One Battle After Another Sweeps the Critics

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This is the scoring recap for Week 15 of Vulture’s Movies Fantasy League. It’s too late to join the league this year, but you can still follow along by visiting the league hub and subscribing to the weekly newsletter.

The New Year’s weekend box-office was topped by Avatar: Fire and Ash for the third weekend in a row. James Cameron’s film has now earned $306 million domestic, and with all attendant bonus points, it’s second only to Zootopia 2 in box-office points this season. Meanwhile, Marty Supreme had another fantastic weekend, essentially doubling its box office over the course of the week and standing now at $56 million. It’s currently tracking to be A24’s best box-office performer of all time, and even better, its popular success should boost its chances with the awards voting to come.

Elsewhere, The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants cleared the $50 million bonus threshold, The Housemaid cleared the $75 million bonus, and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 cleared the $125 million bonus. Close but not quite to bonus points yet are Song Sung Blue at $24 million and Anaconda at $45 million.

The full list of box-office performers this weekend (amounts are cumulative earnings to date): 

Avatar: Fire and Ash: $306m, plus 20 points for finishing No. 1
Zootopia 2: $363m
The Housemaid: $75m
Marty Supreme: $56m
Anaconda: $45m
The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants: $57m
Song Sung Blue: $24m
Wicked: For Good: $339m
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2: $125m
No Other Choice: $1m
Hamnet: $11m
Is This Thing On?: $1m
Sentimental Value: $4m
Predator: Badlands: $91m
Ella McCay: $4m

You can visit the MFL landing page to see the full leaderboard — and join our Discord server for additional data about each movie in the MFL, plus much more.

The Critics’ Choice Is Very Much One Battle After Another

Sunday night’s Critics’ Choice Awards offered a few surprising winners in the acting categories but otherwise served to underline the sense that One Battle After Another is the overwhelming awards favorite. Paul Thomas Anderson’s film took the awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, good for 75 points and the night’s highest point total. Jessie Buckley’s and Timothée Chalamet’s wins in the lead acting categories gave 25 points to Hamnet and Marty Supreme, respectively, while Amy Madigan’s surprising (but well deserved) win in Best Supporting Actress gave another 25 points to Weapons.

Jacob Elordi’s Best Supporting Actor win for Frankenstein was also something of a surprise, though it was just the tip of the spear for a big night for Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein. That film also won for Costume Design, Production Design, and Makeup/Hairstyling for a total of 55 points.

Full Critics Choice points as follows: 

One Battle After Another: 75
Sinners: 55
Frankenstein: 55
Marty Supreme: 25
Hamnet: 25
Weapons: 25
F1: 20
KPop Demon Hunters: 20
Train Dreams: 10
Avatar: 10
The Naked Gun: 10
Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning: 10
The Secret Agent: 10

Meanwhile, the National Society of Film Critics voted over the weekend, and they went for One Battler After Another even more overwhelmingly, awarding the film Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Benicio Del Toro, and Best Supporting Actress for Teyana Taylor. Their most exciting decision — awarding Best Actress to Kathleen Chalfant for the MFL-ineligible Familiar Touch — won’t have any impact on the league, unfortunately, but Ethan Hawke picked up yet another valuable Best Actor win for his performance in Blue Moon.

Full National Society of Film Critics points: 

One Battle After Another: 50
Blue Moon: 10
It Was Just an Accident: 10
Sinners: 10
The Secret Agent: 10

It’s Lockdown Day for Critics’ Scores

As of January 6, the critical scores for all eligible films (as determined by Metacritic) have been locked and points awarded. If you drafted a movie that did not open in 2025, you won’t receive any points for it, even if it has a Metacritic score from festival screenings. Additionally, if a movie didn’t meet the Metacritic minimum of five reviews and thus didn’t receive a proper Metacritic score, it also didn’t receive any points. For everything else, the points were distributed as such: 

Score of 0-19: -5 points
Score of 20-39: 0 points
Score of 40-49: 10 points
Score of 50-59: 20 points
Score of 60-69: 25 points
Score of 70-79: 40 points
Score of 80-89: 50 points
Score of 90-100: 100 points

Only six films received the full 100 points for scoring 90 or higher: Best Picture contenders It Was Just an Accident, One Battle After Another, and The Secret Agent; indie hit Sorry, Baby; international-feature hopeful Sound of Falling; and documentary The Alabama Solution. 

Conversely, while no film scored poorly enough to earn negative points, nine movies scored between 20 and 39, earning them zero points: James L. Brooks’s baffling Ella McCay, the video-game adaptation Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, the football flop Him, The Weeknd’s ill-conceived Hurry Up Tomorrow, the feel-bad Christmas movie Oh. What. Fun., the Colleen Hoover adaptation Regretting You, the one hundredth attempt at a Smurfs movie, the Russo brothers’ The Electric State, and the horro-remake sequel The Strangers — Chapter 2.

The full list of critics scores are posted in our Discord.

Calendar

Directors Guild Awards nominations: January 8
Producers Guild Awards nominations: January 9
Golden Globe Awards: January 11

Questions? Feedback? Can’t find your team or mini-league on the leaderboard? Drop us a line at moviesleague@vulture.com.