The first full episode of our Best in Show podcast is out, and we begin 2023 with a chat with renowned cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins, praise the New York Film Critics Circle for awarding S.S. Rajamouli Best Director, and give some mathematical context to the Oscars shortlists.

Speaking of math, our popular Awards Season 2022-2023 and Awards Season Best Film lists are back, at last. I’ve trawled through the eligible awards bodies and added up the big best film wins—you can see the relevant voting organizations in the list notes. It’s no surprise to see Everything Everywhere All at Once leading the pack, but nice to see less-talked-about films there, too—Little Nicholas, The Eight Mountains, and The Kings of the World (which has just landed on Netflix) among them. 

Before we get to our chat with the goat of cinematography, let’s turn back the clock to the olden days of 2022: when the Oscars shortlist dropped on December 21. 

Stand by for even more wacky math when it comes to how the of the nominating branch judge the songs: as Letterboxd member Noah Gittell explains in his Ringer story on Oscars song history, they receive three-minute clips that remove the songs’ context from their films. “Make it make sense, because I cannot.” You and me both, Noah. I’m still smarting from Turning Red’s ‘Nobody Like U’ being left off the Oscars shortlist, even if my beloved Mitski did make it—but the 4*Town banger is one of the five songs in contention for the 2023 Grammys in February. That’s the thing about awards season: there’s always another ceremony, another chance, just down the block. 

Meanwhile, for original scores to be Oscar-eligible, they must comprise a minimum of 60 percent of the total music in the film. “This is why Arrival’s tear-jerking score was ineligible in 2016,” says Brian, “too much Max Richter, not enough Jóhann Jóhannsson”. And it’s how a film about music like TÁR didn’t secure a shortlist spot this year (too much Gustav Mahler, not enough Hildur Guðnadóttir). 

New York Nods

However, our mischievous ol’ pal Lydia Tár managed to clean up at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, where TÁR won Best Film and she (or, more accurately, Cate Blanchett) scooped up Best Actress. The award for Best Director, however, went not to Todd Field but S.S. Rajamouli for his action-packed bromance RRR.

It was one of a few exhilarating surprises, including Keke Palmer nabbing Best ing Actress for her hilarious turn in Nope and Colin Farrell earning Best Actor not just for his work on *The* Banshees of Inisherin, but After Yang as well. Lastly, our dear friend Marcel the Shell with Shoes On racked up another Best Animated Feature win, while Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun won Best First Film—both are in the Letterboxd Top 250, at #106 and #137, respectively.

The geniuses who cast these inspired votes consist of a 42-person circle of New York-based film critics (obviously) who meet each December; you may even recognize several from Letterboxd and/or Twitter. Their choices are often harbingers of what’s to come for the rest of awards season, although the NYFCC tends to veer a bit more ahead of the curve than their peers—they correctly gave Lady Bird Best Picture in 2017. Today (January 4) is the circle’s annual banquet, where these winners will be wined and dined—and gently interrogated by our social media colleague, Flynn Slicker.

Most recently, Deakins reunited with fellow multi-Academy Award winner Sam Mendes on Empire of Light, a romantic 1980s drama set in a seaside English town not unlike the one Deakins himself grew up in. The cinematographer gave my Best in Show co-hosts Brian and Gemma the scoop on his journey from fishing as a boy in Devon to accepting awards in Hollywood as a knighted legend.

Our first task for Deaks (we’re buddies now) was to tell us the formative movies that left indelible impressions on him, especially considering Empire of Light is about the power of cinema. Naturally, he supplied wonderfully cinephilic answers, all seen at the local cinema in the 1960s: Alphaville, Last Year at Marienbad, The 400 Blows and Peter Watkins’ docudrama The War Game (which ended up winning the Oscar in 1967 for Best Documentary despite being banned by the BBC and British government).

When Deakins wasn’t in a theater fostering his love of movies, he was fishing. “I’d go fishing in the morning, I’d go to school, I’d go back fishing in the afternoon; sometimes I’d sleep out on the rocks all night fishing.” (He deems The Old Man and the Sea the definitive film on the subject). After he grew up and graduated college, Deakins spent about a year taking black-and-white pictures across his home county of rural Devon; these and more personal images (such as some taken on the sets of Sicario and Skyfall) are featured in his photo book Byways, published in 2021.

Before winning the Best Cinematography Oscars for Blade Runner 2049 and 1917, a different number brought him his first big break: 1984—both the year and the film. “On the set of Nineteen Eighty-Four, probably my third or fourth film I shot, we were sitting on a hillside having lunch with Richard Burton and John Hurt and they were just talking about movies, and I thought ‘My God, I really am a cinematographer’,” he recalls. “I felt I really found my place in the world. You know, [I’m] a kid from Torquay; how lucky can you be?”

And so, this kid from Torquay became the go-to cameraman for auteurs like the Coen Brothers and Denis Villeneuve, so far scooping up over 170 disparate awards for his work. The first Oscar in particular was long overdue—Deakins scored thirteen nominations before finally winning in 2018—and he recalls this moment with English humility: “It was the most terrifying moment when they called out my name,” he says. “When I walked up on stage, I didn’t have a clue what I was gonna say… I was just nervous as hell. Then I saw so many people in the audience that I had worked with or I knew loosely, and they’re all smiling and clapping and seemed really pleased, and that really made me feel that I was amongst friends. You’re a part of a community of filmmakers. That’s what it’s about. That made me feel okay, then I could talk.”

You can listen to our full conversation with Deakins on this week’s Best in Show episode. Next week, we take a page from his book and celebrate communal collaboration with Letterboxd’s annual Year in Review (our version of an awards show). Featuring specialized insight from our own Jack Moulton, the man behind Jack’s Facts, we’ll dive deep into your picks for the best films of 2022. Collectively, we can be our own awards committee: the Letterboxd Film Enjoyers Circle (LFEC).