3 hours ago
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The time has come once more for me to present my “Braddies”, a strictly personal awards list for films on UK release in the year just gone and, as ever, quite distinct from this paper’s collegiate best-of-year countdown. These are my top 10 lists for best film, director, actor and supporting actor, actress and supporting actress, directorial debut, cinematographer, screenplay and film most likely to be overlooked by the boomer mainstream media (or MSM).
As we look back over the last 12 months, there can be no doubt of the villain of 2025: Tilly Norwood, the female AI star. Launched in October, she is a smilingly bland and really very convincing non-human being who will work uncomplainingly and cheaply without ever storming off to her trailer. Like everyone else, I deplored the horrible simulation and opined that she is part of the AI-isation of movies that has been happening for some time now – without AI.
Yet the thing is, we can complain all we like. Critics and journalists can behave as if our droll or commonsensical putdowns will somehow shame the industry into ignoring AI. But as one producer patiently pointed out to me, it is not that there is no discernible gap between AI fakery and the real thing. If you look carefully then, yes, sure, fine, you can see the tiny gap. But the point is the vast cost gap. The difference in price between generating AI and shooting reality is becoming difficult to ignore. The resolution of the writers’ strike was supposed to have provided for guardrail restrictions on AI. But AI is still coming.
Elsewhere, in the Homo sapiens world of film-making, many of the big-hitting auteurs have given us some wonderful work, and some have grievously let us down. Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi won the Palme d’Or this year for his drama-thriller It Was Just an Accident, which took aim at the climate of fear in which the Iranian government operates. At Venice, veteran indie director Jim Jarmusch got the Golden Lion for his ensemble drama anthology Father Mother Sister Brother, which elegantly explored the notion of narrative. The Gaza horror has been addressed with some fierce Palestinian-themed movies such as Kaouther Ben Hania’s angry The Voice of Hind Rajab.
But others have tried everyone’s patience and presumed outrageously on fan loyalty. The estimable Noah Baumbach and the similarly estimable George Clooney laid a massive egg with their self-regarding sentimental Jay Kelly, a kind of preening lap-of-honour which outstayed its welcome from the moment the house lights dimmed. Almost as bad was Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, a muddled, incoherent and dodgily acted #MeToo drama.
But alongside them there were tremendously exciting sorties from Kelly Reichardt, Paul Thomas Anderson, Josh Safdie, Kathryn Bigelow, Joshua Oppenheimer, Lucile Hadžihalilović and Lynne Ramsay. And Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible swan song was a terrific thrill ride. It goes to show that despite the chattering class alarmism on the subject, the cinema (compared to opera or theatre or Premier League football) is still a fantastically competitive, low-cost experience, and we should do our best to keep it alive.
So here are my lists, and readers are of course invited to vote on what they think is best and point out omissions.
Best film
One Battle After Another
Young Mothers
The Ice Tower
Little Trouble Girls
Marty Supreme
The End
Dead of Winter
Nickel Boys
A Real Pain
The Brutalist
Best director
Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another
Kathryn Bigelow for A House of Dynamite
Kelly Reichardt for The Mastermind
Jesse Eisenberg for A Real Pain
RaMell Ross for Nickel Boys
Mike Leigh for Hard Truths
Dea Kulumbegashvili for April
Jafar Panahi for It Was Just an Accident
Lynne Ramsay for Die My Love
Brendan Canty for Christy
Best actress
Jennifer Lawrence for Die My Love
Radhika Apte for Sister Midnight
Shahana Goswami for Santosh
Fiona Shaw for Park Avenue and Hot Milk
Teyana Taylor for One Battle After Another
Emma Thompson for Dead of Winter
Emma Stone for Bugonia
Cynthia Erivo for Wicked: For Good
Marion Cotillard for The Ice Tower
Sally Hawkins for Bring Her Back
Best actor
Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon
Ethan Herisse for Nickel Boys
Brandon Wilson for Nickel Boys
Tom Cruise for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain
Timothée Chalamet for A Complete Unknown and Marty Supreme
Ralph Fiennes for The Return and The Choral
Josh O’Connor for The Mastermind and Wake Up Dead Man
Robert Aramayo for I Swear and Palestine 36
Cillian Murphy for Steve
Best supporting actress
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor for Nickel Boys
Elle Fanning for A Complete Unknown and Predator: Badlands
Geeta Agrawal Sharma for Santosh
Mina Svajger for Little Trouble Girls
Judy Greer for Dead of Winter
Emily Blunt for The Smashing Machine
Lexi Venter for Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
Mia Threapleton for The Phoenician Scheme
Chase Infiniti for One Battle After Another
Fala Chen for Ballad of a Small Player
Best supporting actor
Guy Pearce for The Brutalist
Joe Pesci for Day of the Fight
Hugh Grant for Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
Paul Rudd for Friendship
Saša Tabaković for Little Trouble Girls
Jesse Plemons for Bugonia
Russell Crowe for Nuremberg
Benicio del Toro for One Battle After Another and The Phoenician Scheme
Delroy Lindo for Sinners
William H Macy for Train Dreams
Best cinematography
Lol Crawley for The Brutalist
David J Thompson for Warfare
Hélène Louvart for Motel Destino
James Friend for Ballad of a Small Player
Dan Laustsen for Frankenstein
Robbie Ryan for Bugonia
Autumn Durald Arkapaw for The Last Showgirl
Adolpho Veloso for Train Dreams
Jonathan Ricquebourg for The Ice Tower
Bruno Delbonnel for The Phoenician Scheme
Best documentary
Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary
Pepe
Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story
I Am Martin Parr
Ernest Cole: Lost and Found
Ocean: With David Attenborough
A New Kind of Wilderness
Grenfell: Uncovered
2000 Meters to Andriivka
Colossal Wreck
Best screenplay
Alan Bennett for The Choral
Paul Andrew Williams for Dragonfly
Embeth Davidtz for Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
Steven Soderbergh for Black Bag
Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb for Dead of Winter
Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another
Kelly Reichardt for The Mastermind
Justin Piasecki for Relay
William Gillies for Hallow Road
Andrew DeYoung for Friendship
Best debut
Laura Carreira for On Falling
Karan Kandhari for Sister Midnight
Leonardo Van Dijl for Julie Keeps Quiet
Nadia Fall for Brides
Saulė Bliuvaitė for Toxic
Julien Colonna for The Kingdom
Harris Dickinson for Urchin
Embeth Davidtz for Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
Nadia Latif for The Man in My Basement
Harry Lighton for Pillion
Most likely to be overlooked by the boomer MSM
Gazer
