Beware the movie with Oscar hopes on its sleeve. It’s far better for a movie like last year’s “Saltburn” to grab reviews and audience reaction and proceed into the fall season than to declare its Oscar intentions at the start and then come up short. Festivals can give and take away. “Joker” came away from Venice 2019 with the Golden Lion, and went on to score over $1 billion worldwide and eleven Oscar nominations and two wins, including Best Actor Joaquin Phoenix. This time, Todd Phillips and his indulgent studio masters (who never previewed the film) had the chutzpah to go back to Venice with the $190-million musical prison/courtroom drama “Joker: Folie à Deux,” which launched a tsunami of bad press that sliced its opening weekend ($37.6 million domestic) to less than half of the original ($96.2 million domestic). “Joker 2” is heading downhill from there, with no Oscars in its sights.
The multi-faceted streaming and box office landscape makes audience support harder to call. A box office hit builds awareness and momentum over time. But Netflix, which is pushing a robust awards slate this year, has a firehose of 277 million subscribers and always lands multiple nominations, but struggles to win Oscars. And AppleTV+ just cut a deal with Amazon Prime to showcase their movies. That could boost the number of people who will sample Apple’s top Oscar contender, war epic “Blitz.” But does it matter? Family drama “Coda” won the Best Picture Oscar in 2022 with no domestic box office at all: what mattered was that the different voting awards groups saw the movie and embraced it.
Steve McQueen’s “Blitz” took a late route through the fall festivals, opening well at the London Film Festival October 9 and closing New York on October 10. But the rousing big-budget action movie about the impact of the London bombings on a separated mother (Saoirse Ronan) and son (Elliott Heffernan) played to raves on its home turf, and drew a more nuanced critical response from American critics. (It sits at a healthy 77 on Metacritic.) The World War II epic should resonate with older Academy voters, though, especially the actors, who know that four-time nominee Ronan is overdue, and the craft branches: Adam Stockhausen’s production design and Hans Zimmer’s rousing score are standouts.
While early releases “Sing Sing” (TIFF 2023, A24) and “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.) are making awards pushes, and more late-inning movies are still to arrive, including Ridley Scott sequel “Gladiator II,” James Mangold’s Bob Dylan portrait “A Complete Unknown,” Jon M. Chu’s Oz musical “Wicked” (Universal), and Robert Eggers’ horror film “Nosferatu” (Focus), we now have a clearer picture of the Oscar race.
Frontrunners:
Duking it out for the top Best Picture slot are two Cannes prize-winners, Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical and French Oscar submission “Emilia Pérez” (Netflix), and Sean Baker’s anarchic comedy and Palme d’Or winner “Anora” (Neon). Both critics’ darlings and festival crowdpleasers, the main thing for their Oscar wranglers to worry about is that they could peak too soon. Critics will likely keep their momentum going.
Coming out of the fall festivals with strong support are two old-fashioned big-scale period spectacles: McQueen’s two-hour “Blitz,” and Brady Corbet’s Venice director prize-winning three-and-a-half-hour “The Brutalist” (A24), starring Oscar-winner Adrien Brody (“The Pianist”) as a Holocaust survivor. This time he’s an emigre architect who falls under the sway of a wealthy American patron (Guy Pearce). Both films should push through the season with strong European support.
So should papal intrigue “Conclave” (Focus), Edward Berger’s follow-up to Oscar-winner “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which will certainly land a ton of craft slots and a Best Actor nomination for two-time nominee Ralph Fiennes, who carries the drama, with a Supporting Actor nod likely for Stanley Tucci.
While it debuted at Sundance, “A Real Pain” (Searchlight), writer-director-star Jesse Eisenberg’s comedy-drama about two cousins (Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) on a European prison-camp tour, fared well at the fall festivals (Metascore: 83), and will gain momentum when it opens November 1. This ticks many boxes: moving Holocaust subject, emotional family drama, great acting, writing, and directing. It should go all the way.
Also with a European flavor is Swiss-backed true story “September 5,” which, after a rapturous festival response, will finally be distributed by financier Republic’s studio partner, Paramount Pictures. American actors John Magaro and Peter Sarsgaard play the ABC sports newsmen who forever changed live news coverage during the Israeli hostage crisis at the 1972 Munich Olympic games. And actress Leonie Benesch ably follows up her breakout role in German Oscar entry “The Teacher’s Lounge.”
Another European film came out a winner at Venice, taking the Golden Lion: Beloved Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature “The Room Next Door” (Sony Pictures Classics), which has done well with critics so far. Tilda Swinton is the more likely Best Actress candidate over the quieter performance from Julianne Moore. Will it go all the way to Best Picture? It needs to perform at the box office and keep support from critics over time.
While no country submitted Cannes Grand Prix winner Payal Kapadia’s visually sumptuous Mumbai drama “All We Imagine as Light” for Best International Feature Film, Janus/Sideshow will pursue nominations in multiple categories, as it did with “Drive My Car” in 2022. The Indian film’s most likely shot, given 10 possible slots, is Best Picture, although if any woman were to make it to Best Director, Kapadia leads the pack.
Among the foreign-language films in contention this year, the most likely to land a nomination is Cannes festival favorite “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (Neon), from exiled Iranian Mohammad Rasoulof, which was submitted by Germany. Oscar-nominated Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles (“Central Station”) returns to his home country with his first feature in 16 years, moving true story “I’m Still Here” (Sony Pictures Classics) starring the mighty mother-daughter combo of Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro in the same role.
On the Cusp
Some movies will score acting nominations or specific categories only. Pablo Larraín’s “Maria” (Netflix) should land a Best Actress nomination for the incomparable Angelina Jolie as dying opera singer Maria Callas. British filmmaker Mike Leigh, 81, could land another writing or directing nomination for “Hard Truths,” which should push Marianne Jean-Baptiste to a second Oscar nomination after “Secrets & Lies.”
Amazon/MGM/Orion could score a Best Picture nomination for RaMell Ross’ adaptation of the Colson Whitehead novel “Nickel Boys,” as well as s second Supporting Actress nod for Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.
Nicole Kidman could vie for a second Oscar win for “Babygirl,” the kind of brave, vulnerable performance that acting voters love.
Unlikely Best Picture contenders, but stirring up talk are animated features “Inside Out 2” (Disney/Pixar), a huge box office juggernaut, and “Wild Robot” (Universal), which will likely rack up impressive numbers as well. They will most likely stay in their Best Animated Feature lane, where they will duke it out for the win. Will the original win over the sequel? See “Toy Story 3.”
Netflix is pushing their latest August Wilson adaptation “The Piano Lesson,” produced by Denzel Washington and directed by his son Malcolm and starring John David. The breakout is most likely Danielle Deadwyler in Supporting.
Not taking off out of TIFF was Marielle Heller’s “Nightbitch” (Searchlight), except for six-time Oscar perennial Amy Adams, who carries the movie, but that category is packed with contenders.
Also a long-shot due to its feminist horror-genre is “The Substance” (Mubi), although never-nominated Demi Moore has nabbed her best reviews in decades.
Also never Oscar-nominated Daniel Craig is landing better reviews than the movie he stars in, Luca Guadagnino’s languorous William Burroughs adaptation “Queer” (A24).
But time, box office, critics groups, and the guilds will change momentum for all these films. Wait and see.
