Summer Oscar Forecast: Will Barbenheimer Dominate?

Can anything slow down the Barbenheimer trains?

While it’s only August, there are several bonafide awards contenders that are sure to be in the conversation once Oscar season really gets underway.

As of right now, most categories are a battle of the box office champions. Barbenheimer has the memes, the same release date, and so much of the movie oxygen this year — will the Oscars have room for anything other than Barbie or Oppenheimer?

Based on what movies have already been released, here are some front runners for nominations, along with my picks, if I had a vote.

Best Picture

While most of the Best Picture nominees will likely come from the fall slate of movies, there are several that have a good shot of winning the big prize. I put Oppenheimer at the top of the pack now, but anything can happen.

• Oppenheimer — PREDICTED WINNER

• Barbie

• Past Lives

• Air

• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

• Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. 

• Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Best Director

The edge here goes to Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer, who is due for some Academy hardware.

Greta Gerwig is no slouch at all and should be taking home the trophy for Best Adapted Screenplay for Barbie. Celine Song (Past Lives) likely will get some recognition, but I wonder if it has the legs to stay on the top of my mind down the road.

I’d like to see Ben Affleck (Air) get a nomination for Best Director, but that feels unlikely, given what’s on the docket for the rest of the year. With a murderers row of directors releasing movies this fall, this lineup will be one of the most talked about and hotly debated slate of nominees in recent memory. Book it.

Best Actor

Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer — A clear-cut front-runner at this point. Dynamite performance (yeah, pun intended).

Best Actress

Margot Robbie in Barbie. Another easy call here, at this point in the year. Greta Lee (Past Lives) may have a case, but that’s a long shot.

Best Supporting Actor 

This appears to be a two-man race at this point, between Ryan Gosling (Barbie) and Robert Downey Jr. (Oppenheimer). I loved both performances, but only one had a musical number. Advantage, Gosling, for now.

Best Supporting Actress 

Another full category of very strong performances. I would love to see Emily Blunt get an Oscar, especially for her tremendous scene with the committee. I think America Ferrera’s monologue puts her in the driver’s seat for now, but it’s a long season.

Coming Soon

As we enter the festival season, awards season will really start to pick up speed. Thankfully, there are plenty of movies coming out this fall that have sights on awards.

Here’s a short list to get you ready:

• Dune: Part Two (dir, Denis Villeneuve) — The highly anticipated part two with a huge cast and full of technical prowess. See this one on the biggest screen possible.

• Killers of the Flower Moon (dir, Martin Scorsese) — King Marty, Leo, De Niro - probably my most anticipated movie left on the calendar. Can’t come soon enough.

• Poor Things (dir, Yorgos Lanthimos) — Emma Stone reunites with The Favourite (2018) director here in an artsy, surrealist, sci-fi film with Willem Defoe. A lot going on, but Emma Stone is always stellar.

• Maestro (dir, Bradley Cooper) —Bradley Cooper plays Leonard Bernstein (you might have seen the recent discourse over wearing a prosthetic nose).

• Napoleon (dir, Ridley Scott) — Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, and a lot of spectacles. It is the French Revolution, after all.

• Ferrari (dir, Michael Mann) — Adam Driver and fast cars. Need I say more? I have big hopes for this one.

• Foe (dir, Garth Davis) — Saoirse Ronan & Paul Mescal could see acting nominations for being the darlings of Film Twitter. I also have to stay on brand as a pro-Saoirse fan too.

I can’t wait to see these movies, and I hope you are excited about them.

Once we see more of these movies come out, there will of course be shake-ups in the race. There’s a lot still left to release and it is shaping up to be an excellent year for the movies. Stay tuned for updates to the Oscar races as the movies come out.

It’s never too early to start making your predictions, or your list of movies to see before the Oscars. We’ll see if the hype is real or if it is only a mirage - there are always a couple of movies that come out of nowhere or hold the attention far longer than expected.

What movie are you most looking forward to this fall? Let me know in the comments!