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  • Feinberg Forecast: Oscar Race Standings Post-Globe and Critics Choice Noms

    Feinberg Forecast: Oscar Race Standings Post-Globe and Critics Choice Noms

    PLEASE NOTE: This forecast, assembled by Scott Feinberg, The Hollywood Reporter’s executive editor of awards coverage, reflects Scott’s best attempt to predict the behavior of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, not his personal preferences. He arrives at these projections by drawing upon conversations with voters and other industry insiders, analysis of marketing and awards campaigns, results of awards ceremonies that precede the Oscars and the history of the Oscars itself. There will be regular updates to reflect new developments.

    * * *

    Best Picture

    Frontrunners
    1. Oppenheimer (Universal)
    2. Barbie (Warner Bros.)
    3. Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple)
    4. Poor Things (Searchlight)
    5. American Fiction (Amazon/MGM)
    6. Maestro (Netflix)
    7. Past Lives (A24)
    8. The Holdovers (Focus)
    9. Anatomy of a Fall (Neon)
    10. The Zone of Interest (A24)

    Major Threats
    11. The Color Purple (Warner Bros.)
    12. Saltburn (Amazon/MGM)
    13. May December (Netflix)
    14. Air (Amazon/MGM)
    15. All of Us Strangers (Searchlight)
    16. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Sony)

    Possibilities
    17. Rustin (Netflix)
    18. The Iron Claw (A24)
    19. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (Lionsgate)
    20. Origin (Neon)
    21. Ferrari (Neon)
    22. Priscilla (A24)

    Best Director

    Frontrunners
    1. Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer)
    2. Greta Gerwig (Barbie) — podcast
    3. Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon)
    4. Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things)
    5. Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest)

    Major Threats
    6. Bradley Cooper (Maestro)
    7. Celine Song (Past Lives)
    8. Alexander Payne (The Holdovers)
    9. Cord Jefferson (American Fiction)
    10. Todd Haynes (May December) — podcast
    11. Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall)

    Possibilities
    12. Emerald Fennell (Saltburn)
    13. Blitz Bazawule (The Color Purple)
    14. Andrew Haigh (All of Us Strangers)
    15. Ava DuVernay (Origin)
    16. Michael Mann (Ferrari)
    17. Hayao Miyazaki (The Boy and the Heron)

    Best Actor

    Frontrunners
    1. Bradley Cooper (Maestro)
    2. Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer)
    3. Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction)
    4. Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers)
    5. Colman Domingo (Rustin)

    Major Threats
    6. Leonardo DiCaprio (Killers of the Flower Moon)
    7. Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers)
    9. Barry Keoghan (Saltburn)
    10. Matt Damon (Air)
    11. Nicolas Cage (Dream Scenario) — podcast

    Possibilities
    12. Franz Rogowski (Passages)
    13. Christian Friedel (The Zone of Interest)
    14. Adam Driver (Ferrari) — podcast
    15. Gael García Bernal (Cassandro)
    16. Michael Fassbender (The Killer)
    17. Kôji Yakusho (Perfect Days)

    Best Actress

    Frontrunners
    1. Emma Stone (Poor Things) — podcast
    2. Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon)
    3. Margot Robbie (Barbie) — podcast
    4. Carey Mulligan (Maestro) — podcast
    5. Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall)

    Major Threats
    6. Greta Lee (Past Lives)
    7. Annette Bening (Nyad)
    8. Natalie Portman (May December) — podcast
    9. Fantasia Barrino (The Color Purple)
    10. Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla)
    11. Helen Mirren (Golda) — podcast

    Possibilities
    12. Alma Pöysti (Fallen Leaves)
    13. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (Origin) — podcast
    14. Eve Hewson (Flora and Son)
    15. Leonie Benesch (The Teacher’s Lounge)
    16. Trace Lysette (Monica)
    17. Thomasin McKenzie (Eileen) — podcast

    Best Supporting Actor

    Frontrunners
    1. Ryan Gosling (Barbie)
    2. Robert Downey Jr. (Oppenheimer)
    3. Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things)
    4. Willem Dafoe (Poor Things) — podcast
    5. Charles Melton (May December)

    Major Threats
    6. Robert De Niro (Killers of the Flower Moon) — podcast
    7. Sterling K. Brown (American Fiction) — podcast
    8. Jesse Plemons (Killers of the Flower Moon) — podcast
    9. Paul Mescal (All of Us Strangers)
    10. Chris Messina (Air)

    Possibilities
    11. Glenn Howerton (BlackBerry)
    12. Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers)
    13. Ben Whishaw (Passages)
    14. John Magaro (Past Lives)
    15. Peter Sarsgaard (Memory)

    Best Supporting Actress

    Frontrunners
    1. Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers)
    2. Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple)
    3. Jodie Foster (Nyad) — podcast
    4. Julianne Moore (May December)
    5. Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer) — podcast

    Major Threats
    6. America Ferrera (Barbie)
    7. Rosamund Pike (Saltburn) — podcast
    8. Sandra Hüller (The Zone of Interest)
    9. Taraji P. Henson (The Color Purple) — podcast
    10. Erika Alexander (American Fiction)

    Possibilities
    11. Penélope Cruz (Ferrari) — podcast
    12. Viola Davis (Air)
    13. Claire Foy (All of Us Strangers) — podcast
    14. Juliette Binoche (The Taste of Things)
    15. Anne Hathaway (Eileen)
    16. Patricia Clarkson (Monica) — podcast

    Best Adapted Screenplay

    Frontrunners
    1. Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)
    2. Poor Things (Tony McNamara)
    3. Killers of the Flower Moon (Eric Roth & Martin Scorsese)
    4. American Fiction (Cord Jefferson)
    5. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh)

    Major Threats
    6. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
    7. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (Kelly Fremon Craig)
    8. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Dave Callaham, Phil Lord and Chris Miller)
    9. Priscilla (Sofia Coppola)

    Possibilities
    10. The Color Purple (Marcus Gardley)
    11. Dumb Money (Rebecca Angelo and Lauren Schuker Blum)
    12. Nyad (Julia Cox)
    13. Ferrari (Troy Kennedy Martin)

    Best Original Screenplay

    Frontrunners
    1. Barbie (Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig) — podcast (Gerwig)
    2. Past Lives (Celine Song)
    3. The Holdovers (David Hemingson)
    4. Anatomy of a Fall (Arthur Harari and Justine Triet)
    5. May December (Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik)

    Major Threats
    6. Maestro (Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer)
    7. Air (Alex Convery)
    8. Saltburn (Emerald Fennell)
    9. Origin (Ava DuVernay)

    Possibilities
    10. Rustin (Dustin Lance Black and Julian Breece)
    11. Fair Play (Chloe Domont)
    12. Dream Scenario (Kristoffer Borgli)
    13. Flora and Son (John Carney)
    14. Asteroid City (Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola)

    Best International Feature

    Frontrunners
    1. The Zone of Interest (United Kingdom)
    2. The Taste of Things (France)
    3. Society of the Snow (Spain)
    4. Four Daughters (Tunisia)
    5. The Teacher’s Lounge (Germany)

    Major Threats
    6. Perfect Days (Japan)
    7. 20 Days in Mariupol (Ukraine)

    Can’t Yet Call
    Blaga’s Lessons (Bulgaria)
    Fallen Leaves (Finland)
    Shayda (Australia)
    Io Capitano (Italy)
    Godland (Iceland)
    The Promised Land (Denmark)
    In the Shadow of Beirut (Ireland)
    About Dry Grasses (Turkey)
    Thunder (Switzerland)
    The Mother of All Lies (Morocco)
    Brothers (Czech Republic)
    Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (Romania)
    Traces (Croatia)
    Voy! Voy! Voy! (Egypt)
    Sweet Dreams (Netherlands)

    Best Documentary Feature

    Frontrunners
    1. American Symphony (Netflix)
    2. Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (Apple) — podcast (Davis Guggenheim)
    3. Beyond Utopia (Roadside)
    4. 20 Days in Mariupol (PBS)
    5. Kokomo City (Magnolia)

    Rest of the Shortlist
    6. Four Daughters (Kino Lorber)
    7. The Disappearance of Shere Hite (IFC)
    8. Bobi Wine: The People’s President (Nat Geo)
    9. The Eternal Memory (MTV)
    10. Stamped from the Beginning (Netflix) — podcast (Roger Ross Williams)
    11. The Deepest Breath (Netflix)
    12. The Mission (Nat Geo)
    13. Silver Dollar Road (Amazon)
    14. Anselm (Sideshow/Janus)
    15. Lakota Nation vs. United States (IFC)

    Possibilities
    16. The Pigeon Tunnel (Apple)
    17. Every Body (Focus)
    18. Occupied City (A24)
    19. To Kill a Tiger (still seeking U.S. distribution)
    20. King Coal (still seeking U.S. distribution)
    21. The League (Magnolia)
    22. Joan Baez: I Am a Noise (Magnolia)

    Can’t Yet Call
    32 Sounds (Abramorama)
    Black Ice (Lionsgate)
    A Compassionate Spy (Magnolia)
    Copa 71 (still seeking U.S. distribution)
    Defiant (still seeking U.S. distribution)
    Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Story (HBO)
    Hollywoodgate (still seeking U.S. distribution)
    In the Rearview (Film Movement)
    In the Shadow of Beirut (Cyprus Avenue)
    Judy Blume Forever (Amazon)
    Little Richard: I Am Everything (Magnolia)
    Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros (Zipporah)
    The Mother of All Lies (still seeking U.S. distribution)
    Orlando, My Political Biography (Sideshow/Janus)
    Periodical (MSNBC)
    Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (Greenwich)
    A Still Small Voice (Abramorama)
    Uncharitable (Abramorama)
    What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears? (Abramorama)
    While We Watched (PBS)
    Your Fat Friend (still seeking distribution)

    Best Animated Feature

    Frontrunners
    1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Sony)
    2. The Boy and the Heron (GKIDS)
    3. Elemental (Pixar) — podcast (Pete Docter)
    4. Nimona (Netflix)
    5. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Illumination)

    Major Threats
    6. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Paramount)
    7. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (Netflix)
    8. Leo (Netflix)
    9. Wish (Disney)
    10. They Shot the Piano Player (Sony Classics)

    Can’t Yet Call
    Amazing Maurice (Viva)
    Deep Sea (Viva)
    Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibbertia (GKIDS)
    The First Slam Dunk (GKIDS)
    Migration (Illumination)
    Robot Dreams (Neon)
    Stopmotion (IFC)
    Suzume (Toho)
    Trolls Band Together (DreamWorks)

    Best Cinematography

    Frontrunners
    1. Oppenheimer (Hoyte van Hoytema)
    2. Killers of the Flower Moon (Rodrigo Prieto)
    3. Poor Things (Robbie Ryan)
    4. Barbie (Rodrigo Prieto)
    5. Maestro (Matthew Libatique)

    Major Threats
    6. Saltburn (Linus Sandgren)
    7. The Zone of Interest (Łukasz Żal)
    8. The Color Purple (Dan Laustsen)
    9. Society of the Snow (Pedro Luque)
    10. Ferrari (Erik Messerschmidt)
    11. Napoleon (Dariusz Wolski)
    12. Past Lives (Shabier Kirchner)

    Possibilities
    13. May December (Christopher Blauvelt)
    14. The Taste of Things (Jonathan Ricquebourg)
    15. The Holdovers (Eigil Byrid)
    16. All of Us Strangers (Jamie D. Ramsay)
    17. Air (Robert Richardson)
    18. The Killer (Erik Messerschmidt)
    19. El Conde (Ed Lachman)

    Best Costume Design

    Frontrunners
    1. Barbie (Jacqueline Durran)
    2. Poor Things (Holly Waddington)
    3. Killers of the Flower Moon (Jacqueline West)
    4. The Color Purple (Francine Jamison-Tanchuck)
    5. Wonka (Lindy Hemming)

    Major Threats
    6. Napoleon (David Crossman & Janty Yates)
    7. Priscilla (Stacey Battat)
    8. Maestro (Mark Bridges)
    9. Oppenheimer (Ellen Mirojnick)
    10. The Little Mermaid (Colleen Atwood)
    11. Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret (Ann Roth)

    Possibilities
    12. Ferrari (Massimo Cantini Parrini)
    13. Asteroid City (Milena Canonero)
    14. Saltburn (Sophie Canale)
    15. Rustin (Toni-Leslie James)
    16. Cassandro (María Estela Fernández)
    17. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Trish Summerville)

    Best Fim Editing

    Frontrunners
    1. Oppenheimer (Jennifer Lame)
    2. Killers of the Flower Moon (Thelma Schoonmaker)
    3. Poor Things (Yorgos Mavropsaridis)
    4. Barbie (Nick Houy)
    5. Maestro (Michelle Tesoro)

    Major Threats
    6. Air (William Goldenberg)
    7. Ferrari (Pietro Scalia)
    8. American Fiction (Hilda Rasula)
    9. Past Lives (Keith Fraase)
    10. The Holdovers (Kevin Tent)
    11. The Zone of Interest (Paul Watts)

    Possibilities
    12. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Michael Andrews)
    13. Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One (Eddie Hamilton)
    14. The Color Purple (Jon Poll)
    15. The Killer (Kirk Baxter)
    16. May December (Affonso Gonçalves)
    17. Origin (Spencer Averick)

    Best Makeup & Hairstyling

    Frontrunners
    1. Maestro (Kay Georgiou, Sian Grigg, Kazu Hiro & Lori McCoy-Bell)
    2. Poor Things (Mark Couler, Nadia Stacey & Josh Weston)
    3. Barbie (Ivana Primorac)
    4. Priscilla (Cliona Furey & Jo-Ann MacNeil)
    5. Killers of the Flower Moon (Kay Georgiou & Thomas Nellen)

    Rest of Shortlist
    6. Oppenheimer (Luisa Abel, Jason Hamer, Jaime Leigh McIntosh & Ahou Mofid)
    7. The Color Purple (Lawrence Davis & Carol Rasheed)
    8. Golda (Karen Hartley Thomas)
    9. Nyad (Ana María Andrickson, Jandeira Avirón, Felicity Bowring, Corey Castellano, Vanessa Colombo, Daniel Curet, Julie Hewett, Ann-Maree Hurley, Maha Lessner)
    10. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Alexei Dmitriew & Cassie Russek)

    Possibilities
    11. Rustin (Melissa Forney & Beverly Jo Pryor)
    12. Ferrari (Marcelle Genovese, Marco Pompei, Aldo Signoretti & Scott Wheeler)
    13. The Little Mermaid (Camille Friend & Peter Smith King)
    14. The Society of the Snow (Ana López-Puigcerver, Belén López-Puigcerver, David Martí & Montse Ribé)
    15. The Iron Claw (Elle Favorule & Natalie Shea Rose)
    16. Wonka (David Darby, John Nolan & Ivana Primorac)
    17. Air (Luisa Abel & Carla Joi Farmer)
    18. The Creator (Francesca van der Feyst)
    19. Napoleon (Jana Carboni & Francesco Pegoretti)

    Best Original Score

    Frontrunners
    1. Killers of the Flower Moon (Robbie Robertson)
    2. Oppenheimer (Ludwig Göransson)
    3. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Daniel Pemberton)
    4. Poor Things (Jerskin Fendrix)
    5. Barbie (Mark Ronson & Andrew Wyatt)

    Rest of Shortlist
    6. The Zone of Interest (Mica Levi)
    7. The Boy and the Heron (Joe Hisaishi)
    8. Elemental (Thomas Newman)
    9. American Fiction (Laura Karpman)
    10. Society of the Snow (Michael Giacchino)
    11. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (John Williams)
    12. The Killer (Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross)
    13. Origin (Kris Bowers)
    14. The Boys in the Boat (Alexandre Desplat)
    15. Nyad (Alexandre Desplat)

    Possibilities
    16. Past Lives (Christopher Bear & Daniel Rossen)
    17. Monster (Ryuichi Sakamoto)
    18. Saltburn (Anthony Willis)
    19. Wish (David Metzger)
    20. Ferrari (Daniel Pemberton)
    21. Rustin (Branford Marsalis)
    22. The Pigeon Tunnel (Philip Glass & Paul Leonard-Morgan) — podcast (Glass)
    24. A Haunting in Venice (Hildur Guðnadóttir)
    25. The Creator (Hans Zimmer) — podcast
    26. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (Hans Zimmer) — podcast
    27. Napoleon (Martin Phipps)
    28. The Marvels (Laura Karpman)
    29. All of Us Strangers (Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch)
    30. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Brian Tyler)

    Best Original Song

    Frontrunners
    1. “What Was I Made For?” (Barbie), Billie Eilish & Finneas — podcast
    2. “I’m Just Ken” (Barbie), Mark Ronson & Andrew Wyatt — podcast (Ronson)
    3. “Road to Freedom” (Rustin), Lenny Kravitz — podcast
    4. “This Wish” (Wish), Julia Michaels & Benjamin Rice
    5. “Peaches” (The Super Mario Bros. Move), Jack Black, Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, Eric Osmond & John Spiker

    Rest of Shortlist
    6. “It Never Went Away” (American Symphony), Jon Batiste & Dan Wilson
    7. “The Fire Inside” (Flamin’ Hot), Diane Warren — podcast
    8. “For the First Time” (The Little Mermaid), Alan Menken & Lin-Manuel Miranda — podcast (Miranda)
    9. “Keep It Movin’” (The Color Purple), Denisia Andrews, Halle Bailey, Brittany Coney & Morten Ristorp
    10. “Dance the Night” (Barbie), Caroline Ailin, Dua Lipa, Mark Ronson & Andrew Wyatt — podcasts (Lipa & Ronson)
    11. “Addicted to Romance” (She Came to Me)
    12. “Can’t Catch Me Now” (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), Dan Nigro & Olivia Rodrigo — podcast (Rodrigo)
    13. “High Life” (Flora and Son), John Carney & Gary Clark
    14. “Better Place” (Trolls Band Together), Amy Allen, Karl Schuster & Justin Timberlake — podcast (Timberlake)
    15. “Camp Isn’t Home” (Theater Camp), Noah Galvin, Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman, Ben Platt & Mark Sonnenblick — podcast (Platt)

    Possibilities
    16. “Am I Dreaming” (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse), Michael Dean, Peter Lee Johnson, Rakim Mayers, Landon Wayne & Leland Wayne
    17. “Steal the Show” (Elemental), Ari Staprans “Lauv” Leff, Michael Matosic & Thomas Newman
    18. “I Am” (Origin), Te Kanapu Anasta, Michael Fatkin, Vince Harder & Stan Walker
    19. “A World of Your Own” (Wonka), Simon Farnabay, Neil Hannon & Paul King
    20. “Superpower (I)” (The Color Purple), Terius Gesteelde-Diamant
    21. “Out-Alpha the Alpha” (Dicks: The Musical), Megan Thee Stallion
    22. “The Scuttlebutt” (The Little Mermaid), Alan Menken & Lin-Manuel Miranda — podcast (Miranda)
    23. “Everything Is Gonna Be Alright” (Bobi Wine: The People’s President), Bobi Wine
    24. “Wounded Heart” (Silver Dollar Road), Ondara
    25. “Live That Way Forever” (The Iron Claw), Richard Reed & Laurel “Little Scream” Sprengelmeyer
    26. “All Love Is Love” (Dicks: The Musical), Aaron Jackson & Josh Sharp
    27. “Quiet Eyes” (Past Lives), Zach Dawes & Sharon Von Etten
    28. “Gonna Be You” (80 for Brady), Diane Warren — podcast

    Best Production Design

    Frontrunners
    1. Oppenheimer (Ruth De Jong & Claire Kaufman)
    2. Barbie (Sarah Greenwood & Katie Spencer)
    3. Killers of the Flower Moon (Jack Fish & Adam Willis)
    4. Poor Things (Shona Heath, James Price & Szusza Mihalek)
    5. Maestro (Rena DeAngelo & Kevin Thompson)

    Major Threats
    6. Saltburn (Suzie Davis & Charlotte Diricks)
    7. Asteroid City (Kris Moran & Adam Stockhausen)
    8. Wonka (Nathan Crowley & Lee Sandales)
    9. The Color Purple (Paul D. Austerberry & Larry Dias)
    10. Napoleon (Elli Griff & Arthur Max)
    11. Ferrari (Maria Djurkovic & Sophie Phillips)
    12. Society of the Snow (Alain Bainée & Angela Nahum)

    Possibilites
    13. The Zone of Interest (Joanna Kus, Chris Oddy & Katarzyna Sikora)
    14. The Taste of Things (Toma Baqueni)
    15. Anatomy of a Fall (Cécile Deleu & Emmanuelle Duplay)
    16. Priscilla (Patricia Cuccia & Tamara Deverell)
    17. Air (François Audouy & Jan Pascale)
    18. May December (Sam Lisenco & Jess Royal)
    19. Origin (Ina Mayhew & Jacqueline Jacobson Scarfo)
    20. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Patrick O’Keefe)

    Best Sound

    Frontrunners
    1. Oppenheimer (Willie Burton, Richard King, Kevin O’Connell & Gary A. Rizzo)
    2. Maestro (Richard King, Steve Morrow, Tom Ozanich, Jason Ruder & Dean Zupancic)
    3. The Color Purple (Richard Bullock, Paul Massey, Steve Morrow, Julian Slater & Renee Tondelli)
    4. Barbie (Dan Kenyon, Ai-Ling Lee, Kevin O’Connell & Nina Rice)
    5. Ferrari (Tony Lamberti, Lee Orloff, Andy Nelson & Bernard Weiser)

    Rest of Shortlist
    6. Killers of the Flower Moon (John Pritchett, Philip Stockton & Mark Ulano)
    7. The Zone of Interest (Johnnie Burn)
    8. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Juan Peralta, Geoffrey G. Rubay & Michael Semanick)
    9. Poor Things (Johnnie Burn & Tamás Dévényi)
    10. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (Erik Aadahl, Ron Bartlett, Anna Behlmer, Simon Pidrette & Ethan Van Der Ryn)

    Possibilities
    11. Napoleon (Stephane Bucher, James Harrison, Paul Massey, William Miller & Oliver Tarney)
    12. Wonka (Niv Adiri, Ben Barker, John Casali, Glenn Freemantle & Paul Massey)
    13. The Creator (Erik Aadahl, Tom Ozanich, Ethan Van Der Ryn, Ian Voigt & Dean Zupancic)
    14. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (David Acord, Christopher Boyes, Cheryl Nardi, Lee Orloff & Gary A. Rizzo)
    15. Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One (Chris Burdon, James H. Mather & Chris Munro)
    16. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (David Giammarco, Paul Massey, Juan Peralta, Gary Rydstrom, Donald Sylvester & Stuart Wilson)
    17. Wish (David E. Fluhr & Shannon Mills)
    18. 32 Sounds (Mark A. Mangini)
    19. The Deepest Breath (Will Chapman, Greg Gettens & Chad Orororo)

    Best Visual Effects

    Frontrunners
    1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
    2. Poor Things
    3. The Creator
    4. Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
    5. Society of the Snow

    Rest of Shortlist
    6. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
    7. Transformers: Rise of the Beats
    8. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
    9. Rebel Moon: Part One — A Child of Fire
    10. Wonka

    Possibilities
    11. The Marvels
    12. Napoleon
    13. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
    14. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quanumania
    15. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
    16. Barbie
    17. Killers of the Flower Moon
    18. Godzilla: Minus One
    19. The Boys in the Boat
    20. Nyad

    Scott Feinberg

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  • Finding the ‘Origin’ of the Oscar Problem: Why Isn’t Ava DuVernay’s Best Film Winning Awards?

    Finding the ‘Origin’ of the Oscar Problem: Why Isn’t Ava DuVernay’s Best Film Winning Awards?

    Ava DuVernay’s “Origin” is a masterpiece, but so far, the sprawling look at the roots of hate has failed to land some of the major film prizes.

    After watching the movie at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, I thought I’d seen a prime Oscar best picture contender, and that DuVernay might get her first directing nomination. Factor in Neon, the film’s distributor and the studio behind “Parasite’s” Oscar-dominating run, and “Origin” seemed poised to be an awards season force.

    But I’m beginning to wonder. Early industry awards groups, such as AFI, New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, have all but overlooked “Origin.” It was left off AFI’s list of the 10 best films, and both Critics Choice and Golden Globes passed it over. So what’s going on here?

    Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories.

    Written and directed by DuVernay, “Origin” is an adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s bestselling book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.” It chronicles the author’s quest to unravel humanity’s divisions as she writes her acclaimed nonfiction work. Guided by a stellar performance from Oscar nominee Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (“King Richard”), the film artfully balances probing inquiries into prejudice with a deeply human examination of love and grief as Wilkerson deals with her own loss.

    Is the problem that the predominantly white Academy isn’t embracing a movie by a Black filmmaker that stars a Black actress in a story about the Black experience? Has the film’s marketing campaign failed to convey how universal “Origin’s” story is — and that its themes and concerns resonate with viewers regardless of race, gender, creed or sexual orientation?

    For her part, DuVernay dismisses the idea that her film is a “Black movie.” “The film is about a woman who has a question and goes out in the world to find it,” DuVernay tells Variety. “What are films called made by people who aren’t Black? Are they defined by their race? Then why is my film defined by mine?”

    She’s asking the right questions, of course. However, the sad fact is that media coverage of movies like Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight” or DuVernay’s own “Selma” too often focuses on the skin color of their creators. That’s particularly infuriating considering that movies from non-Black artists aren’t similarly defined — nobody mentions the race of the director of, say, “Forrest Gump” or “A Beautiful Mind.”

    Atsushi Nishijima / Neon

    “Origin” is one of the first times Ellis-Taylor has been the lead of a movie, and she presents a heartbreaking and emotional turn that stands as her career’s best work yet. During the run for “King Richard,” for which she received an Oscar nom for supporting actress, she was used to following what the studio and the film’s star and co-producer Will Smith had planned for promoting the movie. “These are things that I was completely unaware of,” she recalls for an upcoming Variety Awards Circuit Podcast episode. “I was having a conversation with my representatives, agent, and manager about promoting the film. I was like, ‘I don’t know anything about that. They just told me where to go. Will [Smith] did this and that.’ And they said to me, ‘Well, now you’re Will.’ And I couldn’t sleep that night. It’s another kind of responsibility because it’s not just about me; it’s about everybody.”

    Reviews for “Origin” have been strong. Numerous tastemakers and screenings, both here and abroad, have generated overwhelmingly positive reactions from attendees. Yet, according to one insider, many screenings have struggled to fill their seats. That hasn’t been the case with other Black-centric stories this season, such as Cord Jefferson’s satirical “American Fiction” and Blitz Bazawule’s musical reimagining of “The Color Purple.” Why aren’t people showing up for “Origin”?

    This is a great movie. It needs to be seen. Will the Academy and other awards voters give “Origin” the chance it deserves, or are they unfairly dismissing it? DuVernay, like her film’s heroine, poses a more troubling thought: “Would this offering be seen and accepted differently if it came from someone else?”

    Read the latest prediction updates below and go to the individual category pages to see where the films and performances rank. Projected winners are marked with red asterisks (***).

    Best Picture
    “American Fiction” (MGM)
    “Anatomy of a Fall” (Neon)
    “Barbie” (Warner Bros.)
    “The Holdovers” (Focus Features)
    “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
    “Maestro” (Netflix)
    “Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures) ***
    “Past Lives” (A24)
    “Poor Things” (Searchlight Pictures)
    “The Zone of Interest” (A24)

    Director
    Greta Gerwig — “Barbie” (Warner Bros.)
    Jonathan Glazer — “The Zone of Interest” (A24)
    Christopher Nolan — “Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures) ***
    Alexander Payne — “The Holdovers” (Focus Features)
    Martin Scorsese — “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)

    Best Actor
    Bradley Cooper — “Maestro” (Netflix) ***
    Colman Domingo — “Rustin” (Netflix)
    Paul Giamatti — “The Holdovers” (Focus Features)
    Cillian Murphy — “Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures)
    Jeffrey Wright — “American Fiction” (MGM)

    Best Actress
    Lily Gladstone — “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
    Sandra Hüller — “Anatomy of a Fall” (Neon)
    Greta Lee — “Past Lives” (A24)
    Carey Mulligan — “Maestro” (Netflix)
    Emma Stone — “Poor Things” (Searchlight Pictures) ***

    Supporting Actor
    Robert DeNiro — “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
    Robert Downey Jr. — “Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures)
    Ryan Gosling — “Barbie” (Warner Bros.) ***
    Charles Melton — “May December” (Netflix)
    Mark Ruffalo — “Poor Things” (Searchlight Pictures)

    Supporting Actress
    Emily Blunt — “Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures)
    Danielle Brooks — “The Color Purple” (Warner Bros.)
    America Ferrera — “Barbie” (Warner Bros.)
    Rachel McAdams — “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” (Lionsgate)
    Da’Vine Joy Randolph — “The Holdovers” (Focus Features) ***

    Original Screenplay
    “Anatomy of a Fall” (Neon)
    “Barbie” (Warner Bros.) ***
    “The Holdovers” (Focus Features)
    “May December” (Netflix)
    “Past Lives” (A24)

    Adapted Screenplay
    “All of Us Strangers” (Searchlight Pictures)
    “American Fiction” (MGM) ***
    “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
    “Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures)
    “Poor Things” (Searchlight Pictures)

    Animated Feature
    “The Boy and the Heron” (GKids)
    “Elemental” (Pixar)
    “Nimona” (Netflix)
    “Robot Dreams” (Neon)
    “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (Sony Pictures) ***

    Production Design
    “Barbie” (Warner Bros.)
    “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
    “Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures)
    “Napoleon” (Apple Original Films/Sony Pictures)
    “Poor Things” (Searchlight Pictures) ***

    Cinematography
    “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
    “Maestro” (Netflix)
    “Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures) ***
    “Poor Things” (Searchlight Pictures)
    “Saltburn” (Amazon MGM Studios)

    Costume Design
    “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” (Lionsgate)
    “Barbie” (Warner Bros.) ***
    “The Color Purple” (Warner Bros.)
    “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
    “Poor Things” (Searchlight Pictures)

    Film Editing
    “Barbie” (Warner Bros.)
    “The Holdovers” (Focus Features)
    “Maestro” (Netflix)
    “Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures) ***
    “Poor Things” (Searchlight Pictures)

    Makeup and Hairstyling
    “Barbie” (Warner Bros.)
    “Ferrari” (Neon)
    “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” (Marvel Studios)
    “Maestro” (Netflix) ***
    “Poor Things” (Searchlight Pictures)

    Sound
    “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
    “Maestro” (Netflix)
    “Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures) ***
    “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (Sony Pictures)
    “The Zone of Interest” (A24)

    Visual Effects
    “The Creator” (20th Century Studios) ***
    “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” (Marvel Studios)
    “Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire” (Netflix)
    “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (Sony Pictures)
    “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” (Paramount Pictures)

    Original Score
    “The Boy and the Heron” (GKids)
    “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
    “Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures) ***
    “Poor Things” (Searchlight Pictures)
    “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (Sony Pictures)

    Original Song
    “What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie” (Warner Bros.) ***
    “I’m Just Ken” from “Barbie” (Warner Bros.)
    “The Fire Inside” from “Flamin’ Hot” (Hulu/Searchlight Pictures)
    “Road to Freedom” from “Rustin” (Netflix)
    “Addicted to Romance” from “She Came to Me” (Vertical Entertainment)

    Documentary Feature
    “20 Days in Mariupol” (PBS)
    “American Symphony” (Netflix) ***
    “Four Daughters” (Kino Lorber)
    “Little Richard: I Am Everything” (Magnolia Pictures)
    “The Mission” (National Geographic)

    International Feature
    “Fallen Leaves” from Finland (Mubi)
    “Society of the Snow” from Spain (Netflix)
    “The Taste of Things” from France (IFC Films)
    “The Teachers’ Lounge” from Germany (Sony Pictures Classics)
    “The Zone of Interest” from U.K. (A24) ***

    Animated Short
    “Backflip” (The New York Times Op-Docs)
    “Once Upon a Studio” (Walt Disney Pictures) ***
    “Morning Joy” (Liaison Pictures)
    “The Smeds and The Smoos” (Les Films du Préau)
    “Starling” (The Animation Showcase)

    Documentary Short
    “The ABCs of Book Banning” (MTV Documentary Films/Paramount+)
    “Away” (The New York Times Op-Docs)
    “Deciding Vote” (The New Yorker)
    “The Last Repair Shop” (Searchlight Pictures) ***
    “Relighting Candles: The Tim Sullivan Story” (To be announced)

    Live Action Short
    “The After” (Netflix)
    “The Old Young Crow” (Distributor TBA)
    “The Shepherd” (Walt Disney Pictures)
    “A Strange Way of Life” (Sony Pictures Classics) ***
    “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” (Netflix)

    Top 4 Nomination Leaders Tracking (Film)

    1. “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — 11
    2. “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Poor Things” — 10
    3. “Maestro” – 7
    4. “The Holdovers” — 6

    Top 4 Nomination Leaders Tracking (Studios)

    1. Netflix — 17
    2. Warner Bros. — 13
    3. Searchlight Pictures — 12
    4. Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures — 11

    Oscars Predictions Categories

    BEST PICTURE | DIRECTOR | BEST ACTOR | BEST ACTRESS | SUPPORTING ACTOR | SUPPORTING ACTRESS | ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY | ADAPTED SCREENPLAY | ANIMATED FEATURE | PRODUCTION DESIGN | CINEMATOGRAPHY | COSTUME DESIGN | FILM EDITING | MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING | SOUND | VISUAL EFFECTS | ORIGINAL SCORE | ORIGINAL SONG | DOCUMENTARY FEATURE | INTERNATIONAL FEATURE | ANIMATED SHORT | DOCUMENTARY SHORT | LIVE ACTION SHORT

    Clayton Davis

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  • Oscars Predictions: Supporting Actress – Are You There Academy? It’s Rachel McAdams for Nomination No. 2

    Oscars Predictions: Supporting Actress – Are You There Academy? It’s Rachel McAdams for Nomination No. 2

    Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

    Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

    OSCARS | EMMYS | GRAMMYS | TONYS

    2024 Oscars Predictions:
    Best Supporting Actress

    Da’Vine Joy Randolph in Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers”
    Focus Features

    Weekly Commentary (Updated Dec. 10, 2023): “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” is one of the best reviewed films of the year, featuring a delightfully executed performance from Rachel McAdams. A former nominee for the best picture winner “Spotlight” (2015), the star of the Judy Blume adaptation received a huge boost from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, where she won alongside the undisputed frontrunner Da’Vine Joy Randolph from “The Holdovers.”

    This category has been a tad messy since Lily Gladstone exited in favor of a leading campaign for “Killers of the Flower Moon.” A “vote-splitting” alarm was sounded with the Indigenous star’s runner-up mention in supporting at LAFCA.

    Sandra Hüller’s double performance win for “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest,” which she’s campaigning for supporting actress for the latter, could cause potential vote-splitting on the campaign trail.

    Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories.

    The submission deadline for general categories is Nov. 15, 2023. The preliminary shortlist for eight categories is from Dec. 14-18, with the results announcement dropping on Dec. 21. The Oscar nomination period will run from Jan. 11-16, 2024, with the official nominees named on Jan. 23.

    ***The list below is not final and will be updated throughout the awards season.

    And the Predicted Nominees Are:

    1. Da’Vine Joy Randolph — “The Holdovers” (Focus Features)
    2. Emily Blunt — “Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures)
    3. Danielle Brooks – “The Color Purple” (Warner Bros.)
    4. Rachel McAdams — “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” (Lionsgate)
    5. America Ferrera — “Barbie” (Warner Bros.)

    Next in Line

    1. Julianne Moore — “May December” (Netflix)
    2. Sandra Hüller — “The Zone of Interest” (A24)
    3. Jodie Foster – “Nyad” (Netflix)
    4. Penélope Cruz — “Ferrari” (Neon)
    5. Lily Gladstone — “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures) **

    Other Top-Tier Possibilities

    1. Juliette Binoche — “The Taste of Things” (IFC Films/Sapan Studios)
    2. Taraji P. Henson – “The Color Purple” (Warner Bros.)
    3. Rosamund Pike — “Saltburn” (Amazon Studios)
    4. Viola Davis — “Air” (Amazon MGM Studios)
    5. Cara Jade Myers – “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
    6. Claire Foy – “All of Us Strangers” (Searchlight Pictures)
    7. Leslie Uggams — “American Fiction” (MGM)
    8. Vanessa Kirby — “Napoleon” (Apple Original Films/Sony Pictures)
    9. Niecy Nash-Betts — “Origin” (Neon)
    10. Erika Alexander — “American Fiction” (MGM)

    Also In Contention

    1. Patricia Clarkson – “Monica” (IFC Films)
    2. Scarlett Johansson — “Asteroid City” (Focus Features)
    3. Issa Rae — “American Fiction” (MGM)
    4. Rhea Perlman – “Barbie” (Warner Bros.)
    5. Florence Pugh — “Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures)
    6. Anne Hathaway — “Eileen” (Neon)
    7. Halle Bailey — “The Color Purple” (Warner Bros.)
    8. Maura Tierney — “The Iron Claw” (A24)
    9. Annie Gonzalez – “Flamin’ Hot” (Hulu/Searchlight Pictures)
    10. Patti LuPone – “Beau is Afraid” (A24)

    Eligible Titles (Alphabetized by Studio)**

    ** This official list is incomplete, with all release dates not yet confirmed and subject to change.

    2022 category winner: Jamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24)

    Oscars Predictions Categories

    BEST PICTURE | DIRECTOR | BEST ACTOR | BEST ACTRESS | SUPPORTING ACTOR | SUPPORTING ACTRESS | ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY | ADAPTED SCREENPLAY | ANIMATED FEATURE | PRODUCTION DESIGN | CINEMATOGRAPHY | COSTUME DESIGN | FILM EDITING | MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING | SOUND | VISUAL EFFECTS | ORIGINAL SCORE | ORIGINAL SONG | DOCUMENTARY FEATURE | INTERNATIONAL FEATURE | ANIMATED SHORT | DOCUMENTARY SHORT | LIVE ACTION SHORT

    About the Academy Awards

    The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, is Hollywood’s most prestigious artistic award in the film industry. Since 1927, nominees and winners have been selected by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Seventeen branches are represented within the nearly 10,000-person membership. The branches are actors, associates, casting directors, cinematographers, costume designers, directors, documentary, executives, film editors, makeup and hairstylists, marketing and public relations, members-at-large, members-at-large (artists’ representatives), music, producers, production design, short films and feature animation, sound, visual effects and writers.

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  • Producers of ‘American Fiction,’ ‘Maestro,’ ‘Origin’ and More Oscar Contenders Talk the Toughest Tasks Behind the Scenes of Their Films

    Producers of ‘American Fiction,’ ‘Maestro,’ ‘Origin’ and More Oscar Contenders Talk the Toughest Tasks Behind the Scenes of Their Films

    Erika Alexander and Jeffrey Wright in Orion/Amazon MGM Studios’ American Fiction.

    Claire Folger/MGM/Courtesy Everett Collection

    Producer Jermaine Johnson worked primarily as a literary manager for clients like first-time movie writer-director Cord Jefferson (whom he’s represented for close to a decade) before the pair collaborated on Jefferson’s darkly comic adaptation of the novel Erasure by Percival Everett, which Jefferson wrote on spec with Johnson’s encouragement. 

    Naturally, first-time filmmaking meant an inherent learning curve. “Day one was a tough day because Cord didn’t really feel qualified to tell Jeffrey Wright how to act,” Johnson recalls. “He did not feel like he was the guy for the job.” That meant adding pep talks to Johnson’s job description. “The conversation was, ‘Hey, man, Jeffrey wants to be directed. Actors want to collaborate and get in the clay with you,’ ” he says. “Next thing, he’s just in there, between takes, talking to Jeffrey, playing around with it. And they established a rapport, from day two on.”

    Shooting constraints prompted production to relocate from New York to the Boston area, where Jefferson would be able to film the scenes at Monk’s (Wright) family beach house in the Massachusetts coastal town of Scituate. “You start to crunch the numbers and think about what it takes to shoot in New York,” Johnson says. “Once we landed on Boston, it was a very quick yes.”

    Northeastern weather, however, proved one of the main production challenges. “I learned what it takes to light a beach at night. That is an extremely difficult task,” Johnson says of a scene in which Leslie Uggams, as Monk’s aging mother, wanders away from her home. Rigging lights amid 20-mile-an-hour winds proved nearly impossible. But for the 80-year-old actress, the wind was no problem. “We’ve got Leslie the legend out in this weather, and she is such a professional that she did as many takes as we needed,” Johnson says, adding that Uggams was “just the brightest light there.”

    Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Paul Giamatti in Focus Features’ The Holdovers.

    From left: Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Paul Giamatti in Focus Features’ The Holdovers.

    Seacia Pavao/Focus Features

    An Oscar winner for Rain Man, Mark Johnson wasn’t cowed by Alexander Payne’s rigorous commitment to getting his story right. But The Holdovers, set in a New England boarding school over Christmas break, proved a particular exercise in patience. “With Alexander, the script is understandably the most important part of moviemaking,” Johnson says. “He spent a lot of time [giving first-time feature writer David Hemingson feedback] on it.” One of the main developmental changes was expanding the character of grieving chef Mary, played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph. “I really do believe her performance is the heart of the movie,” he adds.

    Finding financing for a story on this scale — an intimate, humanist dramedy centered on Mary along with Paul Giamatti’s weathered teacher Paul Hunham and troubled schoolboy Angus (newcomer Dominic Sessa) — also proved a challenge: “It’s not a big, bombastic subject. Paul Giamatti has such great respect, but is he a big box office name? No,” says Johnson. But midscale films about life are “the movies that so many of us really enjoy,” he says. “These movies are harder and harder to put together. Movies that I’ve made from the very beginning, like Diner or even, quite frankly, Rain Man, I wonder how we would go about putting them together today?”

    Another challenge was location: The preppy Barton Academy where most of the movie takes place is actually a composite of multiple New England schools — though all that snow is, remarkably, very real (about “85 percent” of it, anyway). “I’ve had people come up to me after screenings saying, ‘Oh, I went to that school,’ ” says Johnson. “Well, no, they didn’t, because that school didn’t exist.”

    Harris Dickinson, Zac Efron, Stanley Simons and Jeremy Allen White in A24’s The Iron Claw.

    From left: Harris Dickinson, Zac Efron, Stanley Simons and Jeremy Allen White in A24’s The Iron Claw.

    Eric Chakeen/A24

    Writer-director-producer Sean Durkin had been obsessed with his drama’s subject matter — the Von Erich wrestling family — since an early age, having read about them in magazines and watched old tapes of their matches. When he began writing the script, he was very conscious of the constraints he would need to adhere to. “When I started out, I really did all the line producing myself,” says Durkin, whose films include Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) and The Nest (2020). “I’ve never been able to separate financials. I’m so envious of writers who can just not worry about it. I’m very conscious of how to craft a world and to be aware of the type of budget [for] the film I’m making.”

    Most of the film takes place in the wrestling arena known as the Sportatorium or on the Von Erichs’ Texas ranch, and simulating those spots proved surprisingly difficult. Preparing to shoot in Louisiana, the scouting team had their work cut out for them. “We really covered the entire state to find the right feel for the ranch,” Durkin says. After landing in the Baton Rouge area, finding a warehouse that could house a wrestling stadium was equally tough. Production designer James Price “was going into every single building that could work size-wise, but it’d be the wrong shape inside, or the wrong texture.” The solution was found in a furniture showroom. “It was just a bunch of fake living rooms. We had to convince the place to let us clear out everything, knock down all the walls.”

    Zac Efron and the cast worked intensely to transform physically to play the Von Erichs, though Durkin didn’t require it. “I wanted them to feel comfortable getting to whatever shape they felt was best for the character,” he says. But for the wrestling, authenticity was key. “They had to learn how to wrestle all the way through from top to bottom, and do multiple takes,” he says, noting that he filmed matches live in front of an audience. “We got really lucky with the Baton Rouge crowd, because they were really into wrestling. It was really quite beautiful, that energy between the background [performers] and the actors.”

    Kristie Macosko Krieger, Maestro

    Bradley Cooper in Netflix’s Maestro.

    Bradley Cooper in Netflix’s Maestro.

    Jason McDonald/Netflix

    Kristie Macosko Krieger was originally planning to produce a Leonard Bernstein biopic directed by her longtime collaborator, Steven Spielberg, with Bradley Cooper signed on to star as the famed conductor and composer. When Spielberg made the decision to step away from the director’s chair, Cooper offered his own name as a replacement, and asked Spielberg and Krieger to watch an early cut of his directorial debut, A Star Is Born. 

    Krieger recalls, “Twenty minutes into the film, Spielberg got up and walked over to Bradley and said, ‘You’re directing this fucking movie.’ ”

    Cooper had a clear vision of the details he wanted to bring to Maestro, and he would not budge on any of them. “He was like, ‘We’re absolutely going to go over many time periods,’ ” Krieger says. (The film spans from the 1940s through the 1980s.) Cooper also worked with prosthetics designer Kazu Hiro for three and a half years to transform his face into Bernstein’s. “He wouldn’t stop until he got it right,” Krieger says.

    The film was shot on location in New York’s Carnegie Hall and Central Park, in England’s Ely Cathedral and at Massachusetts’ Tanglewood Estate. Some desired locations, however, were impossible to get. “We could not shoot in the Dakota apartment [on Central Park West],” she says. “Bradley wanted to re-create that to almost exactly what it looked like. He enlisted Kevin Thompson, our production designer, to build the entire Dakota set.”

    Cooper also insisted they shoot with live orchestras, which meant that the film could not shoot during the height of COVID and had to be postponed. “But again, he wasn’t compromising,” says Krieger. “He was like, ‘It will look better, it will be better, it will be the movie that I want to make.’ He made all of us better as department heads in figuring out this film, so none of us were settling, either.”

    Florence Pugh and Cillian Murphy in Universal’s Oppenheimer.

    Florence Pugh and Cillian Murphy in Universal’s Oppenheimer.

    Courtesy of Universal Pictures

    Emma Thomas has worked as a producer for her husband, Christopher Nolan, “on pretty much all of his films, ever,” as she puts it. “When I first read Chris’ script, I thought it was the best he’d ever written. It was very clear that he was approaching the story with a large scope in mind, as a blockbuster.”

    But despite Nolan’s pedigree and Oppenheimer’s seemingly endless scale, the biggest production challenge was working on a minimal budget. “It’s about very difficult and weighty subjects,” Thomas explains. “I wasn’t daunted by the things he was proposing shooting, but I knew that the only responsible way to make a film this challenging, that was inevitably going to be R-rated and three hours long, was to make it for a reasonable amount of money. And a reasonable amount of money was probably going to be about half of what anyone else would do it for.”

    Proposing a budget cut in half to department heads meant each sector of the crew had to find creative ways to consolidate resources. “Our production designer, Ruth De Jong, got really smart about ways in which she could build things, with a very targeted eye, building only what was necessary for the shots,” says Thomas. “Our DP, Hoyte van Hoytema, said, ‘There are things that I can do to go faster: to only have one camera, to do as much handheld as possible.’ Our actors were all on set all the time, ready to go as soon as the camera was ready. Those are things that added up to us being able to finish the film on this incredibly punishing schedule.”

    Building Los Alamos, the site of the atomic bomb’s creation, meant battling freezing temperatures in the mesas of New Mexico. “The weather was so cold, it was impossible to dig into the ground because it was frozen,” says Thomas. “We had snowstorms and windstorms. And that was just when we were building the town. Once we got the shoot there, we had another great big windstorm, and we weren’t even sure that the tents were going to stand.” But the production ultimately used the weather to its advantage. “It looks amazing on film — that shot of Cillian when he walks up to the Trinity Tower, and climbs up it, that’s real wind.”

    Paul Garnes, Origin

    Jon Bernthal and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in Neon’s Origin.

    Jon Bernthal and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in Neon’s Origin.

    Courtesy Array Filmworks

    Paul Garnes had worked as a producer with writer-director Ava DuVernay in the past, but it had been some time since the pair had operated outside the studio system. “In the early days, we were at Netflix,” he says. “[Origin] got caught up in the industry slowdown. Ava made the really bold choice to go out and make this independently.” 

    That decision made things more exhilarating and terrifying, Garnes says. “In every production, there’s some executive that you can call and say, ‘Hey, this is happening, what do we do?’ We didn’t have that. It was just me and Ava. We could really only depend on each other.”

    The film spans centuries and continents, with scenes in Berlin at the height of World War II, aboard slave ships in the 1600s and in the streets of contemporary India. The decision to finance independently meant working with local governments to shoot in as many historical locations as possible. “We weren’t going to build a bunch of sets on soundstages,” Garnes says. “Outside of the slave ship sequence, because obviously slave ships don’t exist, we shot everything else pretty much on location.”

    That made for some awkward asks. “Could we shoot a Nazi rally in downtown Berlin, in the place where that book burning in the Bebelplatz really happened?” says Garnes. “We didn’t know at the time, but they had never let anyone film there.” Filming also took place at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. “It’s a sensitive place. You don’t want to cause any stress or damage or anything to a place people visit in very solemn moments.”

    As a home base, production landed on Savannah, Georgia, where they were able to re-create a concentration camp. Bringing in those extras meant “Ava [taking] very careful time to get the background talent to understand what they were doing, who they were,” says Garnes. A sequence portraying the murder of Trayvon Martin was also filmed in that area, as well as scenes set in cotton fields in the 1930s South. 

    This story first appeared in the Dec. 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

    Kimberly Nordyke

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  • 2023 European Film Award Winners (Updating Live)

    2023 European Film Award Winners (Updating Live)

    The 36th European Film Awards have kicked off in Berlin with several of this year’s hottest award season contenders vying for the top honors from the European Film Academy.

    Justine Triet’s acclaimed French courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall, Jonathan Glazer’s harrowing Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest and Aki Kaurismäki dark, droll Finnish love story Fallen Leaves, all of which have received major awards buzz, are multiple nominees and all up for the top prize of best European film. Other best film nominees include Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitano from Italy, and Agnieszka Holland’s Polish drama Green Border, both of which look at the refugee crisis on Europe’s borders.

    Sandra Hüller is a double nominee in the best actress category, for her starring turns in The Zone of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall, and is going up against Fallen Leaves star Alma Pöysti; Leonie Benesch, nominated for İlker Çatak’s The Teachers’ Lounge; Mia McKenna-Bruce, star of Molly Manning Walker’s How To Have Sex; and Eka Chavleishvili for her starring role in Elene Naveriani’s Georgian drama Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry.

    Hüller’s Zone co-star Christian Friedel is in the running for the best European actor honor, competing with Mads Mikkelsen for Nikolaj Arcel’s The Promised Land, Josh O’Connor for Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera, Fallen Leaves co-star Jussi Vatanen and Thomas Schubert for Christian Petzold’s Afire.

    EFA’s Excellence Awards, the craft section of the European Film Awards, were announced ahead of Saturday’s gala. Arcel’s 18th-century Danish Western The Promised Land picked up best cinematography honors for. J.A. Bayona‘s real-life drama Society of the Snow won best visual effects for Félix Bergés and Laura Pedrobest and best hair and make-up for Ana López-Puigcerver, Belén López-Puigcerver, David Martí and Montse Ribé. The Zone of Interest won best sound design for Johnnie Burn and Tarn Willers, and Laurent Sénéchal took the best editing prize for his work on Anatomy of a Fall. Emita Frigato won the EFA for best production design for Rohwacher’s Italian drama La Chimera, and Markus Binder took best score for his soundtrack to Jessica Hausner’s health cult satire Club Zero starring Mia Wasikowska.

    The European Film Academy also presented several filmmakers with honorary accolades. Spanish director Isabel Coixet (My Life Without Me, The Bookshop) got the European Achievement in World Cinema Award. Oscar-winning British actress Vanessa Redgrave (Julia, Howards End) received the European Lifetime Achievement honor. Legendary Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr (The Turin Horse, Werckmeister Harmonies) was presented with the Honorary Award of the Academy President and Board, a rare achievement. Tarr is only the sixth filmmaker to be so honored, following directors Manoel de Oliveira, Andrzej Wajda and Costa-Gavras, and actors Michel Piccoli and Michael Caine.

    The Euroimages European Co-Production Award, honoring excellence in cross-border film production, went to Lithuanian-based producer Uljana Kim. Through her company, Studio Uljana Kim, she has produced some 34 features and documentaries, almost all co-productions, including The Gambler (2013), Teesklejad (2016) and The Year Before the War (2021).

    From outside the film business, Turkish executive Güler Sabancı, chairperson of Sabancı Holding, received the European Sustainability Award, for her philanthropic work to promote sustainability practices across multiple sectors.

    Full list of winners for the 2023 European Film Awards

    European Film

    Anatomy of a Fall, dir. Justine Triet

    Fallen Leaves, dir. Aki Kaurismäki

    Green Border, dir. Agnieszka Holland

    Io Capitano, dir. Matteo Garrone

    The Zone of Interest, dir. Jonathan Glazer

    European Documentary

    Apolonia, Apolonia, dir. Lea Glob

    Four Daughters, dir. Kaouther Ben Hania

    Motherland, dir. Hanna Badziaka, Alexander Mihalkovich

    On the Adamant, dir. Nicolas Philibert

    Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, dir. Anna Hints

    European Director

    Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall

    Aki Kaurismäki for Fallen Leaves

    Agnieszka Holland for Green Border

    Matteo Garrone for Io Capitano

    Jonathan Glazer for The Zone of Interest

    European Actress

    Sandra Hüller in Anatomy of a Fall

    Eka Chavleishvili in Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry

    Alma Pöysti in Fallen Leaves

    Mia McKenna-Bruce in How To Have Sex

    Leonie Benesch in The Teachers’ Lounge

    Sandra Hüller in The Zone of Interest

    European Actor

    Thomas Schubert in Afire

    Jussi Vatanen in Fallen Leaves

    Josh O’Connor in La Chimera

    Mads Mikkelsen in The Promised Land

    Christian Friedel in The Zone of Interest

    European Screenwriter

    Justine Triet and Arthur Harari for Anatomy of a Fall

    Aki Kaurismäki for Fallen Leaves

    Maciej Pisuk, Gabriela Łazarkiewicz-Sieczko and Agnieszka Holland for Green Border

    İlker Çatak and Johannes Duncker for The Teachers’ Lounge

    Jonathan Glazer for The Zone of Interest

    European Discovery – Prix FIPRESCI

    20,000 Species of Bees, dir, Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren

    How To Have Sex, dir. Molly Manning Walker

    La Palisiada, dir. Philip Sotnychenko

    Safe Place, dir. Juraj Lerotić

    The Quiet Migration, dir. Malene Choi

    Vincent Must Die, dir. Stéphan Castang

    European Animated Feature Film

    A Greyhound of a Girl, dir. Enzo d’Alò

    Chicken For Linda!, dir. Chiara Malta, Sébastien Laudenbach

    Robot Dreams, dir. Pablo Berger

    The Amazing Maurice, dir. Toby Genkel

    White Plastic Sky, dir. Tibor Bánóczki, Sarolta Szabó

    European Short Film

    27, dir. Flóra Anna Buda
    Aqueronte, dir. Manuel Muñoz Rivas

    Daydreaming So Vividly About Our Spanish Holidays, dir. Christian Avilés

    Flores Del Otro Patio, dir. Jorge Cadena

    Hardly Working, dir. Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf

    European Cinematography

    Rasmus Videbaek for The Promised Land

    European Editing

    Laurent Sénéchal for Anatomy of a Fall

    European Score

    Markus Binder for Club Zero

    European Production Design

    Emita Frigato for La Chimera

    European Costume Design

    Kicki Ilander for The Promised Land

    European Visual Effects

    Félix Bergés and Laura Pedrobest for Society of the Snow

    European Hair and Make-Up

    Ana López-Puigcerver, Belén López-Puigcerver, David Martí and Montse Ribé for Society of the Snow

    European Sound Design

    Johnnie Burn and Tarn Willers for The Zone of Interest

    Scott Roxborough

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  • Emerald Fennell on Creating “Just Pure, Visceral Madness” With ‘Saltburn’

    Emerald Fennell on Creating “Just Pure, Visceral Madness” With ‘Saltburn’

    In Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, Oscar nominee Barry Keoghan stars as Oliver Quick, a middle-class student at Oxford University who becomes infatuated with his handsome and wealthy classmate Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). As the school year ends, Felix invites him to spend the summer with him and his idiosyncratic family at their massive country estate — the eponymous Saltburn. 

    Fennell’s follow-up to her Oscar-winning debut, Promising Young Woman, Saltburn is a psychological black comedy inspired by Gothic literature, tracing Oliver’s struggle to fit in with the strange and rich family that hosts him at their home. But twists and turns abound in Fennell’s satire of the British class system, which she describes as “Barry Lyndon meets indie sleaze.” 

    Emerald Fennell

    Mike Marsland/WireImage

    Calling out other films set in similar environs (including Oscar-winning features The Remains of the Day and Atonement), Fennell deliberately plays with preconceived notions of British identity. “What happens when we take the most restrained genre about the most restrained people — to restrain it to the extent that it’s just pure, visceral madness?” Fennell asks.

    The result is a wild and seductive tale of debauchery, eroticism and power, slowly unraveling to reveal that few of its characters are who they appear to be. Creating the world those figures inhabit proved great fun for Fennell, who turned to some of her favorite films, books and art to construct a mood board for Saltburn’s aesthetic. 

    Here, she shares with THR the inspirations for the film’s visual style as well as its expertly plotted screenplay, built on the bones of a particularly British kind of storytelling. 

    John the Baptist by Caravaggio

    Thunderstruck/Alamy Stock Photo

    Caravaggio’s paintings of the biblical figure were numerous — and, as Fennell says, “very sexy.” The contrast of the white skin against red fabric has always caught the director’s eye, and that aesthetic went into the interiors of the Saltburn estate. “We’re framing a huge, sumptuous, almost biblical kind of place — everyone is in velvets and silks, lying on chaises in a formal setting,” she says. She also found inspiration in how Caravaggio depicted the male body: “There’s a lot of tension under the skin.”

    The Go Between

    Courtesy Image

    Fennell calls L.P. Hartley’s 1953 novel, which tells the story of a young man who feels like an outsider within his Victorian-era boarding school, “a British staple.” She adds: “It’s exactly what makes this genre so thrilling. This is the skeleton of the story, a man going through all of his old stuff and realizing his life hasn’t gone the way he wanted it to, and he sets out to resolve things.” The novel also was adapted for film by Losey and Pinter in 1971.

    The Servant

    Courtesy Everett Collection

    This 1963 drama directed by Joseph Losey and written by Harold Pinter stars Dirk Bogarde as the servant to a wealthy Londoner. “Losey and Pinter’s collaborations are so electric, because they have an undeniable erotic power,” says Fennell. “That power relies entirely on the threat of violence — not just literal violence, but a complete chaotic upending of the status quo.”

    Pet Shop Boys

    Courtesy Image

    At a late night karaoke party, Oliver is convinced to sing this Pet Shop Boys track — only to realize it’s intended to make fun of him. “It’s one of the most romantic songs ever written,” says Fennell of the tune, told from the perspective of a kept man. “The chorus is, ‘I love you, you pay my rent.’ There’s some simplicity to that transaction. You could argue it’s cold and cynical. But the underlying truth is something we’re all looking for.”

    Oxford The Last Hurrah

    Courtesy of ACC Art Books

    Dafydd Jones’ photos are both sordid and idyllic, capturing student life at Oxford in the 1980s — a direct reference for Fennell’s 2007-set social satire. “What’s so great about Oxford, Cambridge and the aristocracy is, like … pick your century, right?” she says. “Dafydd catches those moments of genuine exhilaration, wealth and youth.”

    This story first appeared in a November standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

    Kimberly Nordyke

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  • Angelina Jolie Makes Surprising Claim About Her Divorce From Brad Pitt – 'We Had To Heal'

    Angelina Jolie Makes Surprising Claim About Her Divorce From Brad Pitt – 'We Had To Heal'

    Opinion

    Source: Screenshot Wall Street Journal YouTube

    Source: Screenshot CNN YouTube

    Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt had one of the most bitter celebrity divorces ever in a battle that went on for many years after she filed in September of 2016. Now, Jolie is opening up about this divorce, revealing that she had Bell’s palsy in the lead up to the split.

    Jolie Discusses Divorce

    “My body reacts very strongly to stress,” she explained, according to The Messenger. “My blood sugar goes up and down. I suddenly had Bell’s palsy six months before my divorce.”

    Bell’s palsy is described as “the sudden weakness in the muscles on one half of the face that appears as partial paralysis.”

    “We had to heal,” Jolie stated. “There are things we needed to heal from.”

    In the years since her divorce, Jolie has devoted much of her time to her six children, saying that she “doesn’t really have a social life.”

     “They are the closest people to me and my life, and they’re my close friends,” she said of her kids, according to Harper’s Bazaar. “We’re seven very different people, which is our strength.”

    Related: Jon Voight Slams Daughter Angelina Jolie For Anti-Israel Comments – ‘I Am Very Disappointed’

    Jolie’s ‘Closest Friends Are Refugees’

    Outside of her family, Jolie said,  “I realized my closest friends are refugees. Maybe four out of six of the women that I am close to are from war and conflict.”

    “There’s a reason people who have been through hardship are also much more honest and much more connected, and I am more relaxed with them,” Jolie added. “Why do I like spending time with people who’ve survived and are refugees? They’ve confronted so much in life that it brings forward not just strength, but humanity.”

    Jolie is also hoping to get out of the Hollywood bubble more often in the coming years. She was born and raised in Los Angeles as the daughter of the Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight.

    “It’s part of what happened after my divorce. I lost the ability to live and travel as freely. I will move when I can,” she said. “I grew up in quite a shallow place. Of all the places in the world, Hollywood is not a healthy place. So you seek authenticity.”

    Related: Angelina Jolie Demanded To Know Why The FBI Didn’t Arrest Brad Pitt

    Jolie And Pitt’s Divorce Battle

    Daily Mail reported that Jolie went on to say that because she “grew up around Hollywood,” she was “never very impressed” with it.

    “I never bought into it as significant or important,” Jolie explained.

    Jolie and Pitt’s divorce took an explosive turn back in 2016 after she claimed that he “choked” one of their children during an altercation on a private plane and then “struck” another.

    “Brad has accepted responsibility for what he did but will not for things he didn’t do,” Pitt’s rep said in response. “He has been on the receiving end of every type of personal attack and misrepresentation.”

    “Thankfully, the various public authorities she has tried to use against him over the past six years have made their own independent decisions,” the rep added. “Brad will continue to respond in court as he has consistently done.”

    This has clearly been an extremely messy divorce for everyone involved. What do you think about this? Let us know in the comments section.

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    James Conrad

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  • Making That ’70s Movie: ‘The Holdovers’ DP on Recreating the Era

    Making That ’70s Movie: ‘The Holdovers’ DP on Recreating the Era

    When cinematographer Eigil Bryld paired with director Alexander Payne on Focus Features’ Nov. 10 release The Holdovers, which is set at a New England boarding school in 1970, one of the first things the Sideways helmer emphasized was that he didn’t want it to “just look like a movie set the ’70s.” The DP clarifies, “He really wanted it to look and feel and sound like it was a movie that was actually made in the ’70s.”

    The Holdovers follows a curmudgeonly high school history teacher named Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) who reluctantly remains on campus at the fictional boarding school Barton Academy during Christmas break. He forms unlikely bonds with a damaged but brainy student, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa, in his feature debut), and the school’s grieving head cook, Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who has lost her son in Vietnam.

    Bryld and Payne turned to films from the period, including Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, for inspiration. “We saw a lot of prints. We found a small cinema in Boston with a very eccentric projectionist who could get all these original prints from his friends. That subculture is very specific,” Bryld remembers, adding that he started with — but quickly abandoned — the intent to use ’70s tools and film stock, which wasn’t readily available. 

    “I was thinking, ‘What is it that I really love about that era?’ ” says Bryld. “There’s a sense of a spirit of the ’70s movies — breaking away from your studios. And all the DPs of the period that I really admired would push the film stock or they would do handheld or whatever. And then I started thinking, ‘That’s really what I should be going for.’ ”

    The Danish DP behind such films as 2008’s In Bruges, 2022’s Deep Water and this year’s rom-com No Hard Feelings tested both film and digital approaches and chose to shoot digitally with an ARRI Alexa. He also created a lookup table (a sort of blueprint for the color grading step) with colorist Joe Gawler. “He’s done a lot of Criterion restoration, so he really knows how the negative ages over time. So I thought, ‘Well, I’d rather build that into it.’ ”

    Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Paul Giamatti in the Alexander Payne film, which takes place at Christmas in 1970.

    Seacia Pavao / FOCUS FEATURES LLC

    They also used Panavision H series lenses, particularly a 55mm lens, to evoke a vintage portrait look. “They had really a sense of immediacy and intimacy,” the DP says of the lens choice. “A lot of the film is done on that because the film is ultimately, in one way, a lot of portraits.

    “It’s a movie about people who are forced into the frame together, and they don’t necessarily want to be in the same frame,” he adds. “They all have their own portrait. Sometimes they’re in the frame and there’s several people in the frame, but I still thought of it as individual portraits within a group photo.” As the trio become closer emotionally, the DP captures their burgeoning friendships with the camera. “Gradually over time, they come together more and more,” says Bryld. “And that was one arc we were looking for — how we would reflect that, how we framed it and where we put the camera.”

    The Holdovers was filmed in Boston and western Massachusetts at Deerfield Academy, which also happens to be the high school that Sessa attended (according to the DP, the actor stayed in his former dorm room during production). “He was amazing,” Bryld says. “I mean, they’re all great, but obviously Paul and Dominic carry the movie. Paul is a pleasure to work with. He also makes things seem very easy just because he’s so good. There was sort of a calmness that Alexander has and Paul has, that, I imagine, would’ve been incredibly comforting for Dominic.”

    Bryld also served as the film’s camera operator. “That’s where you should be as the DP,” he says. “You should be there, be able to look up and see what’s going on around you, but also create that little community around the camera. I think it’s incredibly important in working with the actors, that it’s familiar faces. It becomes a little bit of a dance between the camera and the actors … that is rarely something that’s put into words, but just something that has to be organic.” 

    This story first appeared in the Nov. 29 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

    Kimberly Nordyke

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  • Let Me Dress You For The Game Awards 2023

    Let Me Dress You For The Game Awards 2023

    Hey, remember me? I’m the girl who, right before the 2022 Game Awards, said Xbox head Phil Spencer dresses like my dad when he goes on a Sunday morning bagel run. (We squashed the beef at Summer Game Fest, don’t worry.) Though I was being playful and pointed with my fashion critiques, I wasn’t just speaking to the style (or lack thereof) on display at gaming’s biggest night, but how it’s indicative of a larger identity crisis within the industry. On nights like The Game Awards, this multi-billion-dollar industry tries its hardest to ape Hollywood, with a glitzy production, A-list actors, and, bizarrely, men in sweatshirts.

    It begs the question: Who are we? Are we all wealthy industry leaders wearing denim jackets in an attempt to look more approachable, more pedestrian? Or are we wannabe fashionistas from Long Island leaning too hard into living in Brooklyn? Or schleppy gamers who throw on whatever is on top of their clothes chair in the morning? The answer is simple: We’re all of it. This is an increasingly diverse industry (despite its inability to name women), and the more that diversity is reflected in the people who attend these events, the better the fashion will be by default—because we’ll get more variety, more personality, and more cultural backgrounds on display.

    Read More: The Best Fits At The Game Awards 2022

    This year, I’ll be attending The Game Awards (no, you can’t see my outfit yet). Since I was so passionate about fashion last year, and now I’ll be there in person, I feel it is my civic duty to provide unsolicited advice on how to look good for gaming’s Oscars.

    Let me be clear: You don’t have to spend a lot of money to look good. There are tons of ways to ball out on a budget, from renting the runway, to borrowing from friends or family, to combing through thrift stores for long-lost treasures (which is how we found my fiance a 1970s-era Yves Saint Laurent military trench for $150 in Italy). Whether you’re attending The Game Awards or you just have a semi-formal event in your future, here are some tips to ensure you don’t draw the gaze of my fashionable Eye of Sauron.

    Also, I’m offering personalized fashion advice, so reach out in the comments, via e-mail, or my DMs.

    Alyssa Mercante

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  • Oscar Ballot 2024: Your Guide to Start Preparing Now

    Oscar Ballot 2024: Your Guide to Start Preparing Now

    It will be a few more months before we have a true 2024 Oscar ballot—voting for nominations begins on January 11, with nominations announced on January 23. But thanks to festival buzz, critical assessments, and a few early awards, we have a pretty good sense of which films and performances are most likely to show up on those ballots when they’re ready.

    Below, we’ve got the long list of contenders in the six top Oscar categories, including best picture and all four acting races. We can’t guarantee you that every single nominee will come from this list—every Oscar year has its surprises, of course—but if you want to start catching up on contenders, this is an ideal place to start.

    BEST PICTURE

    Air
    All of Us Strangers
    American Fiction
    Anatomy of a Fall
    Barbie
    The Color Purple
    Ferrari
    Killers of the Flower Moon
    The Holdovers
    The Iron Claw
    Maestro
    May December
    Napoleon
    Nyad
    Oppenheimer
    Origin
    Past Lives
    Poor Things
    Priscilla
    Rustin
    Saltburn
    The Taste of Things
    The Zone of Interest

    BEST DIRECTOR

    Ben Affleck, Air
    Blitz Bazawule, The Color Purple
    Bradley Cooper, Maestro
    Sofia Coppola, Priscilla
    Sean Durkin, The Iron Claw
    Ava DuVernay, Origin
    Emerald Fennell, Saltburn
    Greta Gerwig, Barbie
    Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest
    Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers
    Todd Haynes, May December
    Tran Anh Hung, The Taste of Things
    Cord Jefferson, American Fiction
    Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
    Michael Mann, Ferrari
    Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
    Alexander Payne, The Holdovers
    Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
    Ridley Scott, Napoleon
    Celine Song, Past Lives
    Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall
    Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, Nyad
    George C. Wolfe, Rustin

    BEST ACTRESS

    Fantasia Barrino, The Color Purple
    Annette Bening, Nyad
    Aunjanue Ellis, Origin
    Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
    Greta Lee, Past Lives
    Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
    Carey Mulligan, Maestro
    Natalie Portman, May December
    Margot Robbie, Barbie
    Cailee Spaeny, Priscilla
    Emma Stone, Poor Things

    BEST ACTOR

    Bradley Cooper, Maestro
    Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon
    Colman Domingo, Rustin
    Adam Driver, Ferrari
    Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
    Barry Keoghan, Saltburn
    Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
    Joaquin Phoenix, Napoleon
    Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers
    Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

    BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

    Erika Alexander, American Fiction
    Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
    Juliette Binoche, The Taste of Things
    Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
    Penélope Cruz, Ferrari
    Viola Davis, Air
    America Ferrera, Barbie
    Jodie Foster, Nyad
    Taraji P. Henson, The Color Purple
    Sandra Hüller, The Zone of Interest
    Julianne Moore, May December
    Niecy Nash-Betts, Origin
    Rosamund Pike, Saltburn
    Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

    BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

    Sterling K. Brown, American Fiction
    Willem Dafoe, Poor Things
    Matt Damon, Oppenheimer
    Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
    Colman Domingo, The Color Purple
    Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
    Ryan Gosling, Barbie
    Glenn Howerton, BlackBerry
    John Magaro, Past Lives
    Charles Melton, May December
    Chris Messina, Air
    Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things
    Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers

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    Katey Rich

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  • European Parliament Celebrates Italian Oscar Contender ‘Io Capitano’

    European Parliament Celebrates Italian Oscar Contender ‘Io Capitano’

    Matteo Garrone presented his film Io Capitano, Italy’s contender for the 2024 best international feature Oscar, to a packed theater of European parliamentarians and attendees on Nov. 15, for an event titled “Europe Seen by Others.”

    The refugee drama, which follows two Senegalese men who travel across Africa and the Mediterranean in an effort to reach Europe, premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where star Seydou Sarr won the Silver Lion award for best young actor. Garrone and his Io Capitano co-writers Fofana Amara and Mamadou Kouassi — whose real-life trials were the basis for the film’s story — attended the parliamentary screening. The 600 spectators gave the film a long-standing ovation after the screening.

    The members of European Parliament (MEPs) were impressed, with several taking to social media to praise the film and its message. “[Io Capitano is] a tremendously important and powerful work that should be screened in all schools across the continent,” Spanish MEP Domènec Ruiz Devesa posted on X shortly after the event.

    Speaking after the screening, Garrone said his goal with the film was to provide “a reverse shot” of the usual Euro-centric narrative of the migration crisis. “We are used to our perspective [looking] from Europe to Africa; I wanted to narrate the journey from another angle, from [the African] point of view, pointing the camera from Africa towards Europe,” he said. “We tried to offer the audience the chance to relive the experience of this odyssey. This film is a document of contemporary history, and I believe it touches consciences.”

    The issue of illegal migration is one of the most politically explosive topics in Europe today, with fierce debates in the EU parliament over whether member countries should take in more migrants or pay coastal nations in Africa to block people from attempting the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean.

    “Political debate does not interest me,” noted Garrone, pointing to the more basic principle of the protection of human life. “It is always right to save lives at sea [it’s] a fundamental, universal principle.”

    In a statement, Amara and Kouassi made their position clear. “The suffering to reach Europe is immense,” they said. “The only way to avoid it is to have safe entry channels, without giving more money to Libya and Tunisia that trample on human rights.”

    Only a handful of films are granted EU parliamentary screenings, with the majority shown in the context of the Lux Audience Award, a prize given annually by the EU Commission and the European Film Academy, in collaboration with exhibitors group Europa Cinemas, which aims to raise awareness of social, political, and cultural issues in Europe.

    The Io Capitano screening, however, was the direct initiative of European parliamentarians, including Italian MEPs Pietro Bartolo, Massimiliano Smeriglio and Brando Benifei. The screening was sold out, with some 400 guests left outside the packed hall.

    Viewers of Gianfranco Rosi’s Oscar-nominated documentary Fire at Sea (2016) will remember Bartolo as the emergency physician who worked on the Italian island of Lampedusa, giving first care to migrants who landed there after the journey over the sea. After 25 years as a physician, Bartolo was elected to the EU parliament in 2019. At the screening, he called Io Capitano a “masterpiece” that finally shows “the phenomenon of migration from the migrants’ perspective, not ours.”

    Io Capitano is also a contender at next month’s European Film Awards, where it has picked up nominations for best film and best director. The movie has sold worldwide but is still looking for a U.S. distributor. Io Capitano was produced by Archimede with Rai Cinema and Tarantula in collaboration with Pathé and Logical Content Ventures as an Italian-Belgian co-production.

    Viola Baldi

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  • Oscars: Jimmy Kimmel Back as 2024 Host

    Oscars: Jimmy Kimmel Back as 2024 Host

    Jimmy Kimmel will return to the Oscar stage once again.

    The ABC late night host has signed on to host the 96th Academy Awards, marking his fourth time in the role. The appointment is hardly surprising, of course, as Kimmel has decades of live TV experience and a longstanding relationship with Disney.

    His announcement follows the mid-October news that the Academy set a producing team, a returning director and a first-time showrunner in Raj Kapoor, a live TV and go-to Las Vegas residency producer, who’s worked on the Academy Awards telecast for the last seven years. Kimmel’s wife and Jimmy Kimmel Live co-head writer Molly McNearney is also back as an executive producer for the telecast.

    Though there were rumblings about a potential Oscar date move during the darker days of Hollywood’s dual strikes, such a thing is no longer necessary and the town’s top talent is already back in full campaign mode. Many have been scrambling to make up for lost time. In fact, Kimmel’s ABC show is poised to benefit from the parade of A-listers hungry to promote this year’s Oscar hopefuls.

    Jimmy Kimmel Live! was off the air for the duration of the writers strike, though Kimmel himself maintained a presence through his popular “Strike Force Five” podcast with his fellow late night hosts. Proceeds from the latter went to the shows’ out-of-work staffs. Kimmel revealed on one of the episodes that he had been “very intent on retiring” prior to the strike, but he formally re-upped with Disney last year and his ABC show will continue through season 23.

    The 96th Oscars will air live on ABC, Sunday, March 10, 2024, from the Dolby Theatre.

    Lacey Rose

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  • Oscar Surprise: France Picks ‘The Taste of Things’ Over ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ for International Feature

    Oscar Surprise: France Picks ‘The Taste of Things’ Over ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ for International Feature

    In a surprising twist, France has selected charming culinary romance The Taste of Things as its submission for the Oscars international-feature race this year, over expected pick Anatomy of a Fall.

    Both films were breakouts when they first debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May. The Taste of Things, helmed by French-Vietnamese filmmaker Trần Anh Hùng, won the best-director prize at the festival, while Anatomy of a Fall, from Justine Triet, took the top prize, the Palme d’Or.

    At the time, The Taste of Things was called The Pot-au-Feu. The 1885-set film stars Oscar winner Juliette Binoche as a cook whose bond with her fellow chef and boss (Benoît Magimel) turns into a tender romance in the kitchen.

    While The Taste of Things earned critical acclaim and a Cannes prize, and was scooped up by IFC out of the festival, Anatomy of a Fall has arguably had the stronger journey since its debut. The Palme d’Or winner was bought by Neon, and played very well at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals. The courtroom drama centers on a woman (Sandra Hüller) who comes under suspicion for her husband’s death. While set in France, the story’s dialogue moves back and forth from French to English.

    While the choice of the French committee—whose members included director Olivier Assayas, producer Patrick Wachsberger, and composer Alexandre Desplat—may raise some eyebrows, we’re looking at it as the best of both worlds. The Taste of Things now has a prime spot in the Oscar competition, while it’s a real possibility that Anatomy of a Fall will contend in categories outside of international feature, including best picture and best actress for Hüller.

    Listen to Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast now.

    Rebecca Ford

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  • Chris Rock Went to Counseling After Will Smith Oscars Slap, Says Leslie Jones

    Chris Rock Went to Counseling After Will Smith Oscars Slap, Says Leslie Jones

    More than 18 months after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, celebrities are still speaking about the fallout. Following Sean Penn’s claim that the incident “never would have happened” had actor turned Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy been present for the Oscars telecast, Leslie Jones has offered some insight about how Rock dealt with the slap’s aftermath.

    “That shit was humiliating. It really affected him,” Jones put it plainly in a recent People interview. “People need to understand his daughters, his parents, saw that. He had to go to counseling with his daughters,” she continued, referencing Rock’s children Lola, 21, and Zahra, 19.

    Rock himself has spoken about the slap, which occurred after he made a joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith. “I’m not a victim,” Rock said in his Netflix comedy special Selective Outrage. “You will never see me on Oprah or Gayle crying, saying, ‘I couldn’t believe it. I love Men in Black.’” Jones applauded Rock, who wrote the foreword to her new memoir, for speaking about the altercation onstage. “Everybody got pissed off about him doing a special. That’s what comedians do,” Jones said. “Instead of us going crazy we fucking go talk about it on the fucking stage. Thank God we’ve got the stage.”

    Jones then expressed her own reaction to the slap, which resulted in Smith’s resignation from the Academy and the actor being banned from attending the ceremony for the next decade. “It made me so infuriated. You don’t know that I was going to jump in my car and roll up there [to the 2022 Oscars],” Jones said. “I was so fucking mad on so many levels. For a long ass time I was just mad. Chris Rock did a fucking joke. I know Will, too…I was like, you couldn’t handle that shit afterwards. This is the Oscars. The whole world is watching.”

    She later told Rock, “I was like, ‘Chris, when he got up, why didn’t you run?’ I would’ve been running around that stage like, ‘Will, calm down. Jada, call your man!’” Jones maintained that Smith “could have still fixed it” when he returned to the podium to accept the best actor award for King Richard. According to Jones, Smith should have said, “‘I shouldn’t have did that. Bring Chris out. I can not accept the Oscar right now because that was fucking wrong.’”

    Rock hasn’t expressly shared his family’s reaction to the slap, but Rose Rock, Chris’s mother, has offered her blunt reaction: “When he slapped Chris, he slapped all of us,” she said shortly after the incident, adding, “he really slapped me. Because when you hurt my child, you hurt me.” In his July 2022 apology video, Smith directly apologized to Rock’s mother and Rock’s brother, Tony Rock, who called the slap “foul” in a series of tweets. “We had a great relationship,” Smith says about Tony. “Tony Rock was my man. And this is probably irreparable.” A source told People at the time that Chris Rock was “assessing” the incident, but that “the stress of the slap and the aftermath has not taken over his life. Quite the opposite.”

    Savannah Walsh

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  • Sean Penn Still Fuming Over Oscars’ Refusal To Allow Ukraine’s Zelenskyy To Speak: ‘Guess What You Got Instead? Will Smith!’

    Sean Penn Still Fuming Over Oscars’ Refusal To Allow Ukraine’s Zelenskyy To Speak: ‘Guess What You Got Instead? Will Smith!’

    By ETCanada.com Staff.
    Published:

    Sean Penn is promoting the new documentary he co-directed, “Superpower”, which focuses on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the stand taken by the Ukrainian people to defend their homeland, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

    In a new interview with Variety about the film, Penn admits he’s still irked that efforts to bring Zelenskyy to speak at the 2022 Academy Awards, shortly after Russia launched its invasion, were refused.

    “The Oscars producer thought, ‘Oh, he’s not light-hearted enough.’”

    “The Oscars producer thought, ‘Oh, he’s not light-hearted enough,’” Penn recalled.

    “Well, guess what you got instead? Will Smith!” he added, referencing Smith’s infamous slap of Chris Rock.


    READ MORE:
    Amy Schumer Pitched Ukraine President Zelenskyy To Appear At The Oscars

    During a 2022 appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show”, Amy Schumer — who co-hosted that year’s Oscars alongside Wanda Sykes and Regina Hall — confirmed that she was among those who wanted Zelenskyy to be a part of the telecast.

    “I actually pitched, I wanted to find a way to have Zelenskyy satellite in or make a tape or something just because there are so many eyes on the Oscars,” she said, but explained that producers nixed the idea.

    “I am not afraid to go there,” she added, “but it’s not me producing the Oscars.”

     

    Etcanadadigital

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  • New Oscar Rules Will Require a Much Broader Theatrical Release

    New Oscar Rules Will Require a Much Broader Theatrical Release

    The Academy is bolstering its support for theatrical moviegoing with a major change requiring best picture contenders to play in more theaters across the country.

    Starting next year, any film eligible for best picture will have to play in 10 of the top 50 U.S. markets, a major expansion from the current rule, which requires just a week in a theater in just one of the six biggest cities in the U.S. The new rules will also require an expansion into those 10 cities no later than 45 days after the initial release in 2024. “It is our hope that this expanded theatrical footprint will increase the visibility of films worldwide and encourage audiences to experience our artform in a theatrical setting,” said Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang in a joint statement.

    How will the rules affect anything worldwide? Turns out that screening in two of the top 15 international markets — London, Paris, etc. — can count toward the requirement, as can a release in the film’s home territory.

    Rumors have been swirling that the Academy was leaning towards increasing the theatrical requirements for Oscar contention, though initial reports had suggested the change would be much more aggressive, with 15-20 markets required. It’s a clear effort by the Academy to support movies being seen in theaters, with the exhibition industry still in a post-Covid state of uncertainty.

    The new rules will affect a number of major players in the Oscar race. Netflix, for example, often limits its films theatrical release to theaters it owns and operates in New York and Los Angeles, a practice that will now have to expand. And Sony Pictures Classics has had great success with films that are released on an extremely limited number of screens at the end of the year, but only expand to broader audiences in January or February, just in time to take advantage of the buzz from a nomination. Those kinds of delayed runs won’t be totally eliminated in the future — planned expanded runs must be completed no later than January 24 in 2025, the first year the new rules will go in effect, and the distributors must submit release plans to the Academy for verification.

    “Based on many conversations with industry partners, we feel that this evolution benefits film artists and movie lovers alike,” adds the statement from Kramer and Yang.

    While this new rule will provide a boost for theatrical moviegoing, there could be one group that struggles as a result: smaller independent films that don’t have the budget for a larger theatrical release. Last year’s To Leslie — which, despite only earning $27,000 at the box office, became the story of the season because of Andrea Riseborough’s surprise nomination — is a prime example of the sort of film that might not be able to make the new requirement.

    Listen to Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast now.

    Rebecca Ford

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  • Hailee Steinfeld Had a “Rare” Child-Star Experience With Jeff Bridges

    Hailee Steinfeld Had a “Rare” Child-Star Experience With Jeff Bridges

    Few actors ever reach the Academy Awards, let alone before hitting the legal driving age. But that was exactly where Hailee Steinfeld found herself when she earned a best supporting actress Oscar nomination for the Coen brothers’ True Grit in 2011 at age 14.

    “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Take it all in,” people once advised Steinfeld, now 26, as she tells People in her new cover story. “Of course, at 13, I was like, ‘Yeah, absolutely. For sure. I’m taking it all in.’ And while I do feel like I remember just about everything, I only now realize what people meant by that,” she continues. “It was such a rare experience, everything about it: the timing, the places I got to go to and the people I got to work with. I was experiencing so many firsts, and I was surrounded by the best people that really took me under their wings and guided me every step of the way. I just remember being young and curious and so overexcited about absolutely everything.”

    Her True Grit co-star Jeff Bridges has been a particularly major influence, both professionally and personally. “Jeff has so much fun with what he does,” Steinfeld said. “With True Grit, I had a lot of dialogue, and the circumstances weren’t always smiley and bubbly. Yet somehow, in between takes, he managed to keep up an energy that made me feel so at ease and comfortable… If we had 10 minutes in between takes, he would pull out this game called Pass the Pigs, which became a crowd favorite very quickly with the Steinfeld family.”

    Although the actor says she “had moments of [feeling like I was missing out] when friends would send me pictures from winter formals and proms and homecomings,” she still had a chance to experience some typical teenage milestones—by filming a homecoming scene on 2015’s Barely Lethal and joining a sorority in the Pitch Perfect franchise. Plus, 2016’s The Edge of Seventeen allowed Steinfeld to “let a little bit of teen angst go that I didn’t even know I had.”

    In recent months, Steinfeld has been touched by the personal battles both Bridges, who is currently in remission for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and her Hawkeye co-star Jeremy Renner, who survived a near-fatal snowplow accident, have endured. “I haven’t really talked about it, but it is a weird thing because I would be so moved by what has happened to them in any other case, and here I am lucky enough to have a personal connection,” she tells the outlet. “I’m just so beyond grateful that they’re both here.”

    Savannah Walsh

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  • Mary J. Blige Looks Back at Her Most Iconic Roles

    Mary J. Blige Looks Back at Her Most Iconic Roles

    Welcome to Look Back At It, a monthly column where some of the most iconic Black actresses in Hollywood reminisce and reflect on the roles that made them stars. For this month’s installment, Mary J. Blige breaks down her career—from Mudbound and How to Get Away With Murder to her current Starz series, Power Book II: Ghost.

    In 2018, the musician and actress Mary J. Blige became the first Black woman to be nominated in multiple categories in the same year at the Academy Awards. She earned two nominations for her work in Dee Rees’s Mudbound—one for Best Original Song and the other for Best Supporting Actress. “Those were complete surprises,” says Blige as she reflects on the moment. “I wasn’t even confident about my acting [at that time], but that let me know, ‘You can act.’”

    Throughout her career, Blige has honed her skill while playing an array of iconic women like Dr. Betty Shabazz in Betty & Coretta and Dinah Washington in Respect. She’s also guest-starred on the popular television shows Black-ish, Empire, and How to Get Away With Murder. Now, she’s Monet Tejada, the fierce matriarch at the heart of Power Book II: Ghost.

    “One thing that threads through all of my characters is that they’re all no-nonsense,” she says. “They’re all strong women. I have to play characters like that to be able to pull from a real place. Can I play a weak woman? Probably. But right now, this is what it is.”

    Now, she’s setting her sights behind the camera. Her production company, Blue Butterfly, already has two movies with Lifetime, and she says there’s more to come. “Maybe I’ll direct one day, but I don’t know if I have the patience to deal with people,” Blige adds with a laugh.

    Below, Blige takes us through her most iconic roles to share the deep friendships she’s made on set, the joys of acting with people she admires, and the ways she’s evolved onscreen.

    Tanya in I Can Do Bad All By Myself (2009)

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    “This was the first time that I officially met Taraji [P. Henson]. We acted together and then became friends. I Can Do Bad All By Myself reminds me of her and our friendship.”

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    Dr. Betty Shabazz in Betty & Coretta (2013)

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    “I got to work with one of the most amazing actresses in the business and an amazing woman. I felt so proud and grateful to stand beside Angela Bassett while working on Betty & Coretta. She’s one of the best. I mean, she’s right there with Meryl Streep for me. I watched Angela transform her face and everything on this film. It was the most unbelievable thing to watch. I still go to her for inspiration.”

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    Angel in Black Nativity (2013)

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    “Oh my God. I was not happy with this. Moving on.”

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    Evillene in The Wiz Live! (2015)

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    “I had a ball playing that evil witch. We had a good time.”

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    Rolanda in How to Get Away With Murder (2016)

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    Annalise Goes to the Hair Salon – How To Get Away With Murder

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    “It was an honor to do Viola Davis’s hair in How To Get Away With Murder, which was one of the biggest shows at the time. Being her hairstylist was crazy, but also amazing.”

    Watch Now on Netflix

    Florence in Mudbound (2017)

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    “Wow, what a historical moment. This was amazing on every level. I was completely caught off guard and surprised by how much the critics and the audience loved this film. And the Oscar nominations were a big surprise. Mudbound was challenging because I was going through so much in my life and was so insecure. And for the film, I had to peel back the things that were making me feel secure. You couldn’t wear weaves and you couldn’t wear lashes and you couldn’t wear nails. You had to have on old-timey clothes. I had be that person. That was a challenge because it kind of hurt my feelings a little bit, but it also gave me confidence in just looking like that. That’s who I am.”

    Watch Now on Netflix

    Cha-Cha in The Umbrella Academy (2019)

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    “I had a blast. The word fun comes to mind when I think about The Umbrella Academy. We lived in Canada for five months and I met some great people. And, of course, I learned how to shoot guns and do martial arts.”

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    Dinah Washington in Respect (2021)

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    “It was nice to work alongside Jennifer Hudson and be that character. Flipping the table over was just so therapeutic.”

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    Monet in Power Book II: Ghost (2020-present)

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    “Now, I’m comfortable with just falling into [acting]. Monet has given me so much confidence and she’s one of my favorite roles that I’ve played. For this character, I have to visit dark places in my real life. I have to go back to those places and grab that stuff to get those emotions to Monet. But this show is so much fun. The cast is amazing. The writing is amazing. It’s a blessing. I’m just so grateful to Courtney [A. Kemp, the show’s creator] and 50 [Cent, the show’s producer].”

    Watch Now on Starz

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    Juliana Ukiomogbe is the Assistant Editor at ELLE. Her work has previously appeared in Interview, i-D, Teen Vogue, Nylon, and more.  

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  • Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Old Flannels — Lady Gaga & The Return of Dirtbag Style

    Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Old Flannels — Lady Gaga & The Return of Dirtbag Style

    We’ve spoken ad nauseum about the return of Y2K/90s fashion — with Gen Z spearheading this revival, the precise decades are blurred. But those eras weren’t all teeny tops and low-rise jeans. They’re also known for the formation of grunge, pop-punk, and absolutely filthy dirtbag style.

    Before there were e-boys, there were emos. Before there was the Weird Girl Aesthetic, there were the riot grrrls and grunge girlies. And amidst all the saccharine and sparkly trends coming back from the turn of the century, there’s also an alt-aesthetic revival happening all across pop culture: from music to fashion to celebrity trends.

    And, of course, leading the charge, Lady Gaga is the absolute zeitgeist. Her Oscars performance of her nominated song “Hold My Hand” from Topgun Maverick on March 12th proved that dirtbag style is back and alternative aesthetics are about to be the next big thing. Again.

    Lady Gaga – Hold My Hand (Live From The Oscars/2023)www.youtube.com

    Where do the 90s grunge and 2000s pop-punk aesthetics come from?

    The 90s was a crazy decade. It was an era of rapid change — even compared to today’s standards. One minute everything was analog, the next everyone had a pager, then a phone. Not to mention the internet’s emergence on the scene. It was a brave new world. One filled with JNCO jeans and frosted tips.

    Pop culture was at its peak. MTV was king and music was religion. So it makes sense that musical tastes dictated many societal aesthetics. Now, we all listen to everything. Spotify playlists defy genre and predilections are predicated by TikTok cores rather than community building.

    But back in the day, you went to a record store and perused a certain section as a music and cultural signifier. So when genres like grunge came onto the scene, they also were aestheticized. People gleefully adopted the ripped jeans, flannels, and dirtbag style sported by rock heroes like Kurt Cobain.

    Then, in the early 2000s, when grunge gave way to emo music and pop punk, it was all side bangs and ripped black skinny jeans. Vans had such a chokehold on the culture they sponsored Warped Tour — a mecca for alternative adolescents.

    So, when the Oscars 2023 stage lights came up on to reveal Lady Gaga perched on a stool wearing all black — t-shirt, ripped jeans, and converse, we thought: wait. We’ve seen this look before. On everyone at Warped Tour.

    Why is this aesthetic back?

    Every ten years, everything comes back in style. Each new generation gets their hands on artifacts from the past, from music to fashion to movies, and revives them. Grunge came back in 2013, a year filled with flannel shirt dresses and spiky sneaker heels — shudder — and now it’s peeking its head back into the mainstream.

    TikTik tutorials are flooded with teenagers introducing each other to vintage trends of the 90s while millennials watch in horror. I mean, there’s a 90s American Girl Doll. That should speak for itself.

    And it’s not only the clothes that are back. It’s the music.

    When they made the latest Batman film with Rob Pattinson, the film’s theme song wasn’t some original new pop song. It was “Something in the Way” by Nirvana. A whole new generation of kids discovered this iconic band through that trailer, that film, and the aesthetic of emo Batman — for better or for worse.

    Plus, many of the 2000s-era bands that defined the alternative scene are making a comeback. Paramore has recently released music. So do Fall Out Boy, The Arctic Monkeys, and more. And don’t get me started on the prominence of pop-alt aesthetics — Pete Davidson, MGK, and Travis Barker’s heartthrob status says enough.

    People are gravitating toward edgier, darker material. Maybe it’s because everything else is so saturated with cotton candy content — pretty, but lacking substance.

    And if Gaga, who is always at the forefront of trends, is telling us to return to our alt basics, who are we to deny her?

    How to dress like an absolute dirtbag

    I, for one, am all for the return of dirtbag style. Materialism is at an all-time high with the over-aestheticizing of everything on TikTok, the reign of the fashion industry, and even the goddamn Ozempic discourse. Sometimes, I don’t want to be perceived. This adolescent angst, of course, has led me to gravitate back to adolescent aesthetics.

    I recently bought a pair of Vans for the first time since high school. Converse, too. Just stepping back into my old staple kicks took me back to a simpler time — when the whole world felt like it mattered, but nothing actually did.

    So, perhaps, part of this revival is nostalgia-based. We’re 3 years post-Covid and still itching for comforts that remind us of the past. Maybe leaning into dirtbag style reminds us that the superficial stuff we used to cope during the pandemic isn’t all there is. Or maybe it’s a cry for help from our collective trauma trying to reveal itself, finally. Who knows.

    Either way, I’m reveling in feeling like a dirtbag these days. Here’s a definite dirtbag starter pack that Gaga would approve:


    All products featured are independently selected by our editors. Things you buy through our links may earn us a commission.

    LKC

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  • Oscars 2023 Score One Last Victory: Good Ratings

    Oscars 2023 Score One Last Victory: Good Ratings

    A funny thing happens when you award Oscars to a group of well-liked films, give emotional acceptance speeches some time onstage, and make some history in the process: more people tune in to watch. 

    That seems to be what happened, at least, at the Oscars 2023, which according to early Nielsen ratings published by Variety drew 18.7 million viewers, a 12% boost from last year. Once accounting for time-shifted viewing the awards could get to nearly twice the ratings the 2021, pandemic-affected Oscars had, a record low for the ceremony. And the ceremony easily bested its biggest Sunday night competition: the season finale of The Last of Us, which drew 8.2 million viewers according to HBO.

    These numbers, of course, only capture a very small part of the picture, not only ignoring the reality of time-shifted viewing but the online methods through which so many people experience the Oscars these days. Brendan Fraser’s best actor acceptance speech, for example, has been watched 1.2 million times on ABC’s official YouTube clip; who knows how many of those viewers are also included in the official Nielsen ratings, or how many more may be added in the days to come. 

    The Oscars have a contract to air on ABC through 2028, though, which means we have five more years — and up to the Oscars’ 100th anniversary — to discuss their linear TV ratings and how much they matter. For now, we’ll take the public interest in a slap-free ceremony as a sign that the Oscars themselves are still a draw in and of themselves. 

    Katey Rich

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