Welcome to the big race for 2024. With the fall film festival season now in the distance and a few potential contenders still to debut on the horizon, it’s time for our first look at the battle for Best Picture.
Last year was an odd situation for Best Picture where one film (Oppenheimer) emerged as the frontrunner in June before awards season had even truly begun and refused to budge until its victory in March. While entirely deserved, it made for a rather dull season for us prognosticators. Thankfully, that hasn’t occurred again this year and we head into the precursor season without a clear leader for Best Picture.
That’s not to suggest many worthy contenders haven’t emerged during the initial film festival run that begins with Cannes in May and continues in September with Venice, Telluride, and Toronto. All four festivals have given us plenty of premieres of films that very well could be our eventual winner, but nothing has really flown to the front of the pack just yet.
Palme d’Or winner Anora earned an equally positive response at TIFF where it came 3rd runner-up in their coveted People’s Choice award. It’s a film that’s incredibly easy to love and it starting to look like could be a sleeper hit at the box office. From here, it could very easily steamroll on to become an awards darling. There’s a lot of love in the industry for Sean Baker and Mikey Madison’s performance is such a star-making turn that might end up with the young actress finding an Oscar in her hands. For me, it sits in first place at the moment.
After taking the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, Emilia Pérez took out 2nd runner-up at TIFF, but that may have been somewhat skewed by fans of Selena Gomez coming out in force for the people’s vote. The response from the Toronto crowd was far more mixed than it was at Cannes. But the fact France has chosen the film as its submission for Best International Feature gave its overall campaign a great boost.
The one film that somewhat came out of nowhere during the September festivals was Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist. Given the pedigree of its cast, its enormous scope, and its subject matter, this epic was definitely on people’s radar. However, few were expecting reactions that declared it a new American classic and comparable to The Godfather. After A24 snapped up distribution rights after TIFF and locked in a December release date, expect it hear a lot about this film this season.
As for what’s left to see, the first reactions to the very first screening of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II were extremely positive, but let’s wait until a few more eyeballs have seen it. Universal’s potential box office behemoth Wicked grows closer by the day. If it becomes a cultural phenomenon like Barbie last year, it could easily sweep its way to a whole stack of Oscar noms. And we’re still patiently awaiting the debut of James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown with no news of any pre-release screening as yet. The game is well and truly on.
BEST PICTURE PREDICTIONS:
1. Anora (Neon)
2. The Brutalist (A24)
3. Conclave (Focus Features)
4. A Complete Unknown (Searchlight Pictures)
5. Blitz (Apple Original Films)
6. Emilia Pérez (Netflix)
7. Sing Sing (A24)
8. Nickel Boys (Amazon MGM Studios)
9. Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros.)
10. The Wild Robot (Universal Pictures)
IN CONTENTION
Gladiator II (Paramount Pictures)
Nosferatu (Focus Features)
Queer (A24)
A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures)
The Room Next Door (Sony Pictures Classics)
Saturday Night (Sony Pictures)
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (NEON)
September 5 (Paramount Pictures)
The Substance (MUBI)
Wicked (Universal Pictures)