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Unusually, we are days away from an Academy Awards where question marks still remain over a number of its major categories. At this point last year we were all pretty sure that Oppenheimer and Christopher Nolan would dominate on the night – which they did. This year things are very different. And, yes, that is because of Karla Sofía Gascón’s old tweets.
The Emilia Pérez star’s resurfaced social media presence – full of racism, cruelty and, somewhat hilariously, anti-Oscar sentiment – has had an unmistakable ripple effect on the Academy Awards as a whole, with what seemed to be an Emilia Pérez sweep suddenly flying off the table.
Gascón herself – whose literal presence at the ceremony is, at the time of writing, still up in the air – has no chance of winning Best Actress any more, while there’s now a shadow over the film she’s in. Winning Best Picture or Best Director at this point seems unlikely, which opens up a space for other titles that have long been snapping at its heels.
This makes Sunday’s Oscars surprisingly tense, with the madcap stripper tale Anora, the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown and the gargantuan The Brutalist all duking it out for the big wins. Recent high-profile Best Actress wins for Anora’s Mikey Madison and The Substance’s Demi Moore (Madison got the Bafta and the Independent Spirit; Moore got the Golden Globe and SAG) have made the pair neck and neck, too.
Ahead of the ceremony, we’ve cast an eye over the major categories and decided who will win, who should win, and who really should have got a look-in. Because justice for Challengers!
Best Picture
Anora
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
I’m Still Here
Nickel Boys
The Substance
Wicked
Will win: Anora
Should win: Dune: Part Two
Shoulda got a look-in: Challengers
With Emilia Pérez seemingly on life support, a late-stage surge in support for Anora seems to have pushed that film over the line. It makes sense: it has none of the dour trickiness of The Brutalist, a beautiful new star at its centre and, in Sean Baker, a director who has emerged in the last decade as one of the most intriguing and essential new-ish voices in indie filmmaking. The movie has also successfully breezed over its moments of controversy (noticeably the lack of an intimacy coordinator on set, per Mikey Madison’s request). It’s in a very rosy position. Questions will remain, though, as to how Dune: Part Two – the concluding half of one of the most emotional, ambitious and technically dazzling blockbusters in recent memory – was just never a real factor in this race. Likewise, Luca Guadagnino’s sexually charged tennis drama Challengers, which was better acted and more skilfully crafted than at least three nominees in this category.
Best Actor
Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice
Will win: Timothée Chalamet
Should win: Adrien Brody
Shoulda got a look-in: Justice Smith, I Saw the TV Glow
OK, hear me out: could Timothée Chalamet’s more Oscar-friendly movie and more Oscar-friendly personality grab the Best Actor prize from the tips of Adrien Brody’s fingers? Maybe! Remember when everyone assumed Michael Keaton would win Best Actor for Birdman in 2015, only for grinning, congenial, just-happy-to-be-there Eddie Redmayne to swoop in at the last minute to take home the award instead? Perhaps lightning could strike twice (Chalamet’s win at the SAG Awards on Sunday night gave him a further shot in the arm). Even if Brody does, admittedly, give the better performance. Missing here, by the way, is Daniel Craig’s dizzying work in Queer, his absence from Best Actor one of the stranger twists of this Oscar season. Less surprisingly absent is Justice Smith for the hypnotic trans mystery I Saw the TV Glow, but whose piercing, late-film scream remains one of the most haunting moments of 2024. Wouldn’t it have been cool if he got some awards traction this year?
Best Actress
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez
Mikey Madison, Anora
Demi Moore, The Substance
Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here
Will win: Demi Moore
Should win: Demi Moore
Shoulda got a look-in: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths
There have been whispers that Madison could prove victorious here – a theory mostly bolstered by her Best Actress win at the Baftas – but I’m still convinced this is Moore’s for the taking. While Oscar loves an ingenue, and Fernanda Torres is stoic and sublime in I’m Still Here, Moore just stomps all over her fellow nominees when it comes to sheer risk: in The Substance, she is both vulnerable and ferocious, her work also feeling in conversation with Moore’s erratic 40 years in the business. Surely she’s taking it? That said, sorely missing in this category is Marianne Jean-Baptiste, whose damaged, destructive, tragicomic work in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths goes to places few actors dare go. What a shame she wasn’t able to grab a spot here.
Best Supporting Actor
Yura Borisov, Anora
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice
Will win: Kieran Culkin
Should win: Edward Norton
Shoulda got a look-in: Adam Pearson, A Different Man
Every Oscar year has at least one reasonably tedious category, and this year it’s Best Supporting Actor, which has more or less been sewn up since the start of awards season. Kieran Culkin is entirely good in A Real Pain, as a manic and troubled backpacker, and will comfortably take this category (even though Edward Norton did far subtler and more complex work as Pete Seeger in A Complete Unknown). But there’s a feeling that there could have been a much more interesting collection of nominees here if Oscar coloured outside of the lines a little: category fraud be damned, but where the hell are the Challengers boys, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor? Or, my personal favourite, Under the Skin’s Adam Pearson in the surreal drama A Different Man. His late-arriving performance as the suave, splashy yin to Sebastian Stan’s self-destructing yang gives the movie its comic fizz.
Best Supporting Actress
Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown
Ariana Grande, Wicked
Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez
Will win: Zoe Saldaña
Should win: Ariana Grande
Shoulda got a look-in: Sophie Okonedo, Janet Planet
Even before Emilia Pérez imploded, Zoe Saldaña’s inevitable Best Supporting Actress win felt askew: she’s more or less the film’s lead, and Emilia Pérez itself is such a calamity that it’s difficult to stand entirely in her corner. And it doesn’t help that there were so many brilliant supporting performances by women this year that didn’t make the cut here, from Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor lending heartbreaking melancholy to Nickel Boys, to Michele Austin’s compassionate yet exasperated work as Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s sister in Hard Truths. Most of all, though, I loved Sophie Okonedo in the little-seen coming-of-age tale Janet Planet. She arrives in the film’s second act, radiant if self-destructive, and Okonedo conveys an entire life and history within a few short scenes. Anyway, in lieu of those women, give the prize to Ariana Grande – she’s incredibly funny and charismatic in Wicked and walks away with the whole film.
Best Director
Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez
Sean Baker, Anora
Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
Coralie Fargeat, The Substance
James Mangold, A Complete Unknown
Will win: Sean Baker
Should win: Sean Baker
Shoulda got a look-in: Luca Guadagnino, Challengers
I believe Best Director will go to whoever’s responsible for this year’s Best Picture victor, and I’m tempted to think The Brutalist is a tad too unwieldy and difficult to win over Oscar voters. So I’m leaning towards Sean Baker. And just to bring this all full circle, where are Luca Guadagnino or Dune’s Denis Villeneuve? Two men responsible for likely the best American studio films of 2024, and neither of them able to crack this category. For shame, Academy.
