The Oscars Race Is On: Best Supporting Actor

At this point, the Oscar race for Best Picture is between Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Poor Things and, interestingly enough, each has an adapted screenplay.

It is not clear which film would be the front runner at this time in the Best Adapted Screenplay category; it will depend on if one of the three films will dominate like last year’s Everything Everywhere All at Once or if the wealth will be shared more at the top with multiple film’s winning in the above the line categories.

Oppenheimer is still the very slight frontrunner for Best Picture and Director, so there is a chance that it can also win for its screenplay. It would be crazy if Christopher Nolan's first Oscar win is for screenplay and nothing else as he has not always been commended for his writing. However, if Nolan grabs the award for Best Director, there is a chance that this could win all three awards. 

Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese wrote Killers of the Flower Moon and both of them have Oscars, Roth for writing Forrest Gump and Scorsese for The Departed. They have not won Oscars since then so some would argue that they are overdue, but once you have that Oscar it can be tough to win another one. Killers of the Flower Moon will be nominated for quite a bit of awards, but will most likely miss out on wins in the big categories. This could still mean a screenplay win as a type of consolation. 

The third Best Picture frontrunner is Poor Things which was highly lauded over during most of the festival season and is also a fairly strange film, a frequent characteristic where the screenplay award is given its due.   There is also a narrative for Tony McNamara, the writer of Poor Things, to possibly win after The Great was unfortunately and prematurely canceled at Hulu. This also could be a makeup win for the insane snub after McNamara’s The Favourite somehow lost the screenplay award to Green Book in 2018. 

American Fiction came out of nowhere, winning the audience award at Tiff which makes several nominations likely, including Best Picture. Based on the way this film is being presented, it is almost guaranteed a screenplay nomination as this is where most biting satire type comedies will be recognized.   

The Zone of Interest is one of the most critically acclaimed movies and, while it covers some incredibly difficult subject matter, it is the type of film that will easily take a slot in the adapted screenplay nomination list with this film probably grabbing even more nominations. Jonathan Glazer is also a celebrated writer/director in Hollywood and this is his return after ten years while he also shamefully has not been nominated yet as a director or a writer. 

The five nominations listed above are pretty much locks and it is difficult to imagine any of them being passed over. However, All of Us Strangers has become more and more popular and has become a potential sixth place in many categories including adapted screenplay. In a lesser year, Spider-man: Across the Spider Verse could easily end up being a surprise nomination but this year definitely is much heavier of a category, reducing it to a long shot. 

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