Good morning, screenagers, it’s been a minute since the last Poll Position. But we finally have some movement in the Oscar race after a busy Cannes Film Festival these past two weeks, and it’s shaken up my Best Picture predictions from way back in March.
This post isn’t going to delve too deep into the festival itself—only because I joined the wonderful Raf Stitt and Bryan Loomis this weekend to film our second ever episode of the Poll Position Podcast! You can watch that discussion below (or on the ScreenAge Wasteland YouTube page).
With that out of the way, let’s jump straight into my adjusted Best Picture projections!
1. Frankenstein
I made it clear in my March predictions that I have full belief in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein to not only be a contender come awards season, but even as a frontrunner for the prize and possibly the highest nomination tally. That faith remains unwavering for now, as I believe in this cast and in Netflix to push this hard come awards season.
2. After the Hunt
This is my other ride-or-die for the season. The key here is that I am not flying blind—I have read the script and found it as terrific as advertised. I see this getting two to three acting nominations as well as a potential director slot for Luca Guadagnino, and original screenplay.
3. Sentimental Value
When I left Sentimental Value out of my first round of predictions, I was being a bit contrarian. I didn’t want to just take the chalk, where’s the fun in that? Neon already had US distribution rights to the film entering Cannes, so it was the odds-on favorite to be Neon’s Oscar pony as long as it lived up to the hype. And it nailed it. While it didn’t win the Palme, it appears to be the best-received movie overall out of Cannes and I don’t expect its second-place finish to change its Oscars odds. This is one of the two movies I feel have established themselves as in the Best Picture 10 unless and until someone else bumps them out.
4. Wicked: For Good
Wicked took the world by storm last year, winning over even movie fans with no connection to the original musical. The one thing standing in the way of the second half of the story reaching Best Picture glory is the at-large opinion that the second act of the Broadway show is not as good as the first. On the other hand, it gets a bit darker and more political, things I think could make this installment even more appealing from an Oscars standpoint as more “serious” fare, plus I think director John Chu will be less shackled by the expectations of the musical. I believe he can fix whatever pacing issues the second act has with an extended runtime compared other the musical and deliver something more powerful than this story has ever seen before.
5. Sinners
There is a lot of passion for Sinners out of the gate and only a few obstacles stand in its way of making it as an Oscar contender. The biggest obstacle is the long road ahead of it, with still half a year before campaigning begins in earnest. Some have questioned whether this might got the Challengers route, but I think its historical roots and cultural importance gives it an edge that movie didn’t have.
6. Avatar: Fire and Ash
I know that the Avatar franchise cannot just continue to pick up Best Picture nominations in perpetuity, but I’m not yet ready to bet against it either. James Cameron is operating on a whole different plane when it comes to visual effects, and it has been hard for Oscar voters to ignore that. What’s been lacking in the first two installments has been story, and there is some reason to believe that Cameron is pursuing something a bit more complex here.
7. Deliver Me from Nowhere
I already had this in my original Best Picture 10, but it just got an extra helping hand with the news that Michael is indeed expected to move to 2026. That means Bruce Springsteen will have the stage all to himself and I am not betting agains the music biopic again like I did last year with A Complete Unknown.
8. One Battle After Another
This has been a staple of the rankings if for no other reason than it is the latest movie from Paul Thomas Anderson, but I am getting more and more nervous about keeping it in my rankings. By all reports, it is an action-first film that has audiences a bit divided—but those reports are not worth much being from test screenings. Still, I wonder whether this is going to be one of those contenders like Blitz last year where we just ride until the wheels fall off.
9. Hamnet
This is another prediction I don’t much love to make. There’s plenty of potential for this movie following Agnes and William Shakespeare mourning their son to flop hard for awards. but it is directed by Chloe Zhao, who won the big award for Nomadland and it is a beloved novel with plenty of emotion to mine. Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal can deliver the goods, it will just have to be seen whether the film is too much of a downer to make the cut.
10. Marty Supreme
Just as I resisted Sentimental Value early on, I have resisted putting Marty Supreme in my predictions because it was maybe too easy, and because I thought people could be wrong about whether it is an “Oscars movie.” But I noticed A24 did not have much success at Cannes and, unlike previous years, didn’t try to buy too many movies up. Which makes me think A24 might just have supreme confidence in their big December release. Timothee Chalamet always has to be one to watch in any Oscars race. Then again, it bears noting that A24 picked up The Brutalist out of Venice in September last year, so there’s still a chance A24 could find a different Oscars player.
What changed from my original picks?
The easiest movie to drop from my list of 10 was The Wizard of the Kremlin. I still very much believe in the film; the problem is it remains unlikely to be released this year and I could no longer justify taking a shot that it might fast-track release.
I also dropped Rental Family, a Searchlight distributed movie about an American man who moves to Tokyo and becomes a rentable family figure. I think this could still be terrific and make its way back in the 10, but room had to be made for Sinners and Sentimental Value and my other picks had a little more going for them.
By far the hardest decision was to drop Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest, which also premiered at Cannes to mixed but positive reactions. It still feels like a workable player to me, but I pulled the trigger and swapped in its A24 brother Marty Supreme because I don’t want to be beholden to my initial picks.
That’s all for this edition of Poll Position. Until next time, screenagers!