Deadline’s Contenders Film: London Kicks Off With A Dozen Buzzy Awards-Season Movies — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Pixar's Ray Gunn receives a world premiere at the opening of the day, with writer-director Brad Bird and composer Michael Giacchino presenting the neo-noir sci-fi mystery
- Laika's Wildwood — a stop-motion fantasy — gets a premiere later in the day, presented by director-producer Travis Knight alongside cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, composer Dario Marianelli, and costume designer Deb Cook
- Danny Boyle's Ink dramatizes Rupert Murdoch's 1969 takeover of British tabloid The Sun, with writer James Graham and actor Jack O'Connell on hand for the discussion
- Mike Leigh's Tender Loving Care — described in the source as possibly the British director's last film — stars Emmy-winning Kate O'Flynn as a professional carer rebuilding after a breakup
- Siân Heder's Being Heumann reunites the CODA director with Ruth Madeley, who portrays real-life American disability rights activist Judith Heumann, plus casting directors Bernard Telsey and Adam Caldwell
- Penélope Cruz appears in two separate panels — Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi's literary period drama La Bola Negra and Florian Zeller's Bunker, which co-stars her real-life partner Javier Bardem
- Amazon MGM Studios' sci-fi tentpole Project Hail Mary is represented by cinematographer Greig Fraser and production designer Charles Wood, closing out the day's panels
Why it matters: Twelve awards-season films from Netflix, Apple, Amazon MGM, Sony Pictures Classics, Bleecker Street, and LAIKA converge at Deadline's Contenders Film: London while the 2026 Oscar race is described as 'wide open,' giving each studio early, concentrated access to voters and journalists before the field narrows toward nominations.
Ask SkimNews
