This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

I'm David Remnick, and you're listening to The New Yorker Radio Hour.

Now, this program doesn't have many rituals, but here's one that we observe every year,

the Brody Awards. When Oscars Night is around the corner, I sit down with two of our illustrious

critics to discuss the year in movies, the ones that didn't get enough credit, according to them,

or maybe the ones that got a little too much. And maybe not to mention the films that you

should see and you might have missed so far.

I'm joined by New Yorker staff writer and co-host of our podcast, Critics at Large, Alexandra Schwartz.

Alex, how are you?

Hello.

And one of the New Yorkers film critics, Richard Brody.

Hello, David.

Hello, Alex.

When we've done this in the past, Richard, your picks for the year's best movies usually,

let's just say they wildly differ for what we usually see from the Academy.

But this year, I don't know what's happening.

Either you've gotten more conservative or somehow the Academy has finally caught up to you.

What's going on here?

Yeah, I think that the Academy has gotten better

and the movies have gotten better.

On the one hand, ever since the Oscar-Saw-White campaign

that was launched in, I think, 2015 by April Rain,

...