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It's been two months and I am still in the grip of Barbenheimer fever, so....what the hell. I think it's time for a way, WAY too early prediction round for next year's Oscars.
Now of course, all sorts of caveats apply. The strikes remain ongoing and with numerous film releases shifted already, there is no guarantee that a) the Oscars happen at all, and b) they will happen in a recognizable format, or that there will be artificial limits on what films are considered. Also, it's September.
But I still want to do this, mostly because I already see a not-insignificant chance that we could see a Barbenheimer redux come awards season, with Barbie and Oppenheimer duking it out across the awards circuit for most of the major hardware.
For reasons wholly unique to me, this thought hits my nostalgia buttons just right by taking me back to the 2010 Oscars. I don't know why, but that year the Oscars resonated with me in a way they never had before. It was an absolutely banner year at the movies, as well as a groundbreaking one (it was the first time the Academy went over five films for Best Picture). Major nominees included Inglorious Basterds, Up, Up In The Air, A Serious Man, and District 9. The animated category was headlined by Up, but also nominated were Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and the deeply, profoundly underappreciated Secret of Kells.
But of course, the headliners- and, in the end, the biggest winners- were James Cameron's box office behemoth Avatar against the low-budget, politically-topical, arthouse war drama The Hurt Locker, directed by none other than Kathryn Bigelow, Cameron's ex. My then-best-friend came over to watch the ceremony and were each in opposite corners. He was all-in on Avatar, I was pulling for The Hurt Locker. Meaning I was especially pleased when The Hurt Locker ended up with the most awards, 6 to Avatar's 4, included the top two, Best Picture and Best Director, the very first time a woman won that particular award. It was one hell of a night.
Obviously, the comparison is not 1-1. While Barbie has utterly cornered the market for crowd-pleasing blockbusters by unassailably attaining the top spot as the year's highest grossing film, Oppenheimer is very much NOT a small, arthouse drama ala Hurt Locker. Nolan goes neither small, nor low-budget. Also, Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan are not exes (as far as we know).
Nonetheless, I had a lot of fun thinking up potential category showdowns, and in the midst of the strikes it's worthwhile to remind us how fun movies and award races can be. So let's do this, for the hell of the thing.
To set the parameters, I will seperate this into two main section; technical awards first, then the heavies (Acting Awards, Screenplay, Best Picture). I am basing this off the award categories as officially named in last year's Oscars, so if the Academy switches anything around between now and then, it's on them.
The Technical Stuff-
Best Visual Effects:
I am not sure if Nolan's physical re-creation of the Trinity test would fall more into the realm of visual effects or production design, but I will consider it the former for my purposes, and if the Academy sees things the same way I could actually see Oppenheimer taking this one home. However, I think the film deserves an edge here for more than just that (admittedly very central) particular scene. There is a lot more going on visually in the movie than you usually get from a scientist-oriented biopic, from the flashes of imitated atomic effects to much more subtle touches, like the overlay of drops of water on a table of maps. It all works, both big and small, so I would not feel too unsafe calling this one.
I don't see Barbie being a threat or even a potential nominee here. That film's strengths in the visuals department center around its production design, which, speaking of....
Best Production Design:
Honestly, Barbie's to lose. Barbieland is one of the best, funnest, and most interesting places I saw created by a movie this year. The attention to detail is astounding and the design alone achieves fantastic amounts of world-building without ever needing to waste dialogue on it. I definitely think Oppenheimer will be nominated- the re-creation of the 30's and 40's settings are perfect- but it won't win.
Best Costume Design/Best Makeup and Hairstyling:
Every year there's basically That One Film that seems designed to waltz away with either of these awards. It almost feels too easy to say Barbie feels like That Film in either category, even though it currently does. So far there's not a particularly prosthetics-heavy competitor ala The Whale that I see as major competition, and the costumes are QUITE literally front-and-center for much of the movie (plus, they're part of the film's fun).
My call? Barbie gets nominated in both, Oppenheimer likely gets a nom for Costume, but I see Barbie taking at least one, possibly both.
Best Film Editing:
I honestly don't see Barbie competing here. Oppenheimer absolutely will. Nolan doesn't perhaps play quite as much with time here as he usually does, but the cuts between timelines and branches of the narrative are central to how the tension of the film builds, especially as it regards Oppenheimer's (often very contradictory) inner turmoil as he ages and his legacy becomes tied more and more to the bomb. I think Oppenheimer walks away with this one, which, traditionally, instantly makes it the heavy favorite for Best Picture (but we'll get to that).
Best Sound:
Oppenheimer all the way and it won't even be close.
Best Cinematography:
It might be safe to assume Oppenheimer will be a favorite here, but I feel less certain calling it now then in other categories. Another film, perhaps one helmed by a beloved veteran, could get this as a consolation. Flowers of the Killer Moon has Rodrigo Prieto working the lenses, and he's yet to win. Robert Yeoman will likely get a nom for Asteroid City. I see Oppenheimer being a competitor here, but I'm hedging my bets and won't call it yet.
Best Original Song:
Barbie features a song by Billie Eilish, so.....yeah, I think this one's pretty straightforward.
Best Original Score:
Ludwig Göransson will win for Oppenheimer. Or we riot.
Going into this I assumed (especially with Dune out of the picture) that these categories would be overwhelmingly Oppenheimer's to lose, but as you can see I now don't think it'll be that lopsided. Oppenheimer is more heavily favored, but between Production, Song, Makeup, and Costumes, I think Barbie has plenty of room to gather up gold.
Now we move on to The Heavies, and here's where it starts to get interesting.
The Heavies-
Screenplay (Original and Adapted):
Unless the Academy gets funny here, I see these two getting nominated seperately and being the heavy favorite in their respective categories. Oppenheimer clearly lands in the Adapted corner and I suspect it's biggest competition will be Killers of the Flower Moon. Flower Moon is not out yet, but it got rave reviews from the festival circuit, so while I see Oppenheimer as the favorite as of now, that could very well change.
Barbie SHOULD be nominated for Original- it would be fucking absurd to put it in Adapted- but the Academy has pulled weirder shit before. For now, though, I assume Barbie WILL be nominated for Original and I see it as the heavy favorite.
The Acting Categories-
Here we might see some of the most intriguing competition of the night, depending on how the nominations play out, so let's go bit by bit, starting with the Actress categories.
Best Supporting Actress:
The only possibility for even a nom for Oppenheimer in either Actress category is Emily Blunt's Kitty in Supporting. Frankly, Blunt has had better performances and better characters- writing woman anything remains a deservedly critiqued weak spot of Nolan's- but she does make the most of what she's given and her confrontation with Jason Clarke fucks, so she definitely could swing a nomination, but I highly doubt she will win even if she does.
So, does Barbie have a shot? If anyone from Barbie gets a nod in Supporting, America Ferrera would make the most sense. She truly sells The Monologue and that is the sort of thing tailor-made for Oscar clipping. It's too early to say if she's a favorite to win, but I think a nom would be more than deserved, especially since I'm not terribly confident the Academy will otherwise manage to nominate a large number of non-White performers in these categories.
Best Actress:
Margot Robbie will absolutely be nominated. It would be her third time on the roster and, especially after being snubbed for Babylon, might be seen by many to be „due.“ BUT....again, haven't seen it yet, but the positive buzz around Flower Moon has very much included its female lead, Lily Gladstone. To date, there has been only one American-Indigenous person nominated for a female acting role (Yalitza Aparicio for Roma), and no Indigenous person from any continent has ever won in any acting category. Gladstone will almost certainly be nominated, so if I'm being honest, I will likely be rooting for Gladstone no matter what. Margot Robbie is a star's star and she'll be fine.
Best Supporting Actor:
Michael Cera as Allen, done and dusted.
Just kidding.
Naw but seriously. Robert Downey Jr. will be nominated, and he will win. He doesn't chew the scenery in Oppenheimer so much as imbibe it into his being and then project it outward through a blood-chilling sneer. He's been nominated twice before, but it's been an age since the last one and his career trajectory has been nothing short of remarkable. He's as due as it gets.
Robert De Niro will get a legacy nomination for Flower Moon. Ryan Gosling will in all likelihood be nominated for his turn as Ken, the only question is whether it's for Lead or Supporting. Ken really, really should only be considered a Supporting role, hence me putting this blurb here, but I can see the Academy going either way.
Best Actor:
He might be as rock-solid a lock as Downey but....from where I'm standing, Murphy is almost as secure here as his co-star, even if he ends up in competition with Gosling. Leo will definitely get a nomination for Flower Moon, but like with De Niro, given that he's won already, it will be a legacy nomination.
Alright. Now for the Biggest of the Biggies.
Best Director:
Gerwig and Nolan will both be nominated. This is an absolute certainty. Scorcese will almost certainly be nominated as well, but, again, it'll be a legacy nod. Wes Anderson might get nominated, might not. Doesn't matter. This will come down to Greta and Chris.
It took ages, until he made a straight WWII flick, for Nolan to finally get a directing nomination. It would certainly track if he were to then finally win via making his second WWII-centered film. Greta was nominated straightaway for Lady Bird, but then passed over for Little Women. There have still been only 7 nominations total for women in this category and exactly two wins, both within the past 13 years, still absolutely not enough. Both would, under wholly neutral circumstances, be equally deserving.
Under earlier circumstances, Nolan would have absolutely been the favorite. However, I think Gerwig has the edge here. Barbie stands far and away atop the box office pile and she has bragging rights for the foreseeable future for shattering all sorts of records for profits of female-helmed films. That alone could make Barbie a watershed in finally breaking much of the film industry out of the "Women Things Don't Sell" thinking that is still depressingly dominant. There will be plenty making the argument that Barbie/Barbenheimer "saved cinemas," and Barbie was by far the more crowd-pleasing of the two, so making Gerwig just the third-ever woman to win Best Director would certainly be a fitting, final crowning moment. It would definitely be about as obviously „feel-good“ as these things get.
Plus, while it is certainly possible that either Oppenheimer or Barbie could sweep Directing and Picture in tandem, this is one of those years where the tiny (and of course, ineffably accurate) voices in my head say the awards will split. And, not to tip my hand too much, but I think "Barbie, Best Picture Winner" is still a step too far for too many Academy voters. Hence, Gerwig will take this one as a none-too-shabby consolation prize.
Best Picture:
I already admitted it, but here it is in plain English; I very much think that, like Directing, this one comes down to Barbie vs. Oppenheimer, and I currently think Oppenheimer is more likely to land The Big One. Nolan is certainly due to win AN Oscar, but while he has been snubbed plenty in the Directing category, my predictions here would have him taking home two seperate awards, one for Screenplay, the other here, as one of the film's three producers.
There are a couple reasons why I think it has the edge. On the more superficial level, it's a WWII-centered feature featuring a lot of Big Men saying Big Things, which is all you need to hook what remains of the decrepate, White-as-paste old guard still alive and puttering around the Academy back rooms. This, plus the fact that it has a more „serious“ subject matter concerning atomic weapons and scientific development that doubles as current political commentary, which is always a major plus for all Academy demographics. Comedies have always fared poorly when it comes to the Oscars, and Barbie is far more a comedy than it is anything else, so I think this WILL hold it back, or at least hold it behind Oppenheimer, in the ranked voting.
Plus, for all the love I have for the production in Barbie and how much fun it has with its settings, there is an argument to be made that Oppenheimer is more interesting, compelling, and groundbreaking as a cinematic experience, that feels like a Movie. To be fair, those are some pretty loaded phrases that mean widely different things to different people. But I must admit that, after multiple viewings of both films, I find myself revisiting Oppenheimer the most, dissecting decisions regarding editing, shot composition, counter-intuitive sound design, the tiny folds of repetition and self-reference built into every nook and cranny of the screenplay. That's a level of continual analysis I just don't feel the need to apply to Barbie.
My initial takeaway was that both movies were very nearly equal, but by now, Oppenheimer now holds a clear, if small, lead in my estimation. But to be clear, this is not me saying that it would be bad if Barbie won. Either film winning Best Picture- and I do think it will be one of the two- would be absolutely wonderful, each one groundbreaking in its own way and worth celebrating. But if I had a vote, I would place Oppenheimer above Barbie, and I currently suspect enough Academy voters will ultimately do the same.
And, well, there it is! To round out the fun, here's the tally of nominations and wins I have these two pegged for, as of this writing:
Oppenheimer: 13 Nominations, 8 Wins (Visual Effects, Editing, Sound Design, Score, Adapted Screenplay, Leading Actor, Supporting Actor, Picture)
Barbie: 10 Nominations, 6 Wins (Production Design, Costumes, Makeup, Original Song, Original Screenplay, Director)
We'll all meet back here come Spring next year to celebrate how perfectly right and on the money every single one of these predictions ended up being. ;)
-Noah Franc
