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Source: Variety
As the yearly film awards season moves along and makes it way towards the Academy Awards, the event often regarded as the climactic culmination of this period, there will usually come a point where one film is determined to be the one that is most likely to win the highly coveted Best Picture prize, the Academy’s most prestigious honor. How this is predicted can be very simple – all one needs to do is look at which film is receiving the most awards (especially those that are a given organization’s equivalent to a Best Picture accolade) – and while there is by no means a guarantee that all of these successes will lead directly to the film’s name being read aloud at the end of the Oscars (there is, after all, still plenty of room for an upset to take place), its chances of this happening do tend to be more likely if the film in question has been able to garner several different awards prior to that point. Last year, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” became a quick pick for many predicting what would win the Best Picture award as it won a surprising majority of the awards it had been nominated for by just about every critics group and awards organization that had chosen to recognize it; sure enough, not only was that very film indeed named Best Picture, but six other prizes from the Academy were given to prove once and for all that “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was a film that lived up to its title and reputation. Figuring out which film will be the next to achieve this honor has admittedly taken a little longer, but if the recent Critics Choice Awards are any indication, it appears that a major front-runner has entered the scene.
Although the people who vote in the Critics Choice Awards are not the same people who vote in the Academy Awards (as the name implies, the former are voted on by film critics, while the latter are voted on by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, many of whom are not film critics), both events share many of the exact same categories, so it’s quite easy to draw comparisons between the two and perhaps even determine what will win at the later event from what wins at the earlier event. During this year’s Critics Choice Awards, which were held on Sunday, June 14th, one film in particular proved successful in winning more awards than any other film nominated that evening, with one of the eight prizes it was given being the award for Best Picture. That film: Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer”, which not only won Best Picture, but also Best Director for Nolan, Best Supporting Actor for Robert Downey, Jr., Best Acting Ensemble, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Score. All of these wins come just shortly after the multiple Golden Globes that “Oppenheimer” had been awarded last week (one of them being Best Motion Picture – Drama), and given the prominence of both of these events during the typical awards season, it may be safe to say that Nolan’s film, while not yet by any means guaranteed a Best Picture win at the upcoming Oscars, has a better chance of doing so than any other film at this point in time.
Following close behind in second place with a total of six wins at the Critics Choice Awards is, amusingly enough, the other half of the insanely popular Barbenhemier phenomenon. Although Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” was denied a Best Picture win (as well as wins in many other categories that were ultimately awarded to “Oppenheimer”), it was fortunate enough to be named the year’s Best Comedy, a honor that could’ve otherwise gone to such films as “Bottoms” and “No Hard Feelings”. In addition to that accolade, “Barbie” also succeeded in picking up prizes for Best Original Screenplay (which, due to the Academy acknowledging the film being based on the Mattell toy property, it is not allowed to compete for at the Oscars and will instead have to be considered for Best Adapted Screenplay), Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Hair and Makeup, and Best Original Song for the tune “I’m Just Ken”. Combined together, the ongoing Barbenheimer phenomenon was ultimately able to take home a grand total of fourteen wins from the Critics Choice Awards; if this pattern is able to continue all the way to the Academy Awards, then it will only further prove just how bizarre, yet fascinating the existence of Barbenheimer continues to be.
This year’s Critics Choice Awards have also created a better idea of what might win in the Oscars’ acting categories, especially considering how the Golden Globes’ decision to split each of its leading actor prizes into two (giving one for Best Actor or Actress in a Drama, and another for Best Actor or Actress in a Musical or Comedy) makes it slightly more difficult to get a sense of what might win if there were only one award for each gender. For example, Cillian Murphy of “Oppenheimer” was able to win the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama, while Paul Giamatti of Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers” won for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy; when the two were pitted against each other in one category though, it was Giamatti who won the Critics Choice Award. A similar situation played out with the Best Actress prize; at the Golden Globes, Lily Gladstone of Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” was awarded Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, while Emma Stone of Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” won for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. Once again, it was the more “comedic” performance that the Critics Choice Awards displayed a preference for, with Stone ultimately being named Best Actress.
Elsewhere throughout the Critics Choice Awards, Da’Vine Joy Randolph of “The Holdovers” won Best Supporting Actress (an accolade she also won at the Golden Globes), “American Fiction” was decided to have the Best Adapted Screenplay, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” was named Best Animated Feature (which it lost to “The Boy and the Heron” at the Golden Globes), and “Anatomy of a Fall” was honored with the award for Best Foreign Language Film. How likely any of these films and individuals are to win these exact same prizes at the Academy Awards is far from certain at this point in time, but much like “Oppenheimer”, if these films can continue to keep earning awards as the season progresses towards its inevitable conclusion, they may have a solid enough chance of doing so once Oscar night finally arrives.
