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By Alex Kirschenbaum
Contributing Entertainment Writer
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The Academy Awards race is heating up.
The latest pre-Oscars showcase, the Critics’ Choice Awards last Sunday, helped establish the current temperature of the hunt. As all the players gun for little gold statues on March 8, each big accolade can serve as something of a barometer for where they stand.
Everyone will keep jockeying for position, both through the Jan. 16 end of the nomination window and the March 5 deadline for picking the winner.
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At the Critics’ Choice Awards, two big winners from Warner Bros. stood apart from the rest.
Sinners, the fifth hit collaboration between director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan (at least, in those capacities — Coogler has also produced three other movies in which Jordan starred or cameoed), paced the movie side with four victories. The genre-melding blockbuster Prohibition-era vampire actioner stunned moviegoers and critics alike when it burst onto the screen in April. Jordan submits a tour de force as twin crooks-turned-juke joint entrepreuners who have to grapple with some supernatural guests.
One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson's big-budgeted, critically lauded nabbed the two top honors, Best Picture and Best Director, plus a third big award.
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The Best Picture Oscar Frontrunners
The two flicks are looking like major frontrunners to be honored at this year’s Oscars. Sinners especially should clean up in the technical categories.
The Yorgos Lanthimos crime dark comedy Bugonia, Guillermo del Toro’s remake of Frankenstein for Netflix, Noah Baumbach’s navelgazing Hollywood drama Jay Kelly, the frantic Josh Safdie sports biopic Marty Supreme, the Clint Bentley-helmed period drama Train Dreams and the blockbuster musical sequel Wicked: For Good were the other Best Picture nominees.
The pool for this could be a bit different come Oscar time. International productions It Was Just an Accident, The Secret Agent, and Sentimental Value all have a shot at a nomination in the category. Richard Linklater directed two critically renowned pseudo-biopics in Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vague.
One Battle After Another and Sinners split the Best Screenplay awards, with One Battle After Another (loosely based on a Thomas Pynchon novel) taking home Best Adapted Screenplay and Sinners claiming Best Original Screenplay.
Breaking Down the Top Acting Contenders After the Critics’ Choice Results
The loaded acting categories also look like harbingers of where we’re headed at the Golden Globes and Oscars.
Marty Supreme rising star Timothee Chalamet solidified his status as the man to beat for Best Actor, vanquishing Jordan and One Battle After Another star Leonardo DiCaprio, plus Blue Moon's Ethan Hawke, Train Dreams' Joel Edgerton, and The Secret Agent's Wagner Moura. Of this core group, movie stars Jordan and DiCaprio figure to have the inner track to play spoiler on Oscar night.
All six men are also nominated for Golden Globes, but that ceremony has categories for both Drama and Musical or Comedy, and honors 12 nominees.
Frankenstein star Oscar Isaac, The Smashing Machine's Dwayne Johnson, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere standout Jeremy Allen White, Jay Kelly's George Clooney, No Other Choice star Lee Byung-hun, and Bugonia's Jesse Plemons could all break through to Academy Award nominations, which would require their displacing members of that core six.
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Like Gwyneth Paltrow before her, Hamnet's Jessie Buckley has emerged as the odds-on Best Actress favorite for her role as William Shakespeare's lover. Her Critics’ Choice win arrived at the expense of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You star Rose Byrne, One Battle After Another’s Chase Infiniti, Renate Reinsve of Sentimental Value, The Testament of Ann Lee star Amanda Seyfried, and Bugonia’s Emma Stone — making her third straight collaboration with Lanthimos. Stone, of course, already has two Oscars to her name at the ripe age of 37.
Wicked: For Good star Cynthia Erivo, Song Sung Blue's Kate Hudson, Hedda's Tessa Thompson, After the Hunt star Julia Roberts (who won for the Steven Soderbergh classic Erin Brockovich), Sorry, Baby breakout Eva Victor, and Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence of Die My Love round out the Golden Globes nominees, joined by all six Critics’ Choice finalists. The Testament of Ann Lee and Sentimental Value, two films that have had limited exposure, feel like the most expendable titles in that Critics’ Choice group, while Erivo could have the best shot at moving into the top group for an Oscar nomination.
Frankenstein monster Jacob Elordi bested One Battle After Another co-stars Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn, plus Paul Mescal (Hamnet), Adam Sandler (Jay Kelly) and Stellan Skarsgaard (Sentimental Value) to earn Best Supporting Actor honors. Both Penn and Del Toro are prior Academy Award winners. Multi-platinum pop star/rising film star Ariana Grande (Wicked: For Good) was beaten out by Weapons villain Amy Madigan for Best Supporting Actress.
Two Sentimental Value performers, Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sinners scene-stealer Wunmi Mosaku, and One Battle After Another's Teyana Taylor were the other finalists.
The Golden Globes and the Actor Awards are the next big pre-Academy Award hurdles, which should further flesh out the race.
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