One Battle After Another 2025
The front-runner that's been steamrolling everything for months. It's the third year running that the Best Picture race feels settled by January, which Sean thinks hurts the season and the other movies.
The Big Picture · Discussion · Awards · Review · Interview
Five Burning Questions About Awards Season, and Our Golden Globes Predictions. Plus: The Ingenious ‘No Other Choice,’ with Park Chan-wook!
January 8, 2026/ 132 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean and Amanda take the temperature of a settled awards season, run their ballots for the 83rd Golden Globes, and dig into Park Chan-wook's No Other Choice, with the director as their guest.
98 films across 4 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
Five Burning Questions About Awards Seasonrecorded before the Guild nominations
The Smashing Machine 2025
Sean's dark-horse supporting-actress idea: Emily Blunt, whose performance he didn't care for, but who campaigns well and got bigger after The Devil Wears Prada 2.
The Secret Agent 2025
Wagner Moura pitched as this year's Fernanda Torres, the international lead the race keeps underrating. Sean's pick to win Best Actor.
Blue Moon 2025
Ethan Hawke, boosted by critics into a likely nomination after George Clooney faded. A snub still wouldn't shock them, given how the two Linklater films split attention.
Train Dreams 2025
A Best Picture and adapted-screenplay contender; Amanda floats Felicity Jones as a possible surprise, though the path likely needs Joel Edgerton to land a nomination too.
Frankenstein 2025
In line for a raft of nominations, around eight, Sean guesses. Also the movie he expects to be sickest of discussing by March 15.
Sinners 2025
The film they'd revisit before the ceremony: the references, the score, the production history, now that the first-watch excitement from April has faded.
Our Golden Globes Predictionsthey split on eight of fifteen
Cinematic and Box Office Achievement
Best Original Song
- K-Pop Demon Hunters “Golden” Their pick
- Avatar: Fire and Ash “Dream As One”
- Sinners “I Lied to You”
- Wicked: For Good “No Place Like Home”
- Train Dreams Nick Cave
Best Motion Picture, Animated
Best Original Score
- Frankenstein Alexandre Desplat
- Sinners Ludwig Göransson
- One Battle After Another Johnny Greenwood
- Sirat Kangding Ray
- Hamnet Max Richter
- F1 Hans Zimmer
Best Motion Picture, Non-English Language
Best Supporting Actress
- The Smashing Machine Emily Blunt
- Sentimental Value Elle Fanning
- Wicked: For Good Ariana Grande
- Sentimental Value Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas
- Weapons Amy Madigan
- One Battle After Another Teyana Taylor
Best Supporting Actor
- One Battle After Another Benicio del Toro Their pick
- Frankenstein Jacob Elordi
- Hamnet Paul Mescal
- One Battle After Another Sean Penn Their pick
- Jay Kelly Adam Sandler
- Sentimental Value Stellan Skarsgård
Best Screenplay
- One Battle After Another Paul Thomas Anderson
- Marty Supreme Ronald Bronstein & Josh Safdie
- Sinners Ryan Coogler Their pick
- It Was Just an Accident Jafar Panahi
- Sentimental Value Joachim Trier
- Hamnet Maggie O'Farrell
Best Actress, Drama
- Hamnet Jessie Buckley Their pick
- Die My Love Jennifer Lawrence
- Sentimental Value Renate Reinsve
- After the Hunt Julia Roberts
- Hedda Tessa Thompson
- Sorry, Baby Eva Victor
Best Actor, Drama
- Train Dreams Joel Edgerton
- Frankenstein Oscar Isaac
- The Smashing Machine Dwayne Johnson
- Sinners Michael B. Jordan
- The Secret Agent Wagner Moura
- Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere Jeremy Allen White
Best Actress, Musical or Comedy
- If I Had Legs I'd Kick You Rose Byrne
- Wicked: For Good Cynthia Erivo
- Song Sung Blue Kate Hudson
- One Battle After Another Chase Infiniti
- The Testament of Ann Lee Amanda Seyfried
- Bugonia Emma Stone
Best Actor, Musical or Comedy
- Marty Supreme Timothée Chalamet
- Jay Kelly George Clooney
- One Battle After Another Leonardo DiCaprio
- Blue Moon Ethan Hawke
- No Other Choice Lee Byung-hun
- Bugonia Jesse Plemons
Best Director
- One Battle After Another Paul Thomas Anderson Their pick
- Sinners Ryan Coogler
- Frankenstein Guillermo del Toro
- It Was Just an Accident Jafar Panahi
- Sentimental Value Joachim Trier
- Hamnet Chloé Zhao
Best Motion Picture, Drama
Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
‘No Other Choice’Park Chan-wook
No Other Choice 2025
Park Chan-wook's adaptation of Donald Westlake's novel The Axe (co-written with Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar, and Lee Ja-hye), getting a wider release in January. A laid-off paper-company man, played by Lee Byung-hun in a near-slapstick register, starts bumbling his way through killing off his rivals for the few remaining jobs. Sean's favorite of the year: a sustained Hitchcockian comedy-thriller with a Coen-brothers everyone's-a-moron streak and ornate technique. It ends on a chilling stock-footage sequence of robots felling trees, the AI competitor the hero can never beat.
In conversation
Park Chan-wook on
No Other Choice 2025
Park (through interpreter Jiwon Lee) on moving the American-set novel to Korea, the bonsai motif his production designer sparked, the arduous hunt for the cookie-cutter 'French-style' house, chasing a film look on digital, and the oven-mitt-and-Santa-glove kill. He ends on Nabokov's Pale Fire as his last great read.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Park Chan-wook OldboyJoint Security AreaThe HandmaidenDecision to LeavePoint Blank
Awards history and comparisons I'm Still HereMinariEverything Everywhere All at OnceCODAParasiteMoonlightJudyConclaveAnatomy of a FallThe ArtistExtremely Loud & Incredibly CloseAnoraOppenheimerBarbieWicked
Scores worth shouting out RoofmanBlack BagMickey 17A House of DynamiteMaterialistsPoor ThingsThere Will Be BloodThe MasterPhantom ThreadThe Grand Budapest HotelThe Shape of WaterBlack Panther
In passing A Minecraft MovieChainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze ArcThe HousemaidTaylor Swift: The Eras TourArmageddonDownton Abbey: The Grand FinaleThe Muppet Christmas CarolBoogie NightsSometimes a Great NotionThe Magnificent SevenThe Devil Wears Prada 2
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Stranger ThingsEuphoriaThe SympathizerDownton Abbey
Podcasts Prestige Junkie
Books The AxePale Fire