2020 MacGuffin Awards — Honoring the Best in Film
Hello and welcome to the 2nd annual MacGuffin Awards. I am your host, film critic Jonathan Sim, and I will be guiding you through some of the best films this year has had to offer. While this has been the worst year for movies in decades by a long shot, we still have had some great movies this year.
So we’re going to go category by category; I’m going to give you some nominations and reveal the winner of that category in a not-so-dramatic fashion. So here we go.
Best Action Film
Action movies are a genre that generally gets looked over at the awards shows. I think there is a lot to appreciate when it comes to the amount of training and stuntwork behind the scenes. So here are your nominees:
Bad Boys for Life
Tenet
Extraction
Honest Thief
Vanguard
And the Best Action Film of 2020 is…
Best Comedy Film
In a year filled with some of the worst experiences of our lives, these movies gave us a good laugh when we needed it. Here are your nominees for the best comedy of the year.
Impractical Jokers: The Movie
Palm Springs
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Happiest Season
On the Rocks
And the Best Comedy Film of 2020 is…
Best Actress
We saw some brilliant performances from many actresses this year, and today, we honor the best performances we saw in 2020. Here are your nominees for Best Actress.
Elisabeth Moss (The Invisible Man)
Sarah Paulson (Run)
Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman)
Frances McDormand (Nomadland)
Viola Davis (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)
And the Best Actress of 2020 is…
Best Visual Effects
Movies would not be the magic they are today without the advancement of visual effects. This year offered films with some incredible work from VFX artists, and here are your nominees:
Tenet
The Invisible Man
Wonder Woman 1984
The New Mutants
Birds of Prey
And the Best Visual Effects award goes to…
Best Animated Film
Animation is a long, tedious process; I learned the hard way in my animation class. The more I learn about it, the more I respect the artists who brought their work to life with these nominees for Best Animated Film:
Onward
Trolls World Tour
Soul
The Croods: A New Age
Over the Moon
And the Best Animated Film of 2020 is…
Best Superhero Film
Superhero movies are everywhere these days, and every year, we get a ton of action-packed, exciting superhero films. While we didn’t get any installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we still had some great superhero movies, including these nominees:
Birds of Prey
Bloodshot
Project Power
The Old Guard
Wonder Woman 1984
The New Mutants
And the Best Superhero Film of 2020 is…
Best Sequel
It has recently felt like sequels are everywhere, and with the existing franchises, there are a ton of sequels, reboots, and remakes. While many of them were pushed back to 2021, we were fortunate enough to get a few this year, including these nominees:
Bad Boys for Life
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Trolls World Tour
The Croods: A New Age
And the Best Sequel of 2020 is…
Best Actor
Acting is a difficult job, and what makes it difficult is making it look easy. These are your nominees for Best Actor:
Ben Affleck (The Way Back)
Tom Holland (The Devil All the Time)
Delroy Lindo (Da 5 Bloods)
Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)
Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal)
And the Best Actor of 2020 is…
Best Horror Film
Horror movies can be fun, scary, and disturbing. They’re also an easy genre to mess up, but these nominees proved great horror movies exist in this horror movie of a year.
The Invisible Man
Host
Freaky
Run
And the Best Horror Film of 2020 is…
Best Director
While I work as a film critic now, the dream is to be a director, and I always look up to directors who are great at their jobs. These are your nominees:
Christopher Nolan (Tenet)
David Fincher (Mank)
Spike Lee (Da 5 Bloods)
Leigh Whannell (The Invisible Man)
Chloé Zhao (Nomadland)
And the Best Director of 2020 is…
Best Screenplay
Movies are nothing without a script, and while these nominees aren’t necessarily the best films of the year, they certainly offer some of the best screenplays of the year. So here are your nominees:
The Way Back (Brad Ingelsby)
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin)
Run (Aneesh Chaganty, Sev Ohanian)
Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell)
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Ruben Santiago-Hudson)
And the Best Screenplay of 2020 is…
That was a tough one to pick since I love them all about the same. But now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for!
Best Film
Movies have helped me through a lot of the year, and these are some of the best movies of 2020. I have taken into account the consensus and my own personal taste, and I hope you like these nominees:
Tenet
Mank
The Way Back
Soul
The Call (콜)
Sound of Metal
Minari
Nomadland
Promising Young Woman
And the Best Film of 2020 is…
Thank you for joining me at the 2nd annual MacGuffin Awards. This has been a rough year, but it’s time to look ahead to the future. 2021 is very promising, so all we need to do is stay vigilant, and we will get through all of this. Movies provided me with escapism during some of my darker times this year, and I hope they did the same for you.
When we look at life differently, we can see the beauty that we never saw before. And with hope, luck, and a vaccine, we will make 2021 the best year ever.
