With the Venice, Telluride and Toronto film festivals now behind us, films seen and awards given out, we’re in a better place to visualize Oscar predictions than ever. With more knowledge and no just ‘good on paper’ instinct, we can better analyze and see the race taking shape, even new ones.
The Venice Film Festival kicked off first, on August 30, and with it brought the world premiere of Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures) from Yorgos Lanthimos and ended up taking the Golden Lion at the festival’s close on September 9. Before seeing the film myself at Telluride, I thought maybe it was going to be ‘too much’ for the average Academy voter but after its phenomenal response at the mountain fest and its packed screenings in LA for Academy members who ate it up, it’s looking very good for a top tier spot with Lanthimos in tow.
Telluride began just one day after Venice, and while it doesn’t have film awards it does have its Silver Medallion tributes and with the ongoing actors’ strike (Nyad‘s Annette Bening was set for one here) the focus stayed on directors where Wim Wenders (Japan Oscar submission Perfect Days, NEON), Alice Rohrwacher (La Chimera, NEON) and Lanthimos were feted, giving the latter yet another boost.
Toronto has two different sets of awards, their TIFF Tribute Awards, which often signal a major Oscar campaign (last year saw future Oscar winners Brendan Fraser and Michelle Yeoh awarded) and the awards voted on by TIFF audiences and section jury members that close the festival. For the former, again, with the SAG-AFTRA strike raging on, these awards had a slightly different shape to them but also a sneaky one. Only performances (or technical crew) from films produced outside the studio system and AMPTP and/or with interim agreements could be awarded here. This year’s recipients included The Zone of Interest cinematographer Łukasz Źal, producer/director Shawn Levy (All the Light We Cannot See), Patricia Arquette (with her directorial debut feature Gonzo Girl) and Colman Domingo. While Domingo was there for his well-received indie feature Sing Sing (which was picked up by A24), he also had his Netflix biopic Rustin, playing legendary gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who made the 1963 March on Washington happen.
Then came the main awards on Sunday, the juried and People’s Choice Awards. The Platform jury gave their prize to Tarsem’s first film in eight years, Dear Jassi and midnight audiences went mad for Dicks: The Musical and Netflix made the fest’s big buy with Woman of the Hour, actress Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, but the Oscar focus is always on the top three films that place for the TIFF People’s Choice Award and this year 2nd runner-up went to Hiyao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron and first runner-up to Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers (which ironically was bought at last year’s TIFF sales but world premiered at Telluride this season). But the top prize, which holds a distinct and historical advantage for early Oscar visibility went to Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction. While this wasn’t a difficult prediction as a winner, it’s exceptional in the canon of TIFF winners as its the first debut film to win since 2006’s Bella. Every year we always note the Oscar trajectory that this award carries with it as every film since 2008 except one (Nadine Labaki’s Where Do We Go Now? from 2011) has been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and five have won (2008’s Slumdog Millionaire, 2012’s The King’s Speech, 2013’s 12 Years a Slave, 2018’s Green Book and 2020’s Nomadland). Last year, Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans won here and went on to earn seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. However, it also earned the distinction of being the only TIFF People’s Choice Award winner since 2008 (save the Labaki, of course) to win zero Oscars. Undoubtedly, this is a huge boost for the MGM/Orion film and history tells us it should at least place in the top 10 at the Oscars now. But every stat, every streak has a breaking point somewhere along the line. It’s a competitive season but here we are in mid-September and nearly every major contender has been seen with Apple/Sony’s Napoleon and Warner Bros’ The Color Purple being the two biggies that are skipping the festival route; at least as of now, AFI FEST could surprise.
When you add in Cannes and the top two winners there – Anatomy of a Fall (NEON) and The Zone of Interest (A24) – who have played nearly everything and have many more festival appearances to come, and that fight for a top 10 spot (and top 5 in directing) becomes quite a race.
Here are my 2024 Oscar Predictions in Best Director and Best Picture as of September 2023.
Next up: Ben Affleck – Air (Amazon Studios), Wes Anderson – Asteroid City (Focus Features), Hayao Miyazaki – The Boy and the Heron (GKIDS), Michael Mann – Ferrari (NEON), David Fincher – The Killer (Netflix), Todd Haynes – May December (Netflix) (▼), Ridley Scott – Napoleon (Apple Original Films/Sony Pictures), Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi – Nyad (Netflix), Celine Song – Past Lives (A24), Sofia Coppola – Priscilla (A24), Emerald Fennell – Saltburn (Amazon Studios) (▼)
Other contenders or possible 2024 releases:
Without U.S. distribution: Ellen Kuras – Lee (TBD), James Hawes – One Life (TBD)
Next up: Air (Amazon Studios); Asteroid City (Focus Features), The Boy and the Heron (GKIDS), May December (Netflix), Napoleon (Apple Original Films/Sony Pictures), Nyad (Netflix), Past Lives (A24), Priscilla (A24), Rustin (Netflix), Saltburn (Amazon Studios)
Other contenders or possible 2024 releases:
Without U.S. distribution: Lee (TBD), One Life (TBD)
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