On episode 189 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, AwardsWatch Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson and AwardsWatch contributors Dan Bayer and Zach Laws to discuss Wes Anderson’s latest film, Asteroid City, and then talk about the director’s top 5 films of his career so far.

Before the group go down the Wes Anderson rabbit hole, with June coming to a close, it was time to give another update in the AW Summer Movie Draft. While Team Ryan still holds the lead over Team Erik, it is all going to come down to a busy July and August at the movies to decide the winner. What can be seen though are some interesting domestic and international trends that could benefit or fail both teams going down the wire. Should lead to an exciting finish.

Moving on to the main portion of the show, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City hit theaters wide this past weekend and has garnered critical and commercial acclaim yet again for the highly celebrated career of the talented writer-director. In our review out of Cannes from earlier this year, our writer Ben Rolph called the film “a wonderfully rousing and whimsical ride of idiosyncrasies,” and our podcast team couldn’t agree more, proclaiming one of the best films of the year so far. After talking about Asteroid City, they then broke down Anderson’s filmography by giving out their picks for their top five Wes Anderson films, which included Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Rushmore, and more. You can also read Zach's piece ranking all 11 Wes Anderson films, Everything in its right place: Ranking the films of Wes Anderson from ‘Bottle Rocket’ to ‘Asteroid City’.

You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 2h14m. We will be back next week to review Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and talk about our favorite films of 2023 so far. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

On episode 188 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, AwardsWatch Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson and AwardsWatch contributor Nicole Ackman to review Pixar’s Elemental and take their first look at the 2024 Oscar Season.

Before getting into the meat of this episode, big news out of Hollywood this past week as the Golden Globes were bought out by Dick Clark productions and the HFPA has been dispensed. It is a big revelation as the Globes are still in an ongoing struggle to move on from their checkered past. The team discuss what this could all mean going forward for this year’s telecast as well as the future of their voting body.

After that, they moved on to talk about this weekend’s releases, with Nicole giving brief thoughts on WB’s The Flash, and the group at large talking about Elemental, both which underperformed at the box office. While the DCEU seems to be crumbling before our very eyes with each new entry in the franchise, Pixar seems to be at a crossroads as Elemental received good reviews but had the lowest opening weekend box office returns in the studio’s history. Part of it could be the film, or Pixar’s recent decisions to put their films on Disney+. Either way, the team talk about what they liked and didn’t like from the film and the studio’s future.

Usually when a Pixar film releases, this means we could talk about its Oscar chances or even potential win in the Best Animated Category. But since Elemental underwhelmed and Across the Spider-verse has exceeded expectations, it seems like we have our animated frontrunner that also has a small chance to get into Best Picture. Speak of that, since we are closing in at the halfway point of the year, and we are living in a post Cannes Film Festival world, the team take a look at the films that have been released so far that could make it into the Best Picture lineup, followed by the films this fall that they think will be the ones to look out for to win the Oscar’s top prize.

You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 1h47m. We will be back next week to review Asteroid City and give out our Top 5 Wes Anderson films. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

On episode 187 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, AwardsWatch Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by AwardsWatch contributors Sophia Ciminello, Dan Bayer, Zach Laws and Josh Parham conclude their tier ranking of the 95 Best Picture winners from the Academy Awards.

AwardsWatch Podcast #186: Tier Rankings of all Best Picture Oscar Winners – Part 1

In the second part of the Best Picture tier rankings, the AW team start in the 1960s and go all the way to the most recent winners of Best Picture. This is where our hosts and audience are able to talk about the films they have most likely seen the most, and see the expansion of the limited “S tier,” where compromise and sacrifices of some member’s favorites are placed lower than you would be expected. But there are plenty of surprises amongst the team, leading to a fascinating final ranking of these 95 films. A truly fun exercise getting to talk about some of the best (and not so great) winners of all time.

You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 2h21m. We will be back later next week to talk about Pixar’s Elemental and take an early look at the 2024 Oscars. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

On episode 186 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, AwardsWatch Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by AwardsWatch contributors Sophia Ciminello, Dan Bayer, Zach Laws and Josh Parham to tier rank the 95 winners for Best Picture from the Academy Awards.

While this summer has provided some good films and the team has given out some fun top 5 lists inspired by them, the heart of AW is always the awards season, specifically what will win the Best Picture prize at the Oscars. So in a fun change of pace, the AW podcast team set out to tier rank the 95 films the Academy has handed out the prize of Best Picture to over their celebrated history. In trying to place these winners in the correct spot, the team had to come together and decide on whether to place the films in the S (all time winner), A, B, C, D, or F tier and explain the ranking. The episode was so much fun that it had to be split into two parts, with this episode covering all the films up to 1960, placing a couple of classic in the S tier early on.

You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 2h13m. We will be back later this week with Part 2 of the Best Picture Tier rankings. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

On episode 185 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, AwardsWatch Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson and AwardsWatch contributors Nicole Ackman and Josh Parham to review Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and give out their Top 5 Non-Disney/Pixar animated films.

Before diving into the Spider-verse, the gang went over the first month’s results of the 2023 Summer Movie Draft. After four titles released, Team Ryan has taken the lead, scoring more the 300 million dollars at the box office so far than the films selected by Team Erik. But there is still plenty of time for Erik’s team to come mount a comeback, as this summer’s box office seems to be rather unpredictable.

Moving over to the main review, it’s been five years since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse debuted and not only became known as one of the best films of 2018, but is considered by many to be the best Spider-Man film ever released and an absolute masterpiece. So Across the Spider-Verse had a lot to live up to but based on the groups conversation, and our review on the website by Sophia Ciminello, this is a sequel you aren’t going to want to miss and sets up the potential of what could be one of the greatest trilogies of the 21^st century.

After the review, the team gave out a list of their Top Non-Disney/Pixar animated films, inspired by the release of Across the Spider-Verse. It was a difficult list to make given that there are so many titles to choose from, thus the selection varied amongst the group, with selected titles including Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Iron Giant, Wolfwalkers, The Lego Movie, Your Name. Listen to the show to find out the full lists given by the AW team.

You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 2h03m. We will be back next week to do something new, a tier ranking episode where the podcast crew will rank each Best Picture winner. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).