Even though the presidential election is finished, Hollywood’s campaign season is only getting started.
Film industry executives and publicists will be scouting America’s movie capital over the next two months, urging the approximately 10,000 members who vote on the Oscars to support the 97th Academy Awards, which are scheduled for March 2. (If you are in the Los Angeles region, be prepared to see advertisements for For Your Consideration everywhere you look.)
Unlike the last two Oscar cycles, when Everything Everywhere All at Once and Oppenheimer established distinct and early advantages, there isn’t a clear front-runner in the best picture race this year.
The field is wide open this year, and as the campaigns heat up in the upcoming weeks and months, there’s still time for things to change, according to Debra Birnbaum, editor-in-chief of the website that predicts awards, Gold Derby.
Before the first ballots are cast, let’s take a look at some of the front-runners and the reasons behind their seeming momentum.
Anora
One of the most prominent documentarians of the underprivileged in modern American cinema is Sean Baker, who focuses on sex workers in particular. His credentials were enhanced with Tangerine, The Florida production, and Red Rocket, but his most recent production, Anora, solidified his place in movie history. Anora won the Palme d Or, one of the most coveted awards in the film industry, at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May.
In Anora, Mikey Madison plays a Brooklyn stripper who marries a Russian oligarch’s spoilt scion in a shotgun marriage, sending the young couple on a collision course with his vicious parents and the three goons sent to end their union. With the film’s stellar reviews, there are high hopes that Baker will do what Bong Joon-ho did with Parasite four years ago, which won both the Oscars and Cannes.
How to watch: Now available in cinemas.
The Brutalist
In recent years, Brady Corbet has made a name for himself as an ambitious director, collaborating closely with his spouse, Mona Fastvold, after beginning his career as an actor in movies like Thirteen and Mysterious Skin. The Brutalist, Corbet’s most recent work, is a sprawling 215-minute epic about a talented Hungarian Jewish architect (Adrien Brody) who escapes the atrocities of World War II and tries to start over in the United States.
At this year’s Venice Film Festival, Corbet won the Silver Lion for directing The Brutalist, which wowed viewers with its nuanced portrayal of Jewish identity and postwar America. A24, the indie powerhouse behind the unexpected Oscar winners Moonlight and Everything Everywhere All at Once, then decided to distribute the project.
How to watch: December 20 in cinemas.
Blitz
Ten years ago, British filmmaker Steve McQueen won an Oscar for his film 12 Years a Slave. Since then, he has directed a 266-minute documentary about the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, a large-scale television anthology series called Small Axe, and a cunning political heist thriller called Widows. In a more traditional format, Blitz centers on the relationship between a mother and son in London during World War II.
In Blitz, Saoirse Ronan, a four-time Oscar contender for acting, co-stars with Elliott Heffernan, a debutant who plays a strong-willed youngster who is determined to be back together with his family while German aerial troops drop bombs on war-torn London. Academy voters who have previously given top accolades to films like Schindler’s List and The English Patient may find the distinctly antiquated and emotionally stirring story appealing.
How to watch: Use Apple TV+ to stream.
Conclave
If you put a bunch of power-hungry cardinals in a room together and ask them to choose a new pope, what would happen? Conclave takes us on a convoluted journey through the Vatican’s chambers to provide a sophisticated and narratively elegant response to that query. John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Ralph Fiennes all give outstanding performances in Conclave, which was directed by Edward Berger, who has already won an Oscar for All Quiet on the Western Front.
With its combination of modern societal relevance and tense airport paperback thrills, Conclave may be the perfect film for Oscar voters. (In the title’s conclave, a coalition of liberal reformers faces off against traditionalists who wish to impede societal development.) It has already made close to $30 million, making it one of the fall’s small-scale sleeper smashes. (The movie is distributed by Focus Features, a division of Comcast, the parent company of NBC News.)
How to watch: Now available in cinemas.
Dune: Part Two
Although Oscar voters have never awarded the best picture award to a science-fiction movie, they could think about doing so for Denis Villeneuve’s engrossing sequel to his 2021 hit, Dune: Part Two, which stars Timoth é Chalamet, Zendaya, and a lengthy host of A-list supporting actors. The second film received positive reviews, played to crowded theaters, and made over $714 million worldwide.
At the 94th Academy Awards in 2022, Dune had ten nominations and took home six prizes, more than any other film in the running. These included best sound, best production design, best cinematography, best film editing, and best visual effects. Villeneuve’s prior nominations for Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, and Sicario have also made her a favorite among Oscar voters.
Stream on Max to watch.
Emilia P rez
Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Prez, a riotous musical and crime thriller about a Mexican cartel boss who aspires to transform into a woman, is the most genre-bending movie on his list. At Cannes, where the picture pleased and perplexed spectators in seemingly equal measure, the four actors who anchor Emilia Prez—Karla Sof a Gasc, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, and Zoe Salda a — shared best actress awards.
How to watch: Use Netflix to stream.
Gladiator II
More than 23 years ago, Russell Crowe’s Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, won five Academy Awards, including best actor and best picture. With Paul Mescal (Oscar-nominated in 2023 for his work in Aftersun) playing Crowe’s character’s son, Scott returns to the swords-and-sandals genre in this follow-up. Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen, and Denzel Washington complete the cast.
How to watch: Now available in cinemas.
Nickel Boys
Once one of the most notorious schools in the nation, the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, was notorious for staff members abusing pupils physically and sexually. In his first narrative picture, Nickel Boys, which follows two Black boys who are taken to a harsh reform school that is modeled after Dozier, RaMell Ross unearths that sinister history.
Nickel Boys was filmed by Ross using a bold, first-person point-of-view manner, as if we were in the characters’ shoes. This was inspired by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Colson Whitehead’s novel of the same name. After its late August premiere at the 51st Telluride Film Festival, Nickel Boys was greeted with rave reviews, with several critics hailing it as one of the best movies of the decade.
How to watch: December 13 in cinemas.
A Real Pain
In the film, Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg play mismatched cousins who travel to Poland to explore their late grandmother’s homeland and reconnect with their Jewish roots. Both young guys must face their personal demons and the tragedy of their family’s past as a result of the trip, which is equal parts humorous and devastating. (Eisenberg authored and directed A Real Pain in addition to appearing in it.)
Eisenberg received a screenwriting award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and A Real Pain was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. According to Oscar forecasters, the movie will compete for best picture, best original screenplay, and best supporting actor for Culkin, who won an Emmy earlier this year for his role in the last season of HBO’s Succession.
How to watch: Now available in cinemas.
September 5
This dramatic documentary, which is narrated from the perspective of the ABC Sports crew that covered the upsetting events live, centers on the terror assault that occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. The renowned ABC broadcasting executive Roone Arledge is portrayed by Peter Sarsgaard, while two of his associates are portrayed by John Magaro and Ben Chaplin. At Venice and Telluride, the response to September 5 was generally good.
How to watch: November 27 in cinemas.
Sing Sing
The film’s director, Greg Kwedar, focuses on a group of prisoners at New York’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility. Some of the inmates are portrayed by professional actors, such as Paul Raci and Colman Domingo, while others are played by men who have served time in prison, such as criminal justice activist Jon-Adrian J.J. Velazquez, whose decades-long quest to prove his innocence was documented by NBC’s Dateline.
Through the actual Rehabilitation Through the Arts program, which aims to provide prisoners with a means of expressing their emotions, the men in the movie perform in theater shows while incarcerated. A24 has launched an awards campaign in the last few months of the year, with screenings and Q&As in New York and Los Angeles, while Sing Sing made its theatrical debut in a few theaters during the summer.
Watching instructions: It will ultimately stream on Max.
Wicked
Oscar voters might be captivated by the most unavoidable holiday blockbuster.Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande play adolescent witches in the Land of Oz who develop an odd friendship that becomes more strained in the first of two parts of the adaption of the popular Broadway musical, Wicked. To make Wicked a box office success, Universal Pictures, a division of Comcast, the parent company of NBC News, went all out.
How to watch: Now available in cinemas.
Also in the Oscars conversation:
Challengers, Luca Guadagnino’s sultry love triangle located in the world of professional tennis; Babygirl, Halin Reijn’s sensual thriller costarring Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson; The Piano Lesson, Malcolm Washington’s adaptation of August Wilson’s play; The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Muhammad Rasoulof’s tense examination of contemporary Iran; The Substance, Coralie Fargeat’s obscene parody of contemporary beauty standards; James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, a portrait of Bob Dylan starring Timoth and Chalamet.
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