On Thursday morning, the list of Oscar nominees was announced, including the standard ten Best Picture nominees, with relatively few surprises given past predictions.
The biggest story is that Sinners has now set an Oscar record with 16 Oscar nominations. That passes La La Land, Titanic and All About Eve with 14 each, and others like One Battle After Another (also this year), Oppenheimer, The Shape of Water and The Fellowship of the Ring are tied with 13.
The voting body is made up of a wide range of figures, but we have already seen judgment passed on these movies. I figured I would post some lists ranking these Best Picture nominees by critic and audience score just for fun, so here we go:
The Secret Agent
The Secret Agent
Rotten Tomatoes critic scores:
The Secret Agent – 98% critic scoreSinners – 97% critic scoreSentimental Value – 97% critic scoreTrain Dreams – 95% critic scoreOne Battle After Another – 94% critic scoreMarty Supreme – 93% critic scoreBugonia – 88% critic scoreHamnet – 86% critic scoreFrankenstein – 85% critic scoreF1 – 82% critic score
Rotten Tomatoes audience scores:
F1 – 97% audience scoreSinners – 96% audience scoreSentimental Value – 94% audience scoreFrankenstein – 94% audience scoreHamnet – 93% audience scoreTrain Dreams – 90% audience scoreOne Battle After Another – 85% audience scoreBugonia – 84% audience scoreThe Secret Agent – 83% audience scoreMarty Supreme – 82% audience score
Well, at least in 2025, we have escaped an Emilia Perez situation for 2024, where critics rated the film a less-than-best-picture-worthy 71% and audiences scored it a 17%. Nothing like that here, and the worst we have is Marty Supreme not resonating with audiences quite as much as critics, but that’s still a good score.
I think some may be surprised to see The Secret Agent at the top of the critic list, as I imagine that is the one people have heard of the least. It actually has more critic reviews in than audience reviews, which is something you rarely see, indicating just how hard it is to actually find and watch the movie. By default, either Secret Agent or Sentimental Value will win Best International Feature, given that the others are not nominated, including, surprisingly, It Was Just an Accident, a 97% scored film.
It is not surprising that F1 is the highest-scoring feature, given that it is easily the most “blockbuster” entry on the list, and it has the lowest critic score. I do think that’s taking up a slot for more deserving films, but whatever. I mean, it won’t win. Sinners and One Battle After Another remain the two favorites, but going by these scores and 16 nominations, I have to believe Sinners will take it.
Follow me on Twitter and YouTube.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.