(Figuring Out) My Top Ten of 1944

I have been going back and forth with this Top Ten for days. I miss deadlines constantly, but that's usually laziness; this one has been an actual struggle. How do I narrow my list of thirteen down to just ten - and what do I say about them?

The 1944 Longlists

Semi-finalists in 17 categories, 10-15 each. For Best Picture, refer to the Top Ten.

Hitch Limits Himself: Best Director, 1944

The 17th Academy Awards' nominees for Best Director are:

Alfred Hitchcock, Lifeboat

Henry King, Wilson

Leo McCarey, Going My Way

Otto Preminger, Laura

Billy Wilder, Double Indemnity

Hitchcock is the reason we're here. This month, next month, and the month after that, I'm focusing on 1944, 1945, and 1960, years where he was nominated for Best Director (we've already covered 1940 and 1954). 

Having read Patrick McGilligan's Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light - and perused, without finishing, Leonard J. Leff's Hitchcock and Selznick - earlier this year, I...won't say I'm expert on Hitchcock, but I have some context. Context I hope to share, accurately, with you, dear reader. Both tell of how Hitchcock was the wünderkind of British cinema, having worked his way up from title writer and art director to film director, even learning the ropes from the visionaries of German Expressionism. But by the 1930s, those German visionaries had been run out by the Nazis, while British cinema was famously very limited regarding resources. It was difficult for a man of Hitchcock's vision to get the films he wanted to make, made in the way he wanted to make them, and already by the mid-1930s, he was looking to Hollywood. He secured the services of Myron Selznick as his agent and, would you believe, the best offer came via Myron's brother David O. Selznick and his independent Selznick International - amazing!

Hitchcock came to the United States with a New York Film Critics Circle Award (for The Lady Vanishes) and 26 films already under his belt. He was no novice. Yet, apparently, there was little joy in the making of his first American film, the very British Rebecca, since David O. had a very heavy hand in production, and Hitchcock was used to doing his own thing. Fortunately, it was possible to be loaned out to other studios - thus 20th Century-Fox and the making of Lifeboat.

Hitchcock makes a cheeky cameo

This was Hitch's half-realization of his dream project, which was to explore the tensions and joys among sex and race and class in a single space (the full realization would have been a film about twelve hours in one of those famous London parks, either Kensington or Covent, I forget). The desire was retooled a few times throughout his career, but he was able to scratch that itch within a timely wartime milieu with Lifeboat, an original concept that saw a glamorous journalist, a tycoon, several shipmates, a mother, a nurse, and a Nazi, all thrown together for 97 minutes. Execs, and some critics, balked at what they saw as noble treatment of the Nazi (as always, a critique says more about the viewer than about the filmmaker), and the film was dropped at the end of January 1944 to disastrous box office. Nevertheless, it managed three Academy Award nominations, a spot in the National Board of Review's Top Ten Films of 1944, and the NYFCC Award for Best Actress for Tallulah Bankhead in her first real screen performance since 1932.

Were those accolades all due to Hitchcock? Did he deserve this nomination? I've ranked the nominated directors from fifth to first:

Five Is Enough: Best Picture, 1944

The 1st Academy Awards had three nominees for Outstanding Production (plus another three for Artistic Quality of Production, though the Academy only acknowledges Outstanding Production as the first Best Picture nominees). The field expanded very shortly after: the 2nd-4th Academy Awards had five nominees; the 5th had eight; the 6th had ten; the 7th and 8th had twelve; and things seemed settled when the ten-wide Best Picture lineup lasted from the 9th Academy Awards through the 16th Academy Awards. 

Come 1944, a new shakeup: five nominees for Best Picture, no more and no less, a tradition that lasted over 60 years and ended with the ten-wide selection of the 82nd Academy Awards. This, even as the individual Music categories (Score, Musical Score, Song) were tallying anywhere between 11 and 21 nominees! For the inaugural year of this new standard, which for many of us is still the standard (damn the past 18 years!), these were the nominees:

Double Indemnity

Paramount Pictures

Gaslight

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Going My Way

Paramount Pictures

Since You Went Away

Selznick International

Wilson

20th Century-Fox

A noir about an insurance agent who is wrapped up in a murder plot with an undeniable dame. A thriller about a newlywed whose husband may be purposely driving her mad for his own purposes. A light comedy about a young priest and an old priest clashing. A wartime drama about the experiences of the wives and children back home. A biopic about the President of the United States who dreamed of a united world and was castigated for it.

We’ve discussed elements of each of these films, and so I’ve linked their tags so that you can see everything I had to say about them beforehand. And now, my rankings, from fifth to first:

The Winner Changes All: Best Supporting Actor, 1944

Presenting the 17th Academy Awards' nominees for Best Supporting Actor:

Hume Cronyn, The Seventh Cross

Barry Fitzgerald, Going My Way

Claude Rains, Mr. Skeffington

Clifton Webb, Laura

Monty Woolley, Since You Went Away

Cronyn is a man in Nazi Germany who must choose between protecting himself and helping a friend, a political refugee. Fitzgerald is an old and old-fashioned priest with a crumbling parish. Rains is a successful Jewish businessman who marries a woman who loves his money more than him, but he's hopeful that'll change. Webb is a bitchy columnist whose protege's murder is investigated. Woolley is a stuffy retired colonel boarding with a middle-class family, nursing a strained relationship with his grandson.

This was always going to be Fitzgerald's Oscar:

The fact that he was nominated for the exact same performance in Best Actor tells you so. At the time, Academy bylaws permitted an actor to be considered for whatever category, and he happened to score enough votes to place in both categories. Afterward, rules were changed so that an actor could only be nominated in the category submitted by their studio, but that got confusing, too: a clerical error in 1963 led to the entire cast of Cleopatra being submitted as leads, while Peter Sellers' multiple roles in 1964's Dr. Strangelove led to four simultaneous campaigns: one in Lead for all three roles together, and three in Supporting for each role individually. So then the rules were changed again: you could vote for a role in whichever category, but the category they got the most votes in first would be their nomination: thus, Kate Winslet in The Reader went from being campaigned all 2008 as Best Supporting Actress, only to wind up in Best Lead Actress.

So that's how a Supporting Actor won the Oscar and changed the rules.

It's not, admittedly, the best lineup. My rankings, from fifth to first:

Almost All Winners: Best Actress, 1944

Presenting the 17th Academy Awards' nominees for Best Actress:

Ingrid Bergman, Gaslight

Claudette Colbert, Since You Went Away

Bette Davis, Mr. Skeffington

Greer Garson, Mrs. Parkington

Barbara Stanwyck, Double Indemnity

The Oscar ceremony honoring the films of 1944 took place on March 15, 1945. By that time, Going My Way was enough of a hit that a sequel, The Bells of St. Mary's, was already filming, reteaming director-writer Leo McCarey and star Bing Crosby, and adding Ingrid Bergman as a nun. When the Best Actress category for this year was announced, both McCarey and Crosby had already won their Going My Way Oscars, so when Ingrid Bergman was named the winner for Gaslight, she quipped, "I'm afraid if I didn't have an Oscar, too, they wouldn't speak to me." She needn't have worried.

Some Old Hollywood fans bemoan the win, not because she wasn't good, but because (a) she wound up getting two more anyway, and (b) this was probably the strongest chance Double Indemnity's Barbara Stanwyck had at winning. The other three were all former winners, with both Davis and Garson perennial favorites during this period. And in retrospect, certainly, it makes sense: Stanwyck's portrayal of Phyllis Dietrichson entered the public consciousness in a way none of the other performances have, the grande dame of all femme fatales. She even has her own Wikipedia page, which no other character here, or even in Double Indemnity, can claim!

The one who won, the one who left a legacy, or one of the others - who would you choose? My rankings, from fifth to first:

A Reluctant Return, A Distinguished Debut: Best Supporting Actress, 1944

Presenting the 17th Annual Academy Awards' nominees for Best Supporting Actress:

Ethel Barrymore, None But the Lonely Heart

Jennifer Jones, Since You Went Away

Angela Lansbury, Gaslight

Aline MacMahon, Dragon Seed

Agnes Moorehead, Mrs. Parkington

Barrymore is a widow whose ne'erdowell son returns after years away, and now both are tempted into crime. Jones is a young woman whose father is at war, now falling in love with the grandson of her mother's boarder. Lansbury is a young housemaid whose indolence makes her unaware of (or accessory to?) Boyer's schemes. MacMahon plays the elder matariarch of a Chinese family navigating life under the occupation of the Japanese. And Moorehead is a French aristocrat who becomes the best friend and closest confidante of her ex-lover's new wife.

A prominent and prestigious stage star, Barrymore's film work before None But the Lonely Heart is scattered, comprised mostly of pre-20s silent films and one talkie team-up with screen star siblings John and Lionel, 1932's Rasputin and the Empress. Her return to film, a medium she disliked, was financially motivated and meant as a one-off, but she wound up doing more and more of them in her last years. Maybe winning the Oscar for her performance here helped, even though she did not attend the ceremony and later described the win as “very pleasant.”

On the other end of this stage veteran and reluctant screen actress, is Angela Lansbury in her film debut. Lansbury was born and raised in London, but the Blitz led her mother, actress Moyna Macgill, to bring the family to the United States in 1940. Lansbury studied acting, began performing professionally (albeit while lying about her age), and so she was ready when Macgill moved the family to Los Angeles. At a party, the 17-year-old Lansbury met the screenwriter John van Druten, whose adaptation of Gaslight was casting for the role of a cockney maid...and here we are today, discussing her first nomination for her first screen role in a career that would last eighty years.

Two great stories, and three others besides. So who would I vote for? My rankings, from fifth to first, after the jump... 

The Crooner Crowned: Best Actor, 1944

Presenting the 17th Academy Awards' nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role:

Charles Boyer, Gaslight

Bing Crosby, Going My Way

Barry Fitzgerald, Going My Way

Cary Grant, None But the Lonely Heart

Alexander Knox, Wilson

Boyer is a villain, mentally torturing his wife for reasons to be revealed. Crosby is a chill, hands-in-pockets priest come to shake things up at a crumbling parish. Fitzgerald is the old and old-fashioned priest who runs that parish, and has done so for a long time, perhaps too long. Grant is a Cockney who can't help getting into trouble. And Knox is the President of the United States who spearheaded the establishment of the League of Nations.

There were fewer "precursors" at this time, and the ones from that period that still remain were not as we know them. Knox and Fitzgerald won the Golden Globes for Lead and Supporting Actor, respectively, but at that time, there were no nominees, only winners - and no distinction between Drama and Musical/Comedy. Fitzgerald was named Best Actor by the New York Film Critics Circle, but that organization did not even introduce Supporting prizes until 1969. And Crosby's performance was cited by the National Board of Review for Best Acting...alongside eight others, male and female, lead and supporting (among the names: Eddie Bracken in Hail the Conquering Hero and Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not, which was eligible for the next year's Oscars). 

Crosby himself claimed he did not expect to win, that Knox would be unbeatable. Indeed, he had to coaxed off the golf course by studio publicity people and his mother just two hours before the ceremony started - which explains the hat in photos from that night, hiding his toupee-less scalp. It's a good thing he went, because it meant Gary Cooper didn't have to present the Oscar to nobody.

Yes, despite his own doubts (or insecurities?), Crosby won, and he'd even be back the very next year for the very same role. Would he get my vote? Read on:

Crime and Christmas: 1944, Part Nine

Our last batch of reviews before we get into the Oscar categories themselves:

How You Like Me Now?: 1944, Part Eight

We're coming to an interesting point of 1944. The most famous film of today's collection was made three years before its release, did OK at the box office, and received no Academy Award nominations. And yet! It has endured! That and more, just below...

The Long Game: 1944, Part Seven

The final three Best Picture nominees are briefly glanced herein, and one of them, tragically, lost every single one of its nominations. But when I tell you that, and then when I tell you the five nominees were Double Indemnity, Gaslight, Going My Way, Since You Went Away, and Wilson, I bet you won't correctly guess who the sole "loser" was...

Page to Stage to Screen: 1944, Part Six

Mark Twain, Anton Chekhov, Eugene O’Neill: July 1944 was a month of literary giants. 

A New Favorite: 1944, Part Five

Summer 1944 gave us our second Best Picture, as well as one of my favorites of this year...

First of the Best: 1944, Part Four

January saw our first Best Director nominee, and now May has our first Best Picture nominee!

The Brooders: 1944, Part Three

A movie that haunts me, a movie I’ve memory-holed, and a movie beloved by Steven Spielberg:

Embattled Broads: 1944, Part Two

Whether stationed abroad, entertaining the attentions of the troops, going to therapy, or committing MURDER, the films of 1944 truly believed women could play it all. I'm reminded that a frequent frustration of Old Hollywood fans is the dismissal of women’s roles at the time, despite there being so many varied, complex parts - in this lineup alone! As in:

The Imitation and the Real Thing: 1944, Part One

Of our first eleven films that qualified for the Academy Awards honoring the films of 1944, five were released in late 1943. Of the six released in 1944, one of them is the reason we're here - Lifeboat, the second film for which Alfred Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director. We'll get more into the specifics of Lifeboat's production and Hitchcock's nomination when we discuss the Best Director category in a couple of weeks. For now, let us just take in these eleven releases, from November 1943 through January 1944, running the gamut from musical to thriller, original to remake, Hitchcock himself to Hitchcock proteges. 

One thing you'll see, as I mentioned yesterday, is how some films referenced the War even when they didn't have to. Sure, The Fighting Seabees is specifically about a military unit, and Lifeboat is a tale of survival on the Atlantic - but Sherlock Holmes and the Spider Woman includes a visual joke, The Desert Song rewrites its plot to accommodate the times, and our first flick even gives a tongue-in-cheek apology for being a fantasy:

We're Back!: An Intro to 1944

If you're here, chances are you've been here before. I started retrospective Oscar years in 2011; my last one was in September of last year, the next one begins right now - the longest I've gone between retrospectives in three years.

But here we are! As voted on by you, the next three retrospectives will all focus on the years in which Alfred Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director. 

Despite being heralded as one of the greatest (and certainly most influential) filmmakers of all time, Hitchcock never won a competitive Academy Award, despite five nominations (he did win the non-competitive Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1968). All five nominations came within a 20-year period, beginning with his first Hollywood feature, 1940's Rebecca (as we covered in 2024), and ending with his most famous film, 1960's Psycho (which we will cover in July). 

In addition to Rebecca and the films of 1940, - which, by the way, include Hitchcock's second Hollywood production, Foreign Correspondent - we've also already looked at his nomination for Rear Window and the films of 1954. Which means only three years to cover, beginning with his second nomination: Lifeboat, 1944.

Now, recall - or learn, if it's your first time here - we don't just focus on just the one film or the one category or even the one ceremony. No, I've watched 89 films released in 1944, and we're going to look at all of them, the good and the bad. We're gonna look at Charlie Chan films. We're gonna look at almost-nominated buzzworthy films. And, of course, we're gonna talk about World War II, still ongoing, though this would be the final full year of the war. Of the 89 films I screened, at least 49 either depict or reference - or are an allegory for - the War.

We'll get into it, starting tomorrow. But I do want you to know what we're talking about, so here are the 89 films we'll cover:

Too Early Oscars: Next Year's Nominees Could Be...

It's the beginning of April, which means it's once again time to try to predict next year's Academy Award nominees - way too early!

Last year, on April 23rd, I accurately predicted four Best Picture nominees, two Best Director nominees, seven Acting nominees (albeit one in the wrong category), and three Screenplay nominees. Among my proudest predix: Sentimental Value in Original Screenplay, Supporting Actor, and Actress. Sometimes I get lucky like that...

This year, who knows? Here's what I think could be up for the Oscars in Picture, Director, Acting, and Screenplay:

Who's Gonna Win at the Oscars?

Another Oscars ceremony is upon us. I didn't do so poorly with my nominee predictions, and I hope I don't do too poorly with my winner predictions, either. 

Lots of hemming and hawing and handwringing over whether One Battle After Another or Sinners will win the Big Prize, or, indeed, how much each is going to win. Makes sense: the former's been racking up one industry award after another, with top prizes from the British Academy, Producers Guild, Directors Guild, even the Art Directors and Costume Designers Guilds, while the latter is one of the Top Ten highest-grossing films of the year and the nomination leader. They're both great movies, career highs for their helmers: Paul Thomas Anderson, who's been nominated 14 times in various capacities for seven of his ten films, and Ryan Coogler, nominated for the first time as a writer-director despite this being his fifth film serving in such capacity (he's also up for Best Picture as a producer; previously, he was nominated as a producer for Judas and the Black Messiah and as a songwriter for "Lift Me Up" from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever). The feeling is that, despite the wave of precursor awards for One Battle After Another, there's no denying the passion for Sinners, especially in the actors branch: peep the standing ovations for the film's wins at The Actor Awards, mirroring other triumphant Best Picture longshots like Parasite and Crash, both of which went on to win Best Picture. Could its record-breaking sixteen nominations mean an equally impressive haul? Or is Hollywood eager to crown one of its most beloved and acclaimed indie auteurs, proving himself with a mega-budget studio picture tackling issues of The Day?

Speaking of the Actors Branch! Sean Penn and Jessie Buckley seem locked up, but what do we do with Supporting Actress or, even more so, Actor? The buzz all year seemed to suggest Timothée Chalamet would easily sprint his way to the Oscar for his best work yet, but, significantly, only the Golden Globes and Broadcast Film Critics have come through for him. Otherwise, the industry's been split, and of Oscar's five nominees, only Leonardo DiCaprio - the only previous winner and the lead of the Best Picture favorite! - has no precursor honors to his name. As for Supporting Actress, it could be another field of battle in the One Battle vs. Sinners war, or Weapons' Amy Madigan could continue her streak and win for a role that actually crossed into pop culture. Skeptics say horror roles rarely win Oscars and she's her film's only nomination, but if a role like that is popular enough to be nominated in the first place...

 

Anyway, all that is juggling about in my brain as I make these final predictions:

My Winners: The 2025 Hollmann Awards, Part Three

Our third and final day of the 2025 Hollmann Awards. You've seen the Longlists, the Top Ten, the Nominees, and Parts One and Two of the winners - now, let's wrap this year up!

Best Cinematography

5. 28 Years Later

Anthony Dod Mantle

4. The Testament of Ann Lee

William Rexer

3. Realm of Satan

Gerald Kerkletz

2. Resurrection

Jingsong Dong

1. Grand Tour

Gui Liang / Sayombhu Mukdeeprom / Rui Poças

The final awards after the jump...

My Winners: The 2025 Hollmann Awards, Part Two

Continuing from yesterday, here are more of my picks for the best in 2025 cinema:

Best Score

5. The Ugly Stepsister

John Erik Kaada / Vilde Tuv

4. Highest 2 Lowest

Howard Drossin

3. Sinners

Ludwig Göransson

2. Frankenstein

Alexandre Desplat

1. The Testament of Ann Lee

Daniel Blumberg

My Winners: The 2025 Hollmann Awards, Part One

For the next three days, I present my winners for the 2025 Hollmann Awards, finally putting a button on last year.

Beginning with:

Best Original Song

5. Sinners - "Pale, Pale Moon"

music and lyrics by Brittany Howard and Ludwig Göransson

4. Highest 2 Lowest - "Highest 2 Lowest"

music and lyrics by Aiyana-Lee Anderson and Daciana-Nicole Anderson

3. KPop Demon Hunters - "Golden"

music and lyrics by EJAE and Mark Sonnenblick

2. Freakier Friday - "Baby"

music and lyrics by Sarah Aarons

1. Highest 2 Lowest - "Trunks"

music and lyrics by Rakim "A$AP Rocky" Myers

Best Actor, Best Director, and more, after the jump...

My Nominees: The 2025 Hollmann Awards

After 101 movies, a Top Ten, and yes, even Longlists, I present my ballot: in eighteen categories, these are the nominees for the 2025 Hollmann Awards:

Oscar’s Nominees: My Predictions

Habit? Tradition? All I know is the 98th Academy Awards will announce their nominees tomorrow and I must, I am compelled, to predict the outcome:

The Longlists of 2025

Following my Top Ten, the longlists - the 15 finalists in the 17 other categories...

My Top Ten of 2025

This year, I've decided to try something different. On my Letterboxd, I have, alphabetically, the 23 movies I considered for this list. I have finally whittled that number down to this Top Ten, which I present here, not in alphabetical order, nor ranked, but in the order in which I saw them:

The 101 Movies of 2025

While it’s been quiet here since September, believe it or not, I have been watching and writing and working on things - including catching up with 2025 releases! After all, the nominees for the 98th Academy Awards will be announced January 22nd, just eight days hence….