OSCARS 2024: NOMINEE AND WINNER PREDICTIONS, BEST BETS, AND AWARDS RACE PREVIEW

This piece was drafted on January 21, before nominations came out. The predictions remain unchanged but betting odds have been updated.

Welcome back! Resolutions are not the only thing that usher in a new year. A plethora of low-grossing, well-reviewed movies can only mean one thing: award races are upon us. The Golden Globes, mercifully, are over. Everyone’s dunked on Jo Koy enough already for what was the worst-received hosting performance since… Anne Hathaway, in Jonah Hill’s immortal words, was a dick for trying at all while James Franco slept and mumbled his way through the 2011 Oscars. Let me say one thing – as someone with an unhealthy hobby of keeping up with every actor and movie ever, I was astonished when the Jo Koy/Tiffany Haddish two-hander came out. Never before had I never heard of the lead in a major studio production. I mean, at least since I was like, 20. Maybe that wasn’t my fault after all.

There is a lot to cover in the races below, so we won’t spend too much time here. A couple of notes to help you through the guide:

Here we go…

Best Actor

LOCKS: Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer; Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers

ON THE BUBBLE: Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction, Bradley Cooper, Maestro; Domingo Colman, Rustin; Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon; Christian Friedel, The Zone of Interest

BETTER LUCK NEXT YEAR: Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers; Barry Keoghan, Saltburn; Zac Efron, The Iron Claw, Adam Driver, Ferrari

This is the most difficult slate of nominees to predict. Let’s get two out of the way: Murphy and Giamatti are the locks here. They likely have the Oscar locked up between them. Vegas’s third favorite for the award, Bradley Cooper, is listed as on the bubble and behind Jeffrey Wright. Why?

Yeah, I’m not a fan of Maestro. Putting aside personal bias, I still don’t think it got the Oscar-baity reception Cooper was hoping/dying for. Meanwhile, Wright has been excellent nearly as long as I’ve been alive. Fiction is being hailed as the almighty “performance of a career” – and the Academy loves to reward such cases. He may have a harder time in 2025 and beyond, but this year, he is a near-lock for me. Domingo Colman beat out Leo DiCaprio for an SAG nomination. Do you remember the hypestorm that came crashing down on our poor souls after the first trailer for KOTFM dropped? DiCaprio and De Niro reunited, Scorsese’s last, and so on? It seemed unthinkable that none of DiCaprio, Scorsese, or KOTFM would be contenders to win their respective awards, but that’s where we are. After years of getting jobbed in the Best Actor conversation, Leo… might really be the sixth-best man here. Or seventh, depending on how the Academy views Christian Friedel and his tremendous normalization of a SS commandant. 

I debated tiers for Andrew Scott and Barry Keoghan. Both are fantastic; Keoghan, in particular, has a very, very buzzed-about movie. I have a hard time seeing Saltburn capturing the Oscar buzz of Emerald Fennell’s debut (Promising Young Woman). What it retains in style it lacks in… constructive narrative. Neither has a good chance. Rightly or Wrongly, the Academy doesn’t take a second look at Efron serious this year. To him and Adam Driver we say… Better luck next year.

AND THE NOMINEES ARE…: Murphy, Giamatti, Wright, Cooper, DiCaprio

In the words of Tony Romo: Ohhhh, I don’t know Jim! We have three spots for four men: Wright, Cooper, DiCaprio, and Colman. Bradley Cooper has spent 20 years in Hollywood. He must have enough friends to prevent him from writing, directing, starring, and running the prosthetics department in his lifetime movie and not getting nominated. He’s in. I think Wright is in. As of January 19, DraftKings had Colman and DiCaprio at a dead heat for winning the award (+3500). That’s not the same as being nominated, but it’s close, and I think the biggest tiebreaks are:

1. What movie had the bigger cultural impact OR box office, i.e., which is the Academy at large more likely to have seen?
2. Whose candidacy has the stronger narrative?
3. Is either an Academy favorite, someone the Academy can throw a nomination at when it has no idea (see: Hopkins, Anthony; Blanchett, Cate)?

Killers had a larger cultural impact, and Rustin certainly had a negligible box office. I don’t sense either man has a particularly strong narrative. Leo qualifies as a favorite as a six-time nominee. Colman got a BAFTA nom. It is razor thin.

As referenced last year, one of the fun aspects of extrapolating the Globes to the Oscars is that the Globes bifurcate Best Actor/Actress into Drama and Comedy. (Yes, The Bear is a comedy. Remember how hard you laughed during the Christmas episode!) So, like the incredibly tight Best Actress race last year when Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh both won at the Globes… The Globes don’t help us here. Giamatti and Murphy both took home a Globe.

Oppenheimer has an avalanche of momentum. It may win ten awards on March 10. I wonder if this may be a spot where voters try to give one award elsewhere. Lord knows, Giamatti would deserve it. With my life on the line, I have to roll with (one-half of) the cinematic experience of the season.

Who should win? Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer

Who will win? Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer

BEST BET: That being said! Murphy is currently a -280 favorite. I think this race is much closer to a coin flip, and I like Giamatti +200 and higher.

Best Actress

LOCKS: Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon; Emma Stone, Poor Things; Margot Robbie, Barbie; Carey Mulligan, Maestro

ON THE BUBBLE: Annette Bening, Nyad; Sandra Huller, Anatomy of a Fall; Greta Lee, Past Lives; Fantasia Barrino, The Color Purple

BETTER LUCK NEXT YEAR: Natalie Portman, May December, Cailee Spaeny, Priscilla; Phoebe Dyvenor, Fair Play

A fun piece of trivia: there have been twelve people that earned two Oscar nods in the same year. Eight were actresses, with Cate Blanchett (2007) and Scarlett Johansson (2019) the most recent. Academy rules say that you can only submit one performance per category, so all twelve were up for Best and Best Supporting. What is very interesting is none of the twelve had a performance in a non-English language film. This all goes to say that Sandra Huller is fixing to become the first performer to be nominated in one or two non-English language films. Variety corrected noted the lack of a SAG nomination can be reasonably cancelled out by her BAFTA nomination. It’ll be a tight race for her to make history.

Lily Gladstone and just-regular Stone are through. Talk later. It’d be hard to see Mulligan missing out, top billing and all (whatever). Now – there’s been some consternation over Barbie’s perceived lack of oomph at the Globes. It is completely much ado about nothing. Yes, Barbie didn’t win any “big” award despite being nominated everywhere. I’d note, strongly, that lack of oomph did not apply to nominations. Barbie led with nine nominations overall. It took home what was deemed by many (I don’t agree one bit) as a consolation prize – the “Cinematic and Box Office Achievement.” Maybe the gutsiest call I’ll make in this article is listing Margot Robbie as a lock, compared to where Vegas has her. It’s really hard for me to conceive that Barbie, and the Barbie herself, wouldn’t be rewarded here.

With four locks, we have one more spot. Huller is waiting. Barrino was last seen by me winning the 2004 season of American Idol. Life comes at you fast. She’s listed as fourth-highest favorite (tied with Robbie) to win the damn thing. And you know what? I just don’t see it. She cedes a lot of screen-time to fantastic female co-stars, and with all respect, she dazzles brightest when singing. I thought Lee would be a slam-dunk nominee upon seeing Past Lives in theaters. Bening has a role that just screams BAIIIIIIT. Like, you could take her role to a river, throw it in the water, and catch fish with it. Or, her role is like an investment-grade bond. She’s got nearly guaranteed a nomination (safe investment) with no chance of upside (anyone thinking she should win).

Natalie Portman is an actress playing an actress and that’s a trope that Hollywood voters can get behind – but May December was more entertaining than great, and given the Netflix release, got lost behind Maestro if the intent was to compete.

AND THE NOMINEES ARE…: Gladstone, Stone, Mulligan, Robbie, Huller

This was the hardest nomination to nail down. Four very deserving candidates circle around one last place. Vegas likes Barrino. Please refer to Katt Williams in Atlanta (1:05-1:07) how for I feel about that.

As mentioned before, Bening’s movie type is one that typically rewards its performers come movie season. I have a pit in my stomach leaving out Lee, and I think she may well make me eat my words. It’s a bit scary picking the European for this slot – since European movies do better in Best Picture than individual categories – but Huller’s very live chance at a BAFTA supersedes Bening’s certain trouncing at the SAGs.

It was always going to come down to two – and guess what? The two Stones, Glad and regular, split at the Globes like Giamatti and Murphy.  Stone has a BAFTA nomination. Gladstone is the Vegas favorite. This is a tighter race, I think, than Best Actor.

Let me give you my two intangibles for this race. They’re not academic. It’s just how I’m feeling. I walked out of Poor Things and said, “That is the Best Actress.” But: Yorgos Lanthimos movies are weird. That’s why they’re great, yes, but are there enough people that will walk out and say, “What did I just watch?”

The other intangible is that Gladstone seems to gaining momentum despite an earlier release date. Who would’ve thought, of a movie with DiCaprio, Scorsese, and De Niro, a relative unknown would carry the film and be the film’s best chance of an Oscar?

In the end: this is the closest race of the year. Trust your gut.

Who should win? Emma Stone, Poor Things

Who will win? Emma Stone, Poor Things

Best Supporting Actor

LOCKS: Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer; Robert DeNiro, Killers of the Flower Moon; Ryan Gosling, Barbie

ON THE BUBBLE: Sterling K. Brown, American Fiction; Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers; Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things; Willem Dafoe, Poor Things, Charles Melton, May December; Matt Damon, Oppenheimer

BETTER LUCK NEXT YEAR: John Magaro, Past Lives; Jacob Elordi, Saltburn; Paul Mescal, All of Us Strangers; Glenn Howerton, BlackBerry

Best Supporting Actor is traditionally, for me, the strongest category at the Oscars. When you take a look at some years past, you wonder if all five should split a piece of the award Mean Girls-style. This is not the bumper crop of 2012 or 2016. It is a return to form after the miserable 2023 field. When three candidates have legitimate gripes about not getting nominations, you have a spicy race.

Upon opening, and initial orgasming, there were thoughts that Matt Damon was also a contender alongside RDJ. Those thoughts are fortunately no more. RDJ was a lock the moment the trailer came out. You could say the same about DeNiro, and with respect, as long as he didn’t drop his pants onscreen, he was also a lock when his trailer dropped. Ryan Gosling rides the wave. Barbie is not getting disrespected.

Some people might point out that I always say the last 2 spots are hard. They’d be correct. But! Best Supporting Actor is very difficult this year. I frankly don’t think DeNiro or Gosling deserve to be here. And they very much will be. Instead of being shown next to RDJ, Sterling K. Brown, Dominic Sessa, Mark Ruffalo, and Willem Dafoe are gunning for two spots. A quick epitaph for Glenn Howerton and Charles Melton. I don’t know what it will take for Howerton, but it’s not this. He was great! His performance was also, I think, too in line with his Sunny wackiness. Should that matter? Probably not, but he’ll still have to step out further and be depressed, or fat, or both… With all of the all due respect, Melton’s performance was… unforeseen, to say the least. He has unlocked a whole slew of Oscar-adjacent roles in the future. Vegas thinks he may be nominated after all. All of Us Strangers is in a weird spot. It wouldn’t really surprise me for it to get nominated anywhere, all of the stars are popular, but I think the likely number of nominations is an oval one. No one saw it.

AND THE NOMINEES ARE…: RDJ, DeNiro, Gosling, Brown, Sessa

Brutal. I would give the award to Ruffalo or Defoe in that order. OK, I’d really give it to Defoe, but that’s too controversial to print. Sterling K. Brown has a tremendous amount of buzz around him. He’s hilarious, but also serves as the rock that Fiction wraps itself around to bounce from comedy to emotional family drama. He is the frame through which we see Wright in a sympathetic light. Was Sessa revolutionary? No. He was one of three characters in a consensus top-three movie, and he did very well with a lot of dialogue. The BAFTAs gave Sessa a nomination. The SAGs gave Brown and Defoe one. What’s the tiebreaker here? Easy. I’m worried that Ruffalo and Defoe will cannibalize the other’s vote count. It’s not impossible and in fact, every year from 2019-2022 had two Best Supporting Actors from the same category. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. I reserve the right to swap Sessa out for Ruffalo before the SAGs.

Confessional time: I thought RDJ was very good and not give him the Oscar good in Oppenheimer.

I also thought Dr. Rabi was the second-best performance in the movie. So feel free to stop reading.

Guess what? It doesn’t matter. This is a cakewalk.

Who should win? Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things

Who will win? Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer

Best Supporting Actress

LOCKS: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers; Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer

ON THE BUBBLE: Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple; Jodie Foster, Nyad; Sandra Hüller, The Zone of Interest; Julianne Moore, May December; Rosamund Pike, Saltburn

BETTER LUCK NEXT YEAR: America Ferrera, Barbie; Penélope Cruz, Ferrari; Viola Davis, Air; Taraji P. Henson, The Color Purple; Claire Foy, All of Us Strangers

The Oppenheimer slugfest continues. Remember when I said I thought RDJ was very good and not, like, an instant lock? CTRL+X. Emily Blunt. CTRL+V. Also – remember when I said it didn’t matter? She’s a shoo-in for a nomination. So is Randolph, who was so freaking good that I actually pulled my phone out halfway through the movie to confirm this was the same woman from that horribly overrated Eddie Murphy movie.

Side note: that whole movie, and Randolph, got the most ridiculous Oscar buzz I’ve ever heard. Netflix’s press machine earned every penny that year. Murphy wasn’t good, Tituss Burgess wasn’t good, Wesley Snipes, in his fourth attempt at a comeback, still wasn’t good. Back to regularly scheduled programming.

Danielle Brooks is on fire as late. She runs into the problem that I alluded to with Fantastia Barrino, one I might call The Departed Conundrum. The Departed won Best Picture. It had several great actors in it who delivered great performances. In the Academy’s confusion of which of its five great actors to send, it only nominated one, and he was the fourth-best of the group. The Color Purple will not win Best Picture. I highly doubt it gets two people nominated. It should get one, though, and that one should be Brooks. That spells another dry year for Taraji P. Henson. There is a great Barbie wave, but it’s not America Ferrera big. We’ve discussed Hüller, albeit for a different movie, but the same principles apply: I’m frightened of the non-English language film. I like Jodie Foster. I’m not seeing Nyad. Say it with me: BAAAIIIIIT. I believe Pike and Moore are live bets to be nominated. Both have differentiated roles from the rest of the field. Viola Davis doesn’t have a lot of air-time, but i) her role takes on added significance with the deft exclusion of Michael Jordan, ii) she’s an Oscars favorite and/because iii) she’s just so good. Is that enough to make up for the muted impact of Air, especially released very early in the season?

I believe that the team from Ferrari paid Variety to place its cast members in inconspicuous places on its award race rankings. You can’t convince me otherwise. No one saw Ferrari. It cost a lot of money. It got a lukewarm response. You, I, Penelope Cruz (#9 on Variety’s list), Adam Driver (#11), the movie itself (#14), and Abraham Lincoln (deceased) all have the same chance of being nominated.

AND THE NOMINEES ARE…: Randolph, Blunt, Brooks, Foster, Hüller

What would you like to talk about? Harris Dickinson is on his way to A-list. I think it a shame Tom Hollander wasn’t nominated for The White Lotus when like four of his castmates were – he was the best male in the show!

Da’Vine Joy Randolph. Landslide. If you haven’t, please watch her.

Who should win? Randolph

Who will win? Randolph

Best Director

LOCKS: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer; Alexander Payne, The Holdovers; Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon

ON THE BUBBLE: Greta Gerwig, Barbie; Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest; Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things; Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall; Celine Song, Past Lives

BETTER LUCK NEXT YEAR: Bradley Cooper, Maestro. Try being Alexander Graham Bell next time.

This is the only field that is nearly as lopsided as Best Supporting Actress. No, really. It’s even more lopsided. Vegas says Christopher Nolan has a 95% chance to win and I truly believe that’s an underestimation.

The only reason we’re stopping here is a question that Variety points out. Natalie Portman called out the Golden Globes in 2018 for having an all-male field of directors. That was the case in 2018 and 2019. Chloe Zhao and Jane Campion were back-to-back winners in 2020 and 2021. 2022 brought back old ways. Will we have another all-male field?

Vegas would set the odds at: probably not.

I was planning on writing a big passage about how if Barbie magic is going to be appreciated anywhere, it is nominating Margot, then Greta. Then, I remembered directors vote for directors. And stereotyping directors as snobby, artsy, prickly people, I feel uneasy declaring Greta will be nominated. Triet and Song both led very well-reviewed movies and could easily make it. Non-English language and smaller revenue/box-office movies “play up” mightily in Best Director.

Ok, enough with this.

AND THE NOMINEES ARE…: Nolan, Payne, Scorsese, Glazer, Lanthimos

Who should win? Nolan

Who will win? Nolan

Best Picture

LOCKS: Oppenheimer; Killers of the Flower Moon; The Holdovers; Barbie; Poor Things; Maestro; American Fiction 

ON THE BUBBLE: Anatomy of a Fall; Zone of Interest; Past Lives; The Color Purple; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; Saltburn

BETTER LUCK NEXT YEAR: Rustin; May December; All of Us Strangers; The Iron Claw; Ferrari; The Boy and the Heron; BlackBerry; The Teachers’ Lounge

This is the second year that Best Picture is a fixed, ten-film field. Fortunately, it is the first year where ten films deserve to be nominated. There is no Avatar 2: Return of the Blue here, nor an Elvis. There is a Top Gun lookalike. The Globes added a “Cinematic Box Office Achievement” award this year, ostensibly to give a consolation prize for films that do fantastic numbers at the box office but aren’t considered… artsy? tasteful? enough to be a serious contender in the Best Picture categories. If you remember, the Academy went to a “greater than or equal to” five nominee field after The Dark Knight was excluded in 2010. It was a mea culpa to massive backlash, as no one could understand how a film like TDK could be penalized for commercial success at the expense of (checks notes) The Reader. This is all to say that while Barbie won’t win Best Picture, it is a lock to be nominated, just as Top Gun was last year. If you ever need to explain the similarities between Barbie and Top Gun to your significant other, here you go, you are welcome.

The world riots if Barbie doesn’t get a nomination. Same with Oppenheimer and The Holdovers.The Dallas Cowboys group, or locks to make the postseason and locks to not win it, is composed of Poor Things, American Fiction, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Maestro. This must be an exhilarating time for first-time director Cord Jefferson (Fiction); largely expected for Yorgos Lanthimos; and somewhat disappointing for Scorsese. Also disappointed would be Maestro’s director, writer, (checks notes again) composer, and star, Bradley Cooper. If ever a film were made to be Oscar bait, this is it. I know this is his passion project. But the two aren’t mutually exclusive. If you told Cooper at the premiere that Maestro wouldn’t be considered for Best Picture, I figure he’d react like Ben Affleck hearing his Batman reviews. Scorsese and Cooper both have great narratives right? You have maybe the greatest American director of all time on his swan song, and a guy putting the world on his back for a passion project. Unfortunately, both, along with you, me, and Abraham Lincoln, will go home empty-handed.

We talked earlier about May December’s lack of oomph, All of Us Strangers lack of anyone watching it, and whatever the fuck Ferrari is doing on Variety shortlists. Saltburn has the buzz and audience that so many of these movies are dying for. Unfortunately, not enough people are convinced that Saltburn is… how do you say… very good. I was driving the Barry Keoghan bandwagon for years, years, and I blame Emerald Fennell for making me open the door and jump out of a speeding car. Not. His. Fault.

And so, five movies vie for three final spots. Anatomy of a Fall and Zone of Interest are two non-English language productions following All Quiet on the Western Front last year. That’s an encouraging data point in this ten-nominee era. So are Golden Globe nominations. Anatomy won best non-English motion picture at the Globes over Past Lives and Zone of Interest both. It will be in. I don’t want to overthink this: Zone is really, really good. It may even win in a bad (2020/2021, for example) year.

It comes down to Spider-Verse, Purple, and Lives. The latter two were surprises in terms of awards buzz. At the least, Lives was a shocker. I don’t think it was conceived as awards bait – otherwise it would’ve been released around the time… well, that Purple was. I get the feeling that Purple’s buzz is, well… perhaps, not entirely organic. With all due respect, when you hear multiple reporters quote Fantasia Barrino’s Best Actress odds, you wonder wherever such information might be coming from.

Also with the utmost of due respect, anyone who tells you that Spider-Verse’s innovation of animation techniques means it should beat out Zone or Lives has seen multiple Marvel Disney+ shows.      

All three movies have cases. Musicals actually seem to play quite well in March. Spider-Verse was a spellbinding animation trip. Lives was outrageously beautiful relative to its simplicity. Spider-Verse is the first man out (easily). It’s a toss-up between the last two, but I’m holding that the buzz of Purple is… man-made where Lives really captivated attention.

AND THE NOMINEES ARE…: Oppenheimer; Killers of the Flower Moon; The Holdovers; Barbie; Poor Things; Maestro; American Fiction; Anatomy of a Fall; Zone of Interest; Past Lives

This isn’t a very close race at the moment. Vegas thinks Oppenheimer has over an 80% chance to win cinema’s biggest award; Poor Things and The Holdovers lag miles behind (7% each). We have two more awards ceremonies between now and March 9 (BAFTAs SAG). If Oppenheimer wins at both, this thing is over. I really don’t know who’d I’d choose as second-favorite behind Oppenheimer; Lanthimos has gotten love from the Academy in the past with the Favourite. Payne has too with Nebraska and The Descendants. Watch if either movie can snag a SAG or BAFTA and you’ll see if there’s a chance for anyone to defuse the atomic juggernaut.

In the end, we knew this would happen when we saw the call sheet. It’s well deserved.

Who should win? Oppenheimer

Who will win? Oppenheimer

BEST BET: The odds for both Poor Things and The Holdovers are so large that I wouldn’t mind taking either or both. I have a slight lean to Holdovers with the feel-good messaging, Giamatti’s potential Jamie Lee Curtis Award for Career Achievement, and Payne’s success here in the past. Expect to lose, be very rich if you win.

• DEGENERACY: If you’re going to lose your house unless you make $XXX, there are two, and probably three, absolute locks for the Oscars. A Da’Vine Joy Randolph / Christopher Nolan / Robert Downey Jr. parlay wins you $30 for a $100 bet. The first two are set in stone, minus a problematic TMZ rant of monstrous, unprecedented proportions over the next couple of weeks. Downey Jr. is right behind them in the lock tiers.
• BEST ACTOR: This was touched on earlier a bit, but there are two sides to every coin: if Giamatti comes in over +200, I like that action a lot. However: if Giamatti wins a BAFTA or SAG from under Murphy, that line will come in. If you can get Cillian for anything under -180, don’t overthink it. He’s the biggest star in the most well-received movie of the year – and just like Giamatti is a candidate for the Jamie Lee Curtis Reward for Career Achievement, so is Murphy.