The winners of the 23rd Golden Tomato awards have been announced. These awards, run by film review website Rotten Tomatoes, honor the best-reviewed movies and TV shows of the past year. These awards rank shows based on their reviews on the popular review aggregator site, meaning that they reflect the views of many critics from all over the globe.
With 2021 being the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, movie and TV releases have been messy, with many films trying new release models or postponing their premieres. However, despite this, the awards feature both expected and unexpected results.
Most notably, it was a banner year for Marvel with Spider-Man: No Way Home taking Best Movie and Best Comicbook Movie. The Disney+ series WandaVision swept up the TV categories, netting Best TV, Best Limited Series, and Best Superhero series.
However, Disney’s success doesn’t stop with Marvel as Raya and the Last Dragon won the award for Best Animated Movie. And Searchlight Pictures, another Disney subsidiary, won Best Documentary for their highly praised Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) documentary.
However, this doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of variety in the awards as Nicolas Cage’s unique drama Pig won Best Limited Release Movie and Best Drama. The critically acclaimed psychological Western The Power Of Dog also netted an award, winning Best Streaming movie.
One of the biggest surprises is the lack of an award for Squid Game. Despite the series being a pop-culture phenomenon, it came 15th in the Best New Series category, losing to the Steve Martin-fronted Only Murders in the Building. It just goes to show how many great shows have been released this year.
The Golden Tomato awards show that, while big superhero blockbusters still dominate the public consciousness, people enjoyed a wide variety of movies and shows in 2021. It also shows that streaming and social media can lead to lesser-promoted releases getting a big audience.
The main winners are:
- Best Movie: Spider-Man: No Way Home
- Best Wide Release Movie: Spider-Man: No Way Home
- Best Limited Release Movie: Pig
- Best Streaming Release Movie: The Power Of Dog
- Best TV Series: WandaVision
- Best New Series: Only Murders in the Building
- Best Returning Series: Ted Lasso
- Best Limited Series: WandaVision
