Rating the Best Picture contenders: The case for — and against — ‘Anora,’ ‘Conclave,’ ‘Emilia Pérez,’ ‘Wicked,’ and more

There are nearly 180 films in the Oscar race this year, but there’s only room for 10 on the Best Picture ballot. So which will be lucky enough to make the cut? Oscar voters are a fickle lot — and for every argument in favor of a given film, there’s someone more than willing to argue the opposite. Which means the only thing certain about this year’s Best Picture contenders is that there are going to be surprises and heartbreak when the Academy Award nominations are unveiled on Jan. 17. Here, we lay out the cases for and against each of the top contenders — their strengths, their challenges, and their odds of making the cut.

Anora

The case for: Anora skyrocketed to the front of the pack by winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and has led Gold Derby’s combined Best Picture Oscar predictions since early September. Many pundits believe it’s the frontrunner to ultimately win the top prize, while critics are in love: Anora has a 91 score on Metacritic and a 95 rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Suffice it to say, Sean Baker‘s film starring Mikey Madison has been on a blazing hot streak for months. Among the precursors and honors it has earned so far include placements on the National Board of Review and American Film Institute best-of-2024 lists, five nominations at the Golden Globes, and seven nods at the Critics Choice Awards. Baker is constantly mentioned as a frontrunner to win Best Picture and/or Best Original Screenplay (and he is expected to land nominations for Best Director and Best Editing, too). Madison, meanwhile, is the leading contender in the Best Actress odds, and co-star Yura Borisov has become a fixture among the Best Supporting Actor candidates. All this positive attention has the film firmly on the voters’ radar, and that’s before accounting for its studio, Neon, which captured Best Picture with a Cannes winner just four years ago with Parasite.

The cast against: For those expecting Anora to win, take the Cannes win with at least a small grain of salt. Because while three of the last four Palme d’Or winners have earned Best Picture nominations (Parasite, Triangle of Sadness, and Anatomy of a Fall) only two movies — Marty (1955) and Parasite (2019) — have won Best Picture after taking the Cannes top honor. More troubling is the Academy’s disinterest in Baker so far. His films Red Rocket (2021) and Tangerine (2015) were skunked, and The Florida Project (2017) only nabbed a supporting bid for Willem Dafoe. The bigger question, though, is if the film is too racy for older Academy members. The comedy-drama centers on the drug-and-sex-fueled chaos that ensues after Madison’s character, a foul-mouthed stripper, marries a Russian oligarch’s son (Mark Eydelshteyn) much to his family’s disapproval. Just last year, a similarly explicit film, Poor Things, sailed through the 96th Academy Awards by claiming four trophies: Best Actress for Emma Stone, Best Production Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Costume Design. But Poor Things was a period drama from an Oscar fave in Yorgos Lanthimos. Anora, by contrast, is a contemporary film with a cap on nominations: the only below-the-line place it’s expected to land is Best Editing. Anora‘s path to a nomination feels assured, but it might need a strong boost of Phase Two momentum to follow Parasite as a Neon winner.

The Brutalist

The case for: The critics have spoken: 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, 91 percent on Metacritic with “near universal acclaim.” Brady Corbet‘s epic has been dubbed a “masterpiece,” a word not thrown around lightly, ever since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. And it has been embraced by every precursor award since, maxing out at the Golden Globes with seven nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Score, and all three main actors (Adrien Brody, Guy Pearce, and Felicity Jones), and nine nominations from the Critics Choice Awards. An impressive technical and directorial achievement, it stands a strong chance of being one of the most-nominated films, with additional mentions in cinematography, editing, and production design, indicating wide support across the board.

The case against: 215 minutes. That’s the longest running time, by far, of any of the contenders, and despite the intermission, it’s anyone’s guess how willing Oscar voters will be to sit through it, even at home. A film that length has not won the top category since Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) at 201 minutes. It would be the fourth-longest film to win after Ben-Hur (1959) at 223 minutes, Lawrence of Arabia (1962) at 227 minutes, and Gone With the Wind (1939) at 233 minutes. In other words, it’s been a minute. Surprisingly, it was also snubbed by the National Board of Review and the Independent Spirit Awards (aside from a lone directing nod for Corbet) — and recently the ACE Eddie Awards (American Cinema Editors). And then there’s the subject matter itself. In the current post-election climate, there is no doubt The Brutalist is the most hard-hitting with its examination of the arduous struggle in pursuing the American Dream. Nomadland — a movie about isolation, loneliness, and finding community — may have struck a chord during the COVID-19 pandemic, but somber immigration issues may hit a little too close to home with some voters, who may prefer something a bit more uplifting.

A Complete Unknown

The case for: James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic was the last major contender to screen this year — a sometimes risky proposition that has left many Best Picture hopefuls on the wrong end of the nominations in years past. But A Complete Unknown has the goods: it’s another classical drama from Mangold, the kind of “movie they used to make” so many older industry professionals anecdotally bemoan are missing from the marketplace. That it’s about a massive music figure in Dylan and features a surefire Best Actor contender in Timothée Chalamet is only additive. As has been seen in recent years, when the music movie has a lead actor contender in the running for a nomination, it usually lands in the Best Picture field (Elvis, Bohemian Rhapsody, and even Maestro).

The case against: It could be argued that nothing about A Complete Unknown is revolutionary or notable, and Mangold’s old-fashioned sensibilities are likely a bug and not a feature for younger Academy members and international voters who have found themselves enamored with the big swing that is Emilia Pérez. Dylan also feels like a quintessentially American artist — whereas Elvis Presley and Freddie Mercury had a bigger global reach. Plus, outside of boomers, it’s unlikely many are super passionate about A Complete Unknown, which means it potentially won’t pull enough No. 1 votes on the ranked-choice ballot to hold off underdog contenders such as The Substance or Nickel Boys.

Conclave

The case for: Edward Berger‘s twisty drama about the internal politics of the Catholic Church that surface as a new pope is being chosen may well emerge as a consensus favorite at the Academy. It ticks all of the Oscar bait boxes: a “message” film, a director familiar to the awards circuit (Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front won four trophies in 2023), pristine production values, and a powerhouse acting ensemble of names long-familiar to voters (Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini). The film tied for the most nominations (11 of them) at the Critics’ Choice Awards with Wicked and scored six nods at the Golden Globes. At critics’ groups across the country, the film has been showing up in above-the-line categories including picture, directing, actor, supporting actress, and screenplay — along with original score, editing, and production design. Fueled by critical support (93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), it’s held a consistent slot in Gold Derby’s top 5.

The case against: That ending. Without divulging the final twist, suffice it to say it’s a bit divisive, if blindly loyal to the book. Will that be enough to turn off the older voters who are the film’s core constituency? We’ll have to wait to see what color the smoke is on the 17th.

Emilia Pérez

The case for: Emilia Pérez is not your usual Oscar contender: It’s a crime thriller about a Mexican drug lord undergoing a gender transition and starting a new life as her true self. Set to music. There’s even a song about gender-affirming surgeries. And no musical has won the top Oscar since Chicago (2002). But the good news for Emilia Pérez is that “offbeat” isn’t such a dirty word for voters. The old rule book went completely out the window with the Academy’s selection of Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), a sci-fi film about a woman bouncing between alternate realities. And Emilia has something that even Everything Everywhere lacked: a well-established pedigree. Emilia filmmaker Jacques Audiard helmed A Prophet (2009), Oscar-nominated for Best International Feature, and Rust and Bone (2012), which secured a slew of noms for Marion Cotillard. What’s more, the film competed at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where its female cast was jointly awarded Best Actress and has gone on to earn 10 Golden Globe nominations, more than any other musical or comedy in history, and another 10 at the Critics Choice Awards. In addition, it swept the European Film Awards, was recognized by the American Film Institute, and picked up industry noms from the American Cinema Editors and Costume Designers Guild.

The case against: While Hollywood may be eager to make a symbolic gesture in support of the trans community (star Karla Sofía Gascón is on track to become the first openly transgender Oscar nominee for Best Actress), the film has had to contend with criticism about its trans representation. Kyndall Cunningham wrote for Vox that Emilia Pérez “is a regressive movie that thinks it’s woke.” Even GLAAD has lashed out at its “retrograde portrayal of a trans woman” that “recycles the trans stereotypes, tropes, and clichés of the not-so-distant past.” And reviews are more tepid than the rest of the pack: 71 on Metacritic and 76 percent freshness on Rotten Tomatoes. But passion may be enough to override the naysayers, especially when the preferential ballot comes into play.

Nickel Boys

The case for: Amazon MGM Studios’ Nickel Boys has spiked as a sleeper contender, as more awards bodies are weighing in. The story of a Black boy (Ethan Herisse) unjustly sent to a reform school — with a reputation of abuse and murder during racial segregation — where he befriends another student (Brandon Wilson), is based on the 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning Colson Whitehead novel of the same name, inspired by the real-life Dozier School for Boys in Florida. But what sets the film apart is first-time director RaMell Ross‘s visual style, shot in shifting first-person point-of-view perspectives. For his impressionistic style, Ross has picked up victories at the Gotham Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle, and the directors’ branch at the Academy is known for being highbrow and more accepting of arthouse aesthetics with such nominee picks as Lenny Abrahamson for Room (2015), Paweł Pawlikowski for Cold War (2018), Thomas Vinterberg for Another Round (2020), Ryusuke Hamaguchi for Drive My Car (2021), Todd Field for Tár (2022), and Jonathan Glazer for The Zone of Interest (2023). This is coupled with the historical drama’s astounding cinematography by Jomo Fray, who also won at NYFCC and is nominated at the Film Independent Spirit Awards (along with the movie in Best Feature) — another Oscar category where the branch tends to go its way. That combination may be enough to persuade voters to reward the film in the top category, a trend we’ve seen especially in the last decade where they embraced more expansive and risky filmmaking such as Birdman (2014), The Shape of Water (2017), and Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). 

The case against: As of now, Nickel Boys has been inconsistent in major precursors, scoring only one Golden Globe mention for Best Picture and missing out on the National Board of Review, while landing five Critics Choice nominations. Its greatest strength — that idiosyncratic filmmaking style — is also its greatest challenge; it’s not an easy watch, and it asks a lot of viewers who are already overburdened with a long list of screeners.

A Real Pain

The case for: Written, directed by, and starring Jesse Eisenberg, the dramedy was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, and raves for Kieran Culkin’s performance made him a very early Oscar pick for Best Supporting Actor. Compared to its competition, A Real Pain is a strikingly low concept — two estranged cousins visit Poland after their grandmother’s death — but its emotional resonance and humor give it broad appeal. Culkin remains the Oscar frontrunner, having collected a bevy of prizes already, and the last supporting actor champ whose film was not up for Best Picture was Christopher Plummer, who was a lone nominee for 2011’s Beginners and was an overdue legend. Eisenberg’s original script has also won a handful of precursors against frontrunner Anora, indicating passion beyond Culkin’s performance. And time is on A Real Pain’s side — as in runtime. Clocking in at 90 minutes, it’s the shortest film of the top contenders (September 5 is next at 94 minutes), which ought to make it a very easy watch for voters over the holidays.

The case against: A Real Pain’s strengths lie in its acting and writing. It’s not a tech-heavy film, so its nomination ceiling is low, and it’ll have to rely on invisible support from the other branches. Maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not? And while it made the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute’s top 10 and received a Golden Globe bid for Best Comedy/Musical Film, it was snubbed in Best Picture at the Critics Choice Awards, whose Oscar misses are usually international films like Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest. A Real Pain has a great campaigner in Searchlight Pictures, but the studio is also behind another hopeful angling for a Best Picture spot, A Complete Unknown, whose subject is much more high-profile.

September 5

The case for: Good old-fashioned docudramas are in surprisingly short supply these days on the big screen, particularly ones that tell such a timely and compelling story as that depicted in September 5. The film about the Palestinian militant terrorist massacre of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich is told as a lump-in-your-throat thriller, with an urgency that grabs you and never lets go. Far different from Steven Spielberg’s Munich, this one is told from the perspective of the ABC Sports crew drafted to cover an international news story. It is, in other words, a journalism film, which can sometimes capture the zeitgeist all the way to the end zone (as when Spotlight won Best Picture in 2016). September 5 has the veneer of a textbook late-bloomer in the Academy Awards race, telling a classic story via a taut script and a powerful ensemble in 95 heart-pumping minutes.

The case against: The journalist-as-hero storyline of September 5 could not be more poorly timed given the political moment we’re in. Too, there’s the perception that the film is being forced to play catch-up following its late release in mid-December into select theaters. It’s also easy to recall how underappreciated at awards time another great journalism film, She Said, was two years ago. That same fate could befall this one as well. The film was nominated by the Golden Globes as Best Film Drama, but that was its lone honor there. It earned Screenplay and Editing bids at Critics Choice, but that’s hardly sufficient to give the movie the perception of a major Oscar player. It would also be remiss not to bring up the contentious position in which Israel currently finds itself re the Palestinian conflict in Gaza. You hate to think that alone might sway votes against a film about a horrific event that occurred more than 50 years ago, but it well could.

Sing Sing

The case for: The story of the redemptive power of theater, storytelling, and acting, Sing Sing is destined to be a standout at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, as it is literally what SAG stands for. As for its Oscar Best Picture nomination chances, the film that’s based on the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) prison program should be a lock. It possesses much the same arthouse vibe as CODA, which memorably won the top prize at the Academy Awards two years ago (along with Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actor for Troy Kotsur). It boasts superb performances from Colman Domingo and RTA alumnus Clarence Maclin in particular and has been universally praised by critics for its transformative poignance and humanity. And what a night it had earlier this month at the Gotham Awards, with Domingo and Maclin sweeping the male actor categories. Theirs is a movie about hope, compassion, and second chances and as such, is more inspirational than anything else hitting the awards trail this Oscar season.

The case against: The fact that A24 is rereleasing Sing Sing into select theaters on Jan. 17 — the same day that Oscar nominations are being announced — shows that the studio thinks it has a major contender in its back pocket. By the same token, A24 understands the movie may need an added shot of adrenaline, given that it was released what feels like light years ago (July 12) and has taken in less than $2.5 million domestically and $3 million worldwide. (Again, shades of CODA.) It also failed to make much of a dent in the Golden Globe nominations aside from Domingo, though it’s also true that the Globes have historically been less embracing of Black-led films. While it did make the Best Picture list for the Critics Choice Awards, the Sing Sing summertime momentum seems to have largely evaporated. The question is whether Academy voters will actually bother seeing it. If they do, they’re likely to embrace it as the critics did.

The Substance

The case for: When it premiered at Cannes earlier this year, few predicted Coralie Fargeat‘s body-horror comedy would be in the race for Best Picture. But now in a twist worthy of its own motion picture, The Substance has exploded as a surprise contender with five Golden Globe nominations, seven Critics Choice bids, two Independent Spirit nominations, and the Oscars shortlist for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. It has steadily skyrocketed in our combined odds throughout the major categories, including Best Director, Best Actress (Demi Moore), Best Supporting Actress (Margaret Qualley), and Best Original Screenplay (Fargeat).

The case against: Oscar voters have never been particularly keen on awarding horror with some exceptions: Get Out, The Silence of the Lambs, The Exorcist, and Rosemary’s Baby. But while one could argue The Substance isn’t really a horror movie — it often plays like a satirical comedy — it is undoubtedly gross, with more blood and guts than even the opening of Saving Private Ryan. Often, The Substance plays like Fargeat’s version of The Fly, in which a character undergoes a radical transformation that destroys their body while eating away at their soul. That’s great, but how many Oscars did The Fly win? Well, just one in Best Hair and Makeup, where The Substance is favored. If the Oscars are averse to horror, they’re even more allergic to films that turn a critical eye toward their industry — and that’s The Substance too. Sunset Blvd. lost Best Picture to All About Eve, perhaps because it was more palatable to reward a story about the theater world discarding an aging actress than one about Hollywood doing the same thing. Yet that was in the 1950s before the entertainment industry had a reckoning with the decades-long mistreatment of women by powerful men like the one played by Dennis Quaid in The Substance. The film works almost like a reckoning for a business that has made its fortune off of thousands of Elisabeth Sparkles, only to toss them out when they’re no longer of use. But is that a message older male Academy members want to embrace? Don’t forget, this is the same group that snubbed She Said a couple of years ago.

Wicked

The case for: In the wake of Barbenheimer, there must have been some quiet quaking in the halls of the Academy during the early days of this year’s awards cycle. Indie favorites and auteur darlings may have had critics swooning, but they weren’t going to get anyone tuning into the Oscars. And then on a cloud of pink-and-green fairy dust, Jon M. Chu‘s Wicked arrived on the scene — and the Academy Awards were saved. Here at last is just what the AMPAS gods have always prayed for: a “popular” (sorry, couldn’t resist) box-office hit ($500 million and counting!), with rapturous reviews and a ballot-ready checklist for nearly every category (save original song, sigh). And since opening weekend, Wicked has been defying gravity (we’ll stop now, promise) with every critics’ group and awards body, racking 11 Critics Choice nominations, four Golden Globe nominations, NBR’s top film and director of the year, and so on. It’s time to bury that old trope that voters don’t like musicals.

The case against: We’ll have to wait next year for Wicked: Part Two (aka For Good); some quibble that it’s only half of the story, and a bloated one at that at two hours and 40 minutes. And there are those who simply always hate musicals. And like Barbie, it may suffer, too, from those who can’t (or don’t want to) see past the pastels for the deeper themes about narcissism and power run amok. But here again, odds are the preferential ballot will work the magic for Wicked, whose fans are dancing through…

The Wild Robot

The case for: The Wild Robot is possibly the most heartwarming, intelligent, and visually flawless animated feature film ever produced. It’s a family film from DreamWorks with a brain and a soul that’s never boring. It makes you think, but it never preaches. It’s sort of a cross between The Iron Giant and E.T. band boasts a phenomenal voice cast headed by Lupita Nyong’o and Pedro Pascal. It’s sentimental, but plenty of dark humor shines through. Will that be enough to land it one of the 10 coveted Oscar Best Picture nominee slots? Academy Award voters can rarely all agree on any one thing or movie, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find many people who don’t come away dazzled by the Wild Robot’s quality. Of course, the Academy may also reject it for the biggest category, figuring, “That’s what the Best Animated Feature spot is for.” But in rare cases, a film rises above that mindset to stand on its own as a genre classic and therefore deserving of being taken seriously. This is a rare case.

The case against: It’s tough to get Oscar voters to rise above their predisposition to pigeonhole an animated film into a box. Throughout Academy Award history, only three such movies have cracked the Best Picture nomination list: Beauty and the Beast in 1992 (it won for Original Song and Score); Up in 2010 (it won for Score and Animated Feature, a category that debuted in 2001); and Toy Story 3 in 2011 (it won for Animated Feature and Song). People too often have a predisposition to look at animated movies as glorified cartoons and therefore kid stuff — i.e., not meeting the standard of the finest cinema. A few critics have dismissed the movie as overly simplistic. Plus, this looks to be an especially stacked year for top contenders, and how do you decide between The Substance and The Wild Robot? With plenty of quality adult films on the awards menu, animation may well take the hit.

— Debra Birnbaum, Charles Bright, Marcus James Dixon, Joyce Eng, Zach Laws, Ray Richmond, Christopher Rosen, and Christopher Tsang