When it comes to the Oscars, history tends to remember the Best Picture winner but little else. And that’s a shame, because some very good movies get overlooked. So let’s not forget that “Lion” went into the ceremonies this year with six nominations. While it didn’t take home any trophies, the film was well-received by critics, and audiences, too, who made the drama an arthouse hit. And today, we want to give some Blu-ray copies of the movie to some lucky readers.

Continue reading Contest: Win Oscar Nominated ‘Lion’ On Blu-ray at The Playlist.

Yes, the entire world knows “Moonlight” was the huge upset shocker of last night’s 89th Annual Academy Awards ceremony. Though there’s obviously a huge argument to be made that the biggest surprise of the night was the painful mix up itself. Still, as we continue our comprehensive post-mortem on the Oscars, we analyze the winners and losers, what films were snubbed and what surprises the evening had in store.

Continue reading Oscars 2017: The Biggest Snubs & Surprises, Minus ‘Moonlight’ Of Course at The Playlist.

It’s Oscar week, and all week long we’ll be running features to amp you up before Sunday’s ceremony brings awards season to a close and we learn whether “La La Land” sweeps or if “Moonlight” can be a spoiler to the party. And having ranked all the Best Picture winners a few years back, we thought, how else to kick off Oscar week but to rank all the Best Picture nominees?

Continue reading Ranking Every Best Picture Oscar Nominee Of The 21st Century at The Playlist.

Hollywood’s annual celebration of themselves arrives on Sunday with the Oscars, which will undoubtedly be a star-studded, glitzy, evening of hardware being handed out, braced by an array of political speeches. You might want to get the laughs in now, and luckily Screen Junkies takes an amusing overview of the Best Picture field in their latest Honest Trailers.

READ MORE: How The Oscars Fail Movies

From suggesting that Mel Gibson will inevitably torpedo his return to the spotlight to calling out “Arrival” for that scene with the Chinese general, this is a light-hearted look at the contenders.

Continue reading Honest Trailers Takes On The 2017 Best Picture Oscar Nominees at The Playlist.

We’re less than a week away from the big show. On February 26, first-time host Jimmy Kimmel will lead us into another night of surprises, upsets, disappointment, elation, fancy suits, lovely dresses, golden statues, cheers and jeers. We can practically smell the microwave cooked popcorn and homemade chili dip as we speak. The Oscars are nothing without ferocious opinions, hard-wrought cynicism and reformed faith in the (supposedly) “dying” art of cinema.

Continue reading Where To Watch All The 2017 Oscar Nominees at The Playlist.

We are entering the late fall of the awards season, with only a handful of major precursor awards left to unveil their winners before the Oscars in two weeks time. Tonight brings one of the biggest, in the shape of the British Academy Of Film And Television Arts Awards, or the 2017 EE BAFTA Awards. With a large British contingent, and the date having been moved up so it comes before the Oscars, the British Academy have become more and more important to awards season in recent years, with six of the last eight Best Film winners going on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards (though it split in the last two years, interestingly).

Continue reading ‘La La Land’ Wins 5 BAFTA Awards Including Best Film, ‘Moonlight’ Snubbed at The Playlist.

Over the weekend, the Directors Guild of America invited the five feature film nominees to a theater to discuss their nominated work. DGA winner Damien Chazelle (“La La Land“), Denis Villeneuve (“Arrival“), Garth Davis (“Lion“), Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight“), and Kenneth Lonergan (“Manchester By The Sea“) all sat with moderator Jeremy Kagan to talk about the process of making their respective films.

Continue reading Massive 2 Hour 40 Minute Talk With DGA Nominees Damien Chazelle, Denis Villeneuve, Garth Davis, Barry Jenkins & Kenneth Lonergan at The Playlist.

With most of the country getting their living rooms ready for game day, and Hollywood serving up some lukewarm fare at the multiplex, it’s not a surprise that one of January’s biggest hits is holding on strong in February.

M. Night Shyamalan‘s “Split” topped the box office for the third straight week, taking in $14.5 million. It brings the domestic haul to just a shade under $100 million, and it’s the first time the director has had a movie top the charts for three weeks since “The Sixth Sense.” Again, if there’s any doubt, Shyamalan is back.

Continue reading ‘Split’ Slices The Competition In Third Straight Week, ‘Space Between Us’ Flops [Box Office] at The Playlist.

Not so fast, “La La Land.” The American Society of Cinematographers have gone in a different direction. Amounting to the first real guild loss for the Lionsgate blockbuster, Greig Fraser took the top Theatrical Release prize for “Lion” over Linus Sandgren‘s work on the modern movie musical. There are a number of factors that might have been at play here, including a split vote with support also going to Bradford Young (“Arrival“) and James Laxton (“Moonlight“), or the fact that the Swedish Sandgren has so few Hollywood credits.

Continue reading Greig Fraser And ‘Lion’ Upset ‘La La Land’ As ASC Awards Honor Best In Cinematography at The Playlist.

The Directors Guild of America handed out their annual year-end honors Saturday night and, as expected, the top award went to Damien Chazelle for “La La Land.” And it wasn’t a surprise.

READ MORE: How The Oscars Fail Movies

Chazelle’s modern movie musical has won every major guild honor it could (oops, except for the ASC awards tonight), and with 14 Academy Award nominations, it should dominate Oscar Sunday.

Continue reading The ‘La La Land’ Love Continues As Damien Chazelle Wins 2017 DGA Award at The Playlist.

The Oscar nominations are in, and now begins the road to the ceremony next month, and the conversation tends to turn toward which movies deserve to win. There will be backlash against contenders (“La La Land“) and controversies about those nominated (Mel Gibson, Casey Affleck), and it can be easy to forget that the nine nominees for Best Picture are, mostly, pretty damn good.

Continue reading Oscars: Supercut Celebrates The 2017 Best Picture Nominees at The Playlist.

So as of this morning at 08:18 ET (and seriously, what a weirdly specific time slot — does it have numerological significance?), the weeks of speculation about what the 2017 Oscar nominations would be came to an end. The weeks of speculation about what the 2017 Oscar nominations mean can now begin.

READ MORE: Analysis: Wonderfully Progressive Oscar Nods Won’t Slow The ‘La La Land’ Train

There is, firstly, considerable good news especially if you or your fave film professional is listed under the “surprise” portion of this feature and not under “snubs.” In a more general sense, the 2017 nominee list also resoundingly addresses a fear some had expressed in the lead-up: namely that, while there were several black filmmakers, black-issues films and a lot of actors and actresses of color in the running, those films — specifically “Moonlight,” “Hidden Figures” and “Fences” — could end up cannibalizing each other’s votes.

Continue reading It’s #OscarsNotSoWhite But Still #OscarsSoMale In 2017 at The Playlist.

It’s awards-nerd Christmas today, with the reveal of the 89th Academy Award nominations this morning. We’ve already gone through the snubs and surprises of this morning’s announcement, as well as some analysis, reactions and a discussion of how it completes Mel Gibson’s comeback, but there’s plenty more to be unpacked, especially if you’re a stats fan.

As we do every year, we’ve broken this morning’s nods down to the numbers, from awards trivia to box office of the nominated films.

Continue reading The 2017 Oscar Nominations By The Numbers at The Playlist.

It’s time for the Oscar nominations, or as they’re known this year, “La La Land” Day. The musical was expected to scoop up a slew of nominations, but it really did a number on the Academy Awards this year (sorry).

The Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone starring musical earned a staggering 14 nominations, tying “Titanic” and “All About Eve” for most nods. Coming in strong behind were the sci-fi “Arrival” and “Moonlight,” each earning 8 nominations, with “Manchester By The Sea” landing 6 nods.

Continue reading ‘La La Land’ Ties Record With 14 Oscar Nominations at The Playlist.

It’s now 5 PM in Los Angeles on the final day of Oscar nomination voting and as fellow awards season watcher David Poland has said for years, “pencils down” everybody.

READ MORE: 9 Things We Learned About This Year’s Oscars From the 2017 BAFTA Awards Nominations

The 2017 Oscar season began early with “Birth of a Nation” being crowed an inevitable Best Picture winner a year ago at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival while “Manchester by the Sea” was seen as a Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams and screenplay opportunity at best (how times have changed).

Continue reading Oscar Nomination Voting Is Officially Over: Who’s In And Who’s Out? at The Playlist.

I couldn’t tell a well stitched dress from a beautifully designed gown, but that’s why the Costume Designers Guild are here. The group have looked over the year in television and film and nominated the cream of the crop when it comes to the attire we’ve seen on screens both big and small.

It’s a fascinating group of films that have been nominated together. The fashion forward comedy “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie” rubs shoulders with “La La Land” and “Nocturnal Animals” (note: Tom Ford did not design the clothes for his own film, that task went to Arianne Phillips).

Continue reading ‘La La Land,’ ‘Rogue One,’ And More Nominated For 2017 Costume Designers Guild Awards at The Playlist.

The Directors Guild of America announced its nominees in the theatrical narrative categories this morning for the 2017 DGA Awards.

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2016

The nominees are as follows:

Feature Film

Damien Chazelle, “La La Land”
Garth Davis, “Lion”
Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”
Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester By The Sea”
Denis Villeneuve, “Arrival”

First-Time Feature Film

Garth Davis, “Lion”
Kelly Fremon Craig, “The Edge Of Seventeen”
Tim Miller, “Deadpool”
Nate Parker, “The Birth Of A Nation”
Dan Trachtenberg, “10 Cloverfield Lane”

Some quick analysis in regards to Oscar: The DGA’s Feature Film nominations do not always line up exactly with the Academy Award nods for Best Director, but this is one year where they might.

Continue reading Barry Jenkins, Damien Chazelle, Denis Villeneuve & Nate Parker Among 2017 DGA Awards Nominees at The Playlist.

The USC Libraries announced the nominees for the 29th USC Scripter Award, which is a rare writing award that goes to both the screenwriter and the writer of the material the film or TV show is based on. It can also be an indicator of potential Best Adapted Screenplay nominees.

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2016

The winners will be announced in a ceremony at USC on Feb. 11.

Continue reading ‘Moonlight,’ ‘Fences’ And ‘Hidden Figures’ Are 2017 USC Scripter Nominees at The Playlist.

Hollywood has returned from its annual 10 day break (which is really more like two weeks) and those in the awards season game are wondering who’s in and who’s really out. The problem is, in the Best Picture race, outside of three contenders we might be down to a pick ’em for the rest of the field.

Make no mistake, “La La Land” (your winner), “Manchester by the Sea” and “Moonlight” are all in.

Continue reading Contender Countdown: Only Three Locks For A Best Picture Nod So Who Else Has A Shot? at The Playlist.

Given how the awards season conversation generally tends to go, movies are quickly slotted into various “types,” with their complexity reduced to a few quick descriptors. It can be a disappointing experience for the filmmakers who have spent considerable time crafting films they hope are resonating on multiple layers. And for “Lion,” star Dev Patel hopes that audiences don’t just box it in as another “Slumdog Millionaire” style story (because it really isn’t).

Continue reading Dev Patel Searches For Home In New Trailer For ‘Lion’ With Nicole Kidman & Rooney Mara at The Playlist.

The march toward the Oscars continues, and if you want an idea of how the acting nominations might shake out there, the SAG Awards are good place to start.

“Manchester By The Sea” led the way with four nominations, with “Fences” and “Moonlight” close behind with three nods each. Taking a quick look, sleeper contenders this awards season look to be “Captain Fantastic” and “Florence Foster Jenkins,” while the WTF nod at the SAGs this year goes to “Nocturnal Animals” for Best Stunt Ensemble.

Continue reading ‘Manchester By The Sea’ Leads SAG Award Nominees at The Playlist.

The HFPA gives birth to awards season dreams and the HFPA crushes them. Well, that’s what they like to think. The Golden Globe Awards are nothing more really than a marketing exercise to get people to buy tickets for end of year prestige flicks and to get Academy members to put one or two films higher on that screener pile.  Keeping that in mind we’ve studied the nominees for the 74th Golden Globes announced earlier this morning and compiled a pretty fair best and worst list for your consideration.

Continue reading Best & Worst Of The 2017 Golden Globe Awards Nominations: Thandie Newton, ‘Deadpool,’ ‘Moonlight’ at The Playlist.

It’s been something of a mixed year for movies in some ways — a fairly sparse first half of the year, including the worst blockbuster season in living memory, followed by an absolutely rammed fall season that, even more than most, has seen a wealth of pleasures in movie theaters. But one thing for sure is that it’s been a really great year for music and the movies (and yes, .)

READ MORE: 11-Minute Video Essay Listens To The Power Of A Film’s Score

Perhaps appropriately for a year where a musical looks to be the Oscar front-runner, we’ve had all kinds of wonderful scores and soundtracks, from a young composer turning the biopic on its head to an instantly iconic Netflix synthpop score, from a blast of original hip-hop from a little-seen indie to some unusually convincing comedy songs from some ex-SNLers.

Continue reading The 30 Best Film Scores & Soundtracks Of 2016 at The Playlist.

The past few weeks have seen countless critics guilds and other organizations start handing out their honors for the best of 2016, but now it’s time for the big guns of the awards season with the Golden Globes nominations.

Continuing to ride high, Damien Chazelle‘s “La La Land” danced into the lead this morning with 7 nominations in the film category. Every year, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association likes to throw a few curveballs, and they did just here with Jonah Hill getting a nod for “War Dogs.” Meanwhile, “Deadpool” sneaked into the Best Picture Comedy Or Musical category.

Continue reading ‘La La Land’ Leads 2017 Golden Globes Nominations at The Playlist.

Hey everybody, I know it’s just the first week in December and we’ve still got over a month before Academy Award nomination ballots are due, but I’ve got news for you. The race for Best Picture is over. The nail is in the coffin. You can start engraving the statue. Lionsgate can even start mocking up the digital and home entertainment release advertising with “Best Picture Winner” emblazoned across the top of the artwork. “La La Land” is your next Oscar superstar.

Continue reading Contender Countdown: Guys, Not Sure If You Heard But ‘La La Land’ Is Winning Best Picture at The Playlist.