Every week between now and January 23, 2024, when the winners of the Academy Awards are announced, Vulture will consult its crystal ball to determine the changing fortunes in this year’s Oscars race. In our Oscar Futures column, we’ll let you in on insider gossip, parse brand-new developments, and track industry buzz to figure out who’s up, who’s down, and who’s currently leading the race for a coveted Oscar nomination.
Best Picture
Rustin
The Netflix biopic, which starts its brief theatrical run this week, is being celebrated for Colman Domingo’s performance as the openly gay gadfly who organized the March on Washington. (Executive producer Barack Obama gave the real Bayard Rustin a posthumous Medal of Freedom, thus making the film something akin to presidential spon-con.) However, reviews largely agree that the rest of Rustin, while stirring, is a touch too conventional. “Domingo is charismatic and dynamic enough to transcend the limitations of a script that too often passes by as a stream of sharp, quotable quotes and monologues,†says Kyle Turner. This is probably a Best Actor play only.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
Critics are rhapsodizing about Raven Jackson’s directorial debut, which Justin Chang calls “as powerful and uncompromised a work of American art as any to have appeared in a movie theater this year.†A lyrical mosaic following a Black family in Mississippi over the course of four decades, Salt might prove too abstract for the Academy’s taste, but it could go down easy among the more indie-friendly precursors. Jackson, a poet and photographer, may be in line for some Best First Feature attention.
Current Predix
American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Oppenheimer, Past Lives, Poor Things, The Zone of Interest
Best Director
Greta Gerwig, Barbie
Can Barbie pull off the same prestige pivot that Everything Everywhere All at Once managed last year? To do so, the film’s campaign has assembled a roll call of cultural luminaries to join Gerwig on the trail — Alfonso Cuarón, Todd Field, and now Tony Kushner, who appeared alongside her and Noah Baumbach at BAM on Thursday. (Kushner called the movie “a very important work of political art.â€) This race will be a bellwether: If Gerwig can crack a directing category full of somber auteurs, we’ll know voters have come around to the idea of Barbie as Serious Cinema.
George C. Wolfe, Rustin
Unlike the stage veteran’s last film, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Rustin is not based on a play. And yet, there’s still a touch of the theatrical to the biopic, which plays out mostly in conference rooms. So does Oppenheimer, sure, but while Wolfe keeps things moving at an entertaining clip, the lack of directorial fireworks will likely hold him back.
Current Predix
Greta Gerwig, Barbie; Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things; Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer; Alexander Payne, The Holdovers; Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Best Actor
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Rustin feels like a machine built for a single purpose: getting Colman Domingo an Oscar nomination. It’s a rare lead role for the prized character actor, and he makes a meal of every scene. “Domingo is debonair, frisky, droll, passionate and utterly captivating,†says Mark Kennedy. In a field that’s less deep than you might think, Domingo is firmly in the mix for a nod, though he could be the only guy in the top seven not repping a Best Picture contender.
Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Not only is Cooper forbidden from promoting his Leonard Bernstein biopic during the SAG strike, he can’t even send his director out to sing his praises for him — because they’re the same person! Undaunted, the star has turned in a master class in campaigning without campaigning, getting regularly papped with both his new love interest and his old one, and having his famous friends tell nice stories about him in interviews. He’s playing the tabloids like an orchestra.
Current Predix
Bradley Cooper, Maestro; Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon; Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers; Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer; Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction
Best Actress
Emily Blunt, Pain Hustlers
This wannabe Wolf of Wall Street was the less-regarded ripped-from-the-headlines dramedy at TIFF, and now that it’s streaming on Netflix, critics like Jocelyn Noveck are calling it “slick and breezy and too clever for its own good.†Blunt makes a capable lead, but the film is so determined to keep her sympathetic that it sands down her edge. Her part in Oppenheimer, thankless though it may be, remains her best shot at her first Oscar nom.
Jessie Buckley, Fingernails
“Two great actors can’t make Fingernails’ romance believable,†says our own Alison Willmore of this Black Mirror–esque tale, which pairs Buckley with Riz Ahmed in a world where chemistry can be scientifically tested. “It may be a story about the unknowability of love, but its pulse never races — it doesn’t pick up at all.â€
Current Predix
Annette Bening, Nyad; Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon; Carey Mulligan, Maestro; Margot Robbie, Barbie; Emma Stone, Poor Things
Best Supporting Actor
Jeffrey Wright, Rustin
I couldn’t help but laugh when Wright popped up as a delectably lacquered Adam Clayton Powell in Rustin: He’s in this, too? This part’s too small for Oscar recognition, but the display of range can only boost Wright’s Best Actor bid for American Fiction.
Peter Sarsgaard, Memory
Sarsgaard’s turn as a lovelorn dementia patient was a surprise Best Actor winner at Venice. Now he’s officially entered the Oscars race: Memory got picked up by a distributor called Ketchup, which outbid Kraft Foods’ indie shingle Seemingly Ranch. This low-key performance will be a test of the little company’s ability to run an Oscar campaign — can they cut the mustard?
Current Predix
Willem Dafoe, Poor Things; Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon; Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer; Ryan Gosling, Barbie; Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things
Best Supporting Actress
America Ferrera, Barbie
Warner Bros.’ “for your consideration†page lists six women in Supporting Actress. Of the film’s sprawling cast of femmes, I’ve heard Ferrera’s the one who’ll get the big push in this category. If this race were decided solely on the basis on best Oscar clip, she’d be a shoo-in, but as it is, Ferrera’s candidacy has some coattail possibility.
Audra McDonald, Rustin
Rustin’s cast is stacked with venerable performers in small roles. (Thanks, Obama.) As Ella Baker, the Tony winner doesn’t have a huge amount to do. If you’re looking for Audra McDonald to shine in a tiny part, you’re better off waiting for Ava DuVernay’s Origin, which at least gives her a poignant monologue.
Current Predix
Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer; Jodie Foster, Nyad; Julianne Moore, May December; Rosamund Pike, Saltburn; Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
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