So You Want to Win the Movies Fantasy League?

Oppenheimer ($50)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Christopher Nolan
Stars: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr.
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: As of now, this is your Best Picture front-runner. It should contend in acting and crafts categories.
Pedigree: Nolan’s had two films nominated for Best Picture (Inception and Dunkirk), one Best Director nomination, and two Screenplay nods. Robert Downey Jr. has been nominated twice, though not since 2008.

Killers of the Flower Moon ($35)

Director: Martin Scorsese
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons
Film festivals: Cannes
Release date: October 6
Box-office potential: Apple is giving the film a true theatrical release, and while Scorsese hasn’t had a proper hit since The Wolf of Wall Street a decade ago, that’s also the last time he partnered with DiCaprio.
Awards potential: It’s the rare Scorsese movie that doesn’t show up big throughout awards season, and just from the tone of the trailer, this one feels grabbier than Silence and is opening at a better time of year than Shutter Island. Nominations are possible in both acting (DiCaprio and Gladstone especially) and craft categories.
Pedigree: The film’s Cannes premiere was met by positive, if sometimes mutedly so, reviews, but Cannes reactions should always be taken with a grain of salt.

Barbie ($25)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Greta Gerwig
Stars: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: The time to stop doubting Barbie’s potential has long since passed. Oppenheimer may be the front-runner, but Barbie’s success is one of the best movie industry stories in years; expect awards voters to react accordingly across all categories (in particular: Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actor, Production Design, Original Song).
Pedigree: Greta Gerwig’s two previous films have been Best Picture nominees. Robbie and Gosling have two previous Oscar nominations apiece. Billie Eilish could be targeting back-to-back wins in Original Song.

The Holdovers ($25)

Director: Alexander Payne
Stars: Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa
Film festivals: Toronto, Telluride
Release date: October 27
Box-office potential: It’s being pitched as a crowd-pleaser, but box office will likely depend on a run deep into awards season.
Awards potential: This has been a buzzy title ever since it screened for buyers only at Toronto in 2022. Giamatti and Randolph could end up in the acting races, and Picture/Director/Screenplay are on the table too.
Pedigree: Up until he made Downsizing, Alexander Payne had been automatic at the Oscars (Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, The Descendants, and Nebraska all got Oscar nominations, including Best Picture nods for the latter three).

Maestro ($25)

Director: Bradley Cooper
Stars: Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan
Film festivals: Venice, New York
Release date: November 22
Box-office potential: It’s a Netflix release, so expect a modest theatrical run followed by a quick pivot to streaming.
Awards potential: Cooper’s A Star Is Born was a major Oscar player, and biopics like this one are the Oscars’ preferred genre.
Pedigree: Cooper’s been nominated eight times across four categories, but he’s never won. Mulligan’s a two-time nominee herself in the Oscar-friendly role as Bernstein’s wife.

Napoleon ($25)

Director: Ridley Scott
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby
Release date: November 22
Box-office potential: Of Scott’s last two films, The Last Duel underperformed and House of Gucci made most of its money outside of the U.S. But this is being sold as a big ol’ war epic, which could give it multiplex appeal. Just don’t expect a Gladiator-size hit.
Awards potential: 2019 Best Actor champ Joaquin Phoenix playing one of history’s most notorious conquerors feels as awards-bait-y as a role can get. The film’s focus on Napoleon’s marriage to Josephine could give Kirby some heat. And the battle scenes could translate into Sound/Editing/Production Design nominations.
Pedigree: While he’s got more misses than hits with the Oscars, the Academy tends to hop on the Ridley train once or twice a decade. His last big Oscar movie was 2015’s The Martian, so he might be due. Meanwhile, the Academy declined to recognize Joaquin Phoenix’s quiet Best Actor follow-up C’mon C’mon, but this more bombastic piece might be more up their alley.

The Color Purple ($20)

Director: Blitz Bazawule
Stars: Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks, Taraji P. Henson, Colman Domingo
Release date: December 25
Box-office potential: Normally, an adaptation of a popular Broadway show, based on a popular film, based on a popular work of literature would point toward success, but the box-office failures of recent musicals like West Side Story and In the Heights don’t bode super-well.
Awards potential: If it’s good (and it hasn’t screened anywhere yet, so who knows?), musicals tend to do well across the board in both acting and crafts categories.
Pedigree: Bazawule’s biggest film work has been on Beyoncé’s Black Is King; Fantasia won American Idol’s third season; Danielle Brooks is playing the role that earned her a Tony nom.

The Marvels ($20)

Director: Nia DaCosta
Stars: Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani
Release date: November 10
Box-office potential: How rapidly are the box-office fortunes of superhero movies slipping? The Marvel films are definitely holding up better than DC films like The Flash and Shazam, but the difference between Guardians 3 money ($358 million domestic) and Quantumania money ($214 million domestic) could be the difference in whether or not The Marvels is worth a purchase.
Awards potential: Unless this is a shockingly huge and well-reviewed film, you’re looking at Visual Effects and Sound awards at best.
Pedigree: DaCosta directed the Candyman remake in 2021.

Past Lives ($20)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Celine Song
Stars: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro
Film festivals: Sundance
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: If you’re of the mind that every Oscar year needs an indie darling, this is your best bet so far.
Pedigree: The film got bonkers great reviews when it premiered at Sundance, and a $10 million box-office haul from its June release is solid for an indie. Greta Lee is a breakout nomination waiting to happen, and John Magaro is inching closer to “overdue for a nomination� territory.

Anatomy of a Fall ($15)

âž¼ International feature possibility

Director: Justine Triet
Stars: Sandra Hüller
Film festivals: Cannes, Telluride, Toronto, New York
Release date: October 13
Box-office potential: Neon is handling the American release, though it’s unlikely this will hit the major thresholds for fantasy-league points.
Awards potential: Triet’s legal thriller won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year and could end up being one of the best-reviewed films of the year. In addition to contending in Best Picture and Best Director, star Sandra Hüller could be a major player in Best Actress, and if France selects it as their official submission for Best International Feature, it would be a strong contender there.
Pedigree: The Palme winner has gone on to an Oscar nomination for Best Picture two of the last three years (with Parasite winning in 2020).

The Iron Claw ($15)

Director: Sean Durkin
Stars: Zac Efron, Harris Dickinson, Jeremy Allen White, Lily James
Release date: December 22
Box-office potential: In the old days (i.e. pre-COVID), the Christmastime box office was a tide that tended to lift all boats. That may not be the case anymore, but A24 seems confident there’s an audience for this biopic of pro wrestling’s cursed Von Erich family, even in the crowded holiday season.
Awards potential: This kind of tragic true-life story could be the stuff of performance awards, it’s just a question of which members of the ensemble will stand out. Early buzz is on Efron and Dickinson.
Pedigree: Durkin’s previous films like Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Nest have been incredibly well reviewed but curiously absent come awards season. A24 looks like they’re setting this up for an aggressive awards pitch, though, so maybe this is Durkin’s breakthrough.

May December ($15)

Director: Todd Haynes
Stars: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton
Film festivals: Cannes, New York
Release date: November 17
Box-office potential: The film, about an actress who is researching her role as the real-life subject of a tabloid scandal, is set to receive a two-week theatrical run before dropping on Netflix, so not much.
Awards potential: The film’s positive reception at Cannes preceded Netflix picking it up for an awards-season run, so expect a campaign for the three main actors, plus Haynes in Director and Screenplay.
Pedigree: Portman and Moore are both already Oscar winners, and Haynes’s Carol was nominated for six Oscars in 2015.

Next Goal Wins ($15)

Director: Taika Waititi
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Elisabeth Moss
Film festivals: Toronto
Release date: November 17
Box-office potential: When he’s not playing Magneto, Michael Fassbender has never been much of a draw. But if this gains crowd-pleaser word-of-mouth … maybe.
Awards potential: It’s tough to tell if this is a cursed project or a formerly cursed project with a handy comeback narrative. This movie filmed four years ago and then sat on a shelf through COVID, had reshoots to replace Armie Hammer with Will Arnett, and underwent Searchlight’s release-date tinkering. Could be a contender in Screenplay or Actor, and if things go very well when it debuts in Toronto, a Best Picture nomination.
Pedigree: Waititi won an Oscar in 2019 for writing Jojo Rabbit.

Saltburn ($15)

Director: Emerald Fennell
Stars: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi
Film festivals: Telluride, London
Release date: November 24
Box-office potential: The plan seems to be for Amazon and MGM to go for a theatrical run here, though the expectations shouldn’t be too high.
Awards potential: Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to Promising Young Woman is going to draw a lot of attention, and if it’s good, it could contend in all the areas that film did: Picture, Director, Screenplay, Acting. It’s also a return to Fennell’s native England, which the BAFTAs will perhaps appreciate.
Pedigree: Keoghan is coming off of his first Oscar nomination last year for The Banshees of Inisherin, while Elordi will be doing double duty this fall with this movie and Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, in which he’ll be playing Elvis Presley.

Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse ($15)

âž¼ Animated feature
➼ Box office ineligible

Directors: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
Stars: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Oscar Isaac
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: It’s been the biggest superhero movie of 2023, both in terms of box-office and critical appeal. At the very least it will be a major contender in the Animated Feature category.
Pedigree: Into the Spider-Verse took the Animated Feature Oscar in 2018.

Wish ($15)

âž¼ Animated feature

Directors: Chris Buck, Fawn Veerasunthorn
Stars: Ariana DeBose, Chris Pine
Release date: November 22
Box-office potential: Disney Animation hasn’t yet recovered from the pandemic, but the hope is that families haven’t been so fully trained to just sit out a theatrical release and wait for Disney+.
Awards potential: Unless it’s another bomb like Strange World, Wish will be among the top contenders in Best Animated Feature. It should also be one of the major hopefuls in Best Original Song for one of the songs Julia Michaels has written for the film.
Pedigree: Buck was a co-director on both Frozen films, along with Jennifer Lee, who co-wrote the Wish script, which is probably why the Wish trailer has such strong Frozen vibes.

Wonka ($15)

Director: Paul King
Stars: Timothée Chalamet, Hugh Grant, Sally Hawkins
Release date: December 15
Box-office potential: There is a high ceiling and a low floor to this one. King’s Paddington movies were well received but made much more money overseas. Wonka is getting a much bigger release, though, including large-format Dolby and IMAX screenings. That said, if there’s one major flop this winter, would you be that surprised if this is it?
Awards potential: A film like this feels like it was made to contend for production-design, costume, makeup, and visual-effects awards. Also a Golden Globe nomination for Chalamet feels like the most Golden Globes–y thing that could happen.
Pedigree: People really love those Paddington movies, which at this point is the one thing people are holding onto after a pretty cringey trailer.

The Zone of Interest ($15)

âž¼ International feature possibility

Director: Jonathan Glazer
Stars: Sandra Hüller, Christian Friedel
Film festivals: Cannes, Telluride, Toronto, New York
Release date: December 8
Box-office potential: Jonathan Glazer’s English-language movies don’t usually make much money, so don’t expect much more when the film’s in German.
Awards potential: This was one of the splashier titles at Cannes this year, which bodes well. Hüller could already be a Best Actress contender for Anatomy of a Fall, but certain critics groups may honor her for both films.
Pedigree: Glazer tends to be a critics’ darling even as his films (Birth, Under the Skin) can feel daunting for more widespread appeal. This should show up during awards season — the question is which groups will gravitate toward it.

Air ($10)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Ben Affleck
Stars: Matt Damon, Viola Davis, Ben Affleck
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: Did you know Air — Affleck’s contribution to 2023’s “movies about products we all bought at one point� trend — is 93 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes? If the year-end awards start looking to the pre-Barbenheimer parts of the calendar, Air could register, particularly for its well-reviewed performances by Davis and Affleck.
Pedigree: Affleck’s Argo won Best Picture in 2013, though he was infamously not nominated for Best Director. Davis is an Oscar winner who should have more career nominations than she does.

Asteroid City ($10)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Wes Anderson
Stars: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson
Film festivals: Cannes
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: It’s Wes Anderson’s best movie since The Grand Budapest Hotel, so an optimist could expect it to wind up back in a lot of the same awards races that movie was in. But the film had enough detractors to put its Rotten Tomatoes score in The French Dispatch range, and that movie got blanked entirely.
Pedigree: Grand Budapest was nominated for nine Oscars, winning four. Before that, he’s gotten two Screenplay nominations for writing Moonrise Kingdom and The Royal Tenenbaums.

The Boy and the Heron ($10)

âž¼ Animated feature

Director: Hiyao Miyazaki
Stars: Soma Santoki
Film festivals: Toronto, New York
Release date: TBA
Box-office potential: Miyazaki’s previous films have made modest art-house money.
Awards potential: Expected to contend for animation awards throughout the season.
Pedigree: An animation legend like Miyazaki making his first film in a decade is a big deal. Miyazaki won the Animated Film Oscar for 2002’s Spirited Away. The film is set to open the Toronto Film Festival.

The Boys in the Boat ($10)

Director: George Clooney
Stars: Callum Turner, Joel Edgerton
Release date: December 25
Box-office potential: A crowd-pleasing movie about the U.S. rowing team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics is the kind of movie that would do well in a healthy box-office environment. Let’s see if that exists this year!
Awards potential: With another director’s track record, Turner’s role as a self-raised Olympian could be the stuff of a great Oscar campaign. It’ll require Clooney completely reversing the momentum of his behind-the-camera career, though.
Pedigree: Clooney’s directorial output has endured a long slide into obscurity after his big 2005 breakthrough with Good Night and Good Luck. His last two films, 2020’s The Midnight Sky and 2021’s The Tender Bar, passed without any notice at all.

Ferrari ($10)

Director: Michael Mann
Stars: Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz
Film festivals: Venice, New York
Release date: December 25
Box-office potential: Mann’s last feature film, 2015’s Blackhat, made an even $8 million at the American box office. However, the last major end-of-year release with “Ferrari� in the title, 2019’s Ford vs. Ferrari, topped out at $117 million domestic. Which precedent will win out?
Awards potential: Biopics do very well at the Oscars, even if Michael Mann’s style isn’t always their speed (pun intended!). A Venice premiere and a Christmas Day release indicate Neon has a lot of faith in it.
Pedigree: Two decades ago, Mann was in the middle of his career’s strongest awards run with nominations for The Insider (including Picture and Director), Ali, and Collateral. It’s been a while since then. Adam Driver is a two-time nominee for BlacKkKlansman and Marriage Story.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes ($10)

Director: Francis Lawrence
Stars: Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Viola Davis
Release date: November 17
Box-office potential: It’s been eight years since we’ve last had a Hunger Games movie, but each of the last two made less money than the one that came before it.
Awards potential: Crafts categories only, and only if it’s not a dud.
Pedigree: No Hunger Games movie has ever been nominated for an Oscar.

The Killer ($10)

Director: David Fincher
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton
Film festivals: Venice
Release date: November 10
Box-office potential: It’s a Netflix movie, so expect the theatrical release window to be small.
Awards potential: The film, about an assassin on an international manhunt, is rumored to be quite good but also incredibly violent, making it nowhere near the pitch down the middle of Oscar voters’ strike zone that Fincher’s Mank was.
Pedigree: This is Fincher’s first collaboration with screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker since Seven (for which Walker was BAFTA nominated). Fassbender hasn’t been nominated since Steve Jobs.

Nyad ($10)

Directors: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin
Stars: Annette Bening, Jodie Foster
Film festivals: Telluride, Toronto
Release date: TBA
Box-office potential: Netflix is distributing, so not much.
Awards potential: The film is a biopic of long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad, who, at the age of 64, became the first person to swim unassisted from Cuba to Florida. It’s a plum role for Bening, who’s never won an Oscar, to enter the Best Actress race with.
Pedigree: Bening’s zero Oscars are balanced by Foster’s two. Meanwhile, Chin and Vasarhelyi’s film Free Solo won the Best Documentary Oscar in 2019.

Poor Things ($10)

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Stars: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe
Film festivals: Venice, Telluride, New York
Release date: December 8
Box-office potential: The Favourite was by far Lanthimos’s best-performing film at the American box office, topping out at $34 million. And that film looked far less surreal than this sci-fi fantasy does.
Awards potential: Emma Stone plays a woman brought back to life in a childlike mental state who sets out to learn about the world around her. She’ll certainly have plenty of material to work with. Additionally, the trailer is promising some incredible visuals, costumes, and art direction, so even if the movie is too weird for Oscar voters in the major categories, there’s craft potential.
Pedigree: Lanthimos’s The Favourite was nominated for ten Oscars and won Best Actress. Stone won Best Actress herself in 2017, while Ruffalo and Dafoe have been nominated three and four times, respectively, without winning.

Priscilla ($10)

Director: Sofia Coppola
Stars: Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi
Film festivals: Venice, New York
Release date: October 27
Box-office potential: Coppola’s movies haven’t made big money since Lost in Translation.
Awards potential: Last season’s zeal for Elvis may have proved that this is a rich subject matter, and that a focus on Priscilla Presley will yield similar interest. Or Baz Luhrmann’s film burned everybody out on the King.
Pedigree: Coppola is a former Screenplay Oscar winner and Best Director nominee, though she hasn’t had an Oscar-nominated film since 2006’s Marie Antoinette. Spaeny is a wild-card newcomer best known for The Craft: Legacy and playing the murder victim in Mare of Easttown, but the title role in an A24 biopic come awards season isn’t a bad place to be.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom ($8)

Director: James Wan
Stars: Jason Momoa, Amber Heard
Release date: December 20
Box-office potential: Once again, the box-office fates of superhero movies are in serious flux. The DC superheroes in particular have had a real rough 2023, and Aquaman got a big ol’ vote of no confidence from James Gunn, so the vibes are bad. That said, the first Aquaman did $335 million domestic. How much worse could this possibly do?
Awards potential: The first Aquaman got shut out of major awards for 2018, and that’s when the vibes were (comparatively) better.
Pedigree: [grimace emoji]

The Bikeriders ($8)

Director: Jeff Nichols
Stars: Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, Jodie Comer
Film festivals: Telluride
Release date: December 1
Box-office potential: Nichols (director of movies such as Take Shelter, Mud, and Loving) has only ever cracked $20 million domestic once, but Butler (Elvis) and Hardy (Venom) could have drawing power.
Awards potential: This 1960s period piece about a fictional motorcycle club might end up jockeying for end-of-year position with The Iron Claw, another ensemble period film set within a heavily masculine subculture. If one performance gets singled out by critics as extraordinary, that would help its chances.
Pedigree: Butler is coming off of a near win in Best Actor, while Hardy’s a former nominee for The Revenant, and it feels inevitable that Comer (who just won a Tony) will have her Oscar breakthrough sooner or later.

The Creator ($8)

Director: Gareth Edwards
Stars: John David Washington, Gemma Chan
Release date: September 29
Box-office potential: An IMAX release is always a good sign for box-office potential. Edwards deserves a hit after being run off of Rogue One.
Awards potential: It’s a film about a future war between humanity and artificial intelligence with human faces on synthetic creatures. Visual-effects nominations are definitely in play.
Pedigree: Twelve-time nominee (and two-time winner) Hans Zimmer composed the score, which is another awards area to consider.

Dumb Money ($8)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Craig Gillespie
Stars: Paul Dano, America Ferrera
Film festivals: Toronto
Release date: September 22
Awards potential: The screenplay, based on the book by Ben Mezrich (who wrote the book The Social Network was based on) about the GameStop short squeeze, could attract attention if the movie ends up being good. The September release date gives one pause, though.
Pedigree: Gillespie’s I, Tonya got nominated for three Oscars, including a win for Allison Janney, and it was probably one spot off of the Best Picture list that year.

Elemental ($8)

âž¼ Animated feature
➼ Box office ineligible

Director: Peter Sohn
Stars: Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: This animated movie about fire and water falling in love continued Lightyear’s trend of disappointing Pixar releases, even though it quietly made $150 million domestically. With Spiderverse and Miyazaki in the mix, the animated field won’t be easy to crack.
Pedigree: Pixar hasn’t been shut out of the Best Animated Feature category at the Oscars since 2014.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ($8)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: James Mangold
Stars: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Film festivals: Cannes
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: Middling reviews might put a low ceiling on Indy’s potential, but sound and visual-effects awards are possible.
Pedigree: Every film in this series except Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has gotten some awards attention.

Lee ($8)

Director: Ellen Kuras
Stars: Kate Winslet, Alexander Skarsgård
Film festivals: Toronto
Release date: TBA
Box-office potential: This one doesn’t have a U.S. distributor yet as it heads toward its TIFF premiere, so it’s hard to say what to expect.
Awards potential: Winslet plays a former fashion model turned World War II photographer, so it feels like she’s gearing up for a run at her first Oscar nomination since 2015’s Steve Jobs.
Pedigree: Kuras is renowned for her work as a cinematographer for films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Summer of Sam. In 2009, she was Oscar nominated for her documentary film The Betrayal.

Migration ($8)

âž¼ Animated feature

Director: Benjamin Renner
Stars: Kumail Nanjiani, Elizabeth Banks
Release date: December 22
Box-office potential: This animated movie about ducks who accidentally migrate to New York City (good luck affording the rent, ducks) comes from Illumination, a.k.a. the House That Minions Built. They’re the one major animation studio that’s reliably overperforming at the box office, so this could do well, even in a crowded December.
Awards potential: As well as these movies do at the box office, they do less well in the awards race.
Pedigree: Renner made the sweet Oscar-nominated Ernest & Celestine in 2012.

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 1 ($8)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Stars: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: There are so many technical aspects of a Mission: Impossible movie that could attract attention, from editing to visual effects to makeup.
Pedigree: Shockingly, the Oscars have never nominated any film in the Mission: Impossible series for anything. But that was before Tom Cruise saved cinema with Top Gun: Maverick.

Rustin ($8)

Director: George C. Wolfe
Stars: Colman Domingo
Film festivals: Telluride, Toronto
Release date: November 3
Box-office potential: It’s a Netflix release, so it’s only getting a two-week theatrical run before it drops on streaming.
Awards potential: Domingo plays Bayard Rustin, the gay civil-rights activist who helped Martin Luther King Jr. plan the March on Washington. It’s a role that is attracting a lot of Oscar buzz.
Pedigree: Wolfe directed 2020’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which was nominated for five Oscars, winning two.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($8)

âž¼ Animated feature
➼ Box office ineligible

Directors: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic
Stars: Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: Hollywood loves to reward a success story, and at $1.35 billion worldwide, The Super Mario Bros. movie is definitely that. Still, it got pretty bad reviews, and there are far artsier options among animated films this year.
Pedigree: With the exception of the pandemic year of 2020, the No. 1 film at the yearly box-office hasn’t gone without an Oscar nomination since The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in 2013.

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt ($5)

Director: Raven Jackson
Stars: Charleen McClure, Moses Ingram
Film festivals: Sundance, New York
Release date: TBA
Box-office potential: A24 hasn’t set a release date yet.
Awards potential: Jackson’s film debuted to great reviews at Sundance and is scheduled to screen at New York Film Festival as well.

All of Us Strangers ($5)

Director: Andrew Haigh
Stars: Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal
Film festivals: Telluride, New York
Release date: December 22
Box-office potential: Late December tends to get crowded with potential awards contenders, but Searchlight scheduling a theatrical release at year’s end shows some faith in this small but intriguing film.
Awards potential: Andrew Scott — playing a man who has an “encounter� with his neighbor (Mescal) and then discovers his long-dead parents living in his old home, unaged — would be a very fun Best Actor contender, if Haigh has the same kind of luck that helped get Charlotte Rampling nominated for his 45 Years back in 2015.

American Fiction ($5)

Director: Cord Jefferson
Stars: Jeffrey Wright
Film festivals: Toronto
Release date: November 17
Box-office potential: Based on Percival Everett’s 2001 novel, Erasure, the film focuses on a professor who writes a satirical novel meant to expose the hypocrisies within the publishing industry as they relate to Black literature. Sounds deeply fascinating and not at all commercial.
Awards potential: Jefferson is making his directorial debut after writing for shows like The Good Place and Station Eleven, not to mention winning an Emmy for Watchmen. Jeffrey Wright belongs in every conversation about the best working actors who have never been nominated for an Oscar. This film is going to need to demand attention as it plays festivals (it’s currently scheduled for Toronto) if it wants to make an awards impact.

Anyone But You ($5)

Director: Will Gluck
Stars: Sydney Sweeney, Glen Powell
Release date: December 15
Box-office potential: The romantic comedy is back, baby! I mean, we’ll see if it is.
Awards potential: Are there awards for Onscreen Couple That Most Made People Lose Their Minds Reading Gossip Sites? The Golden Globes are trying some new things this year.

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret ($5)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
Stars: Abby Ryder Fortson, Rachel McAdams
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: At 99 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, Craig’s adaptation of the beloved Judy Blume novel is certainly one of the most well-received films of the year. Unfortunately it may have opened too early for awards voters to remember it. You’re going to hear more than a few people grumble about how Lionsgate should be campaigning Rachel McAdams for Best Supporting Actress, though.

Beau Is Afraid ($5)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Ari Aster
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Patti LuPone
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: This feels like your classic “too weird for Oscar� movie, but that doesn’t mean that various precursors might not go for it. That 67 percent RT score is indicative of a genuinely divisive movie, but the critics who loved it really loved it. Three-time Tony Award winner Patti LuPone has never been nominated for an Oscar, but there were buzzy rumblings when this movie opened back in April.

Blackberry ($5)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Matt Johnson
Stars: Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: Of all the many films and TV shows about products or tech fans made in 2023, this is definitely one that was released theatrically. Anyone who saw this movie pretty much liked it, and Howerton in particular was praised for his performance.

The Blackening ($5)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Tim Story
Stars: Dewayne Perkins, Jermaine Fowler
Film festivals: Toronto (2022)
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: In a summer dominated by Barbenheimer, The Blackening was one of the more lowkey success stories ($17.7 million off of a reported $5 million budget). The near-uniformly good reviews tended to praise Dewayne Perkins and Tracy Oliver’s horror-comedy script, which could contend, especially at the indie awards.

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget ($5)

âž¼ Animated feature

Director: Sam Fell
Stars: Zachary Levi, Mel Gibson
Release date: December 15
Box-office potential: This is a Netflix release, so not much.
Awards potential: The original Chicken Run was released in 2000, a year before the Oscars introduced an animated-feature category. That film had the honor of being the first feature-length film released by Aardman Animation and was co-directed by the great Nick Park. This sequel doesn’t have that same prestige to it, but the Aardman movies tend to be good.

El Conde ($5)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Pablo Larrain
Stars: Jaime Vadell
Film festivals: Venice, Telluride
Release date: September 15
Awards potential: The director of Jackie and Spencer (both of which got Oscar nominations) returns to his native Chile for a horror satire about deceased Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who is actually undead and existing as a vampire. Sounds weird, but Larrain had Princess Diana singing along to Mike and the Mechanics, and that got nominated, so who knows?

Eileen ($5)

Director: William Oldroyd
Stars: Thomasin McKenzie, Anne Hathaway
Film festivals: Sundance
Release date: December 1
Box-office potential: This adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel that premiered to strong reviews at Sundance is getting a platform release from Neon. Don’t expect a ton from a movie this decidedly offbeat.
Awards potential: With Neon also handling Anatomy of a Fall and Ferrari this awards season, there might not be a ton of attention left for Eileen. But Anne Hathaway gives a tremendous supporting performance that got a lot of praise in Utah.

The Exorcist: Believer ($5)

Director: David Gordon Green
Stars: Leslie Odom Jr., Ellen Burstyn
Release date: October 13
Box-office potential: It’s hard to make comparisons with Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends given how much the pandemic impacted their box-office performance, but DGG’s first Halloween made $159 million domestically. The Exorcist is a heck of a brand name to wield, especially if they’re selling it as a return to form.
Awards potential: William Friedkin’s original The Exorcist was nominated for ten Oscars, including Best Picture, winning two. It would be beyond naïve to think that kind of awards success is possible for this movie, but if the movie is a critical and financial hit, it could nab some nominations.

Fingernails ($5)

Director: Christos Nikou
Stars: Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, Jeremy Allen White
Film festivals: Telluride, Toronto
Release date: TBA
Box-office potential: Apple TV+ is set to distribute this sci-fi romance, but for the moment it’s only set for a debut in Telluride (followed by Toronto).
Awards potential: Greek filmmaker Nikou got very good reviews for his 2020 debut Apples, and this is a buzzy cast. Listen for chatter coming out of the fall festivals on this one.

Flora and Son ($5)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: John Carney
Stars: Eve Hewson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Film festivals: Sundance, Toronto
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: Carney is the director behind Once and Begin Again, both of which showed up on the Best Original Song ballot. (And keeping it very real, he deserved to go three for three with Sing Street). This one has a musical element to it, too, so keep an eye on it.

Foe ($5)

Director: Garth Davis
Stars: Paul Mescal, Saoirse Ronan
Film festivals: New York
Release date: October 6
Box-office potential: It’s being distributed by Amazon Studios, which cleared $50 million earlier this year for Air, but otherwise tends to eschew theatrical.
Awards potential: Davis’s 2016 film Lion was nominated for Best Picture among its six Oscar nominations.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($5)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: James Gunn
Stars: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: As one of the few superhero movies to have been mostly well-received this year, Guardians 3 could step to the front of the line in categories that superhero movies have recently been doing well in. The other two movies in the Guardians series have gotten Oscar nominations for visual effects, and the first one was also nominated for makeup.

Hit Man ($5)

Director: Richard Linklater
Stars: Glenn Powell, Adria Arjona
Film festivals: Venice, Toronto, New York
Release date: TBA
Box-office potential: There would have been if the movie hadn’t been bought by Netflix.
Awards potential: There is a big “if� surrounding this title, since we don’t know yet whether Netflix plans to release Hit Man this year or hold it until 2024. But Glenn Powell is excellent in this comedy about a meek teacher who moonlights as an undercover hitman to help the police. This was a huge crowd-pleaser when it played at Venice and Toronto (the kind of movie that might have been helped by a theatrical release), and awards talk for Powell and the film’s screenplay would be justified.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline ($5)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Daniel Goldhaber
Stars: Ariela Barer, Sasha Lane
Film festivals: Toronto (2022)
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: This eco-thriller about a group of young climate activists executing the titular terrorist action premiered in Toronto last year before being acquired by Neon, one of the more awards-savvy indie distributors. Independent awards feel like the most likely place for this one to score points.

Janet Planet ($5)

Director: Annie Baker
Stars: Zoe Ziegler, Julianne Nicholson
Film festivals: Telluride, New York
Release date: TBA
Box-office potential: Can’t say for sure without a release date or distributor. This is going to have to really break out at NYFF if it’s going to make it onto the 2023 schedule for an awards push.
Awards potential: Annie Baker is an acclaimed playwright (The Flick) making her feature film directorial debut here. This is a long shot that will depend a lot on its performance at festivals. If it does make a splash, Julianne Nicholson is definitely one of those actresses who seems overdue for her first Oscar nod.

Joy Ride ($5)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Adele Lim
Stars: Ashley Park, Sherry Cola
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: You wouldn’t think a raunchy pure comedy like this would attract much awards attention, but the hugely positive response to the movie leaves room for Adele Lim as an outside spoiler for first-time-filmmaker awards. Similarly, you could see either Sherry Cola or Sabrina Wu as particularly cool “breakthrough performance� nominees somewhere.

Leave the World Behind ($5)

Director: Sam Esmail
Stars: Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali
Release date: December 8
Box-office potential: It’s a Netflix release, so not much.
Awards potential: Julia Roberts is always good for a little Oscar buzz, and Mahershala Ali is a two-time winner. But while Sam Esmail will probably have an awards breakthrough soon, this feels like it’s being positioned similarly to another early December Netflix release, Bird Box.

The Little Mermaid ($5)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Rob Marshall
Stars: Halle Bailey, Melissa McCarthy
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: Despite the ocean (sorry) of bad press this movie got both prior to and after its release, it’s still one of the year’s top-ten grossers. And the Disney remake machine has been depressingly consistent about getting Oscar nominations, with Cruella, Mulan, The Lion King, Mary Poppins Returns, Beauty and the Beast, The Jungle Book, and Cinderella combining for 13 nominations over the last eight years.

A Little Prayer ($5)

Director: Angus McLachlan
Stars: David Strathairn, Jane Levy
Film festivals: Sundance
Release date: TBA
Box-office potential: Sony Pictures Classics acquired this movie after its strong Sundance premiere. SPC movies rarely become breakout goldmines, but they’re good for awards campaigns.
Awards potential: McLachlan directed Amy Adams to her breakthrough Oscar nomination for Junebug in 2005. Last year, SPC campaigned Bill Nighy to his first ever Oscar nomination for another Sundance hit, Living. They will likely try to do the same for Strathairn for his role as a man struggling to shield his daughter-in-law from his son having an affair.

Master Gardener ($5)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Paul Schrader
Stars: Joel Edgerton, Sigourney Weaver
Film festivals: Venice (2022), New York (2022)
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: Paul Schrader’s “Man in a Room� trilogy of films about solitary men leading lives of serene regret has thus far yielded only one Oscar nomination (Schrader’s original screenplay for First Reformed). Master Gardener got good reviews, though nowhere near First Reformed territory. The critics would need to revive this one in a major way.

Nimona ($5)

âž¼ Animated feature
➼ Box office ineligible

Directors: Nick Bruno, Troy Quane
Stars: Chloë Grace Moretz, Riz Ahmed
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: Netflix has had a nominee in the Best Animated Feature category each of the last four years. It would feel particularly gratifying for Nimona to score a nomination since it was abandoned by Disney, allegedly because it featured LGBT characters and themes.

No Hard Feelings ($5)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Gene Stupnitsky
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: Even with the celebrated return of the mainstream sex comedy to movie theaters, this isn’t the type of comedy that gets big awards. That said, nothing this year feels like more of a slam dunk than a Jennifer Lawrence Golden Globe nomination for Musical/Comedy.

Occupied City ($5)

âž¼ Documentary

Director: Steve McQueen
Film festivals: Cannes, New York
Release date: TBA
Box-office potential: Without a current release date, it’s hard to say whether McQueen’s doc about Amsterdam under Nazi occupation in World War II will even open this year.
Awards potential: A24 premiered the film at Cannes this year to relatively mixed reviews.

One Life ($5)

Director: James Hawes
Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Johnny Flynn
Film festivals: Toronto, London
Release date: TBA
Box-office potential: The film is currently scheduled to play the Toronto and London Film Festivals but has no opening date yet.
Awards potential: Hopkins and Flynn play the older and younger versions of a real-life man who helped save Jewish children from the Nazis shortly before World War II. The movie comes from See-Saw Films, the same production house as The King’s Speech and The Power of the Dog (oooh!) and Ammonite and The Son (aww).

Origin ($5)

Director: Ava DuVernay
Stars: Aunjanue Ellis, Jon Bernthal
Film festivals: Venice
Release date: TBA
Box-office potential: This was originally set up as a Netflix film, but that arrangement was ended by January of this year. The film is set to world-premiere at the Venice Film Festival, at which point its plan for a 2023 release could come into focus.
Awards potential: DuVernay directed the 2014 Best Picture nominee Selma and also created the powerful When They See Us for TV. But with so much unknown about this movie — including whether or not it will even open in 2023 — this movie is a gamble.

Pain Hustlers ($5)

Director: David Yates
Stars: Emily Blunt, Chris Evans
Film festivals: Toronto
Release date: October 27
Box-office potential: It’s a Netflix movie, so no.
Awards potential: David Yates has made only one movie set outside the wizarding world of Harry Potter since 2007, and that was the better-off-forgotten The Legend of Tarzan. So to say this movie, based on a real-life case of bribery and fraud within the pharmaceutical end of the prescription-opioid crisis, is a change of pace would be an understatement. The script drew comparisons to The Big Short, American Hustle, and The Wolf of Wall Street, which are best-case-scenario comparables, sure, but they all point toward awards season.

Passages ($5)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: Ira Sachs
Stars: Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, Adele Exarchopoulos
Film festivals: Sundance
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: This bisexual relationship drama got a lot of attention for its explicit sex scenes, but in terms of awards, Rogowski and Sachs could be in the mix for some of this year’s indie awards.

Rebel Moon ($5)

Director: Zack Snyder
Stars: Sofia Boutella, Djimon Hounsou
Release date: December 22
Box-office potential: Netflix only has a limited theatrical run planned.
Awards potential: This was Zack Snyder’s proposed Star Wars movie that he refashioned into a hopeful franchise starter of his own. Look, he’s going to keep making these big, operatic action blockbusters until he earns some damn respect. Will that be this year?

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour ($5)

Director: Sam Wrench
Stars: Taylor Swift
Release date: October 13
Box-office potential: As much money as you could imagine in your wildest dreams! Taylor Swift, if you haven’t noticed, has some fans. And they immediately took to crashing the AMC ticketing sites as soon as the film was announced. A monster opening weekend is so assured that David Gordon Green’s Exorcist reboot went fleeing from that opening weekend.
Awards potential: A virtual blank space. Concert films simply don’t get awards recognition. If you’re picking this movie, it’s going to be a pure box-office play.

A Thousand and One ($5)

âž¼ Box office ineligible

Director: A.V. Rockwell
Stars: Teyana Taylor
Film festivals: Sundance
Release date: Already released
Awards potential: This was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, a prize that has in recent years gone to as many awards-season powerhouses (CODA, Minari) as movies that were subsequently ignored (Nanny, The Miseducation of Cameron Post). Teyana Taylor’s lead performance deserves to be remembered, but whether it will be is a question.

Popcorn emoji (�) denotes a film that is eligible for box-office points based on its release date.

Could Show Up at Indie Awards

Bottoms ($3)
Cassandro ($3)
Cat Person ($1) �
Chevalier ($3)
Dreamin’ Wild ($1)
Flamin’ Hot ($3)
Golda ($3)
It Lives Inside ($2)
Magazine Dreams ($3) �
Palm Trees and Power Lines ($1)
Sanctuary ($1)
Showing Up ($2)
Theater Camp ($3)
When You Finish Saving the World ($1)
You Hurt My Feelings ($2)

Gunning for Craft-Category Noms at Best

65 ($2)
Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania ($3)
Blue Beetle ($3)
Cocaine Bear ($3)
Creed III ($3)
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves ($3)
The Equalizer 3 ($2)
Fast X ($3)
The Flash ($3)
Gran Turismo ($3)
Haunted Mansion ($3)
A Haunting in Venice ($3)
John Wick: Chapter 4 ($3)
Knock at the Cabin ($2)
Last Voyage of the Demeter ($3)
M3GAN ($2)
Magic Mike’s Last Dance ($2)
Meg 2: The Trench ($1)
Peter Pan & Wendy ($1)
The Pope’s Exorcist ($1)
Renfield ($1)
Shazam! Fury of the Gods ($2)
Strays ($3)
Talk to Me ($1)
They Cloned Tyrone ($3)
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts ($3)

Documentaries That Could Contend

20 Days in Mariupol ($2) �
American Symphony ($3) �
Beyond Utopia ($2) �
Black Ice ($2)
The Deepest Breath ($2)
The Eternal Memory ($3) �
Every Body ($2)
In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon ($3) �
Little Richard: I Am Everything ($3)
The Mother of All Lies ($2) �
Pianoforte ($2) �
Stamped From the Beginning ($2) �
Stephen Curry: Underrated ($1)
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie ($2)
Wild Life ($1)
Youth (Spring) ($2) �

Animated Features Hoping Disney or Pixar Stumble

The First Slam Dunk ($3)
Leo ($3) �
PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie ($2) �
Robot Dreams ($1)
Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken ($3)
Suzume ($1)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem ($3)
They Shot the Piano Player ($2) �
Trolls Band Together ($3) �

International Features That Could Contend

About Dry Grasses ($3) �
The Delinquents ($3)
La Chimera ($3) �
Monster ($3) �
Perfect Days ($3) �
Shayda ($3) �
The Taste of Things ($3) �

Smaller Festival Stuff

Close to You ($2) �
Ezra ($2) �
Fair Play ($3) �
His Three Daughters ($2) �
Knox Goes Away ($2) �
The New Boy ($3) �
North Star ($2) �
Poolman ($3) �
The Royal Hotel ($3) �
Wildcat ($3) �
Woman of the Hour ($2) �

Could Make Some Money

Five Nights at Freddy’s ($3) �
Ordinary Angels ($3) �
Pet Sematary: Bloodlines ($1) �
Saw X ($3) �
Thanksgiving ($1) �

Pure Wild Cards

80 for Brady ($1)
Dicks: The Musical ($1) �
Evil Dead Rise ($1)
The Good Mother ($1)
The Mother ($1)
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 ($1)
The Nun 2 ($1)
Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre ($1)
Scream VI ($1)
Sound of Freedom ($1)
Tetris ($1)