Can we now finally, officially accept that “One Battle After Another” is going to win Best Picture? How many wins this awards season will it take to convince the few skeptics that it’s a done deal?
On Saturday night, the film picked up the top prize from the Producers Guild of America. Yeah, it’s over — this has been its Oscar to lose for many months now, and no other film has come close to becoming a real threat.
Those hoping “Sinners” might pull off an upset are out of luck, and that’s despite the film holding a record-breaking 16 Oscar nominations. “One Battle After Another” is just too strong—capturing the zeitgeist with its pertinently current themes and earning best-of-the-decade reviews. It’s a freight train that’s going to be impossible to stop.
The PGA is the absolute best precursor for Best Picture, with a voting body around the same size as the Academy — both have roughly 10,000 members — and it shares the preferential voting system. The PGA has matched the Oscar Best Picture winner 13 out of the last 15 years. Furthermore, only a handful of films in history have won the DGA and the PGA and then gone on to lose the Best Picture Oscar — most notably “Apollo 13,” “Saving Private,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “La La Land.” Still, right now, it’s very hard to envision a scenario in which PTA’s film doesn’t take it.
This latest win for “One Battle After Another” comes hot on the heels of its victories at nearly every major awards-season precursor, including the DGA, BAFTA, Critics Choice Award, Golden Globe, National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Circle, and Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
This has been a very long awards season, stretched out until March 15 — that’s when the Oscars ceremony finally happens. It desperately needs to be shortened. It feels way too long and unnecessary to have it go all the way to mid-March.
Tonight are the SAG Awards, broadcast on Netflix, and at least those have a few unpredictable categories, especially in supporting — the only lock to win seems to be Jessie Buckley for “Hamnet.”
NOTE: “KPop Demon Hunters” won the PGA Award for Animated Feature, putting it in a strong position to contend for the Oscar as well. Meanwhile, the Documentary category delivered a surprise: Mariska Hargitay’s “My Mom, Jayne” took the PGA win. The race remains the most wide open of the season, with “The Perfect Neighbor” and “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” having also claimed key precursor awards.
The worst-kept festival secret of the last 24 hours is that Zack Snyder’s “The Last Photograph,” which is still seeking U.S. distribution, will be a surprise late addition to the Toronto International Film Festival.