This year, like 2024’s “Oppenheimer,” there’s an obvious frontrunner in the Best Picture field of 10: Paul Thomas Anderson’s action comedy “One Battle After Another” (Warner Bros.). Nothing will slow its pace as it rolls through wins at the Critics Choice, Golden Globes, and more to rack up a total of 12 nominations. That studio’s period vampire musical “Sinners” will rack up at least 14 nominations (the current record held by “Titanic,” “La La Land,” and “All About Eve”), by my count, but it could be more.
Another elevated horror film, beloved director Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” (Netflix), should land 12 nominations. One movie could cut through all the genre clutter: Chloé Zhao’s moving Shakespeare family drama “Hamnet” (Focus), which could land 10 nods and should also do well at the BAFTAs, a recent bellwether for the international-leaning Oscars.
These four movies, plus Josh Safdie’s ’50s adrenaline rush “Marty Supreme” (A24), a buzzy late-year smash, racked up guild nominations, landing SAG Ensemble as well as the PGA and DGA. “Marty” could get 12 nominations. All five films display the scale, scope, and ambition of a potential Oscar winner.
‘Sinners‘©Warner Bros
Last year, the BAFTAs were quite predictive of the Oscars. Aside from a few hometown faves like BAFTA’s eventual animated winner “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” you could fill in your Oscar nominations picks with the BAFTA lists and not be far off.
That’s because some of the Academy’s 10,000 voters have become more international (20 percent), and the BAFTAs represent that overseas bloc. Awards campaigners with the budgets to spend are sending even low-budget documentary filmmakers on promo tours to not just New York and Los Angeles, but London and Copenhagen.
This year, the PGA top 10 comes closer to the likely Best Picture nominees than the America-only AFI Awards, which included flagging contenders “Wicked: For Good” (Universal), “Avatar: Fire and Ash” (Disney), and “Jay Kelly” (Netflix). It’s unlikely they will make the final Best Picture list, given that they didn’t land PGA nods. Nine PGA contenders should land Best Picture slots, including Netflix’s “Train Dreams,” Norway’s “Sentimental Value” (Neon), “Bugonia” (Focus), and “F1” (Warner Bros.).
“Bugonia” will likely land slots for Adapted Screenplay and Actress (Emma Stone), while “Train Dreams” could make Best Picture even without a nomination for Australian Joel Edgerton — who is falling behind popular campaigner Ethan Hawke (“Blue Moon”) — because it could land Adapted Screenplay and Cinematography.
Jacob Elordi wins the Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor Award for ‘Frankenstein’ at the 31st Annual Critics Choice Awards Gilbert Flores/Variety
The last slot could be the PGA pick “Weapons,” but it’s more likely that the horror flick will be replaced by popular international contender “The Secret Agent” (Brazil), whose star Wagner Moura won Best Actor at Cannes and just took home a Golden Globe. The Academy’s Brazilian voting bloc helped to put Fernanda Torres into Best Actress contention last year with “I’m Still Here,” which won Best International Feature Film.
Along with possibly breaking Oscar nominations records, Neon has a record five films on the Oscar shortlist thanks to its buying binge at Cannes. These include Palme d’Or-winning “It Was Just an Accident” (France) from Jafar Panahi, possible Best Picture nominees “Sentimental Value” (Norway) and “The Secret Agent” as well as “Sirāt” (Spain), which landed on five Oscar shortlists. All could land nominations, along with Neon’s Park Chan-wook Venice entry “No Other Choice” (South Korea). That film opened late in the year and is performing at the box office, so it has momentum.
However, there’s another movie that could nab the fifth slot, and it breaks voters’ hearts: searing docudrama “The Voice of Hind Rajab” (Willa). See you on nominations morning January 22.
Here’s my final list of 24 category picks, ranked by likelihood of being nominated:
Best Picture
“One Battle After Another“
“Hamnet”
“Sinners”
“Frankenstein”
“Marty Supreme”
“Sentimental Value”
“Bugonia”
“Train Dreams”
“The Secret Agent”
“F1”
Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson (“One Battle After Another”)
Ryan Coogler (“Sinners”)
Chloé Zhao (“Hamnet”)
Guillermo del Toro (“Frankenstein”)
Josh Safdie (“Marty Supreme”)
Best Actor
Timothée Chalamet (“Marty Supreme”)
Leonardo DiCaprio (“One Battle After Another”)
Michael B. Jordan (“Sinners”)
Ethan Hawke (“Blue Moon”)
Wagner Moura (“The Secret Agent”)
Best Actress
Jessie Buckley (“Hamnet”)
Rose Byrne (“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”)
Renate Reinsve (“Sentimental Value”)
Emma Stone (“Bugonia”)
Chase Infiniti (“One Battle After Another”)
Best Supporting Actor
Stellan Skarsgård (“Sentimental Value”)
Benicio del Toro (” One Battle After Another” )
Jacob Elordi (“Frankenstein”)
Sean Penn (“One Battle After Another”)
Paul Mescal (“Hamnet”)
Best Supporting Actress
Teyana Taylor (“One Battle After Another”)
Amy Madigan (“Weapons”)
Inga Ibsdotter LilIeaas (“Sentimental Value”)
Wunmi Mosaku (“Sinners”)
Odessa A’Zion (“Marty Supreme”)
Best Adapted Screenplay
Paul Thomas Anderson (“One Battle After Another”)
Maggie O’Farrell and Chloé Zhao (“Hamnet”)
Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar (“Train Dreams”)
Will Tracy (“Bugonia”)
Guillermo del Toro (“Frankenstein”)
Best Original Screenplay
Ryan Coogler (“Sinners”)
Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt (“Sentimental Value”)
Jafar Panahi (“It Was Just an Accident”)
Josh Safdie (“Marty Supreme”)
Eva Victor (“Sorry Baby”)
Best Animated Feature
“KPop Demon Hunters”
“Zootopia 2”
“Arco”
“Elio”
“Little Amelie or the Character of Rain”
Best Animated Short
“Butterfly”
“Autokar”
“The Shyness of Trees”
“I Died in Irpin”
“The Three Sisters”
Best Casting
“Marty Supreme”
“Sinners”
“One Battle After Another”
“Frankenstein”
“Hamnet”
Best Cinematography
“Sinners”
“One Battle After Another”
“Frankenstein”
“Marty Supreme”
“Train Dreams”
Best Costume Design
“Frankenstein”
“Sinners”
“Marty Supreme”
“Hamnet”
“Hedda”
Best Documentary Feature
“The Perfect Neighbor”
“Cover-Up”
“2000 Meters to Adriivka”
“Cutting Through Rocks”
“The Alabama Solution”
Best Documentary Short
“All the Empty Rooms”
“All the Walls Came Down”
“Children No More: Were and Gone”
“The Devil is Busy”
“Heartbeat”
Best Editing
“One Battle After Another”
“Sinners”
“Marty Supreme”
“F1”
“Hamnet”
Best International Feature Film
“Sentimental Value”
“The Secret Agent”
“It Was Just an Accident”
“Sirāt”
“The Voice of Hind Rajab”
Best Live Action Short
“The Boy with White Skin”
“A Friend of Dorothy”
“Amarella”
“Extremist”
“Two People Exchanging Saliva”
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
“Frankenstein”
“Marty Supreme”
“Sinners”
“Wicked: For Good”
“Smashing Machine”
Best Original Score
“One Battle After Another”
“Sinners”
“Hamnet”
“Frankenstein”
“Marty Supreme”
Best Original Song
“Golden” (“KPop Demon Hunters”)
“I Lied to You” (“Sinners”)
“Train Dreams” (“Train Dreams”)
“The Girl in the Bubble” (“Wicked: For Good”)
“Drive” (“F1”)
Best Production Design
“Frankenstein”
“Sinners”
“Avatar: Fire and Ash”
“Hamnet”
“Marty Supreme”
Best Sound
“F1”
“Avatar: Fire and Ash”
“Sinners”
“Frankenstein”
“Sirāt”
Best Visual Effects
“Avatar: Fire and Ash”
“F1”
“Frankenstein”
“Superman”
“Wicked: For Good”
