This is it, the granddaddy of them all! All year long, BOP's staff hits me up with suggestions about films I should watch. They're campaigning with an insidious form of For Your Consideration ads. And I do it, too. I'm the strongest proponent here for Crazy Rich Asians and Ready Player One. I pushed some friends to check out Blindspotting, also. Of course, I can only do so much.

Presuming that you’ve read the other awards thus far, you’ve noticed a clear trend. Our staff had two clear favorites, three if we count The Favourite. Unforgivable wordplay aside, we viewed that film as an acting exercise more than an upper echelon production overall. It won’t be appearing on this list. The same is true of one of our other winners, A Star Is Born, which has undeniably spectacular music but a highly questionable third act. Our other three winners this year are our top three selections in Best Picture, also.

Only one of these releases can earn a spot on our official list of all-time greats. Just to bring you up to speed, here are the previous Best Picture winners at The Calvins: The Royal Tenenbaums, About a Boy, Lost in Translation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Serenity, The Queen, The Bourne Ultimatum, WALL-E, Up, The Social Network, The Artist, Silver Linings Playbook, Gravity, Whiplash, Mad Max: Fury Road, Arrival, and Get Out.

Out of this list, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is our most decorated winner, with victories in six categories. Gravity is now and likely always will be the most dominant champion, with the highest percentage of first-place votes imaginable. In looking at the group of winners, titles like The Artist seem a bit like outliers while The Royal Tenenbaums and Serenity seem very, very BOP. And the WALL-E/Up combo demonstrates that Pixar has sustained greatness for a long time, but it might have maxed out ten years ago.

These are stray observations that reflect how our votes are symbolic of the times but also of who we are as a people. Not many people would praise About a Boy or Lost in Translation to that extent, but our group still quotes both films religiously. Similarly, any conversation of best trilogies includes the Bourne franchise…up to The Bourne Legacy. The last two…not so much. The point is that we love what we love, probably too much. And this year, we loooooooved two films.

In reading The Calvins, the conclusion that you’ve drawn is likely the correct one. Roma is our choice for Best Picture. This boundary-breaking film didn’t require us to head out to the theater to watch it. Instead, we merely pulled up our Netflix account and pressed play. In a way, it’s the movie-watching experience our site has prophesied for the body of 20 years now. We’ve suggested all along that exponentially more consumers watch movies at home than at theaters.

Roma is proof-positive that the experience can match or even surpass the one at the local Cineplex. This small-scale masterpiece celebrates the daily life of a maid named Cleo as she learns a few harsh life lessons and suffers through a tragedy or two. She dates badly, gets pregnant, and faces two different potential tragedies involving children. Both of these scenes finished in our top 10 for the year, and the star of the film is our choice for Breakthrough Performance.

In fact, Roma won *deep breath* Best Scene, Best Overlooked Film, Best Director, Breakthrough Performance, and Best Picture. It was an eyelash away from winning two other categories, especially Best Actress. Had that happened, Roma would have tied Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the most lauded film in the history of The Calvins. I think that statistic speaks for itself.

While we loved Roma a bunch of different ways, it certainly won’t break Gravity’s record for Best Picture dominance. To the contrary, BlacKkKlansman lost the Best Picture race by only five points. This nailbiter isn’t a surprise, either. We awarded the Spike Lee project in the categories of Best Cast, Best Character, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay. If the vote had gone a different way in Best Picture, BlacKkKlansman would be the second-most successful film in the history of The Calvins instead. Yes, these two movies absolutely dominated the awards this year.

Third place goes to the other major contender this year, Black Panther. Technically, the film only won one category, Best Supporting Actor, but it was nominated in virtually every category. Like everyone else, our staff fell in love with Wakanda and kept it at the front of our thoughts throughout the year. Black Panther is more than a year old now, and yet it sustained momentum throughout 2018 due to its remarkable quality.

We had three tiers in Best Picture this year. Roma and BlacKkKlansman differentiated themselves from the competition. Then, the second tier consists of the remainder of the top five. The rest of the top ten is the final tier. I say all of this to point out that as much as we loved Black Panther, it was barely even our favorite comic book film of the year.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse thrilled our staff with its imaginative interpretation of the world of Miles Morales juxtaposed with the character of Peter Parker, a stranger in a not-that-strange land. And we loved the latest Tom Cruise outing, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which is hardly a surprise. We’ve championed the Mission: Impossible franchise to the point that you’re probably tired of hearing about it. Fallout turned the story on its head by evolving the team into a disavowed group on the run from multiple governments. This clever tactic revealed just how dangerous the Mission: Impossible team is.

If Beale Street Could Talk is one of the other success stories of this year's awards. It didn't win anything, but it was extremely competitive in several categories. It follows up this showing of strength by finishing sixth in the Best Picture race, just ahead of Crazy Rich Asians. As I said, I'm the most ardent supporter of this romantic comedy, which was my favorite film of the year. I delighted in the eccentricities of the characters and felt like the entire movie is one big, warm hug.

There’s absolutely no commonality to our final three selections this year. First Man is a clinical look at Neal Armstrong’s attempt to conquer the Moon. Avengers: Infinity War is the culmination of ten years of Marvel storytelling. And Paddington 2 sends an innocent bear to jail. Spoiler: Hugh Grant did it! Odds are good that you’ve seen the first two, but I warmly encourage you to watch the last one, too. It’s one of the best family-friendly films of the decade.

As always, BOP regrets that we can't nominate more than 10 films in the category. Below, you'll see a list of our favorite 25 titles for the past year. We heartily recommend each one. Please pay particular attention to Blindspotting, Sorry to Bother You, Eighth Grade, and Shoplifting, all of which have fallen far beneath the radar but are cinematic masterpieces.

2019 Calvin Awards
Calvins Intro
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Cast
Best Character
Best Director
Best Overlooked Film
Best Picture
Best Scene
Best Screenplay
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best TV Show
Best Use of Music
Breakthrough Performance
Worst Performance
Worst Picture

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