Who will/should win at the 2024 Academy Awards

by Mitchel Green - March 7, 2024

| mitchelgreen34@gmail.com

I love the Oscars. They’re often too predictable, safe, and get things wrong 90% of the time, but I will never stop watching them. If nothing else, it’s something to talk about. 2024 might be the first year since I started watching the Oscars where I will be happy with the winner in every major category. Even my top choices that aren’t favored to win are trailing behind similarly exciting work I enjoyed this year. Below, I’ve taken ten major categories at this year’s Academy Awards and laid out who I think will win, should win, and shown some love to a film that I felt should have been nominated.

Best International Feature

Will Win: “The Zone of Interest”

Should Win: “The Zone of Interest”

Best Not Nominated: “Fallen Leaves”

Due to “Anatomy of a Fall” not being France’s submission in the Best International Feature category this year despite being nominated for several other top awards, including Best Picture, the lock of the night is “The Zone of Interest” to win this category. Even if Justine Triet’s film had made the cut, I still think the choice here is easy. “The Zone of Interest” is not just the best international film of the year but one of the most viscerally harrowing films of the decade. For the record, France’s actual submission, “The Taste of Things,” is just as deserving of all the praise being heaped upon the Palme d’Or winner, even though it was not nominated. In fact, several of this year’s best features from around the globe got left out of the final five in this category. Some of these, like “Anatomy of a Fall” and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Monster,” were not submitted in favor of other films (in the case of Japan’s submission, “Perfect Days,” it seems to have paid off). But movies like Rodrigo Moreno’s “The Delinquents” were left out in favor of more accessible fare pushed by Netflix. The best of this final group is Aki Kaurismäki’s tragicomic “Fallen Leaves,” the shortlisted submission from Finland. The melancholic romantic-comedy has a deep heart beneath its deadpan humor and closed-off emotionality. The world is nothing but death, failure, and loneliness, but the hope that there is somebody to share it all with keeps us going.

Best Animated Feature

Will Win: “The Boy and the Heron”

Should Win: “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”

Best Not Nominated: If there’s a good one, I didn’t see it

I have no problem with the Academy giving the award for Best Animated Feature to the old master Hayao Miyazaki for what might be his final film. Although I didn’t quite connect with it on the emotional level that those more familiar with the filmmaker’s work seemed to, it’s still a creative, beautiful work of animation that deserves to be celebrated. Though I did prefer “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” with its continuation of the series’ kinetic action filmmaking and its vast multiversal storytelling, I’m happy with that team missing out after winning for their first film and likely winning for this film’s sequel. As for the animated films missing the cut, I did not catch enough this year to highlight some achievement the Academy failed to recognize. The lack of a Disney juggernaut is nice, though.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Will Win: “Oppenheimer”

Should Win: “Oppenheimer”

Best Not Nominated: “BlackBerry”

When in doubt, pick “Oppenheimer.” Both screenplay categories are crapshoots this year, so it seems reasonable to go with the favorite in most other categories in Best Adapted Screenplay as well. It would be a completely deserving winner as well. To take a 700+ page biography, condense it into a three-hour film, and have it not only be easily comprehensible but actively invigorating is quite an accomplishment. In typical Nolan fashion, he plays around with structure — tracking two separate timelines simultaneously — but never strays too far from convention to alienate a mass audience. Nolan knows the kind of film he’s writing, and while it’s easy to criticize how contrived certain moments seem in a vacuum or how he only dips his toes into the abstract and transgressive, “Oppenheimer” adds up to more than the sum of its parts. The screenplay is the connective tissue that allows the editing and the performances to work as well as they do. Of the films that missed the cut, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” specifically the provocative choices Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese make to differentiate it from the book, is worth noting, but I’d go with “BlackBerry” here. Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller’s script is fast-paced, hilarious, and dripping with criticism of the hubris and greed that causes giants to fall.

Best Original Screenplay

Will Win: “Anatomy of a Fall”

Should Win: “Anatomy of a Fall”

Best Not Nominated: “Asteroid City”

Unlike most years, the nominees for Best Original Screenplay are not all that exciting. Apart from “Maestro” — a terrible screenplay that fails to capture the life of Leonard Bernstein — they are mostly a collection of serviceable scripts elevated by great filmmakers and exciting performances. “Past Lives” is a little too thin, though that’s by design. Its power comes from how much the viewer can relate to the emotions of the three main characters. “May December” is a thorny, curious script but also a confused one on the page. It’s only through Todd Haynes’s interpretation of it as a satirical melodrama with all the substance of a tabloid magazine that it truly shines. “The Holdovers” is a lovely, melancholic throwback to middlebrow New Hollywood entertainment, but it isn’t adventurous, content to sit on formulaic beats and let the performers elevate the material. So by process of elimination, we’re left with “Anatomy of a Fall,” which shares similar problems to “The Holdovers,” but is a movie that relies much more on the script. Its dialogue is verbose and invigorating, and the viewer is left constantly reevaluating their opinions on the characters. It’s the most fun of any in this category, though Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola’s screenplay for “Asteroid City” blows them all out of the water. The film layers its melancholy and existential dread beneath a complex structure that tracks characters in a play, played by actors in a TV program, played by real actors. Nobody knows if they’re doing it right, but it doesn’t matter. They just keep telling the story.

Best Supporting Actress

Will Win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph - “The Holdovers”

Should Win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph - “The Holdovers”

Best Not Nominated: Julianne Moore - “May December”

There’s always one acting category that is relatively weak compared to the others, and for the second year in a row, it’s the Best Supporting Actress nominees. Maybe it’s just that this has seemed like Da’vine Joy Randolph’s to lose since “The Holdovers” came out, but no other nominee comes close to her in terms of giving depth to what is primarily a collection of underwritten roles. It didn’t have to be this way. Even if the Academy was going to stick to this “elevating underwritten role” thing, Penelope Cruz gives a performance in “Ferrari” that they’re trying to recognize Emily Blunt for in “Oppenheimer.” I mean, if we’re making room for America Ferrera in this category for middling work in a nothing role, can we not make room for Julianne Moore’s scathing, conniving work as a narcissistic pedophile in “May December”? Maybe the lisp was too much for them.

Best Supporting Actor

Will Win: Robert Downey Jr. - “Oppenheimer”

Should Win: Robert De Niro - “Killers of the Flower Moon”

Best Not Nominated: Jacob Elordi - “Priscilla”

Despite being the strongest, top to bottom, of all the acting categories, Best Supporting Actor seems to be just as much of a lock as Best Supporting Actress. The Robert Downey Jr. career resurrection narrative was too powerful to overcome. And it’s not like it would be undeserving. He’s terrific in “Oppenheimer” playing against type as the scummy Lewis Strauss. But the overwhelming love for Downey has crowded out a movie-stealing performance by Ryan Gosling in “Barbie” (one of the funniest of the year) and the best work in years from Mark Ruffalo and Robert De Niro in “Poor Things” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” respectively. De Niro would get my vote. His sickeningly folksy evil performance as William King Hale is another perfect representation of the unfeeling, ruthless pursuit of fortune that Scorsese focuses on in his film. As for who I’d have liked to see in, I’m going with a second straight year with someone playing Elvis Presley. Jacob Elordi may not have become Elvis in the way Austin Butler did, but his quiet and more sinister performance fits much better for what Sofia Coppola wanted to do with “Priscilla.” His physical presence is already off-putting, but next to the tiny Cailee Spaeny, the threat is apparent immediately.

Best Actress

Will Win: Lily Gladstone - “Killers of the Flower Moon”

Should Win: Sandra Hüller - “Anatomy of a Fall”

Best Not Nominated: Teyana Taylor - “A Thousand and One”

All of the attention in the Best Actress race has focused on Lily Gladstone and Emma Stone, and rightfully so. They are two phenomenal performers who gave wildly different but equally provocative performances, and either would be worthy of winning. But I think Sandra Hüller is just as good as both of them. In a role that is as showy as Stone’s, her work also contains the subtlety of Gladstone’s. We must constantly shift our thoughts on Hüller’s character because we are never allowed to be sure what happened to her husband. She is essentially giving two performances on top of each other, one where she has to be this grieving wife and mother, and one where she’s putting on an act for the jury and the press. It’s a stunningly multi-faceted performance, made doubly entertaining by the juicy dialogue she delivers with varying confidence in her own words. I would’ve also loved to see Teyana Taylor in this category for her work in A.V. Rockwell’s “A Thousand and One.” Though I have significant reservations about some parts of the film, Taylor’s performance is outstanding, with subtle changes in action and delivery tracking her character’s growth over time and dripping with emotion.

Best Actor

Will Win: Cillian Murphy - “Oppenheimer”

Should Win: Cillian Murphy - “Oppenheimer”

Best Not Nominated: Glenn Howerton - “BlackBerry”

The reasons acting Oscars always seem to go to performances in biopics are twofold. One, it gives audiences an easy benchmark — something to compare with the performance to determine if the actor got the actual figure “right.” More importantly, though, biopics don’t work without the performance at the center. That doesn’t stop bad biopic performances from winning Oscars, but that’s more reflective of voters loving the movie than loving the performance. That second point is why Cillian Murphy both will and should win for his work in “Oppenheimer.” The love for the film is there, clearly, but he’s also critical to making the whole movie tick. He slips so gracefully into that character — deftly playing the nervous youth, the confident rising star, and the remorseful elder. You don’t need to know what J. Robert Oppenheimer sounded or acted like because you completely buy Murphy in the role. It’s the best performance in any film this year. As for those left out, for some reason, whenever Glenn Howerton was brought up in awards discussion this year (and it wasn’t much), it was in Best Supporting Actor. Maybe that’s the category they would’ve run him in, but he’s clearly the lead of “BlackBerry” (especially if Michelle Williams is going to run as a lead for “The Fabelmans”). He’s funny, terrifying, and the perfect target for viewers to point and laugh at when he fails.

Best Director

Will Win: Christopher Nolan - “Oppenheimer”

Should Win: Jonathan Glazer - “The Zone of Interest”

Best Not Nominated: Wes Anderson - “Asteroid City”

Just to not be boring by having three straight “Oppenheimer” will+should wins at the end of this preview, I’ll shake things up by saying Jonathan Glazer should win Best Director for “The Zone of Interest.” As much as I love Nolan and will be extremely happy to see him win a long-deserved Oscar for what might be his best film, Glazer’s work is just as impressive. Comparing the two side-by-side is a great case study of differing cinematic approaches. With Nolan, you have the populist maximalism of “Oppenheimer,” traditional enough not to be off-putting to mass audiences given its subject matter but out of the box relative to every other Hollywood tentpole coming out. With Glazer, you have the minimalist horrors of “The Zone of Interest,” breaking down cinema into its two barest elements: what we hear and what we see. The film is a masterclass in how those two interact to cause dissonance and discomfort. This is the strongest Best Director lineup in a long time. There isn’t a weak spot among the bunch. That said, I would still have loved to see Wes Anderson get some recognition for “Asteroid City,” a film that the Academy expectedly but disappointingly ignored this year. It’s a tough film to crack, intentionally so, but it gets richer with every viewing. It’s one of Anderson’s best and one of the best films of the year.

Best Picture

Will Win: “Oppenheimer”

Should Win: “Oppenheimer”

Best Not Nominated: “Asteroid City”

It’s rare for my favorite film of the year to win Best Picture. Even in years where I love the winner, like when “Parasite” took home the top prize a few years ago, “Marriage Story” was my favorite of 2019. So even though I am a bit annoyed at how predictable the race for Best Picture is and that the telecast will be an anti-climax, I can’t be disappointed that “Oppenheimer” is such a runaway favorite. Nolan’s film is not a groundbreaking epic. It’s easy to dissect its influences, but it does sneer at where Hollywood is going. In an age when the industry is trying (and failing) to pivot away from theatrical exhibition, and studios are trying to blur the lines between television and film, not by elevating television above its status as a method by which to sell products and/or subscriptions but by making cinema cheaper and more disposable, walking out of “Oppenheimer” in 70mm IMAX made me feel like movies couldn’t be viewed any other way. I felt like somebody had punched me in the gut, and I was happy about it. It’s pop filmmaking that manages to be both emotionally and intellectually stimulating, something we are in dire need of from these kinds of movies. If the Best Picture winner signals to Hollywood to make more movies like it, there’s no better choice than “Oppenheimer.” And nominate “Asteroid City” in every category. It deserves the love.