2024 SAG Awards and PGA Awards Film Predictions: How Far Can ‘Oppenheimer’ Go?
While it’s a foregone conclusion (or is it?) that Oppenheimer should be able to sail to an easy win at this weekend’s Producers Guild of America (PGA) awards, the race at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) could be much more open.
If there is a possible spoiler for Oppenheimer at PGA it probably wouldn’t be box office behemoth Barbie, it would come from American Fiction or The Holdovers. But, unlike previous years where PGA turned the tides for a frontrunner, neither of those films seems to have the specific backing needed and more so, there’s no backlash to Oppenheimer to create the need for another option.
Over at the SAG Awards we’ve got two locked in categories (Robert Downey Jr. and Da’Vine Joy Randolph are unstoppable) and three surprisingly open ones in the lead and main cast category. There’s also stunt ensemble, which could go several ways.
Right at the top, like PGA, Oppenheimer seems like it could just blow through here but it’s not quite as diverse and representative as the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture winner tends to be. It’s not always a direct conduit to the Best Picture Oscar winner – in fact we’re at 15 out of 28 right now – but you have to at least be nominated in the recent era, leaving out The Color Purple here. One thing we hem and haw about every year is the actual lineup of actors who receive the nominations in this category as SAG rules strictly stipulate that a title card placement in a film’s credits overrides anything else, be it screen time or impact. Brendan Fraser, who has but a few scenes in Killers of the Flower Moon, is nominated yet the entirety of the Osage cast that aren’t Lily Gladstone or Tantoo Cardinal are not (even John Lithgow is in). The majority of the Kens and Barbies, like Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, Alexandra Shipp and Emma Mackey, are not here. Same goes for Oppenheimer, in a huge way, with a large swath of the cast not represented (like Jason Clarke, David Krumholtz and Alden Ehrenreich). On the flip side, both American Fiction and The Color Purple have their full casts nominated. Will that mean something to voters? Do they know or even care about the actual cast names or are they voting for the film and assuming it’s for the whole cast? It’s a tough call here, as Barbie, Oppenheimer and American Fiction all seem like viable winners.
The lead categories are truly contested though and at least for one will be a last stand. Arguably, Male Actor in a Leading Role is between Golden Globe and BAFTA winner Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer) and Golden Globe and Critics Choice winner Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers). Murphy’s BAFTA win was historic as he became, and overcame one of the industry’s wildest biases, the first Irish actor to win Best Actor there. Giamatti’s wins have been from journalists and not industry but he is a SAG favorite as an 8-time nominee and a 4-time winner, two for film. But does that actually lessen his chances if the 120,000 SAG-AFTRA voters feel like giving Murphy his first? I’m leaning Giamatti but this is a very close race, especially with The Holdovers missing the top category.
For Female Actor in a Leading Role the stakes couldn’t be higher for Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon). She comes in with a Golden Globe win but not against her highest competition, Emma Stone (Poor Things). Gladstone lost Critics Choice to Stone and wasn’t even nominated at BAFTA, where Stone triumphed. Gladstone needs this to stay in the running for the Oscar and both actresses have been campaigning their asses off over the last few weeks but, like lead actor, this is a close race, and also like lead actor, has one contender missing out on a SAG cast nomination. Is there room for a really big spoiler here, and if so, who would it be? Oscar nominees Annette Bening (Nyad) and Carey Mulligan (Maestro) feel like 3rd and 4th and Margot Robbie (Barbie) was an Oscar snub in favor of Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall). SAG isn’t one to give make up awards for Oscar snubs here, in fact they never have.
SAG has been giving a stunt ensemble prize since 2007, a category the Oscars have to yet properly consider (they recently announced a new Best Casting category, which will take effect in two years) but there’s often one film franchise that gets mentioned the most when people ask, well demand, the Academy institute a stunt category: John Wick. Surprisingly enough, the fourth in the series is the first to be nominated here. The Mission: Impossible series has three nods and no wins to date and Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick was last year’s champ. Marvel has 11 nominations and two wins here. But, like the SAG Cast category, will voters vote for Tom Cruise or Keanu Reeves or for the films themselves? Then there’s the Barbie of it all; an inspired nomination here but is the comic battle of the Kens enough to beat out the work in more traditionally stunt-oriented films? History says no, there’s no comparable winner for something like Barbie.
The SAG Awards, produced by SAG-AFTRA and Silent House Productions, will stream live globally on Netflix Saturday, February 24 at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT from the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall. The 35th Annual Producers Guild Awards will take place at the Ray Dolby Ballroom in Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, February 25.
Here are my predictions for the 30th Screen Actors Guild Awards and the 35th Producers Guild of America Awards.
30th Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards predictions
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Predicted winner: Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures)
Possible spoiler: American Fiction (Amazon MGM)
Other nominees: Barbie (Warner Bros), The Color Purple (Warner Bros), Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Predicted winner: Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers (Focus Features)
Possible spoiler: Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures)
Other nominees: Bradley Cooper – Maestro (Netflix), Colman Domingo – Rustin (Netflix), Jeffrey Wright (Amazon MGM)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Predicted winner: Emma Stone – Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures)
Possible spoiler: Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films)
Other nominees: Annette Bening – Nyad (Netflix), Carey Mulligan – Maestro (Netflix), Margot Robbie – Barbie (Warner Bros)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
Predicted winner: Robert Downey, Jr. – Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures)
Possible spoiler: Ryan Gosling – Barbie (Warner Bros)
Other nominees: Sterling K. Brown – American Fiction (Amazon MGM), Willem Dafoe – Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures), Robert De Niro – Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
Predicted winner: Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers (Focus Features)
Possible spoiler: Jodie Foster – Nyad (Netflix)
Other nominees: Emily Blunt – Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures), Danielle Brooks – The Color Purple (Warner Bros), Penélope Cruz – Ferrari (NEON)
Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture
Predicted winner: John Wick: Chapter 4 (Lionsgate)
Possible spoiler: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (Paramount Pictures)
Other nominees: Barbie (Warner Bros), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Walt Disney/Marvel Studios), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Walt Disney)
35th Producers Guild of America (PGA) predictions
Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures
Predicted winner: Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures)
Possible spoiler: American Fiction (Amazon MGM)
Other nominees: Anatomy of a Fall (NEON), Barbie (Warner Bros), The Holdovers (Focus Features), Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films), Maestro (Netflix), Past Lives (A24), Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures), The Zone of Interest (A24)
Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures
Predicted winner: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures)
Possible spoiler: The Boy and the Heron (GKIDS)
Other nominees: Elemental (Walt Disney/Pixar), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Universal Pictures/Illumination), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Paramount Pictures)
Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Pictures
Predicted winner: 20 Days in Mariupol (Frontline PBS)
Possible spoiler: American Symphony (Netflix)
Other nominees: Beyond Utopia (Roadside Attractions), The Disappearance of Shere Hite (IFC Films), The Mother of All Lies, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (Greenwich Entertainment), Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) (Utopia)
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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