The Nighthawk Awards: 2004

The DiCaprio side of the DiCaprio-Scorsese collaborations takes a quantum leap.

You can read more about this year in film here.  The Best Picture race is discussed here, with reviews of all the nominees.  First there are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end.  If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom – it might be eligible in a different year.  Films in red won the Oscar in that category (or Globe, in the Globes section).  Films in blue were nominated.  Films (or directors) in olive are links to earlier posts that I don’t want to have show up in blue and be mistaken for a nominee.  Films with an asterisk (*) were Consensus nominees (a scale I put together based on the various awards) while those with a double asterisk (**) were the Consensus winners.

I’m listing the top 20 in the categories but only the top 5 earn Nighthawk nominations.

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture

1. The Aviator  *
2. A Very Long Engagement
3. Sideways  **
4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind  *
5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
6. House of Flying Daggers
7. Closer
8. The Incredibles
9. Kill Bill Volume 2
10. Silver City
11. Hero
12. Hotel Rwanda
13. Million Dollar Baby  *
14. Spider-Man 2
15. Kinsey
16. Bad Education
17. Finding Neverland  *
18. Vera Drake
19. Shrek 2
20. Mar Adentro

Analysis:  Ray and Eternal Sunshine actually tied for the 5th Consensus nominee spot.  Million Dollar Baby, with a third place finish, is the first Oscar winner not to be #1 or #2 at the Consensus Awards since 1995, and no film has finished below 2nd since (through 2016).
All 20 of these films are **** and there are no other **** films.  It’s a magnificent Top 10 and the third best Top 20 to-date.

 

The Nighthawk Awards: 2003

“We set out to save the shire. And it has been saved. But for not for me.”

You can read more about this year in film here.  The Best Picture race is discussed here, with reviews of all the nominees.  First there are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end.  If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom – it might be eligible in a different year.  Films in red won the Oscar in that category (or Globe, in the Globes section).  Films in blue were nominated.  Films (or directors) in olive are links to earlier posts that I don’t want to have show up in blue and be mistaken for a nominee.  Films with an asterisk (*) were Consensus nominees (a scale I put together based on the various awards) while those with a double asterisk (**) were the Consensus winners.

I’m listing the top 20 in the categories but only the top 5 earn Nighthawk nominations.

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King  **
2. Mystic River  *
3. Lost in Translation  *
4. In America
5. City of God
6. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World  *
7. Finding Nemo
8. Kill Bill Volume 1
9. A Mighty Wind
10. Whale Rider
11. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
12. American Splendor  *
13. Dirty Pretty Things
14. The Station Agent
15. Nowhere in Africa
16. The Triplets of Belleville
17. Tokyo Godfathers
18. The Barbarian Invasions
19. The Last Samurai
20. 21 Grams

Analysis:  After three straight years where the Consensus race came down to less than 100 points, Return of the King almost doubles any other film.  Master and Commander, on the other hand, becomes another film to earn nominations from the five awards groups but win none of them.
The Top 10 is eight points lower than the year before and it still tied for the second best to-date (and third best ever).  The Top 20 is 14 points lower than 2002 and 13 points lower than 2001 but still the third best to-date.  The Top 5, though, is actually the best since 1996 and tied for the third best ever.
The first 18 films are **** films.  The last two are ***.5.

 

The Nighthawk Awards: 1997

I will fully admit that L.A. Confidential would be better if it had just ended on this shot and skipped that final scene.

You can read more about this year in film here.  The Best Picture race is discussed here, with reviews of all the nominees.  First there are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end.  If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom – it might be eligible in a different year.  Films in red won the Oscar in that category (or Globe, in the Globes section).  Films in blue were nominated.  Films (or directors) in olive are links to earlier posts that I don’t want to have show up in blue and be mistaken for a nominee.  Films with an asterisk (*) were Consensus nominees (a scale I put together based on the various awards) while those with a double asterisk (**) were the Consensus winners.

I’m listing the top 12 in the categories but only the top 5 earn Nighthawk nominations.

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture

1. L.A. Confidential  **
2. Boogie Nights
3. The Sweet Hereafter
4. The Ice Storm
5. Jackie Brown
6. Amistad
7. Good Will Hunting  *
8. Oscar and Lucinda
9. Grosse Pointe Blank
10. The Full Monty  *
11. The Wings of the Dove
12. Chasing Amy

Analysis:  These are all the **** films of the year.
It’s unfortunate that these films are all in 1997.  If any of my #2-4 were in 1998, they would win the Nighthawk, Boogie Nights especially.  L.A. Confidential is still my winner without question, but Boogie Nights keeps moving higher up my all-time list every time I watch it.  The Wings of the Dove got bumped up to **** when I re-watched it before doing these awards.

 

The Nighthawk Awards: 1994

One of the most touching friendships in film history.

You can read more about this year in film here.  The Best Picture race is discussed here, with reviews of all the nominees.  First there are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end.  If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom – it might be eligible in a different year.  Films in red won the Oscar in that category (or Globe, in the Globes section).  Films in blue were nominated.  Films (or directors) in olive are links to earlier posts that I don’t want to have show up in blue and be mistaken for a nominee.  Films with an asterisk (*) were Consensus nominees (a scale I put together based on the various awards) while those with a double asterisk (**) were the Consensus winners.

I’m listing the top 15 in the categories but only the top 5 earn Nighthawk nominations.  There happen to be 15 **** films in this year and there is at least 15 worth listing in most categories.

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture

1. Ed Wood
2. Pulp Fiction  **
3. The Shawshank Redemption  *
4. Four Weddings and a Funeral  *
5. Three Colors: Red
6. Quiz Show  *
7. Heavenly Creatures
8. Bullets over Broadway
9. Grave of the Fireflies
10. Clerks
11. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
12. Three Colors: White
13. Death and the Maiden
14. Eat Drink Man Woman
15. The Scent of Green Papaya

Analysis:  The first three films have stayed there since 1994 and that’s because they’re the best Top 3 since 1959.  The films from #4-8 have switched around a lot over the years.  It’s the third best Top 7 to-date, tied for the second best Top 8 to-date and tied for the second best Top 10 to-date.  It is the best Top 20 to-date (the next five films are The Crow, Nobody’s Fool, The Lion King, The Madness of King George and Queen Margot).

 

The Nighthawk Awards: 1992

We all got it comin, kid.

You can read more about this year in film here.  The Best Picture race is discussed here, with reviews of all the nominees.  First there are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end.  If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom – it might be eligible in a different year.  Films in red won the Oscar in that category (or Globe, in the Globes section).  Films in blue were nominated.  Films (or directors) in olive are links to earlier posts that I don’t want to have show up in blue and be mistaken for a nominee.  Films with an asterisk (*) were Consensus nominees (a scale I put together based on the various awards) while those with a double asterisk (**) were the Consensus winners.

I’m listing the top 10 in the categories but only the top 5 earn Nighthawk nominations.

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture

1. Unforgiven  **
2. The Crying Game  *
3. The Player  *
4. The Last of the Mohicans
5. Howards End  *
6. Reservoir Dogs
7. Raise the Red Lantern
8. Aladdin
9. Flirting
10. Singles

Analysis:  These are the only **** films.  There’s a four point drop from the #10 to the #11 film.  The #11 film is also an Oscar and Consensus nominee: A Few Good Men.

 

Oscar Category Fraud (and other reasons why the Academy is idiotic when it comes to Carol)

This is the best lead performance in the best film with the best direction of the year, no matter what the Academy might say about any of those things.

Well, I was almost certain that the Academy would commit category fraud when it came to Rooney Mara, which is especially galling since she’s the main character in the film.  But they also decided to go that way with Alicia Vikander and cost her a double Oscar nomination (although at least they nominated her for the better performance).  I also was really hoping that for the first time since 2004, I would have seen all the nominees before the Oscar nominations were announced but the nomination of Room defeated that goal.  My desperate hope that all four Domhnall Gleason films would be nominated for Best Picture was also defeated, but there’s always the Nighthawk Awards (actually only two of them will be nominated for Picture at the Nighthawks, but I only nominate five films).

My real anger is that the Academy just short-changed the best film of the year.  Oh, they gave Carol 6 nominations (tied for fourth most this year) but they didn’t give it nominations for Picture or Director.

How did I do with guessing?  Not well.  I correctly got that there would be 8 Picture nominees, but went with Carol instead of Room.  The only major category I got completely right was Actor.  In Director I had 3, in both Screenplay categories I had four (I had Steve Jobs and Hateful Eight, both of which were surprise non-nominees), in Actress I had 4 (I got Rampling, but I thought Vikander would be lead), in Supporting Actor I got 4 (went with Shannon instead of Hardy) and in Supporting Actress got 4, if you count Vikander for the wrong role (I almost went with McAdams, but went with Mirren instead).  Aside from Actor, the only categories I got completely right were Visual Effects and Sound Editing.

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Director (ranked #25 – 1)

I though it would be nicer to just include the version of the picture with three Top 25 directors rather than explain that Lucas didn’t get that high. If you need these people identified you are at the wrong website.

This is the final ranked list of those directors who have been nominated for Best Director by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.  This is part 9 of the series.  As always, you can find the previous eight posts in this series by going here.  There is also an introduction here, which explains the scope of the project as well as my scoring system.  I have made certain to finish this now for two reasons.  The first is that I wanted to get it done before another Oscar season begins and I had to add somebody (Alfonso Cuarón, perhaps?).  The second is because I intend to do a Top 100 Directors 3.0 list before too long and I wanted this out of the way; that list, originally intended for this month, will probably be pushed back into at least winter, if not early spring in order to get this year’s batch of late films from Top 100 directors watched (e.g. Inside Llewyn Davis, Wolf of Wall Street, The Hobbit, Captain Phillips, Gravity).

One thing to bear in mind about the top of the list.  On my point scale, there is only a 75 point difference between the #1 and #8 spots.  There is then a 58 point difference between #8 and #9, and an 83 point difference between #8 and #11.  So, if the director you really want to champion is among that top 7, that’s the elite of the elite.