The 2024 Oscar nominations started relatively quietly with almost no surprises until a few late curveballs turned everything upside down once again. Now, as everyone seeks to pick up the pieces and look ahead to the winning phase, here are the six biggest under-the-radar takeaways from the very end of the nomination phase.
“A Complete Unknown,” “I’m Still Here” & “Wicked” May Help Decide Best Picture
The nominations helped back up that “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” “Conclave,” and “Emilia Pérez” are the four finalists for Best Picture. However, there are other Best Picture nominees who don’t have a shot to win but who could severely destroy the hopes of others or clear the way for them.
There are probably some who are now insisting “A Complete Unknown” is the fifth film that can win after taking six above-the-line nominations. Nonetheless, without a shocking win in Best Adapted Screenplay, the biggest thing “A Complete Unknown” can do to impact the Best Picture race is derail “The Brutalist’s” Best Picture win package.
Timothée Chalamet was already deemed a Best Actor frontrunner when “A Complete Unknown” didn’t seem likely to get any other actors nominated, let alone James Mangold for both Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. Now, with such a formidable voting bloc, will it rally around Chalamet to put him over Adrien Brody for Best Actor – and therefore kill “The Brutalist’s” Best Picture hopes by denying it an all-important second above-the-line win?
Conversely, it is assumed “Emilia Pérez” doesn’t need more than one win in a significant category to take Best Picture, as long as Zoe Saldaña’s Best Supporting Actress win remains secure. But now that “Wicked” has 10 nominations and had enough support in the acting branch to get both Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in, can those voters get behind Grande enough to pull off an upset in Best Supporting Actress – and therefore kill “Emilia Pérez’s” Best Picture hopes by keeping it shut out above the line before Best Picture?
Maybe the “Wicked” voters aren’t united behind the goal of toppling “Emilia Pérez,” but the voters who surged “I’m Still Here” to a Best Picture and Best Actress nomination for Fernanda Torres are. The negative feelings for “Emilia Pérez” from the Brazilian community that has pushed “I’m Still Here” all season may have now reached a boiling point – and if it is powerful enough to get the film and Torres into the Oscars, could it put a supposedly locked Best International Film victory for “Emilia Pérez” in doubt next?
There are more potential Best Picture winners at this point of the season than usual – and by extension, there may also be more films that can play spoiler or savior to them than normal.
“Conclave” Must Hope A Three-Year Pattern Continues
The biggest loser among the frontrunners is presumed to be “Conclave” since Edward Berger got a second surprise Best Director snub in a row, and the film underperformed with eight nominations overall. Nonetheless, a weaker-than-expected nomination morning is almost tradition for a Best Picture winner every three years.
The best hope “Conclave” has is that 2024 ends up like 2021, 2018, 2015 or 2012. Starting with “Argo” winning it all despite missing a Best Director nomination in 2012, Best Picture winners have survived at least one major miss every three years – such as “Spotlight” missing wins everywhere but Best Original Screenplay in 2015, “Green Book” missing a Best Director nomination in 2018 and “CODA” only having three nominations overall in 2021.
Since a Picture/Screenplay/Supporting Acting win combination like “Green Book” and “CODA” had is probably out, barring Isabella Rossellini somehow winning without a SAG nomination, “Conclave” must hope it can win with just a Picture/Screenplay/Editing package like “Argo” had in 2012, or somehow win with a Picture/Screenplay package like “Spotlight” did in 2015. Those were its only options before Oscar nomination morning, and in that regard, nothing has changed, even if its expected nomination package has.
Golden Globes were the biggest precursor of the Oscar season
Last year, the Golden Globes matched up with the Oscars more than usual, as it nominated every single Best Picture film and every actor except for Sterling K. Brown and America Ferrera. This year, it very nearly matched that, as it nominated every future Best Picture film except “I’m Still Here,” every single eventual acting nominee except for Monica Barbaro, and every eventual Best Director nominee except for James Mangold.
Whether this means the Globes will also be prophetic when it comes to winners is yet to be seen – which would bode well for either “The Brutalist” or “Emilia Pérez,” but less so for “Anora” and actors other than Brody, Torres, Saldana, Demi Moore, and Kieran Culkin. It was dead on last year in awarding “Oppenheimer,” “Poor Things,” all four Oscar acting winners, and “Anatomy of a Fall” in Screenplay, but was far less accurate in 2022 because “Everything Everywhere All at Once” hadn’t started steamrolling yet. Will this year’s Globes turn out to be a similar mirage, or will its eerie accuracy so far continue a while longer?
Cannes Was The Biggest Festival Precursor Of This Season
While fall festivals are usually where the Oscar race takes shape, it really started at Cannes in 2024. Just like last year, three eventual Best Picture nominees premiered at Cannes, in “Anora,” “Emilia Pérez” and “The Substance.” Beyond that, a grand total of 16 nominees in the eight major categories premiered at Cannes, up from 12 in 2023.
If anything, the other festivals were more muted than usual in the 2024 race, as Venice only really launched “The Brutalist,” Telluride launched “Conclave” and “Nickel Boys,” Sundance only launched “A Real Pain,” and the only TIFF premiere to have any major nominations was 2023 TIFF world premiere “Sing Sing.” In fact, thanks to “Wicked” and “A Complete Unknown,” films that premiered after the fall festivals may have had the biggest impact on the season other than Cannes.
Although Sundance has officially launched the 2025 festival season this week, the real start of the Oscar season is likely still on hold until Cannes four months from now.
“Nickel Boys” Continues A New Tradition
When “Nickel Boys” only had Best Adapted Screenplay as a nomination before Best Picture was read, it appeared dead and gone. However, according to recent history, that may well have clinched its Best Picture nomination.
For the third year in a row, a movie got into Best Picture with Screenplay as its only other nomination, just like “Women Talking” in 2022 and “Past Lives” in 2023. All these films were touted as much more major players in the preseason, racked up significant nomination tallies in critics award season, and then seemed to fall off the map with industry and guild voters. But there was still just enough passion left for these films to squeeze in on a preferential ballot, even if its snubs in other categories still stung.
“Women Talking” overcame all this to win Best Adapted Screenplay in 2022, yet “Past Lives” fell short in 2023. “Nickel Boys” will likely go the way of the latter, though it will go down as another tale of hope for whatever critically adored film starts slipping near the end of voting next year.
Kieran Culkin Must Now Be A Male Acting Winner Unlike Any In This Era
“Nickel Boys” and “I’m Still Here” both helped push “A Real Pain” out of Best Picture, despite Kieran Culkin’s supposedly locked Best Supporting Actor win and its nomination in Best Original Screenplay. And with that, there is now a slight bit of hope for Culkin’s competition.
As repeatedly mentioned, no male actor in the preferential ballot era has won an acting Oscar without a Best Picture nomination unless they are overdue, like Jeff Bridges or Christopher Plummer, or have a transformation/comeback narrative like Brendan Fraser. As such, Culkin now must go old school and rely on the performance alone to win – and hope the complaints about category fraud don’t impact this stage more than they did in the last one.
If the performance alone isn’t enough and Culkin is indeed vulnerable, it might well have a greater impact beyond Best Supporting Actor. If there is an opening, could Guy Pearce survive his SAG snub to steal a win and secure “The Brutalist’s” Best Picture win package – or could Yura Borisov secure “Anora’s” win package instead of Mikey Madison? Or what if Edward Norton gets a career-honoring Oscar instead – thus making “A Complete Unknown” a true Best Picture-winning threat with two potential acting wins? Or would Norton just be its collective winner to make up for Chalamet losing to Brody?
Once the carnage and controversy of the actual Oscar nominations fade, these and other burning questions will start looming larger as Oscar night itself looms closer on March 2nd. Check out Next Best Picture’s latest Oscar predictions here. Follow us on Next Best Picture’s X account for more awards season updates and trivia.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
