As inevitable as “Oppenheimer” (Universal) felt last year on its way to collecting seven Oscars (including Best Picture), this year’s Best Picture race is a fierce contest between two frontrunners, Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning comedy “Anora” (Neon), with six nominations, and Edward Berger’s Vatican thriller “Conclave” (Focus Features), with eight.
The two contenders have carved up the precursors: “Anora” took top honors at the Critics Choice Awards, DGA, PGA, WGA, and Indie Spirits, while British potboiler “Conclave” won the BAFTAs on its home turf as well as the mainstream voters of the coveted SAG Ensemble award.
Why wouldn’t “Anora” be the inevitable leader? Because it all comes down to that pesky preferential ballot, which took “Anora” to its PGA win, with a largely American voting body. A PGA win is hugely predictive, but lately the BAFTAs have revealed the tastes of the international voting bloc which comprise 20 percent of the 10,000 Oscar voters.
In a year that will deliver a few surprises on Oscar night, I predict that “Anora,” with six nominations, will win three, including Best Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay. The bigger-scale indie “The Brutalist” (A24) with ten nominations, will likely win three (Actor, Cinematography, and Score) and “Conclave,” with eight noms, will take two (Adapted Screenplay and Editing).
Two crafts awards will go to epic musical “Wicked” (Universal) and sci-fi “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.), but they won’t win Best Picture. With thirteen nominations, “Emilia Pérez” (Netflix) after its scandals, is still positioned to win three, even though Best Picture, International Feature, and Actress nominee “I’m Still Here” (Sony Pictures Classics) is coming on strong. It could go either way.
My final list of 23 Oscar picks and spoilers is below.
Best Picture: “Anora”
Spoiler: “Conclave”
Bottom Line: There was a moment after Jacques Audiard’s European Film sweep when “Emilia Pérez” seemed poised to dominate the field with thirteen nominations, but enthusiasm for the multi-cultural musical was muted by criticisms on many fronts, not just Karla Sofía Gascón’s disastrous tweets. Indie “Anora” is poised to take the top Oscar prize, but the more mainstream papal potboiler “Conclave” could steal the show. Both have support in many quarters. And they both capture the zeitgeist: “Anora” celebrates a feisty worker fighting back against a Russian oligarch and his thugs, while “Conclave” positions the battle for the papacy between progressives hoping to take the pontiff and his church into the future and conservatives, looking back at the past.
Best Director: Sean Baker (“Anora”)
Spoiler: Brady Corbet (“The Brutalist”)
Bottom Line: While “The Brutalist” landed 10 Oscar nominations and is challenging “Anora” in several craft categories, Best Director will go to fiercely independent theater champion and DGA winner Baker, who has never been nominated for directing before. Neither has Corbet, who shows strength with the international sector with a win at BAFTA. Both films are ambitious feats of low-budget indie ingenuity.
Best Actor: Adrien Brody (“The Brutalist”)
Spoiler: Timothée Chalamet (“A Complete Unknown”)
Bottom Line: Both actors give the performances of their careers. Twenty-one years since Brody won the Oscar in an upset in 2003 as a Holocaust survivor in “The Pianist,” the youngest Best Actor winner at age 29, he’s back as another Holocaust survivor, an architect making his way in America, in “The Brutalist.” He carries his movie on his shoulders.
But soo does Chalamet, who commands the big screen with his live guitar picking and singing as the young Bob Dylan. Brody has taken the lion’s share of awards with Chalamet only winning SAG, but he could prove a big win for a popular movie. And he’d be an even younger winner, also age 29.
Best Actress: Demi Moore (“The Substance”)
Spoiler: Mikey Madison (“Anora”)
Bottom Line: Both actresses launched their Oscar runs with Cannes prize-winners. The race is between a 62-year-old Hollywood vet who had never been nominated before against a 25-year-old breakout. Moore nabbed an Oscar nomination with her moving Golden Globes speech, building on it with wins at the CCAs and SAG. Madison scored a surprise American win at the BAFTAs and beat nine rivals of both sexes at the Spirits.
Which way will the largely older Academy voters go? Some folks are grossed out by the body horror flick. But both films have support on both sides of the pond. My bet is on Moore, who has turned into something of a life coach on her promo tour. The actors branch is in her court, hearing the message of “The Substance” (MUBI) about the horrors of aging in Hollywood.
Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin (“A Real Pain”)
Spoiler: Edward Norton (“A Complete Unknown”)
Bottom Line: This is the one surefire win for multi-hyphenate Jesse Eisenberg’s dramedy “A Real Pain” (Searchlight) which somehow missed a Best Picture nomination. Culkin has swept the precursors for his hilarious and moving role as a troubled man visiting Poland, the land of his ancestors, with his cousin (Eisenberg). Culkin’s chief rival Norton, who plays the banjo and sings as the saintly folk hero Pete Seeger, has not summoned a win yet.
Best Supporting Actress: Zoe Saldaña (“Emilia Pérez”)
Spoiler: Ariana Grande (“Wicked”)
Bottom Line: Saldaña has swept the precursors for singing and dancing and carrying Spanish-language musical “Emilia Pérez” in the role of her career. In an ordinary year, Grande’s stellar breakout as Galinda in another musical, “Wicked,” would be hard to beat. She holds her own with Cynthia Erivo and displays not only crystal pipes but expert comic timing. But Saldaña delivers the performance of a career (dominated by such blockbuster franchises as “Star Trek,” “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and “Avatar”) as a lawyer who helps a Mexican cartel boss (Karla Sofía Gascón) transition to being a woman and disappear.
Best Original Screenplay: Sean Baker (“Anora”)
Spoiler: Jesse Eisenberg (“A Real Pain”)
Bottom Line: This is a tough category to call as the precursors have split among “Anora,” “A Real Pain,” and “The Substance.” Baker won the WGA for “Anora,” wile BAFTA and Spirit wins went to “A Real Pain,” Eisenberg’s comedy drama about two cousins (Eisenberg and Culkin) reconnecting on a tour of Poland, their ancestral homeland. I’m going with the Best Picture nominee over “A Real Pain.”
Best Adapted Screenplay: Peter Straughan (“Conclave”)
Spoiler: Joslyn Barnes and RaMell Ross (“NIckel Boys”)
Bottom Line: Ever since the Golden Globes, “Conclave” has been winning this category, including the BAFTAs, the CCAs, and the often predictive USC Scripter Awards. (It wasn’t eligible at the WGA.) Straughan streamlined Robert Harris’s popular 2016 bestseller, made it cinematic (adding a few explosions), and focused on the character of Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), the man who has to supervise the election of a new pope, but keeps uncovering secrets and scandals that disqualify some of the contenders. “Nickel Boys,” adapted from the 2019 novel by Colson Whitehead, which was based on the notoriously abusive Dozier School for Boys, won the WGA and landed a Best Picture nomination as well.
Best Animated Feature: “The Wild Robot”
Spoiler: “Flow”
Bottom Line: “The Wild Robot” (DreamWorks Animation/Universal), the riveting, funny, and heart-tugging sci-fi adventure from popular (and overdue) director Chris Sanders, is the frontrunner not only because it’s a box office hit ($330 million worldwide) but it’s also nominated for Original Score (Kris Bowers) and Sound, and picked up a win from the CCAs plus nine Annies. Adapted from Peter Brown’s illustrated book, the story follows robot Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) who winds up on a remote island and learns to cohabit with animals and adopts an orphan gosling. Coming on strong is Latvia’s low-budget silent International Feature entry “Flow” (Sideshow and Janus Films) which won the Indie Spirit prize and took two awards at the Annies. Like last year’s winner, Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron,” “Flow” has international support.
Best Animated Short: “In the Shadow of the Cyprus”
Spoiler: “Yuck!”
Bottom Line: The advantage goes to the most moving entry, which this year is “In the Shadow of the Cyprus,” a gorgeous, elegant story of a Iranian man with PTSD and his beleaguered wife’s attempts to save a beached whale. At the other end of the spectrum is “Yuck!” a delightful French ditty about young people grossed-out by kissing.
Best Cinematography: “The Brutalist”
Spoiler: “Maria”
Bottom Line: First-time ASC-winner Ed Lachman (“Maria”) has been nominated for the Oscar four times. He could steal the win from BAFTA-winning frontrunner Lol Crawley for his stunning and inventive work on Corbet’s “The Brutalist,” which was made for just under $10 million. He made the film look epic.
Best Costume Design: “Wicked”
Spoiler: “Nosferatu”
Bottom Line: Leading the fray is Costume Designers Guild, CCA, and BAFTA winner “Wicked,” followed by another CDG winner, period vampire film “Nosferatu” (Focus). “Wicked” delivers extraordinary fantasy scale as well as strong character design for the two leads. “Nosferatu” is an exercise in period style, authentically rendered.
Best Documentary Feature: “Porcelain War”
Spoiler: “No Other Land”
Bottom Line: This year, the documentaries are hard to assess. There is no obvious frontrunner. The consensus pick may be Sundance U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize and DGA winner “Porcelain War,” (Picturehouse/NatGeo) which shows three artists continuing to create porcelain figurines in the midst of the Ukraine War. Artist-turned-soldier Slava Leontyev sent their video footage, including GoPro action cameras and aerial drones, back to American filmmaker Brendan Bellomo. The movie also features hand-drawn and CGI animation.
With no distributor in sight, critics’ favorite “No Other Land” wound up being released by sales and marketing company Cinetic Media. The collaboration between Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers about the systematic Israeli destruction of Palestinian homes in the West Bank, as well as the growing friendship between an Israeli journalist and Palestinian activist, has been playing theaters stateside and abroad, and won the IDA and Indie Spirit awards.
Best Documentary Short: “I Am Ready, Warden”
Spoiler: “The Only Girl in the Orchestra”
Bottom Line: Filmmaker Smitri Mundhra and journalist Keri Blakinger collaborated on “I Am Ready, Warden,” which tracks a Texas Death Row convict heading for execution and the son of the man he murdered with multiple stab wounds in a parking lot. The alternative might be “The Only Girl in the Orchestra,” a lovely celebration of a pioneering double bass player who is ready for retirement.
Best Editing: “Conclave”
Spoiler: “Anora”
Bottom Line: BAFTA-winner Nick Emerson should take this one for Edward Berger’s artfully executed Vatican thriller. This film has support from international voters. Baker’s raucous action-comedy “Anora,” with six Oscar nominations, landed a nomination in this category, a sign of strength. But Oscar voters rarely give a director an editing prize. Past winners: Alfonso Cuarón for “Gravity” and James Cameron for “Titanic.”
Best International Feature Film: “Emilia Pérez”
Spoiler: “I’m Still Here”
Bottom Line: With 13 Oscar nominations, Netflix has built a following for Jacques Audiard’s Cannes-prize-winning Spanish-language musical about a violent cartel boss transitioning into a glamorous woman (both roles played by Karla Sofia Gascón). The film has been less impacted by various scandals this awards season than some predicted, although major prizes seem out of reach. (Gascón is now attending the Oscars.) In this category, it comes down to how many people saw “Emilia Pérez” vs. another Best Picture and Actress contender, Walter Salles’ true story about oppression in ’70s Brazil, “I’m Still Here” (Sony Pictures Classics). It could be close.
Best Live Action Short: “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent”
Spoiler: “A Lien”
Bottom Line: Both topical films bring us into the current moment, upsettingly so. A winner at both Cannes and the European Film Awards, Croatian “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent” paints a chilling vignette during the 1990s genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a soldier enters a train car in order to establish ethnic identity and cooperation. Artfully executed “A Lien” is a tough watch, as a routine application for a green card turns into an ICE operation.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: “The Substance”
Spoiler: “Wicked”
Bottom Line: With five nominations, this could be the only win for body-horror flick “The Substance,” which took this category at the CCAs and BAFTAs. “The Substance” and “Wicked” won two awards each from the Make-Up and Hairstyling Guild.
Best Production Design: “Wicked”
Spoiler: “The Brutalist”
Bottom Line: Often, the craft winners at the BAFTAs and Critics Choice Awards repeat at the Oscars — this year, lavish musical “Wicked,” which recreated the wonderful land of Oz complete with an expensively built green train, won Production and Costume Design from both groups.
Best Original Score: “The Brutalist”
Spoiler: “Conclave”
Bottom Line: Experimental composer Daniel Blumberg’s piano-heavy score for “The Brutalist,” notable for its “Slabs of Sound” representing the Brutalist aesthetic, won the BAFTA, but if “Conclave” has coattails, Volker Bertelmann could win his second consecutive Oscar after “All Quiet on the Western Front.”
Best Original Song: “El Mal” from “Emilia Pérez”
Spoiler: “The Journey” from “The Six Triple Eight”
Bottom Line: Nominated for 13 Oscars, “Emilia Pérez” should mark a win for Clément Ducol, Camille Dalmais, and Jacques Audiard’s bravura musical centerpiece, which is performed by Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, and Dalmais. Diane Warren, who has been nominated for 16 Oscars (because her friends in the music branch nominate her over and over again) and also accepted an Honorary Oscar, wrote “The Journey,” and is disappointed not to be performing it at the Oscars. (The Oscar show is honoring songs in another way this year.)
Best Sound: “Dune: Part Two”
Spoiler: “A Complete Unknown”
Bottom Line: This year, the sound award returns to the big-budget arena as the live singing in Bob Dylan origin myth “A Complete Unknown,” which won the CAS Award, dukes it out with sequel “Dune: Part Two,” which won a BAFTA and an MPSE award. The same sound team that won the Oscar for “Dune” pushed the limits on this one with Arrakis battles, huge crowds, gigantic sandworms, and gladiator fights.
Best Visual Effects: “Dune: Part Two”
Spoiler: “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”
Bottom Line: While low-budget “Godzilla Minus One” pulled an upset at the Oscars last year, this year’s winner is likely Denis Villeneuve’s behemoth sci-fi sequel “Dune: Part Two,” which won the BAFTA and wowed audiences with desert sandworm-riding, combining sophisticated VFX with a practical platform rocking on gimbals, grappling hooks, and a giant sand-blower.
