Sauron shows no signs of stopping even as Isengard crumbles. His eyes are on Minis Tirith, the last beacon of hope for Gondor. While Merry and Pippin are reunited with the Fellowship (though not for too long), Frodo and Sam are now right under Sauron’s eye, behind the gates of Mordor. There’s treachery afoot, battles to win, fathers to impress, and cities to conquer. And a king to return.

Will Middle Earth succumb to evil? Will Sam ever see the Shire again? Will Pippin be a fool until he dies?

Will Frodo destroy the ring?

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are counting down the most impactful, hilarious and memorable moments from the gripping conclusion of Peter Jackson’s fantasy saga, for this: the 10 Best The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Moments.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

10. Mount Doom Erupts

Inside the volcano things aren’t moving fast enough. The ring isn’t melting. Just as it looks like our King will be defeated, Sauron’s tower falls and the eye implodes. The ground surrounding the heroes disintegrates, taking the orcs and trolls with it.

It’s over. They’ve won.

Or have they?

In the seconds after everyone’s elation, Mount Doom explodes. Everyone looks crestfallen as Sam and Frodo are still up there. This device has been used before with Gandalf and the Balrog, Aragorn and the warg. For a second, this feels different. There is a moment when we truly believe that Sam and Frodo made the ultimate sacrifice.

Recommended for you: 10 Best Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Moments

9. Merry and Pippin Lead the Charge

Vastly outnumbered, Aragorn and his followers head to the black gate to draw Sauron’s eye while Sam and Frodo make the final leg of their journey into Mount Doom. Aragorn’s “not this day” speech is stirring and emotional. This is it. It’s now or never.

“For Frodo!” Is the battle cry.

And, in an army of a thousand experienced soldiers, it is Merry and Pippin who run first. They’ve come so far from the firework stealing miscreants of the first film. They are warriors as brave as any man or elf.

Middle parts of trilogies are often the worst. They have to do so much bridging and they don’t get the satisfaction of story arc conclusions as they are too busy setting up what comes next instead.

The Two Towers does not fall prey to this. It is as exciting as the first film, while having the luxury of our investment. Everyone cares very deeply about what happens to what remains of the Fellowship. A host of new characters are introduced as the battle for Middle Earth continues, the most significant being the people of Rohan. And an extra woman, Éowyn (Miranda Otto), to boot.

The Two Towers is filled with lengthy battles, death and despair, and yet it still manages to be warm-hearted, full of humour and hopeful.

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are counting down the most impactful, hilarious and memorable moments from Peter Jackson’s timeless epic, for this: the 10 Best The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Moments.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

10. The Nazgûl

The Wraiths were scary enough in The Fellowship of the Ring, but in The Two Towers they’ve been promoted. Now referred to as Nazgûl, which feels more sinister, and on the backs of great dragons, these agents of Sauron really are a force to be reckoned with.

The screeching, sniffing presence of them over the Dead Marshes as Sam and Frodo cower is the taster, but as their giant wingspans cast a shadow over the city of Osgiliath they truly are a sight to behold.

Recommended for you: 10 Best The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Moments

9. The Uruk-hais March

The Two Towers is a film with many battles, and obviously we are rooting for the good guys, but the final march of the Uruk-hais as they approach Helm’s Deep is nothing short of majestic.

Thousands upon thousands of them marching in time, lit by flickering torches, metal clanging and roaring like lions. They have no morals and no fear. The juxtaposition between them and the rag-tag army Aragorn has managed to gather does an excellent job of building tension.  

Middle Earth is under threat as Sauron, a great malevolent force, is gathering power. The lands of men, elves, wizards, and dwarfs have lived for hundreds of years believing the great evil had been vanquished. Wowzers, were they wrong.

It’s all down to the hobbits – long-living, hairy-footed, ale-swigging, home-comfort-loving people about the size of a human child – to fix it. Turns out Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) has been in procession of a very precious, very dangerous artifact since his exploits in “The Hobbit” 70 years prior.

The task to return the ring is placed in the tiny hands of his nephew, Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood). It’s all fine though, because Gandalf (Ian McKellen) has arranged for a band of warriors, a fellowship if you will, to help him on this perilous journey.

The Fellowship of the Ring thrust director Peter Jackson and its cast members into the stratosphere of fame. While some depictions may be considered problematic by today’s standards, and Lord of the Rings certainly isn’t passing any Bechdel test, the classic struggle of good versus evil means it remains popular over twenty years later.

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are counting down the most impactful, hilarious and memorable moments from Peter Jackson’s timeless epic, for this: the 10 Best Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Moments.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

10. Gardening

The scene has been set, the Hobbits introduced, and Frodo (Elijah Wood) has begrudgingly accepted his mission. While Gandalf (Ian McKellen) is asserting the grave danger the young hobbit will face, he hears a crack outside. An eavesdropper? A spy from the very depths of Mordor? Or perhaps, just a gardener? Gandalf lunges with his staff, and pulls out of the perennials, Samwise Gamgee (Sean Austin).

This is a great introduction to Sam as it shows his cheek, tenacity, and loyalty.

Recommended for you: The Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit Movies Ranked

9. The Ringwraiths Attack

Tolkien built a very serious world with realms of peril and intense men conversing. Peter Jackson’s rendering of this world adds a much-needed dose of humour. The Fellowship of the Ring is not afraid to poke fun at itself a little bit.

The Ringwraiths are a terrifying sight (and sound). These are the creatures that all of Middle Earth is afraid of. The wraiths with their metal hands and black cloaks attacking pillows hidden beneath the bedspreads in the Prancing Pony is a scooby-doo-esque flash of comedy.

Frankly, choosing the ten best films ever made is incredibly difficult. When considering such a list there are endless criteria from which one could choose to base their list off: popularity, originality, box office success, how it did at the Oscars. Really, there is no one single way of creating a definitive list of the greatest movies ever made. Even if I were to only take in my own personal opinion, I know that I would change my mind week to week. After all, I haven’t seen every film ever made, I have a lot of catching up to do; who’s to say I wouldn’t swap out something for Interstellar or Stagecoach when I finally get around to ticking those off the list?

As if that wasn’t bad enough, there is the fear of the backlash I may receive by leaving certain films off the list. I don’t have any John Ford on the list, which means that Steven Spielberg will hate me, and I just know the middle class art students are going to come for me due to the lack of Godard, Truffaut or Varda.

Making a top ten greatest films ever made list is a lot of pressure, something that is not lost on me. All I can do is provide the top ten films which, until this point in my life, have had the most profound effect on me. Those films that I have not stopped thinking about since the day I first saw them, that I have introduced to whomever will let me, and that I have watched and rewatched until my heart’s content over the last twenty-six years. Wish me luck.

Follow me on X (Twitter) – @MarkJurassic

10. Aftersun (2022)

Aftersun Review

The only film on this entire list that was released during my time writing for The Film Magazine. Thus far, only one of two new releases I have given full marks to (alongside Celine Song’s beautiful Past Lives).

Since I first saw Charlotte Wells’ debut feature film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, I have seen it a further three times in the cinema and have both directly and indirectly introduced many to the film. My passion shines brightly for this one.

With Aftersun, Charlotte Wells introduced herself to the world as an immensely talented director whose delicate portrayal of a father-daughter holiday in Turkey plays out like a gentle hand on your shoulder, leading you carefully through the complex relationship between the pair that eleven-year-old Sophie is yet to understand.

Releasing the same year as the wonderful Everything Everywhere All at Once, another film that handles the relationship between a daughter and a parent, Aftersun handles the relationship in a much more natural manner, making use of the finer details of the film to provoke the issues facing the pair, and equally providing two of the years most natural performances from Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio. 

It is a simple film told in a relatively simple way, but one which is filled with layers of subtext that linger on the mind long after the credits have rolled. Frankly, given more time to cement its legacy, the debut feature of Charlotte Wells could find itself much higher on this list.

Aftersun is not only one of the greatest feature film debuts of all time, but could be one of the greatest films of all time.

9. North by Northwest (1959)

Let’s not kid ourselves, this spot is essentially a revolving door for Hitchcock projects, and though the likes of Psycho and Rear Window have not been chosen this go around they most certainly would be any other time. Right now, I do genuinely believe that North by Northwest is the great director’s most impressive achievement.

Coming years before the first James Bond film Dr. No (1962), North by Northwest is incredibly ahead of its time in regard to not only what would come in the form of the Bond series but how action cinema would evolve as a whole.

Cary Grant’s advertising executive Roger Thornhill is no secret agent, though after being thrust into a story of espionage and mistaken identity he proves that he has all the charm, wit and cunning that one would hope for. Given its immortal recognition as an early formulation of the James Bond-style film, Cary Grant more than lives up as an early iteration of that type of character. And of course, Hitchcock more than lives up to the Bond style with sex references and innuendos galore.

Most importantly, however, Hitchcock takes the action scenes needed to make a film of this magnitude work and crafts sequences that are impressive by today’s standards but simply revolutionary for the cinema of the 1950s, ultimately changing the way action movies would be created forever.

Recommended for you: Top 10 Alfred Hitchcock Films

The films that have been selected are, I believe, the peak of cinematic mastery. They span nearly the length of cinema’s existence, and are deliberately chosen to reflect a wide range of genres, countries, and times. One major reason for this is to force myself to list films that are not exclusively 1980s horror movies, which I could quite easily do. The second is because that list would be wrong, as although they could be peak horror, some would undoubtedly be worse than films outside the genre.

Therefore, for better or for worse, at the time of writing, listed from oldest to youngest and with no system of ranking, here are my picks for the 10 Best Films of All Time.

Follow me on X (Twitter) – @KJudgeMental

10. La Voyage dans la Lune (1902)

It is impossible to understate how important this film was.

From the grandfather of special effects, Georges Méliès, come fifteen minutes of sheer adventure, adapting the Jules Verne novels “From the Earth to the Moon”, and “Around the Sun”, along with H. G. Wells’ “First Men on the Moon”, it is a film which pushed the limits of the medium, bringing thrills beyond the stars to the screen for all to see.

Hand-painted frame by frame to add a splash of colour, employing all of Méliès’ stage magic knowhow, it still has the power to captivate to this day, despite being created only seven years after the Lumiere brothers demonstrated their kinematograph at the 1895 December World Fair. The rocket splatting into the eye of the moon is an image almost everyone in the world has seen, despite rarely knowing where it comes from.

It is fun and joyous and, thanks to restoration work and new scores, able to keep its legacy going over 120 years later. Not a single cast or crew member from this film is alive today, yet A Trip to the Moon lives on.

9. Psycho (1960)

We could argue over Hitchcock’s best film for decades. Indeed, many have done, and we still never will agree. Vertigo famously dethroned Citizen Kane in Sight and Sound magazine as the best film ever in 2011, a title the Welles film had held for many decades. Yet Psycho takes my vote for numerous reasons.

Not only is its story iconic – the shower scene one of the greatest sequences in cinema history – and its production history something of legend, but it is supreme mastery of cinematic craftsmanship.

Every shot is glorious, every moment timed to perfection. Suspense is at an all-time high, mystery around every corner. Yet perhaps what is most startling is its efficiency, Hitchcock’s most underappreciated skill. If a scene required 50 cuts, he’d have it. If it required a simple shot/reverse shot with the most subtle of powerful, timed camera cuts to a tighter or a lower angle (see the dinner between Marion and Norman), he did it. It is an exercise in extreme precision, in efficiency of storytelling, and it cuts deeper than almost any other film.

Recommended for you: The Greatest Film Trailer of All Time? Psycho (1960)

CGI is often best when it goes unnoticed. Like the seams on a dress, it can hold films together whilst being completely invisible. Whether it’s touching up a mansion, filling out a crowd, or altering eye colours, computer graphics allow filmmakers to defer all those nasty fiddly bits to post-production. It’s often cheaper, and always less stressful than getting everything right on the day; in theory, it allows a director to focus more on that which they really want to get right the first time around. And even if those things don’t go to plan, CGI may still step in to save the day. There remains, however, a school of thought unflinchingly loyal to animatronics. These lifelike robots were used extensively in cinema before the rise of digital effects, and maintain a passionate following today. Many of Hollywood’s most memorable monsters were created using complex and expensive contraptions, and some of them continue to captivate audiences.

Even a hardened animatronics acolyte wouldn’t suggest that CGI be replaced with robots in every circumstance though; for this particular epic battle between these two adversaries must be judged on equal footing. Fortunately, there is one area in which both techniques may excel, or fail catastrophically. It’s what you really watch out for in a movie, really scrutinise, because you know it isn’t real. It’s blood and guts and horrible monsters, of course.

Much-beloved New Zealander Peter Jackson is an ideal first case study. For many, he is the industry’s biggest CGI casualty; in contrast to recent years, his early splatstick efforts employ models, puppets, stop-motion and animatronics to achieve their memorable comic-book gore. The stop-motion and puppetry are often unconvincing despite the charm, but the animatronics, such as the zombies from Braindead (1992), hold up exceptionally well. During one bloodbath a man has the skin of his face torn off – a well-timed cut replaces the actor with a convincing model, his face-muscles revealed as it writhes with pain. The shadows are on point, because the shadows are real. The blood glistens as it should, because the blood is real – real stage blood, that is.

This excellent animatronic legacy makes Jackson’s descent into digital effects yet sadder; he’s even been compared to George Lucas for his overenthusiastic lauding of CGI. Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, said that “whatever was subtle, in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third”, ruminating that “Peter became like Ridley Scott – this one-man industry now, with all these people depending on him”. It’s as if the two men saw two different movies, and Jackson now wishes that LOTR had utilised more CGI, not less.

Most who did love LOTR still had issues with Jackson’s The Hobbit adaptation, and not only for its strange elf-elf-dwarf love triangle. Many of its CGI creatures lacked presence, failing to ignite the fear that a good monster should. Similar criticism is leveled at the aforementioned Ridley Scott, whose use of CGI gets increasingly grandiose as the quality of his plots dwindle. Meanwhile, George Lucas is lampooned for his remasters of the original Star Wars films in which digital creatures trundle about in the background, sticking out like a sore thumb.

The Hobbit (2012)

These criticisms have been widespread, and often much less polite than Mortensen’s. In the face of such disapproval, it’s interesting that so many masters have abandoned practical effects for their digital counterpart. What has led to this ongoing misuse of effects? And, does it really tell us that animatronics are king, or is there something else going on?

It’s worth mentioning that Jackson, Scott, and Lucas are fairly veteran examples. After so many decades in the business, these men may be a little sick of playing with models; they’re fiddly and expensive, require multiple experts, and add a lot of stress to photography when compared with CGI, which is largely deferred to post-production and whose mistakes can be relatively easily corrected. A world-weary director may have trouble mustering up the passion required for models when they already did it the first time around. That said, one hopes things haven’t gotten so dire in Hollywood that there are no artistic reasons behind the abandoning of practical effects.

Alien (1979) features one of animatronics’ greatest successes. The Giger-designed xenomorph, models for which included a robotic head with over 900 moving parts, looks fresh and realistic even by today’s standards. It’s shiny, bathed in shadows, and the acid glistens from its jowls. But Alien is not without its pitfalls, one example being the baby xenomorph during the infamous chest-bursting scene. It scuttles away as if pulled along by a string, and without the complexity of its fully-grown counterpart the model looks mechanical and comical. The film’s effects are generally a triumph, but there remains the odd moment where better technology could have saved the day.

Recommended for you: Designing Nightmares – H.R. Giger and ‘Alien’

With this in mind, a strength of Scott’s – despite the mixed reception of his recent efforts – is his continued use of animatronics alongside computer-generated effects. Alien Covenant (2017) employs another impressive xenomorph head, but liberally uses CGI to fill in the cracks. The result is effective in parts, but disappoints in a similar way to the original: in Covenant, the baby xenomorph (or whatever its bizarre Covenant equivalent is called) has not been saved by digital effects. Rather than quickly glimpsing a dubious model, Covenant allows us full view of the creature, now computer-generated, from multiple angles. Squirming and ricocheting about like something out of The Mask (1994), the absurd critter jeopardises the viewer’s immersion. It’s doubtful that Scott would have dared such drawn-out shots of the monster had he not had CGI at his fingertips; could CGI’s greatest crime be how it oversteps its remit in this regard? Does it affect the plot and pacing of a film because directors incorrectly assume that it can do anything?

Mortensen had insights on this subject as well, saying of Jackson’s adaptation of The Lovely Bones (2009):

“I was sure he would do another intimately scaled film like Heavenly Creatures, maybe with this project about New Zealanders in the First World War he wanted to make. But then he did King Kong. And then he did The Lovely Bones – and I thought that would be his smaller movie. But the problem is, he did it on a $90 million budget. That should have been a $15 million movie.”

This comparison of the humble Heavenly Creatures to the elaborate Lovely Bones is transferable to the Alien franchise. The original Alien was an intimate horror-thriller with a single monster, often seen in low-light. The very occasional dated effect is forgiven by the fact that it is, undoubtedly, a masterpiece of cinema. Scott’s recent Alien movies are huge, yet pack a fraction of the original’s punch. The same could be said of The Hobbit with its vast amount of unnecessary CGI sequences, most of which do not appear in the book. It begs the question whether, rather than facilitating directors to produce plots on a grander scale, CGI has encouraged it, often with dire results.

Probably the best example of this CGI-led silliness is The Thing. Like Alien, John Carpenter’s original 1982 horror featured a small cast being tormented by one monster in a confined location, in this case an arctic research station. The villain has no form of its own, but ‘absorbs’ into other living creatures and mimics them. Viewers are kept on the edges of their seats, wondering which character is going to burst into a mass of spindly legs and pulsating tentacles.

The Thing (1982)

The Thing’s animatronics are themselves a talking point. Despite the waxing and waning of their realism, the creations are so grotesque, and the real-life models have such presence, that the special effects become more than just a way to represent a monster; they are a novelty of the film, a reason to go see it. It’s hard to forget the scene of one man’s severed head crawling on spider legs from under a table; the insect-like movement of the electronics, the glistening surface of the model, are so animatronic, but a suspension of disbelief, helped along by some fantastic performances, makes The Thing (1982) damn scary.

It’s a different story with Matthijs van Heijningen Jr’s 2011 prequel of the same name. In the first five minutes a vehicle falls deep into the ice amidst a whirling mass of CGI. The events depicted are already too spectacular to be scary, and although that may be a criticism of the writing, it’s apparent that a smaller effects budget could have encouraged a more subdued and appropriate opening.

The thing itself is discovered frozen into a block of ice, but the tension of it slowly thawing out is dashed when the creature suddenly bursts from its icy prison and disappears into the ceiling. It is very digital. Creating such gravity-defying effects with animatronics would have been so difficult that a director may have resigned themselves to cleverer angles, dimmer lighting, or just a less corny entrance from the antagonist. We see more of the creature later, but nothing as memorable as its predecessor. It’s a shame that The Thing (2011) is so saturated with digital effects in plain sight, and even more tragic that they replace a number of animatronics designed by the crew which presumably weren’t working well.

The Thing (2011)

Interestingly, younger directors with big enough budgets are still embracing animatronics. J.J. Abrams, who began making movies in the late 90s, uses a mixture of practical and digital effects throughout Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, and it shows. He wished to “go backwards to go forwards”, opting for real droid models over CGI effects to emulate the feel of the original films. Whatever one thinks of his Star Wars effort, he had the passion and money needed to surpass the Star Wars prequels in terms of realism, and in fact many other science-fiction films besides. It’s in stark contrast to Lucas’ remasters, which suggest an abundance of money but a scarcity of passion.

Recommended for you: Star Wars Live-Action Movies Ranked

Whilst emphasising CGI’s widespread uses throughout cinema, it’s certainly tempting to side with animatronics when it comes to monsters and gore. Before concluding, however, it’s worth cleaning up some of the insults thrown at CGI, and some of the praise showered upon animatronics.

It’s true that digital effects from as recent as last week can look dated, but this is not a new phenomenon. Since the dawn of cinema thousands of B-movies have been lost to the annals of time, many with laughably diabolical effects. To suggest that all 70s sci-fi had the finesse of Alien, or all 80s horrors the impact of The Thing, would be absurd. Masterpieces aside, movie monsters have always had a hard time of convincing their audiences.

It must also be considered how much nostalgia plays a part: CGI hasn’t had as much time to build up the goodwill that animatronics has enjoyed. And despite that, Playstation 1 graphics already give millenials that fuzzy warm feeling of a bygone age. Perhaps many digital effects look poor merely because they’re new, and so we assume that they should be better. It’s hard to tell which of today’s effects will stand up in decades to come, or at least be lent a modicum of charm through their ageing.

CGI is also now invaluable for ‘fixing’ footage of animatronics, or even replacing them entirely when things go wrong. Us viewers don’t know what The Thing (2011) looked like before its models were abandoned, but it may be safe to assume that they were every bit as immersion-breaking as the effects eventually settled upon. Although animatronics have a legacy of memorable gems, cinema is more ambitious now than ever, and perhaps CGI’s encouragement of bigger projects should be welcomed. As stated, many of our favourite digital effects are unnoticeable. Dare we guess what some of our recent animatronics may have looked like without digital intervention?

CGI is largely the way forward. Computer graphics are still in their infancy, and already have some great films under their belt. Animatronics deserve their cult following, but they’re largely an old and innocent tradition being viewed through a rose-tinted lens. Neither form of effect should be abandoned, but in our world of digital media CGI is probably going to be the default choice for most filmmakers, with animatronics being used where the director possesses enough expertise, passion, money, and time.

Computer technology is going in directions that we cannot possibly imagine. It can be remastered if the original effort is poor, and is far from soulless when done well. It has had its fair share of embarrassing moments, and it’s evident that many directors think it’s much better than it is. This overuse can, ultimately, ruin some potentially incredible scenes, and some potentially incredible films. But let’s not blame poor directorial choices on CGI alone: if animatronics are outside of your budget, or simply just not your thing, digital effects are your friend. And, if you are aware of the limits of digital effects, and are an able director who will not get carried away with a relatively primitive technology, then CGI is the way. As incredible as models can be, they must, in most cases, step aside for the winner. But whatever technique a filmmaker prefers, one important lesson shines through: do not let special effects run the show.

Written by Louis B Scheuer

You can support Louis B Scheuer in the following places:

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In this list, the latest in The Film Magazine’s 5 of the Best Character Introductions series, I’ll be offering my selections for the 5 best character introductions in movie history…

1. Rufus T. Firefly

Duck Soup (1933)

The plot of the Marx Brothers’ movies are consistently bizarre but only really serve as the vehicle for slapstick antics or devastating jabs and insults. All their cinematic efforts are distinctly “Marxist” but the brothers still manage to keep their films fresh. In Duck Soup, this approach resulted in one of cinema’s greatest ever entrances…

The wealthy and influential Mrs Teasdale agrees to help out the tiny nation of Freedonia with her inexhaustible funds, but only on the condition that Statesman Rufus T. Firefly is appointed as the new leader. His reception is a great affair with ambassadors and representatives from all over the world, and excited chatter paints the image of a noble man of decorum and decency. Ballerina flower girls litter his intended path with petals and decorated soldiers draw their swords to form a glorious steely arch to the thunderous notes of the Freedonia National Anthem… but his “punctual” excellency doesn’t turn up.

Only after the third reprise of “Hail, Hail Freedonia” does Rufus (Groucho Marx) leap out of bed in a baggy, crumpled suit and sneaks into the reception via a conveniently placed fireman’s pole – drawing his cigar alongside the solidiers after his query of “Are you expecting someone?”

It’s such a silly joke with way too much effort put forward to land it, but the timing is perfect. It sets the tone for a 68-minute long scathing political satire and solidifies Groucho’s place as the head of the troupe and as cinema’s greatest and most beloved bastard – his ridicule of pomp and circumstance is often imitated but never bested.

2. Ebeneezer Scrooge

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

When Charles Dickens’ festive novel’s most memorable adaption stars furry Muppet creatures, it’s certainly a weird universe we live in. As strange as it sounds, it’s absolutely true: The Muppet Christmas Carol is one of the most popular Christmas movies and greatest book adaptions of all time.

Much of the film’s success can be owed to Michael Caine’s stellar performance as the main character Ebeneezer Scrooge, who receives one of The Muppets’ most memorable musical numbers as his introduction. The scene is set with a sweeping shot of a snowy Victorian London and Charles Dickens himself (well, in the incarnation of Great Gonzo) begins the story with lines straight from his novel:

“The Marley(‘s) were dead to begin with”

Spines now tingled, pangs of anxiety are induced within the audience as Dickens announces Scrooge’s imminent arrival:

“You will meet him as he comes round that corner.”
“Where?”
“There?”
“When?”
“Now!”

Ebeneezer Scrooge appears cloaked in darkness and ice…. holy crap!

With this being a Muppet flick, the resulting number “Scrooge” is full of gags and fourth wall breaks; typical of Jim Henson’s patented light entertainment. The song is incredibly catchy and the most memorable from the whole movie, but this is more than a mere diss track. Heavy hitting lyrics combine with Scrooge’s arrogant shoves past the Muppet cavalcade to establishe the man as a cold, greedy and utterly irredeemable character. Finished off with Caine’s characteristic hard stare, Scrooge chills the blood.

The genius of pairing Caine’s straight performance with Muppet madness creates an adaption which boasts the most believable transformation of literature’s most famous miser to a genial grandfather figure. For certain generations, Caine will forever be immortalised by his pimp walk in the snow.

Recommended for you: The Muppets Movies Ranked

Have an opinion? Make sure to leave a comment!

6. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Gross USA: $255,119,788
Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $956,019,788
1 Academy Award Nomination
1 BAFTA Award Nomination

The best part of this film was the battle with Smaug.

The previous film had concluded on quite the dramatic moment with the dragon about to wreak destruction on the defenceless Lake-town, and The Battle of the Five Armies brilliantly jumps straight back into the action. There’s fire, there’s destruction, people are dying and the audience is gripped with anxiety for Bard and his sickeningly sweet children.

Bard defeats Smaug, his children survive, and the rest of the villagers who avoided peril all go and meet on the nearby shore. It’s all down hill from there…

We are given a few dramatic moments that we are supposed to care about, but there aren’t strong enough foundations built for us to be particularly moved. Tauriel barely knew Kili, how can she claim to have loved him? Why did the Elves suddenly decide to help the Dwarves for no apparent reason? It is generally a film with poor storytelling and a dependence on expensive CGI to make up for it.

Other than the opening battle, the most popular moments were those that referenced the predeceasing trilogy, such as Galadriel’s encounter with Sauron and Thranduil telling Legolas to seek out Aragorn.

Legolas running up falling boulders was pretty sick too!

5. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Gross USA: $258,366,855
Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $960,366,855
3 Academy Award Nominations
2 BAFTA Award Nominations

For anyone who had read the book at a younger age, it was so exciting to see so many scenes taken directly from the book in this film – the Spiders were just as scary as when we’d read about them years ago and Beorn was just as mysterious and intimidating. This made the film so much more enjoyable for nostalgic reasons, especially comparing it to The Battle of the Five Armies which contains a lot of made up moments that didn’t take place in the book.

The accomplishment in animating Smaug blew away many who’d approached the CG-heavy prequels with a critical eye. Special effects progress so fast that it’s easy to forget how making Smaug talk was a major feat, especially since the dragon was what people were anticipating most about this film. In this respect, The Desolation of Smaug absolutely delivered! The mouth movements of the dragon matched up with what he was saying so perfectly without looking silly, which we all know is far more impressive than a CGI tiger.

4. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Gross USA: $303,003,568
Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $1,021,103,568
3 Academy Award Nominations
3 BAFTA Award Nominations

There were a lot of immediate reactions to this film which criticised it for being a little messy and full of unrelated content. Although many criticised The Battle of the Five Armies for similar reasons, An Unexpected Journey had a different purpose to the last film in the trilogy. After an almost ten year gap since The Lord Of The Rings ended, An Unexpected Journey is our first dip back into Middle Earth; it has to set the scene and starts the story.

The Hobbit Trilogy may have been about one film too long, but this is an opinion only forged in retrospect. In this first instalment, it was exciting to see things like the rock giants fighting in the mountains and Radagast with his woodland pals being intimidated by the Spiders. It felt like a promise for all the goodness that was yet to come, it’s just a shame that the promise was not fulfilled.

Mahershala Ali (left), Viggo Mortensen (right).

When it comes to what it wants to be, Green Book isn’t a tough nut to crack. Following the story of pianist Dr. Don Shirley (Ali) and his driver Tony Lip (Mortensen) as they tour across the South, it wants to be a film about people of different backgrounds coming together to fight racism and promote unity. At the beginning, we learn that Tony and his family are racist. They “protect” women when black workers come over to Tony’s house, Tony throws away the cups those workers use, and they constantly use slurs when referring to black people. By the end, they’re all welcoming Dr. Shirley into their home for Christmas dinner because they are learning to not be racist anymore! These are noble ideas and certainly preferable to the alternative of racism, but it leads to a film that is trite, predictable and contradictory.

The first discordant moment comes when Tony stops to get some Kentucky Fried Chicken. Dr. Shirley has never had fried chicken before, prompting Tony to question how a black man had never tried fried chicken since, you know, all black people love fried chicken. Dr. Shirley rightfully notes that his race is mutually exclusive from his taste in food, but Tony continues to insist that he tries fried chicken, ending with him shoving it into Dr. Shirley’s face to end the conversation. While the movie could have taken a few moments to actually hash out that conversation about stereotypes, we’re instead treated to feel-good shots of Dr. Shirley and Tony eating fried chicken together.

What am I supposed to take away from that as a viewer?

It almost reads like “all lives matter” being used to shut down conversation about police brutality. The well-educated Dr. Shirley can’t even get a few moments to have his voice and views heard? That’s the exact opposite of the message this movie wants to promote! I know Tony is stupid, but a screenwriter more motivated to address racial issues could at least give us a good-faith debate. Just a few scenes later, we see a Southern host cater a fried chicken dinner for Dr. Shirley, and we’re supposed to go, “Oh, this is bad and racist.” But the fried chicken was just as racist earlier. The context and ignorance can’t change anything for a movie-goer in 2018, and the real issues we face today (like white attitudes towards Black Lives Matter or the disproportionate representation of black voices and views in film) are left unaddressed.

By the way, when I say Tony is “stupid”, that’s not an off-hand insult. The film almost treats Tony like a child in his understanding of racism, so as to expunge him of culpability. This is unsurprising since his son co-wrote the script, but it is another failure to address a larger issue. You know those rednecks that live in isolated small-town communities that voted for Trump due to “economic anxiety”? Green Book could be read so as to excuse those types from their racism. The fried chicken remark is far from Tony’s first expression of casual racism, but we’re almost asked to forgive him because he’s dumb. Stupidity isn’t a Get Out of Racism Free card. Continued casual racism is a problem in our society, and asking viewers to simply move on and not confront that racism is worse. Unity is a goal we should strive for, but not at the cost of having conversations about what’s problematic in our society when it comes to race.

My biggest question is: why this story is even about Tony (screenwriters aside)? This should be Dr. Shirley’s story, and the very fact that he’s relegated to a supporting role in this story about racism is at the very least ironic. Good for Tony Lip that he became less racist, but Dr. Don Shirley was an incredibly brave virtuoso that deserves the spotlight. One consequence of this is that it’s never quite clear to me why Dr. Shirley wanted to go on tour in the South. The film mentions a story about Chubby Checker being beaten in Alabama, but never gets to Dr. Shirley’s full motivation. What does he want to gain? What experience is he looking for? What message is he trying to send? My curiosity was left unsated. Dr. Shirley is ultimately there to help Tony in his journey of becoming less racist. His character arc is more about how lonely he is, and that’s apparently solved by being friends with Tony. From the film, you’d think Dr. Shirley was just Sheldon Cooper if he was a pianist. Mahershala Ali plays the role well, but it feels limited by the script.

So what makes Green Book great?

The performances, the music, some small moments of conversation are enjoyable. They aren’t ground-breaking, but they’re good. It’s textbook Oscar-bait, and was almost beat-for-beat what you’d expect this movie to be. What’s great about it is eclipsed by the larger questions that loom over the film, and the (I’m sure) unintentional contradiction to its message. Green Book shouldn’t be in the Best Picture conversation, and is the exact kind of play-it-safe nomination that the Academy should avoid anyway.

We’ll see just how close I get this Sunday…

Best Motion Picture – Drama: Moonlight
With 6 nominations overall, and the most of any of the ‘Best Drama’ movie nominees, it seems like 2017 truly is the year for Moonlight. The drama, telling the development of a gay black man from a deprived area in Miami, seems to be one of the favourites at other awards shows so far this season and that could be enough to sway some voters in this category. With ‘Manchester by the Sea’ breathing down its neck as perhaps the most likely of its contenders, and ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ appealing to the hard right of Globe voters, ‘Moonlight’ is not without competition, but I just can’t see them passing on the opportunity to award such a landmark film.
Contenders: Hacksaw Ridge; Manchester by the Sea

Best Performance By An Actress In A Motion Picture – Drama: Natalie Portman (‘Jackie’)
This category is a two-horse race between the early front-runner for the award, Natalie Portman, and the late-comer to awards season, ‘Arrival’, and namely its star Amy Adams. With the Globes being a far more accepting place of so-called ‘mainstream’ or ‘genre’ films than the Academy is, Adams is the favourite in the minds of a lot of industry professionals, but it’s hard for me to pass on Portman as the winner simply because her performance was as a beloved public figure within a well constructed biopic, the likes of which is known as ‘awards fodder’ for a reason. By a whisker, Portman takes it.
Contenders: Amy Adams… the rest have been left in the dust. 

Best Performance By An Actor In A Motion Picture – Drama: Casey Affleck (‘Manchester By the Sea’)
The ‘Best Performance by an actor in a drama’ category is perhaps the strongest of any category at this year’s Golden Globes, with every member of the nominees list having a realistic chance of winning the Golden trophy. I’ve gone with Casey Affleck simply because he’s won a lot of other awards in the build-up to this ceremony, though it’s worth noting that Andrew Garfield could have arguably been nominated for both ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ and ‘Silence’ and may earn himself the Gold as a means of two-for-one recognition. If Garfield does win for ‘Ridge’, the war movie would become the front-runner for Best Picture – Drama.
Contenders: Everyone else… Edgerton, Garfield, Mortensen, Washington.

Best Motion Picture – Musical Or Comedy: La La Land
I would bet my house on this. Owing to an overall weak category in terms of award nominated movies, ‘La La Land’ should blow away all competition on Sunday night. It was nice to see the creativity behind ‘Deadpool’ and ‘Sing Street’ be rewarded with nominations but they’re just making up the numbers in perhaps the most obvious category to predict on this year’s show.
Contenders: There aren’t any…

Best Performance By An Actress In A Motion Picture – Musical/Comedy: Emma Stone (‘La La Land’)
As with the category above, it seems like there can be no choice other than ‘La La Land’ and therefore Emma Stone. Annette Bening is perhaps the huge outsider, but considering any one of three leading women in ’20th Century Women’ could have been nominated for this award, it seems that the Globes were never truly sure on whom to select, the uncertainty of which could scupper Bening’s chances.
Contenders: Annette Bening… but only if Pigs fly.

Best Performance By An Actor In A Motion Picture – Musical/Comedy: Ryan Gosling (‘La La Land’)
Much like Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling is the front-runner for his category courtesy of his work on this year’s awards favourite ‘La La Land’. Colin Farrell was excellent in ‘The Lobster’ but his inclusion came as a pleasant surprise rather than an absolute certainty, which all but counting him out, and the work of Hugh Grant (‘Florence Foster Jenkins’), Jonah Hill (‘War Dogs’) and Ryan Reynolds (‘Deadpool’) simply doesn’t match up to that of Gosling, despite there being positives in each performance.
Contenders: Zip.

Best Motion Picture – Animated: Zootopia
It’s very rare that Disney are knocked off their perch of collecting every ‘best animated feature’ award on the planet, especially during years of critical success like has been the case in 2016. The logic here seems to point to either ‘Moana’ or ‘Zootopia’ but, given the much more positive response ‘Zootopia’ got out-of-the-gate, it seems the most likely option despite ‘My Life As A Zucchini’ winning the animation award at the European Film Awards and ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ offering an artistic alternative to mainstream western animation.
Contenders: Moana

Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language: Toni Erdmann
Maren Ade’s German/Austrian comedy cleaned up at the European Film Awards and therefore seems the favourite to win at the Golden Globes given the very Euro-centric list of nominees. American awards shows do seem to gravitate towards French pictures in their ‘foreign language’ categories however, and this could tip the balance towards ‘Elle’, a movie that has had gained a lot of attention in the weeks building up to this event. This is a close one.
Contenders: Elle

Best Performance By An Actress In A Supporting Role In Any Motion Picture: Viola Davis (‘Fences’)
This category is very strong, with each of the actress’s performances gaining a lot of critical attention and Oscar buzz since their respective movies were released. Naomie Harris has been on the frontline of such awards speculation as of late for her small but impactful role in ‘Moonlight’, and Michelle Williams has been strongly favoured at independent film award events, but the two front-runners seem to be Nicole Kidman for ‘Lion’ and Viola Davis for ‘Fences’, and I’m going with Davis simply because of a flick of a coin.
Contenders: Everyone… but mostly Nicole Kidman.

Best Performance By An Actor In A Supporting Role In Any Motion Picture: Jeff Bridges (‘Hell or High Water’)
My heart says Aaron Taylor-Johnson for ‘Nocturnal Animals’, but my head says Jeff Bridges for ‘Hell or High Water’, simply because of the gravitas of the latter’s performance within a relatively small movie. It’s interesting to note that Dev Patel has been squeezed in to this category despite obviously leading ‘Lion’, and this may work in his favour as it has done for others in the past, but Jeff Bridges remains the front-runner and a choice I’d still support given its quality and how much exposure it will lend to his small but noteworthy movie.
Contenders: Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Dev Patel.

Best Director – Motion Picture: Damien Chazelle (‘La La Land’)
‘La La Land’ is a visual masterpiece that pays homage to Hollywood itself, and despite how sensational Tom Ford’s work on ‘Nocturnal Animals’ truly was, there’s simply no way that Chazelle isn’t going home with the Globe on Sunday night. Wins for Mel Gibson (‘Hacksaw Ridge’), Barry Jenkins (‘Moonlight’) or Kenneth Lonergan (‘Manchester By the Sea’) could inch their respective movies into the lead in terms of the ‘Best Picture – Drama’ race, but it seems like this category is wrapped up.
Contenders: Tom Ford… though I’d like to see the final order of this top 5…

Best Screenplay – Motion Picture: Barry Jenkins (‘Moonlight’)
This is as close as it gets between Kenneth Lonergan for ‘Manchester By the Sea’ and Barry Jenkins for ‘Moonlight’, but given the lack of attention I’ve given the massively nominated ‘Moonlight’ so far in this article, I’m inching ‘Moonlight’ into the winner’s slot. Every screenplay in this category is excellent, but it would be a surprise to see any of the other nominees (Chazelle, Ford, Sheridan) win.
Contenders: Kenneth Lonergan

Best Original Score – Motion Picture: Justin Hurwitz (‘La La Land’)
When you score what will ultimately become an iconic musical, you land yourself in the spot of ‘front-runner’ for the ‘Best Original Score’ category at awards shows, and Justin Hurwitz has done just that with his work on ‘La La Land’. Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka’s work on ‘Lion’ seems the most likely of underdogs but don’t count on it. 
Contenders: Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka

Best Original Song – Motion Picture: “Can’t Stop the Feeling” from ‘Trolls’
Justin Timberlake’s chart-topping smash will go down as one of the pop songs that defined 2016, and with that comes a responsibility on the part of the Globes to honour that. Though popular consensus certainly isn’t what sways votes in any other categories at the Globes, there has been a historic precedence of successful pop songs winning out over lesser known musical numbers in the history of this award. Even so, look out for ‘La La Land’ to be a suitable alternative with its Hollwood love-letter of a song, “City of Stars”.
Contenders: “City of Stars from ‘La La Land’.

For the full list of nominees, click here.