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We are about a month away from the full list of Oscar nominees, chronicling the best movies and performances of 2025 in its 2026 show in March. However, we're now five days away from the end of the year, and with the wide release of Marty Supreme, that's a somewhat significant note to end on.
There is no official shortlist for Best Picture yet, but we have some assembled, like this one from Variety, which seems as good as any, given that it's the biggest trade in the industry. I thought I would sort them by Rotten Tomatoes score via both critics and audiences. Not that the score guarantees a win, of course, but I think there are some stories to extract from this.
By Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score
- It Was Just an Accident - 98% critic score
- Sinners - 97% critic score
- Sentimental Value - 96% critic score
- One Battle After Another - 95% critic score
- Train Dreams - 95% critic score
- Marty Supreme - 94% critic score
- Hamnet - 87% critic score
- Frankenstein - 85% critic score
- F1 - 83% critic score
- Wicked: For Good - 63% critic score
Well, the one film I have not heard of has taken the top spot here, with 180 reviews in, not just a handful. It Was Just an Accident is an Iranian film directed by Jafar Panahi, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this past year. Here's the synopsis:
"An unassuming mechanic is reminded of his time in an Iranian prison when he encounters a man he suspects to be his sadistic jailhouse captor. Panicked, he rounds up a few of his fellow ex-prisoners to confirm the man's identity."
Despite the score, it seems at least somewhat unlikely to win, given its high-profile competition. It does, however, seem like an easy win in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
Generally speaking, at least for Best Picture, the main battle always seems to be pitting Sinners versus One Battle After Another. A lot of these other films feel like they will be more focused on their performances, Best Actor and Actress, Lead and Supporting, from movies like Train Dreams, Marty Supreme, Sentimental Value and others.
One thing to note here is that Wicked: For Good is predicted to get a Best Picture nomination, given a very low score compared to the others and lower than the first movie by quite a wide margin. Missing from the list entirely is James Cameron's Avatar: Fire and Ash, which is likely to be the highest-earning live-action movie of the year when all is said and done.
By Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score
- F1 - 97% audience score
- Sinners - 96% audience score
- Sentimental Value - 94% audience score
- Frankenstein - 94% audience score
- Hamnet - 93% audience score
- Wicked: For Good - 93% audience score
- It Was Just an Accident - 92% audience score
- Train Dreams - 90% audience score
- One Battle After Another - 85% audience score
- Marty Supreme - 82% audience score
I am not surprised to see the movie most akin to a traditional blockbuster is the fan favorite here, though I would be absolutely floored if F1 won, which seems essentially impossible. I'd be a little surprised if it was actually nominated to be frank, as good as it may have been.
Sinners has the highest combined critic and audience score of the year, and it’s no wonder that it’s a favorite for many awards, possibly including this one. Its main rival, One Battle After Another, is nearly last on the list, and audiences didn’t appreciate it as much as most of these others.
Frankenstein is rather high up there, though I fear that it will have to settle for prosthetics and costume awards, maybe. The top critic choice, It Was Just an Accident, has high scores here as well, but if there are 180 critic reviews in for that, there are only 50 audience reviews in on Rotten Tomatoes for it due to how hard it is to find to watch.
It’s likely that all of these are worth watching in some form or another, and I will certainly make my way through the rest of the list as these come to streaming or I can make it to theaters to see recent releases like Marty Supreme. Netflix plays host to two of these, Train Dreams and Frankenstein, so you can check those out there.
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