Almost There: Barbara Hershey in “Black Swan”

by Cláudio Alves

You may have noticed that, for the past couple of weeks, The Film Experience has been overtaken by one persistent question: Who should be the next Amy Madigan? We’ve done a team-wide vote and two readers’ polls, highlighting both men and women. At this point, you might be a tad tired of this business. On the other hand, your picks were a nice clue into what performers the readership might be thinking of and harkening for, write-up-wise. With that in mind, it feels like a good opportunity to revive the long-dormant Almost There series, where I go over performances that garnered some significant precursor support before fizzling out on Oscar nomination morning. They were close, but no cigar.

Case in point: Barbara Hershey, who scored high in both the Team Experience and The Film Experience readers' vote, and might have come close to a second Academy Award nomination for Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan…

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Reader Ranking: Which one-time male nominee would you most like to see holding an Oscar?

by Team Experience

LIAM NEESON, HARVEY KEITEL, EDDIE MURPHY, and WILLIAM H MACY are just four of many actors we'd love to see stage an Oscar comeback.

Hello dearest readers. Inspired by Amy Madigan's amazing Oscar comeback we've spent the last month fantasizing about another such occurence. Because our audience is less into actors than actresses, we did a more abbreviated version of the mammoth actress poll / team ranking / reader ranking we recently posted in three parts. Today it's all in one. We polled all of you (readers and our writers together) and while there was much less participation (y'all just love your actresses, don'cha) we still thought the results were interesting. The same rules applied this time around. Namely 1) The actor had to still be alive and 2) over 50 years of age with 3) only one Oscar nomination to date that was 20 or more years ago. The final caveat was that they had to be Oscarless so Honoraries and awards in other categories would disqualify them. Interestingly enough despite the same criteria as the actress poll, there were far fewer men eligible (49 vs 75) indicating that there are less one-and-done Oscar nominations for male thespians. Or that they don't live as long; Both are true!

Maybe because there were fewer eligible contenders for this list, you didn't snub any of them. All 49 eligible men received at least one vote from a reader or team member here. Peter Firth (Equus), Randy Quaid (The Last Detail), and Gary Busey (The Buddy Holly Story) narrowly avoided complete snubs by landing on one ballot each. With the votes spread out over literally all eligible contenders, we're narrowing this to a top 15 (for actresses we did a top 26) as the nearest rivals for dominance (Elliott Gould, Alec Baldwin, and Alan Alda in that order) were quite a bit further back in terms of points /  number of ballots.

YOUR TOP FIFTEEN

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Drag Race RuCap: Better late than never, it’s the “Grand Finale”

RuPaul and Miley Cyrus welcome you to the 76th Hunger Gam... I mean the season 18 Drag Race Grand Finale!

CLÁUDIO ALVES: And just like that, it’s over. Season 18 started pretty shapeless, with a scrappy, talented cast who exuded early Drag Race vibes, only to face late Drag Race challenges that did little to capitalize on their energy. The scandal of the Rate-a-Queen Talent Show two-parter suddenly gave us narrative propulsion that elevated the second half of the season until that dreadful makeover episode derailed it all again. We never recovered, enthusiasm dwindling and a bouquet of finalists that, though not undeserving, felt vaguely lackluster. And though the lip-sync LaLaPaRuza gave the show a jolt of life last week, the finale proper couldn’t help but be a letdown, perfunctory apart from one queen’s performance that, for a moment, gave the episode some necessary purpose. 

Grand finales are seldom great hours of television, but we know, from season 16, that this same format can beget better results than what we got this year. Oh well, could’ve been worse.

NICK TAYLOR: It could have been much worse!...

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Review: You're Gonna Love "Michael" Despite What I Say About It

By Ben Miller

As I left my screening of Antoine Fuqua's Michael, I heard a woman exclaim, "That was exactly what I wanted!" This is the overall goal of this film. You will learn absolutely nothing about Michael Jackson the man, but you will get every hit song with loud and vibrant performances.

Frankly, Michael is critic-proof. No matter how much I go on about my multitude of problems, you just won't care. It looks like Michael Jackson on screen, using his actual music, inspired by his performances, and completely glosses over any issues that might make anyone uncomfortable. It's the most kid-gloves film I can remember seeing in some time. No chances are taken, nothing is learned... and it's going to make a lot of money.

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Pt 3 Reader's Ranking: Who should be the next Amy Madigan?

Pt 1 - Team Experience Votes 
Pt 2 - Team Experience Winners 
Pt 3 - AT LONG LAST THE RESULTS OF THE READERS POLL...

WHO SHOULD BE THE NEXT AMY MADIGAN?

ELISABETH SHUE in Leaving Las Vegas (1995). What would it take to get her a comeback role?

We've spent the last couple of weeks bsessing over a question from a reader (thanks, Brian!) and we got so into discussing it at TFE HQ that we asked all of you to vote on the same question. The Team and Readers were unaware of each others vote totals during voting so nobody was influencing anyone. We've poured over the ballots that came in to suss out your passions and determine rankings.  In honor of this new film year, 2026, we'll share the  twenty-six actresses you're collectively rooting hardest for in terms of an Oscar comeback after just one nomination twenty or more years ago. We've included some quotes from your ballots too and hope you enjoy and continue the discussion. After the list, some fun stats. God, we love actresses!

YOUR TOP TWENTY-SIX

just-missed: Lena Olin & Candice Bergen were on as many or more ballots than Elisabeth Shue but weren't as highly ranked on the ballots they did appear on. They almost made it.

And a reader quote I just love to kick things off...

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