Oscars Shortlists (and Those Pesky Critics) Shake Things Up

The pre-holiday scramble has hit Hollywood, with Critics Choice Award nominations and Oscar shortlists (in 10 categories) rolling in before the awards machine shuts down until 2025. Emilia Pérez remains the belle of the ball, with its 100 points from Critics Choice noms and an extra 30 points for making six of the Academy’s shortlists bolstering its totals. But its all eyes on the box office for the remainder of the year. Mufasa and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 are battling it out this weekend, and the threesome of Nosferatu, Babygirl, and A Complete Unknown will be hitting the multiplexes on Christmas Day. Talk about a festive triple feature.

Questions? Need help? You can email us at moviesleague@vulture.com.

Leaderboard

Updated December 18, 2024

Gameplay

The window to participate in this year’s league is now closed, but we’re leaving the rules here for posterity.

The Films: We made a list of movies from 2024 — some already released, most still to come — and assigned them a dollar value based on how formidable they are projected to be in the various scoring categories.

Your Roster: You have a budget of $100 in fake dollars to build a team of eight movies. This will be your roster for the game. There is no substituting, even if a movie release gets rescheduled to next year.

Results: Each week starting Monday, October 7, the updated leaderboard will be available on this page and in the weekly MFL newsletter. Once the game has concluded following the 97th Oscars on March 2, 2025, prize winners will be notified within one week of the ceremony. In the event of ties, questions included on the draft ballot will determine the final order.

The Limit: Just one entry per email address. You can’t change your team once it has been submitted.

The Podcast Division: Dozens of our favorite culture-podcast hosts and producers are competing in a subset of the MFL to prove who has the superior awards-season expertise, box-office clairvoyance, and drafting savvy. When the leaderboard is live, you’ll be able to filter to see how the various podcasters are faring against each other. At the end of the season, the winner will receive an ostentatious championship belt because why not?

Mini-Leagues: You can play against a set of friends in a mini-league. Have everyone in your crew enter the same league name on the ballot when you each register, and then you’ll be able to filter the standings to see how everyone in your group is doing. There will also be mini-leagues associated with most of the shows participating in the Podcast Division; All of the participating podcasts can be found in our announcement post. But note: You can only participate in one mini-league, so that may means choosing between your friends and family and your favorite podcast.

See the complete Official Rules.

Prizes

Oh, look, it’s an array of fantastic prizes. The top-20 teams on the leaderboard will receive a digital subscription to New York, plus:

Grand Prizes (1st–3rd Place)

The overall winner will get to select one of the following devices:

➼ A 65-inch Roku Plus Series 4K TV
➼ A Roku Streambar SE
➼ Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 Wireless Earbuds

Whoever finishes second will get to choose between the remaining two, and third place will get the final item. You can’t go wrong.

LEGO Jaws Set (4th and 5th Place)

We know you’ve always wanted a Sam Quint mini-figure, and now that reality is just a fourth- or fifth-place finish away. This 1,497-piece set also includes Chief Brody, Matt Hooper, and, of course, a giant shark. You’re gonna need a bigger shelf.

Criterion Channel Subscription (1st–10th Place)

Everyone that finishes in the top ten will receive a yearlong subscription to the Criterion Channel’s streaming library. This is as close as most of us will get to being in a closet with Zoë Kravitz.

MoviePass Subscription (1st–20th Place)

Everyone that finishes in the top 20 will receive a yearlong MoviePass subscription, which will allow you to see up to four movies per month in theaters. What better way to start prepping for the 2025–26 MFL season?

Scoring Categories

Once your roster is selected, you will earn points in three categories:

1. Domestic Box-Office Performance

Movies will only be eligible for box-office points if they are released on or after October 4 (after the draft window closes). Points will be awarded in the following manner (based on Box Office Mojo):

Every $1 million earned: 1 point
Clears $25 million: 10-point bonus
Clears $50 million: 15-point bonus
Clears $75 million: 15-point bonus
Clears $100 million: 20-point bonus
Clears $125 million: 15-point bonus
Clears $150 million: 15-point bonus
Clears $175 million: 15-point bonus
Clears $200 million: 25-point bonus
Reaches No. 1 at the domestic box office: 20 points per week spent at No. 1

Last year, you began accumulating box-office points as soon as you submitted your team. We’ve done away with that this year. Now there’s a single start date: If a movie opens on or after October 4, it’s eligible to earn box-office points. If it opened before that date, it’s ineligible to earn box-office points. Keep that in mind when you’re drafting: Those September movies that may still be in theaters when the game begins won’t get you a box-office boost.

We’ve also bumped up the value of box-office performance. This year, for every $1 million a movie brings in, it earns one point. A $4 million indie? Four points. A $250 million blockbuster? 250 points. There are more, and bigger, bonuses for clearing certain box office thresholds, and a film being No. 1 at the box office for a given week earns you 20 points now.

2. Critical Performance

Similar to the boosted box office, we’ve doubled the bounty of points that a movie can earn on its critical reception, giving a little more juice to those indie flicks that may not be rewarded at the box office or by major award bodies. Points will be awarded in the following manner (based on the Rotten Tomatoes “Critics Score”):

0–25 percent: -5 points
26–45 percent: 0 points
46–64 percent: 5 points
65–74 percent: 10 points
75–85 percent: 25 points
86–95 percent: 50 points
96–100 percent: 100 points

Rotten Tomatoes points will be awarded all at once on January 7 and will not be adjusted based on subsequent score fluctuations. Only movies that have been released and have a Rotten Tomatoes score at the time of scoring are eligible for Critical Performance points.

3. Awards

Points will be awarded for both awards nominations and wins. This year we’ve added the Gotham Awards, which ought to provide a bump for indie movies, as well as points for various Oscar pre-nomination shortlists. This will tend to be a boon for more technically accomplished movies that get shortlisted in categories like sound, visual effects, and makeup, plus documentaries, international features, and the always surprising Best Original Song. See the calendar below for points associated with each event.