Oscars: The 20 movies most likely to receive Academy Awards this season

The winds of winter can chill you to the bone, summer is so uncomfortably sticky, spring is beset by hay fever and autumn, actually autumn is pretty great. But, as the font of all wisdom, Moira Rose, once said, her favourite season is awards season.

We’re about to plunge headfirst into it for the next few months, swinging through the BAFTAs, SAGs, Critics Choice and even the Golden Globes, culminating in the Oscars in March.

There are glamorous gowns on red carpets, celebrity roundtables in which actors and filmmakers wax lyrical about craft and soul, and there will be self-congratulatory speechifying.

Sometimes, with the Hollywood machinery in full force, you can overlook the real reason why anyone is handing out those golden trophies — the films.

The best thing about awards season is ambitious, interesting and off-beat movies dominate the conversation, the one time of the year when big-budget blockbusters and franchise entries take a back seat (although the better ones can sneak in).

These are the films with the most heat right now. Expect to hear a lot more about them.

BABYGIRL

Babygirl premiered at the Venice Film Festival and tells the story of an older, confident chief executive who embarks on a sizzling affair with a young man who works for her.

Directed by Halina Reijn, it’s meant to be sexy and hot and will explore the complexity of those thorny dynamics. Nicole Kidman is widely expected to be a strong contender for the best actress race after picking up the win at Venice.

January 30

ANORA

It’s wild to think a film by indie director Sean Baker (who once shot an entire film, Tangerine, on three iPhone 5Ses) is the current frontrunner to win a bunch of the major categories including picture, director, actress and screenplay.

It’s an anarchic and intoxicating comedy-drama about an exotic dancer who gets involved with the son of a Russian oligarch. Anora won the Palme d’Or in May.

December 26

EMILIA PEREZ

Emilia Perez has quite the international flair: It’s a Spanish-language musical set in Mexico and made by French filmmakers, and starring Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez and Karla Sofia Gascon.

Enrapturing and effulgent, it’s the story of a cartel boss who fakes his own death so she could live the life she has always felt was right, as a woman – and of the women in her life including her lawyer, her former wife and her new girlfriend. The vivid musical numbers are full of deep emotions.

January 16

MARIA

Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain has proven himself a deft storyteller when it comes to the inner lives of famous women, having previously made films centred on Princess Diana and Jackie Kennedy.

This time, it’s opera singer Maria Callas, who, like Jackie, was also involved with Aristotle Onassis. The film is set during her final years living in Paris in the 1970s. Angelina Jolie plays Callas and her performance has put her well in the conversation for best actress.

January 30

THE BRUTALIST

A sweeping historical drama, The Brutalist covers more than three decades in the life a fictional Hungarian Holocaust survivor who migrates to the US chasing the promised American dream.

Adrian Brody previously won an Oscar for playing a Jewish Holocaust survivor and it’s looking good for him to repeat the feat.

Also keep an eye out for director Brady Corbet (who made the memorable The Childhood of a Leader when he was 26), who is line for a directing nod for his momentous achievement. There’s always one ambitious, three-and-a-half hour epic every awards season and this year, it’s The Brutalist.

January 23

CONCLAVE

Adapted from Robert Harris’s book, Conclave goes behind the scenes of a fictional papal election and it is a surprisingly exciting and very well paced and edited drama that is equal parts baroque and really funny.

There is as much politicking, factional warfare and personality clashes as any leadership ballots. They just all happen to wear cardinals’ robes. Director Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front) is in the mix for director while Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci are stalking the acting gongs. Also expect it to do well in best picture and adapted screenplay. A real force.

January 9

DUNE: PART TWO

Denis Villeneuve’s first Dune film won six Oscars at the 2022 ceremony, albeit mostly for technical categories, because there is no denying that when it comes to craft, the Dune movies are in a class of their own.

The second film was, for many audiences, more accessible than the more contemplative first instalment and anyone who could makes heads-and-tails of and put on screen Frank Herbert’s complex mythology is already a hero. Look for Dune: Part Two to be competitive in the craft categories again, and don’t discount it for the shinier ones either.

Digital rental

SING SING

If last year’s Rustin was a rehearsal for Colman Domingo’s eventual coronation as an Oscar winner, then Sing Sing could be the real deal.

Domingo, who has consistently impressed with his work in the likes of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Zola and If Beale Street Could Talk, is earning plaudits for his performance in this film set in Sing Sing, a maximum security prison.

It explores the redemptive powers of art and creative expression in a story about incarcerated men in a prison theatre program.

January 16

A REAL PAIN

The second movie with actor Jesse Eisenberg in the director’s chair, the drama-comedy is about two cousins who embark on a pilgrimage-of-sorts on a Holocaust tour in their grandmother’s native Poland.

They want to understand where she comes from and how their family history formed who they are and their understandings of grief and pain. Kieran Culkin, still hot from his Emmys win for Succession, is fantastic and will nab, at the very least, a nomination in supporting actor.

December 26

WICKED: PART ONE

Awards voting bodies have a hot-and-cold relationship with musicals. They usually love them because the form embodies everything grand about Hollywood productions but sometimes, it’s more miss than hit.

Wicked: Part One is likely to be one of the former. Adapted from the hugely popular Broadway musical, it’s a revisionist origin story of the Wicked Witch of the West. The performances from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, and best picture, are the races to watch here.

November 21

SEPTEMBER 5

This historical drama is on the bubble, just outside the field of top contenders in a bunch of categories but similar films based on true stories or have tapped into something contemporary urgent have in the past sometimes enjoyed a late surge.

Starring Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro and Ben Chaplin, it recounts the 1972 Munich Olympics hostage crisis, told through the lens of a news crew covering the events.

January 30

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN

James Mangold is quickly becoming your dad’s favourite filmmaker (although he probably doesn’t know his name), having helmed the likes of Ford v Ferrari, Logan and 3:10 to Yuma, and now he’ll turn his lens to Bob Dylan with this biopic about the legendary folk artist’s early days in New York City’s Greenwich Village until his controversial switch to electric instruments.

Timothee Chalamet is all over every prognosticator’s predictions list for best actor.

January 23

BLITZ

Steve McQueen’s (Shame, 12 Years a Slave) latest drama is set during the London Blitz in World War II and follows a young boy who, during his evacuation to the countryside, does a runner and returns back to the city as it’s being bombed.

It’s a vivid portrayal of the war on the homefront but the lukewarm critical response likely puts it out of contention for most of the main categories. However, the four-time nominated Saoirse Ronan has heat in supporting actress.

November 22, Apple TV+

THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG

With a more international voting body thanks to the Oscars’ effort to be less pale, male and stale, most years now have at least one international feature that breaks out of that specific category. The Seed of the Sacred Fig is seemingly this year’s anointed film, having won plaudits out of its Cannes premiere.

Written and directed by Mohammed Rasoulof, who had to flee Iran and now lives in exile, it’s a family drama meshed with the swirling political tensions that have rocked a society that can’t reconcile its hardline traditionalism with the demand for modernity and freedom.

January 23

QUEER

When Daniel Craig was cast as James Bond in the mid-2000s, part of the backlash (he’s too blond, he’s too short!) was that he was relatively unknown, having primarily starred in indie or low-budget studio movies.

After that mega-franchise, he’s shown no inkling to stay in the world, preferring to return to character-driven pieces (maybe Knives Out not withstanding) such as Queer. Directed by Luca Guadagnino, it’s based on William S. Burrough’s book about a gay American man whose life is changed when he meets a young man. It’s the first time Craig has been in real contention for the statuette.

February 6

THE APPRENTICE

There wasn’t much appetite for a Donald Trump origin story before the US presidential election and there is probably even less so now — and that is likely to be The Apprentice’s most significant handicap in a Democrat-leaning industry.

However, there is no denying that Jeremy Strong’s performance as Trump mentor Roy Cohn was so effective and surprisingly affecting. Strong imbued nuance and empathy into a man history has already judged to be a monster that, by the end, you end up having compassion for Cohn.

Cinemas now

THE WILD ROBOT

Chris Sanders’ gorgeous adaptation of a kid’s book is the frontrunner in the animated feature category and given the great love for the film, it is well-placed to see off competition from Disney’s upcoming Moana 2 and Lion King: Mufasa as well as Pixar’s Inside Out 2.

In its favour is The Wild Robot is not a franchise entry (yet) and its story about a robot who finds itself marooned on a planet with no humans and adopts a duckling as its child is deeply emotional. It’s also a contender in adapted screenplay.

Cinemas and digital rental now

NOSFERATU

Awards voters have rarely rewarded horror movies – only five in its almost 100-year history have nabbed a best picture nomination – but Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse) have built a solid reputation as a visceral, bold filmmaker.

Taking on F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, itself drawn from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, gives it a prestigious air while Eggers’ striking visuals should see the film in the race for cinematography.

January 1

GLADIATOR II

The original 2000 movie won a slew of Oscars and that latent love for it is giving the sequel a halo effect. While it is certainly a spectacle with impressive production design and visual effects, a choppy script and inconsistent tone should, in theory, rule it out.

Also, the memory of Ridley Scott’s more recent films such as Napoleon, most of which were stinkers. However, Scott is old and a legend, and Denzel Washington’s delicious, villainous turn may get a look in.

Cinemas now

MUFASA: THE LION KING

Disney has become such an intellectual property machine, going back to the same well time and again that it would have been unlikely that one of its “live-action”/CGI efforts would be considered a serious contender.

Except that Mufasa: The Lion King is directed by Barry Jenkins who directed Moonlight, which elevates its odds. It’s more likely that Mufasa’s Oscars odds lay with Lin-Manuel Miranda who is still in the hunt for his EGOT (missing only the O) who has written original songs for this prequel centred on Simba’s doomed dad.

December 19