2024 Oscars predictions: Who will get nominations for Best Picture and acting?

EW predicts the 2024 Oscar nominations, from Bradley Cooper and Lily Gladstone to the next chapter of 'Oppenheimer' vs. 'Barbie.'

As we inch closer to the 2024 Oscars nominations, the battle for awards season gold is heating up.

Like Ken hiding in the backseat of Barbie's car, the fall festivals are firmly in our rearview, and the precursor circuit continue to lift top 2024 Oscars contenders into the race with each passing week and precursor awards body that announces. The Academy, however, won't reveal its nominations until Jan. 23, meaning there's still plenty of time to get those last-minute nomination predictions into place.

Below, we've compiled expert picks for top categories before the 2024 Oscars nominations, from Martin Scorsese's latest likely victory to a repeat Barbie vs. Oppenheimer showdown in Best Picture that might end with neither of them emerging with a win.

See EW's 2024 Oscars predictions in key categories below, updating as often as the race changes throughout the season.

Best Picture

American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Color Purple
The Holdovers
PREDICTED WINNER: Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things

As wide-open a race as ever, predicting Best Picture is solely a stats game at the moment. With stacked, cross-branch unifying power building Oppenheimer’s profile as both a crafts monolith and an actors’ dream (three cast members will likely score nods from the Academy’s largest branch), Christopher Nolan’s historical epic feels likeliest to light Oscar voters’ collective fuse — statistically, though, Killers is collecting the most hardware, making this a tight race tipping in Scorsese’s favor for reasons we’ll expand on in the Best Director bracket ahead.

Best Director

Greta Gerwig, Barbie
Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
PREDICTED WINNER: Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon


Hardly a star-driven vehicle, Oppenheimer’s nearly $1 billion run at the global box solidifies the strength of its director’s name as a ticket-selling entity. Both audiences and industry voters value Nolan’s creative stamp equally, enough to pack theaters en masse — and celebrate his singular vision with consistent awards gold as the race unfolds. But, Scorsese’s success into his twilight years might signal the industry to rally around one of their shining beacons of talent while they still can. It wouldn’t be entirely unjustified, either, as Killers has racked up an impressive haul leading up to the more industry-leaning awards set to announce nominations soon.

Best Actor

PREDICTED WINNER: Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers
Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

Maestro’s convoluted script aside, Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein (partial) biopic is an acting masterclass, with director-star Cooper giving one of the best performances of his career as the conflicted composer. The strength of Cooper’s work coupled with a long-overdue narrative (he has a whopping nine unconsummated nominations) should be enough to put him over the top this year.

Best Actress

Fantasia Barrino, The Color Purple
PREDICTED WINNER: Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Emma Stone, Poor Things

Morphing from dawdling baby-woman to a full-on, feminist Frankenstein’s monstress, Emma Stone’s work in Poor Things is about as far a cry from her glitzy turn in La La Land as you can get. It’s bold, transformative, shocking, and sees the performer exploring uncharted places both physically and emotionally. In essence, it hooks the heart and the eyes, and that’s a winning combination for Stone in a film that has major Best Picture heat, too — but, Lily Gladstone has swept most of the precursors so far, and, statistically, she’s the one to beat at the moment. That could change once more industry-inclusive awards bodies begin to cast ballots (so far, it’s been mainly critics groups and peripheral cinephile circles voting), as Stone is a more recognizable name. But, talent is talent, and the actors could lift up Gladstone as a vital presence at the front of Scorsese’s epic drama.

Best Supporting Actor

Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
PREDICTED WINNER: Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Charles Melton, May December
Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things

Given Barbie’s themes, it feels a bit cruel to predict, uh, the man behind Ken to be the sole above-the-line winner from Greta Gerwig’s industry-shaking masterwork, but his performance is certainly the biggest (and showiest) of those in contention — plus, he carries goodwill in the industry (he’s already bagged festival honors for this role) and a light overdue narrative that should be Kenough to push him into the winner’s circle.

Best Supporting Actress

Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
Taraji P. Henson, The Color Purple
Julianne Moore, May December
PREDICTED WINNER: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

The original Color Purple winning zero Oscars remains one of the biggest embarrassments in Academy history, but Blitz Bazawule’s musical adaptation stands to correct that with two potential nominations in this category — one for Taraji P. Henson, a prior nominee for Benjamin Button, and Orange Is the New Black actress Danielle Brooks, who’s poised to break out on the big screen among the film’s heavy-hitting ensemble. It’s Da’Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers, however, who’s made the biggest splash on the trail so far, scoring nominations (or wins) at every major precursor to date.

Best Animated Feature

The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
The Peasants
PREDICTED WINNER: : Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Between Mario grossing over $1 billion worldwide and Disney eyeing a resurgence in the final bracket, the Animated race is a remarkably commercial affair this year. While not the biggest earner of the bunch, Across has a solid web to stand on, with universal critical acclaim and golden precedent, as its predecessor won this category in 2019 — unless Miyazaki’s latest (arguably a mid-tier affair for the Japanese icon) squeezes past it on the director’s name alone.

Check out more from EW's The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best in TV.

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• The Color Purple could turn into Oscars gold as cast heats up Best Supporting Actress race

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.