How to Watch a Movie Like a Film Critic
Advice from the pros on what to look for
Awards season can feel like showing up for the first day of school without doing the summer reading: Your friends are talking character development, plot, conflict — and you’re left in the dark, suddenly wishing you’d put in a little more effort.
But you’re hardly alone if you haven’t seen (or even heard of) some of this year’s Oscar-nominated movies. The divide between mass and critical appeal has fast expanded over the past few decades, according to a New York Times analysis, with the year’s biggest box office hits now rarely receiving a nomination for best picture. Titanic was the highest-grossing film of all time when it won best picture in 1998. At last year’s awards, by comparison, Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape Of Water, which grossed $195.2 million worldwide, took home the top honor, while the year’s top-earning flick, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, raked in a cool $1.3 billion and wasn’t nominated.
“You don’t really need to know anything about cinematography to recognize when something makes you laugh or makes you think.”
Award voters and critics value elements like plot intricacies and dynamic camerawork, but those things can seem inaccessible to…
