‘Tis the season! No, not that season – award nomination season! With various film festivals closing out with tons of excellent films, the Golden Globe nominations having been announced, the Oscars shortlist coming soon and BAFTA nominations in January, there’s a lot to be excited about right now. This month’s TTRs includes an eclectic mix of award contenders, Christmas films, a documentary and even a horror for good measure. So settle in, and check out what’s good.

This month’s TTRs consists of: A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter, All We Imagine As Light, Emilia Pérez, Maria, Memoir of a Snail, My Old Ass, Oddity, The People’s Joker, Red One, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, That Christmas and Vermiglio.

Director: Sam Wrench
Writers: Megan Amram, Jimmy Fowlie, Fran Gillespie
Cast: Sabrina Carpenter, Cara Delevingne, Sean Astin, Nico Hiraga, Kyle Mooney, Jillian Bell, Quinta Brunson, Shania Twain, Megan Stalter, Chappell Roan, Owen Thiele, Kali Uchis, Tyla

As a fan of Sabrina Carpenter, I was looking forward to this Netflix special, but I have to admit, I was a little disappointed. The musical performances are great, and the cameos are a lot of fun, but the sketches and comedy are rather lacking. Many of them felt like the punchline never really came and the performances were so over-the-top. Perhaps it just wasn’t my kind of humour. I can’t say I’ve seen many (if any?) celebrity Christmas specials, but I was expecting more than what this one offers, mostly in the way of some audience interaction and performances of Sabrina’s hits (she has had a good few just this year).

Director: Payal Kapadia
Writer: Payal Kapadia
Cast: Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, Hridhu Haroon, Azees Nedumangad, Anand Sami

Sometimes, films don’t have to be full of drama/intrigue/action/frights etc etc etc to have any kind of impact. Sometimes, all it takes is a snippet of a life, a day, a week, a month, to make an impression. In All We Imagine As Light, we follow a short time in the lives of two nurses living together in Mumbai: straitlaced and moralistic Prabha (Kasruti) whose husband left for Germany soon after they married, and the more sociable and free-living Anu (Prabha) who is dating a Muslim man and is constantly looking for ways they can be together. The women support each other and attempt to navigate their lives through their needs and desires. It is a wonderfully shot, performed and written story that depicts the sprawling, packed and class-divided city of Mumbai while focusing on real humanity within it. This film has already garnered multiple awards, including the Grand Prix at Cannes and Best International Feature at the Gothams, and so it is certainly one to watch for the Academy Awards.

Director: Jacques Audiard
Writer: Jacques Audiard
Cast: Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Edgar Ramírez

Lawyer Rita (Saldaña) is hired by cartel kingpin Manitas (Gascón) to help him find a doctor so he can undergo a gender transition and leave his old life behind. Manitas starts her new life as Emilia, eventually reconnecting with Rita and enlisting her services once again to help her also reconnect with her wife, Jessi (Gomez), who believes Manitas to be dead, and their children. I have to admit, I think this is the first time I’ve seen a musical not in English. Did that make any difference? Not really. Music has a way of transcending language, lyrics or not, and conveying emotion that regular dialogue perhaps cannot. The film has Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet vibes (but with a little less violence and romance), and the musical numbers are rather catchy. Saldaña and Gascón give strong performances, particularly Gascón, in her first role since transitioning. The first act dips a little in pacing at times, and the visuals don’t always seem to match the musical numbers aesthetically, but it begins to pick up in the second and then skyrocket in the third. It has already begun to make waves on the awards circuit, particularly at Cannes, with Gascón, Saldaña, Gomez and Paz jointly receiving the Best Actress award, and the Jury Prize awarded to director Audiard.

Director: Pablo Larraín
Writer: Steven Knight
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Haluk Bilginer, Kodi Smit-McPhee

It’s starting to feel like everyone and their mother is getting a biopic these days. However, some are more deserving than others, mainly due to their personal characteristics making for a good film. Maria stars Jolie as Maria Callas, a New York-born Greek opera singer whose personal life seemed to overshadow her talent at times. Chronicling the last few years of her life in Paris and throwing in a few further flashbacks, we get a very interesting look at Maria, her relationships and her diva-ish, yet iconic, ways. The film boasts wonderful cinematograpy, editing and direction, but its biggest success is Jolie’s stunning performance. She learned to sing opera, though her own voice isn’t actually in use very much until the final act (with most of the film being lip-synched to Callas’s voice), and Maria’s brash personality and need to be adored is portrayed magnificently. Maria is struggling to make a real impact on the awards circuit so far, so it’ll be interesting to see how it will fare in upcoming nominations.

Director: Adam Elliot
Writer: Adam Elliot
Cast: Sarah Snook, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jacki Weaver, Eric Bana, Dominique Pinon, Magda Szubanski, Bernie Clifford, Nick Cave

In Melbourne, Australia, Grace Pudel (Snook) recounts her life to her pet snail, Sylvia. Starting with her motherless childhood in the 1970s and going through to her teen years and eventual adulthood, Grace experiences many traumatic events, including being separated from her beloved twin brother, Gilbert (Smit-McPhee). If you have seen Elliot’s previous feature film Mary & Max (one of my personal all-time favourites), much of this film will be familiar, including its claymation style and biographical nature (or ‘clayography’, as Elliot has coined). If you enjoyed Mary & Max, you’ll likely feel much the same about this one. It’s comical, sorrowful, hopeful and reflective, a testament to Elliot’s five-plus years working on this film. A wonderful, heartfelt story with fantastic vocal performances that deserves all of the praise coming its way.

Director: Megan Park
Writer: Megan Park
Cast: Maisy Stella, Aubrey Plaza, Percy Hynes White, Maddie Ziegler, Kerrice Brooks, Maria Dizzia, Seth Isaac Johnson, Carter Trozzolo

If you had a visit from your future self, particularly if you’re not yet an adult, what would you say? What would you ask? Would you even want to know anything? When Elliot (Stella) gets a visit from her 39-year-old self (Plaza) on her eighteenth birthday, she puts it down to the shroom tea she drank. But when a phone number for her ‘old ass’ self appears in her phone, enabling them to communicate, young Elliot begins to wonder about how she takes her current life for granted. No matter your age, you’re likely to take a lot away from this film. For myself, 35-years-old at the time of writing, I wonder about some of the things both older and younger Elliot say, and while it does feel existential at times, it’s also reassuring at others. Park deftly captures that line between childhood and adulthood and understands completely how different life is in your thirties-to-forties, the not-yet-middle-aged part of life where you’re not young, but not yet old either, and how time seems to start slipping away. It’s also a good reminder that sometimes it pays to listen to your inner child and ignore your older self. Great writing, fantastic performances, and a beautiful setting all come together nicely to create an excellent coming-of-age film.

Director: Damian McCarthy
Writer: Damian McCarthy
Cast: Carolyn Bracken, Gwylim Lee, Caroline Menton, Steve Wall, Tadhg Murphy

It wouldn’t be a complete month without throwing in at least one horror film. A year after her twin sister is brutally murdered, Darcy (Bracken), a blind psychic who owns and operates a shop of curiosities, arrives unannounced at Ted’s (Lee) house, her sister’s widower, where he now lives with his new girlfriend. While there, she unpacks a strange life-size wooden man, and attempts to uncover the truth behind her sister’s murder. Oddity is full of well-done creepiness, with the framing of particular shots and overall cinematography taking most of the credit for that creepiness. The setting of an old farm house pre- and post-renovation gives an isolated, claustrophobic and cold feel to the film, while the minimal lighting lends a feeling of vulnerability (and a slight relatability to Darcy’s blindness). There are no major jump scares (a trope I personally detest), everything is done either subtley or not at all, leaving viewers on edge. The film has some moments of disjointedness and leaves some loose ends untied, but on the whole it is a solid spookfest. McCarthy’s previous film, Caveat, is apparently worth a watch due to its relation to Oddity, as well as some of McCarthy’s other short films, and if they’re anything like Oddity, they’re certainly worth a watch.

Director: Vera Drew
Writers: Vera Drew, Bri LeRose
Cast: Vera Drew, Lynn Downey, Kane Distler, Nathan Faustyn, Griffin Kramer

If you want a film that’s gonna push peoples’ buttons purely for being unapologetically itself, this is the film for you. Putting a queer bend on traditional DC characters, The People’s Joker follows Joker the Harlequin (Vera Drew) as she navigates her transition through past and present hurts, both personal and, er, comical (as in, comic books, but also because she’s a stand-up comedian?), all while battling a not-so-heroic Batman and other reimagined characters. You may not have seen/heard much of this one due to some maybe/maybe-not legal issues with Warner Brothers, but if you can get a chance to see it, enjoy it for its larger-than-life characters, various cinematic techniques (live action, animation, even puppetry), wonderful comedy and a heartfelt story of fitting in and belonging while being true to oneself. Drew also picked up the Breakthrough Director award at the 2024 Gotham awards, so there’s a lot to be said for this film.

Director: Jake Kasdan
Writers: Chris Morgan, Hiram Garcia
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, J.K. Simmons, Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Liu, Bonnie Hunt, Wesley Kimmel

I guess this one is 2024’s Christmas action blockbuster offering, and action-packed it certainly is. On Christmas Eve, Santa Claus (Simmons), code named Red, is kidnapped from the secret North Pole head quarters. Head of security Cal (Johnson), on the eve of his voluntary retirement, teams up with Jack (Evans), a hacker and dead-beat dad who compromised the location Santa, to rescue Santa and, yes, save Christmas. Honestly, this is a fun one for Christmas. It has lots of action, fun characters both real and imaginary, and does its best to utilise themes for substance. Johnson and Evans have good onscreen chemistry, and it’s a good one to waken the child in adults. It does lack real depth and drag a little at times, as well as being a bit confused as to whether it’s for adults or kids, but ultimately it is a fun Christmas movie (mainly for adults, I would surmise).

Directors: Ian Bonhôte, Peter Ettedgui

You may know Christopher Reeve as being Superman. You may know him for his other acting projects. You may know him for the horrendous horse-riding accident that caused him to become paralysed from the neck down. You may not know him at all. Whatever rings true for you, this documentary of his life is entirely worth watching. To most people, Reeve was (and for many of us still is) Superman, and for reality to hit so hard that he was, in fact, but a man like the rest of us, may have been a hard pill to swallow. But, as this documentary shows, a hero can be far, far more than a man in a cape, and its often the people around them that enable them to become something they never thought they could be. This film was a personal one for me, growing up and considering Reeve’s Superman to be something of a beacon in my life (and continues to be), and as an adult, to understand more about the man behind my fictional hero, how he was just as imperfect as the rest of us, is a fantastic lesson in what it means to be human, no matter the circumstances.

Director: Simon Otto
Writer: Richard Curtis, Peter Souter
Cast: Bill Nighy, Brian Cox, Guz Khan, Jack Wisniewski, Zazie Hayhurst, India Brown, Fiona Shaw, Jodie Whittaker, Freddie Spry, Ava Talbot, Kuhu Agarwal, Sienna Sayer, Rhys DarbyLolly Adefope, Bronte Smith, Sindhu Vee, Katharine Parkinson, Rosie Cavaliero

Richard Curtis is generally the king of films that need a healthy dose of feelings, particularly at Christmas time. When a huge snowstorm hits the small town of Wellington-on-Sea, a group of children are left to fend for themselves while their parents spend Christmas Eve night in a van after attending a wedding; one boy is left angered when his father can’t make it to see him on Christmas Day and his mother has to work; and a young girl worries about her twin who is headed for Santa’s naughty list. All the while, Santa is trying to make it through the storm to get the presents to the children of Wellington. Much like Curtis’s Love Actually, multiple stories entwine to show a range of situations for people to relate to. It’s got laugh-out-loud moments while being super emotional at times and is a heart-warming seasonal gift overall.

Director: Maura Delpero
Writer: Maura Delpero
Cast: Tommaso Ragno, Roberta Rovelli, Martina Scrinzi, Giuseppe De Domenico, Carlotta Gamba, Orietta Notari, Santiago Fondevila

In 1944 Italy, a soldier, Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico) , has deserted the army and found himself hiding away at the home of a family living in the mountains of Vermiglio. In falling in love with the family’s eldest daughter, Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), he inadverdently changes her life, and makes his mark on the rest of the family, too. This is a beautifully shot and directed film, the gorgeous mountain regions juxtaposing with the underlying atrocities happening around the world at the time, with subtle performances that let the drama unfold and take charge of the narrative, particularly the story arcs surrounding the female members of the family. There are shocking moments between the peace and love of the family, and everything is underlined with excellent scoring. Like many films on this list, Vermiglio has been doing the rounds on the award circuit, making particular waves at the Venice Film Festival, and it’s likely to be one to watch out for in other upcoming award ceremonies.