This week, the precursors will start to go full-throttle as we head towards the Oscar nomination voting stage of awards season. The New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) winners will be announced on December 3rd, followed by the National Board of Review (NBR) winners on December 4th, the American Film Institute Top Ten Films of 2024 on December 5th, and then the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) winners on December 8th, with many other awards voting bodies announcing in-between (see the full list of upcoming precursors here). These are some of the most important awards of the season, not only because they set the stage for the rest of the precursors, but they also help us to narrow down the list of contenders we’re currently predicting. The Gotham Awards are being held tomorrow and our predictions for those can be read here. I was told recently I should write a whole piece on my thoughts about what these groups will go for rather than simply post about it on social media…so off I go! For this piece, I want to focus specifically on NYFCC, NBR, AFI and LAFCA and what they might go with when selecting the best of what 2024 had to offer.
Starting with NYFCC, since the Oscar Best Picture field expanded in 2009, 14 out of their 15 winners have gone on to be nominated for Best Picture (“First Cow” was the only exception in 2020), but with only two winning (“The Hurt Locker” and “The Artist“). I know for a fact “Nickel Boys” has a tremendous amount of love amongst many NYFCC members, and its highly distinct approach to Colson Whitehead’s acclaimed novel should make it an irresistible choice for many within the organization. It also helps that the film played at the New York Film Festival, which is usually a common theme amongst this group’s winners and you’ll see heavily reflected in the rest of my predictions.
9 of their 15 Best Actor winners went on to be Oscar-nominated, with three of them winning the Oscar (Colin Firth, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Casey Affleck). Adrien Brody seems like a good, albeit safe, pick for Best Actor here for his “monumental” performance in “The Brutalist” and the best place for this group to reward the film overall, let alone recognize an actor they previously have not before. However, I expect they will instead go for a performer who is being unjustly pushed to the sidelines this year after delivering two fantastic performances in “A Different Man” and “The Apprentice” (with more appreciation being shown to the former rather than the latter): Sebastian Stan.
10 of their 15 Best Actress winners went on to be Oscar-nominated, with Meryl Streep (“The Iron Lady“) and Cate Blanchett (“Blue Jasmine”) as the only two eventual Best Actress Oscar winners. Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s performance in Mike Leigh’s “Hard Truths” blew the roof off at the New York Film Festival and was a central talking point amongst critics at many parties I attended. A previous Oscar nominee for “Secrets And Lies,” this is an excellent opportunity for this group to recognize someone they have not before in a performance that could really use the boost as Bleecker Street is doing their best to mount a campaign for the English actress but needs all the help they can get.
11 of their 15 Best Supporting Actor winners went on to receive Oscar nominations with a much more impressive crossover of 6 eventual winners (Christoph Waltz for “Inglourious Basterds,” Jared Leto, J.K. Simmons, Mark Rylance, Mahershala Ali for “Moonlight,” and Ke Huy Quan). I currently have Kieran Culkin predicted to win the Oscar, and I feel there’s a chance he could have another successful awards season as some of the names mentioned above, plus the film is well-respected, played at NYFF, and Culkin is hot off the heels of an awards run for “Succession.” If they want to continue the love and appreciation being shown to the Emmy Award-winning star, this makes the most logical sense.
11 of their last 15 Best Supporting Actress winners also went on to receive Oscar nominations with 6 winners as well, including Mo’Nique, Melissa Leo, Patricia Arquette, Regina King, Laura Dern, and last year’s Da’Vine Joy Randolph. I’m going to go out on a limb for this one and say NYFCC surprises us with a well-deserved acknowledgment for native New Yorker Natasha Lyonne for her brilliant work in “His Three Daughters,” but also a good way to recognize that film, too.
For Best Director, 10 of their last 15 winners have gone on to be nominated for the Oscar, with Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”), Michel Hazanavicius, Alfonso Cuarón (“Roma“), Chloé Zhao, Jane Campion, and Christopher Nolan winning. I know for a fact certain members are high on Coralie Fargeat’s work in “The Substance,” and when you think back on the maximalist filmmaking of S.S. Rajamouli for “RRR” which won this category in 2022, such an idea doesn’t seem too far off for this group. However, they also might be inclined to go with Corbet’s staggering work on “The Brutalist,” which he made for less than $10 million.
And for Best Screenplay, 13 out of their last 15 winners were nominated for one of the screenplay categories at the Oscars (Sorry “Phantom Thread” and “Never Rarely Sometimes Always“), with “Manchester By The Sea” as the only one to go on and win the Oscar. This is where I think they will throw “Anora” a bone. It’s a film they clearly like, and they have rewarded Sean Baker before, giving him their Best Director prize in 2017 for “The Florida Project.” I would be shocked to see it not win something from them.
For Best Animated Film, all of their winners over the last 15 years went on to receive an Oscar nomination with the exception of “The Lego Movie” (and no award bestowed in 2011) with “Inside Out,” “Zootopia,” “Coco,” “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse,” and last year’s “The Boy And The Heron” going on to win the Oscar. I think “The Wild Robot” is too cute and simple for them, so I’m going with them backing the dialogue-free Sideshow/Janus Films animated feature “Flow” instead. But watch out for “Memoir Of A Snail” here, as that is another one I could easily see taking with this group. It’s a tough call between those two, but I’ll give the slightest edge to “Flow.”
For Best Foreign Language Film, 9 of their last 15 winners went on to be nominated at the Oscars with “A Separation,” “Amour,” “Ida,” and “Parasite” winning the Oscar. This is one of the easier calls to make. If they don’t reward “All We Imagine As Light” for Best Film, you can bet it will be acknowledged here. However, if “All We Imagine As Light” wins Best Film, my alternative would be “The Seed Of The Sacred Fig.”
9 of their last 15 winners for Best Non-Fiction Film have gone on to be nominated for Best Documentary Feature with “Inside Job,” “Citizenfour,” and “O.J.: Made In America” winning the Oscar. This is another easy call. “No Other Land” has received tremendous acclaim and has been fighting to be seen due to its lack of U.S. distribution. I expect NYFCC members will put their stamp on this one to help push it further, not just during awards season but to shine a spotlight on the film itself and its subject matter.
And finally, in the category for Best Cinematography, 10 of their last 15 winners received Oscar nominations, with “Roma” and “Oppenheimer” as their only crossover for winners at the Academy Awards. I’ll go with “Nickel Boys” here as I’m currently not expecting it to win the Oscar, but hopefully, this win will solidify its chances of getting nominated. The first-person switching perspectives seem very much in line with their previous winners. However, if there was an alternative, I would keep an eye on New York native and two-time NYFCC winner Ed Lachmann for his gorgeous work on “Maria.”
Best Film – Nickel Boys
Best Director – Coralie Fargeat (“The Substance“)
Best Actor – Sebastian Stan (“A Different Man” & “The Apprentice“)
Best Actress – Marianne Jean-Baptiste (“Hard Truths“)
Best Screenplay – Anora
Best Supporting Actor – Kieran Culkin (“A Real Pain“)
Best Supporting Actress – Natasha Lyonne (“His Three Daughters“)
Best Animated Film – Flow
Best Foreign Language Film – All We Imagine As Light
Best Non-Fiction Film – No Other Land
Best First Film – Good One
Best Cinematography – Nickel Boys
For the National Board Of Review, this is where things get a lot more challenging. Their taste can range all over the place and be quite tough to pin down. Looking at their Best Film winners, 13 of their last 15 winners went on to be nominated for Best Picture, with “A Most Violent Year” and “Da 5 Bloods” as the only outliers, but only one went on to win Best Picture (“Green Book“). So, you’re looking for something broad within the Oscar race. This could either be “Dune: Part Two” or “Wicked,” but I’m going to go with “Conclave” for this one as its ties to the presidential election this year will be at the top of many voting members’ minds.
For Best Director, 8 of their last 15 winners were nominated for the Oscar, but not a single one won. They tend to reward big-name directors with the past four winners, including Spike Lee, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg, and Martin Scorsese. There also was a strong Warner Bros. presence for a number of years, which hasn’t been as greatly felt recently but could come back in a significant way, which is my long way of saying I’ll go for Denis Villeneuve here to be recognized for completing his adaptation of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” novel with “Dune: Part Two.”
For Best Actor, 13 of their last 15 winners were nominated at the Oscars, with only Casey Affleck and Will Smith winning. I’m torn between Ralph Fiennes and Timothée Chalamet for this one, but I’ll go with the New York native who members saw utterly transform into Bob Dylan while learning how to play the guitar and harmonica.
10 of their last 15 Best Actress winners would go on to receive Oscar nominations, with Julianne Moore, Brie Larson, Renée Zellweger (“Judy“), and Michelle Yeoh winning. I do not have Madison winning at either NY or LA, so I’m just attempting to spread the love other to her a little bit here. They gave their win a few years ago to Rachel Zegler for “West Side Story,” so they clearly have no issues rewarding someone still young in their career.
For Best Supporting Actor, 13 of their last 15 winners were Oscar-nominated, with Christian Bale, Christopher Plummer, and Brad Pitt (“Once Upon A Time In Hollywood“) going on to win the Oscar. They tend to go with well-established and highly regarded actors in this category, so for me, it’s down to Denzel Washington for “Gladiator II” and Guy Pearce for “The Brutalist.” I’ll lean on the side of Pearce for this one, as I expect they’ll be more of an urge to recognize him this season for the first time, whereas, with Denzel, most awards bodies (except for the BAFTA’s) have already rewarded him to some degree or another.
In Supporting Actress, 10 of their last 15 winners were nominated for the Oscar, while only Regina King, Youn Yuh-jung, and previous year’s Da’Vine Joy Randolph went on to win the Oscar. I’m just going to default to Zoe Saldaña for “Emilia Pérez” here and see what happens. She’s currently the frontrunner to win the Oscar, and I don’t have her winning NY or LA at this time, so let’s just say this is where she picks up some hardware.
NBR breaks up their screenplay categories into Original and Adapted, so their track record is not as strong as NYFCC when predicting which of their winners will go on to be nominated for the Oscar, with only 6 of their last 15 winners for Original Screenplay going on to receive an Oscar nomination with only “Manchester By The Sea” winning the Oscar. However, 12 of their last 15 Adapted Screenplay winners went on to be nominated for the Oscar. Still, once again, the winner’s correlation wasn’t that strong, with only “The Social Network” and “The Descendants” winning the Oscar back-to-back fourteen years ago. Right now, I’ll go with “Conclave” in Adapted to compliment the Best Film win, while Original goes to Jesse Eisenberg for “A Real Pain,” a smartly written film that is a contender to be nominated for the Oscar but likely not win with many laughs contained within it as many of their winners tend to have (See “50/50,” “Inside Llewyn Davis,” “The Lego Movie,” “The Banshees of Inisherin” and last year’s “The Holdovers“).
For Best Animated Film, they have a perfect track record, with 15 of their last 15 winners going on to be nominated for the Oscar and 7 of them winning. This is where I expect “The Wild Robot” to finally get some love, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them default to “Inside Out 2” here, either, as both of them are expected to be nominated for Best Animated Feature.
For Documentary Feature, 8 of their last 15 winners received Oscar nominations with “The Cove,” “Searching For Sugar Man,” “Amy,” “O.J.: Made In America,” and “Summer Of Soul,” all winning the Oscar. They tend to go more populist with wins for “Jane,” “RBG,” “Sr.” and last year’s “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie,” leading me to believe this is where “Will & Harper” will pick up another victory alongside its recent CCDA win.
And for Best International Film, 9 of their last 15 winners received the Oscar nomination while 6 of them went on to win the Oscar (“A Separation,” “Amour,” “Son Of Saul,” “The Salesman,” and “Parasite“). It could be anything, really. It could go to “Emilia Pérez,” “The Seed Of The Sacred Fig,” or “All We Imagine As Light,” but looking at their recent list of winners, the one I feel most confident fits in line with them is Walter Salles’s “I’m Still Here.”
10 Best Films – Conclave (Winner), Challengers, A Complete Unknown, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Pérez, Gladiator II, Juror #2, The Substance, Wicked & The Wild Robot
10 Indie Films – Anora, The Brutalist, Didi, A Different Man, Ghostlight, His Three Daughters, Hundreds Of Beavers, Nickel Boys, A Real Pain & Sing Sing
Best Director – Denis Villeneuve (“Dune: Part Two“)
Best Actor – Timothée Chalamet (“A Complete Unknown“)
Best Actress – Mikey Madison (“Anora“)
Best Supporting Actor – Guy Pearce (“The Brutalist“)
Best Supporting Actress – Zoe Saldaña (“Emilia Pérez“)
Best Adapted Screenplay – Conclave
Best Original Screenplay – A Real Pain
Best Animated Feature – The Wild Robot
Best Documentary Feature – Will & Harper
Best International Feature – I’m Still Here
Best Acting by an Ensemble – The Piano Lesson
Best Breakthrough Performance – Clarence Maclin (“Sing Sing“)
Best Directorial Debut – The Fire Inside
For the AFI Top 10, 7 out of their ten selections usually get into Best Picture, so for this year, I’m going to go with the following ten films:
Anora
The Brutalist
Challengers
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Nickel Boys
Saturday Night
September 5
Wicked
The Wild Robot
Special Mention: Emilia Pérez
Now we finally come to LAFCA, where, since 2009, all of their winners for Best Film (including their ties) went on to be nominated for Best Picture except for one, “Small Axe” in 2020. Of all those films, only “The Hurt Locker,” “Spotlight,” “Moonlight,” “Parasite,” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once” won the Oscar. I’m torn on whether they’ll go with “Anora” or “The Brutalist.” It’s hard for me to see them going with something else, although after back-to-back A24 wins the past two years, I will say they break away this time and go over to the Palme d’Or winner, “Anora.” Previous LAFCA Palme d’Or winners include “Pulp Fiction,” “Secrets And Lies,” “Amour,” and “Parasite.”
For Best Director, 13 of their last 15 winners went on to receive Oscar nominations, with Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”), Alfonso Cuarón (“Gravity“), Guillermo del Toro, Bong Joon-ho, Chloé Zhao, and Jane Campion going on to win the Oscar. I’m going to split the difference and say this is where Corbet picks up a win after not winning at NYFCC or NBR.
For Best Lead Performance, all four of their winners have gone on to receive Oscar nominations, with Emma Stone winning the Oscar last year for “Poor Things.” For Best Supporting Performance, 2 of their 4 winners have gone on to receive Oscar nominations, but those two winners also won, and that was Ke Huy Quan and Da’Vine Joy Randolph. For Best Screenplay, an impressive 14 of their last 15 winners have gone on to receive Oscar nominations, with only last year’s winner “All of Us Strangers” missing out. There’s really no good way to do this other than to pick one male and female lead and one male and female supporting performance and hope for the best. LAFCA never has any issues recognizing foreign language performances, so I predict they will go with Fernanda Torres for “I’m Still Here,” while Adrien Brody will start his sweep of most of the precursors here.
For Supporting, they came very close to recognizing Ryan Gosling for “Barbie” last year, so who is to say Ariana Grande isn’t in contention for her work as Glinda in “Wicked?” And for Best Supporting Actor, they tend to be very adventurous in their choices. This could range from Adam Pearson in “A Different Man” to Chris Hemsworth in “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” so it’s tough to say. They could go with a strong utility player like Karren Karagulian or Yura Borisov in “Anora,” but I’m going to say they look to anointing a new star and pick Clarence Maclin for “Sing Sing.”
Of those 14, only 5 of them went on to win the Oscar for either Adapted or Original Screenplay. I could see “Anora” or “The Seed Of The Sacred Fig” winning here so I’ll just go with the Best Picture frontrunner and the film I think overall will be more widely embraced by the LA group and that is Sean Baker’s film.
For Best Animated Film, 14 of the last 15 winners received Oscar nominations, with only “Your Name” in 2016 missing from the Academy. Of those 14, 5 went on to win the Oscar. I really want to go with “Chicken For Linda!” here, but I’m unsure if enough members have seen it. I’ll go with them selecting Adam Elliot for “Memoir Of A Snail,” but watch out for them to do something funky here.
10 of their last 15 winners for Best Documentary Feature went on to receive Oscar nominations, with 5 of them winning the Oscar. “Sugarcane” makes sense here, but I’m going with the blazingly edited, mammoth historical documentary “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” (watch out for this to win Best Editing, too possibly).
In the category of Best Foreign Language Film, 6 of their last 15 winners went on to be nominated at the Oscars, with only “Ida” and “Son Of Saul” winning. I’m not going to break away from the trend here. They will likely go with “All We Imagine As Light,” and maybe, just maybe, India will be made to feel bad for passing this over as their official selection for Best International Feature Film.
LAFCA has more craft categories than NYFCC, but they both have a Best Cinematography category. 12 of the last 15 LAFCA winners went on to be Oscar-nominated with “Gravity,” “Birdman,” and “Roma,” repeating their wins at the Academy Awards. They could do the same as NY and go with “Nickel Boys,” but their love for rewarding foreign language films in this category makes me think they’ll go with recent Camerimage winner “The Girl With The Needle” instead.
In Best Editing, they’ve only been handing out the award since 2012, but 7 of their 12 winners received an Oscar nomination, with only “Gravity” and “Dunkirk” winning. They tend to favor experimental editing and are not afraid to reward documentaries here, so I’ll go with “Nickel Boys” on this one, but with “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” as a runner-up.
For Best Production Design, 10 of their last 15 winners went on to be nominated for the Oscar, with “Inception,” “Hugo,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Black Panther,” and “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” all winning. This makes the most sense for “Wicked,” but if they hate how those sets were lit, maybe they’ll want to recognize the “Dune” franchise here since they didn’t give it the win in this category back in 2021. They’re not allergic to recognizing big-budget films in this category, as evidenced by some of the winners listed above, including “Avatar: The Way Of Water” and last year’s “Barbie.”
And then finally, for Best Music, this category is difficult to predict as this tends to reward both original music made for the film but can also be used to honor a movie with featured songs they liked, so it’s tough to say if we should correlate this to Best Original Song (As wins for “Crazy Heart” “Inside Llewyn Davis” and “RRR” seem to suggest) or Best Original Score. So, while I’ll make an official prediction for it to go to “Queer,” don’t expect to see this go to what you consider to be the best film score of the year.
Best Film – Anora (Alt. The Brutalist)
Best Director – Brady Corbet for “The Brutalist” (Alt. Sean Baker for “Anora“)
Best Lead Performance – Fernanda Torres for “I’m Still Here“ / Adrien Brody for “The Brutalist“ (Alt. Mikey Madison for “Anora” and Daniel Craig for “Queer“)
Best Supporting Performance – Ariana Grande for “Wicked“ / Clarence Maclin for “Sing Sing” (Alt. Joan Chen for “Didi” and Yura Borisov for “Anora“)
Best Screenplay – Anora (Alt. The Seed Of The Sacred Fig)
Best Animated Film – Memoir Of A Snail (Alt. Chicken For Linda!)
Best Documentary Film – Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Alt. Sugarcane)
Best Foreign Language Film – All We Imagine As Light (Alt. The Seed Of The Sacred Fig)
Best Cinematography – The Girl With The Needle (Alt. Nickel Boys)
Best Editing – Challengers (Alt. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat)
Best Production Design – Wicked (Alt. Dune: Part Two)
Best Music – Queer (Alt. Wicked)
And that’s it. What do you think will get recognized over the next week as the major precursors start to announce their winners? 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 and see the team’s Gotham Winner predictions in a previous post here.
