Earlier today the American Film institute released a Ten Best Movies of the Year roster (i.e., Motion Pictures of the Year).

The ten include Anora (yay!), The Brutalist (booo!), A Complete Unknown (yay!), Conclave (yay!), Dune: Part II (approvable), Emilia Perez (highly ambitious trans-identity piece…entirely decent but calm down), Nickel Boys (stylistically audacious), A Real Pain (Yay!), Sing Sing (more of a documentary than a narrative) and Wicked (aggressively impactful).

What’s missing? Tim Fehlbaum and Scott Feinberg‘s September 5. Why is it missing? Sasha Stone posted the following speculation five weeks ago (i.e., late October):

“The problem with [September 5] right now is obvious. Much of Hollywood, or at least the loud half, is anti-Israel now. They believe our government is involved in genocide. They are angry enough that Jonathan Glazer devoted his whole Oscar acceptance speech to this subject last year. On the other hand, there are probably lots of Oscar voters who feel differently but who aren’t comfortable speaking out. So that’s a problem. The other problem is that the Oscars are ruled by actors and generally like movies with lots of stars in them.

The other reason (unmentioned by Sasha) is that while September 5 is sturdy, gripping and highly watchable, it doesn’t blow your socks off.