Oscar Snubs

The 2025 Oscar nominations snub some worthy movies, as always. This year, the lowest grade The Wheel gave to a "Best Picture" nomination was a "B-". Eight movies received a better grade than that but weren't nominated for "Best Picture." The list of Oscar snubs of 2025 are...

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Rotten Tomatoes Hit Man (2024): A unique Richard Linklater film, a true-crime/rom-com/mystery? A boring professor works undercover for police pretending to be a hit man. When he falls for a woman who wants her husband dead, things get complicated. Based (mostly) on a true story, the plot keeps you guessing how it will end. A-

Rotten Tomatoes Bob Marley: One Love (2024): Biopic of the Jamaican reggae star. The intersection of religion and politics is skimped on. So, too, is Marley's complex personal life, except for one explosive scene with his wife about infidelity. But see it for the music. B+

Rotten Tomatoes Gladiator II (2024): Ignore history and forget that you've seen this movie before. If you go just for an epic account about reclaiming liberty, filled with action and gore and some silliness (e.g., sharks in the Colosseum), you won't be disappointed. B+

Rotten Tomatoes Joker: Folie à Deux (2024): Joker on trial for murders committed in earlier movie. Is he criminally insane or just evil? Critics hated it. Audiences avoided it. But I liked it. It was a powerful depiction of how our criminal justice system fails the mentally ill. And...it's a musical! B+

Rotten Tomatoes His Three Daughters (2024): Three sisters gather for a vigil at their dying father's apartment. More like a stage play, with much more dialog than action. The sisters talk out their lifetime of sibling rivalries until, maybe more through exhaustion than consensus, they reach an accord. B+

Rotten Tomatoes The Instigators (2024): Two losers (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck) pull off a heist that goes wrong each step of the way, but somehow there's always a fallback plan to keep going. A caper comedy that's easy to follow and fun to watch, with more than a few good laughs. B+

Rotten Tomatoes Fancy Dance (2024): Set on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation in Oklahoma, a woman goes missing and her sister can't get authorities to care, while she cares for her 13-yr-old niece who looks forward to the mother-daughter dance at the upcoming powwow. A look at indomitable human spirit. B+

Rotten Tomatoes Wicked Little Letters (2024): In a 1920s English town, a spinster receives a series of letters filled with foul language. Her neighbor, a young widow, is accused. A woman police officer investigates the crime. Three great performances carry the light, entertaining drama. B+