NOT THE OSCARS 2026
Yes, it’s that time of year again. The time when we trip down the digital red carpet to deliver the Not The Oscars for 2026.
The top 12 films which should have been at the top of the nominations list, but have been ignored.
Tell me if you think I’ve missed some, or even if you think I’m being unfair to the actual nominees.
So, anyway, put on your tux or your most stunning dress (or both) and get ready. In no particular order:
1. Best movie about cancel culture
A clear leader here. In After The Hunt a university professor is accused of sexual assault by a student.
Is he guilty or not? Does he deserve the punishment he faces? What happened to being innocent until proved guilty? There’s something for everyone on both sides of the debate.
2. Bravest Movie Remake
Goes to… The Roses. In 1989, Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito starred in the bitingly funny, award-nominated, satirical The War of the Roses about the domino-collapse of a seemingly perfect marriage, based in turn on the 1981 novel by Warren Adler. Ballsy indeed to remake it with Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman. But it works. Almost as good as the original.
3. Second-best Film About A Film Celebrity and his Daughter
OK, I’ll admit it, Sentimental Values was artistically better, but odd to have two films in the same season about a man in movies desperate to reconstruct his relationship with his daughter. Is this going to be a theme? Male guilt over the patriarchy?
Anyway, Clooney’s actor/estranged father may be more Hollywood than Stellan Skarsgård’s director/estranged father, in every sense, but it deserved better than to be ignored.
4. Best Chinese Movie to Put Two Fingers Up To Chinese Traditions
Shih-Ching Tsou’s Left-Handed Girl is a delight and happily sabotages all kinds of Chinese traditions. At its heart (in every sense) is Taiwanese five year-old I-Jing (Nina Ye).
Left-handed, but told by her grandfather that the left hand belongs to the devil, she sets out to explore how many ways she can use this new knowledge. You just know the climax will be explosive and it doesn’t disappoint.
5. Best Movie About Loving The Bomb
Doctor Strangelove de nos jours, if you don’t come out of A House of Dynamite convinced that the military are truly mad and petrified that nuclear devastation is but a key-click away, unstoppable by the very systems supposed to protect us from it, I don’t know what will. Gripping, clever, scary, unmissable. And required viewing for all politicians.
6. Best Movie About Not Banning Books
More chilling than any fictional horror film is The Librarians (the documentary, not the fantasy adventure television series). Who ever imagined that the greatest democracy would see librarians fighting for liberty as book bans sweep across the United States.
These brave yet ordinary people find themselves in the front line, facing harassment, threats, and laws aimed at criminalising their work. A must see.
To be continued in Not The Oscars Part Two
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A hapless British rocker finds himself entangled in a deadly plot in the Caribbean.
