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Considerations
Covering the annual film industry awards races, with sharp commentary on the pictures, the players, the money, and the spectacle. by Tyler Coates
Why Hedda, Roofman, and F1 Could Still Crash the Oscar Party
Tessa Thompson, Nina Hoss, and Imogen Poots in Hedda. By Parisa Taghizadeh/Prime
© Amazon Content Services LLC Today is the last day of Oscar nominations voting, which brings an end to “phase one” of campaigning. With the noms being announced next Thursday, January 22—at the ungodly hour of 5 a.m. PT—there will be barely enough time to relax before things kick into full gear once again.
Now, I can’t imagine being an Academy member and waiting a whole week to fill out my ballot. But unlike us pundits, most voters haven’t spent the last few months obsessively tracking dozens of movies they did not work on. Academy members are hopefully busy making other movies! I can also understand procrastination, as I love nothing more than a deadline to allow me to wait until the last minute to complete anything. But voting for the Oscars? What a dream. I’d fill that thing out first thing Monday morning.
But the folks working on campaigns—from the contenders themselves and their personal publicists, to the studio reps and the strategists they’ve hired—won’t stop pushing their projects until voting closes this evening. Since I’ve spent so many weeks designating the frontrunners, let’s take this down-to-the-wire moment to identify some of the dark horses who still have a shot.
As much as I love (and also hate!) predicting the Oscar nominations, I always have to admit that there’s no way I’m going to get them all right, especially in a year like this one in which the number of worthy films and performers greatly exceeds the number of slots for potential nominees. I hate to use the word “snub,” as it isn’t a personal attack when a performer who has worked hard for a nomination fails to land one. It’s a numbers game! And there’s always a surprise or two in store.
Just think of the unexpected twists we’ve seen in recent years: the shocking best actress nomination for To Leslie star Andrea Riseborough; Barbie’s Margot Robbie missing best actress, while America Ferrera earned a supporting actress nom; double-nominees in best supporting actor for films like The Power of the Dog (for Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee) and The Banshees of Inisherin (for Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan), or best supporting actress for Everything Everywhere All at Once (for Jamie Lee Curtis, who won, and Stephanie Hsu). Even last year had that somewhat unexpected nom for A Complete Unknown’s Monica Barbaro, plus best actor for Sebastian Stan and supporting actor for Jeremy Strong in the controversial Trump biopic The Apprentice. There have been plenty of wildcards throughout Oscar history. I don’t think many people expected Marcia Gay Harden to win best supporting actress for Pollock in 2000, especially since she wasn’t even nominated at the precursor awards.
The races aren’t locked until the nominations are in, in other words, so there’s still hope yet for those on the bubble in their categories.
Potential surprises this year could include Hedda’s Nina Hoss, who maintains a commanding presence despite being undercut by a truly hilarious sight-gag in Nia DaCosta’s Ibsen adaptation. Roofman got less attention than it deserved, but Derek Cianfrance’s comic drama offers career-best performances from Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst. Train Dreams, which I think is likely to land noms for picture and cinematography, features three heartbreaking, if quiet, turns from Joel Edgerton, William H. Macy and Kerry Condon. The Testament of Ann Lee, one of my favorite films of last year, boasts a visceral and feral performance from Amanda Seyfried, and is beautifully written by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold (the latter also directed). The gorgeous score by Daniel Blumberg, who won the Oscar last year, didn’t land on the shortlist, which could be a sign that the film won’t land in many other categories. But again—to quote Dumb and Dumber, which received zero Oscar nominations—you’re telling me there’s a chance? There’s always a chance.
I’m also betting on some surprises in the best picture category. There are a few sure-things: One Battle After Another, Hamnet, Sinners and Marty Supreme. I’m thinking this year will make history, with three international titles appearing on the list: The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, and It Was Just an Accident. That leaves just three slots left. At the beginning of the season, I was carving out space for Avatar: Fire and Ash and Wicked: For Good, whose predecessors were best picture nominees; I feel less confident now that they will make the cut, as both have faced some franchise fatigue. I think this is how Netflix gets two noms for Frankenstein (a bigger hit with voters than most expected a few months ago, with an excellent chance of sweeping the crafts categories) and Train Dreams.
If there’s one true outlier here that I will boldly predict, it’s going to be Apple’s F1, which earned a PGA nom and was a massive international hit. Considering the ultra-challenging production, in which director Joseph Kosinski (an Oscar nominee for Top Gun: Maverick) managed to shoot scenes in shockingly brief intervals amid the chaos of Formula 1 races across the world, it’s a massive filmmaking achievement. This is the hill I’ll die on this year—or, at the very least, one I hope everyone will forget by next year if I’m wrong.
