Cate Traywick, Arts and Entertainment Editor
It’s been a really killer year for movies. From the Malik-esque Clint Bently drama, “Train Dreams”, to the dynamic and unparalleled hit, “Marty Supreme”, the output from the industry is certainly on an upswing. On January 22, the Oscar nominations list came out with crowd-favorite “Sinners” smashing the record for most nominations with an astonishing 16 nominations, while “Wicked: For Good” walked away with a surprising zero.
The big five categories–Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress–are the most coveted prizes in Hollywood, and this year the future winners aren’t quite as clear as they often are.
First, the Best Original Screenplay is one of the most interesting categories the Academy offers, an award that often doesn’t match up with Best Picture or even any other award. This category favors ingenuity, and “Sinners” seems to be the frontrunner. With its bluesy, southern quality and incredible attention to music and culture, as well as being a religious vampire drama, “Sinners” feels like a no-brainer for the Academy while still being a favorite with fans and critics alike.
Best Actor is a tricky one. People are ready to see Timothée Chalamet win something again.With three Best Actor nominations under his belt, not including his nomination for “Marty Supreme”, it seems past time that he won. Because the view of the Academy, and furthermore, the industry as a whole appears to be that he is just too young for the golden statuette, Chalamet will likely return empty handed yet again. On the other hand, Leonardo DiCaprio has been running Hollywood for years and will for years to come. His performance in “One Battle After Another” was further confirmation of this. DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson was absolutely stunning, and he more than deserves the second Oscar under his belt.
Best Actress is a runaway, with Jessie Buckley giving the performance of her life in “Hamnet”. Not only is she well loved by the Academy, but also movie-watchers hold a certain loyalty and love for her that is unlike many others, and despite this being her first Best Actress nomination, she certainly could walk away with the trophy.
Best Director seems to be a competition between Paul Thomas Anderson (“One Battle After Another”) and Ryan Coogler (“Sinners”). Both of their work is incredible, but with Coogler being a relatively new face when it comes to the Academy, which greatly hurts him when it comes to this award. Anderson does it like no other. He has swept at all preliminary awards shows, is the man behind “Boogie Nights”, “Magnolia”, and “There Will be Blood”, and has received 14 Academy Award nominations (with no wins) to date. It’s past time that he’s honored for his work.
The last of the big five, Best Picture, has been a weird category for the last few years. The Academy favored big, box office hits with “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Oppenheimer” in 2022 and 2023 but then chose A24 darling “Anora” for the prize this past year. This year, the favorite seems to be “One Battle After Another”, which many people are calling Anderson’s greatest yet, a movie that speaks directly to the American public about our political systems and employs an incredible amount of fun and artistry throughout. Of course, Anderson has been amongst the greatest to do it for the last thirty years and has yet to win a competitive Oscar. The other nominee that stands out is, once again, “Sinners”. A massive hit at the box office and all together a really cool and idiosyncratic movie, and with the buzz surrounding “Sinners”, it certainly wouldn’t be an upset for it to win. In the end, “One Battle After Another” really has the star quality that it takes to win picture, which will likely be the outcome.