Welcome to the 2019 Birth.Movies.Death Alternate Oscars! We’re now in the third annual incarnation of this new tradition, in which the BMD staff pick nominees from the films Oscar ignored, and readers vote for the winners. There are plenty of good films nominated in the “real” Oscars, but this is our chance - and yours - to give some lovin’ to the films that were too small, too weird, or too badass for the Academy to recognise.
We’ll have a new set of nominees up every Wednesday, leading up to the Academy Awards ceremony itself, and each week we’ll reveal the winners from the previous salvo of categories. So place your votes, and may the best movies win.
Last week, we ran our final polls on some key creative departments: writing, directing, cinematography, and editing. Once again, two films dominated: Annihilation won for Best Cinematography and Adapted Screenplay, while Mission: Impossible - Fallout took Best Editing and Director (for Chris McQuarrie). And over in the Original Screenplay category, Boots Riley’s Sorry To Bother You frankly demolished the competition.
Congratulations to those folks, and thank you all for voting.
This week, our final week, we’re looking at the Best Picture categories, across all the various fields that covers. For the main Best Picture award, we’re doing something a little different - like the actual Oscars, it’s a ranked ballot. Get voting, and good luck making some of those decisions.
Thanks for voting! We’ll be back next week with all the winners. Feel free to praise your choices for this week - or grouse about what got left out over the past month - in the comments below.