Sinners vs. One Battle After Another: who should win Best Picture?
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What are the main films competing for Best Picture this year?
At this year's Oscars, one battle after another took home the award for Best Picture, Michael B. Jordan won for Lead Actor, and the telecast had plenty of jokes at Timothee Chalamet's expense. Listen to a recap on Pop Culture Happy Hour via the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Um, who is your best picture pick? I'm going to go with one battle after another. My personal pick would be far different. Okay. Wait, wait, wait. What is it? So this is not your personal deep down in your soul pick? No, no. It wasn't nominated. It was Blue Moon. My heart pick is Sinners. But if I had to choose the best movie on the list, to me, that's The Secret Agent. Ooh. If I had to choose between One Battle After Another and Sinners, it's actually also for me One Battle After Another.
The Academy Awards are this Sunday, and for the first time in a long time, I feel like everyone is anticipating who will win big. There have been so many amazing films in the past year, but if we're being real, it's all boiled down to sinners versus one battle after another. And on its face, it makes sense. Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler, is an original story with vampires, sensuality, and a laser focus on the way whiteness can consume us all. One battle after another, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, interrogates revolutionary activism, parenthood, and what it means to save yourself. But what could be a productive conversation about how these films are speaking to this moment in American culture has turned into a contentious online discourse about race, white liberalism, representation in Hollywood, and the industry as a whole.
A lot of this debate actually comes from fans of Sinners feeling the need to defend Sinners as a movie. I think a lot of the defense for One Battle After Another is in response to the defense for Sinners. Whether you're new to this or have been deep in the discourse, I've got staff writer of culture at Slate, Nadira Goff. Hey, thanks for having us. And associate editor at RogerEbert.com, Robert Daniels. Yeah, thanks for having us. To help unpack it all. Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
a heads up, this conversation was recorded just before the incident at the BAFTAs, where several members of the Sinners cast had a racial slur shouted at them from the audience by Tourette Syndrome activist John Davidson. Davidson has since apologized, stating that his actions were not at all intended and instead are a result of his neurological condition. Attention has turned toward the British Academy Film Awards organization who put together the awards ceremony and the BBC who broadcast the awards ceremony and at least one utterance of the racial slur. There has been some tension between people who are fans of One Battle After Another and people who are fans of Sinners. I wonder, why do you think these movies have been discussed in such an oppositional way?
There are 10 Best Picture nominees. Why do you think people are at each other's throats when it comes to these two films? The reasons why someone might want to defend sinners, well, it's had a sort of uphill battle for legitimacy, right? Out the gate from that infamous Variety tweet and the New York Times post that occurred towards the end of the opening weekend that for some reason decided to highlight how sinners had not yet achieved profitability, even though the movie hadn't been out for a week yet. Very different than how that outlet or other places have tweeted or written about other films. I think people had their guard up since then. Sinners was left off best of year end lists from predominantly white publications like Rolling Stone and Variety again.
We know that the Academy is a predominantly white institution with a history of racism. And we also know that Coogler has, as what we sort of skirted around, a sort of Marvel Stan-esque fan base. And when you combine all of those things, yeah, what you get is you get some fans that are very wound up for their favorite creator who made a movie that's really important to them that they feel has never been sort of treated fairly in the industry or by the trades.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What are the main films competing for Best Picture this year?
0:00–5:26
2
How do 'Sinners' and 'One Battle After Another' reflect current American culture?
5:26–9:27
3
What contentious issues are raised by the films' online discussions?
9:27–20:21
4
Why is there a divide between fans of 'Sinners' and 'One Battle After Another'?
20:21–29:03