On episode 135 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson, as well as AwardsWatch contributor Dan Bayer, as they review Top Gun Maverick, and talk about the prize winners for the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

As discussed on the last couple of episodes, the Cannes Film Festival is going on, and as of this past week, it wrapped up with the jury prize winners announced, with NEON landing their third straight Palme d’Or winner with Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness. Ryan, Erik, and Dan break down the full list of winners, as well as if they think any of these wins will translate over into an Oscar campaign for the respective films or performances that won.

Transitioning over to listener questions, the guys talk about their favorite moments they have experienced at a film festival, and what they watch to decompress after a rough last couple of weeks. They also choose who which musician they would like to see making the jump to the big screen. Diving into some more Oscar related questions, they breakdown some of their favorite VFX Oscar winners of all time, which network they thing the SAG Awards will end up on, and how they would fix the Best International Feature Film category qualifications. Lastly, they look at this year’s Best Animated Feature category and examine why there is so much genre bias within the Academy.

After that, Ryan and Dan review Top Gun: Maverick, which landed in theaters this past weekend. They talk about the film’s spectacle, smocking hot cast, and how it is exceeding all expectations, with both of them clearing expressing that it is better than the original in almost every way. They also give some thoughts on the first trailer for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, which premiered online this past week. Basically, we live in Tom Cruises world right now, and they are okay with it as he seems to be the only one making these types of practical big-budget films that dare to go above and beyond with each outing.

And in the final segment of the show, the gang play the beloved AwardsWatch or Not Game, this time breaking down the filmography of Tom Cruise and pitting his films up against each other. They also give out recommendations for which shows or movies you should be watching right now.

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

This podcast runs 1h27m. Let’s get into it.

On episode 134 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by Editor-in-Chief Erik Anderson, as well as AwardsWatch contributors Nicole Ackman, Sophia Ciminello, and Dan Bayer, as they discuss their first predictions of the Best Actor and Actress races of the 2023 Oscar season.

Starting off this week’s show, the group give their brief thoughts on the new Harry Styles album, and talk about their favorite concerts that they have ever gone to. Once done, they continued their conversation from last week about previewing this year’s Oscar season with a look at Best Actor. With his Erik’s first predictions just published, it looks like Leonardo DiCaprio is in the number one spot, with the hopes of landing his second Academy Award. But as they get to talking, everyone brings up their own actor who could challenge DiCaprio in these very early projections. As they wrapped up Best Actor, the conversation shifted to a bit on the Best Actress, which is just as chaotic as it usually is. Erik’s Best Actress predictions article should be releasing later this week.

Moving on to listener questions, the gang talk about their biggest pet peeves about the discourse surrounding award season and what they would change or get rid of if they could. They also share some brief thoughts on the first reactions out of the Cannes Film Festival, as well as what might win the screenplay prize given out by the Cannes jury. Lastly, they talk about the Emmy’s and the nomination chances for the shows Yellowjackets and Severance, as well as Better Call Saul actress Rhea Seehorn's chances in Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.

In the final segment of the show, the gang played two games. The first game is another round of Call Me by Your Tagline, this time with a Cannes related theme. The second game they play is a round of the beloved Cinephile game, in which they played the Filmography, in which each host takes a term in naming a film from an actor selected on the chosen card. The actor chosen was the beloved Julianne Moore, and it led to a lengthy battle between everyone that you won't want to miss.

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

This podcast runs 1h55m, and it was a lot of fun. Let’s get into it.

On episode 133 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by Editor-in-Chief Erik Anderson, as well as AwardsWatch contributors Sophia Ciminello and Josh Parham, as they dive deep into the website’s first Oscar Predictions for the 2022-2023 season.

In the wake of the news that the 2023 Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 12, 2023, it was only right for the first predictions of the Oscar season to go live on the site this week. Ryan, Erik, Sophia, and Josh breakdown the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress races, who the early contenders are, who they would like to see make it into the race, and which performances they are a little skeptical about already. It is a long way till the nominations on January 24, 2023, and with most of these performances as of yet unscreened, it will be fascinating to take a look back on this conversation to see how spot on everyone was, as well as how far off some of these predictions might be.

Then they transitioned over to listener questions, where they discussed what the Academy needs to do to attract younger viewers to the watch the Oscars next year, as well as which films from the beginning of the year can sustain their momentum into the fall. They also talked about the film from Cannes they are most interested in based on first reactions, as well as talk a little about if one or both of Hirokazu Kore-eda or Park Chan–Wook could be an international director to break into the Best Director lineup. Lastly, they mention what debut directional efforts they are looking forward to in 2022 and if they think Top Gun: Maverick has any chance in Best Picture. A wide range of listener questions, but we thank everyone who sent in their questions in.

In the final segment of the show, the gang played two games. The first game was another round of AwardsWatch or Not, this time pitting the top ten lists of 2020 and 2021 against each other to see which film year was better. The first round of lists consisted of Erik’s favorite films, while round two focused on Ryan’s taste in film. Then they played a new game titled Call Me by Your Tagline, in which Erik, Sophia and Josh had to match the poster tagline of an Oscar–winning or nominated film to its respected title. It got a little competitive but it was a lot of fun.

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

This podcast runs 1h47m, and it’s blast. Let’s get into it.

On episode 132 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by AwardsWatch contributors Nicole Ackman, Dan Bayer and Kevin L. Lee to talk about the latest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Daytime Emmy Nominations, previewing Tony Nominations and playing a new game.

Starting off this week’s show are our listener questions, which consist of asking everyone if there is a 2023 Oscar nomination the panel is willing to lock in right now based on the films released in theaters. They then break down if there are any other films like Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick that they would love to see get a long awaited sequel for. And speaking of Top Gun: Maverick, they also discuss which directors they would love to see the film’s star Tom Cruise work with in order to get out of his action movie phase of his career and go back to his most dramatic focused work that made him a star.

Moving right along, the group then break down the recently announced Daytime Emmy Nominations, and then dive into a Tony Nomination preview, with those nominations set to announce on Monday, May 9, 2022. This discussion was very insightful, and for more coverage of both these topics, we encourage you to take a look at Erik’s Daytime Emmy Nomination article as well as Dan’s two articles covering the Tony Awards (Musical & Plays) from last week.

Finishing out the episode is a brief conversation on the Avatar: The Way of Water trailer, which is being shown exclusively in theaters right now in front of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. And speaking of Doctor Strange, the gang then give their full thoughts on the first blockbuster of the summer, going into extensive details as to why it works on some levels and doesn’t on others. It is a SPOILER FILLED review so if you haven’t seen the film, skip over to the last segment of the show, where Ryan, Nicole, Dan and Kevin play a new game called AwardsWatch…or Not, where two films are pitted against one another and they must decide what they want to keep while the other film is lost forever. They played two rounds, covering films in the MCU and Non-MCU movies featuring members of the extensive cast of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

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

This podcast runs 2h16m, and it’s an absolute blast. Let’s get into it.

The AwardsWatch Podcast is back and better than ever. Kicking off this reboot, AwardsWatch Executive Editor Ryan McQuade hosts show #131 with Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson, TV Editor Tyler Doster, with Sophia Ciminello, Dan Bayer, Kevin L. Lee, Nicole Ackman and Josh Parham joining the podcast family.

At the top we answer listener questions about the Oscars like should studios position more awards players in the summer and was last season's record numbers of stat breakers a fluke or a sign of a fundamentally changed landscape? We also talk about what limited series' we think would have been better off as singular films and a question about this year's Cannes Film Festival sparks a conversation about what our gut instinct tells us is winning the coveted Palme d'Or.

CinemaCon wrapped last week, giving us several first looks at some of this year's most highly anticipated films and even peeks at 2023. Top Gun: Maverick, Greta Gerwig's Barbie and the long, long-awaited sequels to Avatar from James Cameron whetted the appetites of attendees and onlookers alike.

We also introduce a new game feature to the AwardsWatch Podcast with a Summer Movie Draft where our group of eight were split into two teams - Team One: Ryan, Tyler, Nicole and Josh vs. Team Two: Erik, Sophia, Dan and Kevin. Each team built a strategy of what films we think will be the biggest summer hits of the year worldwide as well and factoring in what films will be the most critically lauded. As a knife-twisting bonus, each team presented the other with a 'bomb' pick; a film they think will tank and negatively impact the other team's score. Tell us in the comments and on Twitter what you think of each team's picks and who you think is going to win.

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

This podcast runs a sleek 1h36m. Let's get into it.