Oscars: 7 Films That Could Define the Awards Season, From ‘The Odyssey’ to ‘Michael’
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- Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' enters awards season as the man to beat, a summer tentpole that earned a wave of critical love and arrived with built-in awards ambition, two years after the 'Oppenheimer' best picture and directing sweep.
- Lionsgate's 'Michael' carries a 38% Rotten score but a 97% Certified Fresh audience rating, and Variety frames it as the unofficial Oscar 'villain' of the season, leaning on Jaafar Jackson's transformation and Colman Domingo as Joe Jackson to court the Academy's populist wing.
- Olivia Wilde's 'The Invite' (A24) is being mounted as a full fall campaign with a cast that includes four-time nominee Edward Norton and Oscar winner Penélope Cruz, who Variety notes is in a 'triple threat' year with 'La Bola Negra' and 'Bunker' still to come.
- Robert Aramayo's surprise BAFTA lead actor win for Sony Pictures Classics' 'I Swear,' a film about a man living with Tourette's syndrome, beat Timothée Chalamet in 'Marty Supreme' and Michael B. Jordan in 'Sinners,' and the film becomes U.S.-eligible for the Golden Globes, Critics Choice and Oscars.
- 'Toy Story 5' is a $1 billion box office juggernaut whose 'I Knew It, I Knew You' song by Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff could hand Swift her first Oscar nomination after two near misses, extending a franchise with a perfect best original song record across all four prior films.
- Ryan Gosling could land a fourth Oscar nomination with Amazon MGM's 'Project Hail Mary,' directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, a directing partnership Variety notes could join the rare nominated-duo club after the Daniels for 'Everything Everywhere All at Once.'
- The fall festival circuit — Telluride, Venice, Toronto and New York — will unspool over the next six weeks, with May's Cannes having already launched Palme d'Or winner 'Fjord,' Netflix-acquired Spanish-language epic 'La Bola Negra' and Russian drama 'Minotaur.'
Why it matters: With Nolan riding two years of Academy goodwill from 'Oppenheimer' and 'The Odyssey' opening in July, the seven-film spread Variety maps sets the board for a six-week festival sprint where a single Telluride or Venice screening can rewrite frontrunner status — and where populist picks like Lionsgate's critic-divisive 'Michael' could exploit the expanded 10-slot best picture field that exists because of the 2008 'Dark Knight' snub.
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