The Oscar Nominations Made It Pretty Clear What’s Going to Win Best Picture

Dan Kois
·3 min read
10
Cillian Murphy smiles as Oppenheimer, holding his hat up in one hand to acknowledge the cheers, as an American flag flies behind him. Beside him, Killers of the Flower Moon’s Leonardo DiCaprio and Barbie’s Margot Robbie appear to hold back tears.

Coming into Tuesday morning’s Oscar nominations (or “Oscars nominations,” as ABC and the academy kept stressing), the question was: Can anyone beat Oppenheimer?

Coming out of the Oscars nominations, the answer is clear: no way.

Sometimes the story of nominations morning is a series of big surprises, suggesting a wide-open field that no one can predict. And sometimes the story of nominations morning is one movie consolidating its power. Before the nominations, Oppenheimer had a shot at 13 nods; it nailed every single one.

Meanwhile, Christopher Nolan’s biggest competition had a rough morning. This year’s other front-running historical epic, Killers of the Flower Moon, failed to score nominations in Best Actor (for Leonardo DiCaprio) and Best Adapted Screenplay. It will not challenge Oppenheimer on Oscar night. And the academy cut short the Barbenheimer war with one cataclysmic blast: Barbie may have picked up a surprise nomination for America Ferrera, but Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster otherwise underperformed, missing out on not only Best Actress, for Margot Robbie, but Best Director and Best Editing, two categories that are often considered key indicators of which nominees are actually in contention for Best Picture.

Still, there’s another category in particular that sums up the divergent fortunes of Oppenheimer and Barbie on nomination day: Best Makeup and Hairstyling. If ever there was a category in which you would think Barbie should dominate, this is it! Yet Barbie isn’t nominated for Best Makeup; it didn’t even make the academy’s shortlist for the award. Oppenheimer is, though. It’s hard not to view this result, in the context of all the nominations, as a microcosm of the academy’s view of these two films: Serious movies use makeup to take us back to the past; frivolous movies, I guess, use makeup to look pretty.

Oppenheimer is a worthy front-runner: a well-written, well-acted historical drama that uses all the tools of the cinema to tell a complex, fascinating story. Yet there’s something a little disheartening about already knowing, a month and a half before Oscar night, that one movie is going to sweep the awards. Oppenheimer seems certain to win Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, and two or three other statues. It’s gonna be like the Republican primaries all over again.

So for those of us who love fierce competition on Oscar night most of all, the place to look is in the smaller battles. Can Paul Giamatti, who has been campaigning his ass off, sneak past Cillian Murphy in Best Actor? Which also-ran will the academy throw a bone to in Best Original Screenplay? I’ll be particularly invested in who will prevail in the Emma Stone­–Lily Gladstone Best Actress battle, since it’s the only major category in which Oppenheimer is not nominated.

Is there any chance Oppenheimer won’t sweep? Oppenheimer’s 13 nominations fell just one short of the all-time record, held by three movies (which all scored 14)—and all three of those movies did awfully well on Oscar night. At the 1951 ceremony, All About Eve won six Oscars, including Best Picture. At the 1998 ceremony, Titanic won Best Picture and 10 other Oscars—one of the great sweeps of all time. And in 2017, La La Land won six awards, ending the night with a victory in Best Picture. Oh, wait, actually …

That last detail might give some hope to Oscar watchers who love mess. But I don’t know that Yorgos Lanthimos’ weirdo sex-horror-comedy Poor Things—the surprise nomination runner-up, with 11 nods—has as many passionate fans as Moonlight had back in 2017. (It’s also not an epochal masterpiece, as Moonlight is.) Resign yourself to your fate: Though a great drama will win Best Picture, great drama will be in short supply on Oscar night.