In a calendar full of unofficial “starts of the awards season,” September is a very attractive one on paper. We all feel the very first crisp in the air, and as we flip our calendars into the final quarter of the year, film fans and Oscar prognosticators will have seen (or seen details/reviews of) a large share of the fledgling season’s major contenders. The Venice Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival both concluded mid-month, where many Oscar hopefuls had their stocks far more accurately appraised. The machinations of the campaigns begin or start to reach a higher gear. With only a few months left into the season, the eyes of predictors and studios alike start to see the light of nomination morning (January 17th, this year) at the end of the tunnel by September.
While all this is true, the recent actual result of September releases, in particular, lays in stark contrast to the burgeoning rollout of the fall slate of awards contenders. Over the last decade or so, films of all types have been earnestly released in September with varied mixes of Oscar hopes, studio confidence, and awards pedigree… and frankly don’t have much to show for it. Taking this longer view, September appears as a very strange liminal space- caught in between the bombast of summer and the higher-brow hopes of studios’ late-fall gems- where films land rather unremarkably.
To quantify this, by a quick glance at September theatrical (and streaming) release date calendars back to 2014, the total number of Oscar nominations garnered by September releases in the last decade is only in the twenties. (I did not count anything from the 2020-21 release calendar- those eligible for the April 2021 Academy Awards- since September 2020 was far from typical, and no other month was a clear enough equivalent). In the twenties, over the decade! In contrast, it is not unusual to have twenty Oscar nominations accounted for across just three or four films released later in the season in just one typical year.
A few other stark statistics: by my same quick investigation (using the release date calendars available on Movie Insider’s website), only six films in the last decade have received more than one Oscar nomination after releasing in September. Last season’s “The Creator“ managed two (and went home winless), “The Eyes of Tammy Faye“ scored two nominations and won them both in 2021, repeating the exact nomination haul as the prior example, “Judy,“ in 2019. Before this, the other three films in this category were “Victoria & Abdul“ in 2017, 2016’s “Beauty and the Beast,“ and “Sicario“ the year before. These films account for only three Oscar wins produced by September movies across a whole decade (A couple of other notable single-nomination Oscar winners from September include “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar“ and “Free Solo“).
Not only this, but September releases have been remarkably absent from the Best Picture lineup- you have to go all the way back to 2011, when “Moneyball“ released at the tail end of the month, to find a September release to crack a Best Picture lineup (According to the Oscars Model that my brother and I have built, “Sicario“ really should have been a Best Picture nominee in 2016, ranking 9th-likeliest to be nominated that year- though only eight were nominated). September is only one of three months (joining January and April) to have not produced a Best Picture nominee in the last decade.
It’s really a remarkable drought. Much has been made about the summer season’s increasingly large seat at the Oscars table in recent years, and I was amazed to see how many films released in the first days of October went on to relatively strong Oscar recognition (October is the generator of the third-most Best Picture nominees over the last year, many of them coming in the first week or so of the month). Those releasing specifically in the month of September appear in pretty staggering relief, especially considering its proximity to genuine “awards season“ sweet spots.
So what is driving this? Is there a kind of movie that gets released in September? What are the studios considering when they determine a September release date? Do they know the uphill battle they are taking on? Which direction is the correlation moving? To first conceptualize all of this, let’s take a look at a few films released in September that seemed to have very genuine awards campaigns behind them.
One that comes to mind immediately is 2022’s “The Woman King.“ It truly had all the makings of a large awards contender, and it was clear that Sony Pictures thought so, too, by their FYC campaigning. Even up until nomination morning, after having fallen gradually in prediction markets since in the months following its release, it was widely predicted to appear on the Oscar ballot in at least a couple of places. Instead, it was notably blanked by the Academy, including a rather high-profile snub of Viola Davis in Best Actress (the third most statistically egregious snub in that category as far back as our Model goes). I can’t help but think this may have been an example of poor strategy: it’s not hard to imagine “The Woman King“ taking off more with the Oscars if it had had a shorter runway. It made a good deal of money and was the talk of the town for the weeks following- had they timed it with an October or November release date, I would bet it would have been able to translate that buzz with Oscar success better.
In the same year, “Blonde“ fared only barely better. After getting panned by critics upon release in Venice, it was released with decimated expectations. It eventually pulled off a “best case considering the circumstances“ scenario, making the Best Makeup & Hairstyling shortlist and securing a nomination for leading lady Ana de Armas. It’s a pretty scant best-case scenario! And finally, one can’t cover September Oscar hopefuls without mentioning “Hustlers“ in 2019. While not the overall contender that “The Woman King“ was, its singular push (and eventual snub) for Jennifer Lopez in Best Supporting Actress makes it a glaring part of the September Snub phenomenon. According to our Oscars Model, Lopez‘s snub is the second-most statistically surprising of its kind in the category; she was ranked 2nd-likeliest to be nominated (behind only eventual Oscar-winner Laura Dern) and was enjoying odds in the high 90s. I loosely lump in “Battle of the Sexes“ here, too. It made enough of a splash in the acting races to make me think it could have actually stuck an Oscar landing if it had been released later in the season.
Another pattern in the puzzle of September releases seems to be that studios reserve this slot for their more genre-focused offerings. Movies like the aforementioned “The Creator“ and “The Woman King,“ along with others from relatively high-profile directors like “El Conde“ (nominated only for Cinematography), “Don’t Worry Darling,” “Ad Astra“ (nominated only for Sound Mixing), “The Sisters Brothers,” “mother!,“ and others perhaps didn’t have the same right-over-the-plate appeal as others, and studios may have understood they had weaker hands from the onset. If they caught traction, great, but otherwise, they weren’t the most typical of awards plays.
September also seems to be a conventional landing place for high-uncertainty plays (having some glimmers of reasons to be optimistic, but otherwise solidly off-center) for adapted material or lauded IP- think “A Haunting in Venice,” “The Greatest Beer Run Ever,” “Dear Evan Hansen,” “The Goldfinch,” “A Simple Favor,” “Bel Canto,“ and others. “Beauty and the Beast“ did this in 2017 on its way to two Oscar nominations, but even this was a slight underperformance compared to some expectations. September appears to be a good time to make money riding the coattails of original material’s popularity in an otherwise weak box office environment, but one gets the sense looking at this list that studios knew better than to expect earnest awards routes.
Some narrower single-category contenders have accomplished their Oscar hopes in September, like “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” “Loving Vincent,” “Winter on Fire,“ and “The Boxtrolls,“ but otherwise, the September release calendars over the last decade is really a laundry list of forgotten fodder for “This Had Oscar Buzz.“ Not to make too much of just listing relatively overshadowed movies released in September- “Cassandro,” “Dumb Money,” “See How They Run,” “Bros,” “Cry Macho,” “The Laundromat,” “First They Killed My Father,” “Sully“ (nominated only for Best Sound Editing), “American Honey“- but doing so really helps a clear pattern emerge. All of these movies, whether specifically awards-focused or not, sputtered to make it across any significant finish line compared to their hopes upon release.
All of the films discussed here with September release dates paint a picture of a confusing time between the summer and the fall, a bit identity-less and marked with great uncertainty. I have no doubt that studios thought some of these were multi-nomination or even Best Picture contenders, and maybe we all thought they would be, too. In any case, plenty of evidence is here to justify a healthy skepticism regarding the September release strategy.
What does this mean for 2024 contenders? Without painting with too wide a brush, I personally think it suggests that Venice-opener “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice“ (September 6th) would be lucky to land even one Oscar nomination by the time it’s said and done, “His Three Daughters“ (September 6th) might not be the above-the-line contender we thought at one point it could be, and “Megalopolis“ (September 27th) will likely be a fantastic installment for “This Had Oscar Buzz.“ Of all the September releases, I feel most confident in “The Wild Robot“ (September 27th) making an eventual Oscar ballot, though I even think it could benefit from a shorter runway following hopefully good reviews from TIFF (see “The Boy and the Heron“).
So, as we look back on September, I (and recent history) encourage you to have a healthy dose of skepticism about the Oscar chances of any September releases. Some do go the distance, but they’re very few and far between, with usually just a nomination or two coming out of the entire month’s slate. Here’s to hoping- like we do every September- that this year’s an exception!
So what do you think? Do you believe films that release in September have a good enough chance to be nominated and win Oscars? What did you think of the films which were released this month? Please let us know in the comments below or on Next Best Picture’s X account, and be sure to check out Next Best Picture’s latest Oscar predictions here.
You can follow Cole and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @CurtissOnFilm
