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

The New York Times
Aired: December 11, 2025

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.

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.

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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.

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)

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.

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)

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.

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

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.