The 2025 Jim Ridley Film Poll

 Every year, I assemble a bunch of critics, filmmakers, artists, theorists, and assorted aesthetes to collab on a poll about the year in cinema. It tends to be awesome, and I thus present the latest installment.

The 2024 Jim Ridley Memorial Film Poll

Compiled with the help of filmmakers, critics, enthusiasts, poster designers, benefactors, executive producers, festival folk, and the like.

The 2023 Jim Ridley Memorial Film Poll

 The 2023 Jim Ridley Memorial Film Poll is one of the biggest things I coordinate in the year, and I'm always pleased to present the results. We cover a lot of ground here, with critics, producers, exhibitors, craftspeople, performers, and interesting folks the world over contributing. 

The 2021 Jim Ridley Memorial Film Poll.

 Every year, I gather together some of the most interesting voices in film criticism and  see what they have to say about the year in film. Check it out...

Catching Up with Jason Shawhan at this point...

Hey, readers (both of you). So, I'm currently sitting in Los Angeles at a friend's place trying to get my mind in order, and I've realized that I should collect some more stuff that I've written here so that I can increase some degree of awareness for what all I write... So here it is.


Celine Dion.
Here are two pieces I wrote about La Celine's Courage tour. The first is a preview of the show/thinkpiece about the artist and her legacy. The second is a review of the actual show itself.

A review of COLOR OUT OF SPACE.

The 2019 Jim Ridley Film Poll, which I helped organize and collate (and ended up puking up bile in the upstairs men's room at a beloved arthouse from anxiety). Note: The Apocrypha, which is the 18,000 words submitted that didn't make it into the final version, will be published on this website in a week or so.

The 2018 Jim Ridley Film Poll: The Apocrypha.

The 2018 Jim Ridley Film Poll: The Apocrypha.

So in addition to all the stuff publushed in the Scene’s Film issue, there was a lot more left over. I present it here because it’s a monument to the diversity of thought of this year’s contributors, especially in their willingness to tackle some of my weirder questions, and because I want everyone out in the world to be able to experience each of these responses. I would have had it up sooner but for my house flooding, which is a whole other thing. Be good to one another.

Who would you most like to see in concert: Darlene Sweet, Ally Maine, a festival experience with all the performing artists from Episode II of “La Flor,” or Celeste?

Darlene Sweet for sure. Cynthia Erivo made Bad Times at the El Royale enjoyable for me. She is amazing! She deserves to be a household name. (Howell)

All of them. (McQuiston)

Calum Worthy/Jackie Long/Shoniqua Shandai in Bodied  (Skipper)

I do not especially care for A Star is Born, but I do quite like the music of Ally Maine when she is initially starting off. I imagine it would make for quite a fun lounge show, with Gaga, ahem, I mean Ally’s increasingly velvet-like voice basking over the expansive soundscapes of her quasi-Elton John tracks. (Turner)

I managed to avoid Bad Times at the El Royale — a trend that may continue until my dying days. And I didn’t have time for all 500 hours of La Flor. That said, instead of Ally Maine, I’m going to go see Clint Eastwood from The Mule stand on a stage and sing dirty reworkings of songs he hears on the radio. (Prigge)

Psh. None of these. I want to see Gilda Live in 1980. (Okay, maybe I’d want to see Ally Maine, too.) (Williams)

Buster Scruggs (Tafoya)

I would love to see a Celeste concert, but only if Willem Dafoe narrates. (Burns)

Lakeith Stanfield’s character from SORRY TO BOTHER YOU, performing “Nigga Shit.” (Lindsey)

What’s the film you most want the rest of the world to see in 2019?

Thunder Road is a dazzling portrait of a flawed man trying his damnedest to be better.  The opening 15 minutes are among the best I've seen in years. Writer-director-lead actor Jim Cummings plays Jim Arnaud, who delivers a eulogy at his mother's funeral that is both heart breaking and hilarious, and that frenetic energy carries through the film. We might all see ourselves in Officer Jim — in the ways we grieve, fail and triumph. (Ciccarone)

Sorry To Bother You, if only to shut down the idea that communists can't have fun. (Leavitt)

I would like everyone to put down their cell phones and watch Won’t You Be My Neighbor, especially if they didn’t grow up watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. We could all use the wisdom and legacy of kindness and compassion that Fred Rogers left us. (Howell)

A tie between Jean-Luc Godard's THE IMAGE BOOK, Kamran Heidari's ALI AQA and Ulrich Koehler's IN MY ROOM. (Erickson)

Hu Bo’s An Elephant Sitting Still. KimStim is providing a domestic release for this starting in March 2019 and it’s an incredible first (and last) film for a talent exploring four distinct characters that interact over the course of a day and ultimately decide to find an elephant rumored to grant wishes. It has multiple single-take sequences as the camera diligently follows the characters and one especially neat sequence taking place outside over a prolonged sequence to show the gradual shift from day to dusk. (Lichman)

After the Screaming Stops - It's a fantastic documentary and not to sound cliche, but it made me laugh, cry and immediately want to call my mom. It has been released in the UK, and although most Americans don't know who Bros are - I hope they have a chance to find out. (Feldbin)

I can’t choose! Definitely ONE CUT OF THE DEAD, the indie Japanese zombie movie, because it’s the most innovativefilmgoing experience I’ve had in years. And everyone needs to experience the joy that is THE WORLD IS YOURS, a French crime/thriller/comedy so charming I bet you two eagles you’ll love it to bits (catch it on Netflix right now!) (Winters)

The Academy Film Archive has completed a countless number of restorations of queer experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer's long filmography, showing a number of these in Los Angeles. The Academy only charges shipping + handling for prints, so I hope ambitious programmers take advantage and show off this wondrous oeuvre. (Labuza)

Dragged Across Concrete. Stop projecting politics onto the film / flmmaker and just watch the damn film. It’s electric and Mel Gibson delivers one of his best performances somewhere between Buster Keaton and Lee Marvin. (Kane)

What movie do you want rest of world to see? For anyone with a narrow, staid, or reductive view of the horror genre, I urge them to see SUSPIRIA (2018). I initially was dubious about this "remake." It is a sequel as anti-sequel. Is it a revision of the fairy tale motif ? Is it an exploration of the nexus between magic and delusion ? Is it a meditation on late 20th century European history ? Or is the entire film an exercise in Lacanian psychoanalysis ? It is a film of multifaceted thematics. I saw this film on five occasions and each viewing revealed additional layers of meaning. This film dispels the notion that the horror genre is mindless and tired. (Cosner)

Since Ahmad Kiarostami’s tweet last May that let slip the news about The Criterion Collection working on a restoration of Abbas Kiarostami’s Koker trilogy (WHERE IS THE FRIEND’S HOME?, LIFE AND NOTHING MORE, and THROUGH THE OLIVE TREES), I’ve been longing for the chance to see these three films in a way that most of America has never had the chance to see them. It has been said that Akira Kurosawa credited Kiarostami as the filmmaker who filled the void left by the passing of Satyajit Ray. But with the devastating news of Kiarostami’s death in 2016 while still working on 24 FRAMES (which was finished by his son Ahmad and played at the Belcourt last April), I’d been left with merely the hope that his hard-to-find and poorly mastered masterpieces would soon get the same treatment that Ray’s Apu trilogy received in 2015 with the Janus Films theatrical release and the Criterion blu-ray release of the miraculous 4k restoration of those wonderful films. Now that the 2019 version of the Criterion Collection New Year’s Drawing seems to suggest that this will be the year they release the Koker trilogy, is it too much to hope that Janus Films will also give us a theatrical release of these three rare gems? (Millennium)

STARFISH, LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT 3D, and TUMBBAD. (Shawhan)

Black Mother (Tafoya)

Front-runner for my next year's best film is Radu Jude's I DO NOT CARE IF WE GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS BARBARIANS, which takes the ACT OF KILLING / BISBEE 17 template (re-enacting a past atrocity) but adds the element of the viewer. The director wants to engage in a revisionist take on Romania's role in World War II and the Holocaust, to ... mixed results. Even when the production at its most successful as intended propaganda. Patriotism is a tougher nut to crack than many think. (Morton)

HALF THE PICTURE (Inman)

I think American audiences are going to flip for Climax, but it isn't in English so I'm probably wrong. (Martini)

There should be a law requiring everyone to see MINDING THE GAP. It's a great skateboarding film that evolves into a blistering portrait of dying industrial small towns in America and the violence that exists there. (Owens)

I only want the usual, self-selected group of non-haters to see Godard's The Image Book, thank you very much, so a film I love that I'd want *everyone* to see would be Transit, the latest from Germany's Christian Petzold. It's a story of a fascist takeover of Europe, and from one moment to the next you can't tell if it's set in 1936 or the present day. The two times have melded into a single strand of daily horror. A brilliant film about our times. (Sicinski)

SEDER-MASOCHISM, the latest animated feature from Nina Paley (SITA SINGS THE BLUES). (Lindsey)

Everyone who has ever complained about the lack of quality cinema, the paucity of Black films that aren't romantic comedies, or the lack of productions with roles giving women characters equal power and authority with their male counterparts should see and savor "If Beale Street Could Talk." Barry Jenkins surpasses his amazing achievement of "Moonlight" with this gripping adaptation of the mid-70s Baldwin novel, keeping his work steeped in the intense romanticism and unrelenting authenticity that always resonated within Baldwin's writing. Everything, from musical choices to a gripping, if heartbreaking ending, made this an unforgettable masterpiece. (Wynn)

Bodied! (Skipper)

ONE CUT OF THE DEAD! Unfortunately everyone had a one-day window to get a sneak peek of the film when someone posted a pirated copy to Amazon Prime at the very end of last year... Hopefully that only feeds the hunger for a decent US release of this absolutely phenomenal film about the joys and struggles of collaborative creation. It's also the best film about why you shouldn't denigrate and disparage so-called "so bad they're good" movies. (Hall)

Which film has the production design that you’d most want to live in?

"Bad Times at the El Royale," but without all the creepy hidden stuff. (Duralde)

Wakanda Forever! Not since COMING TO AMERICA has the cinema put forth a place I wanted to live better than BLACK PANTHER. I want to parade around in Ruth Carter's costumes and take in every aspect of T'Challa's homeland. Of course, my clumsy ass will probably fall off one of those cliffs. It's a risk I'm willing to take. (Henderson)

It’s a toss-up between the big-ass house from ROMA or the big-ass house from THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. (Lindsey)

I want to live in the ROMA house -- whatever room they’ll give me. (Inman)

I'd love to linger at any of the vantage points and window sills in 24 Frames. My own pocket of serenity. (Stoehr)

Barbara (Tafoya)

It’s hard to say anything other than Black Panther, which Hannah Beachler so expertly crafted from a multitude of Afrofuturist sources. Wakanda brought, to mainstream audiences everywhere, a way of looking at the world as it might have been were it not for overwhelmingly European-colonial influence. Rather than tradition and modernity being mutual exclusives, it creates a world  where deeply-rooted culture and technological progress go hand in hand, so different from what western cinema normally shows us that even films set in fantasy realms or on distant planets can’t hold a candle. (Adlakha)

As a student of early 18th century British history, I would love to inhabit Queen Anne's palace in THE FAVOURITE. (Cosner)

The cold cement tombs of Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria might not seem inviting to most but I would love to scratch my fingernails against that Brutalist Utopia.  (Adams)

Probably Bad Times at the El Royale - from the funriture to the clothes, to the cars and even wallpaper, that time period and aesthetic (lots of Mid-Century Modern - SWOON) are very much my bag. (McQuiston)

Mandy. I must live in a shared universe with Cheddar Goblin. (Kane)

The Hong Kong musical biopic HOUSE OF THE RISING SONS, which dramatizes the story of Beatles-esque teen idol band The Wynners, features a a meticulous recreation of a 1970s Hong Kong neighborhood block, but drapes it in candy-colored nostalgia. It’s like Wes Anderson got his hands on it and added lots and lots of orange, mint green, sunshine and whimsy. I’d like to move in tomorrow, thanks.(Winters)

Mandy and Red’s house in MANDY. The Tanzgruppe Markos’ headquarters in SUSPIRIA. The house in COLA DE MONO. Treepeopleville in ANNIHILATION. (Shawhan)

Ava DuVernay and the production team behind A Wrinkle in Time practically brought empathy to life with its lush, welcoming vision of Madeleine L'Engle's novel. If I could book a ticket to go hang out with Oprah the a sentient being of hope and be a warrior of light to fight evil bad mood storms, I'd do it in a heartbeat. (Woodroof)

I would want to live on the island in The Wild Boys. It comes from a vulgar imagination, as if erotically charged dreams conjured it out of thin air. (Turner)

1977 Berlin, but mainly the witches’ kitchen, den, and wardrobes, in SUSPIRIA; the miniature and masterfully crafted apocalypse of ISLE OF DOGS; and Sandi Tan’s imaginative dreamworld glimpsed in the lost fragments of SHIRKERS. (Smith)

Benjamin Loeb’s photography in Mandy captured Hubert Pouille’s horrific neon fever dream production design so perfectly to me. Not only would I want to live in it, I’d want to submerge myself in those reds and blues. (Howell)

What are you most looking forward to in 2019?

New Almodóvar, and it sounds like it's his 8 1/2. (Duralde)

Watching Adam Sandler in Auteur Sandler mode, Idina Menzel, Lakeith Stanfield, Pom Klementieff,The Weeknd, and Judd Hirsch working with the incomparable Safdie Brothers on Uncut Gems, what could potentially just about be the greatest film of all time. (Woodroof)

New Martin Scorsese gangster film with De Niro and Pesci and Keitel. But in a theater, Netflix! In a theater!! (Morton)

As a big Star Wars nerd, Episode IX is huge for me.  (Skipper)

COINCOIN AND THE EXTRA-HUMANS, PETTA, BODY AT BRIGHTON ROCK, HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U, VELVET BUZZSAW, A WORLD WAR II FAIRYTALE, DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT, UNCUT GEMS, CLIMAX, KNIFE + HEART, The Bruno Dumont/Sparks musical, GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS, NEW MUTANTS, Ava DuVernay’s Prince Documentary, SOMETHING ELSE, SYNCHRONIC, TUMBBAD 2, and NOW APOCALYPSE. (Shawhan)

Robert Mueller handing down some Trump family indictments. Impeach the motherfucker! (Sicinski)

KNIVES OUT, the latest from Rian Johnson, has me really excited. (Owens)

The ridiculously glorious cliffhanger at the end of the second installment has left me triple excited for JOHN WICK 3, due out this May. Sometimes all you need in life is a little Keanu Reeves, a lot of guns, and maybe a pencil.  RUINED HEART: ANOTHER LOVE STORY BETWEEN A CRIMINAL AND A WHORE from Filipino filmmaker, musician and poet Khavn, was absolutely groundbreaking when it was released in 2015. I have no idea how he could possibly top himself in the newly announced sequel, but I am absolutely ready to see him try. (Winters)

Films from women fueled by #metoo. (Inman)

Glass, Godzilla: King of The Monsters. (Dr. Gangrene)

R. Kelly finally going to jail. (Lindsey)

“BLANC OR MARKOS?”

Oh, that's tough. Markos definitely appeals to the lumpy, blobby, misshapen dictator I am in my heart. And who can resist her sunglasses/vestigial baby arm fashion combo? But ultimately I must shout BLANC! She's not who I am, but she's who I'd want to be. She's exacting and cruel, sure, but she's also capable of love and besides, it's all in the name of art! And she looks great eating chicken wings. Who doesn't aspire to that? (Ponder)

Blanc all the way. (Kane)

Blanc! (Skipper)

Blanc. (Feldbin)

Markos. (Martini)

Blanc. Steely-armed artists in flowy outfits > bétisier signifier vulture capitalists. (Shawhan)

This question was actually harder than I anticipated once I realized you get Tilda either way, but I gotta go with… Blanc!!! I always vote the way Ingrid Caven tells me to. (Adams)

Catching Up with 2018...

It's been far too long since I've updated this site, and that's on me.


And I just reviewed Hereditary, which is quite something.

Here's me on the Nashville Scene's podcast talking about the 2018 Nashville Film Festival.

I reviewed Grace Jones - Bloodlight and Bami, which is superb, and I got to introduce the film in front of a packed house. There may be some video of this surfacing later in the year. Maybe.

I got to write about Jonah Ray's Festival of Me at Zanies, which was a blast.

I was indirectly featured in an article in Entertainment Weekly about the script reading for Flash Gordon that was put on at the 2018 Chattanooga Film Festival with actual real live Flash Gordon Sam J. Jones! I was the narrator for the script reading, and you can hear my voice in the excerpt featured in the video attached to the article.

I saw Ready Player One.

I interviewed filmmaker Alyce Wittenstein before her retrospective at what would prove the final Peripheral Visions at Third Man Records, which I am very sad about. The interview was good, though.

I covered the Big Ears festival of Music and Film in Knoxville, and it was great except for the mourning.

I reviewed Love, Simon. Which is very kind-hearted and sweet and a good start.

I interviewed Kyle Kinane again, right after he got back from China.

I reviewed Call Me By Your Name, which was one of my favorite films of last year.

I administered and collated the Jim Ridley Memorial Film Poll for the Year 2017 for the Nashville Scene.

A few words about Jim Ridley.

     I've started and restarted this probably about twenty times. Ironically, it's the sort of situation I would have eMailed or called Jim about.

     I don't know how to qualify Jim Ridley in a way that does him justice. For almost the past twenty years, he's been my mentor and my friend, and my editor for the vast majority of them as well. But he was more than that. 

     A partner-in-crime in putting together the lineups for the Belcourt's Twelve Hours of Terror. A source of more confidence than I ever had in myself. And the best movie buddy anyone could ever have... 

     That time that Tilda Swinton touched my shoulder, Jim was who I called first.

     Truthfully, neither of my parents have ever met anyone I ever dated, but Jim met three of them.

A few random tidbits of Ridleyana I cherish deeply:

     Summarizing over the phone the Brian DePalma/Eamonn Bowles kerfuffle at the NYFF press conference for Redacted.

     Our Sam Peckinpah sojourn, when we roadtripped to Atlanta with Zack Hall, for a pre-deadline screening of Prometheus, and back one Thursday night.

     Having the Umbrellas of Cherbourg/Futurama discussion.

     Opening night of Femme Fatale at the Green Hills 16, the most ecstatic moviegoing experience I ever had.

     Those VHS tapes of the Alien3 workprint and The Ring.

     The Cornetto Trilogy (see below).

     The post-Out 1 discussion at the 12 South Taproom, with old friends and new friends just tripping out on the mad possibilities of cinema.

     Friday afternoons and Monday mornings, when we'd talk about whatever we'd seen over the weekend. 

     Any of the times we were on panels together for the news. 

     When my Grandmother was dying of Alzheimer's and we talked for an hour about Kore-eda's After Life.

     His annual tradition of running through the aisles of the Belcourt during 12 Hours of Terror, gleefully pelting the audience with candy.

     It's not an exaggeration when I say that I don't know how the city is going to get by without him. I really don't think a lot of businesses, collectives, cooperatives, bands, and teams in and around this town really realize how much work Jim did to fix the cracks and fissures that come from unresolved tension and anger. 

     He was like Santa Claus or Baretta, but with a specialty in crisis management and resolution. He had a superhuman ability to sense if you were in distress, and was always willing to perform a surgically precise intervention if he saw you cornered at some social event in an enervating conversation. He was a model of graciousness and sincerity when dealing with anybody, and I was and am in awe of it.

     As an editor, he was the best kind of improv partner, “Yes and”ing a lot of borderline sweaty pitches that somehow yielded fruit. Seeing the same film in multiple formats, Eva Green saving otherwise crappy movies through sheer force of will and artful deployment of the groceries, an epic appreciation of Pootie Tang, a pair of Elm Street thinkpieces, a Laura Gemser-style investigative piece about why it was so difficult to see that last 3D Paranormal Activity movie. 

     He was both cheerleader and civic engineer, keeping you hyped and encouraged but also able to fix the foolishness that wasn't absolutely necessary.

     I regret that we never went through with dressing as Statler and Waldorf for one of the 12 Hours events.

     There was no feeling in the world like being able to show Jim something he'd never seen before; it was no easy task. He was a fountain of enthusiasm, and an amplifier for joy. He could make a bad movie bearable, and a good one great.

     So how, in the end, do I qualify Jim Ridley? It's not just that he made me a better writer, because he did that with everybody. But I look at who I was back before that fateful VHS of the Sundance Cut of The Blair Witch Project brought Jim into my life as a friend and colleague, and I know he helped make me a better human being, and I miss him so much I don't even know how to put it in words. 

     So I guess I'll have to rely on a few lines from one of the greats; an artist who fueled a lot of the best conversations I ever had with Jim.

“Sometimes I wish that life was never ending/

But all good things, they say, never last/

And love, it isn't love until it's past.”

At the movies: Evil Dead '13.

I got to talk with Jim Ridley about the new Evil Dead. You can read it here. There is some trenchant observation with just a tad of leavening bitchery. I hope you enjoy it.

At the movies: Les Miserables.

One of the things about being a film critic that proves rewarding are the conversations you have with other critics. I'm fortunate to be able to call Jim Ridley both my editor and my friend, and long before this latest incarnation of the classic Victor Hugo story (and first adaptation of the Boublil/Schonberg/Kretzmer musical) surfaced, right after we'd done a dialogue review of The Raid, we said 'we should do this again.' Fortunately, he's as big of a fan of the Les Miz score as I am, so this seemed like a given. Have a read, let me know what you think...