The eight most important stories ahead of the 2024 Oscars

Traditionally, the Oscar race begins in the fall, when one contender after another debuts, resulting in a backlog of ambitious films vying to compete at the following spring’s Academy Awards. This time was different. The seismic event known as “Barbenheimer”, the publication on the same day of Barbie and oppenheimer on July 21, not only proved that two notable and dramatically different films could find success sharing the same multiplex: it announced two early entries in the upcoming awards competition.

In some respects, Barbenheimer never finished. The presence (or absence) of the two films on the list of nominees for the 96th Academy Awards has been a major part of the run-up to Sunday’s ceremony. But they are not the whole story. Although it was already obvious that Barbie and oppenheimer They would be major events this time last year, the final months of 2023 were not without surprises. A year ago, Da’Vine Joy Randolph was a respected character actress, but not a household name. Her work in The remains changed that, leading to a Supporting Actress nomination (and a likely win). Sandra Hüller probably won’t win in the lead actress category, but her work in The area of ​​interest and Anatomy of a fall have raised the profile of a talented artist virtually unknown outside of Germany. A year ago no one was talking about either of them. So what are we talking about? now As the Oscars approach? These are some of the most intriguing narratives.

Willpower oppenheimer win it all?

Only three films have swept the five main categories of the Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actress, Actor, Director and Screenplay): It happened one night, one flew over the cuckoo’s nestand Silence of inocents. It is not possible for oppenheimer To repeat, since Christopher Nolan’s biopic about the father of the atomic bomb didn’t win Best Actress, but the film could very well win everything else, including Best Picture. And if oppenheimer picks up awards in technical categories like Sound and Editing early in the evening, its performance might start to look like a success anyway.

oppenheimerHowever, it is not invulnerable. Adapted from Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s 2005 biography. American Prometheus, could find competition in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. Awards for screenplays, both adapted and original, can be unpredictable. Eight of the last 10 Best Picture winners—Everything everywhere and at the same time, Parasite, Green Book, Stand out, Moonlight, bird man, CODAand 12 years of slavery—have picked up their corresponding screenwriting award, but a curveball is never out of the question.

oppenheimerThe competition includes Barbie (what was it moved to Adapted Screenplay category despite campaigning for an original position), and Vegas gamblers currently please Cord Jefferson’s script for American fictionan adaptation of Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure. Either could win (and especially strong arguments could be made for Barbie). Cillian Murphy remains the favorite to win Best Actor, but a win for Paul Giamatti wouldn’t be particularly shocking. And, as previously suggested, Randolph will take home the award for Best Supporting Actress, not oppenheimerIt’s Emily Blunt. Soon, oppenheimer You will win a lot, but not everything, and maybe not all the awards you can imagine. could gain.

Is there any category more defined than Best Supporting Actor?

If there are certain things, oppenheimer or any other film, is Robert Downey Jr.’s triumph as Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Lewis Strauss, J. Robert Oppenheimer’s main antagonist. Downey has been campaigning hard and has already picked up numerous pre-Oscar awards, including a BAFTA and a Golden Globe (which for some reason we’re taking seriously again after his scandals and near-meltdown just a few years ago ). Above all, it is a matter of time. Downey has had a Hollywood comeback story. His talent has never been in doubt, but he’s been pretty much stuck in Marvel movies for over a decade (and, to a lesser extent, in the Sherlock Holmes movies, with a disastrous attempt at playing Dr. Dolittle included in the mix). oppenheimer served as a reminder that he can still act with a capital A in a role that played to his strengths in portraying smart, long-winded, not-quite-trustworthy men. This will belong to you.

Is Snub Barbie real (and how many times will she be referenced)?

Like its Barbenheimer counterpart, Barbie It earned several nominations, eight in total, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress, the latter for América Ferrera. But there were some glaring omissions, chief among them a Best Director nomination for Greta Gerwig and a Best Actress nomination for Margot Robbie. Whether it was simply tough competition or an unwillingness to give also Many nominations for a film directed by a woman that puts feminist issues front and center has been a affair of discussion. (Ryan Gosling’s nomination as Ken, however deserved, has only reinforced some of the film’s central points.) There is no sure answer to the question, but don’t be surprised if you found out about it a long time ago. batch on Sunday. Finally, Barbie will probably take home at least one or two awards; look for the aforementioned screenplay category, as well as production or costume design, and Best Original Song (more on that in a moment).

What are the most likely upsets?

Lily Gladstone seems to be a candidate for Best Actress for her great work in Flower Moon Killers since the film’s debut. That Gladstone became the first Native American to win an acting Oscar (aside from Wes Studi’s honorary award in 2020) for a film deeply concerned with the oppression of Native Americans and the way history has systematically ignored their stories It would be a remarkable moment. But what if it doesn’t happen? A victory for Emma Stone for poor things remains a possibility, and his emotionally rich and risky work as an intellectually curious, Frankenstein-esque creation would be something to celebrate in almost any other year.

Why is everyone being so weird about Bradley Cooper (and this will be the end)?

Really why? His biopic of Leonard Bernstein, Teacher, earned several major nominations, including Best Picture, Actor (for Cooper), Actress (Carey Mulligan), and Original Screenplay (also for Cooper, who co-wrote the script with Josh Singer), which are achievements that most people have. been mocking. There’s no doubt that Cooper has been campaigning hard for the film. But do you know who else campaigned hard for an Academy Award? Almost everyone who ever won one. A strange schadenfreude has followed Cooper and the project all year. Maybe it’s because he obviously wants to be considered an important filmmaker. Maybe it’s because few consider the film a home run, despite it being a big change. Still, it’s at least a solid single, maybe even a double. Cooper is quite talented at acting and directing and it feels like he’s working to make a truly great movie, even if Teacher It is not like this? Why punish that?

Will Billie Eilish earn half an EGOT with a song (again)?

Probably! Eilish is nominated for her Barbie song “What Was I Made For?”, which appears to be the likely winner despite competition from “I’m Just Ken” from the same film. Co-written with her brother Finneas, it already won Song of the Year at the Grammys. Eilish and Finneas won a Grammy and an Oscar two years ago for their song There is no time to die, and a win on Sunday would make Eilish, 22, the youngest two-time Oscar winner in history. That’s, once again, half an EGOT for a single song. But here’s a question: How will she win an Emmy and a Tony? The way her career is going, she has plenty of time to figure it out.

Will Jimmy Kimmel be a good host?

There are many reasons to think it will. Kimmel has emerged as the best Oscar host in recent memory: funny, professional and scathing enough to give the night an edge. This will be Kimmel’s fourth time hosting. He played the role in 2017, 2018 and again in 2023. The Oscars’ unmemorable years without a host make it look even better by comparison. (Though it’s not really fair to take the Steven Soderbergh-produced, COVID-plagued film into account.) Oscars 2021and the combination of Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes in 2022 worked relatively well, although no one remembers anything about that night except The Slap).

How political will this year’s ceremony be?

Kimmel has said in interviews that politics shouldn’t be the focus of the evening, even if he’ll probably use it for a joke or two (as he has on he past). The X factor is, well, everyone else. And between the war between Israel and Hamas, an upcoming election that evokes memories of one of the candidate’s previous coup attempts, Ukraine, climate change and everything else, the night should offer plenty of reasons for the winners to seize their moment in the center of attention to discuss urgent issues. affairs. Suitability has been a topic of debate since before. Marlon Brando sent Sacheen Littlefeather on stage in 1973, but consider this: last year, Navalny, a film about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, won in the Best Documentary Feature category. When accepting the award, the subject’s wife, now a widow, Yulia Navalny, told those present that her husband was “in prison just for telling the truth (…) just for defending democracy.” Moments like this can provide a stark reminder that there is a world beyond movies and awards, even if it’s easy to forget about it for a few hours once a year.

Keith Phipps is a writer and editor specializing in film and television. Before: uproxx, The dissolutionand The AV Club.