2024 Oscar Predictions: Barbenheimer Lands

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The box office is about to be lit aflame by Barbenheimer, or more specifically, Barbie. Oppenheimer should do well too, especially for a three-hour, R-rated, dialogue-driven drama. But Barbie is going to blow the roof off the joint. I saw the movie at an afternoon screening in Burbank (in the not-good theater too), and it was packed, with lots of people dressed up in Barbie Core. They were laughing and clapping and euphoric coming out of the theater. It will be a massive hit. So … that definitely changes the game, at least for me.

Barbie isn’t quite on the level of Everything Everywhere in terms of depth, but it has the same energy and excitement. Depending on how things go, I could see it doing pretty well at the Oscars, not just in the crafts but perhaps in the top categories. It’s obviously too soon to say, but again, the Oscars could do worse than having a popular movie like that in the race. I could see the entire Dolby theater stage splashed with hot pink. Can it win Best Picture? It is too soon to say for sure. But look at the last few Best Picture winners and try to find a pattern:

2016 — Moonlight
2017 — Shape of Water
2018 — Green Book
2019 — Parasite
2020 — Nomadland
2021 — CODA
2022 — Everything Everywhere All at Once

Do you see Barbie fitting in there, or for that matter, Oppenheimer, or even Killers of the Flower Moon? Why not? Three words: the preferential ballot. That makes it nearly impossible for a broad comedy like Barbie or even a large canvas film like Oppenheimer. And then Killers of the Flower Moon kind of sits in between those. It would never inspire hate, but Barbie and Oppenheimer might inspire passion, and unless it’s a movie like Everything Everywhere that is winning everything everywhere, then it might not do as well on a preferential ballot.

So many films in the past that won likely would not have on a preferential ballot. Here are a few potential example:

2007 — No Country for Old Men vs. Juno
2006 — The Departed vs. Little Miss Sunshine
2002 — Chicago vs. The Pianist
1998 — Shakespeare in Love vs. Saving Private Ryan
1995 — Braveheart vs. Apollo 13

Likewise, we could look at movies that did win with the preferential ballot that might not have without it:

2013 — 12 Years a Slave vs. Gravity
2015 — Spotlight vs. The Revenant
2016 — Moonlight vs. La La Land
2018 — Green Book vs. Roma

There really is no way to say definitely what would have won in a given year or why. But in general, when a film is divided sharply — a love or hate — and it hasn’t run the bases with DGA/PGA/SAG, etc., you could potentially see a surprise.

The publicity push behind Barbie will likely rise again when it comes to the Oscars, so I expect it will do very well come Oscar time, not to mention the critics falling in love with it.

Barbie is looking like a cultural phenomenon and it’s possible that the movie, and not Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, will end the year as the highest-grossing film. I think that more than gives the film a boost to easily land in the Best Picture race and maybe in the Best Director race, most definitely in the Screenplay race. It can potentially come in as an Oscar juggernaut with multiple nominations.

At the moment, a few prominent players are trying to decide if they want to enter their films in this year’s Oscar race or wait out the strikes for a more star-studded premiere. I’ve heard that Dune 2 and The Color Purple might be out. Already, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers is not going to the Venice Film Festival. How do you take a movie like that to Venice and not have Zendaya walk the carpet? She’s a huge star and a fashion icon. You want her on that carpet. You need her on that carpet. So I understand that.

Oscar season will be brutal, COVID-level, if the strike continues indefinitely in the coming months. I’m not even sure they would broadcast the Oscars at all, given that the writers and actors would be MIA. How would they even put the show on to begin with? They can hand out awards on Zoom I guess. We’ve seen how that goes.

Let’s take a look at how three of this year’s top contenders stack up against one another.

Oppenheimer — 14 potential nominations:
Picture
Director
Actor
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Adapted Screenplay
Editing
Score
Cinematography
Production Design
Costumes
Sound
Visual Effects
Hair/Makeup

Killers of the Flowers Moon — 12:
Picture
Director
Actor
Actress
Supporting Actor
Adapted Screenplay
Editing
Cinematography
Score
Production Design
Costumes
Hair/Makeup

Barbie — 12:
Picture
Director
Actress
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Adapted Screenplay
Editing
Production Design
Costumes
Sound
Hair/Makeup
Best Song

Big movies like Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, and even Barbie will likely be undone by the “scrappy underdog that could.” That would be a movie that no one can criticize because it would like “kicking a puppy” — it would only backfire. If you can find THAT movie, you’re likely to find your winner.

We got our first look at the new Alexander Payne movie, The Holdovers. We’re definitely long overdue for some dry wit by now. And no one delivers it better than Payne. Sideways is so close to my heart it’s practically part of my family, but I love Nebraska and About Schmidt and The Descendants. He’s just a great storyteller.

Even if the actors/writers strike continue and the entire business collapses, at least we have this movie coming and a bunch of other good ones on down the pike. Hopefully the strike will resolve soon with a fair and equitable agreement for the guilds and things will be back on track.

On the upside, Erik Anderson has updated all of this predictions, starting with Best Actor, which you can find here. He has Colman Domingo winning it for Rustin.

He has also put Robert Downey Jr. at the top of the Supporting Actor race for Oppenheimer. We obviously agree.

Things are just starting to heat up, and we have to watch where the strike is going.

Best Picture
Oppenheimer
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Killer
The Holdovers
Past Lives
Barbie
Next Goal Wins
Maestro
Napoleon
Poor Things

Alts:
Ferrari
Priscilla
Saltburn
Air
The Zone of Interest

Best Director
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
David Fincher, The Killer
Greta Gerwig, Barbie
Celine Song, Past Lives

Alts:
Alexander Payne, The Holdovers
Ridley Scott, Napoleon
Michael Mann, Ferrari
Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Sofia Coppola, Priscilla

Best Actor
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Colman Domingo, Rustin

Alts:
Joaquin Phoenix, Napoleon
Michael Fassbender, The Killer/Next Goal Wins
Adam Driver, Ferrari
Anthony Hopkins, Freud’s Last Session
Barry Keoghan, Saltburn

Best Actress
(If Fantasia and The Color Purple are being moved to next year, then this is how I would see it going)

Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Greta Lee, Past Lives
Jessica Lange, Long Day’s Journey into Night
Emma Stone, Poor Things
Margot Robbie, Barbie

Alts:
Annette Bening, Nyad
Kate Winslet, Lee
Natalie Portman, May December
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Cailee Spaeny, Priscilla

Best Supporting Actor
Robert Downey, Jr., Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers

Best Supporting Actress
Kaimana, Next Goal Wins
Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
America Ferrera, Barbie
Vanessa Kirby, Napoleon
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

Alts:
Tilda Swinton, The Killer
Jodie Foster, Nyad
Julianne Moore, May December

Original Screenplay
Past Lives
Barbie
The Holdovers
Maestro
Saltburn

Alts:
Napoleon
Anatomy of a Fall
Asteroid City

Adapted Screenplay
Oppenheimer
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Killer
Poor Things
Next Goal Wins

Alts:
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Priscilla
Ferrari

Editing
The Killer
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
Napoleon
Next Goal Wins

Cinematography 
Oppenheimer
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Killer
Maestro
Napoleon