Frontrunner Friday Oscar Predictions: We Need to Talk About ‘Marty’

It wouldn’t be a proper Oscar season without an old controversy made new, would it?

Earlier this week, the inaugural issue of the California Post dropped a bombshell about sexual impropriety on the set of the Safdie Brothers’ 2017 film Good Time, starring Robert Pattinson. The article, written by Variety’s Tatiana Siegel, opens the door wide on what was a previously known, but to an unclear and marginalized degree, of a 17-year old girl who was cast as a prostitute then subjected to intimacy coordinator-free nudity and sexual content via a convicted criminal who exposed himself to her asking if he could “stick it in,” all while under Josh Safdie’s purview and brother Benny on the sidelines. Rumors had swirled for a few years that this, and Josh’s seemingly right-wing leanings, may have led to the brothers’ split in 2023 with The Hollywood Reporter vaguely suggesting that it was Benny himself that could have fed details for the updated version of what happened on that set.

Both brothers came into 2025 with dueling A24 films, each with a hefty price tag of between $50-$70M, two huge gambles for a studio that’s never had a film gross $100M domestically (yet). One came out of Oscar nomination morning with one brother nabbing four of nine for their film (Marty Supreme) and the other with zero (the lone nod for The Smashing Machine was in makeup). Marty is also closing in on that magic box office number while Smashing stalled at an anemic $11.4M. The idea of the media curating a Cain and Abel-level brotherly rivalry is about as old school Oscar campaign mudslinging as it gets. Truly, in the Weinstein era, the politics of awards campaigning reached the most toxic of levels.

But wait, there’s more. We (also) need to talk about Kevin. Continuing the theme of casting non-actors in roles, the casting of Shark Tank‘s Kevin O’Leary had ruffled feathers from the beginning. But, people saw the film and his casting as soulless ghoul was spot on and his performance was even lauded. A notoriously right-wing bigot, O’Leary recently appeared with Donald Trump (and Nicki Minaj, el oh el) for the president’s latest swindle, Trump Accounts, and on CNN defending ICE. So much for awards media training.

But how impactful, if at all, will it be for A24’s Marty Supreme and more so, Timothée Chalamet’s chances in Best Actor? The Oscar hopeful and his director were recently at a Q&A moderated by Jimmy Fallon, whose soft ball style with celebrities would never open that door to. But how long can Safdie and Chalamet go this season without it being addressed? To be clear, contextualizing what happened on the set of Good Time and events since with a current awards race is by no means an effort to diminish her experience. But we’ve seen plenty of actions that don’t suffer consequences (like Casey Affleck) and then others that seemingly do (Russell Crowe throwing a phone was apparently too much for some voters), how and when do voters choose to acknowledge or ignore information, even if timing reads as calculated? After all, this isn’t simply a Twitter bubble story, it’s industry news. As Chalamet, by most estimations, is both the Best Actor frontrunner and his film’s only likely win, this could jeopardize his momentum. Right now, I don’t really think it will. We won’t really know for nearly a month–if this story has enough oxygen to last that long–whether or not it has, with BAFTA not until February 22 and SAG until March 1. That’s a long stretch for any story to be sustained but then, if it does, and we see more articles from top tier industry outlets about it, what’s their goal? To bring Safdie to some kind of karmic justice? Doubtful. To keep energy (and clicks) in an Oscar race with several potential spoilers? Much more likely. Hollywood is a business at the end of the day, as cruelly cynical as that sounds, and everyone just wants to dream big.

Here are my Frontrunner Friday Oscar predictions for January 30.

BEST PICTURE

DIRECTING

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

CASTING

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)

FILM EDITING

CINEMATOGRAPHY

COSTUME DESIGN

PRODUCTION DESIGN

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)

SOUND

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

VISUAL EFFECTS

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

ANIMATED SHORT FILM

DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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.

Latest posts by Erik Anderson (see all)

• Frontrunner Friday Oscar Predictions: We Need to Talk About ‘Marty’ - January 30, 2026
• 2026 Sundance Film Festival: ‘Josephine’ Wins Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award - January 30, 2026
• Midnight Critics Circle (MCC) Awards: ‘Marty Supreme’ Wins Best Picture - January 28, 2026