awards season

AARP’s Movies-for-Grown-ups Nominations Are As Frustrating As Adulthood Itself

Photo: Mary Cybulski/Twentieth Century Fox

Just in case the holiday season didn’t max out your patience for conversations with fancy adults about pop culture, the AARP has released its nominations for the best movies in 2018 for Grown-ups. It’s a list that makes just enough sense to be taken seriously while also being completely insane — just like all your aunts and uncles! For starters, there’s the obvious choice of nominating Can You Ever Forgive Me? for Best Picture and Richard E. Grant for Best Supporting Actor. However, Melissa McCarthy, the star of the movie, who is in almost every scene of the movie, whose performance was lauded basically everywhere, is left out. Why? Because they said so!

Ostensibly, the purpose of nominating movies “for Grown-ups†is to exclude things like animated features and comic-book movies that are aimed at adolescents and children. So, of course, Black Panther has two nominations, because grown-ups make their own rules! There is also a Best Intergenerational Film that pits Mary Poppins Returns against A Quiet Place, because retirement affords people a lot more time to drink. The winners will be announced on February 4, and the ceremony will be aired on February 15.

Best Picture/Best Movie for Grown-ups

A Star Is Born

BlacKkKlansman

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Green Book

Roma


Best Actress

Sandra Bullock (Bird Box)

Glenn Close (The Wife)

Viola Davis (Widows)

Nicole Kidman (Destroyer)

Julia Roberts (Ben Is Back)


Best Actor

Willem Dafoe (At Eternity’s Gate)

Hugh Jackman (The Front Runner)

Viggo Mortensen (Green Book)

Robert Redford (The Old Man & the Gun)

John C. Reilly (Stan & Ollie)


Best Supporting Actress

Angela Bassett (Black Panther)

Blythe Danner (What They Had)

Judi Dench (All Is True)

Nicole Kidman (Boy Erased)

Michelle Yeoh (Crazy Rich Asians)


Best Supporting Actor

Robert Duvall (Widows)

Sam Elliott (A Star Is Born)

Robert Forster (What They Had)

Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

Ian McKellen (All Is True)


Best Director

Kenneth Branagh (All Is True)

Alfonso Cuarón (Roma)

Peter Farrelly (Green Book)

Mimi Leder (On the Basis of Sex)

Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman)


Best Screenwriter

Peter Farrelly, Brian Hayes Currie & Nick Vallelonga (Green Book)

Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara (The Favourite)

Peter Hedges (Ben Is Back)

Nicole Holofcener, Jeff Whitty (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

Paul Schrader (First Reformed)


Best Ensemble

Black Panther

Bohemian Rhapsody

Crazy Rich Asians

The Front Runner

Widows


Best Grownup Love Story

All Is True

On the Basis of Sex

Private Life

The Old Man & the Gun

What They Had


Best Intergenerational Film

A Quiet Place

Beautiful Boy

Ben Is Back

Crazy Rich Asians

Mary Poppins Returns


Best Time Capsule

BlacKkKlansman

Bohemian Rhapsody

First Man

If Beale Street Could Talk

Roma


Best Documentary

Amazing Grace

Bathtubs Over Broadway

RBG

The Rest I Make Up

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?


Best Foreign Film

Cold War (Poland, France, U.K.)

Never Look Away (Germany)

Roma (Mexico)

Shoplifters (Japan)

The Guilty (Denmark)

Movies-for-Grown-ups Nominations Are Frustrating, Like Life