- If We Picked the Winners: The 98th Academy Awards (March 11, 2026)
What feels like the longest awards season ever will come to an end this Sunday, March 15th, when the 98th Academy Awards are announced. Like we did last year, we asked the editors of RogerEbert.com to pick their choices for what will win, should win, and should have been nominated for one of the most unpredictable Oscars of all time.
Only two of the major eight categories have a consensus prediction to win (Best Actress & Best Adapted Screenplay), and the crew is also divided on what should win across almost every category, indicating the breadth of a fantastic year. As for the overlooked, there’s a lot of love for Jafar Panahi and Josh O’Connor, among many other fascinating choices from Pamela Anderson to Adam Sandler. Enjoy.
Legend: Matt Zoller Seitz (MZS), Robert Daniels (RD), Nell Minow (NM), Clint Worthington (CW), and yours truly (BT).
BEST PICTUREWHO WILL WIN:“One Battle After Another” (NM/CW/MZS)“Sinners” (BT/RD)
WHO SHOULD WIN:“One Battle After Another” (BT/CW)“Sinners” (NM/MZS)“The Secret Agent” (RD)
WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED:“It Was Just an Accident” (BT/CW)“Blue Moon” (RD)“The Life of Chuck” (MZS)“Nuremberg” (NM)
The most competitive Best Picture race in years will end on Sunday when either Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” or Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” ends up the final winner announced. The crew here is split on both what will and what should happen. Funny enough, only Clint predicts the winner to be his pick, PTA’s film, although I think “Sinners” would be a historic, equally worthy win, and I’m predicting it after the success at the SAG Actor Awards. Robert agrees, noting, “I can’t ignore the record-breaking nomination haul garnered by “Sinners” or the sheer enthusiasm around it.”
As for overlooked nominees, Clint and I agree that Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or winner was robbed, likely due to the abundance of Neon possibilities (two of theirs, “The Secret Agent” and “Sentimental Value” already taking up real estate). Clint says, “I think it’s a shame that Jafar Panahi’s mighty treatise on the lingering effects of wartime trauma isn’t in contention for the top spot.” Nell points out the power of “Nuremberg,” writing, “It is a powerful reminder of how easy it is to slip into brutality if you think it will give you the sense of yourself and your culture you believe you are entitled to.” Finally, Matt Zoller Seitz loves Mike Flanagan’s Stephen King adaptation, “a lovely, funny, sweet, profound, and very accessible movie that also has an unconventional structure.”
BEST DIRECTORWHO WILL WIN:Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After Another” (BT/NM/RD)Ryan Coogler, “Sinners” (MZS)Josh Safdie, “Marty Supreme” (CW)
WHO SHOULD WIN:Ryan Coogler, “Sinners” (BT/CW/RD/MZS)Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After Another” (NM)
WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED:Jafar Panahi, “It Was Just an Accident” (BT/CW)Craig Brewer, “Song Sung Blue” (NM)Mary Bronstein, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” (RD)Steven Soderbergh, “Presence” (MZS)
In years that are this competitive, there’s often a Pic/Director split. That’s what I’m predicting: That PTA will finally take home a Best Director Oscar (his second ever after winning Adapted Screenplay earlier in the night), but I’d be over the moon if Coogler won for his incredible ambition, something that 4/5ths of us agree on. (Nell is predicting her pick for should-win, PTA, will take the prize.)
As for why Coogler should win, we’ll let someone who notoriously gave the film a mixed review take the mic: “I’m sure there will be some eyebrows raised by readers, especially those who read my review,” says Robert. “However, like I said in my review, I can’t deny the massive swing Coogler took or the rarity of its occurrence for Black directors. That I think it only works in fits and starts is moot. This is the biggest and most expansive vision of the films nominated. It should win for the sheer level of difficulty required to even attempt it.”
As for the overlooked, Matt picks out one of the best living directors and one who should be in this line-up far more often: Steven Soderbergh. “Soderbergh not only directed but also served as the sole camera operator, simultaneously giving a sensitive and totally in-the-zone “performance” as the first-person protagonist, a ghost, while mentally tracking everything else a director must manage,” he says.
BEST ACTORWHO WILL WIN:Timothee Chalamet, “Marty Supreme” (NM/CW)Wagner Moura, “The Secret Agent” (RD/MZS)Michael B. Jordan, “Sinners” (BT)
WHO SHOULD WIN:Ethan Hawke, “Blue Moon” (BT/CW/RD)Michael B. Jordan, “Sinners” (NM/MZS)
WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED:Josh O’Connor, “The Mastermind” (CW/RD/MZS)Lee Byung-hun, “No Other Choice” (BT)Denzel Washington, “Highest 2 Lowest” (NM)
One of the most unpredictable categories of the night will be Best Actor, which looked at one point like Chalamet’s to lose, but the joy and admiration in the room when Michael B. Jordan won the SAG Actor Award last week felt undeniable to this writer. There’s also a strong possibility that Chalamet and Jordan split the “predictable” vote and allow Moura or Hawke to sneak in and take it.
As for his predicted pick of Moura, Matt writes: “I think Moura is this year’s equivalent of the barely known Adrien Brody winning Best Actor over Russell Crowe and Nicolas Cage for 2002, or a young Irish actor named Daniel Day-Lewis, who wasn’t a star yet, taking the award despite stiff competition from Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Morgan Freeman and Robin Williams, all of whom did some of their career-best work that same year. It’s a great performance by Moura, mysterious and sad and strangely kind.”
There’s more consensus in the entire field of acting for who should have been nominated than in the five picks and that’s because of the stunning year that Josh O’Connor had with “Rebuilding,” “History of Sound,” “Wake Up Dead Man,” and Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind,” which 60% of the editors of this site would have nominated. As MZS writes, “he’s never been anything less than mesmerizing.” I adore O’Connor, but I was also personally annoyed that Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice” was entirely overlooked and would have cited the best work of Lee Byung-hun’s career (among other nominations).
BEST ACTRESSWHO WILL WIN:Jessie Buckley, “Hamnet” (BT/NM/CW/RD/MZS)
WHO SHOULD WIN:Jessie Buckley, “Hamnet” (BT/MZS)Rose Byrne, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” (CW/RD)Kate Hudson, “Song Sung Blue” (NM)
WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED:Amanda Seyfried, “The Testament of Ann Lee” (BT/CW)Kathleen Chalfant, “Familiar Touch” (NM)Chase Infiniti, “One Battle After Another” (RD)
Finally, some consensus. The only true award season precursor sweep has come from Jessie Buckley and “Hamnet,” a certain winner on Sunday. While she’s my pick for “should” in this fivesome, if either Amanda Seyfried or Jennifer Lawrence (“Die, My Love”) had been justly nominated, I would have gone with one of those unforgettable turns. They’re both performances that people will presume were nominated years from now and feel startled when they learn they weren’t.
I’m also fully on board with Nell’s pick of Kathleen Chalfant’s nuanced work in “Familiar Touch” and Chase Infiniti’s star-making turn in “One Battle After Another,” Robert’s pick, revealing the remarkable depth of talent in a category that’s being dominated by one person. Nell cites Chalfant’s “exquisite performance as a woman whose vibrance and dignity are undimmed by cognitive decline.”
Robert also wishes that the biggest upset of the night goes to Rose Byrne, writing, “It’s Rose Byrne’s misfortune that she also played an aggrieved mother in a film that I think is emotionally more difficult to wrap your arms around but is ultimately far more trusting of the audience and its actors to provide space to organically feel.”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTORWHO WILL WIN:Delroy Lindo, “Sinners” (BT/RD)Benicio del Toro, “One Battle After Another” (CW/MZS)Sean Penn, “One Battle After Another” (NM)
WHO SHOULD WIN:Delroy Lindo, “Sinners” (CW/RD)Benicio del Toro, “One Battle After Another” (MZS)Jacob Elordi, “Frankenstein” (BT)Sean Penn, “One Battle After Another” (NM)
WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED:Adam Sandler, “Jay Kelly” (BT)Josh O’Connor, anything (NM)Ralph Fiennes, “28 Years Later” (CW)Andrew Scott, “Blue Moon” (RD)Jack O’Connell, “Sinners” (MZS)
There are so many choices here. For weeks, it felt like an open race, but Sean Penn taking both BAFTA and SAG Actor makes him the likely frontrunner, but I’m going with the wave of love for “Sinners” sweeping in the wonderful Delroy Lindo in one of the biggest surprises of the night. Almost no one here would be truly aggravating, although Del Toro’s work feels more subtly perfect than Penn’s to this viewer, even if my pick would be the incredibly physical, nuanced work from the “Euphoria” star. And Clint says he’ll “drink a few small beers” if BdT pulls what now kinda feels like an upset.
Nell drops O’Connor here to award his remarkable 2025 while the rest of the staff picks such a unique range of performances. They’re gonna have to nominate Adam Sandler someday, and this would have been a great one in which to do it, while I agree with all of the other choices, too. It’s a fantastic year for supporting performances, and it will be a bit ironic if the least-campaigning of the bunch, Sean Penn, rises to the top to take home his third trophy.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESSWHO WILL WIN:Amy Madigan, “Weapons” (BT/NM/CW/MZS)Wunmi Mosaku, “Sinners” (RD)
WHO SHOULD WIN:Wunmi Mosaku, “Sinners” (BT/MZS)Amy Madigan, “Weapons” (NM)Elle Fanning, “Sentimental Value” (CW)Teyana Taylor, “One Battle After Another” (RD)
WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED:Jane Levy, “A Little Prayer” (BT)Odessa A’zion, “Marty Supreme” (NM)Pamela Anderson, “The Naked Gun” (CW)Tânia Maria, “The Secret Agent” (RD)Diane Kruger, “The Shrouds” (MZS)
It’s funny that four people are predicting the win for “Weapons,” given I don’t think this category is predictable at all. Yes, the “Sentimental Value” nominees probably cancel each other out, but none of the other three would surprise me in the slightest, and I’d actually prefer either of the non-Madigan picks. As much as Amy Madigan elevates “Weapons” every second she’s on screen, the same can be said for Mosaku and Taylor. What’s interesting is that all three feel like performances that define their films: You can’t imagine the movies without them.
As for who should have been nominated, look at those five. Imagine what an inspired Oscars it would be if those were the five instead! I adored Jane Levy’s moving work in Angus MacLachlan’s delicate drama, while Nell considers Odessa A’zion’s turn “the heart of ‘Marty Supreme,’” tough and tender.” Robert hoped for a second acting nomination for “The Secret Agent,” saying of Maria’s work: “It’s a true supporting performance that provides this rebellious movie with another definition of courage, one found in the undaunted, literal support of others who find themselves rendered powerless against an oppressive system.”
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAYWHO WILL WIN:“One Battle After Another” by Paul Thomas Anderson (BT/NM/CW/RD/MZS)
WHO SHOULD WIN:“One Battle After Another” by Paul Thomas Anderson (BT/NM/CW/RD)“Frankenstein” by Guillermo del Toro (MZS)
WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED:“Wake Up Dead Man” by Rian Johnson (BT)“Peter Hujar’s Day” by Ira Sachs (NM)“Die, My Love” by Lynne Ramsay (CW)“Hedda” by Nia DaCosta (RD)“The Life of Chuck” by Mike Flanagan (MZS)
There was almost five-for-five consensus on the Academy “getting this one right,” but Matt is holding out hope for an upset for Guillermo del Toro, calling his Mary Shelley adaptation “one of his best feature film scripts ever, true to the source (in spirit, anyway) but a GDT joint all the way, in terms of structure, tone, and the choice of when to have characters talk and when to let them be silent.”
As for the overlooked, Nell calls “Peter Hujar’s Day” “a lyrical cinematic poem about the eternal joy of sunlight, friendship, and being present for whatever happens.” Robert holds a little more anger for overlooking Nia DaCosta’s “prickly” Ibsen adaptation, saying those who didn’t vote for it “…will not see heaven. Few scribes took as big an adaptive swing as her and connected on such a high level.”
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAYWHO WILL WIN:“Sinners” by Ryan Coogler (BT/NM/RD/MZS)“Marty Supreme” by Ronald Bronstein & Josh Safdie (CW)
WHO SHOULD WIN:“Sinners” by Ryan Coogler (BT/NM/MZS)“It Was Just an Accident” by Jafar Panahi with script collaborators Nader Saïvar, Shadmehr Rastin, and Mehdi Mahmoudian (CW/RD)
WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED:“Sorry, Baby” by Eva Victor (BT/RD)“Jay Kelly” by Noah Baumbach (NM)“The Mastermind” by Kelly Reichardt (CW)“Black Bag” by David Koepp (MZS)
Once again, there’s a higher-than-average consensus that the Academy will get this one right, awarding Ryan Coogler’s script, one that Seitz calls “vibrantly original and entertaining. “
Robert and I unite in our shock at Eva Victor’s snub, with Robert writing: “Victor’s script is so introspective, thoughtful, and vulnerable—showing a level of processing that I can’t conceive —that I can’t imagine anyone watching or reading it and not thinking it’s among the best of the year.”
Finally, Clint takes a righteous soapbox for one of our best filmmakers and how she’s consistently overlooked, writing, “There are scenes and exchanges in ‘The Mastermind’ that still stick with me, and it would be nice for Reichardt’s probing, contemplative writing to be rewarded. Give her a nomination, for crying out loud; it’s been decades! She’s put in the work!”
- Hulu’s “Sunny Nights” Offers Split Sides, Spray Tans, and Botched Schemes (March 11, 2026)
Over the last few years, the adult sibling dynamic has been explored to great effect in a number of sharply funny and/or dramatically impactful series.
Think Carmy and “Sugar” Berzatto in “The Bear.” The Garvey quintet in “Bad Sisters.” Coop and Ali in “Your Friends & Neighbors.” The Friedkin brothers in “Black Rabbit.” Richard and Jon in the recent “American Classic.” Add to that stellar lineup the inspired pairing of Will Forte as Marty and D’Arcy Carden as his sister Vicki in the dark, brutal, and devilishly funny crime caper “Sunny Nights,” premiering March 11th on Hulu. This is the kind of cheerfully warped series that offers up an exploding crocodile, a nosediving aerial advertising plane, and the murder of a guy who is already dead as plot points—leaving us unsure of whether to cringe in horror or laugh. It’s usually a bit of both.
The Australia-set “Sunny Nights” is an original creation by Nick Keetch & Ty Freer, but it continually reminded me of Carl Hiaasen’s South Florida novels such as “Tourist Season,” “Skin Tight,” “Lucky You,” “Strip Tease” (which was turned into a terrible movie), and “Bad Monkey” (which was adapted into an excellent series on Apple TV). Like those works, the series relies on a cockeyed formula of sun-soaked noir, outlandish, blood-soaked wrongdoings that go spectacularly wrong, and a mixed bag of colorful characters. On “Sunny Nights,” with each new chapter, our anti-heroes get further tangled up in an increasingly complicated and dangerous web of crimes, cover-ups, lies, double-crosses, and double-double-crosses.
Sensible, strait-laced Martin Marvin (Forte) and his impetuous, underachieving sister Vicki Martin (Carden) are American siblings who have relocated to Sydney to launch Tansform, a fast-drying, non-sticky tanning solution. (The “Sunny Nights” title comes from the name of the rundown motel where Martin and Vicki are staying as they try to save their modest nest egg while scouring the cosmetic product convention circuit in search of investors.)
There are two reasons they’ve chosen this particular location:
A. Australia has one of the highest skin cancer rates in the world. That’s no laughing matter, but for Marvin and Vicki, it spells opportunity.
B. Martin is still hopelessly in love with his estranged wife Joyce (Ra Chapman), who is now living in Sydney and working as a journalist for a lightweight news outlet while hoping to score a big scoop.
Sunny Nights (Hulu)
“Sunny Nights” kicks off in breezy fashion, Forte and Carden expertly playing off one another as siblings who have always had each other’s backs but often get on each other’s nerves (as siblings do). Martin and Vicki are inherently likable characters, but you know how many lead characters in series such as this are usually the smartest people in the room? They’re almost never the smartest people in the room. Martin’s attempt to reconcile with Joyce goes up in flames when she says they should just be friends. That leaves Martin in a particularly vulnerable state, leading to him being catfished and having to come up with $10,000, pronto.
Thus begins the plot domino game of one bad decision leading to another, and another, and another. (Sometimes it’s Martin making the gaffe. Sometimes it’s Vicki. Sometimes they pair up to make some spectacularly bad choices.) Over the course of eight episodes that sometimes stretch for a beat too long, Martin and Vicki remain determined to make Tansform a success by any means necessary—even as they find themselves in very real danger of sustaining serious bodily harm or getting killed.
Jessica De Gouw is a standout as Susi, a gorgeous, charming conwoman who is beginning to develop a conscience. Rachel House is a menacing force as the mob boss Mony, a quirky, violent oddball out for revenge who casually tortures anyone who gets in her way. Megan Wilding is a deadpan treasure as Nova, a hapless animal handler who teams up with Joyce to investigate the mystery of the aforementioned exploding crocodile. Former professional rugby league footballer Willie Mason plays, well, a former professional rugby league footballer—but this guy is a brutally efficient standover man who is dealing with the crippling effects of severe head trauma from his playing days.
Some characters are more fully realized and given more to do than others, e.g., Joyce, who remains on the periphery for much of the time and seems a bit wishy-washy. (Martin might have a more interesting and exciting life were he to move on from Joyce and get to know Susi better.)
By the eighth episode, we feel as if we’ve earned some closure—but “Sunny Nights” leaves just about everything unresolved, clearly setting things up for a Season 2. If that happens, I’d be willing to make the time investment, but the payoffs should start coming early and often.
Whole season screened for review. Premieres March 11th on Hulu and Disney+.
- Highlights of the 2026 True/False Film Festival Include “Tropical Park,” “Buck Harbor,” “Landscapes of Memory” (March 11, 2026)
Every March, the college town of Columbia, Missouri, swells with documentary filmmakers, movie fans, students, and culturally curious locals all lining up in front of churches, a nightclub that doubles as a screening venue, and the stalwart independent two-screen theater, the Ragtag Cinema. The annual True/False Film Festival is a short yet focused event that explores the boundaries of nonfiction filmmaking.
This year, the lineup boasted a number of thought-provoking and mesmerizing works, including standouts from Sundance like “Barbara Forever,” “Aanikoobijigan,” and “Time and Water,” other festival favorites like “Remake” and “True North,” and premieres including “The Great Experiment” and “Phenomena.”
Hansel Porras Garcia’s documentary “Tropical Park” exemplified the festival’s experimental nature. Like the Ross brothers’ excellent film, “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets,” “Tropical Park” is something of a fiction/nonfiction hybrid, using a situational setup with actors who improvise their dialogue and reactions to explore something true-to-life.
In “Tropical Park,” a brother, Frank (Ariel Texidó), takes his sister Fanny (Lola Bosch) for a driving lesson at a local park. They have been separated for over twenty years and have only been reunited for a month when Fanny immigrated from Cuba to live with her brother and his family in Miami. While in the car, the two tease each other, argue over communism, and reminisce about schoolyard memories, but as the driving lesson gets underway, so do thornier discussions, like Frank needing Fanny to move out and her pain over their father’s rejection of her transition. The emotional talk turns heated, then tearful, as the two navigate issues of immigration, isolation, transphobia, family, and belonging.
According to Porras Garcia, during a post-screening Q&A, the two actors were given only biographies of their characters and rehearsed their feature-length conversation once before shooting the single take (there are no cuts or edits throughout the film) that audiences see on screen. Using only a 12-page script, the pair launched into their improvised argument with breathless ease, adapting to the challenge of acting with their backs towards the camera for most of the movie. With the headrests missing, the camera in the back seat of the car captures each side-eye glance, tear-stained cheek, and empathetic touch between brother and sister.
In what feels like an all-too-rare occasion, the film also paints a nuanced portrait of the Cuban and Cuban-American experience, exploring the tension between generations of arrivals and the ideological differences within a community too easily lumped into a monolith. It can feel claustrophobic to watch such an explosion of pent-up emotions in a small sedan, possibly uncorking some of the audience’s own unspoken feelings. But that’s exactly what makes “Tropical Park” so incredibly compelling.
There were more vulnerable confessions shared in Pete Muller’s “Bucks Harbor,” a surprising trek through northern New England to follow subjects in the lobster-fishing town of Machias, Maine. At first, Muller’s film feels like a descendant of Errol Morris’ quirky classic, “Vernon, Florida,” complete with wild stories and funny moments that earned laughs from the early morning crowd, but as the movie goes on, it extends beyond regional characters and eccentricities to a deeper look at the role of tough guy culture, cyclical trauma, and what healing later in life may look like.
Filled with stunning nature photography of windswept coastlines, deer traipsing through powdery snow, and many close-ups of lobsters, “Bucks Harbor” immerses viewers in small-town life in Maine, showing the muddy drudgery of clam-digging, the perils of lobster fishing, and the hardscrabble life many families have had to make for themselves. Men show off their collection of roadkill pelts, regale the audience with stories of taking down a state trooper by the balls and running from the law, and remember relatives lost at sea.
As they share their stories, we get to know them; they show different sides of themselves: one had artistic aspirations when he was younger, and his creativity still manifests today, another enjoys dressing in feminine clothes for online fans, and another is trying to model better parenting for his two boys as they learn the family business. Some wounds may never heal, but in their own quiet way, these men are redefining what masculinity means to them.
Even lobsters become vulnerable when they shed their skin, and Muller leans into that concept and visual metaphor as the men’s stories grow more introspective, showing a lobster emerging anew from its old husk. He crafts a quilt from the men’s stories, interweaving them with shots of their environment and their hopes for the future. “Bucks Harbor” feels intimate and slightly unfiltered, but it retains a sense of rugged beauty as the men grow from their experiences.
Questioning the norms and expectations of a place and culture is also at the heart of Leah Galant’s thought-provoking film “Landscapes of Memory.” Celebrating its world premiere at this year’s True/False, Galant’s film moves between her home in the States as she reflects on her family’s history and where her father is dying of ALS, and out in Germany, where she questions the way the country remembers the Holocaust.
Galant begins her story in the year following the pandemic, asking her ailing father about his thoughts on her upcoming trek to Germany and his memories of their family, including his grandfather, who survived the Holocaust. Once in Berlin, Galant takes her camera to many of the city’s Holocaust memorials, into conferences, and out to concentration camps, to get a sense of the country’s work on memory culture, but remarks that, as a Jewish American, it felt strange to be surrounded by tributes to Jewish death.
The longer she stays in Germany, she observes Germany’s far-right party weaponizing Holocaust memorials to stoke nationalist furor and how the efforts to criminalize antisemitism have led to the rise of censorship of Palestinian protestors. This makes even the act of waving the Palestinian flag a crime.
“Landscapes of Memory” is a delicate work, balancing several emotional issues at once. It is about grief and action; not forgetting the past, but also a call to not use it to oppress people in the present. Galant shares the camera’s focus with other activists working in this space—including historian Johannes, whose grandfather was involved with the Nazi party; Elias, the descendant of a Holocaust survivor and an artist also questioning the concept of memory culture; and Michael, a Palestinian artist increasingly frustrated by the way his community is under siege in Germany and in Gaza.
In one poignant scene, Michael marvels at a wall at a concentration camp, one that reminds him of the walls back home that keep Israelis and Palestinians separated. “There’s no competition in human suffering,” he says mournfully, wishing for the end of all walls like this one. “If our memories don’t change us, what’s the point of remembering?” Galant asks. In her brief but powerful film, she also leaves us with much to think about and discuss.
- Even Nicole Kidman Can’t Save Prime’s Mind-Numbing “Scarpetta” (March 10, 2026)
From direct-to-streaming films to a handful of limited series, Nicole Kidman’s face has become as synonymous with the modern thriller as broody detectives have. In Prime Video’s new series “Scarpetta,” the actress plays chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, who finds herself drawn to a past case when fingerprints of a man thought to be innocent resurface in a new investigation. This shocking revelation not only threatens to jeopardize Scarpetta’s reputation but could also unearth secrets about her first major case that she tried to bury nearly thirty years ago.
Since witnessing her father’s brutal murder as a child, Scarpetta’s life and career have been shaped by death and grief. Now, as she races against time to uncover the truth behind evidence that could lead to her ruin, she must confront the possibility that her obsession with death may have stunted her emotional capacity, shaping her relationship with her work and her family.
An already strained bond with her sister Dorothy (Jamie Lee Curtis) is put under more pressure when she and her husband, Pete Marino (Bobby Cannavale), who used to work with Scarpetta, move into the home she shares with her husband, Benton Wesley (Simon Baker). Also caught up in the family drama is Dorothy’s tech-wiz daughter, Lucy (Ariana DeBose), whose deceased wife Janet (Janet Montgomery) is reanimated through a computer AI program.
Kay Scarpetta (Nicole Kidman), Dorothy Farinelli (Jamie Lee Curtis)
From the present-day to the past—where a spectacular Rosy McEwen inhabits the lead role as a younger Scarpetta—the ensemble is so jam-packed that the characters overwhelm any semblance of narrative the show is trying to achieve. It’s unfortunate that most of them feel like caricatures rather than fully realized characters, as conversations between them often end in a cacophony of overwhelming yelling backed by crocodile tears.
Thankfully, in the ’90s timeline, McEwen breathes some much-needed life into the series. From her work computer being hacked to snide comments being thrown her way, this version of Scarpetta is constantly forced to prove herself to men whose default setting is to doubt her abilities. Each time she’s on-screen, the weight of this burden is present upon McEwen’s shoulders.
Despite a voice that never wavers in its command, the physicality the actress uses reveals the deep unrest within this protagonist, something her older counterpart, unfortunately, doesn’t seem willing to display for the audience. What makes the thriller genre endlessly fascinating, and what makes audiences so willing to come back to it time and time again, are protagonists who are just as flawed as the antagonists they chase.
Benton Wesley (Simon Baker) in SCARPETTA SEASON 1Photo Credit: Connie Chornuk / Prime© Amazon Content Services LLC
With these flaws comes a depth unlike the characters in any other genre, yet “Scarpetta” plays it too safe, sheltering its protagonist and stifling any sense of intrigue she could offer. With the series unwilling to revel in the potential darkness of its protagonist, it never truly takes off and never delivers the material both Kidman and McEwan deserve.
Scarpetta often feels like a bystander in her own story. She’s overshadowed by a detective drama that teeters on the line of soap opera, before sinking into a hole filled with overdone tropes and garishly lit scenes in family kitchens. The series’s overemphasis on its frankly uninteresting, bloated family dynamics forces the more interesting narrative threads of deceit and grief to wither away before they ever truly have a chance to blossom.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t plenty of secrets Scarpetta is keeping from her family, as well as from the audience, because there are plenty. Yet these layers provide only enough intrigue to keep your eyes on the screen for so long, and they’re often stifled by scenes featuring Curtis smoking a joint or downing a glass of vodka.
In a long line of shows like this, “Scarpetta” is a frustrating example of what not to do when you’re attempting to create a new franchise adapted from beloved mystery novels. The series dangles its most interesting pieces in front of its audience like a bone on a string, expecting its viewers to chase after these brief glimpses of substance like starving dogs. Some viewers will, so it’s a good thing that the show was initially given a two-season order, as its most interesting episodes are among the final ones.
These captivating moments suggest a potential for depth that the earlier episodes fail to achieve, and will surely leave certain audiences desperate for more, no matter how sluggish the journey to get here was.
- Netflix’s “One Piece” Sails Into the Grand Line with a Swashbuckling Season 2 (March 10, 2026)
The live-action anime adaptation is always a dicey proposition, no less so when it’s Netflix doing the adapting. Their version of “Cowboy Bebop” was a dour, muggy reshuffling of the series’ events with a mismatched cast and no sense of direction; “Avatar: The Last Airbender” fared even worse, unable to survive Netflix’s punishing runtimes, pacing issues, and the cardinal sin of, well, casting bad child actors as the leads. So it was doubly surprising that their adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s long-running manga and anime “One Piece” somehow broke the curse: It wasn’t perfect, by any means, but it managed to capture at least some of the free-wheeling mania of Oda’s bizarre character designs, while repackaging it in a curiously novel mishmash of tones that feels unique, at least by Netflix standards.
It helps, of course, that everyone loves a good pirate story, and Oda’s basic brief is an infectious one: A candy-colored fantasy land of swashbuckling buccaneers and mystical creatures, as well as purple, textured “devil fruits” that can lend those who eat them increasingly cartoonish powers. The high seas are bedeviled by fish men and physics-defying obstacles, but it’s worth it to the pirates who risk it all to acquire the One Piece, a mysterious treasure left behind by infamous pirate Gold Roger. One such adventurer is Monkey D. Luffy (Iñaki Godoy), a rubber-limbed youngster with a goal as single-minded as his irrepressible optimism: He wants to become King of the Pirates.
Season 1, which smooshed about the first 100 episodes of the long-running anime (which is still going!) into about eight hours, fast-tracked Luffy gaining his ship, the Going Merry, and the first wave of his loyal crew: stoic swordsman Roronoa Zoro (Mackenyu, son of Sonny Chiba), wily navigator Nami (Emily Rudd), blustering shipmate Usopp (Jacob Romero Gibson), and stylish chef Sanji (Taz Skylar). With the essential parts assembled and the East Blue arc out of the way, Season 2 proceeds with a more episodic structure this time around, as the Straw Hat Pirates (so named for Luffy’s favored headwear) head down the Grand Line, a dangerous stretch of sea that presents their first real obstacles to finding the One Piece.
One Piece. Laboon in season 2 of One Piece. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2026
Of course, the titular treasure is secondary to “One Piece”‘s concerns this season, as, in classic adventure-of-the-week fashion, the show gives the crew plenty of stopovers to help the needy, save their own skin, or latch onto new noble causes. The Straw Hats get trapped in the belly of a giant whale, Jonah-style; a seemingly pirate-friendly island becomes a trap; a prehistoric island also proves home to two frenemy giants playing out a century-old duel to the death. And all the while, they’re hunted by a new group of over-the-top baddies called the Baroque Works, who operate in male-female pair teams with powers as ostentatious as their outfits.
For the most part, this episodic structure really helps paper over some of live-action “One Piece”‘s bigger flaws, which have to do with its big-but-not-big-enough budget and the innate bloat of an hour-long episode runtime. One of the show’s more novel appeals is showrunners Matt Owens and Steven Maeda’s insistence on translating Oda’s eccentric character and production design as literally as possible to live action; this means real people will pop on screen with ridiculous pastel outfits, impossibly sculpted hairdos (or, in the case of some of the men, physiques), or weapons so unwieldy they make Cloud’s Buster Sword from “Final Fantasy VII” look pocket-sized.
It’s a campy treat to see folks like David Dastmalchian show up as a Baroque Works renegade with candle-wax superpowers, dressed like Alan Cumming on “The Traitors,” to be sure. But the visual pop of those fits and neon-colored wigs sometimes gets obscured by the perfectly digital flatness of the color grading, not to mention the occasionally ropey CGI (especially when Luffy’s Gum-Gum powers kick in). There’s an uncanny valley feel to the whole thing, but in reverse: People who look so lifelike when presented in such unblinking, cartoonish ways. That tonal weirdness carries over into the show’s tone, too, which flits between Saturday-morning cartoon and adult-drama/action-show willy-nilly. It’s hard to know what to feel when you watch a cute cartoon reindeer named Tony Tony Chopper (voiced by Mikaela Hoover) say “shit.”
One Piece. (L to R) Jazzara Jaslyn as Miss Valentine, Lera Abova as Miss All Sunday, Camrus Johnson as Mr. 5 in season 2 of One Piece. Cr. Casey Crafford/Netflix © 2026
That dissonance does feel infectious, though, especially when “One Piece” centers on its central ensemble, which mostly fires on all cylinders this season. While Godoy continues to bring his exuberant (though frustratingly one-note) giddiness to Luffy, the real highlights here are Mackenyu and Skylar. Zoro gets a brilliant showcase in the third episode of the season, where he gets to indulge in a “Kill Bill”-like roaring rampage of revenge as he slices and dices through literally a hundred assassins in an enormous tavern set. (The fight scenes continue to feel fresh and inviting, even as the wirework grows tiresome the further the season goes.) Sanji, meanwhile, is the charm at the heart of the crew, oozing effortless cool and bouncing nicely off the rest of the crew.
This season also introduces a couple of new crewmembers in the form of “Bridgerton” alum Charithra Chandran as a Baroque Works assassin with more complicated motives up her sleeve, and, well, the aforementioned Chopper, whose tragic backstory gets explored in the final two episodes of the season. (He clearly got the bulk of the effects work this season, which makes me question how sustainable the show will be for Netflix if he’s gonna be a fixture moving forward.) They work well enough in their respective stories, but I’m understandably skeptical of how well the show will maintain a balance of so many characters as the Merry gets more crowded—to say nothing of how the show’s structure puts some of these characters’ broader personal journeys on hold.
For now, though, “One Piece” remains an imperfect, if entertaining, treat; for those lacking the will or the time to dive into thirty-plus years of manga or anime (the show’s episode count is already in the four figures), it does well in a pinch. Purists may complain it flattens the rich characters they’ve spent half a lifetime enjoying, and that may well be true. But taken on its own terms, it feels not unlike the campy, swashbuckling Sam Raimi-produced adventure shows of the ’90s, like “Xena: Warrior Princess” or “Jack of All Trades.” It’s goofy, knowingly strange, and wears its heart on its sentimental sleeve, and that’s enough to put some wind in its sails.
Whole season screened for review. Currently streaming on Netflix.
