It's summer! The world is on fire! I'm writing about movies because my full-time job involves trying to make things better, and just as things are heating up politically, I can finally take a break. Since I've last newslettered, I've collected a ton of links, so scroll to the end for a few interesting reads, as well as a cat photo.

I’ve watched a lot of movies released in 2024 over the past year. More than fifty of them! It might seem a little late to talk about films from last year, but the middle of 2025 is when most of us with jobs other than film journalism can sit down and enjoy all the six-month-old movies that are now available on streaming services or as $5 rentals.

I’m awarding the uncoveted Golden Hippo in twelve categories, some standard, others unique to my way of watching movies. Instead of picking an absolute best, I’m listing 5-10 winners in each category, all of which get a Hippo. Here are my criteria:

·       Movies whose release in the USA would have qualified them for the 2025 Academy Awards (honoring films of 2024), as far as I can tell

·       Movies that I saw on or before my birthday on May 19, 2025

·       Stand-alone feature films that aren’t part of a TV series

I'll post the awards in three or four parts during June and July. This installment covers my four acting categories.

Best Supporting Performance

Most awards shows separate their acting categories by gender, but there’s no real reason to, especially since there’s at least one nonbinary actor on this list. This was one of the hardest categories to narrow down to ten and one of the ones where I diverged the most from awards season consensus.

Jessica Harper, Nightbitch

Nightbitch is a messy movie that makes less sense the more you think about it. But Harper crackles every time she’s on screen as a gnomic librarian, the one person in this film who seems to know what’s going on.

Jack Haven, I Saw the TV Glow

If you’ve seen the movie and aren’t sure who I’m talking about, note that Haven was credited under a deadname when the film was released. Like a lot of great supporting performances, Haven’s counterbalances the lead, finding ways to show the vulnerability and uncertainty beneath their character’s veneer of confidence and courage.

Fred Hechinger, Thelma

One of the sweetest and most genuine performances of the year. Hechinger radiates love and kindness, doing justice to the tough work of playing an avatar for the writer-director. His ability to keep up with the film’s cast of legendary character actors is remarkable.

Sophie Okonedo, Janet Planet

Okonedo’s character only features in one act of this episodic film, but she anchors its whole thesis and gives its most memorable speech. Of the many fine performances in the film, Okonedo’s stands out as the most successful in navigating the contradictions between what her character believes herself to be, and who she actually is.

Elizabeth Olsen, His Three Daughters

In a film that rides entirely on its actors and has no clear lead, Olsen’s performance is the connective tissue that holds the narrative and relationships together, as does her character. As the film gradually peels away her layers of self-protection, Olsen transforms subtly with each revelation.

Guy Pearce, The Brutalist

Pearce’s nomination got lost in the Oscar conversation, but it really was one of the year’s standout performances. What could have been a glib antagonist role becomes a believable human, with a shimmer of romantic chemistry with Adrien Brody that feels both playful and dangerous until it descends into horror.

Adam Pearson, A Different Man

The film revolves around Sebastian Stan’s masterful lead performance (see below), but it needs Pearson’s scene-stealing warmth to make sure it drives home its point. Pearson is funny, physical, and charismatic, but he shows restraint, filling the screen without taking over the story. I hope we get to see him a lot more in the future – especially in roles that center less around his disability.

Margaret Qualley, The Substance

The Substance can’t exist without Qualley, whose skill as an actress shines through the plastic sheen of CGI and the hilarious gore. Qualley is a conventionally beautiful woman who seems to have decided she’d rather be a character actress, which ensures that the subtlety of her performance – and her flawless imitation of Demi Moore’s mannerisms – shine past the camera’s obsession with her body.

Franz Rogowski, Bird

Rogowski’s challenge is making you trust him around kids even though he’s a weird stranger. He infuses his character with a quirky physicality that hints at the film’s series of reveals. He also plays up his speech impediment in what might be this year’s cleverest way to build an actor’s disability into the fabric of a film.

Stanley Tucci, Conclave

Do I identify a little too strongly with the idealistic progressive reformer hoping he can raise his voice high enough to make the choice of a new Pope count for something in the world? Of course, but Tucci is such a controlled and commanding presence, making the viewer angry that he has no path to even a moral victory.

Anjana Vasan, Wicked Little Letters

Vasan has some big names and big performances to stand up to in a role that seems to have been written for invisibility. She refuses to be relegated, much like her character, and she makes you believe that she’s the one good cop in this lousy world.

Best Performance by a Child Actor

I separated this out from my other acting categories because a child performance really is a different achievement – it reflects on the director’s ability to guide a performance, in addition to children having far less experience or formal training than most adult actors. This also gives me the opportunity to highlight some films that I won’t have another good place to talk about, but that I liked quite a bit. To be eligible, the actor needed to be under the age of 18 when the film was made, not just the character.

Nykiya Adams, Bird

Adams had never acted professionally before being cast in Bird, but you’d never know it from her raw and nuanced lead performance. Her posture and mannerisms change for each person she interacts with, representing her character’s instinct to become whatever others require – and foreshadowing the film’s big reveal. In a year with many excellent performances by young actors, Adams’s is easily the most impressive.

Isaac Krasner, Big Boys

In this sweet, queer coming-of-age film, Krasner’s character is big not just in physical size but in personality and emotional intensity. He not only carries the film and navigates its challenging topics, but fills the screen with his expressive energy.

Katherine Mallen Kupferer, Ghostlight

As the teenage daughter of a lost soul who finds redemption and purpose in community theater, Mallen Kupferer seethes with coiled pain and repressed grief. Her costars include both of her real-life parents, which actually makes things harder, as she has to separate her offscreen self from her character.

Allison Salinas, In the Summers

This coming-of-age film, about a pair of Mexican-American sisters who spend their summers with their loving but volatile father, is rough around the edges, but its best performances really shine. Of the young actors who play the two girls at various ages, Salinas stands out as the younger sister in her tween years. The character initially seems passive in comparison with the explosive personalities around her, but Salinas’s ability to convey watchfulness and reaction is rare for an actor her age.

Zoey Ziegler, Janet Planet

Ziegler is the true lead performer in this mother-daughter drama, delivering her deadpan lines with an oddball charisma. Much of her role requires silence, and no matter what she’s doing, Ziegler conveys the inner workings of a whip-smart introvert whose gears never stop turning.

Best Casting and Ensemble

Sometimes, it’s not about an individual actor’s performance, but how the actors work together to create something larger than each of their contributions. There are major film awards that recognize this, such as the Screen Actors’ Guild. Many of these films also made my list in the other acting categories, since a great team can also have a star player. I’ve listed the casting director(s) first, and then the actors that made me want to honor the film.

Anora (Sean Baker; Mikey Madison, Yura Borisov, Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Karagulian, Darya Ekamasova)

I love that Sean Baker does his own casting, and that he casts strictly according to his vision of a role, without concern for an actor’s level of fame. While most of the awards attention focused on Borisov’s enforcer with a heart of gold, that feels unfair to Eydelshteyn’s spoiled princeling, Karagulian’s weary and frantic middle manager, and Ekamasova’s steely matriarch.

Conclave (Nina Gold, Martin Ware; Ralph Fiennes, Lucian Msamati, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Brían F. O’Byrne, Isabella Rossellini, Carlos Diehz)

Conclave is a game of acting basketball, with the focus passed rapidly from one virtuoso performance to another. Msamati and Diehz jump up from the bench to deliver slam dunks, while O’Byrne and Rossellini make the most of limited screen time, connecting and contextualizing the film’s narrative threads.

His Three Daughters (Nicole Arbusto; Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen, Jovan Adepo, Jay O. Sanders)

The star of this film is the relationship among the titular daughters. The trust and confidence among them glows through the screen, and the film is both generous and demanding of all three. Meanwhile, Adepo and Sanders appear in one scene each but haunt the entire film.

Kinds of Kindness (Dixie Chassay; Margaret Qualley, Jesse Plemons, Hong Chao, Willem Dafoe, Mamoudou Athie, Joe Alwyn, Emma Stone, Hunter Schafer)

Everyone in this cast is having a grand time playing everyday monsters and fairy tale heroes. Most appear in several roles, often showing up briefly in one section of the triptych, then becoming more central in another. They’re often funny and menacing at the same time, and many make physical and vocal choices that subtly connect their characters to each other.

A Real Pain (Jessica Kelly; Kieran Culkin, Jesse Eisenberg, Will Sharpe, Kurt Egyiawan, Jennifer Grey)

This isn’t really a two-man film – its cast is great all the way through. Sharpe’s hapless earnestness offsets the tennis match of trauma between the two leads, while Grey and Egyiawan hint at levels of pain and resilience that could be another whole movie.

Thelma (Jamie Ember; June Squibb, Fred Hechinger, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, Richard Roundtree, Nicole Byer, Bunny Levine, Aidan Fiske, Malcolm McDowell)

Every performance in this film is witty and real, evoking a sense of shared history that runs far deeper than what we see on screen. The four older actors give tremendous physical performances – Levine and McDowell as well as Squibb and Roundtree – and smaller roles like Byer’s and Fiske’s make a big impact in a few scenes.

Wicked (Tiffany Little Canfield, Bernard Telsey; Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Peter Dinklage, Bowen Yang, Bronwyn James, Keala Settle)

The film’s leads can both sing their roles, and that makes a world of difference. Lower down the cast list, actors like Yang and Settle make the most of roles that could otherwise become forgettable. It’s great to see a talented and magnetic wheelchair user play Nessarose, and Dinklage’s terrific voice performance is a clever nod to the ways little people have been exploited in other film versions of the Oz story.

Best Lead Performance

Narrowing this down was brutal. I’d like to think I’m more honest than certain other awards committees about what constitutes a lead performance versus a supporting one.

Mzia Arabuli, Crossing

Arabuli, a veteran Georgian stage and character actress, isn’t afraid to look wrinkled and worn down by life. She simmers with regret and longing, like she’s full of stories the film won’t have space to tell.

Adrien Brody, The Brutalist

We’ve known all along that Brody is one of our greatest living actors. It’s magical to see him in a role that gives him not only space but encouragement to showcase all of the best things about his acting, from his projection of cognitive depth to his flexible and expressive face.

Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

Culkin was rightly showered with praise and awards for his kinetic, layered performance as the titular hot mess of a cousin. Whenever he’s on screen, he makes the film all about himself – the right kind of scene-stealing for a character who buries his generational trauma under charm and recklessness.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths

I wasn’t crazy about this film overall, and Jean-Baptiste crosses the line from great acting into The Most Acting a few times. But she covers a remarkable amount of emotional ground and forces you to respect and understand the year’s least pleasant film protagonist.

Mikey Madison, Anora

Madison shows most of her body in this film, but it’s hard to look anywhere but her huge, expressive eyes. She conveys an indomitable toughness and world-weariness at the same time as a romantic naivete, always with a stew of conflicting emotions threatening to boil over.

Demi Moore, The Substance

Moore has always been an excellent actress, but usually without the right type of gravitas to earn roles worthy of her skill. But she brings real pathos and pain to her vain and venal character, saying more in a swipe of lipstick than most actors can express in a monologue.

Justice Smith, I Saw the TV Glow

Smith seems to achieve time travel, equally plausible as an isolated teenager and a lost twentysomething. He reflects his character’s emotional detachment while always hinting at the unexamined feelings that simmer underneath.

June Squibb, Thelma

The most impressive physical performance of 2024 came from a woman in her nineties. Squibb is warm, tough, profane, funny, and vulnerable – a reminder that no matter how old we get, we remain human in all our complexity.

Sebastian Stan, A Different Man

Stan has an air of villainy even when he’s playing a sad sack. He gamely acts through a very limiting prosthetic, then uses vocal and physical mannerisms to ensure that we’re always aware that his character is the same guy no matter how he looks.

Zendaya, Challengers

There’s a constant chasm between the person Zendaya’s character presents to the world and the thoughts and feelings she lies to everyone including herself about, and Zendaya ensures that we see that contradiction in every moment. It’s not just the camera that’s leering at the film’s two male leads, so we end up seeing the narrative through her eyes.

Further Reading

• This fascinating article on Colonial Williamsburg, published in late 2024, explores the challenges of historical representation in a country where historical fact has become politicized.
• Let's transvestigate Godzilla! Since we're doing it to everyone else.
• Venting may feel good, but finding ways to calm your body is more effective for reducing and resolving anger.

And a cat picture!

Momo and I will see you soon for more movie awards!