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We tend to think of cinematic crowd-pleasers as movies that contain underdogs and uplift, a few tears, a little laughter, a cup of corn and an ending that melts your heart. These films rarely receive much love from Oscar voters. But they have been nominated for best picture (“The Blind Side”) and, on occasion, even won (“CODA”).

This year, we have a quartet of crowd-pleasing contenders vying for (most likely) one spot among the best picture nominees. Will one of these underdogs go the distance? Grab a tissue box and let’s take a look.

‘I Play Rocky’

(Claire Folger / Amazon MGM Studios)

Struggling actor writes a movie and demands he play the lead. The actor: Sylvester Stallone. The movie? “Rocky.”

Oscar pedigree: Director Peter Farrelly made the 2019 best picture winner “Green Book.” And “Rocky,” of course, took the top prize in 1977.

Forget the crowds. Were the critics pleased? Sits at an OK 68 on review aggregator Metacritic.

Sympathy for the hero? Anthony Ippolito plays Stallone as a cuddly, quixotic figure whose biggest flaw is that he believes in himself too much.

Secret weapon: As was the case half a century ago, Butkus the bullmastiff steals every scene he’s in. And Tracy Letts plays another glorious grump, in this case a studio exec none too happy with Stallone’s stubbornness.

Tears? Of joy, yes! But only if “Rocky” makes you misty-eyed.

Cheers? [Spoiler alert] “Rocky” wins! Cue Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now” one more time!

Faith in humanity restored? As far as actors writing their own tickets, I’m more of a “Good Will Hunting” guy. But the movie is a lesson on the value of determination. The next time my wife suggests we order out the bird on Thanksgiving, I’m now inspired to say, “I Cook Turkey.”

Verdict: Hollywood loves scrappy self-mythology. It could be a contender.

‘Club Kid’

Hard-partying queer club promoter sobers up when he learns he has a 10-year-old son.

Oscar pedigree: Producer Alex Coco won best picture two years ago for “Anora,” which has the same chaotic energy as “Club Kid.”

Forget the crowds. Were the critics pleased? Very much so. It has an 80 score on Metacritic.

Sympathy for the hero? Writer-director Jordan Firstman wrote himself a part, just like Stallone. His Peter starts as a congenial cokehead and then discovers a new outlook on life, all thanks to fatherhood.

Secret weapon: Reggie Absolom is poised and adorable as the cool kid who shows up at Peter’s door. He likes the Cocteau Twins and Björk? Can I adopt him?

Tears? When the complications arrive, as they must because somebody has to question the wisdom of Peter raising this child, you will feel for our protagonist as Firstman taps into his vulnerabilities in a way that will disarm even the hardest of hearts.

Cheers? The ending is grounded and thoughtful, and the movie is all the better for it.

Faith in humanity restored? In many respects, yes. Don’t we all want to love someone so much that we’d spend $300 to buy their favorite album on vinyl?

Verdict: A24 has so many best picture contenders this year — “You Can See Everything,” “The Invite,” “The Debut” — that the Oscar victory would be for Firstman to earn an original screenplay nod, a strong possibility.

‘Being Heumann’

Judy Heumann leads the fight for access for the disabled.

Oscar pedigree: Director Siân Heder, who co-wrote the movie with Rebekah Taussig, won an Oscar for writing the 2022 best picture winner “CODA.”

Forget the crowds. Were the critics pleased? Eh. It’s at a 63 on Metacritic.

Sympathy for the hero? The world needs more defiant activists like Heumann, a woman who forgoes politeness for righteous anger at an indifferent world.

Secret weapon: Lead Ruth Madeley brings Heumann’s fire and wit and, yes, abrasiveness to life with a complexity that serves the film’s tough-minded subject well.

Tears? “Being Heumann” does not approach the emotional catharsis that “CODA” wrung out of its audience, which, I’d guess from watching the movie, Heumann would appreciate. (Heumann died in 2023.)

Cheers? I don’t think you need a spoiler alert. Just look around at every public building and sidewalk. Activism can work!

Faith in humanity restored? Heumann never stopped. The movie ends with a striking wide shot of Heumann in her wheelchair in front of the steps of the Capitol in Washington, not a ramp in sight, shaking her head, saying that this won’t do.

Verdict: It’s an inspiring film about a woman few people know even though we see the impact of her work every day. But the storytelling is a little too cute and formulaic for it to go far with the film academy.

‘Mr. Irrelevant’

(Sarah Enticknap / Paramount Pictures)

The last player chosen in the 1983 NFL draft, John Tuggle makes the team. But his fight has only just begun, as he’s diagnosed with cancer the following year.

Oscar pedigree: Michael Shannon, playing New York Giants head coach Bill Parcells, has two nominations.

Forget the crowds. Were the critics pleased? It has yet to screen for critics. But strong audience test scores prompted Paramount to give the movie a prime Christmas Day release date.

Sympathy for the hero? More than once, Tuggle (played by David Corenswet, last seen as Superman) tells people that he’s “kinda likable.” He is! He might be the sunniest character this side of the “Air Bud” golden retriever.

Secret weapon: Tuggle’s mustache is epic.

Tears? Parcells cries. (Well, almost.) You think you’re tougher than Parcells?

Cheers? It’s an inspirational sports movie. Tug-gle! Tug-gle! Tug-gle!

Faith in humanity restored? Next time it rains, I’m going outside and running wind sprints for an hour.

Verdict: Peak dad-core, but no awards. However, if dads get to pick the movie the family goes to see during the holidays, this is going to be it. Unless they live in Philly.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s new White House chief of staff, Stephen Miller, is behind many of the administration’s signature domestic policy initiatives, especially its sweeping crackdown on immigration.

An outspoken defender of Trump’s most far-reaching goals to remake government going back to his 2016 run for president, Miller is known for his harsh language and unrelenting bombast, attracting outsize attention from supporters and critics alike. His record is likely to be scrutinized by Democrats in his powerful new role as he leads Trump’s White House through a lame-duck period after the Republican Party lost both houses of Congress in overwhelming fashion.

Here are some memorable things Miller has said through the years:

On immigration

During a surge in illegal border crossings during the Biden administration, Miller described migrants as invaders, even though many were escaping poverty and violence in their home countries.

“We are being conquered,” he told Fox News in December 2023. “We have millions of people coming in from different cultures and different ways of living and different belief systems.”

Miller also warned that “a generation from now,” people “will not know the country that they are living in. These consequences are permanent. Unless there’s massive large-scale deportations by the millions, it will be irrevocable.”

On federal agents’ killing of Alex Pretti

After federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti during protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in January, Miller posted on social media that the 37-year-old Minneapolis resident was a “domestic terrorist” and an “assassin” who had “tried to murder federal agents.”

Later, Miller said in a statement that the federal officers in Minneapolis “may not have been following” protocol.

On Venezuela and Greenland

In January, after a U.S. military invasion captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Miller used a lengthy post on X to decry “reverse colonization” in which he suggested that Western nations were sacrificing too much for the developing world and that such a practice “has been a long self-punishment of the places and peoples that built the modern world.”

In another post, he defended the right of the U.S. to take over Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, writing: “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela. Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property. These pillaged assets were then used to fund terrorism and flood our streets with killers, mercenaries and drugs.”

He defended Trump’s assertion that the U.S. was now running Venezuela, by telling CNN’s Jake Tapper: “You can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else. But we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.”

In the same interview, Miller also argued that the U.S. could seize Greenland by military force from NATO ally Denmark. “Obviously, Greenland should be part of the United States,” he said.

“Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” Miller said.

On deportations

In May of 2025, Miller suggested that the Trump administration was looking for ways to expand its power to deport migrants who are in the United States illegally. To achieve that, he said, officials were “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus — the constitutional right for people to legally challenge their detention by the government.

“The Constitution is clear — and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land — that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion,” Miller said. “So, I would say that’s an option we’re actively looking at. Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”

In the nearly 18 months since, the idea has not been publicly pursued by the Trump administration.

On family separation

During Trump’s first term, Miller championed a strict immigration deterrence policy that previous administrations had been hesitant to adopt: family separation. It called for routinely having federal agents separate children from their parents if families were apprehended illegally crossing the border.

Miller defended the policy to the New York Times in 2018, saying it “was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero-tolerance policy for illegal entry, period.”

“The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law,” he added.

The tactic sparked widespread outcry, and the Trump administration did not revive it in its second term. Still, Miller has helped promote mass deportation of people already living illegally in the U.S. that has divided families according to legal status.

On the Statue of Liberty

During Trump’s first term in 2017, Miller appeared in the White House briefing room to detail for reporters plans to cut back on the number of green cards issued, while prioritizing English speakers and skilled workers.

Asked if doing so might violate the spirit of the poem on the Statue of Liberty, that reads in part, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” Miller responded, “I don’t want to get off into a whole thing about history here.” He then did just that.

“The poem that you’re referring to, that was added later, is not actually a part of the original Statue of Liberty,” Miller said.

On birthright citizenship

When the U.S. Supreme Court blocked Trump’s attempt to throw out birthright citizenship — which grants citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil — Miller said immigrants and their children pose an existential threat to the nation.

“This is absolutely a deep knife wound in the heart of the American republic,” he told Fox News in June. “If your ruling requires you to suicide your civilization, your reading of the Constitution is wrong.”

On vaccines

Miller is one of many members of the administration who has expressed skepticism about childhood vaccines. In August, he praised the president for signing an executive order aimed at curtailing the vaccine schedule for children.

“Millions and millions of parents feel they’ve been pressured when their children are just weeks out of the hospital to take five shots, six shots, seven shots all at once,” said Miller, a father of four, including an infant born in June. “Nobody has studied it. Nobody’s looked at it. Nobody’s thought about it.”

His comments contradict what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said, which is that research shows getting several vaccines simultaneously “does not cause any chronic health problems.”

On the Democratic Party

In August 2025, Miller appeared on Fox News to respond to criticism from Democrats over Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Washington and other U.S. cities — brushing aside concerns that the presence of troops was frightening residents, while having only a questionable impact on crime.

Miller used the occasion to take aim at Democrats more broadly.

“The Democrat Party does not fight for, care about or represent American citizens,” he said. “It is an entity devoted exclusively to the defense of hardened criminals, gang bangers and illegal alien killers and terrorists.”

Miller added: “The Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.”

Weissert and Balingit write for the Associated Press.

The California Environmental Quality Act is one of the most consequential and controversial laws on the books.

CEQA, which dates to the 1970s, requires state and local agencies to consider the environmental effects of many proposed projects before approving them. If a project could cause significant environmental harm that can’t easily be avoided, it undergoes a more detailed environmental review to examine its potential effects and alternatives.

Backers say CEQA is a vital tool for environmental review and gives the community a voice in development. But critics say CEQA is too often used to slow down needed housing and has been exploited as a bureaucratic weapon.

Enter Proposition 45.

The basics

Proposition 45 would impose stricter deadlines on environmental reviews, permits and court challenges. Agencies would have to spell out application requirements up-front and could not make repeated requests for more information or project changes. The measure caps public comment periods, while current law only sets minimum lengths. It also limits what courts may consider in CEQA lawsuits.

The impact

The law clearly would change the CEQA process; whether that would be for better or worse is the subject of debate. Backers say it would make the process faster and easier. Critics say it would roll back important environmental protections.

Dig deeper

The fight over Proposition 45 comes as California struggles to build enough housing to meet demand, causing prices to skyrocket. Housing prices, polls show, are a major issue for California voters.

But the proposition also is touching on another hot-button issue: data centers. Supporters and foes are battling over whether the measure would make it easier to build more of those controversial facilities.

More reading

California’s Prop. 45 aims to speed construction projects. Opponents say data centers will benefit (L.A. Times)

CEQA overhaul outrages environmentalists (L.A. Times)

The history of CEQA and its future (L.A. Times)

Could Embracing Sprawl Ease California’s Housing Crunch? (New York Times)