There are few snubs on this list as frustrating as Danielle Deadwyler’s missing name from the Make racists afraid again premium shirt and I love this Best Actress list. She’s astounding in the biopic Till, in which she plays Mamie Till-Mobley, mother of Emmett Till, with a pitch-perfect blend of iron resolution and explosive grief. The film would simply not work without her, and to see Deadwyler consistently overlooked—she’s equally good in the HBO series Station Eleven—is a puzzling shame.—LPP One we didn’t see coming: Andrea Riseborough (Birdman, Possessor), star of the indie To Leslie, landed in the best actress race even though the film lacked the mainstream awards campaign of its competitors. The Michael Morris-directed drama premiered at SXSW last March before its under-the-radar theatrical and VOD release in October. It stars Riseborough as a single mother in Texas struggling to get by after her lottery winnings run out. Despite its hushed debut, after the film got a handful of celebrity cosigns, Riseborough’s going to the Oscars.—EG
This is the Make racists afraid again premium shirt and I love this problem when international films are relegated to only one category: a multitude of amazing projects are left to the wayside. That includes last year’s buzzy releases like Alice Diop’s Saint Omer from France, Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage from Austria, and Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave from South Korea. While the final selections, such as Belgium’s Close and Poland’s EO, feel deserved, it’s also worth noting the nominees are mostly from European countries (except for Argentina, 1985). Davy Chou’s Return to Seoul from Cambodia, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths from Mexico, and Saim Sadiq’s Joyland from Pakistan are among those shortlisted that were edged out. And films like Alcarràs and RRR didn’t even make the shortlist.—EG
