By Joe Reid, who has been covering movies and pop culture since 2007
Photo: Logan White/A24/Everett Collection
This is the scoring recap for Week 19 of Vulture’s Movies Fantasy League. It’s too late to join the league this year, but you can still follow along by visiting the league hub and subscribing to the weekly newsletter.
The 2026 box office is up and running with Sam Raimi and someone from YouTube topping the weekend charts. But the people are still heading out to see the likes of Marty Mauser, Judy Hopps,…
By Joe Reid, who has been covering movies and pop culture since 2007
Photo: Logan White/A24/Everett Collection
This is the scoring recap for Week 19 of Vulture’s Movies Fantasy League. It’s too late to join the league this year, but you can still follow along by visiting the league hub and subscribing to the weekly newsletter.
The 2026 box office is up and running with Sam Raimi and someone from YouTube topping the weekend charts. But the people are still heading out to see the likes of Marty Mauser, Judy Hopps, and the late-2025 contingent of films. Both Zootopia 2 and Avatar: Fire and Ash continue to add on to their exorbitant box-office totals, making me wonder if we should add one more bonus threshold next year for $400 million. Will ponder!
Speaking of bonus thresholds, The Housemaid looks like it’ll be able to clear $125 million; it’ll earn a 15-point MFL bonus when it does. Meanwhile, if Oscar interest can keep up, Marty Supreme and Hamnet can reach the $100 million and $25 million thresholds, respectively.
The full list of box-office performers this weekend (amounts are cumulative earnings to date):
Zootopia 2**: $408m Avatar: Fire and Ash: $386m The Housemaid:** $120m Marty Supreme**:** $90m Hamnet**: $20m Anaconda:** $63m The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants**:** $70m Song Sung Blue**:** $38m No Other Choice**:** $9m The Testament of Ann Lee**:** $2m The Secret Agent**:** $3m
You can visit the MFL landing page to see the full leaderboard — and join our Discord server for additional data about each movie in the MFL, plus much more.
Over the last several seasons of the Movies Fantasy League, the one thing that’s been more consistent than the movies, the awards, or Timmy Chalamet scoring a hit in December has been all you players coming up with some of the most clever, goofy, dumb, sometimes filthy names for your teams. Scrolling through the leaderboard takes twice as long because I’m constantly stopping to text someone about whatever demented car crash of references you’ve managed to push together.
With a bit of a lull this week in the awards calendar, I thought I’d take some time to spotlight the team names of this MFL season. First, a statistic: 251 teams across the league have a name that follows the format “One [BLANK] After Another.” This makes a ton of sense. That was the hottest movie right around the time the majority of players were drafting, and it’s stayed at the top of the awards conversation ever since. It also lends itself incredibly well to references, puns, and wordplay. The current second-place team on the overall leaderboard? **One Contender After Another. **A few spots later in fifth place? One Oscar After Another RM. Many, many, many of these names squeezed in a reference to another movie, including One Accident After Another, One Black Phone After Another, and **One Avatar After Another. **The reference doesn’t even need to be from this year, as the team One Alita Battle Angel After Another taught us. Vulture editor Emily Heller told me she was partial to One Failed Glenn Close Campaign After Another. Harsh but fair message from this particular team owner.
Another title that was widely parodied was If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. You guys collectively really went off with this one. My personal favorites:
If I Had Dollars I Would Draft You If I Had Points Id Beat You if i had machines id smash you If I Had Sentiment Id Value You If I Had Legs Id Kick Elisabeth Shue [Vulture does not endorse the kicking of Elisabeth Shue!] If I Had Arms Id Hug You
And finally, from Vulture’s own Genevieve Koski, If I Had Leagues I’d Pick You.
I spotted a bunch of Marty Supreme and Hamnet references out there too, as you might expect. Curious, I did a quick tally of the current top-100 teams in the MFL to see what films were referenced the most. Marty Supreme stood tall with ten different teams in the top 100 referencing either Marty or its Oscar-nominated star Timothée Chalamet. Personal favorite: **MuadDib Supreme. One Battle After Another and Hamnet are each referenced eight times among the top 100 teams, followed by three for The Secret Agent, three for Wicked: For Good, two for Sorry, Baby, and two for The Testament of Ann Lee. Nineteen more films from 2025 are referenced in the top 100, from Sinners to Bugonia to Father Mother Sister Brother. And, of course, as we all expected, multiple teams had references to Carol, the 2015 Todd Haynes film that remains as fresh in our hearts today as it ever was, including a squad called Carol Aird’s Right Glove **and a different one called Carol Aird’s Lost Glove. This is a special group of people.
Four teams managed to cross-reference Chloé Zhao’s achingly grief-stricken Hamnet with a reference to the 30 Rock episode where Angie Jordan is a spokesperson for the Ham Council. Keep on living your best lives, Angie Jordans HAMnet, Angie Jordan’s Hamnet, We Like How Angie Jordan Says HAMnet, and Shes the Spokeswoman for the Hamnet Council.
And even though it’s from a TV show and not the movies, shout-out to the three teams who shouted out Sal Saperstein in their names: Sal Saperstein, ThanksSalSaperstein, and Sally Saperstein.
I’m also partial to team names that call for justice. Specifically the following teams: **Justice for 28 Years Later, **who really needs to return next year with “Justice for the Bone Temple”; Justice for Black Bag, a proud Soderbergh devotée, no doubt; Justice for Ophelia, which is either a Taylor Swift thing or a really poor speller’s tribute to Elphaba; Justice for The Seed Bearer, a constant reminder of what James Cameron took from us when he retitled the third Avatar movie “Fire and Ash”; Justice for Kelly Reichardt, because The Mastermind did indeed deserve so much more; Justice for Husavik, the rightful 2020 Best Original Song winner; and finally, you guessed it, **justice for carol 2015 dir todd haynes. **
Our intrepid managing editor, Anusha Praturu, compiled the following team names beloved around the Vulture offices and Slack for their toilet humor:
Avatar Peepee and Poopoo Farty Poopreme Farter Mother Shitster Brother It Was Just an Accident in My Pants One Butthole After Another Elphabutt Peedro Poopscal
Speaking of the Vulture staff, I put the call out to see what everybody’s favorite team names were, and the responses were quite enthusiastic:
Father Mother Sister Brother Aunt Gladys [faved by Britina Cheng] Rage Against the Smashing Machine [Emily Heller] Florence and the Smashing Machine [Morgan Baila] Bugonia I hardly know ya [Morgan Baila] Avatar Smoke and Stack [Rebecca Alter] Aunt GLAADys [Anusha Praturu] **Machine Gun Jay Kelly **[Britina C heng]PTAs apt PTA appt at Apt A [Emma Alpern] if i had lips and consent i’d kiss asap rocky [Emily Heller] JKelly Personal Demon Hunter [Rebecca Alter] Strongly Signaling Interest In BFs Hobby [Morgan Baila] **Deb who has no idea what shes doing but likes it **[Anusha Praturu, who notes that, true to its name, this team only has 971 pts] Alexander Skarsgard in Leather Pants [Rebecca Alter] Tubi or Not Tubi [Anusha Praturu, shouting out our own Jackson McHenry] The Coen Father Mother Sister Brothers [Rebecca Jennings, shouting out her own, poorly performing team] If I win the rapture will happen 10 11 26 [Anusha Praturu, who notes that this team is in 17,846th place, so we’re probably safe] Devin [Megh Wright: “In a sea of puns and attempts to be too clever, I appreciate Devin. Dooneese vibes.”]
And finally … my favorite team names of the season:
The two teams named “Kay Jelly.” Because it’s like Jay Kelly but if it were a jelly. Gay Kelly. Because it’s like Jay Kelly if it were gay. Fire and Ass. You said it, friend. Ella McCay and Mrs. Miller. Altmanesque. The Legendary House of Dynamite. Jared Harris walking in Butch Queen First Time in Drag at a Ball. I was saying Boogonia. Every year, we need a reference to the Simpsons’s film-festival episode, so thank you. Ike and Tina Tuna and Hot Hamnet Water because ditto Arrested Development. The Return of Jafar Panahi. Hell yeah. **Josh Allen at the Oscars. **He just had foot surgery, but I’m keeping hope alive!
And finally … by consensus of me and at least one other Vulture staffer (Rebecca Alter, who’s currently in first place in the staff league, so her opinion carries more weight), the best team name actually goes to the team currently on top of the overall standings … **Tracy Letts Get Loud. **It works on so many levels.
**Directors Guild of America Awards: **February 7 Film Independent Spirit Awards: February 15 BAFTA Awards: February 26 Producers Guild Awards: February 28 Actor Awards: March 1 Writers Guild Awards: March 8 98th Academy Awards: March 15
Questions? Feedback? Can’t find your team or mini-league on the leaderboard? Drop us a line at moviesleague@vulture.com.
251 MFL Team Names Referenced One Battle A**fter Another