On July 23rd, a significant piece of fall festival season was revealed, as the Venice Film Festival officially unveiled a lineup that includes “Joker: Folie à Deux,” “Queer,” “The Room Next Door,” “Maria,” “I’m Still Here” and other prospective Oscar contenders. Ever since “Birdman” went from premiering at Venice to winning Best Picture in 2014, this festival has played a significant role in filling out the biggest Oscar categories, if not launching its winners.
As such, it is time to look back at how many major nominees and winners have come out of Venice these last ten years, how these trends could indicate the number of nominees and/or winners this year, and what kind of odds this year’s prospective favorites—or surprise breakouts—may be facing at Oscar time.
Best Picture: 19 nominees from Venice since 2014 – 4 winners
2023: “Poor Things” & “Maestro”
2022: “The Banshees of Inisherin” & “Tar”
2021: “The Power of the Dog” & “Dune”
2020: “Nomadland” [Winner]
2019: “Joker” & “Marriage Story”
2018: “Roma,” “The Favourite” & “A Star is Born”
2017: “The Shape of Water” [Winner] & “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
2016: “La La Land,” “Arrival” & “Hacksaw Ridge”
2015: “Spotlight” [Winner]
2014: “Birdman” [Winner]
Since the last three Best Picture winners premiered before fall festivals, it isn’t all on Venice that it hasn’t premiered a Best Picture winner since 2020 or one in a non-pandemic year since 2017. Nonetheless, it has premiered multiple nominees in every non-pandemic year since 2015 – and over 20% of all Best Picture nominees combined in the last ten years.
With that, it should be the bare minimum that two of this year’s ten nominees come out of Venice. By most expectations, “Joker: Folie à Deux” and maybe “Queer” are heavy favorites for those two slots – but so were “Bardo” and “The Son” before they actually screened in 2022, and quickly gave way to “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Tar” instead. So maybe Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut “The Room Next Door” could be next in line if a favorite falters, or perhaps a Pablo Larrain film can finally get more notice beyond a Best Actress nomination with “Maria.”
Best Director: 14 nominees from Venice since 2014 – 6 winners
2023: Yorgos Lanthimos
2022: Martin McDonagh & Todd Field
2021: Jane Campion [Winner]
2020: Chloe Zhao [Winner]
2019: Todd Phillips
2018: Alfonso Cuaron [Winner] & Yorgos Lanthimos
2017: Guillermo Del Toro [Winner]
2016: Damien Chazelle [Winner], Denis Villeneuve & Mel Gibson
2015: Tom McCarthy
2014: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu [Winner]
Before two years ago, six of the previous eight Best Director winners had Venice premieres. Yet, thanks to the Daniels and Christopher Nolan, it is not that simple going into 2024. With projected contenders Denis Villeneuve, Sean Baker, Jacques Audiard, and Greg Kweder having already premiered their films, Edward Berger premiering “Conclave” in North America, and with the likes of Ridley Scott and Steve McQueen unveiling their films after the fall festivals, Venice may be hard pressed to find a winner this year too.
Phillips already used Venice as a springboard for a nomination, but can he do the same if “Joker: Folie à Deux” doesn’t have a Golden Lion on its resume, too? If he doesn’t, maybe Venice can instead springboard Luca Guadagnino to his first Director nomination for “Queer” – a year after the strikes kept him from opening Venice with “Challengers” – or help Almodóvar land his first Director nomination in 22 years.
Best Actor: 12 nominees from Venice since 2014 – 2 winners
2023: Bradley Cooper
2022: Brendan Fraser [Winner], Colin Farrell & Bill Nighy [though “Living” was not a Venice world premiere]
2021: Benedict Cumberbatch
2019: Joaquin Phoenix [Winner] & Adam Driver
2018: Bradley Cooper & Willem Dafoe
2016: Ryan Gosling & Andrew Garfield
2014: Michael Keaton
Last year, expectations that Venice would kick off an unbeatable narrative for Cooper became more complicated once “Maestro” actually screened – unlike with Brendan Fraser for “The Whale” a year earlier and Joaquin Phoenix three years before that.
This year, “Queer’s” Daniel Craig seeks to match Fraser as a veteran blockbuster star starting an award season breakthrough at Venice while also transforming as a gay character. But if that doesn’t work, Phoenix is lying in wait to just rerun 2019 all over again. Beyond that, it would seem someone would have to really come out of nowhere to impact this field, although Craig and Phoenix already seem like no-brainers on their own – at least on paper.
Best Actress: 17 nominees from Venice since 2014 – 5 winners
2023: Emma Stone [Winner] & Carey Mulligan
2022: Cate Blanchett & Ana de Armas
2021: Penelope Cruz, Kristen Stewart & Olivia Colman
2020: Frances McDormand [Winner] & Vanessa Kirby
2019: Scarlett Johansson
2018: Olivia Colman [Winner], Lady Gaga & Yalitza Aparicio
2017: Frances McDormand [Winner] & Sally Hawkins
2016: Emma Stone [Winner] & Natalie Portman
Next to Best Director, Best Actress is the category Venice has influenced most these last ten years, including just last year on behalf of Emma Stone. Yet while five of the previous ten Best Actress winners started their Oscar campaigns in Venice, the last four have been from Searchlight movies – and Searchlight notably chose to have preseason favorite Amy Adams unveil “Nightbitch” in Toronto instead of Venice this year. So, is Searchlight really more of the Actress bellwether this last decade than Venice?
Venice may have a limited sample to test that with this year since Adams, Mikey Madison, Saoirse Ronan, Karla Sofia Gascon, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and other projected favorites either won’t launch here or have launched already. But for the third time in eight years, there is an actress playing a historical figure in a Larrain film starting in Venice – yet can Angelina Jolie’s “Maria” do what Natalie Portman’s “Jackie” and Kristen Stewart’s “Spencer” couldn’t and carry film festival momentum all the way to an Oscar win?
Lady Gaga is another person looking to repeat history and take it a step further to victory, introducing “Joker: Folie à Deux” to Venice just as she did “A Star is Born” six years ago. If that history doesn’t repeat, then maybe “The Room Next Door”’s Tilda Swinton can be the latest Almodóvar lead to go from Venice standout to Best Actress nominee, as Penelope Cruz did for “Parallel Mothers” three years ago. Or maybe Salles’s “I’m Still There” can go back even further and make Fernanda Montenegro a contender again, as he did for her with “Central Station” 26 years ago.
Best Supporting Actor: 13 nominees from Venice since 2014 – 1 winner
2023: Mark Ruffalo
2022: Brendan Gleeson & Barry Keoghan
2021: Kodi Smit-McPhee & Jesse Plemons
2020: Leslie Odom Jr
2018: Sam Elliot
2017: Sam Rockwell [Winner], Woody Harrelson & Richard Jenkins
2016: Michael Shannon
2015: Mark Ruffalo
2014: Edward Norton
In three of the last seven years, Venice has premiered films with two Best Supporting Actor nominees and made a case for a fourth with “Poor Things” last year. Yet with projected early favorites like Kiernan Culkin and Clarence Maclin having screened already, “Conclave” likely premiering Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow at Telluride, Samuel L. Jackson starting “The Piano Lesson” at Telluride and TIFF, and Denzel Washington screening “Gladiator II” after the festivals, Supporting Actor might already be too crowded for one Venice breakout, let alone two.
Though if Variety is to be believed, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is actually an “awards movie” – so if somehow a push for Michael Keaton is in the cards, it would start here. And if “Queer” does turn out to be a major contender, maybe Craig’s love interest Drew Starkey can break into consideration with it.
Best Supporting Actress: 12 nominees from Venice since 2014 – 2 winners
2022: Kerry Condon & Hong Chau
2021: Kirsten Dunst & Jessie Buckley
2019: Laura Dern [Winner]
2018: Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz & Maria de Tavira
2017: Octavia Spencer
2015: Alicia Vikander [Winner] & Rachel McAdams
2014: Emma Stone
Supporting Actress was the only major category last year where no nominees came out of Venice; after the last two years, each launched two of them. Venice could be hard-pressed to get back to that level this year since early Supporting Actress favorites Danielle Deadwyler, Zoe Saldana, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, and Isabella Rossellini won’t be there.
Nonetheless, if Variety’s seemingly questionable claim that Gaga will drop to Supporting turns out correct, that may not matter. But even if that doesn’t happen, past nominees Julianne Moore and Lesley Manville from “The Room Next Door” and “Queer” could still make up for it.
Best Original Screenplay: 7 nominees from Venice since 2014 – 2 winners
2023: “Maestro”
2022: “The Banshees of Inisherin”
2019: “Marriage Story”
2017: “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
2016: “La La Land”
2015: “Spotlight” [Winner]
2014: “Birdman” [Winner]
In terms of nominations, this is the field Venice has had the least influence on for the last decade by far. Nonetheless, it did squeeze “Maestro” in as the fifth Best Original Screenplay nominee last year. It had “The Banshees of Inisherin” as a virtual runner-up in 2022, like “Marriage Story,” “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” and “La La Land” before it.
Yet with “Anora,” “Emila Perez,” and “A Real Pain” having already shown themselves and with “Blitz” coming later, most of this year’s initial favorites are not at Venice. In fact, since most of the festival’s major films are adapted or based on true stories, the one shot for a Best Original Screenplay breakout could be “The Room Next Door.” Still, it would have a long way to go to catch “Anora” and be the first Venice premiere to win Best Original Screenplay in nine years.
Best Adapted Screenplay: 10 nominees from Venice since 2014 – 0 winners
2023: “Poor Things”
2021: “The Power of the Dog,” “The Lost Daughter” & “Dune”
2020: “Nomadland”
2019: “Joker”
2018: “A Star is Born” & “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”
2017: “The Shape of Water”
2016: “Arrival”
It seems any aspiring Best Adapted Screenplay winner has been cursed by coming to Venice lately. Best Picture and Venice Golden Lion winners “Nomadland” and “The Shape of Water” couldn’t win this category either. “The Power of the Dog” ultimately lost Best Picture by coughing up Best Adapted Screenplay to Sundance winner “CODA,” and “Poor Things” lost any slim chance of catching “Oppenheimer” last year by not winning it either.
As such, the likes of “Queer” and “Joker: Folie à Deux” surely must hope their Best Picture cases don’t hinge on a Best Adapted Screenplay win – though that shouldn’t be a problem if their leads do their part. Nonetheless, with likely early favorites “Sing Sing” and “Conclave” not here, along with other predicted favorites like “Nickel Boys,” “The Piano Lesson,” and “Nightbitch,” the odds of Venice breaking its Best Adapted Screenplay losing streak seem long this year.
Then again, what may seem unlikely when the Venice Film Festival opens on August 28th might seem quite different by the time the Golden Lion and other awards are presented on September 7th – to say nothing of what the Oscar race may become by that day.
Are you excited for this year’s Venice Film Festival lineup? What Oscar contenders do you think might emerge from this year’s festival? 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 at @Robertdoc1984
