films and documentaries are so large that it can be a challenge to guess what will actually get nominated—and then you have to try to catch up on them (along with the others you’ve yet to see) in the week-long interval between nomination announcements and the voting deadline.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Winner: Dahomey

Also nominated:  Daughters, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Sugarcane, Will & Harper

My vote: Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

Comments: As I mentioned in the soundtrack entry, Dahomey is an artistic and important film, but very dry, and not something I’d recommend to a casual viewer. I found Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, however, continually captivating despite its 2.5 hour length. It’s an unmediated montage-style documentary full of cool jazz licks and Cold War paranoia, exploring the 1961 coup in the Congo against a backdrop of jazz musicians being used by the US State Department as ambassadors to Africa—and sometimes as unknowing distractions from covert activities. Full disclosure: I did not see Daughters, Sugarcane, or Will & Harper (which sounds like it should be a buddy cop movie from 1985 starring Michael Keaton and Chuck Norris.)