Oscars 2024 Best Director: David Fincher and the Visionaries

Our Oscar year is humming along like Fashion Week at Milan, a lot of chattering about inside baseball. Who will fill what slot, what will “they” like, how will the statues be handed down, will there be standing ovations? When the speeches come, will the wins be deserved? What is the point of any of it? What is the purpose of the Oscars now?

The actors strike has nearly ground the Oscar race to a screeching halt. What was barely a blip on the radar is now undetectable as the public’s attention continues to shift away from an industry that seems to care about itself way too much to justify the quality of its output, especially since TikTok offers more entertaining videos in a five-minute scroll that Hollywood seems capable of doing lately. The actors should be worried about TikTok more than they are AI. But they can do nothing about TikTok, except attempt to join the jump rope game already in progress and wrestle with the algorithm.

Most of the time, I don’t notice that we’re even in an Oscar race. My relationship with the game is like a long marriage by now, heading for 25 years of coverage. I’ve loved it. I’ve hated it. I’ve been bored by it. But I have to admit the latest incarnation of the race makes me worry that this really is the end.

The Oscars and Hollywood could compete with social media. They could even perhaps rally by opening their doors to the 75% of the country they have long since abandoned. But the one thing they might never survive is being sucked into a fundamentalist religion as they have of late. This religion, I believe, has filled a hole left empty by the counterculture’s abandonment of religion in the 1960s and 1970s. Chasing personal happiness, fun, and activism only takes you so far. Sooner or later, all humans will reach for that collective sense of purpose. It has gripped Hollywood hard.

And that religion says everyone, even those making subversive art, have to be good Puritans on a daily quest to make the world — their new world — a better place by purging undesirables, sanitizing art, leaving no marginalized person behind. They’ve built a great foundational church of a kind that probably makes them all feel like they’re doing “good work” every day, but it’s also meant that we can’t recognize art or greatness when we see it. We’re not even looking for it anymore.

Even though I’d already seen The Killer before the screening at the Academy the other night, I was taken aback by how good it was on the big screen. It was almost a completely different movie. I realize this runs counter to the Netflix ethos – that the best TVs can deliver an experience on the same level as the CINEMATIC one. But The Killer convinced me, proved beyond any doubt, that there is no comparing the two. You know, like condom with, condom without? You can make due if you must.

The opening shot of The Killer takes place inside a rooftop assassin’s perch, not unlike Lee Harvey Oswald – except with an upgrade in class, clothing, and education. Perched atop the everyday lives of Parisians is different from the everyday lives of those who gathered at Dealey Plaza to watch the President glide by in his convertible, his lovely wife by his side, waving to the crowd. If you’ve ever been to the area, you know what a tight window that was and how difficult it would hav been to hit the target exactly right, though not impossible.

The Kiler in Fincher’s film is an assassin on that level (“What would John Wilkes Booth do?), except he’s been hired to take out someone very important at the highest reaches of power, we assume,but are never told directly. He isn’t the lone Crazy Town who decides to kill someone for a personal grievance or as an act of an invisible war only they are fighting. This assassin is a gun for hire who can’t afford to let in his human side.

But of course, his human side creeps in anyway when he avenges the near-death of his girlfriend and presumably himself sooner or later. The film is an existential fight about caring. To care or not to care, that is the question. And if you do care, then what? If you allow yourself one moment of humanity, does it take you under too?

What’s so brilliant about The Killer is how often the protagonist — Michael Fassbender at his absolute best — is so up in his own head he fumbles and is caught unaware, interrupting his inner monologue to himself about himself. Our hero is not omnipotent. He’s not even a hero. He’s a nobody. By design and because that’s what most of us are anyway. We’re one of the many, not one of the few.

I bring all of this up because I know what you know and what everyone who participates in this silly game of Oscarwatching very year also knows — that The Killer is one of the five best films of the year yet The Killer likely won’t get near the Oscars. Well sure, it might get much deserved Sound, Editing, Cinematography but when it comes to the top categories does it find its way in?

I can say with 100% certainty that there is no Netflix movie in the hunt for Oscar right now that is on the same level as The Killer – not in any way, shape or form. Not one. But I also know that Netflix understands that while this may be the case, they know their voters. They know what drives The Rapture. They want to give them what they want because that gives them the best chance of nominations and perhaps wins. You can’t fault them for that. They did not come to play.

I started this website because I could not fathom why it was that Citizen Kane, widely known to be the best film in history, could not beat How Green Was My Valley. Why, I wondered. Could I crack the code? Even when Vertigo overtook Kane on Sight & Sound (before they lost their minds and went “woke”) that movie only had two Oscar nominations, Art Direction and Sound. Hitchcock never won a directing Oscar. Kubrick never won. Why not was the question I have attempted to answer in what amounts to half of my life writing about the Oscars.

Well, Dorothy, you don’t always want to know the answer to big questions because it makes your heart sink when you see that the Mighty Oz is just an old guy behind a curtain putting on a show. Oscar voters are only human. They are driven now and always by their “heart light,” but for a few moments here or there when they are blanketed with disillusionment that gives them permission to push a darker themed film to the top of their ballot.

Best Director now should include David Fincher for The Killer, just as it should have included David Fincher for Gone Girl and for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Why? Because nobody does it better. Makes me feel bad for the rest. Both of these films have stood the test of time, staying in focus while those celebrated that year instead fade into obscurity. Everyone who reads this site knows how hard I went for Gone Girl — embarrassing myself along the way. And when it didn’t even get in for Screenplay it sent me into a rage spiral I’ve almost never recovered from.

Look at the movies. LOOK at them. Look at the directing. If you know what defines the art of great directing, you’ll understand why in ten years people will be saying “How in the world did The Killer not get in that year?” Look.

Best Director is down to a handful at the moment. Without a doubt, Christopher Nolan has knocked it out of the park with Oppenheimer, a genius work by a genius director who will likely win if people can get over his gender and skin color. Remember, no white male has won Best Director since 2016, not a coincidence that it was the same year Trump won. For Nolan to win he has to break with history, though one of The Daniels who directed last year’s Everything Everywhere All at Once is a “cis-gendered heteronormative white American male.”

I say “white male” knowing that Guillermo del Toro, who won in 2017, is technically white. Of everything I write in this too-long piece, this will be the only paragraph people focus on or comment on so listen close. I’m not talking about reality here, I’m talking about perception. The “Three Amigos” as they were called were directors from Mexico at a time when one of the main complaints about Trump was his immigration policy and hostile commentary. I believe that it was thought in the Academy that Guillermo Del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and Inarritu were not thought to be “white,” even if they are. You get me?

Let’s look at Best Director in the years I’ve been writing about the Oscars — I’m not going to decide “white” or “American.” I’ll let you decide. My point here isn’t that more white people or white men should win. Trust me, I don’t care. My point is simply to assess the mindset of voters, attempt to explain it and ultimately help people predict.

2000-Steven Soderbergh, Traffic (Gladiator)
2001-Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind
2002-Roman Polanski, The Pianist (Chicago) (Panic Room not nominated)
2003-Peter Jackson, ROTK
2004-Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
2005-Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain (Crash)
2006-Martin Scorsese, The Departed
2007-Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men (Zodiac not nominated)
2008-Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire (beat Benjamin Button)

Expanded ballot/Barack Obama elected
2009-Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
2010-Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech (Beat The Social Network)
2011-Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist (Dragon Tattoo not nominated)
2012-Ang Lee, Life of Pi (Argo)
2013-Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity (12 Years a Slave)
2014-Alejandro G. Inarriut, Birdman (Gone Girl not nominated)
2015-Alejandro G. Inarriut, The Revenant (Spotlight)
2016-Damien Chazelle, La La Land (Moonlight)
2017-Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water
2018-Alfonso Cuaron, Roma (Green Book)
2019-Bong Joon Ho, Parasite
2020-Chloe Zhao, Nomadland (beat Mank)
2021-Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog (CODA)
2022-The Daniels, Everything Everywhere All At Once

Christopher Nolan remains the frontrunner. Nipping at his heels, in my opinion, is Greta Gerwig who directed Barbie. What I love about Barbie is that I can say she deserves it. This is not “grading on a curve.” This is a subversive, funny and entirely Gerwig-ian work that she has turned in. Even if I didn’t think so, the success alone makes it worthy for consideration. Might she win? Well, here is where her gender does come into play – there is no doubt that these voters at this point in time feel more of a sense of urgency to choose a female, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve to win.

The Barbenheimer phenom should really dominate the Oscars, but it’s hard to figure out how they will divide.

Minus those two, the other three slots seem to be down to:

Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon – he is, without a doubt, a master. His film is going to be remembered beyond this year because all of his films will be. He might even win this, putting him in that rare category of directors who have won two.

Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things – this is an exceptional work from a directing standpoint. It will be an Oscar monster, landing in all of the major categories and should sail through this nomination too. Can it win here? Maybe, but if he can win, so can Nolan.

And that leaves us with just one slot, what we call the “lone director” slot. Jonathan Glazer for Zone of Interest could likely that slot, and there is Alexander Payne for The Holdovers. David Fincher should be in this group, at this tier — a potential “fifth slot,” even if The Killer doesn’t land enough number-one spots to land in Best Picture, which it absolutely should.

I understand that I, along with most people, are predicting four white men and one female. I am not sure the directing lineup will look like that and if it does there might be hell to pay. I’m not sure when we will stop counting heads, if ever. I do know that it does matter to these voters.

When I walked out of the Academy Theater after seeing The Killer I thought, no one makes movies like that. That is why they’re remembered. That is why they imprint. The Killer isn’t a “heart light” movie. It isn’t ever going to be CODA. It isn’t a movie meant to sooth, unless of course, watching that level of talent reminds you that art is still alive, even in a wasteland. That, to me, does sooth an aching and despairing heart.

See The Killer on the big screen if you can.