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While the New Year’s barely begun, the contours of its awards race are rapidly coming into focus. Sunday night marked the first major televised awards show of the year with the (surprisingly) re-embraced Golden Globes declaring The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez the Best Pictures of the year in separate genres. However, the Golden Globe Foundation consists of fewer than 70 members, nearly all of whom are journalists. Conversely, the Oscars’ Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is made up of roughly 10,000 people who work within the film industry itself. Which makes organizations like the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America far more interesting bellwethers.
Each group—representing actors and directors, respectively—enjoys overlapping membership with the Academy, and each provides a kind of tea leaves reading for how folks within the Hollywood community feel about this year’s crop of awards contenders. And wouldn’t you know it, both just revealed their nominations for the year in 2024.
We won’t run on for paragraphs about the full lists—which you can find for SAG here and the DGA here—but the race for the ultimate Oscar prize appears to be coming into focus, particularly when one studies which movies are enjoying the most cross-pollinated support.
Indeed, a number of the movies chosen for each group’s highest bauble—SAG’s Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and the DGA’s Theatrical Feature Film prize—overlap. Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez continues to perform well among awards voters after winning the “Best Picture – Musical or Comedy” at the Globes, as the film has now been nominated in the equivalent award by both the SAGs and DGAs. It is also joined by another possible frontrunner (at least according to prognosticators) in Sean Baker’s Anora, which is nominated at the top of both guilds’ shortlist, alongside Edward Berger’s Conclave.
What’s interesting, though, is that the other perceived frontrunner, and the movie that the Golden Globes called the “Best Picture – Drama,” was snubbed by the SAGs for its Best Ensemble/Picture prize. In fact, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist was barely recognized for its ambitions by the acting guild, which also snubbed Guy Pearce in the Best Supporting Actor category and Felicity Jones in the Best Supporting Actress category. The only SAG nomination the film received was Adrien Brody for Best Actor—an award he won at the Globes.
Meanwhile James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, over-performed beyond the expectations of some prognosticators, earning a best ensemble nomination from SAG and a best director nod from the DGA. Stars Timothée Chalamet, Monica Barbaro, and Edward Norton were also nominated in their respective categories by SAG. The actors guild also elevated Wicked with a nomination for their equivalent of Best Picture while also re-confirming the popularity of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande’s performances in that musical with Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress nominations, respectively. Noticeably absent in either guild’s Best Picture equivalent was a nomination for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two or some of the films a lot of folks were hoping to get into DGA’s directors shortlist SAG’s ensemble choices—say, for example, the fascinating cast of Sing Sing. Coralie Fargeat’s snubbing for Director at the DGAs for her work on The Substance marks another year where at least the DGA failed to nominate a woman for its top prize. We’ll see if the Academy follows suit in the Best Director category.
While most of the nominated movies mentioned above will probably be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars—which these days has a mandatory 10 slots open—the dynamics of who has momentum is constantly shifting. For starters, it would seem the actors guild is less won over by The Brutalist than critics, or for that matter directors. So it’s worth noting that actors make up the biggest branch of the Academy with about 1,200 members being thespians (or about 1/10th of all voters). Admittedly, plenty of films have won Best Picture at the Oscars and not Outstanding Cast at the SAGs, but seven of the last 10 movies to win the Best Picture Oscar were at least nominated in SAG’s best ensemble category. And the only time one of the Best Picture winners wasn’t in the last five years was when the largely (and intentionally) unprofessional, non-union cast of Nomadland was snubbed by SAG during the year of COVID.
While the DGA nomination for Corbet—an award we suspect he will win—speaks to how The Brutalist continues to appeal to filmmakers within the industry, its frontrunner status is far from guaranteed. Conversely, it would seem the industry thinks much more highly of A Complete Unknown than some critics, which might not be surprising since previous musical biopics like even the critically reviled Bohemian Rhapsody have ended up in the Oscars’ Best Picture category. However, Mangold getting a DGA nomination over the aforementioned Fargeat or, for that matter, Denis Villeneuve for Dune or RaMell Ross for Nickel Boys suggests all three films could be closer to the bubble of a Best Picture snubbing than some might like.
Outside of the top prize, it’s also worth noting that Angelina Jolie was noticeably snubbed from a Best Actress nomination by SAG after being also snubbed by the BAFTAs across the pond. Her chances of getting nominated by the Academy for Best Actress appear to be dwindling, just as Demi Moore’s are on a rapid ascent. A week ago, I wrote about how there was a chance Moore might be snubbed for Best Actress, but after a magnificent acceptance speech at the Golden Globes, following a surprise win no less, her Best Actress nomination appears secure.
Yet lest folks want to dub Moore a possible frontrunner, keep in mind that, again, The Substance was snubbed for SAG and the DGAs’ highest prize. Additionally, Margaret Qualley was also snubbed in the Best Supporting Actress category by the SAGs despite being considered likely to get in. It seems pretensions against the horror genre still run deep. Also instead of Qualley and Jones in Best Supporting Actress, we saw surprise nominations for Danielle Deadwyler in The Piano Lesson and Jamie Lee Curtis in The Last Showgirl. In fact, The Last Showgirl did remarkably well with the SAGs as Pamela Anderson also got into a surprise nomination for Best Actress, edging out not only Jolie but awards season royalty Nicole Kidman for her work in Babygirl. She also got in over Marianne Jean-Baptiste for a remarkable turn in Hard Truths.
It is still early goings, all things considered, with the Oscars themselves not happening until March. However, the Academy finalizes its nominations next week and a narrative seems to be forming around certain films, chief among them being Emilia Pérez, Conclave, and maybe Anora (which also saw Yura Borisov happily get into Best Supporting Actor at with the SAGs). For the record, ware not counting out at all The Brutalist‘s chances at being the frontrunner, particularly against something as lascivious as Anora. We’re simply noting that despite it winning what is traditionally seen as the Globes’ best predictor for the Oscar, this race is far from over.
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