Who says to beware the Ides of March?
A March 15 Academy Awards may feel late. By then, it will be almost a year since Sinners sunk its teeth into moviegoers last April. Some nominees have been on the campaign trail since the Cannes Film Festival in May.
But the upside of a prolonged Oscar race has meant some unexpected late drama. Think about the same movies long enough, and minds can change. For months, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another sailed through awards season, picking up prize after prize. But the wins for Sinners and Michael B. Jordan at Sunday’s Actor Awards — along with some other recent developments — have given the Oscar race what Smoke or Stack might call fresh blood.
Photo: AFP
An Academy Awards that had looked like a runaway might be a close call, after all. With Oscar voting ending Thursday, let’s survey the top categories
BEST PICTURE
One Battle After Another has won at the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, the Producers Guild and the Directors Guild. But its nearly unblemished record was shaken up at Sunday’s Actor Awards (formerly the SAG Awards), where Sinners took the top prize. You’d have to have quite a few rounds at the Sinners juke joint to convince yourself that anything else has much of a chance.
Photo: AFP
The tea leaves are strongest for Anderson’s One Battle After Another. The Producers Guild, which uses a preferential ballot like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does, is among the most predictive of bellwethers. Their winners have matched the last five years and in eight of the last 10 years.
The actors guild best ensemble prize, on the other hand, has a shaky track record. In the last 31 years, the SAG winner has matched the Oscar champ only 15 times. The win for Sinners, though, came right in the midst of Oscar voting. It was a good time to show out. So this race feels close to a coin flip, with a Warner Bros. movie on both sides. The awards season resume makes One Battle After Another the front-runner. But Sinners, even with a record-setting 16 Oscar nominations, gets to play the underdog.
BEST ACTOR
This has been one of the most competitive and hard-to-call races of the season. Look at Leonardo DiCaprio. He gives one of the best performances of his career, in the best picture favorite, and he’s still a long shot. Instead, Timothee Chalamet was widely perceived as in the lead after early wins at the Globes and the Critics Choice Awards for his frenetic performance in Marty Supreme. But the BAFTAs muddied the waters (Robert Aramayo, not in the Oscar mix, was the unexpected winner). And Sinners star Michael B. Jordan, much to his surprise, won at the Actor Awards.
Chalamet’s maybe meta campaign, full of swagger and braggadocio, rubbed some voters the wrong way. At the same time, many in the academy felt the 30-year-old should have won last year, for his Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown — a year when he won with the actors guild but lost to Adrien Brody (The Brutalist) at the Oscars. Chalamet will hope the reverse happens this year. But the academy is notoriously resistant to rewarding young stars. Jordan, 39, isn’t much older. But it now suddenly feels like his moment.
BEST ACTRESS
Since the fall festival launch of Hamnet, Jessie Buckley has been the favorite. She’s won at the Globes, the BAFTAs and the Actor Awards. Her closest competition is probably Rose Byrne, who won at the Globes in the comedy/musical category for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
This one’s easy. Fortunes have fluctuated in most of the top categories, but Buckley has been entrenched as the front-runner for months.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Sean Penn, a two-time Oscar winner, has done nearly no campaigning, yet he finds himself the favorite after winning at the Actor Awards and the BAFTAs. But several other nominees remain in the mix. Stellan Skarsgard (Sentimental Value) won at the Globes and is the kind of widely-liked veteran actor the academy likes to reward. But so is Delroy Lindo (Sinners), who was a surprise Oscar nominee. In the eyes of many, Lindo has quickly joined the contenders.
Penn’s recent wins put him clearly in the lead, and he might stay there. But this remains a category rife with possibilities. The academy’s strong international leanings should help Skarsgard. And it wasn’t an accident that when Sinners won best ensemble at the Actor Awards, Lindo gave the acceptance speech.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
This category has been all over the map. Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another) won at the Globes. Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners) won at the BAFTAs. And Amy Madigan (Weapons) won at both the Actor Awards and the Critics Choice Awards.
Any of those three could win. Two of them — Taylor and Mosaku — have the benefit of co-starring in films the academy obviously loves. Sinners and One Battle After Another have 29 nominations between them, while Weapons has only the one. Yet the 75-year-old Madigan, another celebrated character actor who’s been great for decades, has the momentum thanks to her charming Actors Award speech.
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