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CommentThe weeks immediately following theOscar nominations are typically a lull in the awards-season calendar. The precursors take a breather to get out of the way of theGrammys and theSuper Bowl, while the remaining contenders get to do some non-televised hobnobbing at the Santa Barbara Film Festival andOscar Nominee Luncheon. We’re slowly getting back to business now. Last weekend sawtheDirectors Guild Awards (Paul Thomas Anderson won Best Feature, as expected), and Thursday night brought the Costume Designers Guild Awards (whereOne Battle After Another,Frankenstein, andWicked: For Good took home awards in Contemporary, Period, and Sci-Fi/Fantasy design, respectively).
I noticed that, this year, people were feeling the lull more than usual. Perhaps that’s a result of the Oscar ceremony taking place two weeks later than it did last year; perhaps it’s a reflection of the fact that the Best Picture race still largely looks the same as it didin mid-September withOBAAseemingly out in front. But nature abhors a vacuum, and it’s tempting to wonder whether voters having so much time to ruminate will affect the race in unexpected ways. At the moment, the question on a lot of Oscar watchers’ minds is whetherSinners’s record-breaking haul on nomination morning portends a late shift toward Ryan Coogler’s film. Of course, a movie’s total number of nominations is not the be-all, end-all of the Oscar race. If it was, we would have seen the La La Land crewaccepting Best Picture at the end of the night. (Wait a second …) But any time a film is nominated in literally every category it could have shown up in, it’s wise not to underestimate its chances.
With little since the nominations to go on, this conversation has mostly been a matter of vibes and tea leaves. But starting with next weekend’s BAFTAs, the theoreticalSinnerssurge could get a lot more concrete. IfSinnersis indeed catching up to One Battle After Another, what signs should we look for? Here’s what each of the remaining precursors can tell us.
Any concerns regardingSinners’s appeal to the Academy’s international contingent were assuaged when Ryan Coogler’s film received 13 nominations from the Brits. The only spot of bother is that, having earned 14,One Battle After Another will come into the February 22 ceremony more than confident in its own chances. WhileFranklin Leonard has pushed back against the notion thatSinnersunderperformed overseas, the box-office gap between the two is notable: Despite outgrossing the PTA film four-to-one back home, Coogler’s movie pulled in two-thirds of whatOBAAdid internationally. The good news forSinnersis that this disparity has already been priced in. Most pundits expectOBAAto win Best Film at BAFTA, thoughSinnerscan take solace in the fact that three of the past four BAFTA winners came up short in the Oscar race.
IfSinnersmanages to pull off an underdog victory in London, then we’ll be off to the races. But even in the eventOBAAtriumphs,Sinners can still be satisfied with a strong showing down-ballot. It’s competitive in most of the craft categories and could build on that floor with wins in Original Screenplay and Casting. Maybe Mancunian Wunmi Mosaku upsets Teyana Taylor in the Supporting Actress race? The point is thatSinnersdoesn’t need to overtakeOne Battle at BAFTA; it just needs to stay within striking distance
Over the coming weeks, a number of craft guilds will hand out their own trophies. Late February brings the Artios Awards (casting), the ACE Eddie Awards (editing), and the Art Directors Guild Awards (self-explanatory). However, since all these ceremonies divide up their nominees between comedy/drama and contemporary/period,SinnersandOBAAwon’t actually go head-to-head at any of them. (One Battle isn’t competing at the Artios Awards at all, since its casting director, Cassandra Kulukundis, isn’t a member of the Casting Society.) A few crafts leave their ceremonies until the week before the Oscars, and of those we will seeSinnersandOBAAcompete directly against each other at the Golden Reel Awards (sound editing), CAS Awards (sound mixing), and ASC Awards (cinematography). By the time we get there, though, all of the major precursors will already have weighed in and Oscar voting itself will be finished, so those results will be more of an entremetthan a full course.
We’ve exited the phase of the season in which tastemaking groups like the Gothams, Critics Choice Awards, and Golden Globes hold the most sway, but there are still a few non-industry awards left to hand out. While these won’t reflect anything about how the Academy itself is feeling, they could serve as a general barometer of where the culture is at. The most important thing forSinnersis to hold serve at the NAACP Image Awards on February 28, whereOne Battle is only nominated in the acting categories. There’s also the Dorian Awards on March 6 and the Satellite Awards on March 8. Each individual ceremony has negligible influence, but if we see all these groups really put their weight behindSinners, that might reflect some change in the air. A similar shift happened in 2017, whenMoonlightstarted to clean up with the non-industry bodies over the final weeks of the season.
Here’s something to ponder. The two most memorable examples of recent Best Picture upsets —MoonlightoverLa La Land andParasite over1917 — both saw artsy underdogs beat bigger studio movies. That comparison doesn’t really work forSinnersversusOBAA. If anything,Sinnersis the “bigger” movie. Which leads to an interesting question: Since the PGAs are our most commercial precursor, is this the most likely place to see aSinnerssurprise? That would be huge, since the PGAs have the best track record of anticipating Oscar’s Best Picture winner, owing to the fact that they use a similar preferential ballot. A win here on February 28 would turn the entire conventional wisdom of the race on its head. ButSinners’s putative strength also raises the stakes of missing out.MoonlightandParasitewere able to survive PGA losses because few expected them to win in the first place.Sinnerswill enjoy less benefit of the doubt.
SAG’s Actor Awards: The Moment of Truth
This is the big one. Whenever a dark-horse contender has wound up winning Best Picture, the path to striding triumphantly up to the Oscar podium has begun at the SAG Awards. (Now confusingly renamed the “Actor Awards,” which sound like something a character would win in a Canadian TV show.)Crash in 2006,Moonlightin 2017,Parasitein 2020,CODAin 2022 — all of them took Best Cast at SAG against the odds, and like the Power Rangers coming together to form a Megazord, something about their actors appearing as a group onstage unlocked each film’s full Best Picture potential. (CODAalso won the PGA prize, but that was in a weird year in which that ceremony was pushed back after SAG because of the Omicron variant, so the film seemed like more of an underdog at SAG than it ultimately would be.)
Furthermore,Sinners bears many of the hallmarks of a potential SAG victor. Like 2017 winnerHidden Figures, it’s got a large, diverse ensemble. Like 2019’sBlack Panther, it was a massive mainstream hit. Like those films as well as 2021’sThe Trial of the Chicago 7 and last year’sConclave, it’s not a strong threat to win an individual acting trophy, giving all the more impetus to hand it the big prize. And we know the Guild’s voters lovedSinners: It was the only precursor to nominate young Miles Caton in Supporting Actor.
The Actor Awards will take place on March 1, a day after the PGA ceremony. By the end of that weekend, we should have a better idea of whether the post-nom bump forSinners is real or not. As long asSinners wins one of those trophies, then takes care of business at the next weekend’s WGA Awards (where it is once again competing separately fromOBAA), it’ll enter Oscar night with the résumé of a plausible Best Picture champ.
This week saw one of awards season’s most delightful enduring traditions: the Oscar Nominee Luncheon. Each year, everyone who’s nominated for an Oscar gets dolled up and heads to the Beverly Hilton sothey can all take a big group photo together, as if they’re all members of the same high-school class. (Well,almost everyone. There are always a few who miss out, most notably, this year, Sean Penn, Renate Reinsve, andMehdi Mahmoudian, for unfortunate reasons.) As an East Coaster, I always get a little FOMO when the luncheon rolls around, but fortunately one of Vulture’s L.A. correspondents, managing editorAnusha Praturu, was in attendance. I pulled her away from doing her actual job so she could chat with me about the experience.
Anusha, this was your first time at the Nominee Luncheon. In which ways was it similar to what you expected, and in which ways was it not at all like you expected?
It was what I expected in that it included lunch, a class photo, and lots of mingling and selfies, but there were a few things that were not what I pictured. Mainly, I didn’t really expect it to be lit and staged like an actual awards show. It was in a windowless, dimly lit ballroom with an entry foyer, two open bars, dozens of tables on the “floor,” and a spotlit stage up front with a podium. I expected less of a Run of Show, but there was definitely a schedule of events they were sticking to, including more than one sizzle reel featuring the year’s nominees. I also expected to be seated at a press table, like they usually have at these events, but on arrival they had me select a table number out of a fishbowl, so I was seated among nominees and other attendees. Each table had only one member of the press, and no nominees were seated with people from the same movie. It was almost like a networking event in that way.
That’s awesome! Who was at your table?
The nominees at my table were Hannah Beachler (nominated for production design onSinners), Mike Hill (who did and was nominated for Jacob Elordi’s hair and makeup onFrankenstein), Andrew Freedman (nominated forRetirement Plan in the Animated Short Film category), and David Vickery (nominated for visual effects onJurassic World Rebirth). There was also set decorator Missy Parker, who’s on the board of governors, as well as the guests of all the aforementioned.
I’m not going to ask you to tell any tales out of school, but in general what did you guys chat about?
Mostly which movies everyone enjoyed from the year. There were some hot takes onMarty Supreme andHamnet. A lot of love forSentimental Valueand One Battle After Another. There was also the usual talk about waning attention spans and the looming threat of AI. Someone at the table was sentMatt Shumer’s viral X post, which had been posted just an hour or two prior, so that became a topic of conversation for some time.
I was sitting next to Mike Hill, and we discussed his forthcoming move out of L.A. at length. He’s been in L.A. for over two decades, but with the industry leaving, there’s less and less incentive to stay. He told me he recently purchased a property in rural Pennsylvania near the Pocanos. I asked if he’s planning to retire, and he said not yet, that he’ll just fly in for jobs as needed. It seems like L.A. just doesn’t have the gravity it once did.
What was the vibe in the room? Who were people most excited to see?
The vibe was super high-energy. Like a college reunion, but one where everyone has something to celebrate. I gotta say, Teyana Taylor really worked the room. She walked around greeting people left and right and seemed genuinely excited to be in conversation with everyone she bumped into. Rita Wilson was another person that seemed to be always engaged in at least three conversations at once. People were noticeably excited to see Jacob Elordi as well, though some of that is credit goes to his height — he was easy to spot from anywhere in the room. Some of the bigger names (Leo, Spielberg, Timmy, Emma) seemed like they skipped the mingling portion of the luncheon and really made appearances only on the step-and-repeat and in the class photo. There was a kind of “role call” at the end of the luncheon where they called each nominee up one by one to the stage. The biggest cheers by far were for Ryan and Zinzi Coogler.
Who had your favorite outfit?
Miriam Margolyes, attending for the Live-Action Short nomineeA Friend of Dorothy — she had a fully sequined suit.
Was there anything fun that happened that wasn’t captured on social media?
Everyone stumbling out into the daylight around 3:30 p.m. after a four-hour boozy lunch in a dark ballroom was a funny scene. I really don’t know why it’s not a dinner, LOL.
Besides Teyana and the Cooglers, anyone else who inspired a notably outsize reaction?
The directors got pretty big applause being called up. Chloé Zhao, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Guillermo Del Toro most notably. Domee Shi ofElio got a cheer from yours truly.
Final question: How was the food?
It was a pretty simple three-course meal. A salad to start, miso chicken on rice as the main course, and berries and cream with some macarons and truffles for dessert. I always have a low bar for catered events of that size, but it wasn’t bad! I’m a sucker for berries and cream, so I guess that was probably my favorite. That or the coffee they passed around at the end of the meal. That was a lifeline.
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