We’re into November now, which means Oscar season is officially underway in the movie world, and this year marks a special kind of Oscar season because there really is no obvious frontrunner. By this time last year, both Oppenheimer and Barbie had long been in audiences’ mind. This year? Dune Part Two is likely to get a nomination and could even make a push for the win, but otherwise, the Academy Awards Best Picture race is more open than it has been in years.
One movie that promises to contend for the big award is Anora, Sean Baker’s movie about a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch. The film won the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, and has been met by absolute raves from critics.
Another likely Best Picture nominee is Brady Corbet’s film The Brutalist, a small-budget movie starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, ****and Guy Pierce about a European architect who relocates to Pennsylvania after World War II. With a three and a half hour runtime and a 15 minute intermission, The Brutalist is a big, bold movie in the most classical sense.
And in December, audiences will get their eyes on Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross’ interpretation of the novel by Colson Whitehead, which tells the story of two boys who become close friends at a ruthless reformatory school during the Jim Crow era. Nickel Boys is likely to be a polarizing film, as the entire thing is shot in the first-person. The first-person perspective may make certain plot details more difficult to follow, but it succeeds at making Nickel Boys a movie experience unlike any other, one that grows larger in my estimation the more I let it linger in my mind.
Anora, The Brutalist, and Nickel Boys promise to be Oscar contenders, though it’s very possible they don’t all secure nominations. Unlike years past, this year’s Best Picture race is anything but a sure bet… which makes it all the more exciting.
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