After months of buildup, the Oscars are upon us. This weekend’s awards should be a bit of a victory lap for an industry that has enjoyed a big, Barbenheimer-powered 12 months at the box office, and has just about survived a series of major strikes. But what can we expect from the night itself?
Ahead of Sunday’s ceremony, here are five big questions we’re expecting – nay, demanding – answers to …
Can anything stop Oppenheimer?
The deadest of dead certs, Christopher Nolan’s weighty biopic has been firmly lodged as best picture frontrunner ever since it was released in July, and hoovered up all of the major guild awards that usually serve as a bellwether for the big prize. Anyone hoping for a shock on Sunday night then is likely to be disappointed, not least because a viable alternative winner hasn’t really materialised.
Instead, focus will turn to the record books: with Nolan’s film nominated in 13 categories it has a chance to best the current record of 11 Oscar wins jointly held by Ben Hur, Titanic and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Who will win this year’s most exciting race: best actress?
In contrast to Oppenheimer’s seeming canter to best picture glory, the race for best actress has been a nail-biter. Both Lily Gladstone, for her performance in Killers of the Flower Moon, and Emma Stone, for Poor Things, have looked to be coasting to glory in recent weeks before being supplanted by the other.
First Stone won best actress in a comedy or musical film at the Golden Globes; then Gladstone won best actress in a drama later that same night. Stone looked to have pulled clear with wins in the Critics Choice awards and at the Baftas, but then Gladstone went on to win the significant Screen Actors Guild gong. Sunday then looks a toss-up, in one of the few truly unpredictable races of the night.
Can The Zone of Interest prove an unlikely British winner?
It’s hard to recall many multiple-Oscar nominees that have been as uncompromising as The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s radically told, dread-soaked Holocaust drama. Forrest Gump it is not – but that hasn’t stopped it earning five nominations this year, and, going by the anonymous, “brutally honest” Oscar ballots published by Hollywood trade magazines, there does seem to be some strong support for the film among voters.
It is heavily fancied to take the best international film Oscar, and a surprise win in any other of its nominated categories will surely make it one of the most unlikely British Oscar success stories – particularly given that it is a British film spoken entirely in German.
Will this be one of the Oscars’ messy political years?
Every so often the Academy Awards seems to collide with wider politics in dramatic – and, for the organisers at least, embarrassing – ways: think of Native American activist Sacheen Littlefeather (above) being greeted with both cheers and boos after refusing to accept the best actor Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando in 1973; or Michael Moore’s anti-Bush administration speech being drowned out by the orchestra in 2003. Could this year see a similar flashpoint, with tensions running high over the Israel-Gaza war, and a fractious US election on the horizon?
Protests outside the event are expected, as has been the case with other awards ceremonies this year, and inside the Dolby theatre the situation in Gaza may well be raised too – Zone of Interest producer James Wilson has already done so in his speech at the Baftas. How the organisers, and audience, react may well determine whether the 96th Academy Awards are remembered like 1973 or 2003.
Does the Oscars have a predictability problem?
Until recently, the Oscars was enjoying a period of unpredictability: surprise best picture wins for Moonlight, Green Book, Parasite and Coda, as well as unlikely acting wins for the likes of Olivia Colman (over expected winner Glenn Close) and Anthony Hopkins (over the late Chadwick Boseman) gave the sense of an awards ceremony where anything could happen. But then came 2023 and a procession for seven-time Oscar winner Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Now, with Oppenheimer set to be similarly dominant this year, and many categories seemingly already sewn up, the Oscars are suddenly looking predictable. And predictability is hardly a ratings winner. Might the Academy intervene with rule changes for future years if everything goes underwhelmingly to plan this time around?
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