Sandwiched between the well-known and very much celebrated holidays of Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day, the Oscars this year sat on Sunday, March 2nd. Coming up on its one-hundredth anniversary, the Oscars, officially known as the Academy Awards, is an annual awards ceremony held to honor the works of actors and actresses and the achievements made in the past year of the film industry. The Oscars consist of a variety of nominations, such as best picture, best director, best actor, best actress, best cinematography and many more. These nominations are chosen through a meticulous and thorough process where members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a group of over 10,000 people, vote on who deserves what award. Winning an Oscar is clearly a big achievement, and each year the picks for each category are usually controversial, with many people having a variety of opinions on what actor deserved to win which nomination. This year’s Oscars had its own set of controversies, and with the lineup put up for nominations, was somewhat a rob of what it could have been.

With the most anticipated and relevant nomination being best picture, or best film, this year had some tough competition for first place. With extremely well-done and influential movies like the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, Demi Moore’s The Substance, the very popular action movie starring Timotheé Chalamet Dune: Part Two, and other moving films such as The Brutalist and Anora, this year’s competition was high. The overall winner ended up being Anora, a modern vulgar spin on Cinderella who stole the cake from the other competition, which while it did have a very interesting plot and theme, would only apply to a very specific audience and was not very palatable. While Anora was an extremely well done movie, I would not crown it a Best Picture, especially compared to movies like A Complete Unknown and The Substance, which applied to many people and were more palatable and had better cinematography. Cinematography refers to the art of making motion pictures, and especially in The Substance, a combination of both of the prosthetics used and the various interpretive shots in the movie to help get across the movie’s message were really powerful to see and arguably better than in Anora, where I feel the cinematography wasn’t as moving.

Asides from winning Best Picture, Anora also had several of its actors winning other awards, like Mikey Madison winning best actress. In addition to that, Zoe Saldaña and Kieran Culkin won best supporting actress and best supporting actor for her role in Emilia Pérez and his role in A Real Pain. While I don’t believe Anora was quite “best picture” quality, these actors and actresses definitely played their roles very well and demonstrated a wide range of emotions, so I can definitely see how they won these awards. The only real criticism I have of this choice is that I believe that Timotheé Chalamet, who played Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, should have won best actor. This was Chalamet’s second time being nominated for best actor, the first time being in 2018 where he was nominated for his role as Elio in Call Me By Your Name. His performance as Bob Dylan was so dedicated, so well-done, and he completely embodied the real Bob Dylan, so he definitely deserved to win best actor. Especially considering Timothee Chalamet learned the guitar, harmonics, and how to sing just for this movie, he clearly put a lot of effort into this role which reflects in the high quality of his acting. Chalamet has been robbed again and again at the Oscars, and I truly believe he deserves a lot more recognition for his hard work, especially in the piece A Complete Unknown.

Also criticizing the Best Picture winner of Anora, I believe Demi Moore’s The Substance deserved more recognition and could have arguably been chosen instead of Anora for Best Picture. Despite the movie’s graphic, and some may argue, disturbing, content, the movie was extremely detailed and clearly took a lot of work. From the prosthetics to the cinematography and more, this movie truly nailed every aspect. The Substance delivered a powerful warning to younger generations, specifically to women, against the pressure society puts on us to be young forever and look and act a certain way, and the prosthetic work in the movie was insane. While Anora was still very cinematographic, so was The Substance as well. I truly believe either could have one, so while I think that Anora was a valid pick for Best Picture, I think The Substance could have placed there as well.

Overall, this year’s Oscars was competitive and held a very high degree of talented competition, and while the actual winners may not have been the best decisions, I believe that truly any of the different awards could have been handed to any of the nominees and it wouldn’t have been completely wild. With a colorful selection of nominees, the awards handed out this year were still deserved even if some nominees might have deserved them slightly more.