Because of the Los Angeles wildfires, the awards season calendar is all screwed up. Hardly the most important thing, but a reality nonetheless. That means award shows are piling up on top of each other, and that the next three weeks are a sprint to the end of the trophy trail, with the BAFTAs on the 16th, the SAG Awards on the 23rd, and the Oscars the next weekend on March 2.
Something else to keep in mind—Oscars final voting ends on the 18th and SAG final voting ends on the 21st, which means both groups have been voting through the Karla chaos. In another weird quirk of the delays, the ACE Eddie Awards handed out by the editors’ guild won’t be announced until March 13, after the Oscars, which means we’ll have no way of knowing what the editors are thinking, a significant hole in Oscar prognostication, as the winner of Best Editing is usually indicative of who will win Best Picture.
This past weekend saw a pileup of three awards ceremonies, with the Critics Choice Awards on Friday night, and Saturday saw both the directors’ and producers’ guild hand out their prizes. These are key awards to pay attention to, although the push to increase and diversify the Academy’s membership has reshaped the voting blocs in recent years.
The producers’ branch was long the second biggest in the Academy, behind the actors, but while the actors remain the largest branch with 1,258 members, the producers have been eclipsed by the executives, who have a whopping 758 members; the animation branch now stands at 677; and the marketing and PR branch is now 646, only a few members short of the producers’ benchmark of 652. Still, producers make up a significant portion of the Academy, so how they vote does carry weight. These tectonic shifts just make things more unpredictable.
At the Critics Choice Awards, Wicked, The Substance, and Emilia Pérez tied at three awards each, though Anora walked away with Best Picture (see the full winners list here). Among The Substance’s awards was another Best Actress prize for Demi Moore, who gave another lovely speech. She is only cementing her lead in the Best Actress race.
But Anora is the big story this weekend. After a relatively quiet awards season with lots of nominations but almost no wins, they not only won the top prize at CCA, but Sean Baker won at the DGA, and the film won the PGA’s theatrical film prize, too. (At the DGA, it was nice to see RaMell Ross recognized for Nickel Boys as his first feature film. You can see the complete DGA winners here and PGA winners here. Hacks and Shōgun continue their television dominance.)
As Emilia Pérez spun off the rails over the last couple weeks, people started updating their Oscar odds, making room for A Complete Unknown to become the new favorite, but it looks like Anora is now our frontrunner. (General reminder this is about how I think the Academy will vote, not what films I think actually deserve Oscars.) Taking both the DGA and the PGA is HUGE, if they win the outstanding cast prize at the SAGs, Anora will be the frontrunner by a country mile.
It's important to remember that the awards handed out thus far have almost entirely been by film festivals—like Anora winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year—and critical groups. The CCAs, Gothams, and Golden Globes are all voted on by members of film/entertainment press. So while Anora might not have stood out so far, now that actual filmmakers are weighing in via their guild votes, it’s clear they admire this film, and it is shifting the Oscar landscape.
Not only does Anora get a boost in the Best Picture race, but Sean Baker also gets a boost, he is now nipping at Brady Corbet’s heels in the Best Director race. One thing to keep in mind there, though, is that Baker is also nominated as a producer for Best Picture. It would not surprise me if a lot of people split their vote, going for Corbet in directing, given the sheer scale of what he accomplished, and vote for Anora for Best Picture, recognizing Baker’s work overall on the film. They might see it as “either way, Sean Baker wins”.
As for the other acting races, Zoe Saldaña and Kieran Culkin continue their marches to the Oscars unabated, and Adrien Brody picked up another trophy for The Brutalist. I’m just not convinced Timothée Chalamet has really gained that much momentum, Brody just keeps winning. But the BAFTAs and the SAGs, more awards voted on by people who have Oscar votes, too, will tell us more. If Timmy can snag one of those awards, he’s definitely in the race. If not, though, it’ll be Demi and Adrien, and Zoe and Kieran, as it has been pretty much all awards season.
