Is it us, or has this year’s lead-up to the 97th annual Academy Awards been a bit of a roller-coaster ride?
After the nominations were announced roughly a month ago, we knew going in that there wouldn’t be a clear front-runner like last year, when Oppenheimer entered the competition with enough velocity to make you think it had already won. (You could have dubbed the ceremony the “Oscar-ppenheimers” and simply called it a day.) There was a lot of love for The Brutalist, Brady Corbet’s extraordinary shout-out to both 1950s wide-screen melodramas and 1970s moody epics, which was not a surprise. The same could definitely be said for Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard’s delirious musical about a transgender Mexican drug lord that racked up a baker’s dozen of nods, though that was a bit of a shock — between the controversy surrounding various aspects of the film’s cultural representations and the fact that the initial buzz around the movie was beginning to wane before the year’s end, many assumed it would earn only a few nominations at best. After several key wins at the Golden Globes, however, Netflix’s genre mash-up was back in play in a major way.
But neither of those screamed “a sure thing,” and the rest of the movies filling out the Best Picture lineup gave you the sense of a checklist being ticked: a big Hollywood blockbuster (Dune: Part Two); a box-office success that felt like a Tinseltown throwback (Wicked); a biopic (A Complete Unknown); a tony ensemble drama (Conclave); a meta-showbiz movie that put the “wild” back into “wild card” (The Substance); and a dark-horse international pick backed by a prominent studio (I’m Still Here). Even Nickel Boys, which is easily one of the most radical movies of the past few decades, resembles a certain type of prestige pic that tends to get showered with gold during awards seasons, at least on paper. The only possible outlier is Anora, and with a little squinting and a lot of elbow grease, you could slot that into the always-popular “little indie that could” category.
Then the for-your-consideration campaigning started in earnest, and that’s when the real ups and downs started. An interview in which post-production AI was mentioned temporarily tainted The Brutalist‘s good name. The combo of social-media excavating and a star going rogue did serious damage to Emilia Pérez’s chances. Both Anora and I’m Still There were mildly dinged due to comments and/or skeletons in the closet regarding their leads, which suggested a possible come-from-behind victory from another title — until the guilds began giving the former awards in bulk. Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, the bellwether known as the BAFTAs gave their top prize to … Conclave. The pulpy thriller also won the Best Ensemble at the SAG awards last night. Hmm.
It was enough to make you dizzy, or at least think that the gap between the nomination announcements and the upcoming ceremony on March 2 has been four times as long as it actually was. This was a hell of a ride, and now we’d like to get off the 120 mph merry-go-round now, thank you very much. But with voting closed and less than a week to go before the envelopes are opened en masse, we think we have a good idea of who’ll be dancing victory laps at the Vanity Fair afterparty come Oscar night (with one notable exception). Here are our picks for the winners in six main categories, as well as who we think should win and who we’d absolutely love to see win.
Best Director
Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez
Sean Baker, Anora
Coralie Fargeat, The Substance
James Mangold, A Complete Unknown
A murderers’ row, this. The fact the French filmmaker who gave us an onscreen bloodbath that made the plasma tsunami in The Shining seem tame can now be referred to as “Oscar nominee Coralie Fargeat” fills us with glee. Mangold has his share of career hits and misses, but his ability to tweak a constricting music-biopic template that he helped forge to fit his elusive, enigmatic subject deserves nothing but praise. Whether you love or hate Pérez, you have to admire Audiard for refusing to be pinned down as an auteur. (It’s crazy to think that this filmmaker is the same person behind A Prophet, The Sisters Brothers, and this wackadoo musical.) It’s really down to Corbet and Baker in this category, however, and the wind seems to be blowing in one direction.
Who Will Win: Sean Baker. It’s a deserved win, too, given the way this veteran indie director blends character-driven drama, screwball comedy, regional realism, and a deep sense of humanity into this sex-worker fairy tale run amok. The fact that he’s won at both the Directors Guild Awards and Producers Guild Awards suggests he’s on the path to winning his first Oscar. That said …
Who Should Win: … what Brady Corbet does with the composing of the frame, the scope of the storytelling, and the sheer ambition of tackling one immigrant’s story over a three-and-a-half-hour running time in The Brutalist feels like a truly singular achievement. And that’s before you factor in the movie’s extremely modest budget! It would not be unheard of for the voters to spread the wealth between Best Picture and Best Director, and we’d be jazzed to see Corbet win this award while seeing Sean Baker’s movie take the grand prize, or vice versa. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Who We’d Like to See Win: Coralie Fargeat. Because we love The Substance, the idea of a female-genre filmmaker winning this particular award, and chaos. In that order.
Best Supporting Actress
Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez
Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
Ariana Grande, Wicked
Monica Barbero, A Complete Unknown
Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
It’d be the great start to a joke: “A witch, a folk singer, a lawyer, a nun, and a Holocaust survivor who screams truth to power walk into a bar.…” There’s as much versatility as there is talent in this year’s Best Supporting Actress competition, as well as a lot of singing — three of the five performances in this category required crooning everything from Broadway standards to protest anthems. Only one nominee was required to sell an elaborate musical number about vaginoplasties, however, and oddly enough, she is the one most likely to walk away with the li’l bald, gold man on Oscar night.
Who Will Win: Zoe Saldaña. The actor has managed to avoid the fallout of her co-star Karla Sofía Gascón’s past tweets catching up with her, and she’s been on a bit of a roll, having racked up wins at the BAFTAs, the Golden Globes, the Critics’ Choice Awards and the SAG Awards. Adding an Oscar to that bounty seems assured at this point.
Who Should Win: Isabella Rossellini. We have our issues with Conclave, but Rossellini is certainly not one of them — she makes the most of her limited screen time and delivers the dictionary definition of a solid supporting turn. Even if it were to be dubbed a “legacy” win (i.e., cumulatively honoring her whole career rather than just the single performance; see Paul Newman), it would still be well-earned.
Who We’d Like to See Win: Isabella Rossellini. [Curtsies.]
Best Supporting Actor
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Yura Borisov, Anora
Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice
Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
There are some years in which the Best Supporting Actor category is a total and utter toss-up, and each contender for the honor enters the Dolby Theatre with an equal chance of waltzing out with something shiny and new for their mantel. This is not that year. It’s tough to think of a stronger quintet of performances that could have filled out this category, and there are reasons to stump for each nominee. But one person had been dominating the conversation around this section even before the nominations were officially announced, and given the amount of speeches Kieran Culkin has already thrilled awards-show crowds with this season, we hope he’s got one more round of thanks on deck.
Who Will Win: Kieran Culkin. After winning a handful of critics’ groups awards and nabbing a SAG Award, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and a Critics’ Choice Award for his Zen-stoner fuck-up in writer-director Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, this Oscar is basically his to lose.
Who Should Win: Kieran Culkin. If you’ve seen A Real Pain, well — real-heads know.
Who We’d Like to See Win: Again, this is one of the single most impressive Best Supporting Actor lineups in possibly close to a decade — so whoever wins, we all win. But we’re personally torn between Kieran Culkin and Guy Pearce. Both of them did career-best work in their respective films, and both reminded you that some of the most interesting, complicated, subversive, and downright jaw-dropping acting work is done in the periphery of a film rather than center stage. Plus Pearce’s portrayal of a toxic titan of American industry is a stunner.
Best Actress
Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez
Demi Moore, The Substance
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
Fernando Torres, I’m Still Here
Mikey Madison, Anora
There’s a certain trend in the two big acting categories this year: call it “the OGs vs. the up-and-comers.” While both Fernando Torres and Cynthia Erivo have a solid chance of swooping in at the last second and claiming a victory — and we all know what happened with Gascóngate — the race is really between Demi Moore and Mikey Madison. The veteran actor has mounted one hell of an industry comeback thanks to some truly extraordinary work in The Substance, and Hollywood loves a third-act phoenix rising from the ashes. Showbiz also digs rewarding a next-gen star, and given the way that Madison nails every aspect of a tricky tragicomic role, has charmed voters at FYC events, and has been campaigning hard (yet not obnoxiously so), she has an equal chance of winning. There’s just one tiny thing: A certain subset of the Academy has a knee-jerk reaction to horror movies, especially goopy and gory ones. Which means Madison may have a bit of an edge here.
Who Will Win: Mikey Madison. SAG and the Golden Globes may have given this category over to Demi Moore, but Madison is riding in on a wave of goodwill, a BAFTA win, and voters’ love for the sex-worker-with-the-heart-of-gold movie. Plus the way she nails that last scene is [chef’s kiss]. We’re calling it for her.
Who Should Win: Demi Moore. Viva The Substance! Give us Moore!!!
Who We’d Like to See Win: Demi Moore, but also Mikey Madison. Can we have a repeat of the 1968 Oscars, pretty please?
Best Actor
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice
Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
Again, we’ve got another OG vs. up-and-comer faceoff. Both Adrien Brody and Timothée Chalamet generated immediate Oscar buzz once Brady Corbet’s epic The Brutalist and the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown dropped, and each actor has his advocates. While the word “comeback” doesn’t apply to Brody’s meta-narrative with quite the force that it does with Moore in the Best Actress category, his turn as a Hungarian immigrant chasing (and choking on) the American Dream definitely reminded viewers of his intense leading-man bona fides, and he’s been getting his flowers leading up to the Big Show. But there’s also been a lot of support for Chalamet in this category as well; lead roles in music biopics always tend to do well at the Oscars; and while winning the SAG doesn’t always translate to an automatic Academy win (just ask Lily Gladstone), his victory last night hints that he’s serious competition for Brody. This is the one race where it really feels like it could go either way.
Who Will Win: Tied between Timothée Chalamet and Adrien Brody. We’re honestly not sure about this one right now.
Who Should Win: Adrien Brody. Nothing against Timothée Chalamet, who does stellar work (and surprisingly good singing) as Dylan in his prime. But Brody gives a real once-in-a-generation turn here, and manages to bring to mind the great work of the moody 1970s Method actors while distinguishing himself overall. Attention must be paid.
Who We’d Like to See Win: Adrien Brody.
Best Picture
Anora
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
I’m Still Here
Nickel Boys
The Substance
Wicked
Half of these felt like no-brainers in terms of securing nominations, and the other half ran the gamut from “pleasant surprise” to “WTF?” Frankly, it seems ridiculous that Conclave is in this conversation, much less the fact that the BAFTAs and a SAG ensemble win means this could be a possible dark-horse victor; it’s exquisite trash, not a Best Picture winner! We were jazzed to see both Nickel Boys and Dune 2 make the cut, and while the Academy is still largely allergic to horror, the fact that The Substance also secured a slot is progress. We’re also Rudy-clapping Sony Picture Classics for managing to sneak the Brazilian film I’m Still Here into the mix, too. But it’s really down to Anora and The Brutalist at this juncture. And Anora‘s mix of sexed-up screwball and class-conscious drama has been really resonating with folks this season.
What Will Win: Anora.
What Should Win: The Brutalist.
What We’d Like to See Win: The movies themselves. Seriously, take another look at those 10 nominees. The ambition, the variety, the screen talent, the sheer chops on display — it was a very good year. Let this so-called “dying art form” use this lineup as a tailwind for a new Golden Age. We’re overdue for one.
From Rolling Stone US
