Society has a weird way of selectively clutching its pearls regarding morality. We’ve celebrated bad people for years, villains we love to hate. But social issues, like gun violence and abortion, exist in this space, where people second-guess the suitability of the subject matter for artistic purposes.

The Drama is a film that basks in the taboo nature of its material. Charlie (Robert Pattinson) is a British museum curator living in Boston. He notices Emma (Zendaya) reading a book. Rather than engage her in a normal conversation, Charlie lies about having read the book.

The narrative takes a time jump to right before Charlie and Emma’s wedding. At a wine tasting that seemed a little too close to the wedding, the two get drunk with their best man and maid of honor, each sharing the worst thing they’d ever done. The relatively harmless crude game took a turn when Emma revealed that as a child, she’d planned and almost carried out a school shooting.

Director Kristopher Borgli is clearly having the time of his life exploring the messy nature of love, set against the backdrop of the most heinous hypothetical many could think up. Plenty are familiar with the concept of “love makes you do crazy things,” but that whole dynamic takes on a different meaning when love is making you forgive crazy things. The narrative essentially exists in a level deeper than that, as the entire case against Emma amounts to a thought crime, something she came close enough to achieving that she became deaf in one ear from rifle practice, but not actually something she went through.

Charlie, on the other hand, has more tangible deficiencies. He’s a liar. His friends who are judgmental of Emma have also done bad things in their lives. The Drama works best as a narrative when it allows itself to explore the inherent messiness in watching not great people judge someone who is probably a psychopath.

Zendaya brings such a quiet intensity to Emma that really sells the whole experience. Her performance highlights Emma’s vulnerabilities that draw you in, even if you don’t trust her in the slightest. Charlie’s infatuation with her, and his reluctance to cut her from his life, make perfect sense.

In Zendaya, Borgli found an actress capable of eliciting all the nuance from Emma needed to make everything work. His screenplay and narrative choices betray a lack of confidence. Early on, Emma reveals that Charlie was her first real crush, having met him at the age of 28, a sequence clearly meant to convey a personality disorder.

Frequently throughout the film, we see a younger Emma (Jordyn Curet), sometimes alongside Charlie. We see some of Emma’s motivations, lonlieness and a desire to belong, not dissimilar from alt-right fare centered on the manosphere. At times, it feels like Borgli is simply throwing stuff out into the ether as possible explanations for Emma’s character rather than exploring her through the mechanics of the material itself.

Emma’s revelation consumes the whole film, a layered thought experiment that isn’t explored with nearly the same depth with which it was created. There’s a lot of fun to be had in watching Charlie wrestle with his emotions. Pattinson is perfect for the way, infectiously charming while wielding the kind of ego necessary to entertain the thought of staying with Emma.

We see Charlie’s personality deficiencies mostly through the prism of his relationship to Emma. We don’t learn much about Charlie himself. Borgli shows a bit of Charlie and Emma’s work lives to get a glimpse of who they are outside of their relationship, but the scenes border a bit on filler. These characters are fun to watch, but they’re not really convincing people.

Borgli also has nothing interesting to say about school shootings, somehow completely removing politics from potentially the most politically charged topic in the country. At one point, Charlie wonders how many other Americans think about mass shootings, considering how many we have each week. This observation would be more compelling if it went anywhere.

Zendaya and Pattinson have enough chemistry to buoy the experience, but The Drama lacks depth. This is a really interesting subject, explored solely at the surface level. As a filmmaker, Borgli has a lot of impressive technical skills and a firm grasp on the pacing of his work. The 105-minute runtime flies by.

School shootings are a part of American life. There is no reason we shouldn’t be able to tackle this subject in our art, even if some people find that notion gauche. Art is not supposed to be comfortable.

But the best art also has a perspective. The Drama has a really engaging hook. It has brilliant lead performances by two actors at the top of their games. If only it had something more interesting to say.

2025 was a peculiar year for filmmaking. This is probably the weakest field of contenders in the post-pandemic years. The top half of the list features some exceptional movies, but it’s definitely not a year where practically any film could win.

I went back and forth on my prediction for Best Picture several times over the past few weeks, but I always returned to the conventional pick. Sinners is an outstanding film and would be a worthy winner. This year is a rare year where my favorite is also favored to win.

For a while, I thought this was a three-picture race between Sinners, One Battle After Another, and Hamnet, the latter serving as a more conventional pick opposite a genre film and one based on a Thomas Pynchon novel.

But I think this field shares a lot in common with the 2023 nominees. Everything Everywhere All at Once was heavily favored while also being a genre film and a box office hit, without a clear contender at the front of the pack. I don’t think OBAA made enough of a mark to steal Sinners’ thunder.

Here is my list, ranked by my own personal preference, not by likelihood of victory.

1. Sinners – A horror film has not won Best Picture since The Silence of the Lambs, the year I was born. Ryan Coogler’s work is exceptional, an inviting sense of world-building that feels genuinely lived-in. Michael B. Jordan has never been better, and longtime underrated actor Delroy Lindo is finally earning recognition for his delightful performance. Horror is a well-trodden genre. Many have drawn comparisons between Sinners and From Dusk Till Dawn, which perhaps makes it even more impressive that Coogler managed to bring such an impressive perspective to the table.

2. The Secret Agent – Wagner Moura would probably be my pick for Best Actor if I had a vote. The Secret Agent is a delightful period piece about the political turmoil of the military dictatorship in Brazil. Director Kleber Mendonça Filho plays around with the nature of memory a lot, constantly defying audience expectations throughout the narrative. The film takes some big swings that don’t all land, but it’s a highly ambitious work that shouldn’t be missed.

Ian’s full review of The Secret Agent.

3. Marty Supreme – Putting aside Chalamet’s obnoxious comments on ballet and opera (that went viral after Oscar voting closed, mitigating the damage), Marty Supreme is really, really good. Director Josh Safdie did a wonderful job in his first solo effort without his brother Benny since 2008. Chalamet is mesmerizing as a complete sleaze, which may not have taken that much acting. The tension in the pacing never lets up, an exhausting ride that still flies through a hearty runtime. The biggest knock against the film is that it did not surpass the highs of Safdie’s last film, Uncut Gems, while revisiting many of the same devices.

Ian’s full review of Marty Supreme.

4. One Battle After Another – As a huge fan of Paul Thomas Anderson and Thomas Pynchon, OBAA felt kind of like a fever dream of everything I wanted in a movie. Its imposing 162-minute runtime absolutely flies by. It’s pretty laughable that Teyana Taylor wasn’t nominated for Best Actress, the heart and soul of a movie starring juggernauts like Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn. DiCaprio puts forth his most interesting effort in years in what’s largely a supporting role. I really liked OBAA, and wouldn’t be upset if it won Best Picture. Like Marty Supreme, it loses a few points for not coming close to PTA’s best work, particularly There Will Be Blood, Magnolia, and The Master.

Ian’s full review of One Battle After Another.

5. Sentimental Value – Renate Reinsve first blew me away with 2022’s The World Person in the World. She puts forth excellent work here opposite Stellan Skarsgård, in one of the best performances of his career, in an intimate narrative about the remnants of a family long splintered. While mostly in Norwegian, Elle Fanning has a superb supporting role as an actress hoping to play Reinsve’s character in a film directed by her father. Director Joachim Trier makes a pretty outstanding case for why artists often make shitty parents. As an avid fan of foreign film, I was delighted to see Sentimental Value nominated, something I wish the Academy would do more of instead of giving nominations to lackluster releases by perennial contenders. Sentimental Value also gets bonus points for featuring the song “Same Old Scene” by Roxy Music, off a lackluster album I’d been playing heavily before watching the film, which was quite a bizarre coincidence.

6. Hamnet – I was pretty shocked not to see Hamnet in the Best Cinematography category, especially over Frankenstein. Director Chloé Zhao’s meditation on grief is less about William Shakespeare, than Anne Hathaway, with a fantastic lead performance by Jessie Buckley. Hamnet delivers some truly compelling perspectives on the creative process that you don’t see much in the countless Hollywood narratives centered on writers. There’s a lot to admire in the way Zhao moves through her work, but much of the pieces of Hamnet work better than the collective final product.

7. Train Dreams – Director Cliff Bentley heavily channels Terence Malick in the BP race’s other major commentary on grief. Joel Edgerton is exquisite as a laborer frequently away from his family in the late 1800s, a narrative that spans 80 years. It’s a tragic film that doesn’t wallow in its grief, but finds a lot of beauty in the quiet moments of life. Bentley’s gentle pacing that constantly evokes Malick is severely undercut by its heavy-handed narration. Another pass at the script might have made Train Dreams a serious contender amidst a fairly open year.

8. Bugonia – Yorgos Lanthimos is a polarizing director who has created a lot of thought-provoking original work. The Favourite and The Lobster are two of my favorites of the twenty-first century, but I was not a big fan of his last BP nominee, Poor Things, which I thought meandered a bit too much. Bugonia had a leaner runtime, and wonderful performances from Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, but the narrative doesn’t have a lot of meat on its bone. Bugonia peters out long before its third act, which itself has some glaring issues.

9. Frankenstein – Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited passion project just didn’t do it for me. The special effects were lackluster. Del Toro captured Shelley’s aesthetic, but I didn’t feel her voice, particularly when the narrative shifted toward The Creature. Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, and Mia Goth all put forth solid work here, but this was a rare miss from del Toro, an adaptation of a well-known book that doesn’t do much to justify its existence or its bloated 150-minute runtime.

10. F1 –  The Oscars have generally tried to have at least one blockbuster in the mix for Best Picture. This year has two legitimate box office hits, which bookend this list. F1 is a very entertaining remake of Top Gun: Maverick, which was once itself the token crowd-pleaser in the BP category. Brad Pitt delivered a compelling performance, even if you put aside the absurdity of a sixty-year-old professional race car driver. It was a lot of fun to see on the big screen, but I don’t think it has any business being in this race.

Narratives typically include that pesky thing called resolution. It’s part of why procedurals like Law & Order have remained so popular across the history of television. Human beings like to watch stories that resolve themselves before the credits roll. Life doesn’t always present us with the easiest narratives.

The 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock tells the story of several girls at an Australian boarding school who went missing on Valentine’s Day in 1900, along with one of their teachers. The all-girls school is run by the overbearing Mrs. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts), who takes a special dislike of Sara (Margaret Nelson), an introverted orphan. Sara is close to Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert), the leader of the girls who decide to climb the Hanging Rock.

Buckling under the weight of the oppressive school, Miranda and her friends seek liberation at Hanging Rock. After seemingly falling into a trance, Miranda, Marion (Jane Vallis), and Irma (Karen Robson) ascend further up the rock. Their friend Edith (Christine Schuler) watches their disappearance, though it’s unclear exactly what she witnessed. The students return to their school at night, without Miranda, Marion, Irma, or Miss McCraw (Vivean Gray), one of their teachers.

Much of the narrative takes place in the aftermath of the girls’ disappearance. Edith and Irma, who was found the next day with no memory of what happened, are frequently interrogated by their teachers and the authorities, while their fellow students treat them with apprehension. Further isolated, Sara mourns the loss of her friends without the comforts of clarity regarding their disappearance.

Director Peter Weir’s great triumph comes from his firm grasp of the atmosphere, a harrowingly powerful experience. Few films capture the agony of an unsolved mystery with such grace and beauty. Narratives are supposed to provide a sense of closure. Weir instead explores the vacuum that’s left when such answers cannot be provided.

The girls disappear about thirty minutes into the nearly 115-minute feature. The audience spends much more time with people like Sara, as well as Michael (Dominic Guard) and Albert (John Jarratt), two boys who saw the girls shortly before the disappearance. Without a lot of time to bond with Miranda or Marion, the audience is forced to care about them through the lens of those they left behind.

Music plays a vital role in crafting the atmosphere of the film. Gheorge Zamfir delivers an eerily powerful performance on the panpipes, while composer Bruce Smeaton provides a score that illustrates the sense of longing that the characters feel for their missing companions. The music often works in tandem with the cinematography to give nature an outstretched importance in the narrative, the untamed wilderness a character in its own right.

In some ways, it feels wrong to refer to Picnic at Hanging Rock as a slow burn. This is not a film in any rush toward a particular destination. Weir lets his audience know right from the beginning that nobody knows what happened, giving this fictional narrative the weight of a true crime cold case. The audience is only there to observe the absence of closure. There’s not much burn to be found.

There are points where the film hits some pacing snags. Michael is a compelling secondary character, but the story leaves a lot on the table with regard to his friend Albert, Sara’s brother. Like the audience, Michael is approaching his sense of loss from a distance, but at times it feels like Weir is focusing on him in the absence of a more compelling narrative strand.

As Sara, Margaret Nelson is forced to carry much of the film’s weight, a lonely, isolated girl, who found companionship, only to lose it for reasons beyond human comprehension. That’s the thing about loss. Even in everyday life, loss doesn’t always come with an explanation.

Weir makes a powerful case for the irrelevance of narrative closure. Life rarely works itself into a neat three-act structure. Sense and structure help us stay sane through the chaos of everyday life. Nobody at Hanging Rock had that luxury. You don’t always get closure. Fifty years later, it’s still quite moving to spend time in Weir’s world, receiving a necessary lesson on how to live with uncertainty, lest we allow it to take over our very existence. Sometimes, you just have to learn to let the mystery be.