30 Greatest Best Picture Oscar Nominees Of The Last Ten Years
18. Promising Young Woman
Emerald Fennell's fantastic directional debut is one of those little films that could. It's an independent film that's pretty far from typical Oscar material, but it managed to break in and walk away with the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, as well as highly deserved nods for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress. And thank goodness it did.
Promising Young Woman is one ridiculously smart film. It's a layered, complex and exceptionally disturbing meditation on violence against women that, despite its many shocking twists and turns, is never exploitative or insensitive.
Simply put, Emerald Fennell's screenplay is an absolute masterclass - and it also has one of the very best plot twists of recent times.
It's a stunningly powerful piece of cinema that's further elevated by its technical excellence and what is quite possibly the best performance of Carey Mulligan's already sublime career. It's not quite be the best film in 2021's amazing Best Picture line-up (we'll get to that one shortly), it's a close second nonetheless.