From ‘Hamnet’ to ‘Wicked’: The movies defining the Oscars race so far

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So many movies have debuted over the past three weeks. So. So. So. Many. Movies.

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Back-to-back film festivals in Venice, Telluride, Colorado, and Toronto are where studios bring their biggest, most prestigious fall titles for splashy world premieres amid a gathering of international press. It can feel a little like being in an antigravity chamber with a very loose door policy: You’re a little high from the adrenaline, there are way too many people in here and it’s impossible to track who’s up and who’s down.

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Some movies immediately stumbled (Luca Guadagnino’s “After the Hunt,” Edward Berger’s “Ballad of a Small Player”). Some bobbled, but are back upright (chiefly, Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly,” starring George Clooney, which got a lukewarm reception in Venice and raves out of Telluride). Some defied expectations (“Nuremberg,” starring Russell Crowe). Others just need a little time to cook and will rise if there’s any justice in this world (Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice” and Kaouther Ben Hania’s “The Voice of Hind Rajab”).

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And one rocketed to the top as soon as its closing credits rolled at its Telluride and Toronto premieres: Chloe Zhao’s “Hamnet.” The gorgeously shot late-1500s speculative drama is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel “Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague” and stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal. It tells the wrenching story of William Shakespeare’s family and the tragedy that may have inspired “Hamlet,” but it is also a universal tale of grief and the transformative power of art.

Still, it’s September. The Oscars are six months away and some anticipated debuts still await. Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” has been getting raves from the select critics who’ve seen it (Steven Spielberg said he’s watched it three times), and it will open in theatres Sept. 26 without bowing at a festival. The New York Film Festival, which begins that same day, will showcase “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” as well as the debuts of “Anemone,” Daniel Day-Lewis’s first film since 2017’s “Phantom Thread” (directed by his son Ronan), and Bradley Cooper’s third feature, “Is This Thing On?,” a divorce comedy starring Will Arnett and Laura Dern.

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Then there are the big blockbusters and late-breaking wild cards that could shake up the whole field: “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” “Wicked: For Good” and A24’s “Marty Supreme,” starring Timothee Chalamet as a table tennis champion.

Here’s a snapshot of the landscape.

Best picture

The front-runners

If there’s any takeaway from the fall festivals, it’s that “Hamnet” could upend early favourite “Sinners” as this year’s unstoppable juggernaut. Ryan Coogler’s masterful Southern gothic blockbuster has held the spot as best picture front-runner since April, and has been hampered only by the fact that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences almost never rewards horror films. September’s festivals have only proven its strength. Right now, its best picture odds are basically tied with “Hamnet” (at 91 percent) on the betting site Kalshi – by no means a scientific measure, but a decent indicator of how, right now, this feels like a two-movie race. (That is, until we see “One Battle After Another.”)

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Also on the rise is Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value.” It emerged as the biggest contender from Cannes – a May festival that has increasingly become an Oscars tastemaker, producing last year’s best picture winner “Anora.” A family drama in both English and Norwegian, it reteams Trier with his “The Worst Person In the World” star Renate Reinsve. She plays a stage actress whose estranged filmmaker father (Stellan Skarsgard) asks her to star in a movie he’s written about their family’s deepest unspoken tragedy.

The murky middle

Netflix had a particularly busy fall festival run. Its heavy hitters “Jay Kelly” and Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” weren’t received as warmly as expected, so Kathryn Bigelow’s nuclear missile thriller “A House of Dynamite” and the quiet, moving Sundance hit “Train Dreams” now seem to be the company’s best bets. Eva Victor’s Sundance stunner “Sorry, Baby,” a funny, poignant exploration of the aftermath of sexual assault, could ride its groundswell of support all the way to the big day. “Bugonia,” a violent, gonzo anti-capitalist screed that’s the latest team-up between Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone played through the roof at Venice and felt like a return to “Poor Things” popularity. But it also came with chatter that the duo just need to take a break already.

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As for the foreign language features, the Palme d’Or winner, “It Was Just an Accident” from Iranian dissident director Jafar Panahi, is a real best picture contender, because academy rules probably mean it can’t get nominated as an international feature. Appealingly old-fashioned “Nuremberg,” about the six months in 1946 when the world tried Nazi leaders for war crimes, and “Rental Family,” a whimsical comedy starring Brendan Fraser as an American actor in Tokyo, both got mixed reviews out of the Toronto International Film Festival. But they have emotional, crowd-pleasing appeal. Look for them to be far greater hits with audiences and older academy members than they were with critics.

Wild cards

How the rest of the field shakes out will largely depend on which talked-about Venice films manage to land U.S. distribution, and whether more foreign-language features will crack the top 10, as they increasingly have, ever since the academy diversified its membership. “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” a drama that uses real voice recordings to tell the story of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl trapped in Gaza after Israel Defense Forces shot over 300 bullets into her family’s car, could make a powerful case for best picture. And then there’s the broadly praised “No Other Choice,” a darkly funny, full-throttle South Korean unemployment revenge saga from “Oldboy” director Park Chan-wook. It’s coming out Christmas Day in the United States, from Neon, the company that launched “Parasite” as a phenomenon. But since it was bafflingly shut out of an award at Venice, it faces an uphill battle.

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Best director

This might actually be the most diverse, dynamic major category this year. Zhao (“Hamnet”) could become the first woman to win best director twice, and as a Chinese immigrant, at that. Coogler (“Sinners”) looks like a lock for his first directing nomination. Panahi (“It Was Just an Accident”), twice jailed in Iran and banned for 20 years from making movies, could be rewarded for doing just that with his knockout film. Trier (“Sentimental Value”) and Park (“No Other Choice”) are also in the mix.

The category might also have soap opera intrigue. James Cameron could get rewarded for the billions his Avatar movies have made, alongside his ex-wife Bigelow (“A House of Dynamite”), who’s gotten raves for her first movie since 2017’s “Detroit.” Most fascinating are the estranged Safdie brothers, who’ve broken up as a directing duo after making the acclaimed “Uncut Gems.” Benny just won best director at Venice for “The Smashing Machine,” and Josh has A24’s most prominent release with “Marty Supreme.” Which sibling, if either, will win out?

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Of course, if the internet had its way, the winner would be Anderson (“One Battle After Another”). Spielberg called this absurdist comedy, in which Leonardo DiCaprio plays a former resistance group member who has to recruit other revolutionaries to save his missing daughter, the next “Dr. Strangelove.”

Best actress

Judging from the rapturous response to “Hamnet,” Jessie Buckley is the clear front-runner. As Shakespeare’s wife, Agnes, she is raw and primal, an outcast in her family who feels a connection with the forest that borders on witchcraft, and a calling in being a mother that courses through her body and straight onto the screen. It is the performance that will break your heart. Joining her up top is Cynthia Erivo, who seems likely to get her second Oscar nomination in back-to-back years for the same part in the “Wicked” sequel.

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Renate Reinsve (“Sentimental Value”) is also incredibly strong as an actress daughter trying to forgive her emotionally avoidant filmmaker father. June Squibb, one hopes, will prove irresistible. At 95, she gives a tour-de-force comedic-turned-tearjerker performance in Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, “Eleanor the Great.” Fingers crossed that academy voters will realize how fun it would be to have Squibb on the trail.

Rose Byrne is unhinged and outrageously funny in the stress-inducing “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” as a mother of a sick child driven to very bad behavior. She’s very much in the race, but will be competing with Jennifer Lawrence’s powerhouse portrayal of a mother with postpartum depression in “Die, My Love,” which premiered at Cannes. The key difference may be that Byrne’s movie played at Telluride and Toronto, refreshing audiences, whereas Lawrence’s movie hasn’t played any fall festivals so far because, rumor has it, director Lynne Ramsay has been recutting since May.

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The women with big question marks over their heads are Sydney Sweeney in the harrowing boxing biopic “Christy” (but is she too young and untested?); Julia Roberts for her prickly turn as a college philosophy professor in “After the Hunt,” which clunked with critics; Amanda Seyfried, who sings and dances beautifully in the 1750s religious musical “The Testament of Ann Lee,” which doesn’t yet have distribution; and Emma Stone, who is great in “Bugonia” but won her second best actress trophy two years ago. Who knows, maybe she’s our new Meryl Streep and will get nominated every year even if she doesn’t want to be!

Best actor

DiCaprio (“One Battle After Another”), Day-Lewis (“Anemone”), Chalamet (“Marty Supreme”) and Jeremy Allen White (“Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere”) are all major contenders for movies almost no one’s seen yet. At the least, White seems near the top. Never bet against an actor playing a musician in a biopic. Is Mescal lead or supporting for “Hamnet”? His Shakespeare is away in London during half the movie building the Globe. Either way, he’s getting nominated.

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The tragedy of this category would be if Michael B. Jordan somehow gets lost in the shuffle because “Sinners” peaked too early. The man plays twins! Another tragedy would be the academy overlooking Lee Byung-hun as a worker who wages war for his family after getting laid off in “No Other Choice.” He towers over his Western competition, and this is a chance for the academy to make up for snubbing the South Korean cast of “Parasite.”

Of the fall festival debuts, Jesse Plemons is in the strongest position; even if his sparring-partner Stone doesn’t get nominated, it’s hard to deny how mesmerizing and fearsome he is as a conspiracy nut in “Bugonia.” Dwayne Johnson is also looking solid for going vulnerable and transforming his face and body as mixed martial arts champion Mark Kerr in “The Smashing Machine.”

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Otherwise, the bubble is vast. Oscar Isaac is at his passionate best as the doctor in “Frankenstein,” who may be the movie’s real monster. Brazilian star Wagner Moura, of “Narcos” fame, won best actor at Cannes for “The Secret Agent,” a sprawling, often funny and deeply personal yarn about a good man on the run. Fraser has a poignant turn as a lonely actor who finds purpose and connection by pretending to be a little girl’s father in “Rental Family.” (Also, he learned to speak Japanese for it!) George Clooney’s popularity among his peers could prove vital for a nod, playing some version of himself in “Jay Kelly” – more narcissistic and regretful, perhaps, but a movie star nonetheless. And who decides on Oscars? Actors.

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Best supporting actress

Teyana Taylor got to shoot a machine gun while very, very pregnant in “One Battle After Another” and would absolutely be the most fun person to have on the awards trail (other than Squibb!). Wunmi Mosaku also deserves her flowers as Annie, the earthy, sensual heart of “Sinners.” Ariana Grande probably can’t be denied for “Wicked,” either.

Otherwise, this category is wide open. Unconventional heroines we’re rooting for: Son Ye-jin as a wife carrying her family’s secret in “No Other Choice”; Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg with a purposefully terrible French accent in “Nouvelle Vague” (Richard Linklater’s ode to the making of “Breathless”); and Glenn Close, who is fabulous as the devout housekeeper in “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.” The woman’s 78 and been nominated eight times without a win!

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Best supporting actor

This feels like the most unsettled category of all. Skarsgard is a likely front-runner, as the charming yet loathsome filmmaker father from “Sentimental Value.” If Mescal goes for supporting rather than lead actor for “Hamnet,” he’ll be on top of this list. Whatever you think of “Jay Kelly,” it’s hard to deny that Adam Sandler is the heart of the film as the titular movie star’s long-suffering manager – and so many people would love to see him get his first Oscar nomination.

Crowe burst into this category with a terrifying performance as Nazi leader Hermann Göring in “Nuremberg.” While he’s not ranking high on betting sites, look for that to change once more people see it – and hear his flawless German. Other possibilities include Sean Penn as a police officer hunting revolutionaries in “One Battle After Another,” and a tender and warm Jeremy Strong as Bruce Springsteen’s longtime manager, Jon Landau. As long as there’s still room for the wonderful Delroy Lindo as harmonica-playing Delta Slim in “Sinners,” all will be right with the world.

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