Little Gold Men: 2024’s Oscars grapple with strikes and Barbenheimer? In this economy?

Art by Cassondra Jones

Do the Oscars matter anymore?

I’ve heard that question come up more this awards season than ever before. It’s true that viewership for awards shows has steadily declined year over year. There’s also the uncomfortable truth that the awards were created in 1929 by studio heads to redirect PR attention from labor issues, and to re-assert studios’ control over their contracted talent. Celebrating Hollywood’s legacy of union-busting feels a little weird after a year defined by historic writer and actor strikes.

However, the Academy Awards function for plenty of people as a way to prioritize watching cinematic achievements they may have otherwise skipped—or never even heard about. Yes, the internet and streaming services place a lot of entertainment in front of your eyeballs, but if you know something has an award, it may help you narrow down your options. The Oscars are also voted on by people who work in the industry, so there’s ostensibly a sense of expertise behind the choices (even if the logic doesn’t always match up).

In any case, this year’s ceremony should be an interesting one, both for the year it’s recognizing and the crop of films it produced, one so jam-packed with awards-worthy contenders that what got left out (Napoleon, May December, The Taste of Things, The Iron Claw, Asteroid City, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, I could go on and on) is as interesting as what made it in. There’s the possibility to make some history (come on, Lily Gladstone!), and we get to celebrate Barbenheimer all over again. A performance of “I’m Just Ken” live on TV! Who’s gonna be mad about that?

If you’re following this year’s race (and you should be), here’s a guide to the big contenders, and who’s likely to take those categories—along with a little wishful thinking about what could have been.

Best Actor

Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

This will likely come down to a battle between Giamatti, who won best actor in a comedy at the Golden Globes, and Cillian Murphy, who won best actor in a drama. The Golden Globes matter less than they ever have at this point, with the Hollywood Foreign Press having blessedly died out after decades of shady tinseltown supremacy. However, they’re still a useful barometer of how Academy voters might ultimately sway. Oscar typically hasn’t been kind to genre when it comes to matchups like this, which suggests it’s Murphy’s award to lose (and good for him! He’s earned it).

Best Supporting Actor

Sterling K. Brown, American Fiction
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things

The unfortunate part of this year’s supporting actor race is that it’s become, as so many things have, about Barbenheimer, while other deserving performances (Mark Ruffalo, I’m looking at you) have been largely overlooked. Downey has done bafflingly well in this category, picking up Golden Globe and Critic’s Choice Awards for his work as civil servant Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer. He’s very good, but it’s about as down-the-middle a role as you can get, with a performance to match. Fortunately, Gosling has also been racking up awards for his next-level Barbie performance.

Best Actress

Annette Bening, Nyad
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Emma Stone, Poor Things

This is a three-way race between Gladstone, Hüller and Stone. Gladstone is stunning in Killers of the Flower Moon, and it’s a historic nomination: she already made history by being the first indigenous woman to win a Golden Globe. Hüller took home Best Actress at Cannes for her rock-solid work in Anatomy of a Fall, which has done well throughout awards season. Stone picked up a Critics Choice award and a Golden Globe for Poor Things, and hers is the kind of all-in, marathon performance the Academy voting body tends to love.

Best supporting actress

Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
America Ferrera, Barbie
Jodie Foster, Nyad
Da’vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

Da’vine Joy Randolph’s heartbreaking, warm performance in The Holdovers has been a consistent winner, nabbing both the Golden Globe and the Critic’s Choice award, and it seems natural that streak would continue here. There’s a non-zero chance that guilt over not nominating Margot Robbie for Best Actress in Barbie or Greta Gerwig for Best Director could translate to a win for Ferrera, or that industry respect for Foster could lead to a come-from-behind victory. Christopher Nolan never met an interesting female character he couldn’t flatten, so I’m not sure why Emily Blunt is here.

Best animated film

The Boy and the Heron, Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki
Elemental, Peter Sohn and Denise Ream
Nimona, Nick Bruno, Troy Quane, Karen Ryan and Julie Zackary
Robot Dreams, Pablo Berger, Ibon Cormenzana, Ignasi Estapé and Sandra Tapia Díaz
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Amy Pascal

This race is a fascinating tossup. Saying Pixar is usually a juggernaut in this category is like saying trans fats are bad for you (We know! We’ve known for years!) but this is a stacked group of nominees, and Elemental had mixed performances. Meanwhile, The Boy and the Heron is Miyazaki’s long-awaited return to animation, and he previously won this category for Spirited Away. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is one of the most dazzling movies of the last decade, but could suffer here from superhero fatigue, or the reports of poor working conditions for its animators. The bummer is that TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, which achieved Spider-Verse’s glorious aesthetic heights sans employee exploitation, didn’t make the cut.

Cinematography

El Conde, Edward Lachman
Killers of the Flower Moon, Rodrigo Prieto
Maestro, Matthew Libatique
Oppenheimer, Hoyte van Hoytema
Poor Things, Robbie Ryan

It’s neat that El Conde—a niche arthouse satire that imagines Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as an aging vampire—made it in here, giving a nod to Edward Lachman’s gothic, inky cinematography. Poor Things is also a real artistic achievement, with Robbie Ryan making a meal out of the production design that calls to mind Terry Gilliam’s best films (this is code for “we don’t see movies like this hardly ever”). However, given the attention Hoyte Van Hoytema has received for Oppenheimer, and how visually ambitious that film is, this is likely where the laurels will land.

Best Director

Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet
Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese
Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan
Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos
The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer

Let’s address the elephant in the room first: This should be Greta Gerwig’s award. Barbie was critically acclaimed and was the highest-grossing film of the year, and it’s ridiculous she isn’t even in the conversation. That said, Christopher Nolan has the Golden Globe and Critic’s Choice awards, and he’s the favorite to win here, too. While we’re here, though, let’s give a tip of the hat to Yorgos Lanthimos and Jonathan Glazer, two arthouse favorites who don’t usually get this kind of love, and turned out incredible work that was true to both of their artistic proclivities.

Best Picture

American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest

Oppenheimer is the favorite to win here, with Killers of the Flower Moon and the steadily performing Anatomy of a Fall not far behind. American Fiction won the audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival, which is historically an indicator of victory, but its campaign has lost momentum. Barbie could be the dark horse winner, though the snubs in several other categories indicate it would be a really dark horse. Personally, I’d love to see Celine Song’s lovely Past Lives come out of nowhere and wipe the floor with everyone, or to see prestige freakball Poor Things or capital-A Arthouse entry The Zone of Interest take the competitors out. I’m resigned to the fact that these possibilities only live in my dreams.

Best adapted screenplay

American Fiction, Written for the screen by Cord Jefferson
Barbie, Written by Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach
Oppenheimer, Written for the screen by Christopher Nolan
Poor Things, Screenplay by Tony McNamara
The Zone of Interest, Written by Jonathan Glazer

Among these, the screenplay I’d most like to look at is The Zone of Interest, given that 90% of the strength of Glazer’s film, about a Nazi concentration camp commandant and his family who live a frighteningly pastoral life in the shadow of Auschwitz, is cinematography and sound design. Anyway, the big faceoff here is between Barbie and Oppenheimer, with the award potentially going to Barbie as a make-good for cutting Gerwig out of the director race (it also has the Critic’s Choice award). However, don’t count out American Fiction, which has lots of goodwill and a newcomer success story behind it in writer-director Cord Jefferson.

Best original screenplay

Anatomy of a Fall, Screenplay – Justine Triet and Arthur Harari
The Holdovers, Written by David Hemingson
Maestro, Written by Bradley Cooper & Josh Singer
May December, Screenplay by Samy Burch; Story by Samy Burch & Alex Mechanik
Past Lives, Written by Celine Song

The Academy has the potential to do something really interesting here, awarding best original screenplay based fully on the merits of writing rather than a movie with multiple nominations, as Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers and Maestro do. It would be great to see this go to May December or Past Lives, both of which feature incredible writing (in the case of May December, it’s also the only nomination, which feels unfair: Justice for Charles Melton!) Given that Anatomy of a Fall grabbed the Golden Globe in this category, plus its multiple nominations, it’s the current favorite to win.