The Academy has a palate for heavy fare (can you get gout from overwrought movies?), and after the sprint I’m always pretty hungover and don’t want to watch anything with too much nutritional value for a while. The lists below represent only movies that I saw in theatres, and do not include anything that I RedBoxed or streamed. Probably not much for Oscar contenders on that list anyway, although I will say that Escape Room and The Hole in the Ground were both super solid low-impact (no torture or hyper-realistic violence) horror flicks, if you’re into that sort of thing.

2018/19 Oscar Sprint Movies (watched from 1/9/19 to 2/18/19 – hot takes here):

• The Favourite
• If Beale Street Could Talk
• Shoplifters
• Green Book
• Of Fathers & Sons
• Free Solo
• Can You Ever Forgive Me
• Cold War
• 2019 Oscar Animated Shorts
• 2019 Oscar Documentary Shorts
• 2019 Oscar Live Action Shorts

2019 Movies I Watched for Actual Fun (after shaking off the stink of Green Book)

* Might be nominated for 2019/20 (but probably just for technical stuff), **Likely will be nominated for 2019/20, ***Definitely will be nominated for 2019/20

• Won’t You Be My Neighbor N/A
• Us**
• Avengers: Endgame**
• Booksmart*
• Detective Pikachu
• Spider-Man: Far From Home*
• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
• IT Chapter II
• The Lighthouse**
• Parasite***
• Knives Out**
• Cats*
• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker*
• Little Women***

I’m surprised to see so many movies on this list with at least vague Oscar expectations, although what you can actually extrapolate from this data is that Hollywood really  fell down on the haunted house movies this year (it’s the thing I watch when I’m not chasing after the Academy). Despite the relative quality of this list, I’m very worried about how short it is. The Oscar broadcast got bumped up a full 2 weeks this year (last year they were 2/24, and this year they are 2/9) which gives me LESS THAN A MONTH after nominations (1/13) to get my shit together and see all these films. Feeling completely out of shape for this year’s sprint. Fingers crossed that they just nominate Parasite for every award in every category and call it a day. I’ve already got the panic sweats about having to watch all 3 hours of The Irishman.