2025 Oscar nominations for the 97th Academy Awards have been revealed and on episode 271 of the AwardsWatch podcast Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson is joined by Executive Editor Ryan McQuade and Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello to break down everything that went down.

From the field best 13 nominations for Emilia Pérez (is this finally their Oscar Best Picture win?) to how The Brutalist, Wicked and Anora played out, the gang look at who is the frontrunner as we enter the second phase of awards season, who falls and our favorite nominations of the day. We try and crack some of those '5th spot' nominations like Fernanda Torres over Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Sebastian Stan over Daniel Craig and much more.

For ways to donate or help with the ongoing fires in Los Angeles and their aftermath, go here.

You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 57m. We'll be back next week to talk about our favorite Steven Soderbergh films and our thoughts on his newest, Presence.

Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. On episode 81 of the Director Watch Podcast, the boys are joined by 'Keep It' cohost and 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' writer Emmy nominee Louis Virtel (for writing the Oscars, no less), to discuss the first film in their Mike Nichols series, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).

New year, new series, as the guys take a stroll down the career of one of the most famous, influential directors of the last sixty years, Mike Nichols. Known for his excellent reputation with actors and his work on the stage, Nichols first came on the film scene with one of the best debuts in cinema history with the explosive adaptation of the great American play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Following the events of one evening spent with two couples, one being much more naive than the other, we watch a thrilling chess match of devilish wit, psychological damage, and imploding relationships bubble to incendiary results, with four incredible performances at the center of it. Ryan, Jay, and Louis break down their thoughts on the film, Nichols’ rise to becoming a director, Burton and Taylor’s relationship on and off screen, the historical relevance of this film, the importance of going to sleep, and more.

You can listen to the Director Watch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 1h35m. The guys will be back next week to continue their series on the films of Mike Nichols with a review of his next film, 1967's The Graduate. You can rent it via iTunes and Amazon Prime rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

On episode 270 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson and AwardsWatch contributors Karen Peterson and Mark Johnson to give out their final Oscar nomination predictions for the 97th Academy Awards.

You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 3h23m. We will be back next week with a brand new episode. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. On episode 80 of the Director Watch Podcast, the boys are joined by film critic Ema Sasic to discuss the final film in their Nancy Meyers series, The Intern (2015).

It’s hard to imagine that the Nancy Meyers’ series is already coming to an end, as the director feels like she has so many stories to tell, but alas here the boys are with the (for now) final film in the director’s filmography. Six years after her last film, Meyers returned with a workplace dramedy about a retired widower that signs up to becoming a ‘senior intern’ for an up and coming, online clothing company. Over the course of the film, we see generations collide and a true friendship arise, making for one of the most delightful, heartwarming entries in the series so far, and one of Meyers’ best films to date. Ryan, Jay, and Ema break down their thoughts on the film, if Meyers is a fan of Workaholics, how genuine these characters are, riding a bike in the office, Robert De Niro’s incredible performance, why people need to stop hating on the great Anne Hathaway, and why the world needs more Nancy Meyers movies. They boys also give their personal ranking of Meyers’ filmography and announce the next director movie series they will be covering.

You can listen to the Director Watch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 1h48m. The guys will be back next week to begin their series on the films of Mike Nichols with a review of his first film, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. You can rent it via iTunes and Amazon Prime rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

On episode 269 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade and Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello discuss the winners of the 2025 Golden Globes and how they will impact the Oscar race.

You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast is brought to you by Orion Pictures’ Nickel Boys, from director RaMell Ross. Nominated for five Critics Choice Awards; Best Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor for Supporting Actress, Best Director and Best Picture. Named “The best film of the year” by The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Indiewire, Boston Globe, and The New York Times. For Your Consideration in all categories including Best Picture.

This podcast runs 1h45m. We will be back next week to announce our final Oscar nomination predictions.

Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. On episode 79 of the Director Watch Podcast, the boys are joined by Kevin Jacobsen, Entertainment Weekly Content Update Editor and host of the And the Runner Up Is podcast, to discuss the latest film in their Nancy Meyers series, It’s Complicated (2009).

Divorce can be really tough, but getting back with your ex while he is married to the woman he left you for…sounds complicated. This is the premise to the latest film from Nancy Meyers, about a successful bakery owner who starts an affair with her ex-husband while also becoming romantically involved with her architect that is building her the kitchen she’s always wanted. If you are thinking this is the ultimate Nancy Meyers fever dream of a film, well you would be one hundred percent correct, and it’s a lot of fun. Ryan, Jay, Kevin break down their thoughts on the film, just how complicated this movie is, how this narrative could connect to Meyer’s own life, smoking in the guest bathroom, Streep’s killer comedic performance, how Baldwin and Martin work alongside her in the film, the elegant kitchen at the center of this film and how it doesn’t need to be replaced.

You can listen to the Director Watch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 1h36m. The guys will be back next week to finish their series on the films of Nancy Meyers with a review of her film, The Intern. You can rent it via iTunes and Amazon Prime rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

On episode 268 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade, Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello, and AwardsWatch Contributors Dan Bayer, Cody Dericks, Jay Ledbetter, Josh Parham, Karen Peterson, Trace Sauveur, and Griffin Schiller breakdown their favorite films of 2024.

As we are about to begin an exciting new year of cinema in 2025, we say goodbye to 2024 with our AW team’s favorite films of the year. Instead of having everyone on one call together, the show is split up into six sections, each section covering the six films the team loved the most. Those films included Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu (Karen and Griffin), Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Trace), Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light (Josh) Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow (Dan and Cody), RaMell Ross’ Nickel Boys (Erik and Jay), and Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (Ryan and Sophia).

In each segment, each person talks about why they selected the film as their favorite of the year, as well as an in-depth discussion over the film. At the end, the team gave honorable mentions for other films that they loved that included Challengers, Queer, Juror #2, Maria, Hit Man, Babygirl, Hundreds of Beavers, Hard Truths, Anora, Trap, Dahomey, The Substance, and many more. Please enjoy this wonderful last episode of 2024, thank you all for reading everything on the website as well as listening to the show this past year. We here at AwardsWatch hope you all have a Happy New Year.

You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 3h50m. We will be back next week to breakdown the winners of the 2025 Golden Globes.

Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “Once Upon a Time” from Robin Carolan, “Basm epic” from Z.O.B., “Imagined Light” from Topshe, “Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl” from yeule, “Color Memory” from Alex Somers, “Overture (Bus),” “Intermission” from Daniel Blumberg, “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. On episode 78 of the Director Watch Podcast, the boys are joined by AwardsWatch contributor Karen Peterson to discuss the latest film in their Nancy Meyers series, The Holiday (2006).

Tis the season at Director Watch, as the boys and Karen have come together to talk about one of the most popular modern holiday classics, The Holiday. Billed as a house swap story of two heartbroken women wanting to leave their world’s behind after terrible encounters with the men in their lives, Meyers sets a more dramatic, sweet tale of finding love and confidence during the holiday season. In what feels like her version of Love Actually, Meyers is able to deliver a much more compelling, romantic film than that British film from just a few years before, lead by an all-star cast of Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, and Jack Black. Ryan, Jay, and Karen break down their thoughts on the film, what their holiday traditions are with their families, who character gets a better deal within the house swap, Jude Law’s summer tan, singing in a Blockbuster video, the charming Eli Wallach, and, of course, the most important person in cinema history, Mr. Napkin Head.

You can listen to the Director Watch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 2h06m. The guys will be back next week to continue their series on the films of Nancy Meyers with a review of her film, It’s Complicated. You can rent it via iTunes and Amazon Prime rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

On episode 267 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by AwardsWatch Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello and AwardsWatch contributors Jay Ledbetter and Dan Bayer to go back a couple of years to take a look at the 92nd Academy Awards, celebrating the films of 2019.

Five years ago, the Academy handed out one of the coolest Best Picture winners in our lifetime, awarding Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite alongside a surprising win for Best Director as well as wins in the Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature. It was a historic win as it was the first non-English language film to win the Oscar’s top prize, and might go down as one of the influential wins in the modern era. This film released inside a fantastic year of cinema to end the 2010s, though it was nominated in a selection of films that more or less didn’t showcase just how strong of a year 2019 was. But that is what episodes like this is for, for the AW team to come in and make the changes necessary to the nominations (and winners) to showcase just how great a year in film is was.

In their in-depth discussion, the AW team talked about the film year of 2019, briefly discuss talk about Parasite as a Best Picture winner, do an extensive conversation over the below the line categories and nominees for the year, and then the new version of the AW Shoulda Woulda Coulda game, where instead of individual replacements, they must decide as a group who the nominees and winners should be in the top eight categories. The rules of the game state they can only replace two of the nominees that year from each category, except in Best Picture, where the group could replace up to five films to make up the final set of five nominated films. Like past retrospective episodes, it was a fascinating, fun conversation including spirited debates, alliances, vote swinging, celebrating various movies, performances that aren’t normally talked about and more that we all hope you enjoy. They also do something for the first time in this episode in one category not yet done before, making for a wonderful new wrinkle to the game.

You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 2h14m. We will be back next week for our episode on the AW team favorite films of 2024. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. On episode 77 of the Director Watch Podcast, the boys are joined by AwardsWatch Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello to discuss the latest film in their Nancy Meyers series, Something’s Gotta Give (2003).

With her third feature film, Nancy Meyers reunited with Diane Keaton and recruited Jack Nicholson to star in a romantic comedy about famous, neurotic playwright and elder playboy, philanthropist falling in love with each other, despite being complete opposites. Considered to be the best film in her filmography, Meyers’ signature attention to detail and charm is matched by two incredible performances by Keaton and Nicholson, all wrapped within a hilarious, steamy screenplay that makes this film extremely rewatchable and quotable. Ryan, Jay, and Sophia extensively dive into why they love this movie, wearing turtleneck sweaters in the summers, the birth of the Nancy Meyers’ kitchen obsession, the food in the film, how time works in this story, Nicholson’s star power, how Keaton’s character reflects Meyers’ personality, the performances of Keanu Reeves and Frances McDormand, if Keaton picks the right man at the end of the film, and a new movie franchise “pitch” for the ages.

You can listen to the Director Watch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 2h34m. The guys will be back next week to begin continue their series on the films of Nancy Meyers with a review of her film, The Holiday. You can rent it via iTunes and Amazon Prime rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. On episode 76 of the Director Watch Podcast, the boys are joined by AwardsWatch contributor Dan Bayer to discuss the first film in their Nancy Meyers series, What Women Want (2000).

Following up her success of The Parent Trap, Nancy Meyers’ second feature film follows an chauvinistic advertising executive who gains the ability to hear the inner thoughts of women, truly finding out what women want. A simple, amusing premise formed into the biggest box office hit of the director’s career, with stars Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt lighting up the screen together. But over two decades later, the film, while successful, has become the most divisive film of her filmography, given her lack of involvement in the film’s script, leading to some of the strangest storytelling decisions you’d see in a romantic comedy. What Women Want feels like a movie stuck between eras of time where most of the jokes don’t work, characters and plot devices haven’t aged well, and yet the premise is still interesting enough to keep things moving; it’s a fascinating film to talk about. Ryan, Jay, and Dan break down their thoughts on the film, what still works within the film and what doesn’t, the message Meyer’s might be saying about her own personal life, the careers of Gibson, Hunt, and Marisa Tomei, if Nick Marshall is a redeemable character, and if hearing the thoughts of a female dog makes sense.

You can listen to the Director Watch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 2h06m. The guys will be back next week to begin continue their series on the films of Nancy Meyers with a review of her film, Something’s Gotta Give. You can rent it via iTunes and Amazon Prime rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).