“There’s no such thing as Best Actress,” said Julianne Moore as she accepted the Oscar in 2015 for Still Alice. Enough voters disagreed with Moore that year to get her on stage for a long-overdue trophy, but she had a point.

Awards season is, of course, an endlessly entertaining, glamorous, and enriching celebration of cinema—a time to take stock of what the best (and most successful) films of the past year might tell us about the current state of pop culture. But awards are also defined by their inherent contradictions: what does “best” even mean if art is subjective? How can you possibly distill, into one award, the many hours of work and labor that go into performing, directing, writing, costuming, hair and makeup, casting, production design, VFX, sound and scoring? We know you can’t really, nor would it be possible to unanimously agree anyway—which is why this annual season hurts and delights in equal measure.

But on Letterboxd, we go granular. Here, it is about that one scene, that one shot. That blocking, that dress, that wig, that wallpaper, that noodle pot. Where else are people cheersing to Anora’s Juul? Feeling seen by the Saoirse Ronan wall in My Old Ass? Dreaming about Colman Domingo’s purple hoodie? So, while you are obsessively checking off this year’s 97th Academy Awards nominees in order to emerge victorious in the office sweepstakes—for which you will be needing our customized ballots, available as JPG, PNG, or PDF—we raise you: the 2025 Letterboxd FYCs (For Your Consideration).

Through these inaugural minutiae, we celebrate the niche, hyper-specific moments that imprinted on us over the past year of movies. From the best kitchens to deliveries of “f—k!”; from ing animals to guest mustaches; from Girl Dads to Emo Eldest Daughters, our esteemed awards jury of Mitchell Beaupre, Ella Kemp, Mia Lee Vicino, George Fenwick, Annie Lyons, Katie Rife and Rafa Sales Ross. And the winners are…

Best London Tourism Promo

WINNER: Better Man

(Selected by Ella Kemp)

If you’ve spent any time in London, you’ll know that the stretch from Oxford Circus to Regent Street is simply hell on Earth. But not in Better Man! Michael Gracey’s rambunctious Robbie Williams biopic takes us to the shiniest part of the city in a Moulin Rouge!-inflected musical number throughout Piccadilly: dancers giddily roller skate across gum balls, double-decker buses glide through glittering streets, everyone is happy to be out of the house. Could never be me, but while watching ‘Rock DJ’ (a far cry from Robbie’s Substance-inflected original music video), I really did believe a better world was possible.

The Mia’s Cat Brad Award for Best Meow Emitted by a Human Actor

WINNER: Hugh Grant in Heretic

(Selected by Mia Lee Vicino)

This category may or may not have been invented just because I wanted my eleven-year-old cat, Brad, to present Hugh Grant with an award. But can you think of a more iconic meow emitted by a human actor this year (and no, the cat from Flow doesn’t qualify, as his voice was notably provided by a feline)? A quick refresher: Grant’s character is monologuing about Monopoly and notes that “everyone has a favorite” player token. “I shan’t tell you mine,” he teases, then: “Meow!” It was a delivery worthy enough to earn a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, and to win something equally prestigious: the praise of my elderly cat.

Best ing Literature

WINNER: The Room Next Door

(Selected by George Fenwick)

In The Room Next Door, when Martha (Tilda Swinton) and Ingrid (Julianne Moore) watch John Huston’s The Dead, a close-up of Swinton finds Martha weeping as she recites James Joyce’s closing words:

“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

A gorgeous selection from Almodóvar that caters almost too perfectly to the English lit nerds among us, Martha previously quoted the age as she stared out at New York from hospital. But this time, the prose hits her as an epiphany: Joyce seems to speak of the creation of a age, a tranquil equalizing between the living and the dead. Like so many of Almodóvar’s artistic references, the lines provide an expansive lens for understanding The Room Next Door’s themes of death in a dying world—and Joyce would be proud.

The Chumbawamba Award for Getting Knocked Down and Getting Up Again

WINNER: Hunter Schafer in Cuckoo

(Selected by Katie Rife)

In Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo, Hunter Schafer looks like she got into a fight. And she kind of did—with herself. By the end of this appropriately named movie, Schafer has two black eyes, a broken arm, a concussion, a cut on her chin and bandages wrapped around her knuckles. She’s been tackled, startled, chased, injured in a car crash, nearly crushed by a falling bookcase and hurtled into a vibrating time loop by a freaky bird-woman in a bad wig. But every time she gets knocked down, she gets right back up again. Chumbawamba would be proud.

Best Spitefully Delivered Dig on the Futility of Baby Clothing

WINNER: Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths

(Selected by Rafa Sales Ross)

It is a great travesty that Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s name was not called out during the Oscar nominations for Best Actress, given her emotionally shattering performance as Pansy in Mike Leigh’s sharp chronicling of untended-to traumas aging into deep bitterness. Out of the many intricately composed titular hard truths that Pansy delivers throughout the tight drama—and, boy, there are many—none made me laugh as hard as the concluding question of her tirade against her neighbor’s “fat baby” and the impracticality of their outfit. “What’s a baby got pockets for?” she asks indignantly. “What’s it gonna keep in its pocket?” You know what? She has a point.

The Gene Hackman Tribute Award for Best Mustache in a ing Role

WINNER: Jude Law in The Order

(Selected by Mitchell Beaupre)

From the dashing, almost artificially gorgeous Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley to the actual artificial Gigolo Joe in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Jude Law has always known how to hone his physicality into his performance. That’s certainly true in The Order, where he plays the sensationally named Terry Husk, a veteran FBI agent in the Pacific Northwest looking to bring down a white supremacist group led by Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult). Australian director Justin Kurzel brings plenty of ’70s grime to the police procedural, and Law follows suit by appearing in every scene as though he just woke up after a days-long bender. You can almost smell the damp socks and cigarette smoke wafting off of him through the screen, and nowhere is that more visible than his mountainous lip walrus, a furry behemoth that would make Gene Hackman proud.

The Hanna-Barbera Award for Best Cartoon “CHOMP” Sound Effect

WINNER: The foley artists of Gladiator II

(Selected by Mia Lee Vicino)

For years—decades, even—this award was won by a dog named Scooby-Doo. The reckless abandon with which he chomped into his Scooby Snax was unrivaled… Until Paul Mescal entered the arena. Near the beginning of Ridley Scott’s lega-sequel Gladiator II, Mescal’s character Lucius is enslaved by Romans and thrown into battle, where he comes face to face with a gaggle of CGI baboons. As his fellow fighters fall one by one, Lucius channels the barbarous gladiator within to sink his teeth into a primate’s leg, creating a meaty, bone-breaking “CHOMP” sound that’s as unexpected as it is riveting. Scoot over, Scooby.

Best Three Daughters

WINNER: Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen and Natasha Lyonne in His Three Daughters

(Selected by George Fenwick)

It’s the impossible question faced by all siblings: how can people from the same household turn out so differently? His Three Daughters answers by holding a microscope to three sisters (Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen and Natasha Lyonne) and confining them to one apartment as they care for their ailing father. They may start out as archetypes—the neurotic matriarch, the sensitive one, the stoner—but through three rich, emotionally generous performances, the trio shatter expectations. (Alt title: These Three Mothers.) Chewing their way through delicious, evocative dialogue, Coon, Olsen and Lyonne tessellate their performances perfectly, delivering a heartbreaking portrait of three grieving women on the awkward, painful road to reconciliation. The March sisters would be proud.

Best Egg

WINNER: Problemista

(Selected by Annie Lyons)

From Moonstruck’s egg-in-a-hole to Howl’s Moving Castle’s sunny side up eggs and bacon, perhaps no breakfast food has as storied a history in cinema as the egg. But while the unassuming ovoid is frequently cracked, whisked and fried on-screen, Julio Torres’s singular Problemista offers a new delicacy: thirteen gorgeous still lifes of eggs, the exclusive subject matter of RZA’s artist Bobby. Torres engages the seemingly absurd fixation with refreshing sincerity. Bobby loves his eggs, and so we see them through his eyes, tenderly nestled on plush satin against richly colored backgrounds, smooth and whole and full of possibility. Consider this my official request for one framed print of ‘Shy Egg’, please.

Best Use of Handsomeness to Make Us Ignore a Glaring Height Difference in Casting aka Maybe He Shrunk with Age

WINNER: Oh, Canada

(Selected by Rafa Sales Ross)

One of the most criminally underrated films of the year, Paul Schrader’s melancholic prodding at the dichotomy of memory sadly slipped under the radar, except for one burning hot topic: how could the director expect the audience to believe Jacob Elordi (6’ 5”) and Richard Gere (5’ 10”) to be the same man, albeit at different points of his life? Well, to that question, I ask agnostics another one in return: how does it feel to not have joy in your heart?! Only twenty small, insignificant little centimeters are keeping you from seeing true light, and by true light I mean a beautifully made film featuring two equally beautiful men. I’ll take that over boring precision any day.

The Black Eyeliner Award for Best Goth Boyfriend

WINNER: Tom Burke in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

(Selected by Mitchell Beaupre)

We’ve all been there. You’re strolling the aisles in Hot Topic (or worse, Spence’s Bazaar), looking for your next mesh sleeves or studded belt, and there you see him. Over in the next aisle, with the scene bangs and eyeliner: it’s the goth boyfriend of your dreams. These locations are expected hangouts for our goth baes, but I was caught off-guard by the appearance of one in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. He came in the guise of Tom Burke, with whom I was most familiar as the unrepentant bastard of The Souvenir. There are some who would argue that Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) didn’t need a romantic interest, and I get their point, but Burke’s Praetorian Jack was a total scene-stealer who brought our heroine salvation in an unforgiving world and helped hone the vengeful, calculated and resolute warrior she would eventually become. For that, we salute him.

Best Kitchen I Can’t Afford But the Romance of It All Makes It Feel Like Maybe If I Believe It, I Can Achieve It

WINNER: We Live in Time

(Selected by Ella Kemp)

I love a lot about We Live in Time—Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield give tender, vulnerable performances that had me on the edge of tears within about 45 seconds. I loved Bryce Dessner’s thoughtful score and playwright Nick Payne’s spiritual sequel to his career-best work Constellations in this script. But what I love, and hate, because I want, is Florence Pugh’s character’s Almut’s kitchen. Almut is a brilliant chef, but she’s also a mid-to-late twenties Londoner who has an island and a butler sink and cast-iron pans and wide-open shelving. For a film that prides itself on showing the realities of modern-day love and tragedy, that production design is such a fantasy I want to quit this industry altogether. And maybe retrain as an interior designer.

Best Argument

WINNER: Julianne Nicholson and Sophie Okonedo in Janet Planet

Selected by George Fenwick

I can’t the last time I’d seen an argument written as naturally and softly as the one in Janet Planet between Janet (Julianne Nicholson) and Regina (Sophie Okonedo). After taking psychedelics, Janet uses her trip to forgive herself for making so-called “bad decisions”. You can see in her eyes the drugs have unlocked something seismic: who’s to say what a “bad decision” even is? But Regina derails her with “but you do make bad decisions,” the mood shifts, and it becomes clear the two view life very differently.

Annie Baker’s writing is so delicate—“you stepped on my toe”—that it’s hard to tell if we’re witnessing the severing of a friendship or a soon-forgotten tiff, but a late-scene reveal tells us we’ll never know. The argument has been quietly observed the whole time by Janet’s daughter Lacy (Zoe Ziegler), and it matters not to her whether her mother works things out with this unfamiliar woman. The scene is cut mid-fight, and Lacey moves on.

Best Old Man Yaoi

Winner: Conclave

(Selected by Annie Lyons)

Conclave thrives on a “yes, and” mentality. Not only does the film deliver a genuinely moving treatise on faith and uncertainty but it does so by assembling the messiest, color-coordinated divas you’ve ever met and locking the doors tight. These aging Catholic cardinals might have taken vows of chastity, but that doesn’t stop me from wondering whether Bellini’s (Stanley Tucci) cheeks flushed when he first met Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) in seminary or how a hot new bombshell entering the villa (aka, Carlos Diehz’s Benitez) complicates their relationship. “I don’t want your vote!” Lawrence erupts at one point. Benitez simply smiles: “Nevertheless, you have it.” I know what’s getting my vote for the most romantic line of the year.

Best Prosthetic Appendage

WINNER: Nosferatu

(Selected by Katie Rife)

Robert Eggers’ attention to detail is legendary. The fasteners on his costumes are historically accurate—do you really think his characters wouldn’t be anatomically correct? Sure, Count Orlock (Bill Skarsgård) is technically a fictional creature. But he’s also a shambling corpse, and shambling corpses have dicks, damn it! Skarsgård’s latex appendage, glimpsed in shadow when the Count is interrupted sleeping in his sarcophagus, nods to Eggers’ fondness for fart and boner jokes, otherwise neglected in this grim and morbid film. It’s also a fun way to mess with Nicholas Hoult, who now has the penis hanging in his home. For more horror objects I love, take a journey through my Journal tour here.

The ‘Killing Me Softly with His Song’ Award for Best About a Boy Reunion

WINNER: Nicholas Hoult and Toni Collette in Juror #2

(Selected by Mitchell Beaupre)

Every year, we feverishly await the next pairing of actors from Paul and Chris Weitz’s charming Nicholas Hornby adaptation About a Boy. While we all kept looking in the corner of the frames to see if Rachel Weisz would make a surprise cameo in Heretic, this year’s prize goes to Nicholas Hoult and Toni Collette in Clint Eastwood’s legal thriller Juror #2. Program these features together and watch how a struggling single mother and her bullied, socially awkward son evolve into a dogged prosecutor running for District Attorney and an expectant father grappling with the biggest mistake of his life. From loving parent and child to heated enemies, if only Hugh Grant were there to sing them to a resolution.

Best Villainous Costume Design

WINNER: Feathers McGraw in Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

(Selected by Ella Kemp)

Perhaps not entirely new to this awards season, it’s still no mean feat that Feathers McGraw keeps getting away with everything, 32 years later. That, in huge part, is down to his disguises. “A chicken? Behind all this?!” Wallace cries, obliviously staring at the penguin that terrorized him and his best pal Gromit all those years ago, with a rubber glove on his head and a dream in his heart. Additional touches I adore in the sequel include a fabulous nun get-up (which you all seem to be loving as well) and that same expressionless menace that defined a generation. Love this diva.

The Hot Topic Award for Most Accurate Depiction of the Emo Eldest Daughter Lifestyle

WINNER: Shirley Chen in Dìdi (弟弟)

(Selected by Mia Lee Vicino)

While the emo eldest daughter lifestyle may have evolved since Dìdi (弟弟)’s setting of 2008—Hot Topic seems to lean more anime plushy than band shirt these days—taking care of (and annoying) your dork kid sibling is eternal. Under Sean Wang’s direction, Shirley Chen as Vivian Wang personifies this archetype with accuracy and aplomb, rocking layered side bangs, Paramore T-shirts and Panic! at the Disco posters plastered on her bedroom walls. My only critique: a conspicuous lack of poorly drawn eyeliner.

The Reynolds Woodcock Award for Leading Man Most in Need of a Shower, Bed Rest and a Bowl of Homemade Soup

WINNER: Josh O’Connor in Challengers

(Selected by Annie Lyons)

Did someone say two-peat? From his lung-puncturing coughs to his increasingly musty 1970s suit, Josh O’Connor cinched last year’s prestigious Reynolds Woodcock Award with ease for his turn as disheveled sad sack Arthur in La Chimera. Not one to rest on his laurels, the actor again brought the exactly right combination of broke, exhausted and sweaty to 31-year-old Patrick Zweig. Overabundance of confidence aside, the washed-up tennis star scarfs down pity breakfast sandwiches, gloms around saunas and lobbies in hopes of reconnecting with his former flame(s) and pathetically thumbs through dating apps looking for a place to stay. Fine, fine, I’ll step in. The minestrone is on the stove.

Best Horror Movie About Being Impregnated by the Devil

WINNER: The First Omen

(Selected by Katie Rife)

The politically charged sub-subgenre of horror movies about naïve young women being unwillingly impregnated by sinister cults trying to speed run the Antichrist was quite competitive in 2024. Thinking too hard about the reason behind this trend is soul-crushing—but hey, at least we got The First Omen out of it! This late-period prequel from director Arkasha Stevenson goes so much harder than it has to: The direction is artful, the visuals are gorgeous, and star Nell Tiger Free adds depth to her character that’s missing from some of her peers.

Frenchest Enunciation of the Word F—k

WINNER: Vincent Cassel in The Shrouds

(Selected by Rafa Sales Ross)

Have you ever been at a screening and realized you were the only one holding in a giggle? That was me watching David Cronenberg’s deeply personal love letter to the vastness of grief, The Shrouds. If you were in the same theater, you could probably hear me struggling with a mischievous chuckle every time Vincent Cassel, fashioned to look exactly like Cronenberg, said the curse word “f—ck”. Please do indulge me in imagining the Frenchest way anyone can ever say the word “f—ck”. Now multiply it by a thousand. Now imagine Cassel saying it approximately 200 times, not only earnestly but emphatically. Sorry, I’m cackling again.