The 5th Annual Team Experience Awards!
Monday, January 16, 2017 at 7:00PM As teased in this week's podcast installment, it's time for The Team Experience Awards, our fifth yearly celebration! While Nathaniel begins his own Film Bitch Awards, here is our growing team's turn to bestow their year-end accolades without our host.
Last year we went all-in on Todd Haynes's Carol, and this year we have another favorite that receives quite a few prizes: Barry Jenkins's Moonlight. And this wasn't even close: the film was the only one to appear on every ballot in at least one category and was a landslide victory to the big prize. Consider Moonlight the consensus favorite here at The Film Experience. On to our awards:
BEST PICTURE
Moonlight
Runner-Up: The Lobster
BEST UNRELEASED FILM
Personal Shopper
Runner-Up: The Ornithologist
BEST DIRECTOR
Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)
Runner-Up: Pablo Larraín (Jackie)
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Cameraperson
Runner-Up: 13th
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Aquarius
Runner-Up: Elle
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Zootopia
Runner-Up: Kubo and the Two Strings
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Filippou)
Runner-Up: Things to Come (Mia Hansen-Løve)
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, story by Tarell Alvin McCraney)
Runner-Up: Love and Friendship (Whit Stillman)
BEST ACTRESS
Natalie Portman (Jackie)
Runner-Up: Sonia Braga (Aquarius)
BEST ACTOR
Denzel Washington (Fences)
Runner-Up: Colin Farrell (The Lobster)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Lily Gladstone (Certain Women)
Runner-Up: Naomie Harris (Moonlight)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)
Runner-Up: TIE - Tom Bennett (Love and Friendship) & Alden Ehrenreich (Hail, Caesar!)
BEST ENSEMBLE
Moonlight
Runner-Up: 20th Century Women
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Moonlight (James Laxton)
Runner-Up: La La Land (Linus Sandgren)
BEST EDITING
Moonlight (Joi McMillon & Nat Sanders)
Runner-Up: La La Land (Tom Cross)
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
The Handmaiden (Seon-hie Ryu)
Runner-Up: La La Land (David Wasco)
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
The Handmaiden (Sang-gyeong Jo)
Runner-Up: Jackie (Madeline Fontaine)
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIR
Jackie
Runner-Up: Hail, Caesar!
BEST MUSIC
Jackie (score by Mica Levi)
Runner-Up: La La Land (music score by Justin Hurwitz, lyrics by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul)
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Arrival
Runner-Up: The Jungle Book
BEST SOUND
Arrival
Runner-Up: Silence
The Team Experience Top Ten:
- Moonlight
- The Lobster
- La La Land
- Jackie
- 20th Century Women
- Things to Come
- Aquarius
- Toni Erdmann
- Arrival
- Manchester By The Sea
TRIVIA:
- While the 69 films that received Best Picture bids was up from last year's 61, the number of total films that received votes was down significantly (175 to last year's 206).
- This year was tricky for category confusion for performers. While consensus wouldn't have resulted in a win for most (like Hugh Grant for Florence Foster Jenkins), there were three who could have guaranteed a win or runner-up placement: Viola Davis, Trevante Rhodes, and Ralph Fiennes. If we follow Oscar nomination rules, Davis and Rhodes would be nominated in lead and Fiennes would have been in the Supporting lineup from our results.
- Like The Look of Silence last year, The Lobster has won a prize after having been the previous year's Best Unreleased Film. Will Personal Shopper also remain in our favor next year?
- The closest race was Best Foreign film, with Aquarius leading by a single vote and a third contender right behind Elle. The Original Screenplay win for The Lobster was the biggest landslide, getting more than double the results for Things to Come.
- The category with the highest number of films voted upon was Best Editing at 48. Best Animated Film received the least voted films at 13.
- Some films that performed well without showing up anywhere on the above winners: American Honey, Julieta, Sing Street, and The Witch.
Previous Team Experience Award Winners:
2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012
Reader Comments (55)
Love this list!! Especially excited by the great showing for Aquarius. Thanks for doing all the compiling and trivia-sharing, Chris!
Super-duper solid list. Top ten list is pretty hip consensus, but eight of those films—the other two I haven't seen yet—are in my own top 20, so I'm not griping.
Nathaniel, do you think that Viola Davis might split her votes between both categories in such a manner that she ends up empty-handed? That would teach everyone a big lesson!
I'm confused as to why Elle was not on the Top Ten film list, even though it beat out Toni Erdmann for the Best Foreign Film runner-up spot. Per chance Toni Erdmann was the third-place film you refer to that was thisclose to placing second?
Really good choices for the top ten, though personally I would have like to have seen The Handmaiden and The VVitch on the list as well.
Good stuff! I would love to see some individual ballots.
great list!! love that there are some choices we haven't already seen repeated a thousand times already this season. (esp. sonia, yay!).
This was exciting to read since I was as surprised as many of you by some of these outcomes. I am mystified that Huppert didnt place for Best Actress but it's nice to see Braga getting close since she really deserved more year-long love for Aquarius. If only Cannes had honored her!
Really fun to realize/remember that everyone on the team loves The Lobster.
also i would like to remind everyone that I am not allowed to vote on these (LOL) but you can see my personal ballot on the film bitch awards which began this weekend (more categories shortly)
*rocking back and forth in anticipation of the Film Bitch awards*
I'm in good hands here!
Ahem, I do not *love* The Lobster. I thought it was okay. But then I saw it about 15 months ago.
I'd love to see a full roster. A "nominations" style spread, if it were.
FWIW, if anybody would like to know, my top ballot - keeping in mind I haven't seen 20th Century Women or Fences and caught Edge of Seventeen too late - is below.
Best Picture:
1. Cameraperson
2. Aquarius
3. Moonlight
4. I Am Not Your Negro
5. Things to Come
6. Kate Plays Christine
7. One More Time with Feeling
8. Love & Friendship
9. Mountains May Depart
10. Jackie
(I so wanted to put Green Room on there, but it was a coin toss and Jackie won).
Best Director:
1. Kleber Mendonça Filho, Aquarius
2. Kristen Johnston, Cameraperson
3. Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
4. Robert Greene, Kate Plays Christine
5. Mia Hansen-Love, Things to Come
Best Foreign Film:
1. Aquarius
2. Things to Come
3. Mountains May Depart
4. Tanna
5. Rams
Best Documentary
1. Cameraperson
2. I am Not Your Negro
3. One More Time with Feeling
4. Tower
5. Here Come the Videofreex
Best Animated Feature
1. Tower
2. Zootopia
3. Kubo and the Two Strings
4. Nuts!
5. Your Name
Best Original Screenplay
1. Things to Come
2. Aquarius
3. Little Men
4. Kate Plays Christine
5. Uncle Kent 2
Best Adapted Screenplay
1. Love & Friendship
2. Moonlight
3. Elle
4. Nuts!
5. The Handmaiden
Best Actress
1. Sonia Braga, Aquarius
2. Isabelle Huppert, Things to Come
3. Sally Field, Hello My Name is Doris
4. Kate Beckinsale, Love & Friendship
5. Zhao Tao, Mountains May Depart
Best Actor
1. Vincent Lindon, Measure of a Man
2. Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
3. Logan Miller, Take Me to the River
4. Jack Raynor, Glassland
5. Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Best Supporting Actress
1. Lily Gladstone, Certain Women
2. Riley Keough, American Honey
3. Judy Davis, The Dressmaker
4. Kate McKinnon, Ghostbusters
5. Kate Dickey, The Witch
Best Supporting Actor
1. Trevante Rhodes, Moonlight
2. Tom Bennett, Love & Friendship
3. Craig Robinson, Morris From America
4. Andre Holland, Moonlight
5. Joel Edgerton, Midnight Special
Best Ensemble
1. Moonlight
2. Chevalier
3. Don't Think Twice
4. The Intervention
5. Krisha
Best Cinematography
1. Jackie
2. Moonlight
3. La La Land
4. Tanna
5. Embrace of the Serpent
Best Editing
1. Cameraperson
2. Jackie
3. Green Room
4. Here Come the Videofreex
5. La La Land
Best Production Design
1. The Handmaiden
2. Jackie
3. 10 Cloverfield Lane
4. Girl Asleep
5. Silence
Best Costume Design
1. The Dressmaker
2. Jackie
3. Everybody Wants Some!!!
4. La La Land
5. Queen of Katwe
Best Makeup and Hair
1. Jackie
2. Green Room
3. Train to Busan
4. Sing Street
5. Ghostbusters
Best Visual Effects
1. The Jungle Book
2. Doctor Strange
3. Captain America: Civil War
4. Ghostbusters
5. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Best Sound Design
1. Don't Breathe
2. One More Time with Feeling
3. Arrival
4. Always Shine
5. The Conjuring 2
(total brain fade of me to not put Silence in, like, number two. apologies if it would've won with that additional help!)
Best Music
1. Jackie
2. Moonlight
3. Sing Street
4. La La Land
5. Always Shine
Best Unreleased Film
1. Personal Shopper
2. The Event
3. Behemoth
4. Zoology
5. Winter at Westbeth
Marcos, we ask this every year and it never happens. The only ones we could legitimately claim may have been harmed are ScarJo for Lost in Translation and Naomi Watts for Mulholland Drive, and even then they were not exactly in Oscar's wheelhouse to begin with.
However, I do wonder if Huppert's duel roles are what kept her from winning in the Team Experience Awards.
Wow - you guys REALLY loved the Lobster. Your runner-ups are fun! although it is somewhat surprising how mainstream a lot of the winners are. Moonlight, Jenkins, Denzel, Portman and Ali could all repeat or get runner-up at the oscars. This (quirky TFE giving them wins) just highlights how broad the appeal for those performers is across the board.
Because I'll never cease to spoil your party!: From the Reverse Shot wbsite, best and worst of the year edition:)
The Paul Giamatti Award for Overacting: Natalie Portman in Jackie
In the voice of South Park’s Cartman mixed with a Marilyn Monroe-impersonating drag queen:
“Misteh Valenti . . . would you mahnd getting a message to ool aww funeral guests when they lehnd? Infoohm them that I will whoa-wuk with Jack tomorrow . . . Alone if necessary. And tell General de Gawul that if he wishes to rahd in an uh-merd cahhr—or in a tank, fuh that mattuh—I won’t blame him. And I’m shoo-uh the tens of millions of people oowahhtching won’t eye-thuh.” —MK
Great calls from Glenn (Things to Come! Mountains May Depart!) I want to see Nick's!!!
Isabelle HupperT is still the best performance (or, if you will, the brevest) of the year HANDS DOWN!! Full Disclosure: Have yet to see 20th Century Women and Annete looks stunning!
Bravo fo calling Aquarius and Sonia!!
Portman winning Best Actress here is irksome. Especially when you all are big on going off consensus. And none of you tasteless queens appreciated The Neon Demon? Hence why we can't have nice things.
chofer -- i liked Reverse Shot's worst of the year piece a lot but the one area of Natalie Portman's performance that I find the silliest to critique is her voice. FACT: Jackie O sounded really really weird and like she was overdoing her own voice.
Glenn -- okay i have to know what "one more time with feeling" is? or am i just having a senior moment that nothing at all comes to mind.
I don't get the Lily Gladstone love at all.
People will always viciously critique the actress fronrunner no matter how brilliant. Look at all the nasty pieces targeting Stone and Portman - both of whom are superb.
It happens in best actor too but not nearly to the same extent. It's always the actresses who are the luckiest talentless try-hards who owe all their acclaim to luck and their director.
Great list! But was surprised at the lack o luv for Huppert n Elle.
The top ten is kinda confusing. How is Things to Come rank above Aquarius yet din take best foreign pic? Elle din even crack the top ten despite being placed runner up in Best Foreign? I wld ve thot it wld rank before Things n Toni who were both in top ten?
It's always the actresses who are the luckiest talentless try-hards who owe all their acclaim to luck and their director.
They're allowed to function in a patriarchal bubble. Women are rarely granted the seniority privileges of their male counterparts in the business. And since many of us view award season as equivalent to a sporting event the brutality of our discourse isn't shifting under cries of misogyny.
Re: Huppert - ELLE would've been more of a threat, but she was only one person's top pick vs. more top votes for the actresses that beat her. THINGS TO COME had more top votes than ELLE, but less wide spread consensus than ELLE. Braga beat out ELLE by a single vote
Re: Portman - Consensus was simply on her side. She and Braga tied for appearing on the most ballots
Coco - I'd post mine, but I'm waiting until I see 20TH CENTURY WOMEN, JACKIE, and THINGS TO COME
Craig - ERDMANN was almost completely a passion vote for Picture honors. My assumption is that ELLE being more widely seen helped it in foreign. For example, it's not in my personal top 10, but it was on my foreign ballot
/3rtful - THE NEON DEMON got a lot of below-the-line love, but not much first place votes
Claran - THINGS TO COME vs AQUARIUS is a little more of a conundrum. THINGS received both more bids in Picture and more top votes, while the opposite is true for Foreign Language. It could just come down to people voting strategically or wanting to see multiple films honored and voting accordingly
I'd love to know who the nominees would be if there were five in a category instead of just a winner and runner-up!
I ,for one, am tired of the topic "Viola Davis: Category Fraud". We see this all the time, most of those cases, aside from the writers here at TFE, go unmentioned, or not talked about nearly as much as Viola this year. When FENCES debuted on Broadway, Mary Alice won a Featured Actress in a Play Tony Award, not lead. Jennifer Holliday won a Best Actress in a Musical Tony Award for Dreamgirls, Jennifer Hudson won a Supporting Actress Oscar. Alicia Vikander just committed "category fraud" last year and I don't recall it being discussed ad nauseam. We can look at several times this has happened in the history of the Oscars. Should Anthony Hopkins have been nominated for Supporting Actor in The Silence of the Lambs, he won Best Actor for 18 minutes of screen time; Jennifer Lawrence was nominated in the Supporting category for American Hustle with 20 minutes of screen time. What about Nicole Kidman in The Hours, Meryl Streep had more screen time. Was Meryl Streep truly a lead in The Devil Wears Prada? I'm sure this topic is debatable, but come on, Viola gave one of the best performances of the year, and as long as she recognized for it, fingers crossed, I don't care what category she's in.
Solid list. Though the lack of Isabelle Huppert in Best Actress is upsetting.
It's great to see Elle and Things to Come fare so good in here. And if even you guys love Portman that much, it wouldn't be much surprise to see her winning the second oscar.
So its a totally different ballot for top ten n best foreign. I tink it might b less confusing if u guys can also post the top 5 nominees o each cat so we could see how each film really fares
@nathaniel - Andrew Dominik's documentary about Nick Cave and the death of his son.
@3rtful - Ignoring the fact that you're incredibly disrespectful to pretty much every writer here and I'll never understand how you can think we're all "tasteless queens" and yet keep reading us... THE NEON DEMON made me roll my eyes so far into the back of my head that I'm now legally blind.
Regarding how "on consensus" the winners are. Nothing makes me understand how the Oscars can end up so pedestrian and expected than voting in awards like these and the OFCS.
DGAGA -- i think the cases of arguably supporting performances jumping up to lead are so few that that's why people dont talk about that (and people definitely talking about Alicia and Rooney's fraud A LOT that year. it was arguably the peak of conversations about the issue. and then the issue died since Oscar ignored the conversation.
but the reason I've been so passionate on the topic my whole life is I really respect the working actor. It's a tough job and it's especially tough to maintain a long career when you're not "a star"... you dont get as much opportunity, you dont get as much acclaim, you dont get credit when a movie does well even if you were a key to why people love it. so i find the constant slumming of real leads in supporting categories really really distasteful. Imagine for example if 2008 had had a ton of leading actresses pretending to be supporting and Viola Davis was then pushed out of her first Oscar nomination for Doubt. That would have been SO sad. Doubt and that Oscar nomination helped her career so much. Imagine if that progress in her career was blocked by a greedy movie star who just wanted an easy nomination?
so that's why i personally get worked up about it and believe that "them's the breaks" if you can't get a nomination in the category you actually belong in, no matter how good you are. So i feel no sympathy or buy any justification for "well we have to let them do it because they won't get nominated otherwise. My least favorite example of this is probably Jamie Foxx in Collateral and Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal. Both of them would never have been nominated as leads. No matter how good those performances are, they didn't deserve to be nominated in supporting just because several people with leading roles were better than they were.
anyway, It's also because i know Oscar history and the category was actually created for supporting actors (not created to give more opportunities for adulation for movie stars) because there was no way for them to be recognized... so the Academy has really disrespected themselves and the working actor by allowing studios to corrupt the system with constant demotions for easy nominations.
Nat, did u just name check Winslet/The Reader w/o mentioning her name? lol. I agreed supp is meant to honour those less unsung heroes, not scoring extra noms for greedy movie stars who cant break into their leading cat.
The Film Bitch Awards are my favorite awards, and the Team Film Experience Awards are also pleasantly different, lively and fun to read.
@ DGAGA
All the performances you named (Vikander, Hopkins, Lawrence, Kidman, Streep) have been discussed to various degrees in the category fraud debate, some IMO "ad nauseam" (and rightly so).
@ Nat
Blanchett should definitely not have been nominated in supporting for Notes, but her work was as good as (if not better than) the majority of actresses in the leading conversation that year, including at least two of the eventual Oscar nominees.
Just when I think I'm all caught up on 2016, a whole bunch of must-see titles pop up (Aquarius) (Cameraperson) (Things to Come) ... Thanks, Team! ;)
Paul - WHAAAA? 2006 was one of the greatest years ever for Best Actress. Cate in Notes was not at the level of any of the women nominated and there were a slew of women that missed that were also stronger than Cate starting with Laura Dern (Inland Empire), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Sherrybaby), etcetera...
Nathaniel, as a struggling working actor I think your position about category fraud is welcome and vital, thank you for keeping the discussion alive and shining a light on it.
Great list! And I really like Glenn's high ranking of Logan Miller in Take Me to the River. That's a performance that'd never occur to me to put on such a list (if anyone from that film stood out to me when I saw it, it was Josh Hamilton, mostly because it wasn't the kind of performance I expected from him) - but he was excellent. I greatly appreciate seeing unexpected names in these conversations. Wish more of these movies were available to much of the country in a more timely manner.
Call me crazy, Nat, but I've always preferred Blanchett to Dench in Notes, Little Children is my second-least favorite Winslet nomination and The Queen is a textbook case of a YMMV awards domination...
@Nathaniel R
You make really valid points, and I agree. However, in FENCES, Troy is such a mammoth of a character, I feel all of the other characters are supporting. Can you see this point? What do you think of it?
DGA - As it happens, I'm working on an upcoming TFE post that addresses precisely the point you raise (re: FENCES and whether Viola's character is really supporting).
Very interesting list, team TFE! Here was my top ten list, with the caveat that TONI ERDMANN hasn't come to my area yet and I missed AQUARIUS and every documentary that came out last year...shame on me:
1. Moonlight
2. La La Land
3. 20th Century Women
4. Hell or High Water
5. The Lobster
6. Sing Street
7. Manchester by the Sea
8. Elle (think I might switch #7 and #8, though)
9. Fences
10. Everybody Wants Some! (#11 would have been Jackie)
ENSEMBLE
1. Fences
2. 20th Century Women
3. Moonlight
4. Hell or High Water
5. The Lobster
Other awards - #1 and RUs only, for space:
DIRECTOR - Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
(RU: Damien Chazelle, La La Land)
ACTRESS - Annette Bening, 20th Century Women
(RU: Viola Davis, Fences; Huppert was my #3)
ACTOR - Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
(RU: Denzel, Fences)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Greta Gerwig, 20th Century Women
(RU: Elle Fanning, 20th Century Women)
SUPPORTING ACTOR - Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
(RU: Stephen Henderson, Fences)
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY - The Lobster
(RU: Hell or High Water)
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY - Moonlight
(RU: Elle)
FOREIGN FILM - Elle
(RU: The Handmaiden)
ANIMATED FILM - Zootopia
(RU: April & the Extraordinary World)
EDITING - Hell or High Water
(RU: Moonlight)
CINEMATOGRAPHY - La La Land
(RU: Jackie)
PRODUCTION DESIGN - La La Land
(RU: The Handmaiden)
COSTUMES - La La Land
(RU: The Handmaiden)
VISUAL EFFECTS - Doctor Strange
(RU: Rogue One)
MUSIC - Jackie
(RU: La La Land)
Didn't vote on documentary, makeup, or sound design
Glenn, sometimes I think Google Translate is your son!
These are great! Thrilled for the support for Jackie, Aquarius and Certain Women. Portman and Braga are my top two, too. And Colin Farrell would be my choice for Best Actor.
Can't wait to see Personal Shopper.
Paul -- what is YMMV?
"Your mileage may vary..."
"People will always viciously critique the actress fronrunner no matter how brilliant. Look at all the nasty pieces targeting Stone and Portman - both of whom are superb."
Annony - I agree. I didn't give Stone much credit going into La La Land and am not that fond of the movie, but she is very good in the film. At times she reminded me a bit of Diane Keaton. I think the chemistry between she and Gosling and the charm they exude is the reason the film is a frontrunner. Chazelle owes them. (And of course, I adore Portman's performance. It's mystifying that people categorize this performance as "biopic mimicry" when there's not even much publicly available material on Jackie to mimic and the character she portrays comes across as much harsher and more astringent than Jackie ever did, to the point that longtime Jackie admirers dislike the film.)
Can someone explain what this means?
"If we follow Oscar nomination rules, Davis and Rhodes would be nominated in lead and Fiennes would have been in the Supporting lineup from our results."
What are the rules referred to here? Does this mean that Davis got more votes in lead, so therefore would have placed there?
Also, does anyone know if Rhodes is campaigning for lead or supporting?
@ DGA -- I agree with your assessment. The actors in Fences were like planets orbiting around the sun that was Troy. In that sense I have no issue with Davis going supporting. It's like an either/or call.
@ lylee -- looking forward to your piece!
DJDeeJay - basically if someone were to receive votes in lead and supporting, the nomination would default to whichever category earned them the most votes. Yes, Davis and Rhodes would have placed in lead. I think everyone for MOONLIGHT is being campaigned in supporting
Finally saw Jackie on Sunday and not only do I think Natalie Portman is brilliant in it, Mica Levi's score also blew me away. So sign me up as on board w/ those Film Bitch awards in particular! Hope both get nominated for Oscars and that the film itself gets a BP nod. Man, what a good year for film 2016. was......2016 had to be good for something, right?
Having not yet seen Certain Women, I'm pleased with almost all of the acting wins, and I love the appreciation for Moonlight. I've come to a place where I don't love biopic mimicry nearly as much as I used to (or others have/do), but Portman in Jackie surpassed every expectation I had.
I don't get the Lily Gladstone love either. I just don't. I'm a fan of nuance, dialing back, understatement, whatever you want to call it, but that performance was not that special.