Awards Update: Final Pre-Festival Predictions

Welcome to an ongoing series where I cover the 2024/2025 awards season. On a regular basis, I will update my Oscar predictions, taking into account the new information that has been received since the last update. Full predictions in every category can be found on the Home and Awards page.

The runners have taken their positions on the starting block. All that can happen now is for the gun to be fired to commence the next phase in the awards race. Save for Telluride, which won’t reveal itself until the day before the festival commences (although hints from Venice Artistic Director Alberto Barbera and premiere designations by both TIFF and NYFF have pretty much confirmed every title that will appear in the mountains), every fall festival has unveiled their slate for the year. I did a piece a month ago analyzing these lineups and what they mean for the Oscars. But that was done before TIFF added 20+ new titles a few weeks ago, and NYFF finalized their Main Slate and Spotlight section, which calls for a refreshed look at how everything stands just before the onslaught commences.

Between his two features as a director, The Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux, Brady Corbet has steered far away from the Oscar conversation. Most of the information we have on his new film, The Brutalist, seems to fall in line with that same trajectory. It carries a 215-minute runtime, is said to be nightmarish at times, and has ambitious swings. It also doesn’t have a North American distributor at the moment (Focus Features holds International rights). But the sight of it going to Venice, TIFF, and NYFF does project a lot of confidence, and there’s been more than a few rumors that it’s an absolutely gorgeous masterpiece. I don’t have it any of my predictions at the moment, but I’ll be the first to slot it into more than a few categories if those rumors turn out to be true.

Of course, a good start at the festivals is only one step of the journey, and I’m skeptical about its prospects outside of the critical establishment. I’ll be seeing it early in the morning on my second day of TIFF, and it’s by far my most anticipated film of the festival. Other films on the bubble in terms of my predictions are Saturday Night, Hard Truths, and Nightbitch. 

Also recently announced to be making the trek from Venice to TIFF are The Room Next Door and Queer, with both venturing to NYFF a few weeks later. The trailer for Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut looked stunning, hinting at a sumptuous score by frequent collaborator Alberto Iglesias and performances by Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. I feel confident in at least two of those three being nominated for their work, with Almodóvar possibly making his way into the ever-crowded field of Best Adapted Screenplay.

Two films that will be premiering at Telluride are Nickel Boys and The Piano Lesson, both adaptations of lauded source material. Oscar-nominated documentarian RaMell Ross co-writes and directs the former, with a cast that includes Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Hamish Linklater, and Daveed Diggs. Its selection as the Opening Night film at NYFF bodes well for its chances in many above-the-line categories, the same areas that The Piano Lesson will also be vying for with its all-star cast. The Netflix film will be stopping in Toronto after Telluride, a smart play to get the crowds behind a long-overdue Oscar campaign for Samuel L. Jackson. Good reviews, sympathy for Danielle Deadwyler’s snub a few years back, and the backing of Netflix could make this film a worthy contender.

Just as we have to entertain the possibility that one or more currently heavily predicted awards players will flounder, we also have to consider that there’s a hidden gem buried somewhere. For a film I hadn’t heard about until a few weeks ago, the Telluride-TIFF-NYFF journey that The Friend will be taking has certainly piqued my interest. TIFF also has two underdog sports dramas in Unstoppable and The Fire Inside, both repped by Amazon MGM and slated for release in the winter.

Likely half of my predictions will be proven wrong or right within two weeks, meaning this is pretty much the last time to try and hope-dict stuff into reality. I’ll be on the ground at TIFF for all ten days, seeing almost every film mentioned in this article. Stay tuned for reviews, recaps, and a new slate of predictions immediately afterward.