Month: May 2026

CATEGORY IS… – Stunts

CATEGORY IS… comes to a close this week and we’re ending this May Miniseries by looking to the future. Next year’s 100th Academy Awards will bring the Academy’s first award to Stunts! This episode, we go into the decades-long effort to make the category happen, how we want to see the category presented on the monumental telecast, how the 1970s’ craze of disaster movies might have influenced the category, Tom Cruise and the influence of the Mission: Impossible franchise, and of course, our picks for ten films in movie history that we would award with a Stunts Oscar.

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CATEGORY IS… – Choreography

The May miniseries CATEGORY IS… chugs along this week with Choreography! You know we love talking about dance on film, so this was a category we couldn’t pass up discussing. We’re talking about the three (early) years that Oscar once awarded Dance Direction, when the lines might blur between choreography and fight choreography, iconic musical numbers throughout movie history, when there might have been showdowns between dueling worthy dance movies, “Shipoopi,” So You Think You Can Dance, and the ten films we would retroactively honor with a choreography Oscar.

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CATEGORY IS… – Voice Acting

Our 2026 May Miniseries CATEGORY IS… continues this week with a discussion about a dreamed-for category that stirred a lot of conversation, particularly in the 2000s. We’re talking about Voice Acting! This episode, we dive into a Disney-centric history of celebrated Disney performances and which of them might have been Oscar frontrunners, from Robin Williams to Ellen DeGeneres. We also talk about voice performances that earned major precursor nominations, Andy Serkis making waves in motion capture as Gollum, and how narration and documentary work might also be considered. And of course: the ten voice acting performances we would hand a retroactive Oscar!

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CATEGORY IS… – Casting

It’s May Miniseries time!! Presenting CATEGORY IS…! We’re in a moment of the Academy Awards introducing new categories for the first time in many years, and we’ll be spending the whole month discussing the categories already announced and a few we think should be! First up: Best Casting! This episode, we discuss the Oscar’s newest category and how we felt about the nominees for 2025, how we would like to see the category evolve in the years to come, what shortlisted films we think might have deserved the nomination, and we close the episode with the most important part: we name 10 films in movie history that we would retroactively award with a Casting Oscar.

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