Last year, awards experts had their work cut out for them. In the aftermath of the autumn festivals, just two films (La La Land and Moonlight) emerged victorious, culminating in both teams mounting the steps of Hollywood’s Dolby stage on Oscar night. The landscape today is a lot less certain. Who deserves a trophy? A scrappy first-time film-maker? An overlooked 89-year-old screenwriter? One thing we know for sure is that the following films represent the best of this award season’s extraordinary output.
8. I, Tonya
The highs and lows of mother-daughter relationships have been a recurring theme this awards season, with Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird), Holly Hunter (The Big Sick) and Mary J Blige (Mudbound) all garnering praise for their nuanced renditions of motherhood. In this biopic, Allison Janney steps into this role, playing the demeaning stage parent to Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie), the feisty figure-skating champion who swoops and glides across the ice as her mother viciously attacks her from the sidelines. I, Tonya charts the athlete’s meteoric rise to fame and explores how foul-mouthed aggression and violence result in her decline. The lead duo may not see eye to eye within the confines of the narrative, but with a slew of nominations from the Globes and the SAGs, Robbie and Janney could be ascending the podium in solidarity come January.
