The American Film Institute on Wednesday unveiled its picks for the year’s 10 best films along with its choices for the year’s 10 best television programs. The 2019 AFI Awards for film, which focus on American movies that are deemed culturally significant, will go to 1917, The Farewell, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Knives Out, Little Women, Marriage Story, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Richard Jewell. On the television side, this year’s AFI Awards will go to Chernobyl, The Crown, Fosse/Verdon, Game of Thrones, Pose, Succession, Unbelievable, Veep, Watchmen and When They See Us. The AFI also recognized South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag with special awards because they fall outside the group’s criteria for American film and TV. Selected by two juries, one for TV and one for film, the honorees will be recognized at the AFI Awards luncheon, set for Jan. 3 in Los Angeles. This year marks the 20th year for the AFI Awards.

“Knives Out” has not only scored big with critics and audiences (as of December 3, 2019, it has grossed $43.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $29.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $72.6 million), Rian Johnson’s film also enters the 2020 awards season as a player in the ensemble categories and among the year’s top 10 lists (see following update). The National Board of Review has awarded the cast of the film – Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell and Christopher Plummer – with its 2019 award for Best Ensemble. “Knives Out” was also included in their list of the year’s 10 best films.

This week in August 20 years ago, a small independent horror film called “The Sixth Sense” became one of the biggest hits of the year, a classic masterpiece for cinema, and also the trajectory to create and maintain this website for the last 15 years. I feel incredibly old thinking that I was one of the many moviegoers 20 years ago, sitting in the audience and being stunned by the film’s twist ending. But even more so, I was stunned by Toni Collette. I had seen her for the very first time just mere weeks earlier when “Muriel’s Wedding” was shown on tv, and was delighted by her performance. So when the opening credits for “The Sixth Sense” rolled in the cinema, I thought, “I know that Toni Collette”. When the end credits rolled and the packed theatre was stunned by the film’s ending, I was (probably the only one) stunned where the heck Toni Collette was. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that the young woman playing Muriel was supposed to be the same actress playing the mother on the verge of a breakdown in “The Sixth Sense”. It was a total immersion into character, and I was hooked. Toni received an Academy Award nomination for her performance, which was a surprise back then because she hadn’t been nominated for any precedent awards – something I had hoped would repeat with “Hereditary” – but with or without awards glory (“The Sixth Sense” was nominated for 5 Academy Awards but went home empty-handed), the film stood the test of time and is a highlight in the CV of everyone involved.

For the film’s 20th anniversary, many outlets are writing about the film, reflecting on its impact and talking to its makers. Among the most insightful is Variety’s look back, in which director M. Night Shyamalan remembers Toni’s audition for the film and being hesitant to show it to Disney:

I had seen “Muriel’s Wedding” and Toni came in and her head was shaved, and I forget if it was for fun or if it was for a movie. She did such a beautiful job. I didn’t want to show the video to the studio for fear that they would be concerned with her appearance, and I said “I want to cast the woman from ‘Muriel’s Wedding’” and then Bruce backed me and said “Oh, I love ‘Muriel’s Wedding,’” so we kind of got it without the studio seeing the audition, and I was so lucky. Toni is actually wearing a wig throughout all of “The Sixth Sense,” and I think it’s a wig from “Velvet Goldmine.” We didn’t even have the wig! (M. Night Shyamalan, Variety, August 02, 2019)

Below is a list o annivery articles, to which I will add any articles that will be published over the course of the next week.

As we speak, Toni Collette is attending the 34th Annual Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica. She is nominated as Best Female Lead for “Hereditary”. A first batch of pictures have been added to the photo gallery with more updates to come.

With the 2019 awards season in its last (boring) week, Toni Collette will be doing at least one public appearance as a “Hereditary” nominee this Saturday. Entertainment Tonight can exclusively reveal the final presenters for the 2019 Film Independent Spirit Awards, which includes three of this year’s Best Female Lead nominees: Glenn Close, Toni Collette and Carey Mulligan, nominated for The Wife, Hereditary and Wildlife, respectively. ET previously announced that Sterling K. Brown, Elsie Fisher, Regina Hall, Armie Hammer and KiKi Layne will be presenting this year. They will be joined by Viggo Mortensen, Amanda Seyfried, Tessa Thompson and Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard. Aubrey Plaza serves as this year’s host and told ET, “I want there to be a vibe where the audience feels like, Is this supposed to be happening? Or have we gone off the rails? I want there to be an element of danger. I want everyone to feel like, ‘Man, anything can happen at any moment.'” The 34th Annual Film Independent Spirit Awards will be held in Santa Monica, California, on Feb. 23 and air live on Facebook Watch and IFC at 5:00 p.m. ET / 2:00 p.m. PT.

Happy New Year everybody! Over the last couple of days, the remaining regional critics circles have announced their winners, and Toni has been acknowledged with Best Actress prizes from the Houston Film Critics’, the North Carolina film critics and the Nevada Film Critics Society. She has been named runners-up for the Best Actress by the Iowa Film Critics Circle and has received nominations by the Columbus Film Critics, the Austin Film Critics Association and the Society of LGBTQ Critics. The first televised ceremony, at which Toni is nominated, are the 24th Annual Critics’ Choice Awards by the Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA) and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association (BTJA) on January 13, 2019. She won the Critics Choice Award back in 2007 as part of the ensemble for “Little Miss Sunshine”. Given the absolute lack of campaigning from A24 towards “Hereditary” and Toni Collette, fingers need to remain crossed until the Oscar nominations are announced on January 22.