DUBAI: Our rundown of the contenders for the major prizes at this year’s Academy Awards on March 15.
BEST FILM
This year’s front runner is “One Battle After Another” (pictured) and it’s hard to see past Paul Thomas Anderson’s excellent darkly comic action thriller. “Its swagger, intelligence and emotional pulse make it much more than awards bait,” our reviewer wrote. “It’s a film that should reverberate for years.” Its closest challenger will likely be Ryan Coogler’s socially-charged vampire film “Sinners,” which has won well-deserved acclaim. It would be great to see “The Secret Agent” or “Sentimental Value” win here, but most likely they’ll be fighting it out for Best International Feature. The hugely entertaining “Marty Supreme” is a wild card, as is the always-fascinating Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Bugonia,” though the latter may suffer from comparisons to the director’s previous work — neither “The Favorite” nor “Poor Things” netted the Best Picture award, and both were superior to “Bugonia.” While there are strong arguments to be made for “Frankenstein,” “Hamnet,” and “Train Dreams,” a win for any of them would be a huge shock. “F1,” meanwhile, though technically impressive, is surely just making up the numbers.
BEST ACTOR
The Academy loves a hook/gimmick, so Michael B. Jordan (pictured) will likely be rewarded for his stellar turn(s) as twin brothers in “Sinners.” But he’ll be pushed hard by Timothée Chalamet, nominated for his twitchy, high-energy portrayal as the titular ambitious table-tennis player in “Marty Supreme.” Despite Leonardo DiCaprio producing what our reviewer called a “career-best” performance in “One Battle After Another,” our feeling is that he’ll miss out on a second Best Actor prize. Another who can feel hard done by if he doesn’t win is Wagner Moura, who is so compelling in “The Secret Agent.” It would be a massive upset if Ethan Hawke, nominated for “Blue Moon,” were to win.
BEST ACTRESS
This is the category that seems easiest to call: Jessie Buckley (pictured) is the out-and-out favorite to win for her role as William Shakespeare’s wife Agnes (more commonly known as Anne) Hathaway in Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet.” Unless the brief online furor over her perceived negative comments about cats really blows up, she’ll walk this. Despite their excellent performances, Rose Byrne (“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”), Renate Reinsve (“Sentimental Value”), Emma Stone (“Bugonia”) and Kate Hudson (“Song Sung Blue”) should start perfecting their gracious loser faces.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
This one’s a two-horse race, with Sean Penn out in front for his role as the villainous white supremacist Colonel Lockjaw in “One Battle After Another.” His only real rival is Stellan Skarsgård as the egomaniacal film director Gustav Borg in “Sentimental Value.” Delroy Lindo (“Sinners”), Jacob Elordi (“Frankenstein”) and Benicio Del Toro (“One Battle After Another”) are the three likely also-rans hoping to cause an upset.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Best Actress may be all but a foregone conclusion, but Best Supporting Actress is one of the tightest races this year. Forty years on from her previous nomination in this category (a record) 75-year-old Amy Madigan (pictured) is the favorite for her role in Zach Cregger’s supernatural horror “Weapons,” but she faces tough competition from both Teyana Taylor (“One Battle After Another”) and Wunmi Mosaku (“Sinners”). Making up the numbers are two of the stars of “Sentimental Value,” Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning.
BEST DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson is well ahead in the race for this award with “One Battle After Another,” and though there have been plenty of occasions over the years when the director of the Best Picture winner doesn’t pick up Best Director, it’s hard to look beyond Anderson for the win. The person with the strongest chance of preventing that is Ryan Coogler (“Sinners”). Chloé Zhao (“Hamnet”), Joachim Trier (“Sentimental Value”) and “Marty Supreme” creator Josh Safdie (pictured with his lead actor Timothée Chalamet) complete the list of nominees.
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s exceptional, harrowing “The Voice of Hind Rajab” (pictured) would be a worthy winner, but that seems unlikely, since two of its competitors were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar — “Sentimental Value” and “The Secret Agent.” Even if one of those doesn’t win, which would be a huge surprise, then Ben Hania’s work still faces stiff competition from the Iranian thriller “It Was Just an Accident” and French director Oliver Laxe’s Morocco-set drama “Sirat.”
