Warner Bros PhotosOne Battle After One other
How might you not love a movie that has Leonardo DiCaprio operating round in a bathrobe, hilariously attempting to recollect the password that may enable a revolutionary group to avoid wasting his kidnapped daughter? A comic book-action-drama with a pointed political theme, One Battle After One other is without doubt one of the 12 months’s finest movies and is dominating the awards dialog. These two issues do not all the time go collectively. Paul Thomas Anderson has, mysteriously, by no means gained an Oscar, regardless of a number of finest image nominations and finest director nods for Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood and Licorice Pizza. At this level, the concept that “he is overdue” has kicked in. The movie is for certain to win a finest image nomination, Anderson might win for tailored screenplay, Leo might get one other finest actor nod, and Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and Teyana Taylor are robust within the supporting classes. The movie’s field workplace could have been extra sluggish than anticipated, however it’s nonetheless, by far, the 12 months’s hottest awards contender. (CJ)
Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro specialises in lavish spectacles – and Frankenstein is probably the most lavish of all of them. It was all the time going to be a contender, then, for the manufacturing design, costume design and hair and make-up Oscars. However now it is getting back from the useless in different classes, too, as followers luxuriate within the movie on Netflix and debate its deserves on-line. Not solely has Frankenstein change into a possible finest image nominee, however there’s discuss of Jacob Elordi, who performs the monster, being up for an performing prize, too. The query is, in a movie which tells its story first from Victor’s perspective after which from the monster’s, is Elordi a number one or supporting actor? (NB)
Cannes Movie CompetitionJafar Panahi
Dynamic off-screen tales by no means damage an awards marketing campaign, and the esteemed Iranian director Jafar Panahi has the 12 months’s most dramatic. Jailed twice for movies that displeased the federal government, Panahi made It Was Simply an Accident clandestinely and despatched it out of Iran on a thumb drive. It went on to win the Palme d’Or, the highest prize, on the Cannes Movie Competition, and is now France’s Oscar submission for finest worldwide movie. It has a robust probability of profitable as a result of it’s, in itself, a triumph. Remarkably, this drama a few former prisoner who kidnaps a person he thinks was the one who tortured him is laced with antic comedy. Panahi may also determine in finest director and unique screenplay classes. However different worldwide contenders are robust too. The highly effective Brazilian political drama The Secret Agent gained Cannes’ finest director prize for Kleber Mendonça Filho and finest actor for Wagner Moura. Or voters may keep away from politics and go for Norway’s Sentimental Worth. However Panahi has years of nice movies behind him and has by no means had a greater probability of profitable right through awards season. (CJ)
Amy Madigan
Horror movies are normally dismissed on the Oscars, however they’ve been so profitable recently that this could possibly be their 12 months. Sinners and Frankenstein are positive to do properly – and a marketing campaign is constructing for Amy Madigan to bag a finest supporting actress nomination for Zach Cregger’s spine-chilling Weapons. She performs Gladys, a gloriously grotesque character who has already change into a social media meme and a Halloween costume. The smartest half could be that Madigan, 75, was nominated for finest supporting actress precisely 40 years, when she was in a drama referred to as Twice in a Lifetime. That title might transform weirdly acceptable. (NB)
TIFFStellan Skarsgård
Unusual to say, at 74, Stellan Skarsgård may get his first Oscar nomination. He has been so strong for many years that he’s usually taken without any consideration, however he has by no means been higher than he’s within the household drama Sentimental Worth as Gustav Borg, a well-known, self-absorbed however by no means monstrous movie director coming to grips with the damage he has induced his two daughters. Skarsgård is really the movie’s coronary heart and ought to be thought of a lead actor, however his marketing campaign is for supporting. That places him in a tricky competitors with Paul Mescal in Hamnet and Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro in One Battle After One other, all positive issues. Collectively these 4 make supporting actor one of many 12 months’s most unstable, finest races to look at. Stellan, father of the actors Alexander and Invoice Skarsgård, has already confirmed to be a refreshing hit on the marketing campaign path, wryly calling himself in a single interview a “nepo Daddy”. (CJ)
KPop Demon Hunters
Ever because the first Academy Award for finest animated characteristic was introduced in 2002, a lot of the trophies have ended up in Pixar’s places of work, and the remainder have been divided between Disney, DreamWorks and a few different studios. However the instances appear to be altering: the final three animation Oscars went to Netflix (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio), Studio Ghibli (The Boy and the Heron) and a Latvian, French and Belgian team-up (Circulation). The pattern might properly proceed in 2026. KPop Demon Hunters started streaming on Netflix in June, and but it was so widespread that it earnt two brief cinema runs – together with one “sing-along” launch. In a 12 months when mainstream animation has stumbled (Elio, Smurfs and The Dangerous Guys 2 aren’t going to win any prizes), might the Oscar go to a Netflix musical a few monster-hunting Korean pop group? (NB)
As soon as scorching… not
One rock-bottom reality about awards season: you may’t rely on something. A few of the 12 months’s most anticipated movies got here in scorching and shortly turned ice chilly. Probably the most shocking was The Smashing Machine, with Dwayne Johnson going for drama as combined martial arts fighter Mark Kerr. The movie ticks many awards bins. It is a fact-based biopic from a revered director, Benny Safdie. It has a star identified for crowd-pleasing hits proving he can actually act, in what was meant to be Johnson’s now-we-respect-him second. However regardless of robust opinions, the movie’s disastrous field workplace put an finish to all that. The opposite shocker was Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, with Julia Roberts, nonetheless a Hollywood sweetheart, enjoying towards kind as a prickly college professor caught up in scandal. Critics and audiences dismissed the movie and its #MeToo plot as overwrought and uninteresting. Each movies premiered on the Venice Movie Competition, normally one of many strongest launching pads for awards, so… do not rely your chickens or trophies too quickly. (CJ)
The Oscars nominations shall be introduced on 22 Jan 2026. The 98th Academy Awards will happen on 15 March.
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