My Favorite Performances of the Year

Summary

Cannonball with Wesley Morris: "My Favorite Performances of the Year"

The New York Times
Aired: December 11, 2025

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Episode Overview

This special episode marks the inaugural "Great Performers Award Show" on Cannonball, with host and critic Wesley Morris joined by editor/co-host Sascha Weiss. Together, they dive into Morris's favorite acting performances of 2025 across inventive, hyper-specific categories—eschewing the traditional "Best" with accolades like "Best Performance in a Helmet" and "Best Grasp of Scuzz." The conversation is warm, witty, and personal, celebrating both big stars reinventing themselves and newcomers making electric debuts, while reflecting with some melancholy on the state and future of movie acting.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Philosophy Behind the List

• Why Superlatives Matter:

  • Wesley expresses a love for "lists" and "superlatives" but admits the traditional "Best" is too vague.
  • The purpose of his categories is to capture the essence of what makes a performance remarkable, focusing the conversation on the specifics.
  • Wesley: "The closer in you get, the more you're getting to something about some of the essences of what performance is." (06:42)

• Process:

  • Both Wesley and Sascha watch an enormous number of films, striving for a completist approach, but ultimately focus on what surprises and moves them most.

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The 2025 “Weskers” – Standout Awards & Winners

1. Best Performance in a Helmet

Winner: Brad Pitt in F1: The Movie

• Praised for expressing a rich spectrum of emotion while wearing a helmet, with only his eyes and forehead visible—true "movie-star virtuosity."
• Wesley: "He can make it mean something when you can only see 35% of it." (10:32)

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2. Best Friends

Winners: Keke Palmer & Sza in One of Them Days

• Both host and co-host applaud the lived-in authenticity of their on-screen bond, drawing comparisons to classic comedic duos.
• Sza’s natural performance was a revelation, with Keke Palmer serving both as the anchor and the spark of the pair.
• Sascha: "There's something so kind of serenely complete about the orb of their attention toward each other...the world can be crumbling around them. But this is a love story." (16:12)

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3. Least Fucks Given

Winners: Emma Stone & Jesse Plemons in Begonia

• Emma Stone's performance as a corporate exec believed to be an alien is called "brave" and "willing to do anything."
• Jesse Plemons is highlighted for respecting his character's delusions and "wanting to be manipulated."
• Wesley: "It's hard to play an idiot who is more than that... He does not lose the spine of what it is this guy has to do, which is to keep believing anyway." (21:32)
• Sascha: "It’s a privilege...that’s special to watch." (22:38)

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4. Craziest Charm

Winner: A$AP Rocky in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and Highest to Lowest

• Lauded for his effortless screen presence across two very different roles, described as "where Brad Pitt started out" in Thelma & Louise.
• Wesley: "He doesn’t even need [to take his shirt off]. I mean, he's got the teeth. Those teeth are a shirtless man." (25:14)

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5. Strongest Flex of Anti-Stardom

Winner: Julia Roberts in After the Hunt

• Roberts plays a Yale professor in a sexual misconduct scandal, with physical manifestations of guilt and stress—vomiting, medicating, and "holding onto dark stuff."
• The performance is a radical break from her familiar persona, embracing remoteness, desperation, and unlikeability.
• Wesley: "I’ve never seen her this determined to not be liked or indifferent to whether or not we like her." (33:07)

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6. Best Awe

Winner: Jessie Buckley in Hamnet

• Plays William Shakespeare’s wife, delivering a transformative performance that encapsulates both personal grief and the power of art.
• The climactic scene, when her character finally sees Hamlet performed and is emotionally overwhelmed, becomes the heart and thesis of the film.
• Wesley: "...Her face tilts to the side... She looks drunk with understanding... She looks completely transformed with—like her heart has leapt out of her body." (41:41)
• Both hosts are visibly choked up discussing this moment.

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7. Best Grasp of Scuzz

Winner: Timothée Chalamet in Marty Supreme

• Praised for finally releasing his "inner Pacino or Nicholson" as a pinballing, dirtbag Jewish con artist in 1950s NYC—a new level for Chalamet that’s “fun” but underscored by historical sorrow.
• Sascha: "It is a life force that is insisting upon life. And it's so moving, weirdly, like, it's so much fun. But there’s a depth to it that I had never seen before from Timothée Chalamet." (49:41)

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8. Best Performance Using All Available Tools

Winner: Kathleen Chalfant in Familiar Touch

• Plays a woman adjusting to life in a retirement home, bringing dignity, intelligence, and subtle ego to the role—never asking for pity.
• The performance is described as “clarity in a fog”—every gesture is loaded, and her entire physical and emotional presence is leveraged.
• Wesley: "Where’s the acting? She’s using her body, her mind, her eyes, her soul, her skin." (54:59)
• Both hosts say they could watch this performance annually and discover more.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Wesley on Emma Stone: "Bravest actor on earth right now, I would say, at the movies. Is really something." (22:37)

• On A$AP Rocky’s acting future:

  • Wesley: "Movies, y’all got a job to do. Hire this man." (29:02)

• On Julia Roberts shattering her image:

  • Wesley: "She’s just shaking the Etch A Sketch really hard here." (32:43)

• On Jessie Buckley's transcendent scene:

  • Wesley: "But you know what? I am not sitting here crying right now if this woman does not sell me what art is and what it can do." (42:20)

• Sascha on “Hamnet”:

  • "It's a whole biography, like an 800-page biography of a past self living inside a new self." (58:09)

• Concluding thoughts on the challenges and hope for movies:

  • Wesley: "If you get to watch Kathleen Chalfont act or Emma Stone act or A$AP Rocky do his thing, it kind of makes life worth living." (62:16)

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Reflections on the Year in Performance

• The hosts lament the increasing concentration of great performances in the awards season, rather than year-round, and the narrowing of film opportunities, especially for stories outside of major studio models.
• Wesley draws a parallel between the indie grit of the ’70s and the need for a similar artistic rebirth.
• Despite these challenges, both hosts marvel at the breadth, risk-taking, and emotional power of this year’s performances.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Awards Philosophy & Process: 00:53 – 07:43
• Best Performance in a Helmet: 08:00 – 11:57
• Best Friends: 12:00 – 17:19
• Least Fucks Given: 17:26 – 23:20
• Craziest Charm (A$AP Rocky): 23:48 – 29:08
• Anti-Stardom (Julia Roberts): 30:56 – 34:45
• Best Awe (Hamnet/Jessie Buckley): 34:53 – 43:41
• Best Grasp of Scuzz (Chalamet): 43:46 – 52:13
• Best Use of All Tools (Chalfant): 52:43 – 58:33
• State of the Movies/Reflections: 58:43 – 62:16

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Tone & Style

The episode brims with affection for cinema—funny, candid, awed. Both Wesley and Sascha bring a critic’s eye but also a fan’s warmth, and are unafraid to be moved, even to tears, by the deepest moments. Their banter radiates joy and gratitude for a year of “juicy” performances even amidst uncertainties about the future of film.

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Transcript

[A]

This is Andrew Ossorkin, the founder of DealBook. Every year, I interview some of the world's most influential leaders across politics, culture, and business at the Dealbook Summit, a live event in New York City. On this year's podcast, you'll hear my unfiltered conversations with Gavin Newsom, the CEO of Palantir and Anthropic, and Erica Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk. Listen to Dealbook Summit wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Wesley Morris and this is Cannonball.

Today. Lights, camera, acting.

It's the end of the year. And if you're a certain kind of critic, that means you're summing up the whole thing with the best of the year list. I love lists. I love superlatives. And yet sometimes a plain old best isn't quite cutting it. For one thing, it's vague. Best Actor. Okay, talk to me about what best is doing here. And so the New York Times Magazine has this annual tradition that we call Great Performers, where every year I watch as many people acting in movies as my eyes can handle. I think it's probably even more than that, honestly. And I think about what exactly is making the best one so great? What is the best way of explaining what's going on with how excellent this one performance is? The last time we did this, for instance, I thought Margot Robbie's performance in Barbie was. Wasn't Best actress. It was best Nervous Breakdown. And the guy who played Ken, Ryan Gosling, I gave him not best actor, but best theft of a movie because he kind of stole that thing. And this year, I'm going to give out a handful of awards here on Cannonball. For our first ever Great Performers award show, I even put on a tux. Speaking of which, can I just suggest you switch to watching this thing? For my tux, obviously, yes. And also for the great movie acting we're gonna be talking about, you can watch us talk about that acting. And joining me to do that talking is Sascha Weiss. She's my editor here at the Times Magazine and a critic herself. And she's responsible for making my end of this really elaborate project good. Today, she's not only my guest, but she's also gonna be my co host. So buckle up, people, for the first annual Great Performers episode.

Sasha.

[B]

Hi, Wesley.

[A]

Welcome to Cannonball.

[B]

Thank you for to be here.

[A]

Okay, first of all, I have to ask what people are gonna wanna know.

Who you wearing?

[B]

Oh.

Zero Maria Conejo. On sale. On sale. But a treasured dress.

[A]

Yeah, it's really great.

[B]

Thank you. Who are you Wearing.

[A]

Oh, See. Cause nobody ever asks the men, really. They've learned to do that as a matter of, like, what women being like, excuse me, there is a man who is not naked standing next to me. You need to ask him some questions.

[B]

But you have real sartorial opinions.

[A]

I do, but I also. This is an Allen David custom thing that I had made, and I would call it my starter tux.

[B]

Mm.

[A]

It is. It's actually too small for me now. And you tied my tie.

[B]

I did.

[A]

I have to say, it was beautiful having somebody tie your bow tie for you. Anyway, the point is. Thank you for doing great.

[B]

You're welcome. You're welcome.

[A]

So, Sasha, what are we doing?

[B]

What are we doing?

[A]

Why are we doing this? Why do we get dressed up?

[B]

Well, you know, Wesley, I think it's interesting, this kind of, like, attraction you have to awards and a little bit of resistance. You have to awards to best of. Right. So tell me a little bit about why you devised these special awards of your own. Uh.

[A]

Cause it made this more fun to do, honestly, like, I mean, we should just say, like, what this process is. I mean, you start watching movies in January, and you don't stop until somebody actually says you have to stop watching movies and start typing.

[B]

And so how many movies was that?

[A]

I mean, this year, I did not count, but it has to have been more than, like, 100. Like, certainly more than 100. And even then, you know, I still wound up not seeing, I don't know, five or six things that I really wanted to see.

[B]

Yeah, there's always this longing to see more. It's always hard to get you to stop, and I always sympathize with that, because you want to be a completist, which you almost always nearly are. But. But I'm curious, you know, as you're. Especially when you're on a spree and you're just absorbing so much, what captures your eye and tells you this is a great performance.

[A]

Mostly it's surprise. It's surprise. Even with a person who I've seen act a zillion times, like, what is gonna happen this time that's gonna be different or.

Unexpected in your performance in. And without you trying to do that. Sometimes that kind of attempt to make a change in terms of how you present yourself on camera, that works for me, but it's more when I did not see what you're doing coming. Have you seen all of the movies that we're talking about here?

[B]

I have seen most of the movies that we're talking about here. I Watched them kind of behind you, informed by you, occasionally disagreeing with you. Okay. But fascinated by the way that you slice these things. And just a question I wanted to ask you, or maybe like, a rule that it's kind of helpful to tell our viewers, our listeners, is that these categories that we devise, that you devise. We don't devise them, you devise them. But they have to plausibly be something that helps us think about performance in general. Or that's at least the instructions that.

[A]

We give to you. That's the instruction that you can give.

[B]

But I think it's real in the sense that there's something about, like, the hyperspecificity of this list. Like, the wonderful paradox of it. Right. Is like the closer in you get, the more you're getting to something about some of the essences of what performance is.

[A]

Yes. Now, it's funny because I have never talked to an actor about the way we're doing this. I don't know how actors feel about it, narrowing a performance down to, like, an aspect of what it is they did. But the way I try to think about the assignment here is to focus on the essence of what makes the performance great. Not to sort of block out the rest of the performance to focus on this narrow aspect of it.

[B]

I feel like it's a kind of instruction manual for how to watch a performance because it gives you this very specific.

At least it does that for me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, So I think we should get into it.

[A]

All right, fine.

[B]

These categories are so great. They're so much fun. They're so perceptive. So let's talk about them.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Okay. I'm gonna tell the people the first category. This year's I think we should call it the Weskers.

[A]

No, we should.

[B]

I'm gonna make that happen. I'm starting to make that happen. Best performance and a helmet.

[A]

Oh, okay. Well, I already. Well, should I. I mean, I already know who the winner is. Well, they don't. All right, best performance in a helmet goes to. It's Brad Pitt in F1, the movie. I got it all. Good.

[B]

So tell us, why did this performance work for you so well? And why is it the best performance in a helmet?

[A]

Well, how many performances have I seen people use helmets to give. Right. The first thing that came to mind was Russell Crowe and Gladiator. Like, I mean, just the movies are littered with people in helmets who've performed in helmets. This one is the first time I have ever thought about the acting one has to consider doing while acting in A helmet. And to be clear about, like, what is going on with Brad Pitt's like, carbon fiber helmet in F1 the movie is that most of the performance, he's just doing a thing that we all love Brad Pitt for.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Shows up, is effortlessly himself.

[B]

He's just emanating. Brad Pitt.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, the character is basically a for hire driver who winds up being recruited to drive on this one fancy team that Javier Bardem is operating. But that, you know, Brad Pitt is too interesting to be for that performance writ large to be worth considering here because he's now at a point in his career where.

So much about him is interesting and he's bringing so much of himself to bear in these performances. Like, just like his history as a person who's acted. But the helmet is bringing out some new.

Fun for him. Like, I don't know if it was hard for him to give the helmet part of the performance, but I will say that the range of expression that comes through in this thing on his head where you can't even see his mouth and his cheeks are kind of pushed in.

[B]

So it's all in the twinkle of the eye.

[A]

It's just all in this area right here. And he is.

[B]

So it's a kind of virtuosity.

[A]

I think it's movie star virtuosity. Right. It is like he can make it mean something when you can only see 35% of it.

There's something about having this thing on his head where it's just squeezing these emotions out of him. And it's just such a pleasure to know what he's feeling at every point. His eyes are doing new work here. The crease between his eyes in his forehead are expressing something. It's just like I'll probably go back to not thinking about actors in helmets after this too. Right. So a kind of peak has been reached until, you know, the next time somebody comes along and they're like, I know what to do in this thing, but this is just really good helmet acting. Cars bouncing around, this dirty air. I can't position to attack.

It's kind of hot self entertainment. Yeah. I mean, if you're into bondage, Brad Pitt face bondage. F1. The movie is for you. Sasha. You better bitch a sec to Apple.

[B]

Have become right now interested in this movie. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[A]

I think it needed another ticket to get sold. But, like, he is. It is worth watching and he is very good at it.

[B]

All right, let's go to the next category.

[A]

What's next?

[B]

I'M very excited about this one, okay? Because I love this movie and I related to it.

Best friends.

[A]

Listen, Best friends. I'm gonna open the envelope. But I mean, there's. There really. There's only one winner. One set of winners. Kiki Palmer and Sza in the film. One of them days.

I got so much joy. There's a kind of.

[B]

Wait, wait, wait. Let me, let me. Let's set it up. What are these two actors doing in this movie?

[A]

These are two roommates who have one day to find the money to pay their rent in Los Angeles. That's it. It's a classic opposites friends situation where the responsible, dependable one is Keke Palmer's character. She works at a fast food place. She pulled an all nighter.

[B]

And it's meta because Keke Palmer is such a. She is polished. She is, you know, all corners, the hospital corners as a performer.

[A]

Yes. But also has a capacity for fun and whimsy. Right. And the whimsy here is completely embodied by Sza, who is a person I did not even know, could act and definitely not be funny in the way that she's funny here. This is sort of your. She's in like.

Lisa Kudrow territory is how I would think about it. Dreamy, a little bit of a dingbat, but also kind of like grounded in some other way that really matters to a character and a person. She can't be written off as being only flighty.

Anyway, she is not with it enough to let her boyfriend run off with the rent money. So they are spending a day in Los Angeles trying to find a way to get this money back somehow not from him, but some other way.

[B]

Can we watch a little bit of this?

[A]

Yes. We're going to need headphones, which I have.

[B]

I'll grab some.

I love this movie. I watched it last night at 1am it was the funnest two hours I've had.

[A]

I watched this both in a movie theater and at home. And we'll just watch the scene. This is Keke Palmer at a bus stop.

Oh, no. Outside of the restaurant. So SZA's late.

[B]

I had to get a jump from Shamika. Then he put a roadblock up on the way. I had to go all the way around.

[A]

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. She's worked overnight. She pulled a double and she's tired. Kiki Palmer just wants to go to sleep and she's pissed because.

[B]

For real, I am sorry.

[A]

Sis is late.

[B]

I wasn't trying to be.

[A]

Because actually you're on time.

[B]

I got off at 7.

[A]

This is the kind of thing that friends do. And I still got you this.

My girl.

[B]

Extra cheese.

[A]

Yes. Brought her some breakfast from work. Don't worry about me. I'm be fine. Two kisses up to God and I'm be straight. Two kisses up to God God heals all things.

[B]

You think she's improvising her lines?

[A]

I think that there is some level of improv here, but I feel like.

I think that these are kind of the hardest. I think that in some ways we're going to talk about some very difficult performances to give, but I think performances where the entire project is riding on your salespersonship of a relationship with another person is so hard to do. And the thing that is so pleasurable about watching them is. I don't know if these people knew each other before this movie started, but you believe that they have been in each other's lives for decades.

[B]

So that lived in friendship feeling, they've been.

[A]

They're really good at that.

[B]

Also, weirdly moving. I mean, not to bring the light in 100%, but down to kind of something, you know, emotional. But there's something, to me, so emotionally true about the little orb they create because they're kind of going through la, you know, having these misadventures and all this shit is happening to them. They get electrocuted. They get chased by a gangster. They get, you know, there's a fire. There's literally a fire in the arm. And there's something so kind of serenely complete about the orb of their attention toward each other. And, like, the world can be crumbling around them. But this is a love story. And this is also what it's like to be friends when you're in your 20s and trying to figure out yourselves and the world. Like, they know the stakes, but they kind of just like, you know, because.

[A]

They have each other.

[B]

Because they have each other. They traipse through the world unbothered because they have each other. And it's touching. It's touching.

[A]

It does not work if you do not believe the two people playing the parts. And it doesn't work if you don't believe that they love each other. And I think these people are living together right now.

[B]

Yes. Yes.

All right, this next one I find very exciting because, well, we're both excited about the person who is gonna win it.

[A]

Oh, I'm not even gonna look.

[B]

The 2025 Great Performers Award for Least Fucks Given goes to.

[A]

I'm just gonna open it. But it's It's Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons in Begonia.

[B]

What are they doing in this movie? Tell us.

[A]

This is a crazy Yorgos Lanthimos movie about two guys who decide that this woman who runs the local pharmaceutical company, some pharmaceutical company, is definitely from outer space. And so in order to stop her from destroying humanity, they kidnap her. And in order for her to tell them all her secrets, all the business.

[B]

No, but that's not why. Fact check.

[A]

What?

[B]

They kidnap her so that she can talk to her alien overlord to convince them to leave Earth and stop destroying Earth?

[A]

Yes. Okay.

[B]

I mean, I think, to be absolutely crystal clear about what's happening in the movie, he has kidnapped this very famous executive.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And she's in his basement. And he is persuaded that she's an alien.

[A]

And he's torturing her.

[B]

And he's torturing her. And she's trying to figure out how much of his reality to match and where playing along with his deranged fiction might be to her advantage and where confronting reality with him might be to her advantage. And she tries different tacks throughout the movie, producing different kinds of rage.

Woundedness, assurance, you know, surety. Certainty.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I feel like we should watch a little bit of this.

[A]

All right, fine.

[B]

Here's what's gonna happen. I love her voice.

[A]

The voice is really part of it, too. There's so much richness to it.

[B]

The following is my best guess of how the next 48 hours are likely to transpire.

[A]

She also has girl boss voice in this movie, too.

[B]

After the FBI will be.

Gravelly, but she's really leaning into the lower registered resources of neighboring jurisdictions. My company is a key job creator and economic engine of the region. I am crucial.

[A]

Think of it like you abducted the governor, but worse.

[B]

That's the level of bureaucratic urgency you're contending with here. Can you describe what she looks like?

[A]

Powder on her face. I thought this was Tilda Swinton when I looked at the posters from.

[B]

There's an otherworldly, I would say, that's flirting with hideousness.

[A]

And I don't think that the shaving of the head is an accident here too. Right. Because it brings her into alignment with a whole universe of bald woman in the movies. And they're all in outer space, you.

[B]

Know, like.

[A]

It really knows what it's doing from the standpoint of iconography, which is all leading quite inevitably to your imprisonment and very likely worse, if I can be frank.

[B]

If I can be frank.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I can assure you that.

[B]

There is no possible Scenario where you benefit from this incident unless you cooperate with me right now and negotiate a deal that's fair and advantageous to us both.

[A]

Emma Stone is here to, like, win everything in this movie. Part of it is the character, but part of it is her saying, you know what? I'm willing to do anything this part requires. I mean, she's like one of our great actors. Just. I don't know why it doesn't. Like, just say it. She's one of our great actors. Okay.

Wow.

That was really good.

[B]

That was really good.

[A]

I agree. Jesse Plemons. I agree. My pulse is racing right now. Um.

Fuck, yeah. I mean, so what I love about him in that moment, too is that's the performance in a nutshell. Like a person who.

It's hard to play an idiot who is more than that. Right? Where the actor respects the character. No matter what the character is being asked to do. He is physically outmatched. He is psychologically outmatched. He is emotionally ill equipped to deal with what it means to be upstaged at every possible turn of this performance. But.

He does not lose the sort of truth in the spine of what it is this guy has to do, which is to keep believing anyway. Right. He wants to believe in something and he wants to be manipulated.

I don't know how you act wanting to be manipulated, but, like, letting the most. The bravest actor on earth manipulate you. I mean, bravest actor on earth right now, I would say at the movies.

Is really something.

[B]

It's a privilege that's special to watch. It's a privilege.

[A]

Right. And letting her take him as far as he can go. Cause he's never. Jesse Plemons is one of these actors who has been in so many movies in smaller parts, and this is the first time he's been responsible for helping drive the car, so to speak.

I don't know. I really like them together. And she really does bring out something new in him.

[B]

The crazy thing about Emma Stone is that she is, I think, still under 40. What else is she gonna do? She may be present in your awards every single year for the rest of time.

[A]

I don't mind. Listen, the truth.

[B]

I don't either.

[A]

The truth has to be told. I'm not gonna. That's the other thing.

[B]

Like. Well, speaking of truth, I didn't.

[A]

Speaking of truth, I'm not afraid to say the truth.

[B]

Let's go to this next category. You ready?

[A]

I am.

[B]

We've been talking about stardom. Established stardom, evolving stardom, vast careers that are getting Vaster. Now we're going to talk about a new kind of star. The person who is the recipient of this award for craziest charm.

[A]

I mean.

Okay, this is craziest charm, you know, asap. Rocky in if I had Legs, I'd kick you and Highest to Lowest.

[B]

Tell us about A$AP Rocky in both roles, which are pretty different.

[A]

They're very different. In Highest to Lowest, he plays a kidnapper who's trying to shake Denzel Washington down for a lot of money. And in if I had Legs that kick you, he's the guy who works at the motel where Rose Byrne is, like, holed up. It's her movie. But he is. He is just such a, like, balm for the eyes and all of the unpleasant stuff that we have to watch this woman do.

[B]

And.

[A]

And this is just one of those parts where both these movies, they rely on the charisma of the person playing the roles.

[B]

And would you say that not all famous actors have charisma?

[A]

Sure. Like, no. Lots of people don't have charisma. And I don't know why we are being asked to pay to watch them. A$AP Rocky is somebody, conversely, who. I wonder if we'll get more chances to. To pay to watch him act.

[B]

Please.

[A]

Because what we're talking about here, this is like, these two performances to me are where Brad Pitt started out. You know, this is Brad Pitt and Thelma and Louise. The guy who shows up and, you know, you're watching this, but he doesn't.

[B]

Even get to have any sex or take his shirt off. And he's still.

[A]

He doesn't even need it. I mean, he's got the teeth. He's got the best teeth in the business. Those teeth are a shirtless man.

Like, he doesn't need to take off a single scrap of clothes as long as he can smile. We're good.

[B]

Let's watch asap. Rocky.

[A]

You don't have to tell me twice. Me neither. I'm assuming highest to lowest. I'm a chance giver. Chance. Yo, you mad late, son. I been gave you a chance to give me a chance. You baited? Nah, I'm good, B. It's quiet. Curtains. I know what it is to risk everything you have for something that you want. This is him in the recording studio where Denzel has tracked him down to. To get his money, basically.

And we learn that this guy, the kidnapper, has been trying to get Denzel's attention for years to, like, cut a record, to just make some music, because Denzel's this important music producer. Yo, you know what's crazy? You don't know how long I dreamt about this shit. Me and you in the lab together, just like this. When I got out the pen, I set out a stacking hits offices, recording studios, business meetings. I even followed your little nigga Trey on social media, see where y' all niggas gonna be at dining and shit, hoping we can meet up, hoping I bump into you, hoping you give me time of the day. Hoping you hear me. I used to be on a Brooklyn bridge just looking up at you at your terrace. You know, the Dumbo Olympia. Nigga, I told you. I know where you late, too, nigga. Shit, ain't about nothing just to find out you had the worst ears in the fucking business. But you hear me now, though, right, nigga? You hear me now, though, right? And this is him dressing Denzel down. And I have to say, I have never heard a person talk to Denzel Washington like this before.

[B]

In your life. In the movies.

[A]

No, never in a movie. It's just, he's great also, and Denzel kind of likes it. He kind of likes it. Nobody roughs him up, and he likes being roughed up a little bit. But the thing about him is the hardness of him is kind of. I don't like. I think the thing that keeps Denzel in the room is he knows this is a kid. This is like. This is a person with.

A gooey center who made a bad mistake, and I think.

[B]

And who wants a daddy to recognize him?

[A]

I was just about to say, who wants a daddy? And A dollar AP Rocky is playing petulant, but if Denzel came on the other side of that glass and spanked him.

Well, spanked him and then gave him a hug, he would be like, okay, I think I'm straight now.

[B]

But who else but A dollar AP Rocky could incite Denzel Washington to speak.

[A]

In hip hop verse, to do the.

[B]

Verse in response to him?

[A]

I think that one of the things I love about this performance especially.

Is that it is allowing A$AP Rocky to bring himself to bear on the part. Right. You might not know anything about this, man, but you can understand there's something.

Something about him.

Is speaking his natural self when he's speaking in verse.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

To Denzel Washington.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

He's just so good. I am. I am placing. I am moving some chips on the A$AP Rocky part of the table.

[B]

Me, too.

[A]

That's. Yeah, we're just gonna push some more chips.

[B]

All right.

[A]

Okay. Movies. Y' all got a job to do, hire this man.

[B]

I think we don't have to convince them, though. I think it's gonna happen.

[A]

Okay. We'll see.

[B]

I think he's put his Riz out into the universe. Okay. Okay.

[A]

I think we should stop right here and just take a break. We've been through a bunch of names. We'll take a break and then we'll be back.

[B]

Foreign.

Hey, it's John Chase and Mari Uehara.

[A]

From Wirecutter, the product recommendation service from the New York Times. Mari, it is gift giving time, and.

[B]

We have so many great lists this year.

[A]

What's an easy gift for someone like.

[B]

Under 50 bucks in our gifts under 50 list? I really love this watercolor set from Japan. These beautiful, beautiful colors. It's something that kids can do, adults can do.

[A]

I love that. What's like, something fun that my dad is going to enjoy?

[B]

We have these custom Funko Pops on our gifts for dads list. You can custom make a little bobblehead toy in the likeness of your dad. They're totally unserious. They're just silly and fun and people really love them.

[A]

This is so hysterical. I had never seen these before. They're amazing.

[B]

I have to admit, I sort of want one myself.

[A]

Check out all of Wirecutter's gift recommendations for yourself and everyone [e-mail] holidayguide Wait.

[B]

We still have to talk about the butter warmer.

[A]

We're back. We're talking about the best acting that I watched in 2025 or my favorite acting that I watched in 20.

Sasha, what is. What's our next category?

[B]

Wesley, we're gonna talk about another movie star. Oh, a big movie star. Okay, the winner of the strongest flex of Anti Stardom 2025. Please tell us about her.

[A]

It's Julia Roberts. We don't need to tell anybody about Julia Roberts.

Julia Roberts in After the Hunt.

[B]

But it is a new dimension of Julia Roberts. It is that I've never seen. Tell us about what she is doing in this movie.

[A]

Well, she's basically playing. She's playing a professor of philosophy at Yale University who is embroiled in a sexual misconduct scandal between one of her proteges and one of her colleagues.

[B]

What are you saying he did?

[A]

Isn't it obvious? And the question is, really, whose side is she gonna take?

[B]

You know, given your history, what does that mean? My history?

I. What do you mean? I don't know.

[A]

Why are you saying that?

[B]

In my history, what does it mean? Anything past it, it's gotta mean something. I just thought your history but this.

[A]

Woman has her own problem.

She's holding on to some dark stuff from her past. And all of the stress and tension and guilt from her past and this present is manifesting itself in her physical health.

So she's keeling over.

Vomiting every other scene, throwing up.

Desperate for prescription medications from a colleague.

[B]

It's so different from the kind of cozy, vivacious, curly Julia Roberts.

[A]

Well, what I love about this is she's just shaking the Etch A Sketch really hard here. And I've never seen her this desperate. I've never seen her this remote. I've never seen her this scheming.

[B]

Kim, it's Alma calling you for the fifth grade fucking time.

[A]

Fuck. I've never seen her this determined to not be liked or indifferent to whether or not we like her. She's played plenty of unpleasant people that I would say she knew she could count on her Julia Robertsness her riz.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To win us over.

[B]

Sort of similar to what you were saying about Emma Stone, that like. I do think there's like an interesting sub theme in this year's great performers of these women, really good actresses, but who have these big kind of bright personae pushing themselves into this terrain that's kind of deranged, physically difficult, uncomfortable to watch.

[A]

Unpleasant, Unpleasant, unpleasant, whatever that is. And she has really adapted the limitations of this screenplay to her ability to extract some kind of deeper meaning from whatever it is a character is doing.

[B]

Thank you, Julia Roberts, for redeeming that God awful movie.

[A]

Yeah, it doesn't work, but she really, really does. And it's a turn she didn't need to take, but she took it. And I hope she gets to do more things like this because I think she's improperly appreciated. And I think roles like this on this like second half of her career.

Will really help, I think deepen her greatness. Her already great greatness. Yeah, I don't know.

[B]

Okay, Wesley, we have arrived at a category that is dear to my heart. One that we kind of disagree on. So I'm excited to talk to you about this one.

[A]

Oh, I know what it is then. Because there's really only one thing we. I didn't even know that we go, what is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it?

[B]

For the people at home. Yeah, Best awe. Tell us about this.

[A]

This is for the movie Hamnet and I'm giving it to Jessie Buckley.

Who plays.

I mean, William Shakespeare's wife. And.

I was not sure this movie was working for me. I sort of Felt like I was watching.

Sometimes an acting class. I mean, like, not a master class, but a class in which actors are learning the craft. And this performance, this character that she's playing is essentially like, I'm gonna be very reductive and just say, like a wild child.

[B]

Right.

[A]

We're in the 16th century. This is a person who has lived in nature. People kind of ascribe a witchiness to the character. And she meets this man. Is it true you know everything about a person by touching them here?

[B]

Not everything.

[A]

This man is a. Is an artist. He is really about making his art. He's from a fallen family, but a gentry oriented family. But they've fallen on kind of weirdly hard times, and he is forced to be a breadwinner. This person is played by Paul Mescal. It is William Shakespeare. They have a real sexual connection. He's got more inside of him than.

[B]

Any man I've ever met.

[A]

They become a family. They have three kids, and one of them dies. Mama.

[B]

My boy.

[A]

He lives not.

And in the wake of the death.

She grieves. And he grieves. But she thinks that his grief isn't.

As deep as hers. It's not as expressed as hers. And she is. This performance is so much about the expression of bereftness.

[B]

I think it's also important to say that the Paul Mescal character, the William Shakespeare character, leaves his family for long periods of time.

[A]

To go to Stratford on Avon.

[B]

No, to go to London.

[A]

Oh, right, you're right. You're right.

[B]

To write and to create his company and to put on plays and to make his work. And he throws himself into making his work while she remains home in Stratford Upon Avon dealing with her grief.

[A]

And so it becomes this, like, you know, very relatable.

Gender labor question.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But the whole thing culminates. The reason that this woman's name is on this card is because.

[B]

And the reason that you created this.

[A]

Category about awe is we find out that maybe these. The division of grief, the labor of it. He'd been taking it up in this different way. He'd been expressing his grief.

Through the artistic process. And all of a sudden, this movie's priorities become very, very clear. And it's not just that the audience makes an investment in Jesse Buckley's performance. I'm gonna start crying. Um.

[B]

Let'S set it up a little.

[A]

Bit, though, because, yeah, she. I mean, yada, yada, yada. She winds up at this performance of the thing he's been working on this whole time. And.

I can't like. So one of the things that happens in the movies is you sometimes you don't know. You don't know. You don't know what's gonna happen to you. And, you know, a lot of the time with me, I am asking when I'm not connecting with something, why it's not connecting with me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so I was sort of. I did not know why we were watching this movie. It's based on this Mary Maggie o' Farrell novel. I knew all those things. I just still didn't know why we were watching this movie. Why did Chloe Zhao choose to direct this thing?

[B]

And.

[A]

This woman gets to this play, and she is in the crowd. She has made her way to, essentially, the proscenium, just the edge of the stage, and she's below it, and she is watching her first ever work of theater as written by her husband, who is.

[B]

But we should say, by the way, that the play is Hamlet.

[A]

Are we gonna say that it's Hamlet? Okay, fine. The play that she is watching is one of the greatest artistic achievements in human civilization. And she's watching it for the first time. But this is also the first time.

[B]

And with no knowledge of the conventions.

[A]

Of theater, doesn't understand any of the rules. So at the beginning of this performance, she's like, this is not. She's saying out loud. She is basically this woman. This is a Negro essentially in this audience. She's like, this is not how it goes. She is talking back to the thing on stage. She's like, I don't like this. This is not true. This is not how. This is. I don't recognize any of these things. She goes from this belligerent audience member to. I mean, over. I mean, this is a long sequence, and it's cutting between this actor on stage and her in the audience. And the look on her face at some point where she just kind of.

Understands. She doesn't understand anything, actually. She's just feeling the thing that art does when it works. And fuck this movie. Because the same thing happened to me. I was not understanding it at all. And then all of a sudden, watching this woman's face go from like, this is some dumb. This is stupid. Why am I even here? What are you people even doing here? And then all of a sudden, she does this thing where her face tilts to the side or, like, maybe it's her mouth. She looks drunk. She looks drunk with understanding. And then.

She looks completely transformed with.

Like, her heart has, like, leapt out of her body. And we are talking about a Religious experience at this point. And she takes her hand and she.

[B]

Like, I'm gonna cry now too. It's so beautiful.

[A]

And the actor takes her hand and she just like.

She doesn't. It's not the art that she understands necessarily. It's like she understands what her husband has been going through this entire time. God damn it. Fuck this movie.

But you know what? Like, I am not sitting here crying right now if this woman does not sell me what art is and what it can do.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, it's sort of the most pithy, economical.

[A]

It's so pithy. Yep.

[B]

Demonstration of what art does, which is take these unutterable, irresolvable, oceanic, emotional experiences and then gives them a form in another life. And that's all in that performance.

[A]

Oh. So I should say we are talking about the end of Hamnet. I really respect the studio for not letting us show the end of this movie. First of all, it's very long, but it also.

[B]

But we should let the people see this.

[A]

You gotta experience this thing with your own heart. Eyes, heart, soul.

I mean. Oh, man. I. Boosting for Hamnet. I didn't think it was gonna happen, but here I am. Really. But I'm boosting for the performance. This thing does not work if she doesn't work. And she works.

[B]

All right. From the sublime to the ridiculous.

[A]

Oh, shit.

[B]

But sublime in its way.

[A]

Yes. Okay.

[B]

Wonderful category.

Best grasp of scuzz. Tell us about this one, Wes.

[A]

I.

This is kind of gonna need a little bit of a wind up. It's Timothee Chalamet in Marty Supreme.

The wind up for me is this is a person who I have believed in for a long time. But I, you know, take him or leave. I don't know. I don't love him. He wasn't ever really doing it for me.

[B]

Oh, so you believed in him just because of, like sheer.

[A]

I know there was something in there.

[B]

Technique.

[A]

I know there was something.

[B]

Handsomeness?

[A]

No, none of those things. Okay. I think it, you know, it's seeing him in Lady Bird. Lady Bird is the thing that I was holding onto as you know, his brief scenes in Lady Bird. I'm like, that kid has something.

And I have been waiting this whole time for somebody to give him a part that is new, that he can create from scratch. Can't turn to like, old TV to figure it out.

And he does it.

[B]

Tell us about the character Timothee Chalamet plays in this crazy.

Movie.

[A]

I mean, he is a shoe salesman by day and a ping pong player.

Kind of by night, but also has got his hands in a bunch of other pots. Some of them are small.

[B]

Any pot he can find, right?

[A]

Yeah. I mean, he's a con man, basically. Timothee Chalamet is playing a con man who. This is a guy, this is the kid in class in your school who was cool, who everybody kind of maybe wanted to be around a little bit, but who also was kind of crazy. So nobody really wanted to be too around him. But he also is charismatic and interesting. This movie is set in the 50s, we should say, in a Jewish New York of yore. This kid is. His name is Marty Mauser. And like, the movie has a real understanding of the period in which it is set. Right.

And it also has a real, like almost tangible dirtiness and vulgarity that to.

[B]

Me, also kind of a sorrow coursing through it because it's very aware of being post Holocaust pretty immediately post Holocaust.

[A]

The Holocaust is very apparent here too. And every single thing I just said about this movie is coursing through Timothee Chalamet's performance. This is, to me, this is the Nicholson part. This is the Nicholson performance. This is the Al Pacino performance. This is the thing that says, okay, this starry person, this movie star, like, person is really an excellent actor. Like a really good actor who can take chances and like hit every ball, every pitch that is coming over the plate, like real hard.

[B]

For a little intricate ping pong.

[A]

Oh, I bow down.

[B]

Sasha Weiss, which he did learn how to play. Can we just watch a little bit of it? Cause I hunger to watch this movie again, even though it's so stressful.

[A]

We'll talk more about it. Okay, this is. I'm gonna put my headphones on. Oh, I know this scene. This is a great scene. K speaking. Hey, it's Marty Mouser. I'm in the royal suite. This is him calling up the great, great, great Gwyneth Paltrow.

To ask her.

[B]

She's a movie star also the recipient of a Wesker this year.

[A]

She is getting a prize, but she is this movie star who is basically retired from acting and is basically living as the spouse of this rich businessman. And they're in this hotel together. He has conned his way into a room at the hotel. He is now calling up this actress, basically for a date. This much older actress, Much older, very famous, very well respected actor for a date. I saw you in the lobby yesterday.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah, we made eye contact. I was being interviewed.

[B]

I don't recall.

[A]

Whoa. He's on the bed by the way in his underwear, In a pair of boxer shorts, In a bathrobe and socks. The room's a mess. I'm a huge admirer.

[B]

Okay. Can I help you with something?

[A]

Maybe. I just ordered one of everything off the room service menu. There's no way I'll be able to eat it all alone. Her skepticism is so great. Also, he's got bad skin and glasses and a rat mustache.

[B]

Perhaps I should send my husband instead.

[A]

Oh, sure. He can come up here and I'll come down and meet you.

[B]

Okay, wonderful. Thank you.

[A]

Whoa. I want to keep talking. Why is that? Because I never talked to an actual movie star.

[B]

Well, now you have. I hope the experience was all you thought it would be.

[A]

You know, I'm something of a performer too.

[B]

Are you?

[A]

Yeah, he really is.

[B]

I.

[A]

What? What?

[B]

You're a performer? Just the audacity. Yes.

[A]

The nerve.

[B]

The nerve.

[A]

His eyes are dancing and he's having such a fun time. Yeah. He's enjoying this even when he shouldn't be enjoying things in this movie. And he's enjoying them. Okay, what am I looking at here? Down the middle, in the center.

[B]

This is you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The chosen one, but with the knowledge. The thing that's so deep about it is that there is this darkness underneath the undertow of your whole people having been murdered.

[A]

Survival.

[B]

Survival.

[A]

Survival.

[B]

It is a life force that is insisting upon life. And it's so moving, weirdly, like, it's so much fun. But there's a depth to it that I had never seen before. From Timothee Chalamet.

[A]

No, he's never gotten. Well, the thing that this movie and this performance.

Like, it insists that more things like this be attempted. Now, everybody's not gonna be as good a filmmaker as Josh Safdie is, but.

[B]

Because he is a filmmaker.

[A]

He's a filmmaker and he knows what to do with a star, which is to push him as far and as hard as he can be pushed. Right. Cause there are things that Timothee Chalamet has to do in this movie, physically that are really. I mean, not just the ping pong. There's a lot of. This movie is violent, I should say. Like, there's a lot of.

[B]

And chaotic, really. And vulgar. Disgusting.

[A]

I watch so much of it like this.

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

But whenever he was around, I'd be like. But it's. Cause I don't want to miss anything.

[B]

But this is where we get to the category of the scuzz of it all.

[A]

And I think that there are actors who just wouldn't want to Say those things. Do those things that this character is asked to do.

The way, you know you were watching a class A actor slash star is that I will follow this guy.

[B]

Anywhere into.

[A]

I mean, I will watch a fallen.

[B]

Bathtub in a cheap motel with your arm crushed under it.

[A]

Yes. And you're still on his side. Not the poor schmuck who, like, gets his arm crushed.

[B]

Totally. I feel like we said that the women were the most reckless this year and the most brave, but this, too, is reckless.

[A]

Oh, yeah. But, you know, it's funny because, you know, Emma Stone continuing to ride this stairway to Jupiter is interesting because.

She doesn't care about coming back to Earth.

[B]

Well, she's also building it while she's ascending it.

[A]

There's nothing on Earth acting wise for her.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And she knows it.

[B]

So just.

[A]

Let's just keep going to crazy town. Chalamet.

He needed to find his stairway, and he's on one now. And may he never come back to Earth.

[B]

Okay, Speaking of earthliness. Yes, Speaking of. I feel like we went from the sublime to the ridiculous, and now we're gonna go from the stratosphere down to really grounded reality with this category. My personal Favorite, Best Performance, 2025.

Best performance using all available tools.

[A]

I'm gonna start crying again. Oh, my God. Okay.

[B]

All right.

[A]

You know, Kathleen Stoutfot, come and get your piece of paper. Like Kathleen Stauffer in a movie called Familiar Touch.

[B]

Small, beautiful jewel of a movie.

[A]

This is a film about a woman essentially checking into a retirement community, which is a really hard thing to do. You get mad at actors for trying because.

Their motives always feel. Not always, but they tend to feel impure, which is like what is a very flashy, challenging part I could take that will get me some attention. I play a person with dementia. I play a person who can't remember things. I play that descent into dementia. But just to describe it that way.

It doesn't even get even at a little bit of what it is that Kathleen Chalfont is doing in this film. She's playing a life she's already lived and a life she is currently undergoing. I don't know how you do that, but she does it like one of the past things that you realize over the course of the performance is this maybe was a difficult person. This maybe was a person that might have been hard to get along with. She clearly worked in a kitchen. There's a wonderful mood. We should just. Can we watch?

[B]

Let's watch a little bit.

[A]

Yes, we should watch the scene that I think is I watched this movie.

[B]

And I thought I could watch this movie every year for the rest of my life and get more out of it.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

It is that deep and quiet and delicate for everything that Timothee Chalamet's performance is huge and appetitive and id. This is, like, restraint and clarity. Clarity, clarity in a fog. I mean, that's what's so amazing about it.

[A]

But you don't ever. Where's the acting?

She's using her body, her mind, her eyes, her soul, her skin. Her skin.

[B]

Her very skin. Her very skin.

[A]

Listen, let's just watch the scene. This is a scene where she, in one of her first days in this facility has like, just. She's checking in, she's scrubbing in, she's tapping in to, like, help make breakfast. And the people who normally make the breakfast at this facility are like, what is happening right now? Is this woman for real?

[B]

I'm sorry I'm late. I slept in a little bit.

[A]

She's putting on. She's gonna put on her apron. Oh, you're new on the line. Right.

[B]

She's another one with a beautiful voice. Rich.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Beautiful voice. Let me show you how to do it. There's a smoother way of cutting.

[A]

Hi, I'm Rudy, the cook here.

[B]

Did you replace Max?

[A]

Yeah, I did a few days ago. And they know. The staff knows to kind of play along.

[B]

Welcome. Congratulations.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Well, they're learning to play a lot. They're recognizing that that's what they should do here. Where do you want me?

Let's go ahead and have you take.

[A]

Over a fruit salad. But there is something about the nerve of this person's.

[B]

But also, I think it's. Well, I disagree. I think it's the commandingness and dignity. They know to play along because.

[A]

Oh, no. Yes, yes, yes. But I'm saying this is a past. This is a past personality trait. Right?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Let me show you how to do it. Right.

[B]

Totally. Totally.

[A]

That's what's being tapped into here.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

This is not some doddering old woman.

[B]

Right, Exactly. It's her command. They recognize that she has command, you know, and they want to give that to her again.

[A]

And makes them back off.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Right.

And she just is like cutting a grapefruit.

The thing about these performances, to me, is they always want pity. Right. They always want your compassion. She is a. This is. This turns out to be a much more difficult individual person than these movies allow for. And I love the prickles, and I love the softness of this person. This is a really Interesting plant of a human being.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And.

She has to sort of reduce all of that down to these gestures. Right. The movie is giving you very little.

It's the confidence of the performance to operate at all these levels that we're talking about that fills in all these details that makes us, you know, we don't have the answers to any of the things we're talking about. Right. We're surmising who this woman was.

[B]

Right. It's a whole biography, like an 800 page biography of a past self living inside a new self.

[A]

Yeah. This is your favorite of all the ones that we've. Of the whole batch. And I gotta say, it was the one.

[B]

It's a great place to kind of bring our ceremony to its conclusion. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, it's.

[B]

Cause you can't get better than Kathleen Chalfont.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

We're sitting here. There's now like a pile of names. There are a bunch of people we didn't even talk about. I.

I don't know. I feel very.

Lucky and grateful to have had this bounty of.

[B]

It was a real feast this year of a feast. And not only the abundance, but the performances themselves were so juicy, as we've been discussing. So juicy. Such a juicy year. But what does that mean to you, Wesley? I'm sorry I interrupted you, but I'm desperate to ask you. What does it mean in a year where we know there is a kind of, you know, existential crisis in the movies?

How do you make meaning of the list this year and the just sheer magnitude and amount of great performances?

[A]

I don't want to be doomy about this. I want to be practical because there is an entire class of movies that really doesn't exist anymore. I talk about this all the time, but you can see it when it's time to do this work. Most of these performances I saw between October and December, or like not even December. I saw most of these performances in October and November.

That's not right. That's like stacking the deck toward, you know, I mean, for our purposes, the Oscars. Right. I go to the movies in January, February, March, April. I mean, I'm going all year. I want to see interesting people doing cool, interesting, new, surprising, fun, moving stuff every single month of the year. Not just these two months, these three months. That. That dismays me because if we were doing this, you know, 15 years ago, even, like, even 10 years ago, that would have been less true. Yes, I would have. There would have been way more movies than Sza and Keke Palmer's in this pile than there are now.

[B]

And yet, you know, these actors find a way to do really interesting work. And also, some really famous stars, as we've been discussing, are finding ways to do new, riskier, stranger work sometimes in kind of small movies.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So how does that math add up?

[A]

Well, it's funny because I feel like, for instance.

Marty supreme.

And a whole class of movies that live alongside it but aren't, as I think, magnificent.

They are hearkening back to something that I hate to be, to put it this way, but there was once this other golden age, the grubby 70s. Right. And that was when all this weird acting was happening by these major actors, you know, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson.

I think that the movies are gonna have to undergo a change that, like, breaks them all the way back down, maybe. And so this is the end and the beginning of something. And I think that thinking about these human beings giving these performances.

It always does fill me. It always makes me feel like I'm being too hard on the industrial side of things. But I can't ignore the reality of that. But look, if you get to watch Kathleen Chalfont act or emma Stone actor, A$AP Rocky do his thing, it kind.

[B]

Of makes life worth living.

[A]

Kind of makes life worth living. It's true.

Sasha, thanks for making this show worth doing.

[B]

Oh, my God. Thank you for giving me this prod to see all these movies.

[A]

Well, you're welcome. Thanks for doing this.

[B]

Thanks for having me.

[A]

Oh, thank you. Thank you.

[B]

Sam.

[A]

This episode of Cannonball was produced by John White, Austin Mitchell, Alyssa Dudley, and Janelle Anderson. It was edited, as it always is, by living Lisa Tobin. Daniel Ramirez engineered this episode. It was recorded by Matty Masiello, Kyle Grandillo, and Nick Pittman. Dan Powell and Diane Walton did the original music. Our theme music, as always, is by Justin Ellington. Bobby Doherty took the photo art for our show. Our video team is Brooke Minters and Felice Leon. This episode was filmed by Alfredo Chiarapa and Dave Meyers, and it was edited by Amy Marino, Jeremy Rockland and Mark Zach. Demo. We're on YouTube, y'. All. You know that. And also, really, you can't. I could not end this episode without giving special thanks to a few people. First of all, to all the tireless, intrepid, patient publicity folks behind the scenes who helped facilitate screenings and clips and facts. And an extra special thanks to my colleagues at the New York Times magazine who helped make this great performance issue possible. Again, my editor, Sasha Weiss. So nice. She had to be thanked twice Jane Ackerman. This is alphabetical, y'. All. Jane Ackerman. Cale Bennett, Gail Bichler, Jessica Dimson, Victoria Escobar. Paul Quaker man. He took those pictures. He took great pictures for this issue. Amy Kellner, Cate Larue, Kyle Ligman, Jacqueline Mitt, Missy Prebula, Nandi Rodrigo, Jake, Sam Silverste, Christian Smith, Amy X. Wang, Rachel Willie and David Vesse. Thank you all. Thanks for listening, everybody. And next week. It's been a hundred years old, sport.