Once the Venice Film Festival starts on August 28th, the next month-plus will be a whirlwind of likely Oscar nominees and winners premiering at Venice, Telluride, Toronto, New York, and London. This season, the likes of “Conclave,” “Joker: Folie a Deux,” “Nickel Boys,” “Queer,” “Blitz,” “The Room Next Door,” “The Brutalist,” “Maria,” “Saturday Night,” “Babygirl,” “Nightbitch,” “The Piano Lesson,” “The End,” “Hard Truths,” and many more will launch their Best Picture campaign at one or several of these festivals. But realistically, how many slots are going to be available for them? For that, we must look back at how many Best Picture nominees premiered at a fall festival each year of the expanded ballot era – and use that to judge how many are likely to join the club this year.
2023: 4 Best Picture nominees premiering at fall festivals – “Poor Things” and “Maestro” from Venice, “American Fiction” from TIFF, “The Holdovers” from Telluride
2022: 5 nominees – “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Tar” from Venice, “The Fabelmans” and “All Quiet on the Western Front” from TIFF, “Women Talking” from Telluride
2021: 4 nominees – “The Power of the Dog” and “Dune” from Venice, “Belfast” and “King Richard” from Telluride
2020: 2 nominees, – “Nomadland” from Venice, “Sound of Metal” from the 2019 TIFF premiere
2019: 5 nominees – “Joker” and “Marriage Story” from Venice, “Jojo Rabbit” from TIFF, “Ford v Ferrari” from Telluride, “The Irishman” from NYFF
2018: 4 nominees – “The Favourite,” “A Star is Born” and “Roma” from Venice, “Green Book” from TIFF
2017: 4 nominees – “The Shape of Water” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” from Venice, “Lady Bird” and “Darkest Hour” from Telluride
2016: 5 nominees – “La La Land,” “Arrival” and “Hacksaw Ridge” from Venice, “Moonlight” from Telluride, “Lion” from TIFF
2015: 4 nominees – “Spotlight” from Venice, “Room” from Telluride, “The Martian” from TIFF, “Bridge of Spies” from NYFF
2014: 3 nominees – “Birdman” from Venice, “The Imitation Game” from Telluride, “The Theory of Everything” from TIFF
2013: 6 nominees – “Gravity” and “Philomena” from Venice, “12 Years a Slave” from Telluride, “Dallas Buyers Club” from TIFF, “Captain Phillips” and “Her” from NYFF
2012: 4 nominees – “Argo” from Telluride, “Silver Linings Playbook” from TIFF, “Lincoln” and “Life of Pi” from NYFF
2011: 3 nominees – “The Descendants” from Telluride, “Moneyball” from TIFF, “Hugo” from NYFF
2010: 4 nominees – “Black Swan” from Venice, “The King’s Speech” and “127 Hours” from Telluride, “The Social Network” from NYFF
2009: 1 nominee – “Up in the Air” from Telluride
Leaving aside the pandemic year of 2020 and the first year of the expanded ballot in 2009, anywhere from three to six Best Picture nominees each year have premiered at a fall festival. And with the exception of 2020, for the last ten years, it’s either been four or five each season, so that can be used as a baseline this year.
Furthermore, the number of likely nominees that have already premiered must be considered. At an absolute maximum, most believe four Best Picture nominees have already been screened, including “Sing Sing,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Anora” and “Emilia Perez.” Assuming none of them drop off once the season gets deeper, and assuming no other early premiere suddenly surges, that means only six Best Picture spots would be available for movies that haven’t premiered yet.
Usually, it would be a given that at least one would go to a film that skipped the festivals. Yet last year was the first time in the expanded era that no films that opened after the fall festivals got into Best Picture. However, it was also a year where a record six Best Picture nominees screened before fall; the other four came from the fall festivals, and “The Color Purple” and “Napoleon” were really the only late-breaking films that attempted to make a run. In contrast, “A Complete Unknown,” “Gladiator II,” and “Wicked” are among those being saved until late fall or winter, so it’s an easy bet for now that one or two of them could get in.
The last tallied charts from the Next Best Picture team predicted “A Complete Unknown” and “Gladiator II” to make it, along with the four pre-fall favorites. But in recent days, “Saturday Night” – a film screening at TIFF and likely premiering at Telluride – has jumped ahead of “Gladiator II” as the 10th most cited film on the staff’s ballots. That would give five nominations to films starting at fall festivals, like in 2022, 2019, and 2016, although six, like in 2013, seems to be a reach for now.
The Next Best Picture team also has “Blitz,” “Conclave,” “Nickel Boys” and “Queer” as the other top fall festival premieres favored to get in. Yet the odds are that two of those films may be a letdown, or a few films nobody sees coming in mid-August will storm in to supplant them – like “American Fiction” and “Poor Things” did after their wins at TIFF and Venice last year.
Maybe films just outside of the preseason cut like “Joker: Folie a Deux,” “The Piano Lesson,” or “Maria” will take a smaller leap into the field to replace the early favorites. Either that or something with no recognition yet like “The Brutalist,” “The Room Next Door,” “Babygirl,” “The End,” “Nightbitch,” “Hard Truths,” or something even further under the radar becomes the big surprise of the season. But again, there could only be room for so many surprises.
Since the Oscar field seems to go back and forth between four or five fall festival nominees in standard years, perhaps this is indeed a year where five get in, and the post-fall lineup only includes one nominee in either “A Complete Unknown” or “Gladiator II.” Or maybe one of the pre-fall top four slips up and tumbles onto the bubble, depending on how “Anora” and “Emilia Perez” play at American film festivals and how “Sing Sing’s” very slow rollout in general theaters affects its standing. “Dune: Part Two” has seemed safe for months, but Warner Bros can’t be trusted not to take its eye off it if “Joker: Folie a Deux” is much bigger than expected.
Another possibility is that the pre-fall nominee lineup expands to include a foreign favorite like “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” or “All We Imagine as Light” after their stops at TIFF, Telluride, and New York, leaving only five slots available to fight over that way. But that doesn’t automatically mean one or two will go to a post-festival film, as “A Complete Unknown” could just as easily be a Timothee Chalamet play only, “Gladiator II” can easily be the latest Ridley Scott letdown, and “Wicked” may easily be yet another big musical that doesn’t make it into awards season.
In those scenarios, something like “Nosferatu” or “Here” would have to be way bigger than projected to make up for it when they open in winter. But if that’s not in the cards either, maybe this will be an unprecedented second straight year where there are no late screening Oscar contenders to speak of. If that is the case, it will be more critical for Venice, Telluride, TIFF, and NYFF to fill out the field – as if it wasn’t already for many other reasons.
In a year still hampered by the aftermath of the strikes, where there are hardly as many pre-fall early contenders as last year, and where it’s still very questionable how far the likes of “Sing Sing” and “Anora” can go once the industry weighs in, it would be very concerning if several of the big fall festival premieres fall flat too. Then, it will look increasingly likely the 2024 Best Picture field will become more like the mixed-bag lineups of 2018 and 2021 rather than the deeper lineups of 2022 and 2023.
However, even if assumed favorites like “Conclave, “Nickel Boys,” “Queer,” “Blitz” and “Joker: Folie a Deux” collapse by early October, it won’t matter as much if there are many others set to take their place by then. As always, the way the race looks in mid-August will undoubtedly look like a distant memory compared to how it looks in mid-October, one way or another.
Whatever lives up to the hype, falls apart under it, or dramatically exceeds it at Venice, Toronto, Telluride, and New York, there will surely be a great many films hyped up as Best Picture contenders or even winners as soon as their world premieres end. But going by the history of the last 15 years, there will probably only be room for four or five of them to survive the following four-plus months, all the way to hearing their names called on nomination morning.
From Venice opening with “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” on August 28th to “Blitz” premiering in London and New York on October 9th and 10th, it will be a mad scramble in those six-plus weeks to determine who has the early lead for those four or five open Best Picture slots – or it could be made much easier in the best or worst ways.
Which films do you think will emerge from the fall film festivals as Best Picture nominees? 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
