411 Movies/TV Fact or Fiction: Will Oppenheimer Win the Best Picture Oscar?

Welcome back to the 411mania Movies/TV Fact or Fiction. I’m your host Jake Chambers.

With the Academy Awards just days away, it’s time for our special Oscars edition of the Movies/TV FoF! Walking the red carpet again this year is the stunning Jeremy Thomas, 411’s film guru, and making his debut at the festivities is the glamorous Rob Stewart.

So let’s find out what story their outfits are telling!

Statement #1: Oppenheimer will win the Best Picture Oscar.

Jeremy Thomas: FACT – It’s essentially a two-horse race right now between Oppenheimer and Poor Things, and Nolan’s flick has a solid lead in the running.  (You could make an argument for The Holdovers as well, but it’s more around third right behind Poor Things.)  Oppenheimer has won too many awards in the lead up to make this incredibly competitive at the moment, though the SAG and PGA results could absolutely change that as they represent the biggest chunks of the Academy’s voting body.

As it currently stands, most of the nominees are running distantly behind the frontrunners.  Killers of the Flower Moon has been shut out too many times to be a likely winner while Barbie, American Fiction, Zone of Interest, Maestro and Past Lives don’t have any realistic shot, as much as I love many of those films.  The only other one I could see is Anatomy of a Fall as the big shocking moment, but even that seems extremely unlikely.  Oppenheimer isn’t a bad choice by any stretch for the Best Picture winner and right now unless something changes, it has the best chances by far.

Rob Stewart: FACT – Well, it’s certainly the odds-on favorite, isn’t it? Anyone who has seen my prognostication abilities will know that I am dreadful at forecasting these types of things. So I have to look at all of the nominees. I see no chance in heck for American Fiction, The Holdovers, Past Lives, Maestro, or The Zone Of Interest. I haven’t seen Anatomy Of A Fall, but it certainly has buzz, so there’s definitely a chance there, even if small. That leaves Poor Things, Barbie, and Killers Of The Flower Moon. Barbie isn’t getting it since it was left out of the Director and Actress categories. So there’s a three-and-a-half horse race if I leave Anatomy Of A Fall in as a dark horse candidate. Poor Things and Killers certainly have the best chance to upend Oppy, but if I were a betting man–and thank Christ that I’m not–I’d say Oppenheimer wins it, edging out Poor Things in the end. 

Jake Chambers: FICTION – I’m just going to chime in here and add a FICTION because I think, generally, you don’t want to be the frontrunner going in the final weeks of Oscar voting. It’s really not about the movie, just the attitude of the voters who have been known to swing away from the big favorites when worked over by the right campaign, particularly in recent history. Moonlight, Green Book, CODA, even Parasite came in as surprises over more popular favorites those years. Sure, there are some movies that just steam roll through, like Everything Everywhere last year… but are the Oscars really going to give all the awards to the straightest, whitest, most WWII movie possible again in 2024? I would bet against it if I were you.

Statement #2: Greta Gerwig deserved an Oscar nomination for Best Director.

Jeremy Thomas: FACT – I think Gerwig absolutely deserved a nomination.  She made a wonderful film out of a piece of plastic and a brand, and everything within Barbie points to reasons why Gerwig deserved a Best Director nomination.  That said, I’m not mad that she wasn’t nominated.  Surprised, yes but not mad.  Why?  Because I look at the nominees and each of them was nomination-worthy too.  Who do you take out of the nomination list for Gerwig?  Not Nolan or Scorsese, both of whom delivered work that ranks among their career bests.  Certainly not Yorgos Lanthimos; Poor Things is the realization of a bold vision that guided to the screen.  And not Justine Triel or Jonathan Glazer, who delivered a couple of foreign films that fought through the noise to earn Best Picture and Best Director nods.

My point is, there were plenty of nominees that could have gotten the spot but didn’t, Gerwig among them.  I would have been happy to see her nominated and wouldn’t be shouting about how Glazer or Lanthimos were snubbed if they didn’t get nominated.  That’s just the way the nominations went this year.

Rob Stewart: FACT – Having not seen Anatomy Of A Fall yet, I can’t speak to that one. But I HAVE seen The Zone Of Interest, and I can safely say that Greta deserved a nomination over Jonathan Glazer as Best Director. Make no mistake, the direction of Zone is absolutely well done. But I found the movie a bit underwhelming overall. Glazer did the best he could with a screenplay that had no plot, but Barbie was a better, more complete movie. The visuals Gerwig came up with really created its own universe and encapsulated the source material and the plot brilliantly! It’s weird to see her shut out here when Barbie was massively both a financial and critical success. 

Statement #3: You care who wins the Oscar for Live Action Short Film. 

Jeremy Thomas: FACT – I care not because I’m incredibly knowledgeable of the Short Film nominees yet, but because shorts are an essential part of cinema and they deserve their spotlight.  Many of the filmmakers we love today got their start making short films, and the Oscar for Live Action Short gives the oft-overlooked medium a spotlight.  I always try to see at least as many of the shorts as I can before Oscar Sunday (If you’re interested, you can check out how to watch many of them here) and I do always end up with one I’m rooting for.  I hope to make it through most of them by the time the ceremony rolls around this year.

Rob Stewart: FICTION – Well THIS feels like a trap, but you know what? I’ll play fair and be honest. I haven’t seen any of the nominees for Live Action Short Film. And while I’d love to say “Well, I’ll check out the winner sometime!”, I haven’t seen the last X-many winners in this category, either. So there it is: I’m an uncultured boar. I care that this category exists! That’s great! And I’m glad these creators are nominated for their efforts! But I don’t watch a lot of live action short films, it turns out. So to feign investment here would be disingenuous. And if nothing else, I am always ingenuous. 

¡SWITCH!

Statement #4: Forget Barbie, the Best Actress Oscar nomination Margot Robbie was really robbed of was for 2022’s Babylon.

Rob Stewart: FICTION – I kind of want to go neutral here and say “What if I don’t think she should have been nominated either year for either movie?”. I love Margot Robbie, but as far as 2024 goes, Greta Lee for Past Lives was a MUCH bigger snub than Robbie was. And for 2023, I’d have liked to have seen both Viola Davis (The Woman King) and Danielle Deadwyler (Till) get nominated before Robbie. I just simply did not have Robbie in my Top 5 last year or this year. I’d say her performance and what she had to do in Babylon was probably better than in Barbie, but Barbie was a much better movie than Babylon, and it required more carrying from her to make it work. I guess based on wording of the question, I can safely go Fiction here, as I don’t think she was robbed of a nomination in 2023 regardless.

Jeremy Thomas: FICTION – I have been on record as saying how much I dislike Babylon.  I understand why it works for many, but for me it’s Damien Chazelle tripping over his own ego.  It’s overstuffed, overwrought, meandering and pretentious, and I just can’t with it. (On a specific note, that insipid ending?  Fuck you, movie.)  But I say that all not to slam the film (okay, not just to slam the film), but to point out that I do think that the cast was fantastic and Robbie especially was quite good.  The crying scene in particular stands out to me as a brilliant piece of acting from her, and she captured the essence of the character — and what she represented in old Hollywood — beautifully.

But here’s the thing; Robbie was not going to get nominated there, and I can’t say she was robbed.  Babylon was far too polarizing for it to be able to win over enough Oscar voters and fair or not, they want to honor films that love Hollywood, not ones that tear it down.  Babylon may be inspired by Chazelle’s love of old school Hollywood, but most of what is portrayed on the screen is — let’s be euphemistic and call it a very strong criticism of the era.  And fair play to him; his willingness to expose the broken aspects of the Golden Age of Hollywood is one of the few things I like about the script.  My point here is that in hindsight, Robbie had no realistic chance at a nomination because voters — who, it must be reminded, are still very older as a whole and traditionally-minded — weren’t going to award a leading role in a film they viewed (right or wrong) as tearing down Hollywood as an institution.

Statement #5: This year’s Oscars telecast will draw more than 20 million viewers, something it hasn’t done since 2020.

Rob Stewart: FACT –  I’ll be honest: the only television numbers I’ve ever kept track of was the Raw/Nitro Ratings War in the late 90’s. So I’m definitely not the expert here on how many people ever watch anything. But seeing that the Oscars accomplished this feat as recently as 2020 makes me think that this year should be a shoo-in. You have Barbie and Oppenheimer up for big awards, and both were massive box office draws. You would presume that would lead to more folks tuning in to see if either wins Best Picture. In 2020, they hit 20m with the top flicks being Parasite, Joker, and Jojo Rabbit. This year’s crop absolutely beats those out for universal appeal. So if they did it four years ago, I’d say they can do it again.  

Jeremy Thomas: FACT – Honestly, I’m not fully confident in this; it all depends on a lot of factors including how much competition there is on other networks, whether the race for Best Picture is even competitive by the time the ceremony rolls around and a lot more.  But I would say this year has the best shot in a while.  Last year’s Academy Awards saw a bump in the ratings for a second straight year thanks to some blockbusters like Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick being in the running.  This year actually tops last year in that respect thanks to Barbenheimer, and Oppenheimer being a frontrunner should help that out.  I wouldn’t say it’s a sure thing by any stretch of the imagination but I would give it a 50/50 shot of jumping up to the 20 million range.

Statement #6: The Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or is historically better at picking the best movie of the year than the Academy Awards Oscar for Best Picture.

Jeremy Thomas: FICTION – Don’t get me wrong here; the Palme d’Or has been awarded to some films that I absolutely love.  Just in the last several years we have Anatomy of a Fall, Titane, Parasite, and Triangle of Sadness.  But it’s a film festival award that only hands out the award to the films entered at Cannes.  That alone disqualifies it as being better at picking the best movie of the year because it doesn’t consider 95% of the films released in a year.

But more to the point, in the 21st century it has picked three films I would consider even in the conversation for the best of that particular year.  Best Picture has gone to 10 that I would consider contenders for the best of their years.  There is no competition on this one; while the Oscars have a number of issues and things they need to fix, there is a reason why we lean toward them as the definitive film awards ceremony and it’s because when it comes to the impossible task of defining “what is the best art piece in this particular medium we call film,” they generally do the best job overall.

Rob Stewart: FICTION – I guess all of these statements are subjective, but this is the MOST subjective. And for me, it’s going to be a No, dog. Last year, the Palme d’Or went to… Triangle of Sadness? And the year before that, they had Titane beat out CODA? I can’t vibe with either of those picks. The further back you go from there, the fewer of the Palme winners I have seen, but in 2004, they had Fahrenheit 9/11, which… say what you want about the politics involved and how important or not what Michael Moore had to say was… was that the best picture of any year ever? That was just a political pick. God bless the Palme d’Or for not being anywhere near as United States centric as the Oscars are, but it seems they are often as determined to ignore American pictures as the Oscars are to ignore foreign ones. I can’t say one is definitively better than the other, but in the recent history, at least, I’ll take the Academy Award winners over the Palme’s. 

Jake Chambers: FACT – Gotta jump back in on this one because I believe it’s a clear FACT! The Academy Awards are historically a “celebration” of Hollywood movies, so right there you’re narrowing down the pool to the films from one place. Of course, they’ve honored foreign films in the past, but mostly in the “Foreign” category until a few years ago. Meanwhile the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or nominees have been made up of the best international films for decades. This is why you get movies from winners who are the greatest directors of all time who were never recognized in the Best Picture Oscar race, from Demy, Kurosawa, Wenders, Kiarostami, the Dardennes, Haneke, Kore-eda, and Weerasethakul, just to name a few, along with many of the greatest Hollywood directors whose films never won the Best Picture Oscar either, like Welles, Lynch, Altman, and Tarantino. That’s a pretty telling list.

A lot of that has to do with the Palme d’Or being awarded by a small jury of great filmmakers, instead of a popular vote of random Hollywood professionals. Because of this there’s a clear “voice” for the award stretching back over decades that celebrates cinematic auteurs and their best movies. While Rob did point out some examples of weaker Palmes winners, there have been some astounding fails for the Oscars in the past – and these are just the American movies that supposedly the Oscars specialize in: two Palme d’Or winners Apocalypse Now and All That Jazz were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in 1979, but the winner was Kramer vs. Kramer; Taxi Driver won the Palme in 1976 but lost the Oscar to Rocky; and Pulp Fiction won the Palme in 1994 but famously lost the Oscar to Forrest Gump. I guess in some ways you can see a schmaltzy through line with those American movies that kept winning the Oscar over the movies that long outlive them in cinematic history.

Neither one has a perfect track record, obviously, but the Oscars have so glaringly missed out on picking even the historically best American films each year, from Citizen Kane to Mad Max: Fury Road, and the Palme certainly doesn’t have movies as grossly mediocre and forgettable as Crash, The King’s Speech, or the Green Book on their list (and that’s just in the 2000s – please don’t even look at the list of ’80s winners).

Thanks again to Rob Stewart and Jeremy Thomas! Two award winners in my book!

You’ll find their columns throughout the week across the site, from Jeremy’s always fantastic weekly box office report, to Rob’s awesome re-watch journals on Buffy and Young Justice.

But if you want to see their picks for the best movies of 2023 check out their official columns:

Stew’s Top 50 – https://411mania.com/movies/stews-top-50-movies-of-2023-10-1/

And Jeremy’s Top 20 – https://411mania.com/movies/the-top-20-films-of-2023-10-1/

A serious lack of Plane on both those lists, but I’ll let that go since they obviously just didn’t see it!