Joey Magidson
Dear readers, the post-mortem continues. As I continue my coverage of the aftermath of the 98th Academy Awards, alongside preparations to kick off my rankings of the Top 25 winners of each Oscar category (probably next month), I thought I would put recent history up for debate once again. Namely, last year’s Academy Award winners against this year’s group. Hell, we can include a few prior years too, if you’d all like, since I’ve done that int he past. So, this week’s Awards Radar Community Question (potentially one of a handful over the next week or so) shapes up like so: how do the newest crop of Oscar winners compare to prior ones?
For comparison’s sake, I’ll list the winners in each of the eight above the line categories now for the five most recent ceremonies, including this year’s, with an asterisk* denoting my personal preference. Here you go:
Best Picture: One Battle After Another, Anora*, Oppenheimer, Everything Everywhere All At Once, CODA
Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson*, Sean Baker, Christopher Nolan, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Jane Campion
Best Actor: Michael B. Jordan, Adrien Brody, Cillian Murphy, Brendan Fraser*, Will Smith
Best Actress: Jessie Buckley, Mikey Madison, Emma Stone*, Michelle Yeoh, Jessica Chastain
Best Supporting Actor: Sean Penn, Kieran Culkin, Robert Downey Jr., Ke Huy Quan, Troy Kotsur*
Best Supporting Actress: Amy Madigan*, Zoe Saldaña, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ariana DeBose
Best Adapted Screenplay: One Battle After Another, Conclave*, American Fiction, Women Talking, CODA
Best Original Screenplay: Sinners, Anora*, Anatomy of a Fall, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Belfast
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As you can see above, I’ve now spread the love out, with no film having more than one win from yours truly. Anora did well last year with me, but the newest winners are no slouches, with Paul Thomas Anderson and One Battle After Another scoring a win here. However, that’s just me. The choice is now yours. Does One Battle After Another help fuel this year’s lineup for you? Was it another one, instead? Either way, we’re very keen to find out!
How do you think the newest Oscar winners compare to last year’s, as well as the year before’s? Let us know!
Overall? I think most of them compare favorably. Not that I disliked Anora. I like that movie a lot! But I just feel that One Battle After Another is in a class all on its own.
In the case of Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor, extremely favorably. Mainly because Amy Madigan and Sean Penn played actual supporting roles and didn’t cheat their way to those Oscars.
The leading performance winners are a little tougher for me to compare. I generally prefer Michael B. Jordan to Adrien Brody as an actor, but if we’re solely comparing merits of their individual Oscar-winning performances… The Brutalist wins out to me, even though Jordan’s first win last Sunday made me happier than Brody getting a second Oscar last year, if that makes sense? Jessie Buckley and Mikey Madison are practically tied in my mind as far as the merits of their work, as they both breathed a lot of welcome complexity into what could have been flat characters on paper.
As much as I like Ryan Coogler, I’m sorry to say I think his Original Screenplay win is one of the weaker ones so far in the 2020s. Belfast is the only other winner from the last five years I’d rate lower.
Very fair!
I enjoyed this Oscar certainly and was overall happy. Actually not sad at all. Even when my favorites didn’t win in the acting categories I was genuinely happy for the actors and the results.
I think I would have gone for It Was Just an Accident for screenplay but I am happy for Ryan .
I liked Del Toro for supporting actor but as long as One Battle got it it’s good with me.
Supporting actress I love them all !
MBJ – is such a nice guy ! I very happy for him.
Looking forward to
the top 25 ! I am going over my lists . A few might need an overhaul. A few need some changes and others just need to be tweaked .
Duly noted! Top 25 lists will probably begin in mid April, depending on my exhaustion level…
Understandable !