The American Film Institute (AFI) has unveiled its list of the 10 best films of the year, and surprisingly, this is my exact predicted ten to be best picture nominated at next year’s Oscars.
AFI’s TOP 10
“Anora” (Neon)
“The Brutalist” (A24)
“A Complete Unknown” (Searchlight Pictures)
“Conclave” (Focus Features)
“Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.)
“Emilia Pérez” (Netflix)
“Nickel Boys” (Amazon MGM Studios)
“A Real Pain” (Searchlight Pictures)
“Sing Sing” (A24)
“Wicked” (Universal Pictures)
Since this is a copy-paste identical list to what might be our best picture nominees, there were zero surprises on my end — all of these films were predicted to appear on the AFI list. If you want to go the omissions route then, I guess, we can surmise that other films vying for Oscar attention, such as “Gladiator II,” “Juror #2,” “The Piano Lesson,” “Blitz," and “Challengers” were snubbed.
The AFI nominees can be seen as a sort of precursor in the Oscar race. Over the past decade, the AFI’s top 10 film selections have aligned closely with the Academy’s best picture nominations, typically matching with seven or, sometimes, eight eventual nominees. This means that, unless they got it perfectly right this time around, potentially two of the honorees won’t make the Oscar cut. Which ones?
AFI’s eligibility rules declare, “Stories need not be presented in the English language if incontrovertibly American,” meaning that they include “significant creative and/or production elements from the United States,” which, in the case of “Emilia Perez” having been eligible, means American-born actresses Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez.
For some reason, since it was a French co-production, and directed by a French filmmaker, Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance” was deemed non-eligible for the AFI list. Makes no sense since it has two American actresses as the co-leads.