This is the latest edition of the Movies Fantasy League newsletter. The drafting window for this season has closed, but you can still sign up to get the newsletter, which provides a weekly recap of box-office performance, awards nominations, and critical chatter on all the buzziest movies.
Indie-film owners, rejoice (for now): In the past week, the New York Film Critics Circle, National Board of Review, and Film Independent Spirit Awards have weighed in on the best movies of the year, and with that trio, some awards-points trends are coming into focus. Movies such as May December, Past Lives, and Passages have joined the illustrious company of Taylor Swift and Five Nights at Freddy’s at the top of the MFL.
Don’t necessarily expect them to stay there forever, since these early awards have been skewed toward indie fare. The fates of potential awards-season steamrollers such as Barbie and Oppenheimer — and other more mainstream awards bait like The Color Purple and Maestro — will be clearer after next week’s Golden Globe nominations. Read on for a roundup of all this week’s awards, plus a box-office update that unfortunately doesn’t include much Beyoncé.
Box Office: Everybody on Mute
Beyoncé made the announcement for the Renaissance movie three days after rosters locked for the 2023–24 Fantasy League, which is why this box-office update is a little muted: Since Bey’s film won the week, no one gets the bonus. Second-place finisher The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes did cross the $100 million threshold, though, bringing it to $120 million through three weeks. With the bonus points it gets for achieving that milestone, the cinematic return to Panem sits at 220 points, good enough for the third high-scoring film in the league so far after The Eras Tour and Five Nights at Freddy’s.
Trolls Band Together currently sits in the no-man’s-land of $75 million total, a long way from its own $100 million bonus. The Marvels, legendary flop that it is, sits closer at $80 million; it’ll be interesting to see if Marvel leaves it in theaters long enough to grind out $100 million just to save face.
Wish and Napoleon flipped places in the weekend, with Wish about a half a million ahead from last Friday to Sunday. But Napoleon remains the more lucrative overall, with $45 million cumulative to Wish’s $42. In terms of less blockbuster-y movies, Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving continues to overperform at $28 million (congrats again to anyone who drafted this movie for a dollar), while Priscilla moves north of $20 million and The Holdovers hits $15 million, both solid successes in today’s indie-film market.
Awards, Part 1: Flower Moon Over Manhattan
The word out of Lincoln Center was good news for Martin Scorsese: For the second time in five years, the legendary director was awarded Best Film by the New York Film Critics Circle. Killers of the Flower Moon took two prizes from the NYFCC: Best Film and Best Lead Actress for Lily Gladstone, an award that places her right at the top of this year’s race for Best Actress. The last time a Scorsese movie was the toast of the NYFCC, The Irishman went on to receive ten Oscar nominations and zero wins. We’ll see what fate has in store for Killers.
The New York Critics were also all in on Oppenheimer, giving Christopher Nolan their Best Director prize, as well as a Best Cinematography prize to Hoyte van Hoytema. May December was the other movie to win two prizes, a Screenplay award for Samy Burch and Best Supporting Actor for Charles Melton, who thus far has two prizes (NYFCC and Gotham) and one Indie Spirit nomination.
Awards, Part 2: Independents’ Day
Last year, the first points earned by eventual Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once came with the nominations for the Independent Spirit Awards. That’s a good omen for a handful of films, including May December, which picked up five nominations: Melton and Burch, plus Natalie Portman in Lead Performance, Todd Haynes in Best Director, and the film itself for Best Feature.
Tied with May December for most nominations were two other films: Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction and Celine Song’s Past Lives. Jeffrey Wright’s leading nomination was expected for American Fiction, but the supporting nods for Erika Alexander and Sterling K. Brown were pleasant surprises. Similarly, Teo Yoo was recognized alongside Past Lives co-star Greta Lee.
The nominations for Past Lives gave the film a 75-point boost; combined with the 25 points it got from NBR, it’s at 175 points. That’s already the fifth-highest total for any film and only 100 or so points behind the box-office behemoths at the top of the charts.
Other strong showings at the Spirits included 60 MFL points for Ira Sachs’s Passages, which was nominated for Best Feature and Best Director; Ben Whishaw was norminated for Supporting and Franz Rogowski for Lead. Rogowski had already been the surprise Best Actor winner at NYFCC, which moves him from a far-outside shot in the Oscar race to merely a regular outside shot.
A Thousand and One continues to pick up indie prizes and nominations; its two Spirits nominations earn it 20 points. The Holdovers was nominated for four awards (including one for Da’Vine Joy Randolph following her NYFCC win for Best Supporting Actress), but strangely not for star Paul Giamatti. And the Sundance hit Eileen made its first splash of the season, earning 45 points off of three nominations: Best Director for William Oldroyd and Supporting Performance nods for Anne Hathaway and Marin Ireland.
Awards, Part 3: Be Italian
It’s not that the National Board of Review exclusively rewarded artists of Italian nationality or descent with its awards announcement on Wednesday. It was just a really good day to be named Scorsese, Giamatti, Ferrari, Ruffalo, Rohrwacher, or someone called “Maestro.†Killers of the Flower Moon once again topped the Best Films list, and this time Martin Scorsese got the corresponding Best Director trophy, along with Lily Gladstone picking up more Best Actress hardware. Add on a Best Cinematography recognition for Rodrigo Prieto (split between his work on Scorsese’s film and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie), and you’ve got 50 more points for Killers. With 181 points so far this season, KOTFM ranks fourth overall and first among movies that are expected to be big Oscar players. That’s an edge that Killers drafters will be happy to carry into the rest of the season.
Close behind Killers was The Holdovers, which pulled in four awards (Lead Actor for Paul Giamatti, Supporting Actress for Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Screenplay for David Hemingson, plus a spot on the top ten films of the year) for 45 points. That puts the film at 135 points for the season, tied with May December, which after strong showings with the NYFCC and Indie Spirits came up empty with the NBR. So it goes with the shifting tides of precursor season.
Poor Things finally made its presence felt in the precursors, as Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest placed in the top ten and won awards for Supporting Actor (Mark Ruffalo, whose hilarious performance probably needed this boost in attention) and Adapted Screenplay for Tony McNamara.
All in all, 25 MFL-eligible films won some award or other at the NBR, so points were plentiful. It’s worth noting that The Iron Claw (+25 points for Best Ensemble and a spot on the top ten list) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (+10 for Best Animated Feature) also picked up their first points.
Leaderboard
Despite the flurry of points this week, our top two remain the same: Cruz Control keeps their hold on first place, extending their lead to more than 80 points ahead of second-place tj23. Their picks of Killers of the Flower Moon are helping ease the transition from box-office season into awards season. But as you peruse your way down the rest of the top ten and beyond, you’ll start to see a lot more rosters with movies like Poor Things, The Holdovers, Past Lives, and American Fiction on them.
We did get a change at the top of the standings in the Podcasters League, with Andrew Jupin from We Hate Movies overtaking first place, thanks to a roster that boasts Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers, and May December, all of which just got a boatload of points.
You can see the full leaderboard here on the main MFL landing page.
Looking Ahead
The decks remain clear this weekend for Renaissance among wide releases, but we will see our first receipts in limited release for Poor Things and The Boy and the Heron. Then next week, we all get Wonka’d.
Meanwhile, here’s the rest of the awards calendar through December:
âž¼ Sunday, December 10: Los Angeles Film Critics Association winners announced
âž¼ Monday, December 11: Golden Globe Awards nominees announced
âž¼ Thursday, December 14: Critics Choice Awards nominations announced
âž¼ Thursday, December 21: Oscars shortlists announced
You can check out our landing page for the full schedule of awards announcements.