10 Recent Movies That Weren't What Anyone Expected
4. Blitz
Going into 2024, Steve McQueen's (12 Years A Slave) new film Blitz was at the top of just about every Oscar analyst's predictions for the 2025 Oscars, because why wouldn't a World War II movie starring Saoirse Ronan from a phenomenal, Oscar-winning filmmaker be in serious contention for gold statues?
But when the film released last November, there was a pronounced air of "That's it?" from awards prognosticators, critics, and general audiences alike.
Though broadly well reviewed, Blitz was ultimately a far more conventional war film than just about anyone expected from a filmmaker as visionary as McQueen.
Blitz is a shamelessly sentimental coming-of-age story like might've been box office and awards dynamite decades ago, and also one that unexpectedly shifts the attention way from Ronan's Rita towards her young son George (Elliott Heffernan).
Far from the visceral, gruelling experience McQueen's prior filmmaking trained us to expect, Blitz is a passable effort that almost entirely lacks the personal style of the director's previous films, enough that one could easily believe it was helmed by any competent journeyman filmmaker.