We are pleased to announce this Goblin Awards ceremony is to be televised for the first time as part of a long-term contract with TalkTV! Oh. Never mind.

Bad Film, Good Marketing

Let’s kick things off with the Award for the best marketing. Shark movies are a gift to marketers and Meg 2 stepped up to the plate with its “New Meg, Old Chum” posters cleverly making it look like there would be jokes in the film. Blumhouse delivered its usual gimmickry with a consumer protection alert about the teddy bear from Imaginary, although if they really wanted to protect consumers they wouldn’t have bothered releasing the film at all. And seasonal slasher Thanksgiving gave us a gift of a tagline, “There will be no leftovers!”, a line so truthful it is said at least twice in the movie. But the best campaign of the year was Barbie, whose entire existence is an act of marketing. Here’s Ryan Gosling to collect the award!

Longest Film (Sponsored by TENA)

Bigger was better in 2023, with Oppenheimer, Napoleon and Killers of the Flower Moon vying for the title of the year’s longest blockbuster. But they also managed to remain engaging for the duration of their bladder-testing runtimes, so in a shock result the award actually goes to the 100-minute Asteroid City for feeling longer than all those epics combined. Congratulations to Wes Anderson but unfortunately we don’t have time for your acceptance speech.

The Natalie Portman Award for Worst Actor

What a year for acting it was, with stellar turns from Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer), Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest), and anyone who had to pretend to enjoy working with David Gordon Green (The Exorcist: Believer). But in a sea of great work, some performances stuck out like a prosthetic nose. The worst actor nominees include Bradley Cooper in Maestro, Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things, the entire cast of Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves, Will Ferrell in Barbie, and fighting to retain her title, Natalie Portman in May December. But the award goes to Nicolas Cage for Dream Scenario, on the condition that he stops making films.

Scariest Thing

2023 will be remembered as the year we gave up on superhero movies, the year writers and actors gave up on Hollywood, and the year horror movies gave up on ideas. Because who needs creativity when you can just pick an item at random and forget to build a film around it? The nominees for Scariest Thing are the Scary Pool from Night Swim, the Scary Bear from Imaginary, the Scary Nun from The Nun II, the Scary Hand from Talk to Me, and the Scary Board Game from The Blackening. But the winner is Ben Wheatley‘s career, because what could be scarier than the complete loss of hope?

Best Misuse of Technology

Hollywood creatives had every reason to fear for their jobs last year as technology took on an ever-greater role in the overall diminishment of film production. We saw de-ageing technology prove they can and probably will make Indiana Jones movies forever. The Creator showcased special effects that made us believe in an exploding dustbin with legs. And The Flash showed you can have AI write a film and it will still make more money than The Marvels. The best use of technology however goes to whatever tech they used to erase all memory of ever having seen Scream 6.