OSCARS 2024
2024 Oscar nomination predictions: which films are favourites to be most nominated?
Ahead of the announcement of the nominees for the 96th Academy Awards, we take a look at the films that are likeliest to get the most Oscars nods.
Critics seem to agree that four movies - Oppenheimer, Barbie, Killers of the Flower Moon and Poor Things - are particularly well placed to bag a host of awards nods when the Oscars’ 2024 candidates are announced next week. So far in this year’s awards season, the quartet have been hoovering up nominations.
Starring Margot Robbie as the iconic Mattel doll, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie led the contenders at the Golden Globes earlier this month, with nine nominations. Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s biopic about Robert Oppenheimer, the man credited as the ‘father of the atomic bomb’, followed with eight. Killers of the Flower Moon, an epic Western crime drama directed by Martin Scorsese, completed the Globe’s podium of nominees with seven, together with Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos’ surreal black comedy.
These four pictures also headed up the nominations at the Critics’ Choice Awards a week ago, with 18, 13, 12 and eight nods, respectively. Meanwhile, Oppenheimer and Poor Things have both picked up double-digit nomination tallies ahead of February’s BAFTAs, with Killers of the Flower Moon only one short of breaking single figures.
Four films to net double-figure nomination hauls?
Writing in Variety, the film critic Clayton Davis has predicted that Oppenheimer, Barbie, Killers of the Flower Moon and Poor Things will all receive 10 or more nominations ahead of this year’s Academy Awards. Were this to happen, it would be only the second time in Oscars history that four films have been nominated as many times in a single year.
RogerEbert.com’s Daniel Joyaux is among the sizeable contingent of film writers who also believe this foursome of films will be the most-nominated Oscars contenders. So, too, is the BBC’s Nicholas Barber, who expects the 2024 Academy Awards to be dominated by blockbusters like Oppenheimer and Barbie - two movies that also lead the nominees for the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards at the end of February.
“In recent years,” Barber says, “the Oscars have favoured such quirky independent films as Coda, Nomadland and Everything Everywhere All at Once, but this will be the year of high-profile, high-budget Hollywood hits.”
Watch the trailer for Oppenheimer:
Watch the trailer for Barbie:
Watch the trailer for Killers of the Flower Moon:
Watch the trailer for Poor Things:
What other movies might lead Oscars nominations?
Outside of ‘Barbenheimer’, Killers of the Flower Moon and Poor Things, The Holdovers is a movie that has so far had a successful awards season, winning multiple gongs at the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Awards, and picking up seven BAFTAs nominations. Starring Paul Giamatti, the comedy-drama joins the films above among the betting houses’ top five candidates for the Oscar for Best Picture, per Oddschecker.
Other movies that have earned numerous nominations this awards season, but seem less likely to be among the most-nominated at the Oscars, include Anatomy of a Fall, Maestro, Past Lives and American Fiction. Maestro, the Leonard Bernstein biopic written by, produced by, directed by and starring Bradley Cooper, is a film widely deemed to have courted Oscars recognition. However, Davis warns that some Academy members view the picture as a Cooper “vanity project”.
When are the 2024 Oscars nominees announced?
The nominations for the 96th annual Academy Awards are to be announced on Tuesday 23 January 2024. In an event hosted by the actors Zazie Beetz and Jack Quaid, the nominees will be revealed from 8:30am ET/5:30am PT.
When are the 2024 Oscars?
This year’s Oscars are to be held on Sunday 10 March 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California. Hosted by the comedian and talk-show presenter Jimmy Kimmel, who will be anchoring the Academy Awards for the fourth time, the gala is scheduled to air live on ABC from 7pm ET/4pm PT.