Every week between now and January 23, 2024, when the nominations for 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
Napoleon
Ridley Scott’s historical epic charged into the race this week with a surprise worthy of Austerlitz: The movie is … funny? Napoleon presents the little corporal as a childish buffoon, with a script that feels cribbed from a high-schooler’s class project. (Bonaparte tells the British, “You think you’re so great because you have boats!â€) Even the film’s loudest champions concede it’s not exactly high art. “There isn’t that much depth … but that’s not a detriment,†writes Jordan Hoffman. “There’s just too much going on on the surface to care.†Too much and yet not enough, say skeptics like Peter Debruge, who proclaims, “Psychology is sacrificed for the sake of spectacle.â€
The Iron Claw
Sean Durkin’s wrestling drama has started screening ahead of its Christmas release, and while official reviews are embargoed, pundits largely agree the film revives the hallowed genre of the male weepie. “Heavy but essential,†says Clayton Davis, who praises the “impeccable ensemble.†The real-life story of a wrestling family who destroyed themselves pursuing glory in a scripted sport, The Iron Claw is bleaker than the Academy usually goes for. But if the film is a holiday hit, as Anne Thompson predicts, voters could take notice.
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
Ridley Scott, Napoleon
Writing about Napoleon’s nephew, Karl Marx famously noted that history repeats; the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Scott asks, What if it was farce the first time around? Yet the drawing-room high jinks make strange tonal bedfellows for the director’s sumptuously staged battles, a disjointedness likely attributable to the film being cut down from a four-hour version (which will eventually stream on Apple TV+). As Fran Hoepfner writes, Scott has the air of a filmmaker who’s “merely recapping, as one might be inclined to the night before homework is due.â€
Taika Waititi, Next Goal Wins
This weekend brings two new films from recent Screenplay winners. Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn is inspiring polarized reactions from critics, who call it “gorgeous, lurid, shallow, and frustrating.†But that’s nothing compared to the pans that are greeting Waititi’s Samoan sports comedy, which are personal enough to suggest the director has exhausted his previous goodwill. “All Waititi seems to have left is flippancy,†writes David Sims, who dings the film’s “pose of insincere self-awareness.â€
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
Joaquin Phoenix, Napoleon
Bumbling, oafish, and canonically bad at sex, Phoenix’s Napoleon has critics reaching for comparisons not just to the actor’s Gladiator character, but also to Tim Robinson and the Three Stooges. Reviews are mixed. “Phoenix has always been good at depicting this kind of pathetic tyranny … shifting from bratty, toothless insouciance to genuine menace,†says Richard Lawson, while Thelma Adams calls him “stiff as a canvas figure.†The revisionist approach might work against Phoenix here — unless they try to sell him as a Trump analog? — but it’s hard to count out a former winner definitively.
Zac Efron, The Iron Claw
There is probably no other actor in Hollywood more physically suited for the role of a professional wrestler haunted by tragedy. Director Sean Durkin shoots Efron’s muscles with Riefenstahlian rapture, and the actor ably shoulders the film’s emotional load. It’s a stunning transformation, though ironically, I wonder if it has enough heft to mount a dark-horse campaign: As the family’s mild-mannered golden boy, Efron is ultimately a passive witness to his siblings’ calamity.
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
Natalie Portman, May December
Variety reports that May December will run in Comedy at January’s Golden Globes (which would like to assure you that it is definitely happening). That’s probably the correct choice: There’s one Julianne Moore line reading early on that lets you know exactly what kind of ride you’re in for. Unfortunately, it also means Portman will be going up against the category’s two heavy hitters, Margot Robbie and Emma Stone. The nomination might be the win here, and with the Globes expanding its categories to six nominees (if you can’t beat the Critics Choice Awards, might as well become them), Portman’s almost sure to make the cut.
Fantasia Barrino, The Color Purple
Now that Napoleon, The Iron Claw, and Wonka (😜) have made their screening debuts, The Color Purple remains the last major contender to bow. Thursday night’s first reactions were effusive: “Make room for Fantasia!†crowed Jazz Tangcay. The SAG-AFTRA strike ended just in time for the musical, whose star opened up to Variety this week about her difficult journey returning to the role.
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
Jeremy Allen White, The Iron Claw
White plays one of Efron’s brothers, making The Iron Claw the Avengers of the internet’s favorite himbos. It takes a while for him to show up, though, and while he gets a lot of mileage out of those sympathetic eyes, some of his biggest moments happen offscreen. If you’re searching for a long-shot Supporting Actor contender, you’d be better off looking at Holt McCallany, who plays the brothers’ domineering father.
Jacob Elordi, Saltburn
In two films this fall, Elordi plays a darkly charismatic figure who invites an admirer into his gilded fairy-tale castle. While neither performance should impact the awards race, the combination of Priscilla and Saltburn — as well as a powerful charm offensive — should put him in contention for meatier roles that push The Kissing Booth further into the rearview.
Current Predix
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon; Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer; Ryan Gosling, Barbie; Charles Melton, May December; Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things
Best Supporting Actress
Vanessa Kirby, Napoleon
At times, Napoleon seems like Scott’s attempt at a post-Thermidor Phantom Thread, the story of an iron-willed woman and the doofus who loves her. While their relationship is the heart of the film, it’s superseded by the need to cover every major event in Bonaparte’s life. “You wish the movie would more fully commit to the psychosexual power games between these two dang-ass freaks,†says David Ehrlich. Nevertheless, Kirby remains the film’s best shot at above-the-line recognition. Much depends on The Color Purple, whose fortunes will determine how many open seats remain in this race.
Rosamund Pike, Saltburn
Pike gets all the best lines in Saltburn, and she knocks them out of the park. However, her candidacy may be derailed by the fact that she’s repping a film many people severely dislike. (If you want to make friends at an awards party, just talk about how much you detest Saltburn — instant icebreaker!) Weirdly, though, I think Pike might still have an outside shot at a nom, since her character is often in a completely different movie from Saltburn’s most aggravating elements.
Current Predix
Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer; Jodie Foster, Nyad; Claire Foy, All of Us Strangers; Julianne Moore, May December; Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
More Oscar Futures
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