I’m a little disappointed in this year’s crop of MTV Movie Award nominees. I know that’s a little surprising, considering you probably assume that no respectable critic would honor an awards show held by MTV. However, I don’t think those that bash the show really understand its roots. When the show started in the early 90s, it was the perfect show to reward the movies that would often go overlooked by the Academy, yet were loved by the audiences. This allowed movies like Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Pulp Fiction, Se7en, Scream, There’s Something About Mary, and The Matrix to win a Best Movie award, while movies like Malcolm X, Clueless, The Truman Show, Pirates of the Caribbean, Legally Blonde, and Shrek could be nominated. Now, they did have a rough patch from 2007 through 2012, due to the rise of the teenyboppers and their love of Twilight and The Hunger Games, but rule changes have put them back on track to reclaim their glory days, nominating films like Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, 12 Years a Slave, Foxcatcher, and Boyhood alongside The Avengers, Pitch Perfect, The Fault in Our Stars and Jurassic World. I was 100% on board this year when they announced that, on top of movies, they would be awarding the best of television too. Unfortunately, they botched the landing on that front, and now instead of a populist Golden Globe Awards, we have two diluted awards shows mashed together into one damaged product.
You see, in order to add television to the mix, they’ve decided to combine several categories into each other amongst television and film. This means that great movie heroes like Andrew Garfield and Daniel Kaluuya go overlooked in order to make way for the several Marvel and DC television programs. Furthermore, in order to save time, they’ve combined the categories into one category for movie stars and one category for television stars. This is an interesting prospect, as it means the actors and actresses have to run against each other for one overall title, but it also means that many great performances get the short shrift to make a smaller list. I think that MTV’s heart was in the right place in making these changes, but I think they rushed them and dropped the ball.
However, that’s not to say that everything about these nominations is bad. Sure, the final result is a lot more populist than recent years (Rogue One, Beauty and the Beast, and Logan are fine films, but should in now ay be leading the nominations), but there’s a lot to like. For one, big nominees include Get Out and The Edge of Seventeen, both of which deserve several awards across the board at every award show. Meanwhile, Atlanta, Stranger Things, and This Is Us lead the television categories, a decision I wholly praise. Hell, there’s even some love for Moonlight, earning nominations for Best Kiss and Best Tearjerker. In fact, the only nomination that really bothers me is Suicide Squad’s nomination for Best Villain. I mean, if you can pick a nominee from all of cinema and television, why would you still pick Jared Leto? It makes no sense.
At any rate, the MTV Movie Awards will be shown on the channel May 7th, and will be hosted by Adam Devine. You can see the list of nominees below.
Movie of the Year
- Beauty and the Beast
- Get Out
- Logan
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- The Edge of Seventeen
Show of the Year
- Atlanta
- Game of Thrones
- Insecure
- Pretty Little Liars
- Stranger Things
- This Is Us
Best Kiss
- Ashton Sanders & Jharrel Jerome — Moonlight
- Emma Stone & Ryan Gosling — La La Land
- Emma Watson & Dan Stevens — Beauty and the Beast
- Taraji P. Henson & Terrence Howard — Empire
- Zac Efron & Anna Kendrick — Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates
Best Villain
- Allison Williams — Get Out
- Demogorgon — Stranger Things
- Jared Leto — Suicide Squad
- Jeffrey Dean Morgan — The Walking Dead
- Wes Bentley — American Horror Story: Roanoke
Best Host
- Ellen DeGeneres — The Ellen DeGeneres Show
- John Oliver — Last Week Tonight
- RuPaul — RuPaul’s Drag Race
- Samantha Bee — Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
- Trevor Noah — The Daily Show
Best Documentary
- 13th
- I Am Not Your Negro
- OJ: Made in America
- This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous
- TIME: The Kalief Browder Story
Best Reality Competition
- America’s Got Talent
- MasterChef Junior
- RuPaul’s Drag Race
- The Bachelor
- The Voice
Best Actor in a Movie
- Daniel Kaluuya — Get Out
- Emma Watson — Beauty and the Beast
- Hailee Steinfeld — The Edge of Seventeen
- Hugh Jackman — Logan
- James McAvoy — Split
- Taraji P. Henson — Hidden Figures
Best Actor in a Show
- Donald Glover — Atlanta
- Emilia Clarke — Game of Thrones
- Gina Rodriguez — Jane The Virgin
- Jeffrey Dean Morgan — The Walking Dead
- Mandy Moore — This Is Us
- Millie Bobby Brown — Stranger Things
Best Comedic Performance
- Adam DeVine — Workaholics
- Ilana Glazer & Abbi Jacobson — Broad City
- Lil Rel Howery — Get Out
- Seth MacFarlane — Family Guy
- Will Arnett — The LEGO Batman Movie
Best Hero
- Felicity Jones — Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- Grant Gustin — The Flash
- Mike Colter — Luke Cage
- Millie Bobby Brown — Stranger Things
- Stephen Amell — Arrow
- Taraji P. Henson — Hidden Figures
Tearjerker
- Game of Thrones — Hodor’s death
- Grey’s Anatomy — Meredith tells her children about Derek’s death
- Me Before You — Will tells Louisa he can’t stay with her
- Moonlight — Paula tells Chiron that she loves him
- This Is Us — Jack and Randall at karate
Next Generation
- Chrissy Metz
- Daniel Kaluuya
- Issa Rae
- Riz Ahmed
- Yara Shahidi
Best Duo
- Adam Levine & Blake Shelton — The Voice
- Daniel Kauuya & Lil Rel Howery — Get Out
- Brian Tyree Henry & Lakeith Stanfield — Atlanta
- Hugh Jackman & Dafne Keen — Logan
- Josh Gad & Luke Evans — Beauty and the Beast
- Martha Stewart & Snoop Dogg — Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party
Best American Story
- Blackish
- Fresh Off The Boat
- Jane The Virgin
- Moonlight
- Transparent
Best Fight Against the System
- Get Out
- Hidden Figures
- Loving
- Luke Cage
- Mr. Robot
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