The 2020 Braddies go to … Peter Bradshaw's film picks of the year
As for everyone and everything else, this has been a traumatising year for cinema. Many new movies have had to be viewed at home, on streaming services, and cinephiles have had to accept this arrangement, rather like gourmets who see their favourite restaurants survive by repurposing themselves as delivery and takeaway centres. And streaming has, arguably, given a new audience to independent and arthouse cinema that might not otherwise have much of a showing in theatres.
Lockdown has intensified the debate about the validity of the smallscreen experience of cinema – and it’s especially intense for me, when I consider one of my favourite films of the year. Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock is one of the glorious works in McQueen’s superb five-movie Small Axe sequence about the Black British experience. It is gloriously cinematic and was slated to feature at this year’s (cancelled) Cannes film festival. But it was commissioned by the BBC, and so the vast majority of the people enjoying this wonderful film will be doing so on the small screen. That’s why it is being described, understandably, as one the television highlights of the year.
Well, it can be both, and so I am listing it in the Braddies, my personal choices that exist separately from Guardian film’s best-of-the-year countdown.
As ever, there are 10 nominees in 10 categories: film, director, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, documentary, cinematography, screenplay, directorial debut. There is also the single-entry nomination in the special category: quirkiest future cult classic most likely to be overlooked by the boomer mainstream media establishment. The nominees are listed in no particular order and readers are invited to vote below the line for their preferred winner and talk about omissions.
Best filmLovers Rock (dir Steve McQueen)Tenet (dir Christopher Nolan)Domains (dir Natsuka Kusano) Uncut Gems (dirs Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie)The Assistant (dir Kitty Green) Parasite (dir Bong Joon-ho)The Invisible Man (dir Leigh Whannell)Mank (dir David Fincher)Saint Maud (dir Rose Glass)Clemency (dir Chinonye Chukwu)
Best directorSteve McQueen for Lovers RockSpike Lee for Da 5 BloodsChristopher Nolan for TenetSam Mendes for 1917Roy Andersson for About EndlessnessCéline Sciamma for Portrait of a Lady on FirePete Docter and Kemp Powers for SoulAlexandra Márquez Arbella for The Good GirlsSarah Gavron for RocksShahrbanoo Sadat for The Orphanage
Best actorMicheal Ward for Lovers Rock (dir Steve McQueen)Adam Sandler for Uncut Gems (dirs Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie)Hugh Jackman for Bad Education (dir Cory Finley)Kelvin Harrison Jr for Waves (dir Trey Edward Shults)Robert Pattinson for The Lighthouse (dir Robert Eggers) and The Devil All the Time (dir Antonio Campos)Willem Dafoe for The Lighthouse (dir Robert Eggers)Chadwick Boseman for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (dir George C Wolfe)Gary Oldman for Mank (dir David Fincher)Lance Henriksen for Falling (dir Viggo Mortensen)James Norton for Mr Jones (dir Agnieszka Holland)
Best actressAmarah-Jae St Aubyn for Lovers Rock (dir Steve McQueen) Viola Davis for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (dir George C Wolfe)Alfre Woodard for Clemency (dir Chinonye Chukwu)Jessie Buckley for I’m Thinking of Ending Things (dir Charlie Kaufman)Elisabeth Moss for The Invisible Woman (dir Leigh Whannell) and Shirley (dir Josephine Decker)Bukky Bakray for Rocks (dir Sarah Gavron) Maria Bakalova for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (dir Jason Woliner)Trine Dyrholm for Queen of Hearts (dir May el-Toukhy)Morfydd Clark for Saint Maud (dir Rose Glass)Monica Dolan for Days of the Bagnold Summer (dir Simon Bird)
Best supporting actorAndrew Scott for 1917 (dir Sam Mendes)Hugh Laurie for The Personal History of David Copperfield (dir Armando Iannucci) Matthew Macfadyen for The Assistant (dir Kitty Green)Udo Kier for The Painted Bird (dir Václav Marhoul) and Bacurau (dir Kleber Mendonça Filho) Zachary Quinto for The Boys in the Band (dir Joe Mantello)Michael Stuhlbarg for Shirley (dir Josephine Decker) Mick Jagger for The Burnt Orange Heresy (dir Giuseppe Capotondi)Michael Caine for Tenet (dir Christopher Nolan)David Thewlis for I’m Thinking of Ending Things (dir Charlie Kaufman) Harris Dickinson for County Lines (dir Henry Blake)
Best supporting actressToni Collette for I’m Thinking of Ending Things (dir Charlie Kaufman)Daisy May Cooper for The Personal History of David Copperfield (dir Armando Iannucci)Tuppence Middleton for Mank (dir David Fincher) and Possessor (dir Brandon Cronenberg)Valeria Bruni Tedeschi for Only the Animals (dir Dominik Moll) and Summer of 85 (dir François Ozon)Elle Fanning for The Roads Not Taken (dir Sally Potter)Jennifer Ehle for Saint Maud (dir Rose Glass)Gina Rodriguez for Kajillionaire (dir Miranda July)Ashley Madekwe for County Lines (dir Henry Blake)Mia Goth for Emma (dir Autumn de Wilde) Molly Harris for Monsoon (dir Hong Khaou)
Best directorial debutCatherine Linstrum for NuclearSimon Bird for Days of the Bagnold SummerFyzal Boulifa for Lynn + LucyClaire Oakley for Make UpMelina Léon for Song Without a Name
Andrew Patterson for The Vast of NightLadj Ly for Les Misérables
Viggo Mortensen for FallingTayarisha Poe for Selah and the SpadesRose Glass for Saint Maud
Best cinematographerRoger Deakins for 1917 (dir Sam Mendes)Jörg Widmer for A Hidden Life (dir Terrence Malick)Jarin Blaschke for The Lighthouse (dir Robert Eggers)Łukasz Żal for I’m Thinking of Ending Things (dir Charlie Kaufman)Laurie Rose for Rebecca (dir Ben Wheatley)Erik Messerschmidt for Mank (dir David Fincher) Mandy Walker for Mulan (dir Niki Caro) Marcel Zyskind for Falling (dir Viggo Mortensen)Acácio de Almeida for The Portuguese Woman (dir Rita Azevedo
Gomes)Karim Hussain for Possessor (dir Brandon Cronenberg)
Best screenwriterKrysty WilsonCairns for 1917 (dir Sam Mendes) Simon Blackwell and Armando Iannucci for The Personal History of David Copperfield (dir Armando Iannucci)Céline Sciamma for Portrait of a Lady on Fire (dir Céline Sciamma)Eliza Hittman for Never Rarely Sometimes Never (dir Eliza Hittman)Jack Fincher for Mank (dir David Fincher)Charlie Kaufman for I’m Thinking of Ending Things (dir Charlie Kaufman)Amy Seimetz for She Dies Tomorrow (dir Amy Seimetz)Robert Eggers and Max Eggers for The Lighthouse (dir Robert Eggers) Caitlin Moran for How to Build a Girl (dir Coky Giedroyc)Brandon Cronenberg for Possessor (dir Brandon Cronenberg)
Best documentaryCollective (dir Alexander Nanau)Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (dir Pamela B Green)The Great Buster (dir Peter Bogdanovich)Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema (dir Mark Cousins)Boys State (dirs Amanda McBaine, Jesse Mosse)White Riot (dir Rubika Shah)Dick Johnson Is Dead (dir Kirsten Johnson)Time (dir Garrett Bradley)David Byrne’s American Utopia (dir Spike Lee)Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds (dirs Werner Herzog, Clive Oppenheimer)
Quirkiest Cult Classic: The Film Most Likely to be Overlooked by the Boomer MSM EstablishmentI Used to Go Here (dir Kris Rey)