By Matt Neglia 

The London Film Critics Circle (LFCC) have announced their winners representing the best in film for 2019.
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Click below to see the winners.

By Edward Douglas 

It’s been over twenty years since filmmaker Richard Stanley was famously fired from the 1996 adaptation of HG Wells’ “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” starring Marlon Brando in the title role. Other than a few documentaries and segments in horror anthologies, Stanley has mainly been laying low and not doing much in the horror/genre game.

Now, Stanley is back with “Color Out of Space,” an adaptation of the HP Lovecraft novella that stars Nicolas Cage as Nathan Gardner, an alpaca farmer whose New England farm is ground zero for an asteroid that begins changing him, his family and everyone who comes in contact with it. The movie co-stars Joely Richardson as Nathan’s wife Theresea and Madeleine Arthur (“The Tomorrow People” and the upcoming “Snowpiercer” series) as their daughter Lavinia and the only one who seems unaffected.

Interestingly, Lovecraft’s story has previously been adapted to the screen, most notably with the 1965 Boris Karloff vehicle “Die Monster Die!,” but Stanley sees “Color Out of Space” as a possible resurgence for the author’s work as the first of a trilogy of Lovecraft adaptations that Stanley will be making with producer SpectreVision.

By Matt Neglia 

The Visual Effects Society (VES) have announced their winners representing the best in Visual Effects for 2019.

Click below to see the winners.

By Lauren LaMagna 
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On January 13, 2019, the nominations for the 92nd Academy Awards were announced. Once again, the honorees all had a lot in common, especially concerning their race and gender. After years of promising diverse works, inclusion riders, and more diverse voting branches since #OscarSoWhite in 2015, we are still seeing the same results. Today officially marks the start of Oscar voting for this particular set of nominees, and I want to pose one question: When will the Academy see the rest of us?

By Matt Neglia 

For Episode 178, I  know it's a few days late. I know I'm the only one speaking (only the second time this has happened in over three years). And yes, I know it's barely over 30 minutes long. But dammit, I'm still here! Coming to you live from mountains of Sundance, I found a quiet room and some time to record my thoughts on the DGA and where the Best Picture race currently stands with "Parasite" and "1917." We'll be back in full swing this weekend where we will deliver our thoughts on the Sundance Film Festival and our final Oscar Predictions. Till then, enjoy and thank you for your patience.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Cody Dericks 
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Have you ever watched the Oscars and thought, "If only I could vote for these things.” Well, we can't change that, but here at Next Best Picture we can bring you the next best thing.

We're conducting a survey where #FilmTwitter will get the chance to make their own selections based on the actual Oscar nominees, and we will share the results in the week leading up to the ceremony. Voting closes at 12:01 a.m. EST on Sunday, February 9th.

Click below to cast your votes though as if you were an Oscar voter.

By Matt Neglia 
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Benh Zeitlin made his feature filmmaking debut 8 years ago with the indie sensation "Beasts Of The Southern Wild," which earned four Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay. Since then, he's been hard at work on his follow up film "Wendy," which is a modern and grounded re-telling of the legend of Peter Pan from the perspective of the character Wendy. Benh was kind enough to talk us through his process of filmmaking, casting the child actors, why it took so long for his sophomore film and more!

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Matt Neglia

The Costume Designers Guild Awards (CDGA) have announced their winners representing the best in Costume Design for 2019.

Click below to see the winners.

By Matt Neglia

The Directors Guild Of America (DGA) have announced their winners representing the best in Directing for 2019.

Click below to see the winners.

By Matt Neglia 

The USC Scripter Winners honoring the best in Adapted Screenplays and their source material for 2019 have been announced.

Click below to see the winners.

By Matt Neglia 

The American Society Of Cinematographers (ASC) have announced their winners representing the best in cinematography for 2019.

Click below to see the winners.

By Matt Neglia 

The Cinema Audio Society (CAS) have announced their winners representing the best in Sound Mixing for 2019.

Click below to see the winners.

By Matt Neglia 

​The Annie Award winners have been announced representing the best in animation for 2019.

Click below to see the winners.

By Matt Neglia 

For this week's main podcast review, I travel across the seas to England with my friend Bianca Garner to review the latest film from filmmaker  Guy Ritchie. After dipping his toes in bigger blockbuster films, he's back with "The Gentlemen" starring Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Hugh Grant, Michelle Dockery and more. What did we think? Is this return to the gangster genre for Ritchie just what we needed?

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Danilo Castro 

​​Guy Ritchie isn’t a filmmaker who’s concerned with accolades or critical acclaim. He’s an entertainer, first and foremost, and his kinetic blend of sex, violence, and criminality has made him one of the most successful names to come out of the post-Tarantino generation. 

Because of his penchant for style over substance, Ritchie’s career has been something of a mixed bag. His best films are fast-paced, comical and endlessly quotable, while his worst films can be loud, uncouth and needlessly complicated. 

Ritchie’s latest release, “The Gentlemen,” is now in theaters, so we thought it would be the perfect time to look back on his filmography and determine which films land on which side of the scale. Our ranking will go from worst to best.

By Ryan C. Showers 
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This awards season is flying by. We’re at about the halfway point between Oscar nominations being announced and the ceremony where the winners are named. So, where do we stand? Renée Zellweger, Joaquin Phoenix, Laura Dern, and Brad Pitt are creating a 2017-style five-award sweep in the acting races; Sam Mendes is pulling ahead in Best Director having the technical achievement; Quentin Tarantino has been outpacing Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” for yet another Best Original Screenplay win for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood;” and Best Picture is taking form with “1917” as a late-breaking sleeper hit with a mild challenge from SAG-winning “Parasite.” However, the outcome of Best Adapted Screenplay remains a mystery. In fact, it’s the most fluid, competitive, above-the-line category this year, by far.

By Dan Bayer 

Last month gave us the gift that is Tom Hooper's film adaptation of "Cats." Naturally....there were a lot of things wrong with it. But where did most of those problems stem from? Well, for this month's Next Best  Theatre Podcast, myself, Nicole Ackman and Cody Dericks travel deep inside of the mind of Andrew Lloyd Weber to figure out what is the point of "Cats." What makes it so endearing? Why did it work on stage but not on film? We discuss these topics and more on this bewildering podcast review.

This is a preview of the podcast, the full version of which is only available to those who subscribe to us on Patreon. For the small price of $1 a month, you can receive this review along with other exclusive podcast content, so be sure to subscribe here.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Theatre Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Casey Lee Clark 

Starting today, I will be attending my first-ever Sundance Film Festival (on behalf of Next Best Picture, of course). Since the full program of films was announced, I’ve been reading and looking over every film that will be shown at this year’s festival. Rather than simply looking into what the biggest premieres or films by and/or featuring impressive talent are, I focus on what films have interesting premises, with the hopes of finding a hidden gem or a smaller documentary that wouldn’t necessarily have been on my radar. I also wanted to focus on up-and-coming or female filmmakers, as a way of showing early support for these artists and their work. In doing so, I’ve come up with a list of ten films that I’m anticipating and will hopefully check out at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Some honorable mentions include “Blast Beat,” “Charm City Kings,” “Giving Voice,” “Jumbo,” “Kajillionaire,” “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” “Relic,” “Time,” “Wander Darkly,” and “Worth.”

By Nicole Ackman 

Tasked with having to bring WWII Germany to life through the eyes of not just the story's youthful protagonist but also through the eyes of director Taika Waititi, costume designer Mayes C. Rubeo had a huge task in front of her. Luckily, she rose to the challenge and gave us a historical accurate but lush look at the time period with costumes that popped off the screen and gave her an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design. Mayes was kind enough to take a few minutes to talk with Next Best Picture about her work on the film "Jojo Rabbit."

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Ryan C. Showers ​

This past weekend provided stunning revelations in the Best Picture race...
 
The Producers Guild Awards awarded “1917” their version of Best Picture, upsetting what most were expecting to be a two-way race between “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “Parasite.” This is after “1917” also upset “The Irishman” at the Golden Globes two weeks ago, and then surprised everyone with substantial box office legs, sitting with over $80 million after less than two weeks in wide release. The PGA title is so coveted as a predictor for Best Picture because, like the Academy’s method for voting for the top prize, the PGA uses a preferential ballot to choose the winner. The PGA is a “test” of sorts to see which films rise and fall using such a measure. “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” has been rumored to be a competitive player on the preferential ballot due to its overwhelming apparent love from the industry. As was “Parasite,” which is the movie “everyone and their brother loves, and no one hates” this year. The fact that “1917” was able to surmount both films is an enormous development.

By Edward Douglas 

While the name of Floria Sigismondi might not be that familiar to cinephiles other than maybe for her 2010 feature “The Runaways,” which had Kristen Stewart playing Joan Jett, she may be one of the busiest artists working in all sorts of mediums from television to music videos to photography and straight-up fine art. Maybe you’re more familiar with her from the music videos, such as the iconic Marilyn Manson video for “The Beautiful People,” which may be hard to believe, but it came out 24 years ago.

Whether or not you’re familiar with Ms. Sigismondi, she has directed a new horror movie called “The Turning,” which the well-read will recognize as a modern horror adaptation of Henry James’ novella “The Turn of the Screw,” which has been turned into other movies, most notably the 1961 film “The Innocents.” This iteration stars Mackenzie Davis (“Tully”) as Kate, a woman hired as a governess for a seven-year-old orphan named Flora (played by the wonderful Brooklynn Prince from “The Florida Project”) who lives in grand and Gothic mansion estate. Kate’s new job starts out well until she finds out it’s more than she bargained for when Flora’s older brother Miles (Finn Wolfhard) returns home, expelled from his school. Kate is equally perturbed by the kids’ tales of their parents, who died in a horrible crash, and some of their former caretakers who also succumbed to a grisly fate.

Next Best Picture spoke with Ms. Sigismondi over the phone a few weeks back with her telling us about the force that is Brooklynn Prince, as well as sharing an eerie ghost story of her own that occurred while making the movie.

By Matt Neglia 

The 2019 NBP Film Community Awards are currently in their first week of voting (due February 1st). Also, the best of the 2010s nominations are being submitted by you all as we speak (due February 2nd). And now, after weeks of Top 10 lists, the 20 members of Next Best Picture have their own awards to share with you all: the 2019 NBP Film Award Nominations. They  were also announced audibly to the team on  the podcast yesterday which you can listen to here.

​Our winners will be voted on starting now and the winners will be revealed after the 92nd Academy Awards. A huge thank you to the entire team at Next Best Picture for their tireless dedication, hard work and love of movies.

​Click below to see our nominations for the best in 2019.

By Matt Neglia 

The Latino Entertainment Journalists Association (LEJA)​ have announced their winners representing the best in film for 2019.

​Click below to see the winners.

By Tom O'Brien 
​
​A film festival? Scheduled right after New Year's? Who would do such a crazy thing? Palm Springs, that's who.
 
This past week, the 31st annual Palm Springs International Film Festival came to a close after offering screenings of 192 films from 81 countries in 12 days. Attendance figures from this year's festival have yet to be released, but the 2018 Palm Springs fest drew over 135,000 attendees, making it the third most-attended film festival in North America.

By Matt Neglia 

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards were handed out last night and while much didn't change in the four acting acting races, the Best Picture  race received quite a shakeup when "Parasite" won for Best Ensemble. Michael Schwartz, Amanda Spears, Josh Parham, Lauren LaMagna, Tom O'Brien & I hopped on the podcast minutes after the show ended to record our initial thoughts on the winners, the show, the speeches and where we think the Oscar race is heading. Tune in to listen to our immediate reactions.

This is a preview of the podcast. The full version is only available to those who subscribe to us on Patreon. For the small price of $1 a month, you can receive this podcast along with other exclusive podcast content, so be sure to subscribe here.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.