“Conclave,” “A Real Pain,” “Blitz,” “Gladiator II,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Anora,” “The Brutalist” and “Sing Sing” are among the potential Oscar nominees.Justine Goode / NBC News; Getty Images
The presidential election may be over, but campaign season is just getting underway in Hollywood.
The 97th Academy Awards are on March 2, which means film industry executives and publicists will spend the next few months barnstorming America’s movie capital lobbying for support from the nearly 10,000 members who vote on the Oscars. (If you live in the Los Angeles area, get ready for “For Your Consideration” ads all over town.)
This year, the best picture race lacks a clear front-runner — unlike the previous two Oscar cycles, when “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Oppenheimer” established clear and early advantages.
“This year is a wide-open field, and there’s plenty of time for things to change in the coming weeks and months as campaigns heat up,” said Debra Birnbaum, the editor-in-chief of the awards prediction website Gold Derby.
Here’s a look at some of the leading contenders and why they seem to have momentum before the first ballots are cast.
‘Anora’
Sean Baker is one of contemporary American cinema’s leading chroniclers of people on the margins of society, particularly sex workers. “Tangerine,” “The Florida Project” and “Red Rocket” burnished his credentials, but “Anora,” his latest project, cemented him in film history. At the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May, “Anora” won the Palme d’Or, one of the most prestigious prizes in the movie world.
“Anora” stars Mikey Madison as a Brooklyn stripper who enters into a shotgun marriage with the spoiled scion of a Russian oligarch, setting the young newlyweds on a crash course with his ruthless parents and the three goons hired to break them apart. The film has earned rave reviews, raising expectations that Baker could repeat what Bong Joon-ho pulled off with “Parasite” four years ago, triumphing at both Cannes and the Oscars.
