One Battle After Another, Sinners and More

“Hamnet,” “Marty Supreme” and a powerful one-two punch from Warner Bros. — “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners” — are among the American Film Institute’s 10 best films of the year, the organization announced Thursday. On the television side, HBO Max’s “The Pitt,” Netflix’s “Adolescence” and Apple TV’s “Severance” and “The Studio” were included among AFI’s top programs.

The film selections reflect a robust and varied year in cinema, blending box office heavyweights with formally ambitious works. The lineup spans indie auteurs such as Chloé Zhao with “Hamnet” and Clint Bentley with “Train Dreams”; industry veterans like Paul Thomas Anderson (“One Battle After Another”) and Guillermo del Toro (“Frankenstein”); filmmakers hitting new creative heights, including Noah Baumbach (“Jay Kelly”) and Josh Safdie (“Marty Supreme”); stylish visionaries such as Ryan Coogler (“Sinners”) and Yorgos Lanthimos (“Bugonia”); and dependable studio mainstays like James Cameron (“Avatar: Fire and Ash”) and Jon M. Chu (“Wicked: For Good”).

Neon’s international Oscar hopeful “It Was Just an Accident,” from writer-director Jafar Panahi, received the AFI Special Award, which recognizes productions that fall outside AFI’s traditional eligibility rules, including international films and other non-U.S. media. Past recipients include “The King’s Speech” (2010), “The Artist” (2011), “Roma” (2018), “Parasite” (2019), “Belfast” (2021) and “The Banshees of Inisherin” (2022). The designation also helps explain the absence of Neon’s other international standouts: Park Chan-wook’s South Korean black comedy “No Other Choice,” Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Brazilian thriller “The Secret Agent” and Joachim Trier’s Norwegian family drama “Sentimental Value.”

The AFI Awards remain one of the season’s most meaningful bellwethers. Over the…