A Dad Rank Of The 2018 Oscar Nominees For Best Picture
The nominations for the 2018 Academy Awards have been announced, officially marking the homestretch of the award season. This year, nine films are vying for honor of being named the best film of 2017. Last year was an unusually strong one for films, with a lot of movies that are sure to go down in history as classics in their own right.
But there can be only one winner.
And that winner…probably won’t be picked by a dad. But if a dad had to rank the movies nominated, here’s how he’d order them.
9. Call Me By Your Name
Call Me By Your Name is a poignant, solid drama chronicling a 17-year-old man’s coming-of-age through his romance with his father’s older male assistant. It’s also a movie that dads will watch and say something like, “I mean, it was good, but you have to admit, that whole, like, I got nothing wrong with the gay stuff, at all, totally support all that, but the age thing, right? That’s a bit…a bit weird, right? Like, totally support it, though, like, the message. But yeah…” as he rambles off for another three minutes to make sure you know he’s totally “A OK” with “the gay lifestyle.”
8. The Shape of Water
Guillermo Del Toro has made a career out of creating monster stories, from Pan’s Labyrinth to Pacific Rim. But The Shape of Water is arguably his most critically successful film to date, leading all films with 13 nominations. It brilliantly chronicles, and hear us out on this one, a love story of sorts between a mute janitor and humanoid fish creature.
Yeah, so like, right there you can see why dads might have a harder time swallowing this one. Fish sex tends to fall in the “oh that’s a bit too weird for me” category for most dads.
7. Lady Bird
Lady Bird was a breakout dramatic comedy by first-time director Greta Gerwig, and for a time it was the highest rated film in Rotten Tomatoes history. It tells the story of a high school senior as she navigates love, life, and her contentious relationship with her mother.
It’s pretty much if you took every Indie coming-of-age movie and kept the best parts of each one to make the ultimate Indie coming-of-age movie. Dads will like it, because it’s funny, well acted, emotionally affecting, and the dad character in the movie is a really great dad. But the “a woman’s journey through high school in 2002” won’t be able to resonate as well with him as it has with younger audiences.
6. Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri
Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards outside of Ebbing, Missouri follows Frances McDormand’s character, Mildred Hayes, who buys three billboards out of frustration with the unsolved murder of her teenage daughter. It’s caused some controversy due to what many view as an undeserved redemption arc for the racist cop played by Sam Rockwell, and a lot of the racist language is going to make dads squirm. But dads will like the dark humor that McDonagh employs, and also dads have loved Frances McDormand ever since she crushed it in Fargo.
5. Get Out
Dads kind of pretend to “get” Get Out because they want to be viewed as “woke” (note: a dad’s definition of “being woke” is not the correct definition). So he’ll just kind of put this horror/social satire film by Jordan Peele right in the middle of his rankings, just to play it safe.
4. Phantom Thread
Dads love Daniel Day-Lewis. But dads don’t really care about fashion design. Dads love films by Paul Thomas Anderson once they’re reminded that he’s the guy that did Boogie Nights. But again, dads don’t really care about dress making. It’s a constant struggle that leads to it to fall 4th on a dad’s list.
3. The Darkest Hour
The Darkest Hour is about Winston Churchill and World War II, which are two of dad’s favorite things from history. Gary Oldman’s performance is likely to give him an Oscar for Best Actor, and his performance as Winston Churchill is enough to place this movie number three on this dad list.
2. The Post
This has the dad trifecta: Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, and Steven Spielberg. This movie could have been just those two actors sitting in a room under a picture of Spielberg for two hours, and it’d still get to number two on the list. Plus, many dads might even remember the events surrounding the publication of the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s, which adds a nostalgia tinge for dads.
For most critics, The Post was the most underwhelming of the Best Picture nominees. But dads don’t care. They just want their Hanks and Streep.
But the number one movie for dads last year was…
1. Dunkirk
Christopher Nolan directing a World War II movie is a shoe-in for a dad’s favorite movie of the year. Especially one that has Tom Hardy and dogfights (no, like, in an airplane, not with actual dogs).
The movie, which tells the story of the evacuation of Dunkirk through three different story arcs taking place over three different time frames, is a terse, thrilling war film. About World War II. Done by the guy who did Batman the best. Of course it’s going to be your dad’s favorite movie. It’s not even close.