How badly will the Oscars get it wrong? The 2026 Freedoms and Fails are here!

The annual Conservative Critic Awards, the Freedoms and Fails are here! The Academy is giving out their awards this weekend but The Conservative Critic will award the films and performances that were the most conservative and the most ridiculously liberal. 

Without further ado, the 2026 Conservative Critic Awards go to….

2026 Freedom Award for Performance in a Television Series: Demi Moore, Landman 

Landman has been a consistent winner in The Conservative Critic television categories with its conservative messaging and truly surprising quality walking a perfect line between camp and drama. This season, Demi Moore joined the cast as a feature playing a new oil mogul who inherited her role as the widow of the former head of the organization. Moore plays an a vulnerable, soft spoken, quintessentially rich Texas wife in an entirely nuanced and refreshing way. She has never had a part quite like this (that I’ve seen) and she brings such credibility and power to a show which is always dancing a fine line between schmaltz and authenticity. 

It’s interesting, liberals across the internet have said her performance is Landman is bad for a few (fake) reasons one of which is that the character isn’t likable. But the character isn’t meant to be likable. She’s a foil to the protagonists and kind of a b word. Demi Moore plays it absolutely perfectly. The only reason liberals are pretending to hate her performance in the show is because the show frequently presents conservative ideas and they want to keep Demi Moore in their liberal thought bubble only taking on roles of which they approve. They must punish her for stepping outside their boundary lines. 

But its absurd because she has taken herself as an actress to an entirely new place and really elevated the show she’s performing in. Comparing her performance in Landman to that in Charlie’s Angles: Full Throttle is a demonstration in a masterclass of a serious, talented and generationally important actor. 

This was an extremely difficult choice. Television was spectacular this year. I don’t usually do this, but I’d be remiss not to give honorable mentions to: 

• Parker Posey, The White Lotus
• Leslie Bibb, The White Lotus 
• Sam Rockwell, The White Lotus
• Chet Hanks, Running Point
• Kate Hudson, Running Point 
• Emilia Clark, PONIES
• Haley Lu Richardson, PONIES
• Glenn Powell, Chad Powers
• Harrison Ford, Shrinking 
• Owen Wilson, Stick 
• Timothy Olyphant, Stick 

The list truly goes on and on with such strong returning and new TV shows. And note: I have not yet seen The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. So I couldn’t include it in my analysis. 

2026 Fail Award for Performance in a Television Series: Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts and Niecy Nash of All’s Fair

I hate to do this, because I’m a fan of all of these women, but their performance in All’s Fair is an affront to acting, judgement and human decency. Its all the more offensive because all of these women have proven to be talented actors in other projects including Kim Kardashian. So material is part of the problem (see the Fail Award for Worst Television Show) but on the other hand, Sarah Paulson and Glenn Close both manage to deliver something much more intentional and camp than these women can achieve. Their performances range from wooden (somehow in the costumes you see in the photo) to silent film fainting couch levels of over the top. It’s truly shocking how three such talented and beautiful people could produce such horrible work. May they leave that set and never return and move on to the projects they deserve. 

2026 Freedom Award for Best Television Show: Shrinking (Season 3) 

Shrinking took home this award last year as well and while The Conservative Critic likes to give everyone a fair shake, its undeniable that Shrinking is the best show on TV by a long mile. The show tackles issues like family and illness and death in the most charming, every day not heavy handed way possible. This season defied tropes and challenged the formula for a compelling and emotional TV show in a way that cannot go without recognition. There is not one weak performance in the large and esteemed cast and it’s Harrison Ford’s best all time acting performance. It’s Apple TV’s best show to date in a string of highly lauded programming and truly more people need to be watching this show. 

Shrinking (season 3) maintains its strength in being funny, charming, light, emotional, sincere, thoughtful and relatable all without trying too hard. This is the kind of show agents are clamouring to get their clients into. 

Again, per the above list, this was a difficult choice. It was a good year for TV. 

This award almost went to PONIES which is a Cold War era thriller following two unlikely new CIA recruits whose cover is State Department secretaries. The two leads are sensational, the story is extremely timely despite being Cold War era and the costumes and world build is immaculate. Its a fantastic show that only narrowly missed this award due to one plot line that gives it a few too many liberal points to top the list over Shrinking which has very few liberalisms.

2026 Fail Award for Worst Television Show: All’s Fair

It pains me to give the 2026 Fail Award to All’s Fair because I love Kim Kardashian who collaborated with Donald Trump in his first term and all of the cast including Glenn Close, Naomi Watts, and Niecy Nash are all favorite actors of mine. Unfortunately, All’s Fair is the worst show I’ve ever seen in my life and ethics compel me to award them for such a strong failure. The show seems like it was originally intended to be almost a satirical depiction of a legal drama because, for example, the names of the characters are extremely silly like Allura Grant, Liberty Ronson and Emerald Green. But the show never achieves true comedic parody or farce because it tackles pretty serious subject matter. Niecy Nash’s character at one point is drugged and raped for example. You can’t really have a show that’s supposed to be tongue and cheek and have a rape plotline. The tone and intention of the show is entirely schizophrenic, nothing really makes sense and frankly the performances are shockingly bad. It’s basically a Drag community theater production but with an all biological female cast.

This show is a hard skip unless you’re interested in seeing the most baffling, ridiculous attempt at a serial to perhaps ever grace the silver screen.

2026 Freedom Award for Performance in a Motion Picture: Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue

Kate Hudson has been correctly recognized by the Academy and is nominated for an Oscar for her performance as Claire, one part of a two-person Niel Diamond tribute band in Song Sung Blue. 

A lot of liberals scoffed at Kate’s appropriate nomination for her stellar performance because they bristle at the idea that a brash, midwestern tribute band singer could be worthy of accolades even when played by the beautiful and established Kate Hudson. Hudson plays Claire with heartfelt sincerity. She believably embodies a complicated, flighty, artistic and brave woman who makes a hot dish from time to time. Her character overcomes extreme difficulties. She falls in love, she finds highs and lows. It is really sensational how Kate Hudson took on Claire so lovingly and portrayed the woman as the work of art she is. As the work of art all mothers so often are. It is a stark contrast in my esteem to how characters of this kind are often played where they are often made characterized and patronized by the directors and actors giving them life. And Kate Hudson does all her own singing in the movie as well, and she does it beautifully. 

Hudson isn’t likely to win the Oscar for her performance but she should. And she wins The Freedom Award at least. 

2026 Fail Award for Performance in a Motion Picture: Sean Penn, One Battle After Another

Sean Penn is the worst part of the liberal mind melt One Battle After Another. He depicts a cartoonishly racist corrupt white supremacist government official who has a boner for the object of his racism (which is such a ridiculous untrue trope about racists – take them at their word: they hate people). The left is falling over themselves praising his heavy handed, mean-spirited parody of high level military officials working in government but it was actually pretty lame and pretty seen before. There’s nothing interesting or new about what Sean Penn brings to this liberal mouth foam of a fictional person. He’s using old leftist grievances and making them into a puppet show for the lowest IQ of film watchers (those who fancy themselves film buffs but just regurgitate whatever movie the current film hegemony tells them is good). Mark this: One Battle After Another will be remembered as an overhyped and actually problematic movie that even the left will artistically abandon in the next few years. Its Crash. Its Greenbook. And Sean Penn is the heart of its crimes against actual good acting and filmmaking. He is a front runner for the Oscar for this performance and truly its the most embarrassing the Academy voters have been in a long time.

2026 Fail Award for Worst Picture: Snow White 

It was a real race to the finish between Snow White and One Battle After Another but One Battle at least had quite a few redeeming qualities despite being mind splittingly liberal. Snow White had no redeeming qualities. It was one of the most hideous movies I’ve ever seen despite hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on its design. The costumes and sets looked like Spirit Halloween was sponsoring a High School production of Snow White and the kids didn’t really get that into set design. The CGI was so overused and heavy handed that it was visually boring on top of looking cheap. 

The decision to use CGI to depict dwarves is so unconscionable I actually cannot wrap my mind around who would possibly decide it was okay. 

The liberal messaging in the movie is extremely present but also sort of lost and schizophrenic. The Evil Queen isn’t just mean to Snow White she’s also essentially a dictator who enslaves people and kills political adversaries. Snow White GIRL BOSSES to organize an army to overthrow her but when she shows up to do so she just like lectures the Queen and then decides its wrong to kill her – which really makes no sense because moments later one of the communist revolutionaries who join Snow White (instead of a Prince saving her its a social justice warrior) shoots and kills the Queen with a crossbow. Gal Gadot is not a good singer which is okay except, bafflingly, the new movie wrote two new songs for her to sing when in the original story the Evil Queen doesn’t sing at all. Why would you write in songs for a performer who cannot sing? What was the decision making like over at Disney studios in the course of this movie? 

Ironically, conservatives least favorite darling Rachel Ziegler the pro-Palestinian activist was the best thing about the movie. She’s a gifted actress and singer. But nothing she could possibly do could fight past the absolutely horrible writing, design and production quality of that trainwreck. 

2026 Freedom Award Best Picture: Hamnet 

Hamnet is nominated for Best Picture but is not a front runner to win (One Battle After Another and Sinners are in a horse race) but the film was without question the most beautiful and powerful movie of the year and deserving of the praise as such. 

Hamnet tells the story of how William Shakespear was inspired to write Hamlet based on the death of his young son Hamnet. The story is told mostly from the perspective of his wife Agnes played by Jess Buckley. Chloe Zao is the director and she remains the queen of visuals. From colors to beautiful woodland backdrops, Zao makes Elizabethan England look stunning whilst also being filthy and rugged. Jesse Buckley’s performance as Agnes is transcending. She captures “mother” in such a powerful way that it’s really undeniable. The allusions and callbacks in the movie are meticulously laid and the themes so delicately approached. But truly if not for the closing scene of the film, it may not have won this award (it would have gone to the pro-life, pro-humanity, Fantastic Four). The closing scene of the film depicting Agnes watching Hamlet for the first time and grieving her son with the rest of the world was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I am emotional writing about it now having seen the film over a month ago. It is something that will stay in my heart forever. Hamnet isn’t just the best of the year, its must watch cinema for any film lover and anyone who has lost someone they love and feels like no one can understand.