The State Of The Race – Pete Hammond’s Latest Predictions: “It’s Anybody’s Ballgame”
It’s November — a month where everyone still thinks they can win. Oscars, that is. And as usual, the campaign activity is thriving, and maybe this year the idea that anyone can win — or at least get nominated — is not that far-fetched. The lingering effects of the 2023 actors’ and writers’ strikes are still being felt, due to those productions that were halted and releases put on hold, and a more robust lineup of awards contenders has really failed to materialize because of those delays. 2025 is looking pretty good. 2024? Not so much.
This isn’t to say there aren’t several worthy contenders, but just about any pundit you talk to will tell you this is a weird year, without a single take-it-to-the-bank frontrunning contender emerging in this nascent race. It could be anyone’s ballgame. The excitement of 2023’s Barbenheimer contest that managed to ignite both the box office and the Oscar voters looks like the distant past at this point. However, there’s this still unreviewed and just now being seen November 22 release duo: Universal’s adaptation of Broadway smash musical Wicked, and Ridley Scott’s near quarter-of-a-century-awaited sequel to 2000 Best Picture winner Gladiator, called simply Gladiator II. Those films might help fill that gap in theaters and at the Oscars, which desperately needs recognizable and exciting films for the 97th annual Academy Awards. At tastemaker screenings, where social media reactions were encouraged, both films were rapturously received.
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Still both studios, Universal and Paramount, held back actual critical reactions, with review embargos pushed to mid-November. They are among the handful of 2024 contenders being unveiled outside of the film festival zone, which launched most hopefuls, starting with Cannes in May, and then the official beginning of the season: Venice, Telluride and Toronto. Movies emerging out of those festivals then go on a virtual circuit of regional fests to stay in the Oscar spotlight.
At press time, Focus Features’ Nosferatu, a Christmas Day release, has just been revealed in a splashy screening on November 7 with Guillermo del Toro moderating a Q&A with filmmaker Robert Eggers. So now, the only movie set to remain a complete unknown in the race is Searchlight’s Christmas opener, aptly named A Complete Unknown. The James Mangold-directed biopic about the early Bob Dylan, played by Timothée Chalamet is expected to start screening sometime around Thanksgiving. The trailer is certainly intriguing.
The earliest so-called Oscar contender that 2024 has produced was Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, in March (after being pushed from 2023). This second part continues the story following the 2021 pandemic-impacted release of Dune, which became a Max day-and-date release with theaters thanks to an ill-fated Warner Bros. decision for all films that year. Still, it performed impressively and was nominated for 10 Oscars, including Best Picture. It swept the crafts categories, most of which were relegated to an off-air pre-ceremony (another ill-fated decision). Dune: Part Two is likely going back to the Oscars and Warner Bros. is working a robust campaign to get it there, but sequels can be problematic, and this year nearly all the hopefuls that are also driven by box office seem to fall into that category, including the aforementioned Gladiator II, which I have seen and can tell you delivers on all its promises. Warners had high hopes for George Miller’s Mad Max follow up, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, which like Mad Max: Fury Road successfullydebuted at Cannes, but then it disappointed at the box office. That pretty much knocked out its hopes to repeat Fury Road’s Oscar success (10 noms and six crafts wins). Another Warners release, Joker: Folie à Deux — Todd Phillip’s audacious musical sequel to the billion-dollar grossing, Oscar-winning Joker — simply flatlined, both at the box office and (for the most part) critically, killing a possible repeat visit to the Dolby.
And then there are the sequels that exploded at the box office and won good reviews. The year’s No. 1 film to date, Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2, might be a sure bet, if it wasn’t animated. In recent years, Oscar voters have looked down on lifting ’toons out of their own category, so that makes its prospects dicey outside of Animated Feature. The terrific No. 2 film, Deadpool & Wolverine,is being campaigned by Disney, but the question is, will voters respond after not nominating the first two Deadpool movies for anything? It could first gain recognition at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards though, which might be friendlier territory.
If I had to analyze the state of the race in terms of Oscar nominees you could take to the bank right now, I would say the well-received Vatican thriller, Conclave, is certain to be in the top tier, putting Focus Features—which has yet to win a Best Picture Oscar — up front. Also, there’s Netflix’s rapturously reviewed Emilia Pérez. Netflix, like Focus, has yet to win the big Best Picture prize, but this Jacques Audiard-directed Spanish language musical drama just might be the ticket. Especially judging by reactions at its prize-winning Cannes debut, through Telluride and Toronto (where it placed in the telling People’s Choice competition higher than any other 2024 release), plus the enthusiastic response at an AMPAS screening. It could also wind up with acting nominations for its stars, including Lead Actress for Karla Sofía Gascón, who would be the first person identifying as trans ever to win. A third film looking to crash the ceremony at the Dolby is undoubtedly NEON’s latest Palme d’Or winner, Sean Baker’s wildly fun and inventive Anora.
Not to be counted out is the little indie that could: A24. It’s gaining buzz as usual with a large lineup of talked-about movies. There’s Brady Corbet’s three and-a-half-hour drama, The Brutalist, a Best Director winner at Venice; the sexy Christmas Day drama Babygirl, which entered the race with a Best Actress Venice win for Nicole Kidman; Luca Guadagnino’s complex Queer, with a game-changing Daniel Craig performance; Sing Sing,with the superb Colman Domingo, and more. A24 has shepherded two Best Pictures in its young history: Moonlight and Everything Everywhere all at Once, so they know how to navigate the race.
In what is increasingly looking like an indie-centric year, one indie-turned-studio release to watch is Paramount’s riveting thriller September 5, which chronicles the horrific 1972 Munich Olympics terrorist attack from the point of view of the ABC Sports broadcast crew that suddenly found themselves covering a global event. So far under the radar was this film, that it turned up in a sub sub section at Venice (where I reviewed it with high praise), then got talk at Telluride, and almost slipped through Paramount’s hands, as the studio was initially trying to sell it rather than release the acquisition through their small indie label, Republic Pictures. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, and now, in the spirit of the crazy season this is becoming, September 5 could be their most serious contender on a slate that also includes Gladiator II and the Robbie Williams musical biopic Better Man.
Also in the mix are Searchlight’s Sundance hit A Real Pain, from director-writer-star Jesse Eisenberg, co-starring Kieran Culkin, and Netflix’s Maria, with a spectacular Angelina Jolie as opera star Maria Callas in her final days. Then there’s Netflix’s August Wilson adaptation The Piano Lesson. Amazon/MGM Studios could also have a pair of contenders, with yet another Guadagnino entry from earlier in the year, the sexy and entertaining Challengers, and the adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s book Nickel Boys, from writer-directorRaMell Ross, which employs a stylistic POV camera approach that pleased critics but divided Oscar voters I spoke to after its Telluride debut.
There’s a boatload of movies that can crack the race with their performances, if not the films themselves. The Best Actress race is torrid. Look for Marianne Jean-Baptiste—devastating in the depressing Mike Leigh drama Hard Truths; Demi Moore, with an excellent shot at a first Oscar nomination in the terrific and amusing horror film The Substance; a devastating Florence Pugh in A24’s fine We Live in Time; a surprising Pamela Anderson as an aging Vegas performer in late entry The Last Showgirl; Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton in Pedro Almodóvar’s Venice Golden Lion winner The Room Next Door; a brilliant Fernanda Torres in the Walter Salles Brazilian entry I’m Still Here; Amy Adams going for a seventh nomination in Nightbitch, and an impressive Ryan Destiny in The Fire Inside. Saoirse Ronan too, with two films: The Outrun and Steve McQueen’s British WWII drama Blitz. Plus, there’s the aforementioned Jolie and Kidman, and Anora’s Mikey Madison.
There are many Lead Actor possibilities too, in addition to Craig and Chalamet. I’m rooting for recognition finally for Hugh Grant in a wild turn in the A24 horror film, Heretic; Sebastian Stan as the young Donald Trump in The Apprentice; Andrew Garfield in We Live in Time; Paul Mescal in Gladiator II; Adrien Brody in The Brutalist;a way-overdue Ralph Fiennes in Conclave; Harris Dickinson in Babygirl; Jude Law in The Order; and maybe a couple of deserving longshots, including Keith Kupferer in Sundance hit, Ghostlight, and an astonishing tap dancing Jeremy Piven in the upcoming indie The Performance. Also don’t discount Nicholas Hoult, who is going to have a hell of a season with The Order, Nosferatu and an impressive lead performance in Clint Eastwood’s riveting courtroom drama, Juror #2, in which he plays the title role. This is a movie Warner Bros. appears to be ignoring with a limited release, despite high critical praise for what could be the icon’s final film (he is 94). It deserves better. Maybe Oscar voters will discover it on their own.
Stay tuned. This race belongs to anyone at this point.
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