2024 Oscar Predictions – How About Those Outsider Films? Can They Make the Cut?

Every so often, I see a pundit push a film that isn’t “in the conversation” but could potentially still be a movie Oscar voters might like. As you all know, I’ve been doing this a long time, long enough to remember that when I started we chased the race. We didn’t make the race. We didn’t determine, more or less, the nominees before voters had a crack at it. In second guessing them, we naturally winnow the herd, sometimes I think too much and by the end we ask ourselves, is that all there is?

But that isn’t all there is. There are plenty of movies that are released and do well but are forgotten come Oscar season. That can even be true of films the pundits have carefully carried through the season like an egg. You can bring an Oscar voter to water, but you can’t make them think, I mean drink, I mean vote.

The thing is, this Academy, in 2023, is far more sophisticated than the Academy of old. I kind of miss the old Academy, though, I have to admit. It was fun trying to predict what they would do because they were such a fixed demographic for so long. Old timers who built Hollywood now mostly in retirement. But that isn’t what defines the Academy now. They’re younger, hipper and many of them are voting members without having made much of a career for themselves. That’s not to throw shade, that’s just to say that it used to be you had to really be an established pillar in the community to be allowed in the room.

Now, we can expect the younger, hipper voters to pick films that have set the film critics alight with enthusiasm, the Drive My Car of it all. Those sophisticated tastes drive the Best Picture race, for better and worse. We kind of miss the days of the old mainstream hits, don’t we?

The truth is that we don’t really know for sure what movies the Academy will ultimately choose. We get a pretty good idea by how the year progresses. Let’s take last year’s lineup and see where the films came from:

Everything Everywhere All at Once – South by Southwest fest (March, 2022)
All Quiet on the Western Front – Toronto
Avatar: The Way of Water  – wide release, December 2022
The Banshees of Inisherin – Venice
Elvis – Cannes
The Fabelmans – Toronto
Tár – Venice/Telluride
Top Gun: Maverick – wide release, May, 2022
Triangle of Sadness – Cannes
Women Talking – Telluride

Let’s look at the last year when movies were really thriving, 2019:

Parasite – Cannes, Palme d’Or
Ford v Ferrari – Telluride
The Irishman – New York Film Fest
Jojo Rabbit – Toronto
Joker – Venice
Little Women – wide release, Christmas, 2019
Marriage Story – Venice
1917 – wide release, December 2019
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – Cannes

Once again, we have two wide release films that landed a Best Picture nomination. For whatever reason, no film that has been released late has managed to win Best Picture since the Oscars changed their date, roughly 2003/2004.

2022-Everything Everywhere – March, 2022
2021-CODA – Sundance
2020-Nomadland – Venice
2019-Parasite – Cannes
2018-Green Book – Toronto
2017-The Shape of Water – Venice
2016-Moonlight – Telluride
2015-Spotlight – Venice
2014-Birdman – Venice
2013-12 Years a Slave – Telluride
2012-Argo – Telluride
2011-The Artist – Cannes
2010-The King’s Speech – Telluride
2009-The Hurt Locker – Toronto
2008-Slumdog Millionaire – Telluride
2007-No Country for Old Men – Cannes
2006-The Departed – September, 2006
2005-Crash – Toronto
2004-Million Dollar Baby — December, 2004
2003-ROTK – December, 2003
2002-December, 2002
2001-A Beautiful Mind, December 2001
2000-Gladiator, May 2000
1999-American Beauty, September, 1999
1998-Shakespeare in Love, December, 1998
1997-Titanic, December 1997
1996-The English Patient, November, 1996

It is remarkable that the date change had that big of an effect on Best Picture. But Hollywood was changing too, of course. Franchise movies were on the rise. The internet was changing how we talked about the Oscars and at some point, an entire industry bloomed around the economy of the Oscar race.

But it also has meant that some films get left behind. Here are a few that keep cropping up here and there that seem not exactly “in the conversation” but were good enough for people to remember them.

Air – Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s crowdpleasing film about Michael Jordan’s once-in-a-lifetime deal with Nike. But more importantly, it was their first film with a production company that would cut the actors in on the film’s profits.

Blackberry – Matt Johnson’s winning film about the rise and fall of the Blackberry. I didn’t have a Blackberry, I had a TREO. But I do remember the days well. Somehow, the film was well received but just isn’t on the radar.

Asteroid City – Wes Anderson’s bright and creative ensemble piece also seems to have slipped through the fingers of awards season.

I don’t know if any of these movies have a chance or not, but it is worth noting that once we decide the race, and the consensus, it becomes all too easy to pretend that Oscar voters are doing the choosing. They really respond to what the Producers Guild, the Directors Guild and the Actors Guild all choose. Every so often, the producers rallies the troops to push a movie in that might be getting the shaft. We saw this happen with Little Women and again with Women Talking.

Not much has changed since last week. Toronto didn’t really move the needle because, if I’m honest, without celebrities there you don’t have the same kind of hype and excitement that’s usually there. Film Twitter reactions don’t really cut it. Until we find out what the audience award winner is, which we’ll find out on Sunday, we won’t know what was a mover and a shaker there.

Clayton Davis over at Variety has laid out his predictions for the Audience Award: