David Byrne's American Utopia 2020
Spike Lee's film of Byrne's Broadway show. Both hosts call it the best thing they've seen this year; it lands on HBO October 18.
The Big Picture · Discussion · Review · Interview
The Oscars Show Returns: The Five Best Movies at the Fall Festivals … So Far
September 18, 2020/ 103 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean and Amanda open Oscar season from their living rooms, sorting through a shrunken, virtual Toronto slate for anything that can carry a best-picture campaign through an unusually long, uncertain race. Then Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz on Antebellum.
14 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.
Notes From a Virtual TIFFwhat actually got watched this year
One Night in Miami... 2020
Regina King's directorial debut, adapted from Kemp Powers's play. A fictionalized 1964 hotel-room conversation between Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke, shot by Tami Reiker. Amazon has it.
The Boy from Medellín 2020
Matthew Heineman's documentary on J Balvin, made for Amazon. Sean, not a big fan of Balvin going in, was won over by its focus on an artist's anxiety and online criticism.
Pieces of a Woman 2020
Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf, from Kornél Mundruczó and Kata Wéber. Opens with a roughly 25-minute unbroken take Amanda watched at 9 a.m. and found bracing. Netflix picked it up out of the festival.
City Hall 2020
Frederick Wiseman's four-and-a-half-hour Boston documentary. Sean watched it in two two-hour sittings; Amanda admits she never got to it.
Ammonite 2020
Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet for Francis Lee, from Neon. Both hosts had it circled as a lock and found it cold and static instead, missing the charge they wanted from the Portrait of a Lady on Fire comparisons.
Wolfwalkers 2020
The Irish animated film everyone else seemed to respond to. Sean, self-appointed animation advocate on the show, missed it entirely.
Nomadland
Nomadland 2020
Chloé Zhao's adaptation of Jessica Bruder's book, with Frances McDormand as a fictional composite living among real-life nomads. Winner of the Golden Lion at Venice; the hosts saw it at a Telluride-sponsored drive-in by the Rose Bowl, ash from the California fires drifting onto the cars during a post-screening Q&A. Searchlight opens it December 4. Sean flags David Strathairn as a possible supporting nod, and can't picture how Zhao's next film, Marvel's Eternals, will square with what she does here.
The Best Actress Race Takes Shape
Pieces of a Woman 2020
Vanessa Kirby, fresh off winning best actress at Venice, is the early frontrunner in Amanda and Sean's eyes, now with Netflix's campaign machine behind her.
Ammonite 2020
Kate Winslet's reviews have been split, so the hosts aren't sure she's a lock this time despite her track record.
Nomadland 2020
Frances McDormand chasing a third best actress statuette, a feat only Katharine Hepburn has managed. Sean also flags her next film, The Tragedy of Macbeth, opposite Denzel Washington and directed by her husband Joel Coen.
In conversation
Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz on
Antebellum 2020
The writer-directors' feature debut, starring Janelle Monáe as Veronica Henley. Bush says the premise came from a vivid nightmare he had after his father, best friend, and dog all died within a short span; the pair wrote it as a short story the same morning. Shot on a real plantation with recalibrated Gone With the Wind-era lenses; releasing direct to digital rather than delaying for theaters given the pandemic.
Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz on
The Invisible Man 2020
Bush's answer to the show's closing question: the last movie he saw in an actual theater before lockdown.
Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz on
The Rental 2020
Renz's pick for the last thing he watched and loved: Dave Franco's directorial debut, which he calls 'a super genre Airbnb nightmare.'
Also mentioned raised along the way
Last year's best-picture field, for comparison Once Upon a Time in HollywoodParasiteJojo RabbitHustlersKnives OutFord v FerrariJokerMarriage Story
Past Toronto Audience Award winners, cited as historical bellwethers Green BookThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
In passing Trolls World TourBad Boys for LifeWest Side StoryThe Trial of the Chicago 7MankSoulMinariThe World to ComeThe RiderEternalsPortrait of a Lady on FireThe Tragedy of Macbeth
Antebellum touchstones Get OutInvasion of the Body SnatchersThe Stepford WivesGone with the WindSchool DazeThe Invitation
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Small AxeThe Comey RuleOzark
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