Which movies is the biggest Fail? The 2025 Freedoms and Fails are here!

The annual Conservative Critic Awards, the Freedoms and Fails are here! The Academy gave out their awards last week but now The Conservative Critic will award the films and performances that were the most conservative and the most ridiculously liberal. 

Without further ado, the 2025 Conservative Critic Awards go to….

2025 Freedom Award for Performance in a Television Series: Billy Bob Thornton in Landman 

Landman released in fall of 2024 from the same creators as Yellowstone and it was an immediate hit primarily thanks to the gravitas and credibility of Billy Bob Thornton starring as Tommy Norris who plays an executive at a fictional Texas based oil company. 

The show is good but it’s Thornton that makes it really something special and what gives the show the credibility needed to win the Freedom Award. In the course of the season, Thornton’s character gives a monologue about why oil is essential to life and why a push to electric not only doesn’t make sense but also wouldn’t get rid of the need for oil. Monologues can very easily tip into cheesy but Thornton manages to produce something very in character by making it patronizing and arrogant, like his character. He’s created a “matter-of-fact” lead which appeals to viewers broadly, especially to those who voted for Trump because they see him as a straight shooter. There is no more deserving actor or character in 2025 for the Freedom award.

2025 Fail Award for Performance in a Television Series: Alan Ritchson, Reacher: Season 2

Alan Ritchson’s depiction of the famous character, Jack Reacher, has gone so off track that no one really knows what source material he’s pulling from. While some of this is writing, no one wrote for Ritchson to have all the breadth and texture of Wonder Bread. The only thing about Ritchson that makes him well suited for the role is being large in size. To be fair, in season 1, he gave a much better performance with quite a bit of wit and charm. But season 2 he just runs around hulking and giving a wooden performance. With season 3 underway, Ritchson has every opportunity to turn the character around but season 2 was one of the biggest performance disappointments following such a successful season 1. 

2025 Freedom Award for Best Television Show: Shrinking: Season 2

Shrinking: Season 2 managed to build on an already incredible inaugural season into something truly special on television. The show is nothing but high caliber performances and it approaches the subject of mental health from a place of mirth, pragmatism and cultural relevance. Additionally the show embraces and treasures masculinity in a way I haven’t seen in any other show of it’s kind where fathers, and husbands and men are able to grapple with their pressures on screen in a non-feminised way, often leaning on the counsel of other men and never being berated as toxically masculine. The female cast is equally strong and equally respected in that their characters are capable of being flawed and needing help. All of this is achieved with humor and heart. Writer Brett Goldstein of Ted Lasso fame is at the helm along with Jason Segal and as of season 2 both men star in the show along with stunning performances by Harrison Ford, Christa Miller, Michael Urie, and Jessica Williams to name a few. The entire supporting cast is so strong it’s almost worth listing their entire IMDB page. 

If you haven’t watched Shrinking yet on AppleTV: do.

2025 Fail Award for Worst Television Show: The Acolyte

No one gave The Acolyte more of a chance than I did. One of the more recent installments in the Star Wars universe, it follows the story of force powerful twins on their journeys for good and evil. But in typical liberal fashion, the series decides that the lines between good and evil should be really really murky to the point of not at all intelligible. Star Wars has always played fast and loose with these ideas but has had some pretty clear lines in the sand about right and wrong. For example, in the prequels when Anakin Skywalker kills a bunch of innocents, that is clearly represented as a catalyst toward his journey to the darkside. The Acolyte basically has “the dark side” as a bunch of victims who were pushed there by “the light side.” It not only doesn’t make sense to the lore of the Jedi but it also is such a typical lazy liberal way to write a story. 

Further, the twin girls are “born” from two lesbian witches who are creepy weirdos in a witch cult that in every other version of Star Wars lore are “dark side” villains, but in this one were just loving victims of the “light side” Jedi power mongering. 

The politics aside, the story is boring. Not much happens for the first half of the series and then when it does happen it’s somehow both muddy and completely obvious all at the same time. It’s really too bad because Manny Jacinto (of The Good Place fame) is phenomenal in the show and really could have been the next angsty dark side swoon king (like Anakin and Kylo before him). 

2025 Freedom Award for Performance in a Motion Picture: Cynthia Erivo in Wicked

Cynthia Erivo’s powerhouse performance of Elphaba the ‘Wicked’ Witch of the West in Wicked was sensational. Her vocals alone were worthy of the award but Erivo also brought a surprising vulnerability and youthfulness to the character that was a new interpretation and which suited the screen and lent a real emotional pull between viewers and Elphaba in other ways larger than life production. Her characterization of Elphaba was more interesting than other interpretations and at the very least, put her own mark on the already very famous role. Through pounds of green paint and heavy neck to feet costuming, Erivo shone. 

Her performance was so good, it transcended political boundaries garnering praise from perhaps the hardest to please media consumer on the internet, Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire. 

2025 Fail Award for Performance in a Motion Picture: Joe Alwyn in The Brutalist 

The Brutalist is an anti-American piece of drivel, to begin with, and I did not care for a single performance including the two leads (Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones – both who were nominated for Oscars and Brody won) who had to use AI technology to improve their Hungarian accents. But the worst performance in a film full of bad performances was Joe Alwyn who played Harry Lee, a spoiled rich boy and the archetype of the “American villain” the movie is trying to create. Alwyn has all the emotional range of a cardboard box in the film, providing absolutely no motivation for his character’s behavior outside of vaguely seeking his father’s approval and being rich. In trying to grapple with a transatlantic American accent, Alwyn comes off like he’s reading the script as he’s delivering lines. He has an explosive climactic scene where he physically drags a woman out of the room and I laughed because It was so badly done (to be fair, also on the part of Jones who he was dragging) and completely unbelievable. It’s very clear that Alwyn got that role on the back of his famous ex-girlfriend, Taylor Swift, and he’s unlikely to get many more roles now that she’s moved on to Travis Kelce.

2025 Fail Award for Worst Picture: Dear Santa 

The fact that Dear Santa is poorly written, meandering garbage isn’t why it wins the Fail award this year. It’s not even because it stars a minion of Satan. It’s because it is deeply, disturbingly, without any mirth, immoral. This is a major spoiler and I don’t care because no one should see this movie and no one should let their children see this movie: The whole story is about a young boy who is having a hard time for a variety of reasons but one is that his younger brother died. He accidentally writes a letter to Satan instead of Santa to bring his brother back. Predictable series commences of Satan’s minion trying to steal his soul. At the end of the movie, SATAN BRINGS HIS BROTHER BACK TO LIFE.

This breathtakingly immoral lesson for children who are experiencing loss and trauma goes well beyond anything that is acceptable in media. It’s not even so much that Satan does it (all though, not great obviously) it’s that it happens at all. When dealing with the themes of loss at that magnitude (a passed loved one) its genuinely insane for the conclusion to be: and then he came back to life and everything was finally happy again. I cannot stress how offensive this ending really is to humanity. I don’t care if they were trying to be different or better or whatever but you do not bring a dead kid back from the dead with the moral: and thats the only way everyone can be happy and okay. 

2025 Freedom Award Best Picture: Dune Part 2

Dune: Part 2 was incredible from the visuals to the action sequences to the performances. It was nominated by The Academy for Best Picture but it was not truly in the running to win because it was far too mainstream and fun to watch (much like how Top Gun: Maverick was nominated a few years ago). 

Many didn’t see Dune: Part 2 because the first one was a little boring/difficult to get through. Basically, Dune: Part 2 is the payoff of that first installment. Dune: part 2 has really cool battles and battle strategy as well as thrilling political gamesmanship. Its action sequences run from one-on-one duels, to arena gladiator fights to full scale battle fields. The movie is also visually breathtaking. No movie was nicer to look at this year than Dune: Part 2. It was filmed on location in the world’s most beautiful deserts in real time with dazzling sunsets and sunrises. 

Additionally, its Timothee Chalamet’s best role in a very storied career. Chalamet plays Paul Atreides (Lisan Al Gaib!) and his on screen charisma really sells the character as a born leader who might just be ~the chosen one.~ 

Beyond it’s beautiful craftsmanship, exciting content and strong performances, it also was a big meme this summer which is definitely major bonus points.