While the frontrunners battle for the Oscars, this season’s villains are also taking shape. One film rises to the top, earning Golden Globe wins and SAG Award nominations, as well as ill will from some critics: Emilia Perez.
What does it mean to be a villain in a competition between movies? As Bobby Finger wrote in 2018, it started as a personal tradition of “picking a least favorite movie and dumping on it so hard for five months, to the point that I conditioned myself not to view the movie as just a piece of crap . , but as my sworn enemy, the cultural artifact I hate most, my cinematic kryptonite.
Over the years, several films have emerged as villains, appearing to be widely hated online, yet still garnering awards and nominations, just like Emilia Perez is now. Villains from the past include those from 2018 Three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri; 2019s Green Book, 2022 CODA and 2024 Master.
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There are many reasons why certain films can be considered villains, and those reasons are all indicated by online buzz. Sometimes, as in the case of Three billboards And Green Book, The films are seen by some as an attempt at virtue signaling, but instead they fall short, turning reductive narratives into something advertised as open-minded. Both films ultimately won the Oscar for Best Picture.
As Alissa Wilkinson wrote Three billboards, which follows a woman who is fed up with the criminal justice system in her city and takes on a racist cop. “When the film was screened outside the festival circuit weeks later, what seemed like a consensus between audiences and critics began to crumble.” In small, exclusive circles where films are initially shown and earn awards that generate buzz that excites the general public. But the audience does not always receive these films well, causing a lot of discussion and reactions online.
Sometimes the hatred is less nuanced. Master‘ Director, producer and star Bradley Cooper was seen as a try-hard who wanted to win an Academy Award, that was clear. The film was nominated for seven Oscars, but won none.
Some movies are hated for being too pretentious, but others are hated for not being pretentious enough. CODA, a film about the only hearing member of a deaf family who aspires to be a singer was panned as too feel-good and a “glorified Lifetime movie.” It won best picture.
Emilia Perez appears to be the villain of the 2025 awards season. It’s a Spanish-language musical crime comedy from French director Jacques Audiard that follows a Mexican lawyer who helps a notorious cartel boss transition to life as a woman: the titular Emilia Pérez. Over the course of the film, Pérez does everything he can to atone for her past actions and reunite with the children she left behind. Starring Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez.
Karla Sofia Gascon in Emilia Perez. (Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection)
Like other villains before it, Emilia Perez was praised by festival cinephiles, but failed to make a big impression among the general public. It made waves at Cannes in May, but when it landed on Netflix in November, it never topped the streaming service’s movie charts. The film has generally favorable reviews with a 76% score on Rotten Tomatoes and has won dozens of awards, including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes.
As the film racked up awards, so did the response. Some criticisms include the exclusion of Mexican actresses from the film’s main cast, the performance of an actress who is not fluent in Spanish in a Spanish-speaking role, and concerns that Mexican culture was overlooked by the French director of the movie.
GLAAD criticized the film in a lengthy op-ed for using the protagonist’s transgender identity as a redemption arc, calling the film “deeply retrograde.” Other critics in The Cut, Pink News and Them shared similar concerns. A musical number from the film about the medical procedures involved in gender confirmation surgeries has been going viral on X for months.
The discussion of Emilia Perez reached its peak after winning the Golden Globes – with about a week to go for Oscars voters to get their ballots in for nominations. Whether the newly minted villain status ruins his chances or makes him come out on top at the Academy Awards remains to be seen.
