2024 Oscar Predictions — Oppenheimer Is the Film of the Year (So Far), but Can It Win?

Oscar season proper hasn’t even started yet, but we do have two strong Oscar contenders in Barbenheimer. Both films have set the box office aflame, with Barbie crossing the billion dollar mark worldwide in just 17 days. For Oppenheimer, it’s box office performance is an even bigger deal, considering it’s three hours long, dialogue driven, not based on any kind of franchise IP or brand, and is rated R.

Oppenheimer, right now, is number 10 on the all time highest grossing films with an R-rating. To find a Best Picture winner on that list, you have to scroll all the way down to #23, with Gladiator. Other Best Picture winners on that list include Rain Man (#31), Slumdog Millionaire (#64), The King’s Speech (#67), The Godfather (#75), Argo (#76), The Departed (#81), The Silence of the Lambs (#83), American Beauty (#86), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (#133), Unforgiven (#169), Shakespeare in Love (#177), and Schindler’s List (#185).

That’s a hell of a list, and Oppenheimer is in good company. But does that mean Oppenheimer can win? Most people who don’t cover the Oscars would think it can’t lose. How could it? Christopher Nolan is not just a visionary director, but he is someone who still believes in movie theaters and real film. He continues to advance the art form of cinema, and even though all of that sounds like a press kit paragraph, it’s also true. He has earned his place in the pantheon with Oppenheimer, his best film in my opinion.

But if you’ve been around for a while, as I have (almost 25 years covering the race), you understand that Oppenheimer is being set up as THE FRONTRUNNER right now, which means the hive mind will go to war with the movie, championing some other movie that makes them FEEL something. Eventually, the scrappy underdog that could emerges triumphant. This seems to be a constant in the Oscar race now. It’s the MEAN OLD FRONTRUNNER vs. the plucky underdog that could.

The Social Network — mean old frontrunner; The King’s Speech — plucky underdog that could.
Lincoln — the mean old frontrunner; Argo — plucky underdog that could
La La Land — mean old frontrunner; Moonlight — plucky underdog that could
1917 — mean old frontrunner; Parasite — plucky underdog that could
The Power of the Dog — mean old frontrunner; CODA — plucky underdog that could
The Fabelmans — mean old frontrunner; Everything Everywhere All at Once — the plucky underdog that could

The Oscar race exists outside of reality most years, but especially in the past decade or so. What wins Best Picture now has less to do with accomplishment and more to do with how people FEEL in the moment. Whatever that thing is has changed over time. For a while, it was always Nazis and WW2. We all assumed if Nazis were in play, the Oscars would throw Oscars at it. Now, though, that has been tweaked somewhat.

What seems to rule the hive mind more than anything right now is social justice or identity. In his latest piece at Deadine, Michael Cipely digs into “identity reporting.” He writes that the Academy has relaxed the rules somewhat when it comes to “identity reporting,” meaning those who must meet the requirements as laid out by RAISE (what we all know as the DEI mandate) now longer have to report specific details or names. Instead, they are being allowed to jot down those in their cast and crew who identify as a marginalized group — although by now, are they REALLY marginalized in an industry that elevates them?.

As Cieply points out, films can bypass all of it by taking themselves out of Best Picture contention. That means they will not qualify to “win” Best Picture anymore. But of course, if these films did opt-out and they were movies people wanted to vote for, then they would possibly be seen as non-compliant at best (and could very well be accused of much worse). Yes, it’s very bizarre. The Academy was backed into a corner and did what they thought was best, but it has, I think, done harm to their brand and has meddled in what should be an organic process of finding “the best.”

Trump’s win in 2016 did upend the Oscars. There is no point in denying that. La La Land was eventually demonized as “racist,” and Moonlight was the absolution for their sins just enough to push it over the top for Best Picture. Three Billboards was also hit with charges of racism that knocked it out of contention, handing the win to Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, which was about a deaf woman, her Black friend, and a sea creature.

Finally, the Green Book apocalypse was really the moment the Oscars changed permanently and thrust into motion actions that would eventually lead to the DEI mandate, along with the changes we saw happen at BAFTA and everywhere else in the film and awards industry. Green Book was hit with charges of racism AND homophobia (it being about a Black, gay man and a white bigoted man becoming friends as they drove through the Jim Crow South). Heartwarming and crowdpleasing, the Green Book aftermath was a way of smacking down all awards voters and shaming them for what they actually liked.

Green Book defeating Roma paved the way for Parasite’s win the following year, becoming the first film from South Korea (and first International Feature nominee) to win Best Picture, highlighting just how global the Oscars had become. But no matter how great Parasite is (and it is great), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and 1917 were films from the American studio system, and thus, it seemed to many like the industry just didn’t much care anymore about their own business.

It is what it is. The rapture was stronger to award Parasite, and if they hadn’t, the 2020 Oscars would have awarded all white people in all of the top awards. All of the acting nominees except Cynthia Erivo in Best Actress were white. You can imagine how that would have gone down. Awarding Parasite meant glowing headlines the next day instead of condemnations.

The rapture is real. It started after Green Book and seemed to have climaxed this past year with Everything Everywhere All at Once, which was “woke” but it was also inventive and profitable and had captured the zeigeist among a certain set of people. That sounds a lot like Barbie to me. Think about it like this. What do you think makes people leap to their feet more: seeing someone like Greta Gerwig win Best Director and Best Picture or seeing Christopher Nolan win Best Director and Best Picture?

What matters to them is how the event expresses who they are and what defines them as people. They care less about presenting themselves as people who understand what makes something great. Not good, not interesting, not moving or fun, but great. The Academy never really has been able to solve that one. Every so often, they can’t help but land on an unequivocal masterpiece but it’s been a while. One could say Parasite was that masterpiece and maybe it was. But I personally can’t believe it beat 1917 and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — it was just one of those years of great movies.

Maybe this year will be another year like that. Gold Derby and most pundits elsewhere now have Oppenheimer at number one, which almost guarantees the film can’t make it through the home stretch just by the nature of people like us meddling in the process. And that’s a damn shame. The best movie should win, period. Perception should not matter, temporary drama unfolding over a period of months should not matter but somehow it does.

We don’t know if Oppenheimer is the best film of 2023, but it’s set the bar extremely high for any other film to match its accomplishment. Of course, jaded souls such as myself understand that it’s just those kinds of movies voters seem to love to puncture. Oppenheimer is a mostly white cast — how is that going to play? Will there be agonizing think pieces? Probably.

If this is a contest between Barbeheimer, then Barbie will win. There is no way they give the prize to the “white guy” movie over the billion dollar baby directed by Gerwig. And I can’t argue with that because I know it would be good for the Oscars and good for Hollywood to award something that popular. I can’t sit here and tell you that it shouldn’t win. But I can say that Oppenheimer is the more accomplished of the two and is probably, at least right now, the film of the year.

Some of us love the Barbenheimer movement so much we don’t want to move past it. I half wonder if this will be our whole year: Barbie and Oppenheimer going head to head, like Birdman and Boyhood once upon a time. Or like Jim Cameron facing down Kathryn Bigelow.

We also should not forget Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which is a very serious film about a very serious subject and can’t readily slot into the Barbenheimer meme (and no one would want it to). But many a pundit is still predicting that film to prevail. Is there a scrappy underdog hiding in shadows, like Past Lives perhaps or something else? I guess we will see very soon.

Oscar season has only just begun. We have so many films left to see and they’re about to land in a few weeks time.

Here are the predictions for this week, for what they’re worth. Not much has changed.

Best Picture
Oppenheimer
Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
Past Lives
The Killer
The Holdovers
Poor Things
The Color Purple
Rustin
Dune: Part Two

Also keeping my eye on: Napoleon, Next Goal Wins, The Boys in the Boat, Zone of Interest, Napoleon, The Bikeriders, Ferrari, Saltburn, Maestro, Rustin, Anatomy of a Fall

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

Keeping an eye on: Denis Villeneuve, Dune: Part Two; Alexander Payne, The Holdovers; Taika Waititi, Next Goal Wins; Blitz Bazawule, The Color Purple; George Clooney, The Boys in the Boat; Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things; Alexander Payne, The Holdovers; Sofia Coppola, Priscilla; Ridley Scott, Napoleon; Michael Mann, Ferrari

Best Actor
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Alts: Michael Fassbender, The Killer; Joaquin Phoenix, Napoleon; Adam Driver, Ferrari

Best Actress
Fantasia Barrino, The Color Purple
Emma Stone, Poor Things
Annette Bening, Nyad
Margot Robbie, Barbie
Greta Lee, Past Lives
Alts: Jessica Lange, Long Day’s Journey into Night; Helen Mirren, Golda

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

Supporting Actress
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
America Ferrera, Barbie
Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Jodie Foster, Nyad
Alts: Taraji P. Henson, The Color Purple; Vanessa Kirby, Napoleon

Original Screenplay
Past Lives
The Holdovers
Saltburn
Rustin
Air

Adapted Screenplay
Barbie
Oppenheimer
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Killer
Poor Things

Editing
Oppenheimer
The Killer
Killers of the Flower Moon
Barbie
Dune: Part Two

Cinematography
Oppenheimer
Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Killer
Dune: Part Two

Sound
Oppenheimer
Barbie
Napoleon
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning
The Color Purple

Production Design
Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
Dune: Part Two
Oppenheimer
Wonka

Costume Design
Barbie
Wonka
Oppenheimer
Dune: Part Two
Napoleon

Visual Effects
Oppenheimer
Dune: Part Two
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Napoleon

Original Score
Oppenheimer
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Killer
Dune: Part Two
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse