Oscars: Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ is Our Best Picture Frontrunner

With all of the major fall fests having wrapped up their editions, here’s a portrait of what’s shaping up to be a very interesting Best Picture race at the Oscars. Here are my BP predictions as of 10.15.23:

“Oppenheimer”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Poor Things”
“Barbie”
“The Holdovers”
“Past Lives”
“Maestro”
“Anatomy of A Fall”
“American Fiction”
“Across the Spider-Verse”

Firstly, I should mention the EW article, published this morning, which predicted that Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” might break the record for most Oscar nominations for a single film, with 15. The problem is that they’re predicting a nomination in the supporting categories for Matt Damon and Florence Pugh — which are both long shots.

My current total has “Oppenheimer” getting 13 noms in Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Cinematography, Makeup, Score, Costume, Editing, Art Direction and Sound Mixing.

“Oppenheimer” was a box office hit, with almost $940 million worldwide, and a critical hit, currently sitting at 90 on Metacritic. I still see some people on the fence about the film; it has its detractors, but I don’t think there will be a large enough dissent to prevent it from winning the top prize.

Regardless, nothing can diminish my belief that “Oppenheimer” is the current frontrunner to win Best Picture, and that Nolan might very well win his first Best Director statuette. People love this movie. It was a cultural phenomenon thanks to ‘Barbenheimer’ and the topic of nuclear energy is as relevant as ever.

I mean, what other film could win? I can only see two other titles being legitimate rivals: Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” and Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things.”

“Poor Things” crashed the race with an astounding showing at Venice, winning the Golden Lion and becoming the most critically acclaimed film of the fall fests. Lanthimos’ film continued its stellar festival performance at NYFF and BFI London. The film’s star, Emma Stone, is also a frontrunner to win Best Actress.

The question remains whether the film’s over-the-top theatrics will turn some voters off, not to mention the risqué material and in-your-face sex scenes. At least critics will be pushing the film, and Searchlight is also hoping for a large audience to show up come opening day.

Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” is being released this Friday. The latest reviews are just as great as the raves it received at Cannes this past May. It’s projected to earn around $25 million this coming weekend, but it could end up making more.

The lengthy ‘Killers’ runtime, 3.5 hours, seems to continuously be coming up in conversations. If it were to win Best Picture then it would become the longest one to do so in the last 20 years. However, what counts is that it’s a great film, with a staggering vision, that, despite its flaws, leaves an indelible mark on the viewer.

Still left to be screened are next month’s Ridley Scott-directed “Napoleon” and Blitz Bazawule’s “The Color Purple,” which comes out in December. Unless one of these titles two makes a dent in the Oscar race, then we most likely are going to have a three-way race for Picture and Director between Nolan, Scorsese and Lanthimos.