A note from Scott: Believe it or not, we are only a little more than 24 hours away from the close of the final round of Oscars voting — it wraps up on Tuesday at 5 p.m. PT — at which point Hollywood is going to go very quiet for a few days.
Since our last forecast update, Neon’s Anora has continued its run of success with the guilds — on Feb. 15, it was awarded the best original screenplay prize at the Writers Guild Awards (while, in something of a surprise, the WGA awarded best adapted screenplay to Nickel Boys). But Anora received mixed news at the BAFTA Awards on Feb. 16.
The film’s leading lady, Mikey Madison, scored her first major best actress win of the season, putting a stop to the run of Demi Moore for MUBI’s The Substance; and the film also won best casting. But Anora was beaten out in the best film race by Conclave (which also won best British film, adapted screenplay and editing), giving Focus renewed hope that it might still wind up with its first best picture Oscar winner. And Sean Baker lost best director to Brady Corbet for A24’s The Brutalist; best original screenplay to Jesse Eisenberg for Searchlight’s A Real Pain; and best editing to Nick Emerson for Conclave.
Meanwhile, the season-long sweep of best actor by The Brutalist’s Adrien Brody, best supporting actor by Kieran Culkin of A Real Pain and best supporting actress by Zoe Saldaña of Netflix’s Emilia Pérez continued. Wicked and The Brutalist continued to divvy up most of the below-the-line awards, with Dune: Part Two snagging two as well.
The fact that Brody beat Fiennes with an electorate comprised primarily of Brits indicates that Fiennes’ Oscar prospects have likely evaporated; the wild-card in that race remains Timothée Chalamet for Searchlight’s A Complete Unknown. The Brits did rally around two other local heroes, though: Netflix’s Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl upset Universal’s The Wild Robot to win best animated film.
In other news…
On Feb. 11, the Visual Effects Society awarded its top prize, best visual effects in a photoreal feature, to Disney’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes over Warners’ Dune: Part Two — although the latter is probably still the better bet for the Oscars, given that it has a best picture nom.
Two best original score Oscar nominees, The Brutalist and The Wild Robot, won in their respective score categories at the Society of Composers and Lyricists Awards on Feb. 12, where Diane Warren’s song “The Journey” from The Six Triple Eight also beat a fellow best original song Oscar nominee, Brandi Carlile, Elton John and Andrew Wyatt’s “Never Too Late” from Elton John: Never Too Late, to win the best song from a documentary prize.
On Feb. 15, at the Make-Up and Hair Stylists Guild Awards, the two top prizes went to different Oscar nominees for best makeup/hairstyling: best contemporary makeup to The Substance and best period and/or character makeup to Universal’s Wicked. And that same evening, at the Art Directors Guild Awards, Focus’ Nosferatu (period feature film), Wicked (fantasy feature film) and Conclave (contemporary feature film), all of which are best production design Oscar nominees.
This weekend brings the Spirit Awards and the USC Scripter Awards on Saturday and the SAG Awards on Sunday. All should be fun and interesting — but, again, will not move the needle on Oscar voting, which will already be a thing of the past.
Please remember: You can bookmark this URL and return to it at any time to see my latest picks. Think of me like a meteorologist — my aim is to correctly predict what will happen, not to advocate for what I think should happen. My picks are arrived at by screening the films, consulting with the voters, analyzing the campaigns and studying the results of past seasons.