The Oscars: Who Will Win Vs Who Should Win

Oscars 2024: From Oppenheimer To The Zone Of Interest, Who Will Win Vs Who Should Win

Just like that, it’s time for the 96th Academy Awards — and our annual ritual!

Rahul Desai

AND WE’RE BACK. Just like that, it’s time for the 96th Academy Awards — or as a certain South Korean film-maker likes to call it: The 96th Regional English Movie Awards. On March 10, the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles will once again host the Oscars. Jimmy Kimmel will be the human medium, again. And Martin Scorsese will lose, again. To be fair, the nomination line-up — celebrating the best and not-so-best of cinema in 2023 — is one of the strongest in recent memory (read: in two years). But let’s face it: It’s not exactly going to be a night of shocks and upsets. The usual suspects (imagine mentioning Christopher Nolan as a ‘usual suspect’) will take them away. Which is why this annual Oscars listicle is fun to do: We know who will win, but who should win? Here goes.

Best Original Screenplay
Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet, Arthur Harari)
The Holdovers (David Hemingson)
Maestro (Bradley Cooper, Josh Singer)
May December (Samy Burch)
Past Lives (Celine Song)

Will Win: Anatomy of a Fall
There was never any doubt, was there? Triet’s thrilling courtroom-procedural-dysfunctional-family did-she-do-it is the frontrunner for any writing category, not least due to that one flashback scene where we see a marital spat of the highest order. It’s an excellent, high-profile screenplay of course, and has gathered much awards momentum, especially after being overlooked by its own home country (France) for the international film category. It’s hard not to admire the audacity of the film to invalidate the question on everyone’s mind (did the wife kill her husband?) by becoming a gender-dynamic excavation, canine-forward and strangely sociocultural slow-burner.

Should Win: Past Lives
No film has better encapsulated the diaspora heart in an era that continues to show how South Korea is the name of a cinematic language. The decades-long story about time, storytelling, memories, romance, romanticism and companionship is just the most tender ode to the complications of expat feelings. The recent awards success of movies like Minari and Parasite might just work against Song’s immigrant song. The screenplay transcends the filmable, rooting itself in the chasm between love stories and life stories. The triumph is how invisible the writing is.

Critic's Take | Past Lives & The Language Of Dreaming

Best Adapted Screenplay
American Fiction
Barbie
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest

Will Win: Oppenheimer
It’s really down to Barbie and Oppenheimer. While Barbie is an endlessly inventive and funny-woke spin on every little girl’s favourite doll, Christopher Nolan’s biopic on the ‘daddy of the atomic bomb’ reinvents the very grammar of a biography. Adapting the book itself is the feat that deserves recognition, never mind the psychological and internal currents flowing through the three-timeline structure. In my opinion, it’s not even in the best five screenplays for a Nolan movie, but consider this a lifetime achievement for the most daring and ambitious scale-meets-concept storyteller of our generation. American Fiction (it’s in the name) is a dark horse here, but I wouldn’t be counting on anyone crashing the Oppenheimer party in most of its categories.

Should Win: The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer’s chilling Holocaust drama is a stunning subversion of the visual relationship between form and content. What we see is the dry story of a Nazi officer who lives with his family in a home that shares a wall with Auschwitz. What we hear, however, is the muted soundscape of many a World War II drama. By interchanging the foreground and backdrop, the film delivers a resounding statement in an age that is already notorious for normalising complicity in the face of fascism.

Critic's Take | The Zone Of Interest & The Monsters In Our Midst

Best International Feature
Io Capitano, Italy
Perfect Days, Japan
Society of the Snow, Spain
The Teachers’ Lounge, Germany
The Zone of Interest, United Kingdom

Will Win: The Zone of Interest
For reasons above — as well as a loaded run-up (winning at Cannes and getting multiple Oscar nominations) — The Zone of Interest is expected to win arguably the strongest category of the list. And deservedly so. It would’ve been Anatomy of a Fall, had France not done an India-overlooking-Lunchbox sort of booboo. But there’s no looking beyond this clever and evocative Holocaust horror movie.

Should Win: Perfect Days
If not the Polish-German film made by a British director, it has to be the Japanese film made by the German auteur. Wim Wenders’ love letter to loneliness, solitude, Tokyo and age is hypnotic — and often transcends its identity as a film. It’s hard to describe just how assured, rhythmic and personal this needle-drop-riddled story — of a middle-aged toilet cleaner in modern-day Tokyo — actually feels. Beneath its tone, however, there is a profound meditation on coping mechanisms, self-respect and letting go, which goes hand in glove with the 78-year-old Wenders’ pursuit of meaning in the twilight of his own life and career.

Critic's Take | Society Of The Snow: A Manic, Melancholic Survival Thriller

Best Animated Feature
The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
Nimona
Robot Dreams
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Will Win: The Boy and the Heron
It’s a close one, this. But one expects the typically poignant Hayao Miyazaki movie to triumph after gathering a lot of late-year momentum (Golden Globe, BAFTA). In a category that has shed its Pixar hangover in the last few years, it’s nice to see the master of manga and the legendary Studio Ghibli founder reclaim the Japanese throne for modern animation. It’s also likely his final feature film, because he technically came out of retirement to direct this Pacific-War-based tale of a grieving boy and a talking heron. Who doesn’t like a fairytale ending for the most influential animation filmmaker of all time?

Should Win: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Say what? Sony’s ingenious meta-comic saga continues to reimagine the medium — and addresses modern superhero-movie fatigue in the most creative manner possible. The subtext of this franchise — surrounding a ‘canon’ that sprouts into parallel universes and origin stories if distorted — is that there is too much out there to hold onto the magic of comic-book movies. It’s an indictment of how stale and repetitive its Marvel counterparts are. It’s risky, subversive and outrageously rendered, combining painting, abstract art and contemporary animation to make for the most original work of new-age animation.

Critic's Take | Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Goes Where No Marvel Feature Has Before

Best Supporting Actress
Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer)
Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple)
America Ferrera (Barbie)
Jodie Foster (Nyad)
Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers)

Will Win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph
Easily the most one-sided category this year. That’s not to say Da’Vine Joy Randolph isn’t warm and heartbreaking as a grieving mother and a boarding school cook who elevates the winning Alexander Payne coming-of-age dramedy. Her performance excavates the very idea of pain and resentment, with the African-American character, Mary Lamb, finding it within herself to empathise with a bratty white student — who escaped the very same military service her late son couldn’t — abandoned by his parents during the Christmas holidays. It’s a layered and quiet turn that doesn’t conform to the regular parameters of grief.

Should Win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph
That’s right.

Critic's Take | The Holdovers: When 'Making Do' Is Your Only Shield Against Grief

Best Supporting Actor
Sterling K Brown (American Fiction)
Robert De Niro (Killers of the Flower Moon)
Robert Downey Jr (Oppenheimer)
Ryan Gosling (Barbie)
Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things)

Will Win: Robert Downey Jr
Playing an unrecognisable and egoistic AEC chairman who wants to take down Oppenheimer for a perceived slight — an American ‘antagonist’ — in a film where science itself is trying to escape its identity as an antagonist is no mean feat. Robert Downey Jr does his bit of grandstanding, but it works wonders in a movie that his character assumes is about him. It’s a bit like watching Joker take the stand and run down a tortured Batman.

Should Win: Robert De Niro
The veteran plays the sinister villain of Scorsese’s latest masterpiece, ironically named “The King” in a story about covert colonist brutality and Osage suffering. Famous for playing gangsters and Italian-American tough-men, De Niro channels the notoriety and ominous fictional vibes of his legacy into a cold-blooded and systematic ‘actor’: He pretends to be a benefactor of the very natives he plans on eliminating. It’s a difficult and dark performance that can’t afford to look like one.

Critic's Take | With Killers Of The Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese 'Writes' A Few Wrongs

Best Director
Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall)
Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon)
Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer)
Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things)
Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest)

Will Win: Christopher Nolan
As mentioned earlier, consider this a lifetime achievement award for a terrific career (so far) — and for not winning this gong earlier. He deserved it for Dunkirk, Interstellar, Inception, The Dark Knight and The Prestige — to name a few — but he’ll get it belatedly for Oppenheimer, just like Scorsese finally winning for The Departed (or DiCaprio winning Best Actor for The Revenant). It’s not to say Oppenheimer will be an undeserving victor — it’s easily one of the most significant and path-breaking biopics made since Amadeus (1984). But it’s a cumulative culmination of sorts.

Should Win: Martin Scorsese
The Meryl Streep of directors would be nominated even if he made a 54-second ad — that’s how taken-for-granted his greatness is. But reserving an honorary spot for him also runs the risk of rewarding some of his lesser work. Fortunately, that’s yet to happen. Killers of the Flower Moon is a towering achievement in feature-film direction; it is a mood epic and a horror historical rolled into one. And the length — of 3.5 hours — is barely a factor. His films might be getting longer, but they’re also getting closer to embracing the grief and mortality of history, and by extension, his future.

Critic's Take | Oppenheimer: The Murky Magnificence Of Christopher Nolan's Biopic

Best Actor
Bradley Cooper (Maestro)
Colman Domingo (Rustin)
Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers)
Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer)
Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction)

Will Win: Cillian Murphy
It’s about time, too. Nobody would grudge one of the best and most underrated actors of a generation winning for a heavy and dazzling Christopher Nolan movie. It would be Nolan’s first Best Actor scalp too, given that most of his stories are conceptual and plotty, while this one is emotionally conceptual and intellectually plotty. Murphy plays a perfectly tortured anti-superhero, riddled with guilt as well as validation for his scientific genius. His hollowed-out face alone can win a few Oscars.

Should Win: Paul Giamatti
A Christmas movie, you heard that right. Giamatti has been at the top of his quirk-game for so many years that it’s hard to let his most popular and crowd-pleasing role — that of a grumpy teacher babysitting a teen ‘holdover’ during the holidays — go unrewarded. Giamatti plays Paul Hunham as a performer who loves patronising the students he is hired to ‘school’. To see him find and face his own demons over the course of a young-adult drama is a gift that keeps on giving. He is funny, sad, droll, sarcastic, bitter and humble at once. I don’t know how. Neither does the Academy.

CRITIC'S TAKE | Maestro: Bradley Cooper & Carey Mulligan Compose Music For The Eyes

Best Actress
Annette Bening (Nyad)
Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon)
Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall)
Carey Mulligan (Maestro)
Emma Stone (Poor Things)

Will Win: Emma Stone
Stone is primed to win her second Best Actress trophy after La La Land, by daring to manifest Lanthimos’ vision in the bravest and purest way possible. It’s a complex, writhy, tough and performance-heavy performance — one that’s so noticeable in the scheme of who and what she plays: A childlike young woman with an unborn foetus as her brain. It defies comparison or even any kind of derivative inspiration, with Stone taking the liberty to create an all-new acting language and throwing all her paint onto a wall to see what sticks. A lot of it does.

Should Win: Sandra Hüller
At least four of the five nominees are deserving — particularly Carey Mulligan’s elegant quietude and Lily Gladstone’s silent pain. But German star Sandra Hüller — who also headlines The Zone of Interest — is incredibly stoic and compelling as a woman on trial for the ‘accident’ of her husband. The beauty is that the audience is never quite sure if she is performing or being, and it remains so till the end, with Hüller knocking it out of the park during the famous flashback sequences. Her status as a mother and a writer, however, is never lost on us, even as the courtroom delves into the linen of a dysfunctional marriage. She never spoke the same language as her (French) husband, and so much of the act belongs to that space between speaking and expressing.

ALSO READ | Anatomy Of A Fall: Justine Triet's Taut Courtroom Drama Summons Truth To The Witness Stand

Best Picture
American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest

Will Win: Oppenheimer
Best Picture, director, actor, supporting actor, score, cinematography, editing — and possibly sound design. It’s going to be quite the night for Christopher Nolan, one that’s been more than two decades in the making. His biopic is expected to walk away with most of the main prizes. He’s been redeemed after the misjudgments of Tenet, and will be rewarded for a stellar career that marries arthouse auteurship with commercial heft. It’s a foregone conclusion. The film was ‘outperformed’ by Barbie at the global box-office, but what a weekend in July that was.

Should Win: Past Lives
My heart aches for Celine Song’s shy masterpiece. From Seoul to Montauk to Brooklyn to nowhere, this poem of belonging and literary-versus-life romance is perhaps the ‘smallest’ film of the lot. But it’s a Richard Linklater romance at heart, building up and breaking down the illusions of loving at once. Past Lives may go un-feted on the night, but no Oscar might be able to measure its impact on time itself. Personally, I’m glad I met this film.

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