Last year, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed the nominees for its 2016 awards, it became painfully clear that Oscar voters were out of touch. Or perhaps literally blind.
No nods for Creed 's Michael B. Jordan or Beasts of No Nation 's Idris Elba?
Only a lone screenplay nomination for Straight Outta Compton? Shameful, embarrassing and a clear indication that change needed to arrive at the Academy, post-haste.
One year later, and all eyes are on whether the Academy has taken note of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy it sparked.
If, say, Moonlight fails to net serious attention, the world will know the industry is truly stuck in the past.
But before the Academy reveals this year's nominations on Tuesday morning, The Globe and Mail's film writers Kate Taylor and Barry Hertz share their own ballots – all worthy contenders that, in a perfect world, would be on the tip of Hollywood's tongue come awards time.
KATE TAYLOR
Best Picture
La La Land: The movies do love the magic of the movies. La La Land is a standout not only for its contemporary take on the old follow-your-dreams theme, but also for director Damien Chazelle's surprisingly successful revival of the musical genre.
Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in La La Land.
Moonlight: Barry Jenkins's dark and delicate look at African-American masculinity should blow #OscarSoWhite out of the water – at least for 2017.
Manchester by the Sea: Director Kenneth Lonergan should get the no-hankies Oscar for bravely avoiding sentimentality in this sad yet oddly funny family drama.
20th Century Women: Specificity rules in Mike Mills's engrossing drama about what it felt like to be a teenaged boy or a middle-aged woman in 1979.
Hell or High Water: David Mackenzie's taut, witty and exceptionally well-crafted neo-Western has not got as much attention as it deserves.
Best Actor
Casey Affleck: In Manchester by the Sea, he creates a character of such intense emotional repression that every time he swallows or blinks, you want to applaud the chops.
Joel Edgerton: In Loving, the actor pulls off a tricky emotional stunt, turning a stubborn and monosyllabic Virginian man into an unlikely but hugely sympathetic human-rights hero.
Adam Driver: As Paterson proves, Driver is the master of the interior life, playing a deeply sensitive bus driver who writes poems on his lunch hour.
Andrew Scott: Denial torpedoes stereotypes of righteousness, with Scott creating the complex figure of a crafty and self-satisfied society lawyer moral enough to take on a Holocaust denier.
Vincent Cassel: Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World won't be nominated – because the film is in French – but Cassel's performance as a viciously angry sibling in an unhappy provincial family was one of the acting profession's high points in 2016.
Best Actress
Sandra Huller: The star of Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann is another wild-card choice – that film is in German – but her performance as an ambitious management consultant driven to the verge of lunacy by her embarrassing father was the only interesting portrait of the corporate woman that 2016 produced.
Sandra Huller in Toni Erdmann.
Annette Bening: She is 20th Century Women's driving force, creating a confused single mother whose very human mix of narcissistic incomprehension and piercing insight makes an audience feel like you know this woman personally – and are continually confounded by her.
Michelle Williams: Her performance in Manchester by the Sea will probably be nominated for best supporting actress, because she has limited screen time in the film. But it's quality, not quantity, that counts in her searing performance as tough-talking working-class girl.
Ellen DeGeneres: In Finding Dory, DeGeneres sets an impressively high standard for a dramatic performance in voice work with her touching evocation of the title character, a fish suffering short-term memory loss.
Melissa Rauch: The Big Bang Theory star may not have found the perfect new film project but she certainly proves her own talents in The Bronze, where she creates a refreshingly foul-mouthed and hilariously cynical portrait of an Olympic gymnast well past her prime. Besides, comedy never gets nominated.
BARRY HERTZ
Best Picture
La La Land: I've already written my love letter to Damien Chazelle's four-star masterpiece, but the fact that I still cannot rid my mind of its many indelible songs and images proves it's a classic for the ages.
Moonlight: Poetic, profound, perfect. Barry Jenkins's absorbing and intimate drama is the kind of film that demands repeat viewings, and will dominate discussions for generations to come.
A scene from Moonlight.
American Honey: Andrea Arnold's epic ode to wasted youth has polarized audiences to an almost unhealthy degree. But I couldn't help but become entranced by American Honey's dirt-crusted visuals and winding narrative. Plus, it even gave me hope for Shia LaBeouf's future. Not that I really needed that, but it's still quite the achievement.
O.J.: Made in America: Do not let this documentary's 467-minute length act as an endurance test, or some sort of cinematic dare along the lines of, "Can you watch it all in one sitting?" Instead, take time to digest Ezra Edelman's layered dissection of race relations in America – and don't assume you know the full story just because you watched Cuba Gooding Jr. getting hoarse in a courtroom for 10 episodes.
Silence: I may be blinded as a Martin Scorsese acolyte, but Silence has the makings of a timeless masterpiece that will get richer with every viewing, every meditation of its dangerously profound themes.
Best Actor
Denzel Washington: To the rafters! That's where Washington's performance in Fences was arguably aimed, but damned if it isn't still a tremendously impactful turn, one that earns its dominance.
Alex R. Hibbert: The youngest iteration of Moonlight's Chiron (a.k.a. Little) is technically a supporting role. But without Hibbert's tender and sullen-eyed presence, the character would be almost a cipher throughout the rest of the film. The entirety of the film rests on one young actor's small shoulders, and Hibbert is stronger than almost anyone has given him credit for.
Andrew Garfield: Of the two 2016 films in which Garfield plays a wholesome young man who goes over to Japan to get tortured, Silence is surely in another universe than Hacksaw Ridge. Even then, Scorsese's drama allows Garfield as wide a canvas as any actor in modern cinema has been afforded – and one that he takes sincere advantage of.
Martin Scorses’s Silence.
Julian Dennison: Give this New Zealand kid all the awards – everything! – for his joyous turn in Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Taika Waititi's deceptively subversive comedy.
Ryan Gosling: Although he charmed easily in La La Land, Gosling's best 2016 performance was in Shane Black's neglected black comedy The Nice Guys, which allowed Canada's boyfriend (sorry, Justin!) to exploit a hitherto unknown knack for physical comedy.
Best Actress
Emma Stone: La La Land affords plenty of opportunities for wonder, but none more so than the spell Stone casts every time she's on screen. The camera adores her here, and for good reason: she is heartbreaking and profound.
Natalie Portman: In Jackie, Portman offers audiences the chance to watch history being made, not simply recreated. Her First Lady is one of the most hypnotizing, engrossing performances in ages.
Sandra Huller: I was not completely enamoured with Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann – it is at least 30 minutes longer than necessary – but Hüller cannot be ignored for her fearless work as an exhausted, emotionally-on-the-brink executive trapped in a life she loathes.
Isabelle Huppert: Without Huppert, there is no Elle. And that would be a terrible thing, maybe the worst calamity to happen in 2016 (okay, a close second).
Viola Davis: For reasons related to Emma Stone and Natalie Portman, Davis decided to run in the best supporting actress category for her work in Fences. Which makes sense, if you want to win – but on any other level, this is a lead role, and a towering one at that.
Nominations for the 89th Academy Awards will be announced Jan. 24 at 8:18 a.m. ET