2024 Oscars scorecard: ‘Barbie,’ ‘Oppenheimer’ have early lead after Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice nominations

Jacob Sarkisian
·4 min read

This Oscars scorecard isn’t an exact science — but this test breaks down the precursor awards in both nominations and wins to give us 35 key races that aims to give us some insight into which films receive the strongest industry-wide support. Some films will do better in acting races, other films’ strengths lie in writing or directing, and several movies will have other strengths still. To be a leading Best Picture contender, however, a film needs to compete on all fronts. This is what this test aims to do — to see which films pick up the most nominations and wins in key categories at the major precursor awards to see how much support they have garnered. The idea is, the more boxes you tick, the stronger your chances of winning Best Picture.

For example, in 2019, “Green Book” won 23 of these 35 boxes before winning Best Picture at the Oscars. Conversely, “Roma” filled in only 19 boxes while both “BlacKkKlansman” and “The Favourite” were at 20. Each of the three previous Best Picture winners prior to “Green Book” numbered among the top three entries on our season-end charts.

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This is the first edition of this year’s returning 35 boxes theory, which details the Critics Choice and Golden Globe nominations. Take a look below to see which movies fared best, with five possible boxes available to be ticked off: Critics Choice Best Picture nomination, Golden Globe Best Picture nomination (Drama or Comedy/Musical), Golden Globe Best Director nomination, Golden Globe Best Screenplay nomination, and a Golden Globe acting nomination (any category).

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “All of Us Strangers,” “Nyad,” “Priscilla,” “Rustin,” “Wonka,” and “Saltburn” all earned one tick while “Air,” “American Fiction,” “The Color Purple,” “May December,” and “Saltburn” all earned two ticks each.

“Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Holdovers,” meanwhile, fared a little better with three ticks each. Justine Triet‘s thriller movie earned bids at the Golden Globes for Best Drama Picture and Best Screenplay while Sandra Hüller was nominated for Best Drama Actress. “The Holdovers” landed nominations at the Globes for Best Comedy/Musical Picture, Best Comedy/Musical Actor (Paul Giamatti), and Best Supporting Actress (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). It also secured a Critics Choice Best Picture bid.

“Maestro” was the only film to earn four ticks in this test with a Critics Choice Best Picture nomination, a Golden Globe Best Drama Picture bid, two Golden Globe acting nominations (Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan), and a Globes bid for Best Director for Cooper. The film only missed out on a Golden Globe screenplay nomination, which was the one box it needed to tick to make it a perfect five in this first round.

As such, only five movies ticked off all possible boxes in this round, securing Critics Choice Best Picture bids as well as Golden Globes nominations for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, and at least one acting bid. These movies were “Barbie,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Oppenheimer,” “Past Lives,” and “Poor Things.” All were nominated for Best Picture at the Critics Choice Awards while “Barbie” and “Poor Things” were nominated for Best Comedy/Musical at the Globes. “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Oppenheimer,” and “Past Lives” were recognized in Best Drama Picture.

These five films made up five of the six nominees for Best Screenplay with “Anatomy of a Fall” the sixth nominee. They all also featured in the Globes’ Best Director lineup: Greta Gerwig for “Barbie,” Martin Scorsese for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Christopher Nolan for “Oppenheimer,” Celine Song for “Past Lives,” and Yorgos Lanthimos for “Poor Things.” The sixth nominee was Cooper for “Maestro.”

All five of these flicks fared well with Golden Globe acting nominations, too, as “Barbie” reaped two (Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling), “Killers of the Flower Moon” three (Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, and Robert De Niro), “Oppenheimer” three (Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr, and Emily Blunt), “Past Lives” one (Greta Lee), and “Poor Things” three (Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and Willem Dafoe).

So, that means that these five films are slightly ahead of “Maestro” and the rest of the competitors in this first 35 boxes test. There will be plenty more rounds before the academy announces its lineup of Best Picture nominees, so stay tuned. Next up will be the Golden Globes winners round as the ceremony takes place on January 7, three days before SAG announces their nominations.

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