A note from Scott: The post-Thanksgiving/pre-Christmas barrage of awards-related announcements continued apace in recent days.
On Dec. 5, the American Film Institute, ahead of its AFI Awards, announced its distinguished jury’s pick for the top 10 films of 2024. In no particular order, they were Universal’s Wicked and Universal subsidiary Focus’ Conclave, A24’s The Brutalist and Sing Sing, Searchlight’s A Complete Unknown and A Real Pain, Neon’s Anora, Warners’ Dune: Part 2, Amazon/MGM’s Nickel Boys and, interestingly enough, despite being a largely foreign production, Netflix’s Emilia Pérez. (I explain in the piece why the American Film Institute still included it on the list, as opposed to giving it a “special award” like other recent non-English-language standouts.)
Among prominent awards hopefuls that missed the cut: Paramount’s Gladiator II and September 5, Apple’s Blitz, Universal’s The Wild Robot, Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2, Warners’ Juror #2 and Mubi’s The Substance.
Dec. 5 also brought the International Documentary Association’s IDA Awards ceremony, at which the Israeli/Palestinian co-production No Other Land was named the year’s top doc (even though no U.S. distributor has been willing to touch it), while Kino Lorber’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat emerged with the most total wins, three: best editing, best writing and the ABC News Videosource Award.
On Dec. 7, Netflix’s Emilia Pérez, which had been largely overlooked by prior precursor awards groups, swept the European Film Awards. Jacques Audiard personally took home best film, director and screenplay honors, and his leading lady, Karla Sofía Gascón, was awarded best actress.
The members of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association congregated on Dec. 8 to choose their year-end favorites. Almost always averse to concurring with the New York Film Critics Circle’s choices, they named the NYFCC’s best film, A24’s The Brutalist, as their runner-up, while awarding their top prize to Neon’s Anora. Anora also claimed one of the two slots allocated for both of the group’s acting prizes: Mikey Madison won best lead performance (alongside Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Bleecker Street’s Hard Truths) and Yura Borisov won best supporting performance (alongside Kieran Culkin for Searchlight’s A Real Pain). The Seed of the Sacred Fig’s Mohammad Rasoulof was chosen as best director (Anora helmer Sean Baker placed second).
That same day, Searchlight’s A Complete Unknown had its official screening for L.A.-based members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Non-invested friends in attendance tell me that the room was jam-packed and that the film drew one of the more enthusiastic reactions of any in quite some time. (I’m sure it didn’t hurt that the film’s star — and part-time ESPN football analyst — Timothée Chalamet was in attendance for the post-screening Q&A.)
And far too early this morning, Dec. 9, the overseers of the Golden Globes organization revealed their members’ nominees for the 82nd Golden Globe Awards. As I noted in my analysis, Emilia Pérez nabbed a field-leading 10 noms, surpassing Cabaret’s and Barbie’s nine to set a new all-time record on the musical/comedy side. (It finished just one behind drama Nashville for the all-time Globes record.) Also notable was the inclusion of two women among the best director nominees, Payal Kapadia for Janus/Sideshow’s All We Imagine as Light and Coralie Fargeat for MUBI’s The Substance, and the overall surge for the latter, which was also nominated for best musical/comedy picture, actress (Demi Moore), supporting actress (Margaret Qualley) and screenplay. And, I’m pleased to note, Paramount’s September 5 made the cut in the best drama picture category, even if it was its only nomination.
We’re getting to crunch-time, folks. Preliminary voting began today — and runs through 5 p.m. PT on Friday — to determine the shortlists for 10 Oscar categories: best documentary feature, international feature, makeup/hairstyling, original score, original song, sound, visual effects, animated short, documentary short and live action short. We’ll find out who the finalists are on Dec. 17.
Please remember: You can bookmark this URL and return to it at any time to see my latest picks — I intend to update it once a week, usually on Mondays. Think of me like a meteorologist — my aim is to correctly predict what will happen, not to advocate for what I think should happen. My picks are arrived at by screening films, consulting with voters, analyzing campaigns and studying the results of past seasons. I do not rank things that I have not seen, because doing so is just silly. And now for my current forecast…
