Happy Oscars weekend, readers! As the subject line hopefully indicates, there’s currently one big question racking all of our brains: Who is winning best picture?
I’m David Canfield, and while I have friends and colleagues stressing over just how unpredictable this race remains, it’s nice to finally see things go down to the wire again. Every year since the pandemic, the top category has felt all but preordained by the time we’ve reached this stage: Nomadland, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Oppenheimer, and even CODA cruised to victory as expected. Not so this time around. Anora and Conclave have both made excellent cases on the trail and proven their strength where it counts. They’ve been pushing for months without letting up.
Cards on the table: I picked Anora to take home the top prize in Vanity Fair’s official final predictions. Writer-director Sean Baker made a hell of a pitch for himself as he got to try out a string of acceptance speeches, and the story of this $6 million indie winning over the global cinema circuit feels like something for the industry to get behind amid such chaotic, troubling times. And I’d argue that it’s easier to explain why Anora lost to Conclave at the BAFTAs and the SAG Awards—since the latter movie is a British-made, star-studded audience hit—than it is to explain why Conclave lost to Anora with the directors’ and producers’ guilds, whose tastes generally run more Edward Berger than Sean Baker (which is to say, every so slightly more mainstream). And those groups have the strongest Oscar best-picture correlation, anyway.
But Conclave’s power surge cannot be denied. It’s brilliantly acted by some of the most beloved actors of their generation, gorgeously designed, and well suited to the times as an examination of choice and compromise, containing both great moral weight and frothy, gossipy fun. Even if the movie has elicited a bit less passion than its chief competitor, it’s so broadly liked that on a preferential ballot, that may not matter.
I’ve spoken to plenty of Academy members who’ve voted for both films. I’ve spoken to well-informed insiders who’ve predicted both. The fact is, this year, nobody really knows. How great is that? Sure, we’ve got plenty of other fascinating tight races to watch out for—guys, who is winning best actress?!—but it is very refreshing to know that on Sunday night, suspense will hang in the air until that final envelope is opened. We’ll see you there.
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