The American Film Institute’s annual unveiling of their top 10 movies and TV shows of the year is as bland as you might expect.. The two juries — which are a mix of critics, academics, and film professionals — were given the task of selecting the best American cinema had to offer the past year. The choices are safe, pedestrian and incalculably mainstream.
Where are Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow,” Eliza Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” Emerald Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman,” and Kitty Green’s “The Assistant”? Those are four great independent movies, and, so it happens, all of them directed by female filmmakers. Instead they the AFI body decides to choose the stagey “One Night in Miami,” Aaron Sorkin’s bombastic “Trial of the Chicago 7,” David Fincher’s underwhelming “Mank,” and “Judas and the Black Messiah.”
Can you feel this Oscar nominees being as dull and uninspiring as these choices? I know I can. By all accounts, give or take 1 or 2 omissions, these are likely our Best Picture nominees (maybe “The Father” and/or "News of the World” can sneak into the nominees list). Who will want to watch the 93rd Oscars telecast if this is what the AMPAS considers to be the best films of 2020. This should have been the year smaller movies made the cut, but, instead, we’re getting the usual big, glossy stuff … again.
AFI Movies of the Year
“Da 5 Bloods” (Netflix)
“Judas and the Black Messiah” (Warner Bros.)
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” (Netflix)
“Mank” (Netflix)
“Minari” (A24)
“Nomadland” (Searchlight)
“One Night in Miami” (Amazon Studios)
“Soul” (Pixar/Disney)
“Sound of Metal” (Amazon Studios)
“The Trial of the Chicago 7” (Netflix)
Edward Berger seems to have settled on what comes next. His Lance Armstrong biopic, starring Austin Butler, is now holding casting calls, with production eyed for January.