It took a long time, with some early pitfalls to overcome, but Netflix finally seems to have a film all but locked into the Best Picture field with Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein.” This puts Netflix in the same boat NEON was in months ago, when “Sentimental Value” was deemed its one locked Best Picture nominee despite having multiple contenders. Both Netflix and NEON have three other films competing for Best Picture slots as well, and now they can turn their attention to securing one or even two of them – and potentially fighting each other to secure three, which would make them the first studio since Lionsgate in 2016 to achieve such a feat in the Best Picture category.
Best Picture has six seemingly locked-in films: “One Battle After Another,” “Hamnet,” “Sinners,” “Sentimental Value,” “Marty Supreme,” and “Frankenstein,” with three others at least halfway there in “Wicked: For Good,” “It Was Just an Accident,” and “Avatar: Fire And Ash” barring a total review bombing. In essence, there may only be one Best Picture spot left to fight for, and Netflix and NEON, combined, have many films in the running for it.
Netflix’s remaining crop consists of “Jay Kelly,” “Train Dreams,” and “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” while NEON is countering with Cannes Palme d’Or winner “The Secret Agent,” and TIFF International People’s Choice winner “No Other Choice.” Yet while Netflix stumbled out of the gate with early struggles from “Jay Kelly” and “Frankenstein” and the post-Venice collapse of “A House of Dynamite,” NEON has made pundits ask all season if it could get two or even three films in Best Picture, and which ones they would be.
NEON’s quartet of films may be the most critically adored of the year, as “Sentimental Value” and “It Was Just an Accident” are each at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, while “No Other Choice” and “The Secret Agent” are still a perfect 100%. For that matter, each one has scores between 86 and 92 on MetaCritic, with “Sentimental Value” and “It Was Just an Accident” deemed the only ones “safe” to get in. But with “No Other Choice” set to come out right as voting starts, and “The Secret Agent” likely being backed by the same “Brazilian army” of voters that pushed “I’m Still Here” and Fernanda Torres last year, each of them has a big case to be NEON’s third nominee for Best Picture.
On that critical level, Netflix cannot compete, as “Jay Kelly” has the lowest reviews to date of any film still under consideration for Best Picture, and “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” doesn’t have review scores quite as high as its two predecessors that missed out on Best Picture. “Train Dreams” is the only Netflix critical darling of the bunch, boasting an 86 on Metacritic and an 8.4 average critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Nonetheless, that still doesn’t quite measure up to what “No Other Choice” and “The Secret Agent” have tallied up thus far.
NEON is the defending Oscar champion, having won it all with “Anora” last year, and has its strongest chance yet to secure multiple Best Picture nominees in one year. It has already put a stranglehold on the entire Best International Feature Film category. With that kind of resume and more competitive options in major categories like Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Original Screenplay, NEON seems to have far greater momentum for at least a second Best Picture nomination than Netflix does, if not a third one as well.
Yet, eventually, NEON will have to settle on a pecking order before all three of its other contenders cancel each other out, and all risk being overlooked. “It Was Just an Accident” has the early advantage as the Palme d’Or winner, Jafar Panahi’s most defiant accomplishment, and as the first of the other three NEON films to reach theaters, but can it maintain that momentum all season? “No Other Choice” could surge at just the right time over the holidays, and get its own overdue narrative going for its own master director in Park Chan-wook, but will the field get too crowded out by then instead? “The Secret Agent” already has a presumed major nominee in Wagner Moura for Best Actor, and has a very vocal demographic of potential voters on its side, but will they fight for it as hard as they fought for “I’m Still Here” and Torres? And if so, will it be enough?
If there are only one or two available Best Picture spots left by nomination time, it’s not inconceivable to imagine both Netflix and NEON securing two spots each in the final lineup of ten. However, NEON is still the odds-on favorite to get three slots in total, as soon as something becomes its clear No. 3 film. If not, however, that would leave a little extra room for Netflix to get a third film in of its own, depending on how things shake out between “Jay Kelly” and “Train Dreams.”
The assumption all season was that “Jay Kelly” would be Netflix’s obvious No. 1 or 2 film, although critics and audiences are still largely not on board with that yet. However, with “Jay Kelly” coming to theaters on November 14th and to Netflix on December 5th, these next few weeks are its biggest, if not last, chance to generate a second wave of momentum, similar to what “Frankenstein” achieved over the previous few weeks. If it doesn’t, then it has to fall back on what its real audience might be – industry voters and Hollywood insiders more likely to embrace a movie about movies and about being a mega movie star. If “Jay Kelly” is bailed out by industry voters, while still getting apathetic reviews from larger audiences and critics, it could become a very touchy subject by Oscar nomination morning. It may become especially fraught if critics rally behind a different Netflix film.
“Train Dreams” is Netflix’s most critically acclaimed movie by far, and it will be available on Netflix starting November 21st to try to garner a larger audience behind it. But a visual poem of a film about an early 20th-century railroad worker is not the kind of easy sell to Academy voters that “Jay Kelly” is presumed to be, no matter what critics say. If that wasn’t enough, the Academy nominated director Clint Bentley and co-writer Greg Kwedar’s last collaboration on “Sing Sing” went from being an early Oscar favorite to a Best Picture snub the previous year. Therefore, is something like “Train Dreams” any more likely to fare better during voting? Netflix could give it a boost if enough critics force the issue throughout the precursors. Yet, Netflix doesn’t tend to throw all their might behind “also-ran’s” to that extent unless they are Best Picture-winning competitive like “Roma” and “The Power of the Dog,” or have far starry actors and directors involved than Bentley, Kwedar, Joel Edgerton, and even past nominees like Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon, and William H. Macy. Without those elements, Netflix is more likely to focus on what they deem to be an “easier” sell to Academy voters with “Jay Kelly,” unless they are truly backed into a corner, which could only happen if Noah Baumbach’s latest underperforms with Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe voters.
If “Train Dreams” isn’t Netflix’s top priority, and if “Jay Kelly” really isn’t enough of an industry darling after all, then Netflix only has one other option left. Unfortunately, it is the kind of option that already failed twice before in Best Picture, which makes “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” even less likely to do what “Knives Out” and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” couldn’t and get anything beyond a lone Screenplay nomination. Still, with a November 26th theatrical release and a December 12th Netflix release, there is a window to prove it is something different. Its 7.9 average critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 80 on MetaCritic is below its predecessors, but maybe the next wave of reviews could push it over. With a more serious Gothic mystery this time, focusing on religious zealotry and exploitation, and featuring Josh O’Connor and Glenn Close as potential sleeper acting nominees, perhaps it will have advantages that the other “Knives Out” films did not. But would that best-case scenario be enough to push it past “Jay Kelly” and “Train Dreams” as Netflix’s next Best Picture hopeful, let alone past all the NEON films we already mentioned?
All this aside, it isn’t as if NEON and Netflix each have the last two Best Picture slots reserved no matter what, as they aren’t the only studios with films on the bubble. Searchlight Pictures, the most decorated studio of the expanded era, is still vying to secure its annual Best Picture nomination with either “The Testament of Ann Lee,” “Is This Thing On?” or “Rental Family.” And Focus Features, which already has a Best Picture frontrunner in “Hamnet,” still has “Bugonia” lingering with a chance to be its second potential nominee, provided it can get Will Tracy a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Even though Netflix is the most prominent campaigning streamer every Oscar season and NEON is the hottest indie studio on the block right now, neither one of them is entitled to get a second or third Best Picture nominee just because of who they are – at least no more than Searchlight is to get its annual film in or Focus is to get two possibly (with Warner Bros. all but guaranteed two slots between “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another“). Between NEON having perhaps too many international films to separate itself, Netflix having options that may be embraced by critics or the industry but not both, Searchlight lacking a top-tier contender for once, and Focus already having its awards bases covered with “Hamnet,” this is not a field of bubble films with obvious favorites.
Nonetheless, by sheer volume and brand recognition alone, NEON and Netflix remain presumed frontrunners for the last few Best Picture nominations, even if we still don’t know what they will be yet (and we still have to wait for “Wicked: For Good,” “Avatar: Fire And Ash” and “Marty Supreme” to still open). However, the odds are still that NEON has so many critical favorites that one of them will likely join “Sentimental Value” and “It Was Just an Accident” as the next-to-last film in, while at least one Netflix film will face a more uphill battle against Searchlight and Focus for the 10th and final spot.
Getting two films in for the first time since 2021 would be huge for Netflix, especially after all the problems it had earlier in the season. However, it is still a far cry from when Netflix had dreams of getting three historic films in during 2019, 2020, and 2021 – but if it couldn’t do that, then it would stand to reason that there’s no way NEON could do it now. Though on the off-chance NEON does get three films in and knocks all the other Netflix films out in the process, it would be yet another indicator of the indie film studio’s meteoric rise over the last couple of years and fully change their perception for future awards seasons as they will likely no longer be viewed as the underdog, but much like Netflix, as a mighty player. One way or another, NEON and Netflix hold the fate of the Best Picture bubble in their hands – but will just one, both, or neither of them benefit from how it pops?
So what do you think? Which of Netflix and NEON’s films are you predicting to be nominated for Best Picture? What are your predicted ten for Best Picture?Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account and check out the team’s latest Oscar predictions here.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
