It is hard to argue that The Academy has not improved over the years as they have diversified their membership. What gets nominated for their annual best in film awards has also seen its average quality improve in tandem. Although familiar names — Guillermo del Toro, Chloe Zhao, Joseph Kosinski and Yorgos Lanthimos — return to the biggest races, their films elide what we have come to think of as standard Oscar bait. Leading the way with a record 16 nominations is Ryan Coogler’s starkly original Sinners. Not far behind with 13 is Paul Thomas Anderson’s sizzling One Battle After Another. I can quibble with a few nominations here and there but on balance its a great group. As always, we will be breaking down the flashy, above the line categories: All 4 Acting categories, Directing and Best Picture. We’ll also try to highlight as many films as possible so if your favorite “snub” was left out leave a comment below. 

After a few delays due to the devastating fires in and around Los Angeles, the Academy finally announced their nominees for the 97th edition of the Oscars. It has been long documented, including on this site that the strikes back in 2023 meant a lot of traditional awards films were unable to be completed and released for 2024. Functionally this shifted Academy voters into a discovery mode. Perhaps nothing encapsulates this dynamic more than the 13 nominations for Emilia Pérez, a strangely paced musical about a trans cartel leader. The best picture nominations are as eclectic as ever between traditional Oscar-bait type films like A Complete Unknown or The Brutalist alongside body horror oddity The Substance and two international films in the French produced, Mexican set Emilia Pérez and Brazil’s I’m Still Here. Broadness in the nominees is, in a way, a good reflection of the lack of consensus the year’s very best have had.

As always, we will be breaking down the flashy, above the line categories: All 4 Acting categories, Directing and Best Picture. We will give an estimate of where the race stands, analyze the biggest surprises and highlight some of the most deserving films, performers and directors who missed the cut.

After a year off we are back with our annual Oscar nomination recap! Last year saw a massive pool of truly phenomenal films, making it difficult to project how Academy voters would winnow down the field of tremendous stories and performances. As always that process picks up some duds and omits some wonderful pieces of art. For the most part, this year was more good than bad and many of the seemingly biggest snubs came in stacked categories. A bit too much attention went to Oscar bait-y Maestro and another film got a baffling pair of acting nominations, but generally it was a day to celebrate in the above the line categories. 

As always I will break down the favorites, the potential upsets, the surprises and the snubs in each of the acting categories, Best Director and Best Picture. Surprises can be good or bad so long as the nomination was the most unexpected of the bunch. I will try to highlight as many different films as possible so the snub identified may not be the only one or even the most notable. Finally, and importantly, if you think something has been snubbed, you have to be willing to take something nominated off the board. All of my snub picks will also indicate what picture or performer I would take out to accommodate. 

The world of film is undergoing a massive change. More women and people of color are getting the opportunities to tell stories than ever before. This progress has been slow, at times frustratingly so, but the direction is a good one. As film diversifies so has The Academy, again, often slower than we would like, but the change is evident. After the debacle that was #OscarsSoWhite in 2015, The Academy began its deliberate effort to diversify membership. Record numbers of women, people of color, young people and non-Americans have joined the ranks of Academy voters and the fruits of that diversification have finally begun to bear. Add to that continued change the advent of the Academy’s new digital screening portal, making it easier than ever for members to see eligible films. Not every voter makes time for every film, but with easier access, more may have done so this year

Remember the Oscars? Believe it or not, more than 13 months have passed since Bong Joon-ho and his masterwork cleaned up at the Academy Awards. To some Parasite winning Best Picture is still the last good thing to happen in a since ravaged world. The film year that took place in those intervening months saw theaters closed and many would be awards contenders pushed back. Despite the migration of prestige films to 2021 and beyond, plenty of great films find themselves in contention this year. With nearly every title accessible at home in some form, the 93rd Oscars may be the toughest to prognosticate yet.

The Oscar nominees were announced this morning marking the beginning of a month of lobbying and speculation about who will win what. With everything fresh in mind let’s take a look at the big categories (Best Picture, Director and the four acting categories) to see who has the inside track, who surprised with their nomination and who inevitably was left out.​