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The B.A.D.S. by The Goods, 2025

Has it really been a whole year?Or, alternately: Has it really been only a year? The older I get, the more time distorts, and the less confident I feel in my grasp of the past twelve months. Alas, the Oscars just aired, so the calendar says the time has come.

As with every year, I am nominating and then immediately selecting a winner in a bunch of categories that kinda resemble the Oscars but include a few of my own twists just for fun. And so here they are, the 2025 Better Awards by Dan Stalcup presented by The Goods.

A couple of updates in my ever-shifting eligibility rules that exist exclusively in my own head: as with 2024 (but not 2023 or 2022), I will honor US release date rather than premiere date, which is what virtually every award program does (and is notably not what Letterboxd or IMDB does, making organization even trickier).

Additionally, I have decided this year that I simply do not care about category fraud. I tried really hard in 2024 to make my own determination whether a role was lead or supporting, and I only felt worse for it. This year, I am letting the “For Your Consideration” campaigns do the deciding for me. Somebody runs as supporting? They’re supporting. Boom.

Requisite warning: My watch-list for 2025 movies still runs dozens deep, even three months into 2026. Inevitably some of those would place in some of these categories, and even win. And, as you read this, I already feel pangs of doubt and regret for some of my choices. But I still wonder which awards you think I got most wrong; please tell me in the comments!

Previous B.A.D.S.: 2024 | 2023 | 2022

(Pictured: Nouvelle Vague)

Best Film Title

Not the best crop of movie titles this year. But I do love PTA’s entry here — has a strong poetic power and says a lot about the movie’s themes without really describing anything that happens.

Best Editing

The sheer legibility of F1’s driving action is a triumph of editing. That it flows so smoothly and pleasingly in addition is just remarkable.

Best Debut Director

I loved the debuts this year, ranging from promising comedies (One of Them Days, Friendship) to quirky thrillers (Lurker), and more. Victor and Lund in particular show tremendous voice out of the gate.

Best Ensemble

Maybe the biggest achievement of One Battle After Another is that everyone is perfectly cast; and yet they’re all acting as if they’re in a different movie from everyone else in the cast; and on top of that still generally bringing out the best in the movie and each other, from the top down.

Best Song/Musical Number

Honestly could have filled this section KPop Demon Hunters songs and not felt too bad; they’ve held up to my two kids playing them 10,000 times. But my favorite number of the year is the opener of the Ben Folds-scored Peanuts musical. We’ve played it as the kids get dressed each morning.

Best Needle Drop
  • WINNER: “Ol’ 55” by Tom Waits – Eephus
  • “Firework” by Katy Perry – Eddington
  • “American Girl” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – One Battle After Another
  • “Sewing Machine” by Betty Hutton – Sew Torn
  • “2 Become 1” by Spice Girls – Together

A new category, because I love music in movies so much, and great needle drops especially (i.e., background use of an existing recording of an existing song, either diegetically or non-diegetically). Songs that end a movie are a borderline case, but I’m counting them, at least for now, because my two favorites of the year lead straight into credits (“Ol’ 55” and “American Girl”). If you don’t feel a pang when “Ol’ 55” kicks in, please call a doctor or maybe just a mortician.

Best Original Score

It’s pretty funny to me that Desplat made one of the best and one of the worst scores of the year (latter being Frankenstein). But I knew this was Goransson’s trophy since April — just a tremendous synthesis of musical ideas that boosts the music-centric story.

Best Scene
    • WINNER: Kids chasing Gladys – Weapons
    • The car chase – One Battle After Another
    • Black music through the ages – Sinners
    • Split screen Halloween – Twinless
    • A trip to Subway – Friendship

Tempted though I was to give Twinless at least three of these nomination slots, I have to give shoutout to Weapons. I was digging the movie much more than expected, and the grand punchline of the finale had me laugh-gasping so hard.

Best Screenplay

Witty, layered, and surprising in the way it blends genre expectations, Twinless’s screenplay enamored me, although I do need to shout out former kid actor Michael Angarano for his biting buddy-comedy portrait of fatherhood in Sacramento.

Best Documentary Feature

I didn’t do my proper binge of award-buzzy docs this year, and so I count just two I gave a passing grade. Whoops. Luckily, I’m happy to give the trophy to a making-of/legacy doc about one of my favorite movies ever made.

Best International/Foreign Language Feature

Always feel bad when I can’t fill out even five in this section by Oscar time. Do better in 2026, Dan. (If I had about 35 more minutes before going to bed last night, It Was Just An Accident would be on this list as well.)

Best Animated Feature

It’s not quite the underdog feel-good story of Flow, but KPop Demon Hunters is genuinely quite delightful and charming for a picture dumped to streaming. A well-earned tween smash.

Best Cinematography

I am a defender of the remarkably simple and evocative horror-thriller The Woman in the Yard, especially its astounding use of shadow, light, color, and space by Pogorzelski. You’re welcome to seek out the box office bomb and join the club. There are dozens of us. Dozens!

Best Sound

Until this weekend, I thought F1 was a lock for this category by the reasoning of “cars go zoom; heart goes flutter.” But Sirat’s use of trance music as evoking the existential terror of global violence and the numbness of a desert is brilliant and innovative.

Best Visual Effects

…on the other hand, F1 does win Best Visual Effects by the reasoning of “cars go zoom; heart goes flutter,” especially given how much variety of racing footage Kosinski and co. wring out of “drive fast then turn left.”

(N.B, I assume Avatar 3 would take this if I had seen it.)

Best Costuming

I’m tempted to let Another Simple Favor have this trophy solely on the strength of Blake Lively’s large hat, but, as one might predict (yet we ought not take for granted), Wes Anderson’s borderline-fussy production is delightful right down to the costuming.

Best Production & Setting Design

How? How do Anderson and his team manage to make a movie every 12-18 months that feels like it would take another group a lifetime to construct? Every prop, every set, every bit of design is just perfect as always.

Best Voice Actor

Nothing interesting to say this year, in part because of how few animated movies I saw.

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Extremely strong year for leads. I could have doubled this list very easily. I’m sad to not give the award to Hawke (or, I guess, happy since it means I saw an even better performance). But since I first watched Twinless, the winner was never in doubt. The straight man (double meaning) is rarely the more memorable character of an odd couple buddy story, and yet O’Brien absolutely crushes his turn in Twinless: funny, sad, complicated, and deliverer of the year’s best monologue. Then he tops that off with a totally transformed, absolutely crucial, double role? Genius.

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Three way heat between Deadwyler, Victor, and Stone, but I’m just bowled over by the way that Stone plays deception three layers deep and transforms his role in the story like six times. And on top of that, she makes it all look easy. How does she do it?

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Just for the hell of it, I considered triple-nominating Cera in this category for Phoenician Scheme, Sacramento, and The Running Man. What a year for George Michael.

But since O’Connor is supporting in Wake Up Dead Man, per FYC material sent to me by Netflix, I’ll go with him, because he is wonderful. I would’ve categorized him as lead but I guess that goes to Foghorn Craighorn by default, and movies usually only categorize one lead. Regardless, he was my favorite part of the movie, and the first time I really “got” O’Connor.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

These are all excellent performances, but I don’t have the best feeling about the batch, like if I saw a few movies more or even rewatched a couple I’ve already seen, these nominations would be totally scrambled. But Lively really gave me the most “WOW”s per minute (the good kind) of any performance this year.

Best Director

Born too late to explore the Earth; born too early to explore space; born just in time to witness Wes Anderson create world-historically beautiful shot compositions, year-in-year-out.

Best Picture

Twinless is at the meeting point of Alfred Hitchcock cat-and-mouse thrillers, neo-screwball comedies, and Sundance coming-of-age dramas, and yet its own fearless thing thanks to the fresh voice of James Sweeney as writer, director, and co-star. It is my favorite film of the year.

Winner: Twinless

Dan is the founder and head critic of The Goods. Follow Dan on Letterboxd. Join the Discord for updates and discussion.

One reply on “The B.A.D.S. by The Goods, 2025”

Sounds like I really missed out on Twinless. I definitely regret not catching the woman in black after saying I would.

So happy for the Phoenician Scheme love!!

The winner I MOST agree with is Best Needle drop. The winner I LEAST agree with is Best scene.

Awesome work put into this and highly enjoyable read. Will have plenty of reading to do from here

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