Posts tagged “Film

96th Academy Awards Recap

Okay, another year in the books. We are somehow creeping ever closer to the eventual 100th Oscars, and I’m sure they’re gonna go all out for those. But for these — pretty much everyone saw what was gonna happen ahead of time and there weren’t any real surprises. Most years, a ‘surprise’ is something winning out of nowhere. This year, it’s ‘oh, this alternate beat the other nominee we figured was probably going to win’. The biggest surprise was “oh wow, Zone of Interest won Sound.” Or, for me, “They went with Emma Stone over Lily Gladstone” and “Boy and the Heron beat Spider-Verse.” Both things that seemed very likely, but neither of which seemed like something that was guaranteed to happen. Otherwise, pretty straightforward all the way through and nothing really to mention from a winners standpoint.

But I will say — the production this year of the actual telecast was superb. They finished early. 3 1/2 hours is the norm, and they nailed it. They were moving, they found ways to make things interesting. The bits in between categories worked. They did a fantastic job with the actual show portion this year (and bumping it an hour earlier was also a tremendously smart choice. I hope that continues in the future).

So yeah. That’s that. Let’s recap how it all went. (more…)


The B+ Oscar Ballot: Guide to the 96th Academy Awards

Here we are again. Another year, another Oscars.

One thing I really liked about this year is that there’s a consensus about the nominees. Most people seem to generally feel like the Academy got it right. You can quibble about a few specific categories and nominations and omissions, but overall, the films that got the majority of the nominations are largely ones everyone agrees are very good films. And it’s rare to have that kind of unanimity for an Oscar year.

The downside to that unanimity is that it typically leads to a feast or famine type of year, with films being either wholly embraced or wholly rejected. I don’t know if we’re gonna get that smorgasbord of films winning like we have in recent years. But that’s why we do the analysis, to see what’s actually gonna happen.

I will say the thing I say every year — I’m not doing this anymore to see how well I can guess. I, of course, want to get everything right, but the end goal for me is more to see how accurately I can pick apart each category to predict how well things are going to go. To me, having the film I chose as the secondary choice beating the first choice is almost as good as getting it right. I’m okay if the analysis is correct and I just got beat. I’m just here to try to help everyone else do as well on their ballots as they possibly can.

Now let’s see how well we can do this year. (more…)


And the Nominees Are… (2023)

I’m sure I said the same thing last year, but I had no idea what to expect with this one. Last year I was in the middle of life chaos and all of a sudden it was like “time for awards season!” This year, no chaos, but all of a sudden it was December and January and these things were out and I had barely finished watching things from the year and had to scramble to get halfway caught up on the shorts and documentaries and foreign films (and even then, I’m not sure I got to halfway) and then, within the span of like, three weeks, find out where everything was at and find the time to throw together nominations guesses.

I posted my predictions article yesterday without having had the time to look over anything a second time, convinced I was gonna do horribly. I thought, “Okay, if I can go 68-70%, I can escape feeling okay.” Both fortunately and unfortunately for me, it’s been the same 10 films all over the ballot. Which is good, since it cuts down on having to think about random stuff getting on and makes you feel like you’ve got a baseline of doing okay. But it’s also bad bad because you can fall into the trap of accidentally guessing the same five films to get more nominations than is reasonably possible.

I saw the nominations, but I haven’t yet gone through and seen what the totals are for everything and looked at the big picture. And I bet, once I do, we’ll end up with everything largely in the range of getting a number of nominations that ‘make sense’ for them. And that’s mostly what I’m gonna be looking for here, since, by and large, there weren’t a lot of ‘oh WOW’ moments for me. A couple of snubs, a couple of ‘oh, okay, they nominated that’. But, to me, the only nomination or omission that moved the needle for me happened in Sound. So it seems like a pretty straightforward year and I’m sure I didn’t actually do as horrible as it felt like I did. As I say — there’s always a certain percentage of this that’s going to be unknowable chaos. You have to expect that. So anything within the chaos range is understandable.

Anyway, let’s take a look at what was nominated and what it all means going forward (and, most importantly, how I did in guessing everything). (more…)


Oscars 2023: The B+ Nominations Ballot

Oh, hello there.

Guess it’s time to be picking Oscar nominees again. Better put on my cardigan and lace up the old sneakers.

This year feels even stranger than last year. There was a time about five years ago where, if I hadn’t seen every single movie by December 30th (even the insignificant ones), I was freaking out (I once went to a theater on December 28th to see Just Getting Started in 2017. That’s how much I had to make sure I saw everything). Now I’m like, “Ehh, haven’t seen two or three of the top films? Fine. The Top Ten list can go up in February.”

But in terms of this stuff — I’m at the point where I basically just roll out of bed for it. Not totally, because I do love it, so I do try to track it as much as I can and talk about it as often as I can. I just don’t have the time to devote to it like I did previously, so a lot of tit just gets rushed. Which is a shame, but at least I still get to do this. I do really enjoy this.

Fortunately I’ve been doing this for so long (and so much of this is based on empirical data anyway) that quite literally almost anyone can do this well if they care to. It’s 70% precursors, 20% doing it enough to know how things usually go (and learning to remove what you want to see from the equation as much as possible) and 10% unknowable chaos that’s gonna happen no matter how much you try to prevent it. I’m here because I love this and because I hope people, through reading this, can see how not difficult this is to do well even with a minimal amount of prep.

So, as we always do, let’s try to guess all the nominees tomorrow and see how well we do. (more…)


Oscars 2023: My Nominations Ballot

If I were able to select the entire Oscar ballot, this is what I would nominate:

Best Picture

Asteroid City

Barbie

The Boy and the Heron

The Holdovers

The Killer

Killers of the Flower Moon

Oppenheimer

Past Lives

Poor Things

The Zone of Interest (more…)


2023: The Lists

Okay. For lack of keeping this article from coming out any longer, I’m posting it now.

For those who’ve been around for a while, usually I posted this list mid-December, before I’d seen all the performances of the year. It was just a ‘here’s what I’ve liked to this point’ kind of deal, in anticipation for the Top Ten List and the Oscar picks and all of that. Now, the Top Ten List isn’t even out and we’re quickly approaching Oscar nominations. So I’m not waiting.

Couple of changes I made this year — I cut out the ‘overrated, underrated’ lists. I don’t care at this point. I just wanna talk up the stuff I liked. So it’s just the Hidden Gems, Performances, Posters and Scores. And, for the performances, I truly didn’t have a whole lot I loved this year and couldn’t get my usual list of 15-20 each, so I’ve just cut it down to one list of 25 lead performances and 25 supporting performances. So there you have it.

I also still haven’t seen a small number of films, so there’s a chance a couple of performances could end up being ones I really like, but this list is really just a short term fix, so it doesn’t matter. In the end I will make it known which performances I really loved from this year. So, if a performance or two from high profile films doesn’t appear (and that film came out within the past eight weeks), chances are it’s because I haven’t watched it yet. That’s what this next week is for, and if I’m worried about this article I’m not watching stuff.

So here we are. Hopefully some people will either not have seen a bunch of these or know what they are and maybe want to check them out because of this. That’s the only goal here. (more…)


Oscars 2023: The Shortlists (and other Precursors)

Oscar nominations are out in two weeks, so I should probably start actually looking at things. I’m not as on top of stuff as I’ve been in recent years, so I’m trying to squeeze a lot in a limited amount of time. I suspect I will not end up being able to watch all I have in time for nominations, have to guess blindly and then catch up after nominations are announced. But such is the life of someone with no time who still finds it necessary to watch everything shortlisted each year.

I’m not gonna go as in depth on all of this as I usually do (and I’m really only doing this for one thing, as it’s my favorite thing to do, pre-Oscars, every year), but we will get into some stuff and broadly talk about things en route to nominations coming out. (more…)


Mike’s Top Ten of 2022

2022 was a strange year. Not so much for the film landscape (though that is undergoing a sea change in terms of increasingly limited theatrical windows, an altered viewing experience brought about from the still-ongoing pandemic and an evolving definition of box office success, the consequences of which we won’t know for some years), but for me personally. I underwent a few major life changes and had stuff going on consistently all year (at least that’s what it felt like). As such, my film viewing was all out of whack. I watched the same number of movies I typically watch, but they came in bunches, often months after the films got released. Because of that, I never really got a sense of the film year as a whole. But it did mean I got to see all the films on my own terms, removed from knowing (for the most part) how the public at large felt about them. This is something I strive for, and this is about as close as I’ve ever gotten to having a pure opinion about nearly everything that came out in a year.

Then again, it’s really not much different from how the past two years have been. Most of us haven’t really gone back to theaters in any meaningful way and, if we have watched any quantity of films, it was often done via streaming, usually way after the films came out, if at all. And what I’m noticing, with films becoming more like TV or streaming… they just become part of that mound of content and it becomes harder to have them stand out unless they’re one of the ‘major’ ones. For every Avatar and Top Gun, there’s a dozen other films that so many people might not ever know exist because they’re buried under a mound of other options on that same service they’re on. And, unless you’re someone on the lookout for things, you just see a name and a picture in a little box, and you don’t know what that is. It makes me feel doing this list is even more imperative than other years, since at least I have somewhat of an ability to introduce people (at least like, four of you) to cool stuff that’s out there.

One trend I did see this year, though, is that it feels like a year of self-reflection and self-indulgence. A lot of films feel like personal projects from their filmmakers, who either wanted to tell their own stories or tell the stories they’ve always wanted to tell (likely accelerated by all that down time that first year of the pandemic), often in such a way that you almost can’t believe they were even allowed to do it. That, to me, feels like the overarching ‘theme’ of 2022, and even though a lot of these films were divisive among audiences now, I do think they will end up being looked at as the most interesting things to come out this year. (more…)


Mike’s Top Ten of 2021

2021 is like the flood after a storm. With the crazy year 2020 was, so much stuff was pushed in the hopes of finding an audience not fully burdened with the possible fall of democracy and a global pandemic and, as the year went on, they figured out how to keep working safely and things got back to being filmed. So we had not only all the stuff that was shot throughout the pandemic but also the stuff that was supposed to be released last year, which ended up giving us a real smorgasbord of films to pick from. And, for a change, I definitely didn’t feel worried I wasn’t gonna have enough stuff to put in my top ten.

One thing that will be interesting to look back on in regard to this year (much like last year) is what films people end up gravitating toward and/or discovering over time. Because with the shifting release schedule (most films this year either went day-and-date or went to streaming 30 or 45 days from their theatrical release date, as opposed to the 90 it used to be) and the already-present overabundance of content for people to watch, I haven’t gotten the sense that most people are aware of the a lot of these films. In the latter part of this year, I found myself as the only person in a theater to watch some of these choices. Which means that people either don’t know, don’t care or are waiting for the films to go streaming to see them (which is dicey for some of them because unless it’s a major title, it’s so easy to lose something in the shuffle). Which opens up a whole can of worms of questions in and of itself. But for my purposes here, I am curious to see what films end up later becoming hits when people actually get around to seeing them. And hopefully will do my part to get some people to watch a few of these.

One trend, though, that I think will be fairly uniform across the board for 2021: most people seem to be agreeing on the same crop of films as the best ones. Pandemic or no pandemic, the best filmmakers are still making the best films. (more…)


Mike’s Top Ten of 2019

So these recent years are difficult to talk about because — I just talked about them. I only posted the original Top Ten list for this year last year. Only a year has passed and usually that’s not a whole lot of time to see how your opinion changes. Usually it’s only enough to see where you overreacted to certain films or maybe undervalued others. But I’m happy to say — I think I got this one right. At least for now. We’ll see what happens in 3-5 years, but at the moment, aside from some minor number shifting (which is meaningless anyway), I’m very happy with the films I chose to be on this list.

That’s the one thing I’m seeing as we move further from this year — it was an incredible year of film. I knew at the time the top ten list was strong, but I didn’t realize just how strong. I’m only liking these movies more as time goes on. And all up and down the line, there’s some fantastic and memorable stuff. It’s gonna hold up.  Which is good, since the year after this is perennially gonna be a giant shit show, so at least we’ve got this one. (more…)


Mike’s Top Ten of 2020

This… was a weird year. We had a global pandemic, brought on by a government that ignored it and abandoned people in need and we all ended up stuck inside for most of the year. I believe it’s been in the papers. All of this, of course, had a trickle-down effect on movies. Theaters were closed for the majority of the year, which forced most studio releases onto streaming platforms if not into 2021 entirely (especially awards-level films, which usually make up a good portion of this list). And so, while I was still left with some quality choices, I did feel like this year was a lot thinner at the top and more populated with stuff I’d consider ‘just okay’ rather than truly noteworthy. So I guess what I’m saying is — a government abandoning people during a crisis, trickle-down effects and a spate of mediocre movies — I’m just gonna go ahead and blame 2020 on Ronald Reagan.

This, above all other years around it, feels like a year that will only truly be understood over time. I don’t think any of us were in the right frame of mind to truly consider what this year had to offer in the moment. So of all my Top Ten lists, I expect this to be the one that undergoes the most scrutinization and change. I also expect this to be a year with an increased ratio of hidden gems for people, since I don’t even think people watched the stuff at the top, let alone looked for things beneath the surface. (more…)


Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (10-1)

This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.

One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.

Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.

So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)


Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (20-11)

This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.

One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.

Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.

So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)


Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (30-21)

This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.

One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.

Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.

So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)


Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (40-31)

This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.

One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.

Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.

So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)


Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (50-41)

This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.

One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.

Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.

So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)


Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (70-61)

This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.

One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.

Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.

So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)


Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (60-51)

This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.

One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.

Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.

So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)


Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (80-71)

This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.

One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.

Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.

So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)


Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (90-81)

This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.

One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.

Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.

So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)


Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (100-91)

This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.

One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.

Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.

So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)


Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (110-101)

This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.

One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.

Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.

So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)


Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (120-111)

This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.

One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.

Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.

So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)


Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade (130-121)

This was probably the list I was most excited to create when I came up with the idea of all these ‘Decade’ lists. It’s the most immediately gratifying. The songs are all right there to listen to and appreciate.

One of my favorite things to do each year (before they tried to take it away from us with that shortlist bullshit) was go through the list of all the eligible songs for Best Original Song at the Oscars and then figure out which ones I liked best. So I already had a giant pool of songs to work from, and then all I had to do was go in and look for any others that may have not been submitted or eligible, etc. And after that it was just making a playlist and figuring out what order they were going in. Which, I’ve gotta tell you, if you’ve never tried it… do it. It’s great. This is now a playlist on my phone that I listen to occasionally because it’s just great songs from movies.

Anyway, this is a list of my 200 favorite original songs from the decade in film. I was pleased that I could get to 200 here because there actually were that many (and more) that I liked enough to deem worthy of one of these lists. We’re gonna post it in chunks of ten, the way we’ve posted all the other lists. Only this one has been slowly been rolled out over the past couple of months, one each day. So really this is just cleaning all that up and putting it all in one place.

So here are my favorite original songs from the films of 2010-2019: (more…)