Every week between now and January 24, when the Academy Award nominations are announced, Vulture will consult its crystal ball to determine the changing fortunes of this year’s Oscars race. In our “Oscar Futures†column, we’ll share insider gossip, parse brand-new developments, and track industry buzz to figure out who’s up, who’s down, and who’s leading the race for a coveted Oscar nomination.
Best Picture
Tár
The Academy has a bad habit of cloistering female-led acting showcases, as exemplified by last year’s Best Actress race when none of the Oscar five repped a Best Picture nominee. Tár should change that. Todd Field’s orchestral drama is thrillingly contemporary, darkly funny, and built around a magisterial performance from Cate Blanchett as a predatory maestro. “What do you mean, you’ve never heard of Lydia Tár?†asks Anthony Lane. “It’s true that she happens to be a fictional character … but that is a footling detail. This woman is alive.†After receiving hosannas in Venice and Telluride, Tár hits limited release this weekend to glowing reviews, and the film’s delicious skewering of its high-culture milieu (Blanchett wields the words Annenberg Inclusion Initiative like a knife) makes it a safe bet to become the season’s cognoscenti pick.
Amsterdam
David O. Russell’s Depression caper bears the distinction of being fall’s first Oscar hopeful to crash and burn. Even setting aside the director’s many controversies, the vibes are simply off in this star-studded screwball comedy where every actor looks dead behind the eyes. As the movie opens wide, it’s being savaged by critics, with Katie Walsh slamming Russell’s “mind-bogglingly tedious hijinks.†Amsterdam — it’s not Best!
Current Predix
The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Fabelmans, Glass Onion, Tár, Top Gun: Maverick, The Whale, The Woman King, Women Talking
Best Director
Todd Field, Tár
Field’s first two films earned him nods in Adapted Screenplay. After his 16-year break between movies, the comeback could thrust him into the directing category for the first time. Field’s nimble handling of nuance-killing subjects like cancel culture, Me Too, and D&I initiatives has earned plaudits from critics like Justin Chang, who commends him for “rejecting the comforts of moral absolutism and easy outrage.†His austere fable lacks the technical fireworks voters often respond to in this category, but Blanchett may be pyrotechnics enough.
Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness
Is this finally the year Oscar recognizes the Swedish mischief-maker behind Force Majeure and The Square? Östlund’s Palme d’Or–winning class satire went over like gangbusters at the New York Film Festival (though even those who like it may admit it’s 20 minutes too long). The directors’ branch likes to set aside at least one seat for an international auteur, and Östlund, who’s developing a reputation as something of a European Adam McKay, has as good a chance of claiming that spot as any. Neon shepherded Parasite to Oscar glory three years ago, but this one needs to be carefully campaigned: not just by ensuring that voters see Triangle of Sadness in a crowded theater, where its gross-out set pieces play best, but also while mourning the death of actress Charlbi Dean, which demands a respect that’s antithetical the movie’s nihilistic spirit.
Current Predix
Todd Field, Tár; Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin; Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness; Sarah Polley, Women Talking; Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans
Best Actor
Will Smith, Emancipation
Well, well, well, look who decided to join the race. Undaunted by the actor’s ten-year ban from the Oscars ceremony, Apple announced this week that Smith’s Antoine Fuqua–helmed slavery epic, which filmed pre-Slap, would indeed bow at the end of the year. Whether Academy voters will be willing to buy a Will Smith redemption arc is an open question, but the tech giant seems to think it’s best to rip the Band-Aid off.
Adam Driver, White Noise
Pundit consensus has gelled around a putative top five in this race: Butler, Farrell, Fraser, Jackman, and Nighy. A spot is ripe for the picking, and if one of them falters, could Driver take advantage? White Noise played better at NYFF than it did at Venice, and Driver’s Hitler-obsessed academic gets a bravura scene lecturing about Nazism and the death drive. Still, Noah Baumbach’s DeLillo adaptation operates on a very specific wavelength, and I’ve met many viewers who couldn’t get onboard with its heightened tone.
Current Predix
Austin Butler, Elvis; Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin; Brendan Fraser, The Whale; Hugh Jackman, The Son; Bill Nighy, Living
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, Tár
Tár was written specifically for Blanchett, and her imperious performance is already being hyped as a career landmark. As a world-famous conductor who gets caught in a sexual-misconduct scandal, Blanchett is “intense, awful, awe-inspiring, and ridiculous — someone who may very well be great, but who’s also been pickled in her own praise,†says our own Alison Willmore. Can the much-lauded actress take home her third Oscar? I think so. Blanchett belongs to the class of esteemed actors the Academy would deign to bestow a third trophy on, and while the Best Actress field has gotten only more crowded since those initial Tár raves were published, her performance still has all the oomph of a potential front-runner. Making it so will require metronomic precision: Focus must manage the crescendo so Blanchett doesn’t peak too early.
Ana de Armas, Blonde
A million years ago, the role of Marilyn Monroe was supposed to be de Armas’s big awards-season breakout. She throws herself into it body and soul, but a part that looked Oscar-friendly on paper turned out to be anything but. Blonde’s three-hour orgy of trauma makes Spencer look like Being the Ricardos, and the film’s Netflix debut was met with scorn from critics and audiences alike. I don’t want to write de Armas off completely — viewers who respond to transformations will have much to grab onto — but overcoming the bad buzz will require a strong campaign. Netflix may prefer to simply wash its hands of Blonde.
Current Predix
Cate Blanchett, Tár; Olivia Colman, Empire of Light; Viola Davis, The Woman King; Michelle Williams, The Fabelmans; Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Best Supporting Actor
Ben Whishaw, Women Talking
Having caught Sarah Polley’s think-y drama last week, I’m barely closer to figuring out how its large female cast will shake out awardswise. But I was struck by how much real estate Polley affords Whishaw as the man tasked with keeping the minutes of the film’s all-female debate: His quiet support must embody the good side of an entire gender. Although it feels weird to single out the sole man in Women Talking, he’s simply the safest cast member to predict since there’s no hint of category confusion or internal competition.
Woody Harrelson, Triangle of Sadness
As the most familiar face in the Triangle of Sadness cast, Harrelson was pegged as a potential standard-bearer for the eat-the-rich comedy. While he’s very funny as the Marxist captain of a luxury cruise, he’s in less of the movie than you may expect, and when he is, he’s essentially playing Woody Harrelson. If anyone’s going to pop with voters, I suspect it’ll be one of his co-stars, in particular …
Current Predix
Paul Dano, The Fabelmans; Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin; Judd Hirsch, The Fabelmans; Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once; Ben Whishaw, Women Talking
Best Supporting Actress
Dolly de Leon, Triangle of Sadness
The third act of Triangle of Sadness tends to be the most divisive, but it’s also where de Leon, an experienced film actress in the Philippines, takes the movie and makes it her own through a commanding comic turn. With Michelle Williams running in lead, this category is wide open for a new face to break into. And Neon is going for it, getting de Leon out on the festival circuit, where she won the Breakthrough Performance prize at Middleburg.
Nina Hoss, Tár
A star of German stage and screen, Hoss gets her biggest English-language showcase to date as Tár’s long-suffering wife, who says nothing and remembers everything. She’s the anvil to Blanchett’s hammer, but I wonder if Blanchett’s performance, like Lydia Tár herself, is so all-consuming that there’s less oxygen left for her co-stars. On the podium, Tár sports impressive coattails; we’ll see about Blanchett’s.
Current Predix
Jessie Buckley, Women Talking; Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin; Dolly de Leon, Triangle of Sadness; Claire Foy, Women Talking; Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere All at Once