Our way-too-early Oscars 2024 predictions

Director: A.V. Rockwell

Cast: Teyana Taylor, Will Catlett, Josiah Cross, Aven Courtney, Aaron Kingsley Adetola

Potential nominations: Best Actress, Best Director

Why it could get Oscars attention: A Thousand And One took home the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, an impressive feat for first-time director Rockwell. And Teyana Taylor has been singled out for her star-making performance as Inez, a woman who kidnaps her own son from foster care. Together, Rockwell and Taylor elevate this empathetic drama set against the backdrop of New York City, and their dynamism could make them stand out from the pack.

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Cast: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau

Potential nominations: Best Original Screenplay, Best Director

Why it could get Oscars attention: We actually know very little about And—the plot summary has been kept under wraps—but the actors have let slip enough details that we’re suitably intrigued. First: it’s an anthology film, split into three different stories. Second: the script is cerebral, and the film seems to reward multiple viewings, as even Chau and Plemmons struggled to understand the themes tying each story together. So, And has an interesting, challenging structure, and it comes from an auteur director who got a Best Original Screenplay nod for his supremely weird The Lobster back in 2016. Lanthimos also got a Best Director nod for The Favourite in 2019, so if he pulls off whatever he’s trying to do with And (which apparently involves Emma Stone slapping Willem Dafoe for as-yet-unknown reasons), it’s not hard to imagine he could earn himself two nice nominations. Plus, don’t count that cast out. Since we don’t know any of their roles yet, it’s hard to predict who would be up for the lead and supporting categories, but Stone, Plemmons, Dafoe, and Chau have all been nominated in various acting categories before.

Director: Wes Anderson

Cast: Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Tom Hanks, Margot Robbie, Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Jeff Goldblum, Jeffrey Wright, Steve Carell, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, somehow not Bill Murray

Potential nominations: Best Original Screenplay

Why it could get Oscars attention: Best Original Screenplay is Anderson’s comfort zone, and he probably won’t stray far from that with Asteroid City. The ensemble is huge, even for a Wes Anderson film, so it’s hard to imagine the Academy singling anyone out for the acting categories. And the plot, which concerns a group of youngsters and their parents gathering for a Junior Stargazer competition in a desert town in 1955, sounds most similar to Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, which landed an Original Screenplay nod but nothing else.

Director: Greta Gerwig

Cast: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Will Ferrell, America Ferrera, Simu Liu, Issa Rae, Hari Neg, Ncuti Gatwa

Potential nominations: All of them

Why it could get Oscars attention: It’s true that we haven’t seen much from Barbie yet, but what we have seen has been fantastic. Rarely does a film come along that is so confident in being exactly what it is, but Barbie fully embraces and subverts all the baggage that comes along with that name. It’s big, it’s bold, it’s very, very pink, and its first trailer is a parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey narrated by Helen Mirren. Historically, the Oscars haven’t given much love to big, commercial films, save for a few notable exceptions, like Titanic and The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King. We’re pulling hard for Barbie to join that pack, and if anyone can pull off that feat, it’s Gerwig, who’s earned nominations for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Adapted Screenplay in the past. Could Barbie finally be the film that earns her a nod for Best Picture? It’s a long shot—a long, long shot—but call this our Everything Everywhere wild card this year.

Director: Roger Ross Williams

Cast: Gael García Bernal, Bad Bunny, El Hijo del Santo, Roberta Colindrez, Perla De La Rosa, Joaquín Cosío, Raúl Castillo

Potential nominations: Best Actor

Why it could get Oscars attention: Cassandro had a buzzy Sundance premiere, but if we’re being honest, most of that hype was centered on Bernal for his turn as a gay Mexican luchador in this biographical film. Amazon picked it up for distribution, and they somehow mounted a successful campaign for Casey Affleck in the Best Actor category for the challenging, deeply depressing Manchester By The Sea, so they should have no trouble securing a nomination, and perhaps even a win, for Bernal in this colorful and uplifting drama.

Director: Blitz Bazawule

Cast: Fantasia, Colman Domingo, Ciara, Halle Bailey, Taraji P. Henson, Corey Hawkins, Danielle Brooks

Potential nominations: Best Actress, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay

Why it could get Oscars attention: Steven Spielberg’s 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple was famously nominated for 10 Oscars and failed to win any of them, and it’s hard to imagine the Academy not wanting to correct that with the upcoming musical adaptation. Which is not to say that any nominations the new version receives won’t be based on merit; by all accounts, it’s got a stellar cast, we know the story is incredible, and the musical was nominated for 11 Tony Awards, winning one, the first time it was staged. (The revival won two Tonys as well.) Couple that with the fact that Fantasia is easily one of the most talented winners American Idol ever produced and she’s already starred in the musical on Broadway, and it seems like The Color Purple has a lock on at least three big nominations; let’s hope the Academy doesn’t fumble again when it comes to picking winners.

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Florence Pugh

Potential nominations: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Sound, Best Original Score, Best Production Design, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Why it could get Oscars attention: If Villeneuve sticks the landing on Dune: Part 2, he could pull off a Return Of The King-level sweep. Dune Part 1 already walked away with wins for Score, Sound, Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, and Visual Effects, so it’s likely that Part 2 will be nominated for, and potentially take home, those awards again. Part 1 was nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, but didn’t clinch the win in either category, likely because, as impressive as it was, it very much felt like half a story. Perhaps Academy voters, much like the rest of us, are waiting to see if Villeneuve can really pull off such an ambitious adaptation of Frank Herbert’s “unadaptable” novel.

Director: William Oldroyd

Cast: Anne Hathaway, Thomasin McKenzie

Potential nominations: Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay

Why it could get Oscars attention: Another big hit out of Sundance, Eileen is a dark and twisty 1960s-set thriller based on the novel of the same name by Ottessa Moshfegh. The character-heavy plot, which follows a young prison secretary (McKenzie) who grows infatuated with the facility’s new doctor (Hathaway), offers exactly the kind of complex portrayals the Academy loves to recognize. Both McKenzie and Hathaway could be looking at acting nominations, and the screenplay has a good shot in the adapted category, too.

Director: Peter Sohn

Cast: Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie

Potential nominations: Best Animated Feature Film

Why it could get Oscars attention: It’s Pixar. It’d be more shocking if Elemental didn’t get a nomination for Best Animated Feature.

Director: Chloe Domont

Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Phoebe Dynevor

Potential nominations: Best Actor, Best Actress

Why it could get Oscars attention: Fair Play is set in the bizarro world that is finance and hedge funds, so there’s already something a little unsettling about this film from the beginning, when we learn Luke (Ehrenreich) and Emily (Dynevor), both analysts at the same firm, are fucking each other. It’s only after Emily gets promoted and they start fucking with each other, though, that Ehrenreich and Dynevor truly get to shine. This is a film that demands multi-layered, complicated performances, and both rise to the challenge so well it’s easy to imagine them getting awards recognition.

Director: Michael Mann

Cast: Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Gabriel Leone, Patrick Dempsey

Potential nominations: Best Picture, Best Director

Why it could get Oscars attention: Michael Mann has been in the hunt for Best Picture twice before (for The Insider and The Aviator), and, in many critics’ eyes, he’s long overdue for some recognition. Plus, Ferrari seems like the kind of movie that the Academy loves to award: it’s a biopic, it’s got a lead actor wearing prosthetics, it’s got a tragic ending. (Spoiler alert for a car race from 1957, but 13 people died, 20 were injured, and Enzo Ferrari was charged with manslaughter.) Driver’s casting as Enzo seems questionable—did we learn nothing from his shoddy Italian accent in House Of Gucci?—so if Ferrari earns any nominations, they’ll likely be centered on Mann or the film as a whole.

Director: John Carney

Cast: Eve Hewson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Potential nominations: Best Original Song

Why it could get Oscars attention: Audiences at Sundance were clapping along with Flora And Son’s original songs, written by Carney and Gary Clark. Carney scored a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture — Musical Or Comedy for Sing Street in 2017, so Flora And Son could have a shot at the big leagues after its warm festival reception.

Director: Alexander Payne

Cast: Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Carrie Preston, Dominic Sessa

Potential nominations: Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Picture

Why it could get Oscars attention: Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti, the director and star of your dad’s favorite movie, Sideways, are getting back together for The Holdovers. Payne’s films have historically received a lot of nominations from the Academy, and he’s twice taken home the trophy for Best Adapted Screenplay. David Hemingson wrote this script about a universally disliked teacher at a prep school (Giamatti) who has to stay at the academy over the holidays to watch over the one student who has nowhere else to go, so we’ll see how it lives up to Payne’s usual self-scripted fare. Payne has made no secret of the fact that he wants Giamatti to win an Oscar, and this could be the project that clinches it for him. If Payne and Giamatti’s previous collaboration and the record-setting distribution deal The Holdovers secured at the Toronto International Film Festival are anything to go by, we could see a Best Director nod for Payne and a Best Picture nod for the film, too.

Director: David Fincher

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Sophie Charlotte, Tilda Swinton, Charles Parnell, Arliss Howard

Potential nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Picture

Why it could get Oscars attention: Fincher is another Oscars-favorite director, with his last film, Mank, racking up 10 nominations (though it only won for Production Design and Cinematography). The Killer, based on the French graphic novel of the same name about a conflicted assassin, will see Fincher reunite with Se7en scriptwriter Andrew Kevin Walker. Se7en didn’t get much love from the Academy upon its release, but it’s widely regarded as one of Fincher’s best films, so a screenplay nod wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for The Killer. Fincher’s been nominated for Best Director three times before, so that seems like a pretty safe bet as well, and Fassbender’s rigorous acting could be surprisingly well-suited for Fincher’s fastidious style of directing.

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemmons, Brendan Fraser, Tantoo Cardinal

Potential nominations: Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Picture

Why it could get Oscars attention: It’s Scorsese, baby. He’s likely to get Best Director and Best Picture nominations based on his legendary status alone, though history has proven he’s not a lock for the actual award. He’s only won once for Best Picture and Best Director (for The Departed). Leonardo DiCaprio is another person who tends to get nominations based on name recognition alone, although, like Scorsese, he’s only taken home one award. Killers Of The Flower Moon could show up in a few below-the-line categories as well, as Scorsese is once again teaming up with cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, whom he previously worked with on Silence and The Irishman, both of which earned Prieto Oscar nominations. This 1920s period piece about a string of murders in the Osage Plains of Oklahoma will give Prieto and production designer Jack Fisk plenty to work with, and the first images from the film have been enticingly moody.

Director: Bradley Cooper

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Silverman, Maya Hawke, Matt Bomer

Potential nominations: Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Picture

Why it could get Oscars attention: If Maestro, a biopic starring Bradley Cooper as composer Leonard Bernstein, doesn’t get a nod for Best Original Score, it’s doing something very wrong. Cooper could get a nomination for Best Actor given the transformational nature of the role—he’s wearing some impressive old-age makeup and prosthetics—and, given that the Academy loves to nominate biopics in the Best Picture category, it’s got a shot at that one, too. And we’d never bet against Carey Mulligan, who plays Bernstein’s wife Felicia Montealegre.

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim, Ben Miles

Potential nominations: Best Costumes, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Picture

Why it could get Oscars attention: We’ve already talked about how much the Academy loves a biopic, and a historical biopic is even more tempting. Ridley Scott is a legend who’s been nominated for Best Director three times, though he’s never won, so Napoleon could be his time to shine. Joaquin Phoenix has been nominated for Best Actor three times and won once, so he’s another safe bet. Period pieces tend to get a lot of love in the technical categories, too, so Costumes and Makeup and Hairstyling have a good chance, too.

Director: Taika Waititi

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Elisabeth Moss, Will Arnett, Oscar Kightley, David Fane, Beulah Koale

Potential nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay

Why it could get Oscars attention: This sports comedy-drama, which stars Michael Fassbender as a Dutch-American soccer coach who’s trying to get the lagging American Samoa team to qualify for the FIFA World Cup, doesn’t necessarily seem like typical Oscars fare. But sometimes the Academy can latch onto based-on-a-true-story sports narratives (The Blind Side is a notable, if regrettable, example), and we trust Taika Waititi to handle Next Goal Wins with care and avoid steering the narrative into white savior territory. Still, if Waititi couldn’t nab a Best Director nomination for Jojo Rabbit, he’s unlikely to do it here, and Fassbender’s chances in the Best Actor category are much stronger for The Killer, meaning this film’s best shot at awards-season glory is in the Adapted Screenplay category.

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jr., Rami Malek, Bennie Safdie

Potential nominations: Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Picture

Why it could get Oscars attention: Oppenheimer is classic Oscar bait, but that doesn’t mean it won’t deserve all the nominations it will inevitably get. It’s got a weighty historical subject, it’s a biopic, it’s a seemingly emotionally complex exploration of the horrors of war—we could go on, but you get it. You got it when you saw the first black-and-white poster of Cillian Murphy in that dapper wide-brim fedora with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, you got it when you saw the trailer that opens with an ominous, slow-motion explosion of fire, you got it when you heard Murphy’s morally conflicted voiceover that plays over the simultaneously harrowing and bombastic footage that follows. Oppenheimer is going to have some beautifully shot, horrifying scenes, the acting’s going to be great, the story will probably be fine, and the sound will improbably but almost assuredly be extremely muddled. For better and for worse, this is going to be a classic Christopher Nolan film. Oppenheimer is unlikely to break any of Nolan’s bad habits, but it might show off some of his extraordinary talents that were notably missing from Tenet.

Director: Celine Song

Cast: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro

Potential nominations: Best Actress

Why it could get Oscars attention: If the 2023 Academy Awards taught us anything, it’s don’t bet against A24. The studio walked away with trophies in every major category this year (Supporting Actress and Actor went to Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All At Once, Best Actress and Best Actor went to Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere and Brendan Fraser for The Whale, and Best Picture went to Everything Everywhere), so all eyes will likely be on the young studio again this year. That’s great news for Past Lives, a decades-spanning romantic drama that centers on two childhood friends who reunite after years apart. It debuted to rave reviews at Sundance, and it bears some similarities to Aftersun, another A24 film from a first-time writer-director. Despite being one of the studio’s more low-key releases in 2022, Aftersun garnered a surprise Oscars nod for Best Actor for Paul Mescal. It’s not out of the question that Past Lives could do the same for Greta Lee, who turns in a captivating performance as Nora.

Directors: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson

Cast: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Jake Johnson, Oscar Isaac, Issa Rae, Daniel Kaluuya

Potential nominations: Best Animated Feature Film

Why it could get Oscars attention: Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse won Best Animated Feature Film in 2019, and there’s no reason to believe the sequel won’t pull off the same feat. The nomination is as close to a sure thing as we’re going to get this awards season—it’s just a matter of whether or not Across The Spider-Verse can maintain the original’s heart and humor. If so, it should be able to take home the trophy again.

Director: Chris Buck, Fawn Veerasunthorn

Cast: Ariana DeBose, Alan Tudyk

Potential nominations: Best Animated Feature Film

Why it could get Oscars attention: Anything from Disney animation has a very good chance at an Oscars nomination—though it’s not quite as much of a sure thing as a Pixar film, as last year’s Strange World demonstrated. Still, Wish is co-directed by Disney vet Chris Buck, who helmed the Oscar-winning mega-hit Frozen, so it’s got a strong pedigree. Plus, Alan Tudyk plays a tiny goat named Valentino who wears yellow pajamas. How can you not root for that?