Best Picture Nominees That Skipped the Fall Festivals

I’ve noticed some here speculating that certain films, like “Babylon” and “Amsterdam,” skipping the September/October festivals usually spells trouble in terms of quality and Oscar odds.

I disagree. That’s not true at all. If a film is being released in November/December and is helmed by an A-list director, then Toronto/Venice/Telluride isn’t necessarily needed. Scorsese, PTA, Spielberg, Eastwood, Fincher etc. don’t necessarily need their year-end films to do festival launches.

A movie’s trajectory can ride solely on its filmmaker if the director is a big enough name, and if the timing of release is fitting, then there is no point in having its status get somewhat lost within the hundreds upon hundreds of films that premiere at TIFF, Telluride, and Venice.

This year, Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon,” Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio,” David O. Russell’s “Amsterdam,” and, maybe, just maybe, Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” are doing exactly that. All four of these titles have the sufficient pedigree to skip the festivals.

Still, I believe “Million Dollar Baby” was the last BP winner to be sight unseen until very late in the game only to win it all.

Over the last 10 years, 19 films didn’t go to Toronto/Venice/Telluride/New York, but went on to garner a Best Picture nomination:

2010: The Fighter, True Grit
2011: Extremely Loud Incredibly Close, War Horse
2012: Django, Les Miserables, Zero Dark Thirty
2013: American Hustle, The Wolf of Wall Street
2015: The Revenant
2016: Fences, Hidden Figures
2017: Phantom Thread, The Post
2018: Vice
2019: Little Women, 1917
2020: Judas and the Black Messiah, Mank
2021: Don't Look Up, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, West Side Story