On the cusp of the Venice, Toronto, and Telluride film festivals, awards season is now officially underway. The first wave of awards contenders will be unveiled for those lucky enough to be in attendance, meaning it’s time to launch Filmotomy’s coverage of the 2024/25 season. Welcome back, folks. Let’s look at what’s been seen, what’s to come, and my first Oscars predictions of the season.
As is tradition, we’ll start with the studio that took home Best Picture last year. While Universal Pictures dominated the 2023 season from the get-go with eventual seven-time winner Oppenheimer, they’re unlikely to repeat that success this year. Their only contender will be Jon M. Chu’s lavish musical Wicked, which will be hoping to replicate the success of something like Chicago in 2002. However, given the poor awards season performance of fellow Broadway musical adaptation The Color Purple last year, could the exploits of Elphaba and Glinda be headed for a similar fate? It’ll likely be a strong tech category contender, but whether it breaks into the above-the-line races remains to be seen until it premieres in November.
Their fellow big studio rival Warner Bros. will be back with a vengeance after Barbie could only rustle up one Oscar win last year. After delaying Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two from November 2023 to March 2024 due to the SAG strike, the film will be looking to replicate the huge success (six wins from 10 nominations) of its predecessor. The sequel earned rave reviews and a huge box office result back in March, essentially cementing its place as a major player this season. Similarly, Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux will be hoping to repeat the Oscar love of 2019’s Joker (two wins from 11 nominations). Phillips’ highly anticipated follow-up will debut at the Venice Film Festival where its predecessor took home the prestigious Golden Lion trophy.
Paramount Pictures will also be hoping to repeat the Oscar success of a previous winner with Ridley Scott’s blockbuster sequel Gladiator II. Way back in 2000, Gladiator scored five Oscars including Best Picture and it’s still anyone’s guess if this follow-up can earn similar accolades. The first trailer looks terrific and the ensemble cast is overflowing with sublime talent, particularly Denzel Washington in what could be a scenery-chewing, scene-stealing turn the Academy will eat up. However, the film is shunning festival season and will instead premiere in mid-November. Read into that what you will.
Perennial awards player A24 will be back with a few titles in their arsenal. After a rave response at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, the indie studio snapped up Greg Kwedar’s Sing Sing and then strangely held it back until 2024 where it hit U.S. cinemas in July. It’s an odd release strategy for a potential awards player, but A24’s Past Lives had a similar release date last year and still scored two nods including Best Picture. A24 will also have Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man, which could be a major player in the Best Actor race for Sebastian Stan’s acclaimed performance. And they’ll also have John Crowley’s We Live in Time, which will have its world premiere at TIFF in September. The pedigree is strong with this one, given Crowley’s Brooklyn scored three Oscar nods including Best Picture and it stars two Oscar nominees, Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh.
In news just in, A24 have picked up the rights to Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, starring Daniel Craig and adapted for the screen by Justin Kuritzkes aka the man who wrote Guadagnino’s other 2024 offering, Challengers. The film is set to premiere at Venice and also play at TIFF. We know how much the Academy adored Guadagnino’s last LGBTQ-themed offering, Call Me by Your Name, so let’s see if the same occurs here.
After coming close to spoiling the Oppenheimer party with four-time Oscar winner Poor Things, Searchlight Pictures has three potential players this season. We all thought their focus would be on Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, which Searchlight scored the rights to for a cool $10 million out of Sundance. But then they shocked pundits by announcing James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown will be released in December. This was such a surprise given principal photography only wrapped in June, leading most to presume it would feature in the 2025 Oscars race. It’s always hard to tell how the Academy will respond to a music biopic, but, if nothing else, it should be a contender for Best Actor for Timothée Chalamet. Searchlight will also have Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch, which many will be hoping is the film to finally net Amy Adams a long overdue Oscar. Heller has a knack for earning Oscar nods for her actors (Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant for Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Tom Hanks for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), so we’ll get to assess Adams’ chances when the film debuts at TIFF.
For the fifth year in a row, Neon is distributing the winner of Cannes’ prestigious Palme d’Or. Last year, they took Anatomy of a Fall to five Oscar noms including Best Picture and a win for Best Original Screenplay. Can they do the same for Sean Baker’s Anora? Neon knows how to run a smart campaign and you’d have to think they’ll be giving everything to Baker’s acclaimed love story. They’ll also have Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which scored five awards at Cannes and has been selected as Germany’s submission for Best International Feature. It could be this year’s major international contender to compete in the above-the-line categories.
Beloved Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar is back with his first English-language feature The Room Next Door, starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne More and distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. We know the Academy loves Almodóvar, Swinton, and Moore, so this could be a major contender. The fact it’s debuting at the Venice Film Festival shows SPC are confident. Their parent company Sony Pictures will have Jason Reitman’s SNL biopic Saturday Night, which recently dropped a very impressive trailer. With a big ensemble cast and a fast-paced narrative, it could be this year’s The Big Short…or it could be this year’s Dumb Money.
Focus Features made huge waves last year with The Holdovers and they’ll be looking to do the same with Edward Berger’s Conclave. Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front scored four Oscars in 2022 and likely came in second place for Best Picture to Everything Everywhere All at Once. Anticipation is high for this religion-based thriller, especially given its impressive ensemble cast. Focus will also have Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, but that’s likely to just be a tech category contender.
Then we have our streaming services who have all carved out a permanent place in the Oscars race. Netflix scored the rights to Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez, which picked up the Jury Prize at Cannes and Best Actress for its quartet of actors. Netflix also has the film adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Piano Lesson. The film is produced by Denzel Washington and stars his son, John David and is co-written/directed by his other son, Malcolm. Denzel’s 2016 film adaptation of Wilson’s Fences scored four Oscar nods including Best Picture. Can Malcolm produce a similar result?
In another piece of late-breaking news, Netflix have just acquired the rights to Pablo Larraín’s Maria Callas biopic Maria starring Angelina Jolie ahead of its world premiere at Venice. Given Larraín’s penchant for directing his leading ladies to Oscar nominations (Natalie Portman for Jackie and Kristen Stewart for Spencer), you’d have to presume Jolie will be a big contender and possibly even our early frontrunner.
After going 0 for 10 with Killers of the Flower Moon last year, Apple TV+ will be back in the hunt with Steve McQueen’s Blitz. Set in London during World War II and starring four-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan, this could be the kind of sweeping historical drama the Academy eats up. And it’s a film many will be hoping is Ronan’s chance to finally win an Oscar, pending whether her role is lead or supporting and if she’ll compete against herself for The Outrun where she’s very much the leading performer.
Amazon MGM Studios took American Fiction to five Oscar nominations and a win for Best Adapted Screenplay last year. Their best hope this season seems to be RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys. Produced by Plan B Entertainment (the production company behind Best Picture winners 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight) and based on the true story of the abusive treatment of students at a Florida reform school in the 1960s, it has all the right ingredients to be a major contender.
Finally, there are a few contenders who still oddly are stuck without U.S. distribution. But, given their inclusion at major film festivals, you’d have to assume someone will snap them up fairly soon. After debuting at Cannes, Ali Abbasi’s Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice is caught up in legal issues that have made finding a U.S. distributor a tad tricky. Reportedly, Briarcliff Entertainment are close to finalising a deal, but nothing has been set in stone as yet. If the film can evade Trump’s legal team, Sebastian Stan (already in contention for the aforementioned A Different Man) could be in the unenviable position of competing against himself for a Best Actor nod.
Oscar winner Ron Howard hasn’t really played in the awards race since Frost/Nixon in 2008, so it’s hard to know how his upcoming film Eden will fare. It’s yet to secure distribution, but it’s debuting at TIFF, it’s scored by Hans Zimmer, and it stars previous Oscar nominees Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, and Jude Law, so it’s one to keep an eye on for now.
That wraps up a wider view of the entire race as it stands right now, but there are still months ahead of digging more deeply into each category plus the plethora of incoming precursor awards that generally begin to shape the way the race is playing out. Below are my first predictions for the season in 20 categories and my predicted winners in bold. Let the games begin!
BEST PICTURE
Anora (Neon)
Blitz (Apple TV+)
Conclave (Focus Features)
Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros.)
Emilia Pérez (Netflix)
Nickel Boys (Amazon MGM Studios)
The Piano Lesson (Netflix)
Queer (A24)
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Neon)
Sing Sing (A24)
BEST DIRECTOR
Sean Baker – Anora (Neon)
Edward Berger – Conclave (Focus Features)
Jacques Audiard – Emilia Pérez (Netflix)
Steve McQueen – Blitz (Apple TV+)
Denis Villenueve – Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros.)
BEST ACTRESS
Lady Gaga – Joker: Folie à Deux (Warner Bros.)
Karla Sofía Gascón – Emilia Pérez (Netflix)
Angelina Jolie – Maria (Netflix)
Mikey Madison – Anora (Neon)
Saoirse Ronan – The Outrun (Sony Pictures Classics)
BEST ACTOR
Timothée Chalamet – A Complete Unknown (Searchlight Pictures)
Daniel Craig – Queer (A24)
Colman Domingo – Sing Sing (A24)
Ralph Fiennes – Conclave (Focus Features)
Sebastian Stan – A Different Man (A24)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Danielle Deadwyler – The Piano Lesson (Netflix)
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor – Nickel Boys (Amazon MGM Studios)
Saoirse Ronan – Blitz (Apple TV+)
Zoe Saldaña – Emilia Pérez (Netflix)
Tilda Swinton – The Room Next Door (Sony Pictures Classics)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Kieran Culkin – A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures)
Samuel L. Jackson – The Piano Lesson (Netflix)
Clarence Maclin – Sing Sing (A24)
Stanley Tucci – Conclave (Focus Features)
Denzel Washington – Gladiator II (Paramount Pictures)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Anora – Sean Baker (Neon)
Blitz – Steve McQueen (Apple TV+)
Emilia Pérez – Jacques Audiard (Netflix)
A Real Pain – Jesse Eisenberg (Searchlight Pictures)
Saturday Night – Jason Reitman, Gil Kenan (Sony Pictures)
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Conclave – Peter Straughan (Focus Features)
Nickel Boys – RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes (Amazon MGM Studios)
The Piano Lesson – Virgil Williams, Malcolm Washington (Netflix)
The Room Next Door – Pedro Almodóvar (Sony Pictures Classics)
Sing Sing – Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin, John “Divine G” Whitfield (A24)
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Blitz – Yorick Le Saux (Apple TV+)
Dune: Part Two – Greig Fraser (Warner Bros.)
Gladiator II – John Mathieson (Paramount Pictures)
Maria – Edward Lachmann (Netflix)
Nosferatu – Jarin Blaschke (Focus Features)
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice – Colleen Atwood (Warner Bros.)
Blitz – Jacqueline Durran (Apple TV+)
Dune: Part Two – Jacqueline West (Warner Bros.)
Gladiator II – Janty Yates (Paramount Pictures)
Wicked – Paul Tazewell (Universal Pictures)
BEST FILM EDITING
Anora – Sean Baker (Neon)
Blitz – Peter Sciberras (Apple TV+)
Conclave – Nick Emerson (Focus Features)
Dune: Part Two – Joe Walker (Warner Bros.)
Sing Sing – Parker Laramie (A24)
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Dune: Part Two
Joker: Folie à Deux
Nosferatu
The Substance
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Conclave – Volker Bertelmann (Focus Features)
Dune: Part Two – Hans Zimmer (Warner Bros.)
Gladiator II – Harry Gregson-Williams (Paramount Pictures)
Joker: Folie à Deux – Hildur Guðnadóttir (Warner Bros.)
The Piano Lesson – Alexandre Desplat (Netflix)
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Mi Camino” – Emilia Pérez
TBA – Joker: Folie à Deux
TBA – Moana 2
TBA – Mufasa: The Lion King
TBA – Wicked
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Blitz – Adam Stockhausen, Anna Pinnock (Apple TV+)
Dune: Part Two – Patrice Vermette, Zsuzsanna Sipos (Warner Bros.)
Gladiator II – Arthur Max, Elli Griff (Paramount Pictures)
Joker: Folie à Deux – Mark Friedberg, Karen O’Hara (Warner Bros.)
Wicked – Nathan Crowley (Universal Pictures)
BEST SOUND
Blitz (Apple TV+)
A Complete Unknown (Searchlight Pictures)
Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros.)
Gladiator II (Paramount Pictures)
Wicked (Universal Pictures)
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros.)
Gladiator II (Paramount Pictures)
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Studios)
Mufasa: The Lion King (Walt Disney Pictures)
Wicked (Universal Pictures)
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Flow (Janus Films)
Inside Out 2 (Disney/Pixar)
Memoir of a Snail (IFC Films)
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (Netflix)
The Wild Robot (DreamWorks Animation)
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Black Box Diaries (MTV Documentary Films)
Daughters (Netflix)
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Kino Lorber)
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (Warner Bros.)
Will & Harper (Netflix)
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
All We Imagine is Light (India)
Emilia Pérez (France)
Grand Tour (Portugal)
Kneecap (Ireland)
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Germany)