NEW YORK, NY.- Who are the front-runners, the dark horses and the long shots? After major film festivals in Venice, Italy, Toronto and Telluride, Colorado, where most of the years remaining prestige films have screened, the awards season has finally begun to come into focus.
There are still a few significant contenders yet to debut, including Damien Chazelles glitzy Hollywood drama Babylon, and the industry is buzzing that Apple will soon announce a year-end release for its big-budget slavery drama, Emancipation, even though the films leading man, Will Smith, was banned from attending the Oscars for the next decade. And some tantalizing questions from these festivals still linger, including whether Glass Onion, the rollicking sequel to Knives Out, can score the best-picture nomination that the first film missed out on.
But in the meantime, here are the eight films that came out of the fall festivals with the biggest awards-season pop.
The Whale
There are few things Oscar voters prefer more than a transformational role and a comeback narrative, and this season, Brendan Frasers got both. In Darren Aronofskys new drama, Fraser wears a prosthetic bodysuit to transform into a 600-pound shut-in named Charlie, who attempts to reconnect with his angry daughter (Sadie Sink) as his health falters. Interest is high in the 53-year-old actors return to the limelight, and every time a clip hit social media of the emotional Fraser soaking up applause in Venice and Toronto, a young generation raised on his heroics in The Mummy reliably made those videos go viral. Although some festival pundits have taken issue with the films depiction of an obese protagonist, awards voters will still be wowed by Frasers work, making him this years prohibitive best-actor favorite.
The Fabelmans
Steven Spielbergs new film about his own coming-of-age was warmly received in Toronto, where Michelle Williams won best-in-show notices as Mitzi, the theatrical mother of the movies young Spielberg stand-in. Expect the actress to pick up her fifth Oscar nomination and, if she is run as a supporting performer, her first win. Even before its festival debut, awards watchers thought Spielbergs film would land at the top of their best-picture prediction lists, but the film isnt juggernaut-shaped its lighter, more intimate and an appealing ramble in a way that people might not have anticipated. That may mean that the field is still open for a best-picture favorite to emerge, or perhaps The Fabelmans could sneak its way there in the end without earning the resentment accrued by an early-season front-runner.
Tár
It has been 16 years since Todd Field last directed a film, but expect his third feature, Tár, to hit the Oscar-nominated heights of his predecessors, In the Bedroom and Little Children. It will certainly be one of the years most talked-about movies: The story touches on hot-button topics such as cancel culture and #MeToo as it follows a famed conductor (Cate Blanchett) whose career begins to crumble when her past catches up with her. Blanchett earned career-best raves at Venice for the role and taught herself German, piano and conducting to boot so a third Oscar is well within reach. Still, a strong year for best-actress contenders will make Blanchetts battle a fierce one.
The Banshees of Inisherin
Five years after Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri earned Oscars for Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell, writer-director Martin McDonagh is back with a dark comedy whose cast could run the table, too. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are longtime friends whose relationship is severed in the most baffling way, and Farrells constant attempts to mend the rift push their petty grievances into the realm of tragedy. Both men are wonderful and will probably earn their first Oscar nominations, but if voters really flip for the film and I suspect they will then supporting performers Kerry Condon (as Farrells sister) and Barry Keoghan (as a cockeyed friend) will be in the mix as well.
Women Talking
This Sarah Polley-directed drama about Mennonite women in crisis was Tellurides most significant world premiere this year, and in that Colorado enclave, which regularly draws a large contingent of Oscar voters, Women Talking did quite well. With a sprawling ensemble cast that includes awards favorites Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley and Claire Foy as well as three-time best-actress winner McDormand in a small role Women Talking should nab several nominations, even though some of the male viewers I spoke to after the films Toronto screening proved surprisingly resistant to the films feature-long debate about sexual violence.
The Woman King
Forget Women Talking how about women fighting? This old-fashioned action epic from director Gina Prince-Bythewood played through the roof in Toronto and stars Viola Davis as the leader of the Agojie, an all-female group of warriors defending their kingdom in 1820s West Africa. Davis is an Oscar winner (with three more nominations, too) who called The Woman King her magnum opus while introducing the film, and a performance this passionate and athletic should be in contention all season. But a notable box-office haul will be crucial to the films fate (it opens Friday), since even bigger action films such as Avatar: The Way of Water and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever are due at years end and will be following Oscar-nominated predecessors.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
The expansion of the best picture race to 10 nominees has made room for all sorts of previously snubbed movies, from Marvel spectaculars to Pixar tentpoles. But when will a documentary be nominated for best picture? Laura Poitras new film, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, beat all fiction narratives at Venice to take the Golden Lion, the fests top award, and this portrait of photographer Nan Goldin as she protests the wealthy Sackler familys role in the opioid crisis will be distributed by Neon, the company that managed an Oscar first with the Korean-language best picture winner Parasite. At the very least, All the Beauty will be a strong contender for the documentary Oscar that Poitras won for her 2014 film about Edward Snowden, Citizenfour.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
This A24 film from the directing team Daniels opened in March, but youd hardly know that based on the major festival tributes to its star, Michelle Yeoh, in Toronto and Venice. A flag was planted in both places: This indie hit has now entered its awards-campaign phase, and since the fall festivals didnt produce major front-runners in the picture and directing categories, expect Everything Everywhere All at Once to gun for recognition in both races as well as the supporting-actor category (where Ke Huy Quan could be this years Troy Kotsur), original screenplay and more. Yeohs best-actress nomination is almost certain, although shell face plenty of competition from Blanchett. Both women were handed dazzling signature roles this year, and their race should be the seasons most exciting.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.