Written by Paige Tamasi
As we enter fall and the year begins to wrap up, the deadline for the 2024 Oscar entries quickly approaches! This upcoming Oscars will be the 96th annual and is set to be held on Sunday, March 10th, 2024.
Due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strikes, however, this date may change, despite the WGA ending their strikes due to positive negotiations, the actor’s union is still picketing and in negotiations.
The host has yet to be announced, and we’re all curious to see who is going to be following on from last year’s Jimmy Kimmel. Unfortunately, you will no longer be able to broadcast or stream the awards from Sky or Now due to ITV gaining exclusive rights within the United Kingdom.
Despite this award show feeling like a mile away, deadlines for submissions are coming up! The categories submission deadline is November 18th, with official category results announced a little over a month later, on December 21st. You will get the chance to vote in the new year starting January 11th, but you only get 5 days so make sure you get your vote in. Then it’s off to the races as the official nominations will be released on January 23rd with around a two-month wait for the actual award show!
Before we get into the popular candidates for the 2024 Oscars, let’s take a look at past years for some context. Over the past decade or so many activist groups have taken notice of a reoccurring issue with the Hollywood awards and demanded increased diversity and representation. A notable example of this being put into effect would be in 2017 when ‘Moonlight’ beat ‘La La Land’ for Best Picture (you may remember a dramatic scene of confusion onstage when the hosts couldn’t remember who won), but when in 2020 only one non-white actress (Cynthia Erivo) and zero female directors won, criticism returned to the Oscars. Breaking this trend in 2022, Jane Campion won best director for ‘Power of the Dog’, following the first ethnically diverse female director to win, Chloe Zhao. As more and more diversity reaches the Hollywood awards scene, we can safely say that watchers should start to expect a broader voter result come 2024.
Now onto the nominees!
Best Picture has a slew of fantastic films to choose from including, but not limited to: ‘American Fiction’ (winner of Toronto’s Audience Award), ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ (crowned with the Palme d’Or Award), the ‘Holdovers’, ‘Maestro’, ‘Origin’, ‘Past lives’, ‘Poor Things’ (winner of Venice’s ‘Golden Lion’), and ‘Zone of interest’. Oh, and who could forget Barbienheimer: ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ took the world by storm of greyscale and vivid pink and are expected to feature heavily in both the polls and nominations.
The Best Director category is full of powerhouses this year and I can’t tell who I’d want to win! Between Greta Gerwig for ‘Barbie’, Jonathan Glazer with ‘Zone of Interest’, Yorgos Lanthimos and ‘Poor Things’, Christopher Nolan for ‘Oppenheimer’, and Martin Scorsese with the upcoming film ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ (who Variety Magazine predicts will win), I truly don’t know where I’d personally cast my vote!
The Leading Actor and Actress awards are dominated by so many brilliant actors such as Bradley Cooper (Maestro, Variety magazines winner prediction), Colman Domingo (Rustin), Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer), Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction), Carey Mulligan (Maestro), Natalie Portman (May December), Margot Robbie (Barbie), Emma Stone (Poor Things), and Sandra Huller (Anatomy of the Fall). Many people are looking forward to the yet-to-be-released movies as well, such as the upcoming ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ involving fan favourite, Leonardo DiCaprio.
This year had no shortage of amazing supporting actors either, from Robert Downey Jr (Oppenheimer), Ryan Gosling (Barbie, and who Variety thinks will take the crown for his role as ‘Ken’), Charles Melton (May December), and Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things), Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer), De’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers- Variety predicted supporting actress winner), and Julianne Moore (May December).
As for the Best Screenplay awards (original and adapted), we’re looking at Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig for ‘Barbie’, David Hemingson for ‘The Holdovers’, Celine Song for ‘Past Lives’, Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik for ‘May December’, and Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer for ‘Maestro’ forBest Original Screenplay. Cord Jefferson (American fiction based on ‘Erasure’ (2001) by Percival Everett), Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese (‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ based on the book by David Grann), Christopher Nolan (‘Oppenheimer’, based on ‘American Prometheus’ (2005) by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin), Ava DuVernay (‘Origin’, adapted from the book by Isabel Wilkerson), and Tony McNamara (‘Poor things’ based on the book by Alasdair Gray) are some of the top contenders for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Turning now to my personal favourite category: Best Animated Feature, we have a wide list to pick from, with some still to be released! ‘Boy and the Heron’ (GKids/Toho), ‘Elemental’ (Pixar), ‘Spider-man: Across the Spider-Verse’ (Sony Pictures) (Variety predicted winner and my personal favourite), ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’ (Paramount Pictures), ‘Super Mario Bros. Movie’ (Illumination/Universal), and ‘Nimona’ (Netflix/Annapurna).
As we get into the less mainstream and more niche categories for the Oscars let us take a quick break and look at some of the movies that have yet to come out and which may shake the estimations!
- Killers of the Flower Moon (Oct. 20)
- Five Nights at Freddy’s (Oct. 25)
- Dune: Part 2 (Nov. 3)
- The Marvels (Nov. 10)
- Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Nov. 17)
- Napoleon (Nov. 24)
- Wish (Nov. 24)
- Wonka (Dec. 15)
- Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (Dec. 20)
- The Color Purple (Dec. 25)
- Next Goal Wins (Dec 29)
- Ferrari (Dec. 29)
Alright, back to the categories!
Production design is looking at ‘Barbie’ (Sarah Greenwood (production designer) and Katie Spencer (set decorator)), ‘Maestro’ (Kevin Thompson (production designer) and Rena DeAngelo (set decorator)), ‘Oppenheimer’ (Ruth De Jong (production designer)) and Claire Kaufman (set decorator)), ‘Poor things’ (Shona Heath (production designer) and Zsuzsa Mihalek (set decorator)).
Cinematography is currently focused on Matthew Libatique for ‘Maestro’, Hoyte van Hoytema, ‘Oppenheimer’, Linus Sandgren, ‘Saltburn’, and Łukasz Żal, ‘The Zone of Interest’.
Critics are looking towards ‘Oppenheimer’ to lead in most (if not all) of the technical categories, while many people are hoping that ‘Asteroid City’s’ production design will place it in the running for technical categories despite receiving a lackluster reception at Cannes.
We could continue talking about the stunningly talented people who worked on the over 200 movies that were released this year and debate between industry titans for much more time than anyone has, so why not watch, and anticipate these heavily revered films? The 2024 Oscars are months away, but there are plenty of movies to fill that time!
Written by Paige Tamasi, Edited by Eleanor Partington-Lane, Photography by Ruairidh Colquhoun, Published by Mia Ince.