97th Oscars’ Projections: The Initial Outlook On The Best Picture Race

We’re a month off from Christopher Nolan having his moment with his film, Oppenheimer, winning 7 Oscars on its way to being crowned Best Picture. Its a film that I had slotted in as the 4th most likely to win the big prize back last Spring before it became the movie to beat after Barbenheimer weekend and then being on cruise control all season to an all-timer awards season sweep. That race for the big prize ended up the most static one I’ve ever followed and I think the major industry strikes had a big part to do with that. Those same strikes also pushed some major projects from this calendar year to the next, and thus we begin this year’s race with a wide open field and questions abound as to what kind of slate of contenders we see. I envision a very unpredictable race with many ups and downs and a much less locked-in contender field than we got last season. Where as I had eventual winners CODA, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and Oppenheimer within the top 20 in my initial projections for their respective years, I can see our eventual winner perhaps not even being on the radar at the moment.

Because things are so up in the air, I believe the movie to beat right now is Dune: Part Two which has proven itself a big box office hit with amazing critical scores and some of the best audience scores in the history of the major movie logging sites. Do I believe it could become a rare wire-to-wire frontrunner that wins it all? I have my doubts as the film is part two of a trilogy and those movies tend to get overlooked in favor of looking ahead towards the finale of a trilogy if the Academy wants to give a series of movies the big prize. But with so many questions about what this year will look like, and with the possibility of some surprises along the way, I think its safe to assume our only sure-fire contender is the frontrunner on the outset.

Trailing behind in my initial predicted 10 is A24’s Sing Sing which proved to be the audience favorite at last year’s Toronto Film Festival and among the early festivals this year as well; followed by the World War II epic Blitz from Best Picture winner 12 Years A Slave‘s Steve McQueen; followed by Megalopolis which could end up the final new masterpiece from Best Picture winner The Godfather‘s Francis Ford Coppola or a folly that drops off the board quick; followed by Conclave which will see a battle for the Papacy directed by Edward Berger whose film All Quiet On The Western Front was the near Best Picture winner two seasons back; followed by Searchlight’s The Supremes At Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat, MGM’s The Nickel Boys, Netflix’s The Piano Lesson, a potential Best Actor Oscar vehicle for Daniel Craig in Queer, and the jukebox musical sequel to the 2019 Best Picture nominee in Joker: Folie à Deux.

After that we have everything from sequels and prequels to other Best Picture contending films such as Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Gladiator II, potential populist contenders like Wicked: Part One or Twisters or Inside Out 2, a curious project from Kevin Costner that will span two entries coming out within months of each other, and many smaller independent films that could find their way to the top-tier contenders. And that’s not accounting for the eventual international players that Cannes will give us at the end of next month or the potential surprises that emerge at the fall festivals.

Best thing to do now is to wait until Cannes to look at the race again and figure out where things have shifted and what fog has cleared. But even then, we’ll still be at an insanely early stage of a race that is wide open and has many twists and turns to go through.

 

Tier 1: The Initial Frontrunners

01. Dune: Part Two

02. Sing Sing

03. Blitz

04. Megalopolis

05. Conclave

 

Tier 2: The Initial Heavyweight Contenders

06. The Supremes At Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat

07. The Nickel Boys

08. The Piano Lesson

09. Queer

10. Joker: Folie à Deux

 

Tier 3: The Initial “On The Bubble” Serious Contenders

11. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

12. Gladiator II

13. Wicked: Part One

14. Kinds Of Kindness

15. The Apprentice

 

Tier 4: The Initial Longshots On The Verge Of Being Taken Serious

16. His Three Daughters

17. The Room Next Door

18. Here

19. Juror No. 2

20. The Bikeriders

 

Tier 5: The Initial Longshots Within Striking Distance

21. Didi

22. A Real Pain

23. SNL 1975

24. The Fire Inside/Flint Strong

25. Challengers

 

Tier 6: The Initial Viable Contenders With A Slim Path

26. Maria

27. The Outrun

28. Anora

29. Emmanuelle

30. Parthenope

 

Tier 7: The Initial Viable Contenders Searching For A Path

31. A Different Man

32. Exhibiting Forgiveness

33. We Live In Time

34. The History Of Sound

35. The End

 

Tier 8: The Initial Atypical Contenders With A Slim Path

36. Civil War

37. Hit Man

38. Monkey Man

39. Nosferatu

40. I Saw The TV Glow

 

Tier 9: The Initial Atypical Contenders Searching For A Path

41. Twisters

42. Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1

43. Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 2

44. The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim

45. The Wild Robot

 

Tier 10: The Initial Longest Of Longshots

46. Inside Out 2

47. Piece By Piece

48. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

49. Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes

50. Mufasa: The Lion King

 

Others To Potentially Keep An Eye On: Alien: Romulus; Back To Black; Bird; Better Man; Bob Marley: One Love; Brief History Of A Family; Ella McCay; Emilia Perez; Hamnet; Long Day’s Journey Into Night; Love Lies Bleeding; Mother Mary; Nightbitch; Oh Canada; Pedro Paramo; Polaris; Problemista; Sasquatch Sunset; Shirley; The Brutalist; The Actor; The Collaboration; The Fall Guy; The Imaginary; The Magnificent Life Of Marcel Pagnol; The Way Of The Wind; White Bird; Wildwood; Woman Of The Hour; Young Woman And The Sea