These Are the Movies the Academy Is Counting On to Save the Oscars - Vulture

The case for skepticism: No matter how successful, this is still a June release, so awards-wise it probably needs both a long tail (and for all the fall Oscar movies to fail spectacularly) to stay in the conversation.

The case for Oscar: It’s a gigantic sci-fi blockbuster based on source material, with a pedigreed cast and crew — Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya, director Denis Villeneuve — to provide the necessary patina of prestige.

The case for skepticism: Villeneuve’s previous film, Blade Runner 2049, was also a much-heralded sci-fi adaptation that proved a little too austere to catch on with audiences or Oscar?

The case for Oscar: Bond movies are always in the mix in the Song and Sound categories at least.

The case for skepticism: No Bond film has ever cracked the above-the-line categories, so there might be a ceiling on this one?

The case for Oscar: Can Chloé Zhao make like Iñárritu and win two in a row in Best Director?

The case for skepticism: The MCU’s sole previous Best Picture nominee was Black Panther, the rare billion-dollar grosser that also had actual things to say!

The case for Oscar: Beloved elder statesman Steven Spielberg remakes the 1961 Best Picture winner.

You may recall that Spielberg’s last adaptation of a Broadway hit, War Horse, earned a Best Picture nomination, as have three of his five movies since!

The case for Oscar: Our third big-screen adaptation of a Tony-winning musical reunites Ben Platt with his original Broadway cast.

The case for skepticism: Again, this is the third Broadway adaptation of the season, and probably the most likely to get lost in the shuffle.

The case for Oscar: Not just a fantastic publicity photo — it’s also going to be an actual movie.

The case for skepticism: One for the stans, certainly, but the melodrama will probably have to be pitched just so for the Academy to take notice.

The case for skepticism: With three Broadway movies already in the mix, can an Off Broadway adaptation break through.

The case for Oscar: Not a Harder They Come sequel; it’s actually a Black-led Western starring Jonathan Majors as real-life cowboy Nat Love?

The case for Oscar: Could you guess from the title that this is a Clint Eastwood film.

The case for Oscar: It’s Paul Thomas Anderson, do you need any more information.

The case for Oscar: Fresh off his Best Picture win for Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro got Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett for his adaptation of the 1946 carnival noir.

The case for skepticism: Can you really picture a Hollywood legend opening the Best Picture envelope and saying the words, “Nightmare Alley”?

The case for skepticism: How will a film that went into production all the way back in the autumn of 2018 wind up playing in 2021.

The case for skepticism: Per W, the film will “skewer politics, the media, and our tendency toward science denialism,” which, if you did not enjoy Vice, will probably make you shudder instinctively.

The case for Oscar: It’s Will Smith as Richard Williams, domineering — and potentially misunderstood.

The case for skepticism: When Smith has aimed for Oscar recently, the results have alternated between mediocrity (Concussion) and disaster (Winter’s Tale, Collateral Beauty).

The case for skepticism: Blind Side aside, the vaguely Christian inspirational sports-movie genre hasn’t quite paid off with Oscar the way it has at the box office.

The case for skepticism: De Armas was great in Knives Out, but the role of Marilyn is an order of magnitude more difficult, and until there’s a trailer, we’ll just have to take it on faith that she pulls it off?

The case for skepticism: The tiny indie will need a careful campaign, but it sold to Apple TV+, which is still finding its footing at the Oscars?

The case for Oscar: Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut stars Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga as light-skinned Black women navigating issues of race and privilege in 1920s Harlem

The case for skepticism: Reviews out of Sundance were more respectful than effusive

The case for Oscar: More than a few viewers spent quarantine catching up on The Sopranos, and hey, here comes the series’s long-gestating prequel, starring James Gandolfini’s son as the teenage Tony Soprano

The case for skepticism: Though this is one of a few Warner Bros

The case for Oscar: Olivia Wilde earned a lot of fans with Booksmart, and now she’s recruited an ultra-hip cast, led by Florence Pugh and Harry Styles, for this 1950s domestic thriller

The case for pessimism: Campion’s instincts have always been more arthouse than Oscar, so it’s possible this one could be for critics’ groups only

The case for pessimism: The film apparently shot way back in the summer of 2019, but little news has emerged since