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Photo: A24
Usually, our “Gold Rush” column and our “Oscar Futures” predictions are joined in holy matrimony, arriving hand in hand on your screens every week. However, since we already published our Golden Globes predictions separately, the penultimate edition of Oscar Futures will stand alone. In the meantime, here’s a sampler of who we think will win two of the biggest prizes Sunday night.
Best Motion Picture – Drama
Frankenstein
Hamnet
It Was Just an Accident
The Secret Agent
Sentimental Value
Sinners
One of the most suspenseful awards of the night, this prize will determine which lucky contender gets the honor of being considered the No. 2 horse in the Oscars race behind One Battle After Another. In all likelihood, it’ll be one of the quartet of Hamnet, It Was Just an Accident, Sentimental Value, and Sinners, all of which also earned Director and Screenplay noms at the Globes. In a vacuum, I’d say Sinners has the edge, but the fact that Ryan Coogler’s film couldn’t garner any acting nominations outside of Michael B. Jordan makes me think Globes voters liked it less than the general populace did. So let’s zag a bit and throw it to Hamnet, which has been quietly lurking since winning the TIFF People’s Choice Award. Chloé Zhao’s film showed up well with SAG and could come roaring back with a big win on Sunday.
The likely winner: Hamnet
The fun pick: Sinners
Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Blue Moon
Bugonia
Marty Supreme
No Other Choice
Nouvelle Vague
One Battle After Another
Warner Bros. will swear there was absolutely no calculation involved in running One Battle After Another as a Comedy at the Globes. If so, the field just happened to shake out awfully nice for the presumed Oscar front-runner: As with Jessie Buckley in Drama Actress, all the heat’s on the other side of the bracket. In fact, they should spare us the phony suspense and just present this award first. Why make Paul Thomas Anderson always wait around until the end of the night? Let the man rest!
The likely winner: One Battle After Another
The fun pick: Literally anything else winning would be the biggest shock of awards season thus far.
Every week between now and January 22, when the nominations for the Academy Awards are announced, Vulture will consult its crystal ball to determine the changing fortunes in this year’s Oscars race. In our “Oscar Futures” column, we’ll let you in on insider gossip, parse brand-new developments, and track industry buzz to figure out who’s up, who’s down, and who’s currently leading the race for a coveted Oscar nomination.
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: A24
For A24, it was a Marty Christmas and a Safdie New Year. The ping-pong biopic lit up the holiday box office and now looks on course to become the studio’s highest-grossing film ever. Anecdotally, this is the awards-season title that has most broken through with regular viewers: Over the break, everyone from my mother-in-law in Arizona to my cousin in Belfast asked me if I’d seen it — another coup by the studio’s vaunted marketing department. As Marty mania was sweeping the globe, the film also solidified its spot in the top tier of Best Picture contenders by earning noms from every major guild: SAG, the DGA, the ASC, and the PGA. A24 may only be able to handle one Best Picture contender at a time, but it has proved that it can take that one film awfully far.
Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features
The Producers Guild Awards are our most blockbuster-friendly precursor, so it was all the more notable when those voters left both Avatar: Fire and Ash and Wicked: For Good off their top-ten list. In their place were summer hits like F1 and Weapons … but also Bugonia, hardly anyone’s idea of a commercial juggernaut. Throw in SAG nominations for the film’s two stars and a strong showing at the BAFTA longlists, and it appears there is indeed passion inside the industry for the fourth iteration of the Yorgos Lanthimos–Emma Stone project. After being dinged for not living up to high expectations, the dark comedy is back in the Oscars picture.
Bugonia, Frankenstein, Hamnet, It Was Just an Accident, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Sinners, Train Dreams
Photo: Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images
A brash young upstart aims to upset the established order by cracking into a field controlled by snooty Europeans: It’s the plot of Marty Supreme, but it’s also the journey Safdie’s on this season as he seeks his first Oscar nomination. Having earned a DGA nom over the likes of Joachim Trier and Jafar Panahi, he now appears well on his way. Still, given the directing branch’s well-known affinity for venerable international auteurs, repeating the feat with the Academy will be tougher.
Photo: John Parra/2015 John Parra
It’s alive! From being all but left for dead after a muted Venice reception, Frankenstein came roaring back to life at the guilds, scoring a Best Ensemble nomination from SAG and an ASC nom to go alongside a DGA nod for del Toro himself. As was previously the case with Nightmare Alley, the industry is seeing more electricity in del Toro’s maximalist vision than the Letterboxd crowd did.
Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another; Ryan Coogler, Sinners; Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident; Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme; Chloé Zhao, Hamnet
When Chalamet was trying to drum up the Marty Supreme box office, he spake as a child, he understood as a child, he dressed as a child. But when that task was accomplished, he put away childish things. In his recent appearances on the awards circuit — including the Critics Choice Awards, where he won Best Actor — he’s cut a more modest, soft-spoken figure. Is he simply knuckling down and trying to convince voters to take him seriously as a potential Oscar winner? Or, as some observers have theorized, could this be another meta-performance: Is Chalamet essentially replaying his character’s own arc on the campaign trail?
Photo: Neon/Everett Collection
Its awards show is airing on Netflix this year, but SAG’s nominations felt awfully CBS News: America First! The guild’s voters snubbed every non-English-language movie in the field, including Moura and the rest of his Neon brethren. Compounding the damage, he also missed at the BAFTA longlists. I think he’ll win the Globe, but if he doesn’t, suddenly there’s no more runway left. While this category is open enough that Moura should still make it in at the Oscars, the argument that he’s secretly Chalamet’s biggest competition looks a lot weaker than it did on Monday.
Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme; Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another; Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon; Michael B. Jordan, Sinners; Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
Photo: Focus Features
Should we chalk Hudson’s unexpected SAG nomination up to the guild’s penchant for the more, well, basic contenders? Perhaps, but despite middling reviews, her performance as a real-life Neil Diamond cover singer keeps coming up in Best Actress discussions, and just this week, she got a co-sign from the well-connected Demi Moore and a spot on the BAFTA longlist. Even highbrow observers like Mark Harris think Hudson could crack the final five on the strength of an “I didn’t know she had it in her” campaign.
Photo: Kasper Tuxen
Like Moura, SAG left Reinsve and her co-stars out in the cold. Lest you think this was a case of AFTRA’s TikTok stars refusing to read subtitles, the Directors Guild followed suit by blanking Joachim Trier. I’ve seen speculation that these misses were the result of Neon lagging in uploading its films to the Academy streaming portal, though I’m not sure how we square that with the studio’s titles outperforming expectations on the Oscar shortlists. Whatever the case, take it as a sign that, beyond Jessie Buckley and Rose Byrne, no one’s seat is safe in this race.
Jessie Buckley, Hamnet; Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You; Chase Infiniti, One Battle After Another; Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value; Emma Stone, Bugonia
Photo: Netflix
Elordi’s victory was the biggest shock of the Critics Choice Awards. You can say he only pulled it off because Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn split the OBAA vote, but never mind: This is still a giant step forward for hunk representation in Hollywood. In becoming a legitimate Supporting Actor contender, the six-six Australian has officially done what Charles Melton couldn’t. Anyone who had Elordi as the first Euphoria kid to be nominated for an Oscar, get ready to collect your winnings.
Photo: Warner Bros./Everett Collection
Even when SAG went hard for Sinners, Lindo couldn’t get traction, as the guild went for his co-star Miles Caton instead. (Caton also won the Critics Choice Best Young Actor/Actress award.) The London-born actor is now counting on BAFTA to save him. Considering that group’s issues recognizing African American stories in the past, that’s not an enviable position, though the silver lining is that Lindo did make its Supporting Actor longlist.
Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another; Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein; Paul Mescal, Hamnet; Sean Penn, One Battle After Another; Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value
Photo: Warner Bros.
A few weeks ago, I asked whether Madigan might be this year’s version of J.Lo in Hustlers. How quickly things change! Once Madigan followed up her New York Film Critics Circle victory with a win at the Critics Choice Awards, pundits are now beginning to wonder if she’s actually the front-runner. I’d like to see her do it at an industry precursor to say for sure, but Weapons sneaking into the PGA lineup helps assuage any doubts that Zach Cregger’s film is a media-only thing.
Photo: A24
A’zion got the SAG nomination everyone thought would go to one of the Sentimental Value ladies, cementing the sense that she, not Gwyneth Paltrow, is the Marty Supreme love interest to watch. (Though both women made it onto the BAFTA longlist.) So far, this nod has been taken more as a sign of Marty’s strength rather than A’zion herself, though it’s worth remembering that just last season, Chalamet’s brunette co-star Monica Barbaro kick-started her own Supporting Actress bid with a nom from SAG. Besides, it would be a fun piece of awards trivia if, a year after Pamela Adlon’s onscreen daughter won an Oscar, her real-life daughter got nominated as well.
Ariana Grande, Wicked: For Good; Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value; Amy Madigan, Weapons; Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners; Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another