On October 9th and 10th, the London Film Festival and New York Film Festival premiere screenings of “Blitz” will help answer one of the big questions of awards season. Aside from whether “Blitz” can join the Best Picture frontrunners and whether Steve McQueen can join the Best Director frontrunners, the initial word of mouth will also answer if Saoirse Ronan is set to be in her second Oscar race of the season – and whether she can really do what no other actor has done since 2019.
Since Sundance, Ronan has been in the Best Actress mix in some capacity for “The Outrun,” whether she’s been considered on the bubble or among the leaders. Now, the London/New York unveiling of “Blitz” will give a concrete idea of whether she will be in the Best Supporting Actress mix too, whether on the bubble or as a possible threat to leaders like Zoe Saldana, Danielle Deadwyler, or Felicity Jones.
If Ronan is an actual Best Supporting Actress player, then it will truly launch speculation on whether she can be the first acting double nominee since 2019. For the most part, it would give her a similar case to the last actress who pulled it off.
Back in 2019 – ironically the year of Ronan’s last Oscar nomination for “Little Women” – Scarlett Johansson was the actress who got placed in both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. Her 2019 Best Actress nomination was for the intimate, domestic drama “Marriage Story,” just as Ronan’s 2024 Best Actress nod would be for the intimate, small-scale drama “The Outrun.” Most eerie of all, Johansson’s 2019 Best Supporting Actress nomination was for playing a European WWII mother fighting to reconnect with her son in “Jojo Rabbit,” just as Ronan’s 2024 Best Supporting Actress would be for playing a European WWII mother fighting to reunite with her son in “Blitz.”
Of course, Ronan’s “Blitz” character is physically separated from her son in war-torn England, whereas Johansson’s “Jojo Rabbit” character is ideologically separated from her aspiring Nazi son in Hitler’s Germany. Still, as Johansson showed five years ago, playing a devoted WWII mom of any kind is a clear path to a Supporting Actress nomination in a wide-open field – even if they already have a Best Actress nomination in sight for another movie anyway.
In that context, Ronan would be perfectly aligned with Johansson’s path if “Blitz” does make her a Supporting Actress possibility. Nonetheless, there are clearer differences between the two, with some of them working harder against Ronan than others.
Johansson’s nominations in 2019 were the first of her career, as she broke through after failing to get nominated in early breakouts like “Lost in Translation,” and then after years of being more a blockbuster headliner than a dramatic actress. On the other hand, Ronan first got nominated as an even younger breakout in “Atonement,” and then grew up to get nominated every two years in the likes of “Brooklyn,” “Lady Bird,” and “Little Women” before her current, unusually long five-year drought.
Whether she only gets a fifth nomination months before her 31st birthday or gets both a fifth and a sixth, Ronan is already a much more familiar face to voters than Johansson was five years ago. In fact, the big issue around Ronan this year may not just be whether she should get two nominations but whether she’s overdue to win for at least one of them.
When Johansson was in the mix in 2019, she looked like an early favorite to win for Best Actress. However, that was before Renee Zellweger started pulling away for “Judy,” and before “Marriage Story” faded in every category but Best Supporting Actress for the even more overdue Laura Dern. For Best Supporting Actress, Johansson was always just a bubble contender for “Jojo Rabbit,” as her nomination was a nice bonus which also signaled the film’s strength for a collective Best Adapted Screenplay win.
For Ronan, the biggest difference between her and Johansson is in their respective Best Actress races. Although “Marriage Story” eventually faded, it was always a secure Best Picture nominee and got several other major nominations as well. In contrast, “The Outrun” is extremely unlikely to get any other Oscar nominations but Best Actress, which puts Ronan’s candidacy for both a nomination and a win in question. For that matter, while Sony Pictures Classics has pushed an overdue solo nominee to a Best Actress win before – exactly ten years ago for Julianne Moore in “Still Alice” – this year its attention may be divided between Ronan and both Moore and Tilda Swinton for “The Room Next Door.”
Yet despite how “The Outrun” is months removed from its Sundance premiere, and despite how supposed Best Actress frontrunners like Mikey Madison, Karla Sofia Gascon, and Angelina Jolie have made bigger splashes since then – with Madison and Gascon headlining potential Best Picture winners at that – Ronan is still being pushed by pundits as a real contender and perhaps a real winner. Whether that will hold any firmer after “The Outrun’s” opening in America and after Madison, Gascon, and Jolie’s films get bigger openings in theaters and on Netflix stands to be a lingering mystery.
By the time “Blitz” opens in theaters on November 1st and comes to Apple TV+ on November 22, there will be a better idea of where Ronan stands on the Best Actress pecking order. And by then, even if Ronan is still a strong Best Actress possibility, it may turn out that Best Supporting Actress is more wide open for her.
Unlike Johansson, there is a scenario where it would be easier for Ronan to get into and win Best Supporting Actress if “Blitz” is indeed still in the race by November. Should “Blitz” prove to be a genuine threat in Best Picture, then it will need another win in a major category to get it done – and its best bets would either be for McQueen in Best Director or for Ronan in Best Supporting Actress. And if Ronan does become a double nominee by then and can ride the “overdue” narrative in more ways than one, she might have an easier task than a past Best Picture winner in McQueen.
Ronan would have her own difficult competition in Saldana for “Emilia Pérez,” Deadwyler for “The Piano Lesson,” Jones for “The Brutalist,” and any wild card competitors that come up. But if “The Piano Lesson” can’t get into Best Picture or get any other major nominations to boost Deadwyler, if “The Brutalist” already has major wins covered in other categories and if “Emilia Pérez” has wins covered elsewhere as well, voters might be more inclined to spread the wealth Ronan’s way. Even if “Blitz” does fall short in Best Picture, maybe Ronan becomes its collective major winner as a way to also collectively reward her for 2024 and for all the other years she went without an Oscar.
Normally, saying someone who just turned 30 is “overdue” for an Oscar would be ridiculous. But for someone who’s been an Oscar night fixture for over 15 years and for someone who may be a six-time nominee by Oscar night 2025, there are special exceptions. With that, there may be extra passion to both get Ronan into two categories and get her an Oscar for one of them, in a way there might not have been for Johansson five years ago.
Then again, the previous double nominee before Johansson was Cate Blanchett for “I’m Not There” and “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” in 2007, just three years after her first Oscar win for “The Aviator” – and she still lost twice that year. Perhaps being a recent winner and already recurring nominee worked against Blanchett in that example in a way it didn’t for first and second-time nominee and Best Actor winner Jamie Foxx in 2004.
Ronan isn’t a recent winner like Blanchett in 2007 or an Oscar newcomer like Johansson in 2019, and isn’t an overwhelming favorite in one category like Foxx in 2004. Maybe one or a few of those differences will put her over the edge here, whether in Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress. If she is in both, then maybe voters will be more inclined to think that this time, they should let Ronan walk out with an Oscar for something.
But this is only an option in the best-case scenario – one where “Blitz” and Ronan really are the major contenders pundits have predicted all preseason and where the combined lingering presence of “The Outrun” makes Ronan a more prolific Oscar season star than ever before. Yet if the word from London and New York in the next few days isn’t that overwhelming, then Ronan may well have to put all her chips in just one category this year, whether it’s really a safe one for her or not. Either way, the initial blitz for “Blitz” will be one of the most important of Oscar season – and perhaps ultimately one of the most historic.
So what do you think? Have you seen “The Outrun” yet? Do you think Saoirse Ronan will join the exclusive club of actors nominated for two acting Oscars in the same year? 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 Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
