Joey Magidson
Greetings from Telluride and welcome to September! Yes, I’m here at the Telluride Film Festival for the next few days, before heading home briefly and departing again for the Toronto International Film Festival. Pray for Mojo (fans of The Simpsons get it). This is such an exciting and important time of the season, not just because of all the flicks being shot into our cinematic veins, but it’s the first point in which it doesn’t seem fully ridiculous to evoke the name of Oscar. Sure, few things win an Academy Award in the first days of September, but important ground work begins. So, what better time is there than now to check in and give a tinker to my predictions?
Festival season is hot and heavy, with the Venice Film Festival kicking off a day before the Telluride Film Festival, which revealed its lineup yesterday at last. Next week, the Toronto International Film Festival will chime in, dumping even more movies into the fray. A month from now, the New York Film Festival will bring this deluge to a close, but not before the landscape has been utterly changed.
While Venice and Telluride go on concurrently, Toronto looms. These will be where most of the new Oscar buzz comes from. We’ve already seen TÁR largely receive raves, with positive words (though vaguely divisive) coming for Netflix’s Bardo (or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths) and White Noise. Next, we’ll be awaiting word on a ton of other potential Oscar hopefuls. They include The Banshees of Inisherin, Blonde, Bones & All, The Son, and The Whale at Venice, with Telluride world premiering Empire of Light and Women Talking. TIFF then kicks off and brings word on Causeway, The Fabelmans, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, The Greatest Beer Run Ever, The Woman King, and more. So, tis the busy season!
After TIFF, things will calm down a bit, film festival wise, aside from NYFF. This fest will be low on showcasing new awards contenders, outside of She Said, but it will confirm if a player can withstand a different sort of audience and environment. Once we’re at that point, that’s when the real work of prognostication can begin…
Where does that leave the race? Well, we pretty much know what’s in and what’s out, at least in terms of release dates. So, that helps. Nothing else seems like it’s about to crash the festivals, either, so don’t expect Babylon or anything to be a last minute addition. The stage is set and we know the lot to be sorted through. There’s just a lot of sorting that’s about to be done. Exciting, right? Such is the start of the fall each other.
In terms of what’s already been released, it seems like somewhat slim pickings mostly, aside from Everything Everywhere All At Once and Top Gun: Maverick. Both have had a significant portion of time to build of clout as prestige players. The former has even been making major moves with Michelle Yeoh. Will the latter end up just a technical player? We shall see, but their first challenges are incoming.
My prior early prediction articles (found here, here, here, here, and here) are available for your perusal, and can see some more of the changes I’ve been making. It’s a little silly, since things are about to change again, but this is a snapshot of where things stand, here as the calendar turns to September.
Folks, as always you can see my newest crack at advance Oscar predictions (which officially now will just be considered regular old new predictions, as opposed to year in advance) right here at Awards Radar. The changes are coming, and will continue to come, more and more, as the fall festivals conclude. So, sit tight…
Stay tuned for another update to these Oscar predictions as the summer continues!
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