This is one of the weirdest Oscar seasons ever. Again.
It’s funny how you start to realize that we have this conversation about how weird the season is pretty much every year since Netflix joined the party… probably before. I don’t put this on Netflix and their films and streaming so much as that, fundamentally, the process repeats, year in and year out.
Distributors focus on what they believe can be “an Oscar movie.”
Consultants consult, narrowing the field to what they think can be sold, within reason.
The Season is set in June/July to about 45 films that will be presented to the world with ambition.
The Fall Festivals - Venice/Telluride/Toronto and New York, a bit - “test screen” most of the films, with some new names emerging and some dying.
From roughly October 1 to Thanksgiving, every film amongst the roughly 30 that are still in any kind of contention for Best Picture, focus on their award-voting targets, each a bit different (even within companies), with a variety of landmarks (AFI/Gotham Awards/NYFCC/LAFCA/CCA nominations/other critics groups/SAG Nom Comm, and yes, NBR wins and YouTube’s HFPA nominations)
ALSO - Secondary awards, from Best Actress to Best Sound, continue to strategically separate from or cling to the the narrowing group of Best Picture candidates. (My first look at the frontrunners in the Top 9 non-BP Oscar categories below.)
As I write this on October 24, this mostly actor-promotion-free season is very close to being locked into place. We now know that the last 2 serious entries into the season - Napoleon and The Color Purple - will be fed into the awards mainstream conversation by November 16. Three weeks and two days away. Also, A24 has The Iron Claw in waiting and… who knows? Seems unlikely, buy one never knows.
So… where are we, as of today?
Barbie (Warner Bros)
The Holdovers (Focus Features)
Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple/Paramount)
Oppenheimer Universal)
Poor Things (Searchlight)
This is your Top 5, all of which you can expect to land Best Picture nominations and a bunch of other nominations to go with it.
After this group is where the season gets very interesting. This is a really strong year for movies, which somehow, still surprises me. Probably the best since 2019… maybe better with all the films that won’t get nominated. There are a lot of good movies, each of which have their support for being great (of course, with some detractors).
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