Alternative Oscars 2019: The Nominees & Winners For Every Category

3. Best Director

WINNER: Ari Aster (Hereditary)

Best Director is also quite a mixed bag this year. There's little point arguing with the deserved nod for Alfonso Cuarón (Roma), but Paweł Pawlikowski (Cold War) is an admirable passion play yet hardly a top-five nominee, Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite) and Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman) were both close but no cigar, and Adam McKay (Vice) is straight-up laughable.

Our Best Director award goes to Ari Aster for his exceptional work on Hereditary. Tonally and aesthetically the movie doesn't put a foot wrong, and despite this being Aster's directorial debut, he works with all the confidence and panache of a director many years his senior. Impressive is a serious understatement, but because this is a horror movie, of course it was ignored by the Academy.

Also snubbed were Damien Chazelle for his splendid, singular work on First Man, the trio of filmmakers who brought Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to life (because animated movies don't count in the Academy's eyes), and the Russo brothers for expertly juggling so many spinning plates in Avengers: Infinity War.

Given how easily the superhero epic could've devolved into a sloppy mess, it is undeniable top-tier directorial skill to pull it off so seamlessly, no matter what the Academy might think.

RUNNERS-UP:

2. Damien Chazelle (First Man)

3. Alfonso Cuarón (Roma)*

4. Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey & Rodney Rothman (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)

5. Anthony & Joe Russo (Avengers: Infinity War)