Oscar longshots we’d like to see nominated in 2024

A lot of people slept on when it came out last year, and they’re still doing it this awards season. The thoughtful adaptation of Judy Blume’s beloved coming-of-age novel wasn’t as showy or ambitious as the films getting all the attention, but it’s a solid throwback to the kinds of mid-budget movies that don’t get made as much anymore, overflowing with charm and sentimentality. A big part of that is Rachel McAdams, who quietly gives one of the most emotional and well-rounded supporting performances of the year as a mom trying to hold it together as she guides her daughter through difficult changes, while also dealing with her own personal trials. She deserves to be part of the awards conversation, at the very least.

If you’ve watched , the only surprising thing about seeing Sterling K. Brown’s name on a list of Oscar contenders for Best Supporting Actor should be the fact that he’s not a lock. But in a tight race that also includes A-listers like Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo, Ryan Gosling, and Robert De Niro as well as critically acclaimed favorites like Paul Mescal and Charles Melton, he may get lost in the crowd. In the film, Brown plays Cliff, the estranged brother of Jeffrey Wright’s character Monk. He’s kind of a beautiful disaster, damaged but able to see things more clearly than his closed-off brother. It’s an outstanding and fearless performance that sticks with you, and we hope with Oscar voters too.

Andrew Scott is one of the most fascinating actors working today, and it’s about time the world recognized him for it. In , he gives a performance of open wounds and raw nerves that’s also incredibly charismatic. As his character processes layers of trauma in a dreamlike state, visiting the ghosts of his dead parents in his childhood home and dallying with his neighbor, he lets the audience see him at his most vulnerable. To secure his rightful place in the Best Actor category, though, Scott would have to overcome the groundswell currently carrying more populist picks like Paul Giamatti, Cillian Murphy, Jeffrey Wright, Colman Domingo, and Leonardo DiCaprio through this awards season. His work in the film certainly stacks up against the competition, but it’s a tough race this year.

In the glut of films about products and entrepreneurs in 2023, it was easy to overlook a film like . While Air was getting attention because of its big-name stars and connection to one of the most recognizable brands in the world, BlackBerry was just sitting there with a nearly flawless execution of the subgenre, and one of the tightest screenplays of the year. It’s hilarious, tragic, keenly observed, and illustrative of the current state of technology and how we got here. Based on a book with the unwieldy title of Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind The Extraordinary Rise And Spectacular Fall Of BlackBerry, it will have to go up against heavy hitters like Oppenheimer, Killers Of The Flower Moon, and, yes, Barbie in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. In a just world, BlackBerry would easily make the cut, but we have to live in this one, so we’re hopeful but not optimistic.

The Original Screenplay category isn’t quite as stacked as Adapted this year. Anatomy Of A Fall and The Holdovers have to be considered the frontrunners, but it’s still anyone’s guess as to what else will be deemed original enough to be voted in. This is the most likely chance for Past Lives to get some recognition. We also can’t count out May December or Maestro (it’s based on a true story, but not any specific existing work). And then there’s , probably the most ambitious and complex of all of them, yet it still seems to linger in the mid-tier on many predictions lists. Wes Anderson has been nominated three times in the writing category, for The Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom, and The Grand Budapest Hotel. He’s never won, and we still don’t think it’s his year, but the post-modern, multilayered, and sophisticated structure of Asteroid City’s story within a story is certainly worthy of a nod.

Considering the likelier nominations of two Barbie songs (we don’t know which two, but two is the limit according to the rules), a couple of catchy John Carney tunes, new originals from The Color Purple, and perennial Oscar nominee Diane Warren, we may not see Jon Batiste make it from the shortlist to a nomination. That would be a shame. Batiste wrote “It Never Went Away” for , a documentary that chronicles a year of incredible highs and lows in his life. All of the feelings he went through while making the film are captured in the song. Hey, Academy, if you want shots of celebrities in the audience fighting back tears, give this man a nomination and let him perform it at the ceremony.

There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that Hayao Miyazaki’s will receive a nomination for Best Animated Feature, and it might even win. Whether the film might show up anywhere else is less of a foregone conclusion. One person we’d like to see acknowledged is composer Joe Hisaishi. A frequent collaborator with Miyazaki-san, Hisaishi is responsible for many of the soaring musical themes you remember from the director’s most beloved animated films. His lyrical piano melodies combined with lush orchestrations are key to the nostalgic and dreamy tones Miyazaki sets out to achieve with his detailed visuals. Yet Hisaishi has never been nominated for an Oscar before. The Boy And The Heron is the latest, and possibly final, collaboration between the two masterful artists, so it could be the Academy’s last chance to recognize their work together.

This is typically a category where genre films like Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, and The Creator tend to get the Oscar love they’re denied elsewhere by snooty Academy members. It’s a perfect place to honor a film like , which has been receiving worldwide critical acclaim since its release last fall. The Godzilla franchise has not historically been known for delivering realistic visual effects—the cheesiness was always part of the charm—but that’s been changing in the last decade or so. Now filmmakers are using technology and advanced digital effects to make the King of the Monsters scarier, more impressive, and more believable than ever. And Godzilla Minus One did it on an estimated budget of around $10 million (no, really, there’s no zero missing there). If there was an award for doing the most with the least, this film would be the undisputed champion.

Whether it’s nominated for Best Animated Feature or not, we’ll be beating the drum for until our arms are sore. The very existence of this film is somewhat miraculous, and to see it receive industrywide respect would be the perfect storybook ending. With edgy, stylized 2D animation that combines fantasy and sci-fi elements and a story that leans into queer themes, it’s a good representation of where the medium is headed. There are a few titles with guaranteed spots in this category, like Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and The Boy And The Heron, and we can’t ever count out films from Disney and Pixar to notch a nomination just based on the legacy of those studios, but it would be really great to see this scrappy little animated-engine-that-could included among their ranks.

By our very loose calculations, we figure about six to seven films have secured a spot as one of the 10 nominees for Best Picture this year. That leaves three to four spots up for grabs for a handful of remaining hopefuls to fight over. Though we count Anatomy Of A Fall in that first group of sure things, there could still be space for another foreign film featuring Sandra Hüller to receive a nomination. isn’t an easy film to watch, but that’s never stopped Academy voters before (Triangle Of Sadness was nominated last year and that film had a grotesque 15-minute-long vomiting scene). The Zone Of Interest takes place at a compound just outside the gates of Auschwitz and challenges the audience to follow the daily activities of the Commandant and his family, while knowing exactly what’s going on beyond the walls. The effect on the viewer is a sense of uncomfortable complicity. We can safely predict a nomination for The Zone Of Interest in the category of sound design, but we also think its chances for a Best Picture nomination are pretty good, or at least ought to be.