The Big Picture · Discussion · Rankings · Interview
February 26, 2024/ 101 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins clear the last awards-season precursors (a Netflix-hosted SAG telecast, the PGA, the Independent Spirits, BAFTA, the WGA nominees, the Cesars), then lock a final Best Picture power ranking with Oppenheimer uncatchable and The Zone of Interest the only plausible spoiler. Then former Academy awards administrator Tom Oyer walks through how the voting actually works: preferential Best Picture ballots, proportional ranked-choice nominations by branch, and why he won't use the word 'snubbed.'
28 films across 3 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
The last precursorsSAG, PGA, the Spirits, BAFTA, WGA, the Cesars
Won Best Animated at the SAG-adjacent precursor slate, leaving a two-horse animated race. Sean is conflicted: the last Spider-Verse film already won, and the Academy tends to reward the finale, not the middle chapter, of a trilogy.
Took the BAFTA for animation, the counterweight to Spider-Verse. Sean floats a possible last Miyazaki movie as the sentimental case, even if it plays as incoherent to voters half-watching on the screener portal.
Not nominated, the documentary branch's most-discussed omission. Sean flags the doc branch as the category he can never read and wants to ask Tom Oyer about.
Won the BAFTA for documentary and, in Sean's read, the clear frontrunner. He watched it during 'wellness week' and calls it astonishing and at times unwatchable, with a sequence in the first 30 minutes that is hard to cope with. Streaming on PBS.
Won Best Feature and Best Director at the Independent Spirit Awards. Cited later as the film Scorsese and Nolan keep singling out, giving it a concentrated base of 'film people' support.
A.V. Rockwell's Best First Feature winner at the Spirits, another prize Sean wishes the Oscars handed out.
A WGA Original nominee that isn't an Oscar screenplay nominee at all, part of a scrambled Guild slate thrown off by the strike-delayed timeline.
An odd WGA Adapted nominee alongside Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon; the hosts read the whole Guild lineup as chaotic this year.
Another WGA Adapted nominee that never entered the Oscar conversation.
Final Best Picture Power Rankingsas of February 26th, No. 1 first
No. 1, and 'untackable.' Golden Globe, BAFTA, Critics' Choice, SAG cast, DGA, and PGA: just the 11th film to sweep SAG, DGA, and PGA together. The kind of front-runner (Slumdog, Return of the King, Gladiator) that makes an upset extremely unlikely. Sean's over/under of 8.5 Oscars from 13 nominations lands on the under.
No. 2 on the strength of international support and the moment: Gaza referenced in its BAFTA speeches, Spielberg calling it the best Holocaust film since his own. The hosts agree a win would be stunning but say it's Oppenheimer's likeliest challenger. Amanda floats, then rejects on ethical grounds, betting on it.
No. 3. A specialty-box-office success that 'consecrated' Emma Stone even if she loses Best Actress, with strength in production and costume design. The hosts don't think it wins the top prize.
No. 4, up from ninth in January when the hosts weren't sure it would get in. Cleaned up at the Cesars and has the juice in Original Screenplay, where a non-English winner (Parasite, Talk to Her) is rare but not unheard of.
No. 5. 'How the mighty have fallen' from a January No. 2. Da'Vine Joy Randolph is the one lock, sweeping Supporting Actress everywhere; Giamatti appears to have lost Best Actor to Cillian Murphy.
No. 6. Sean argues the affection among voters and 'film people' runs deeper than for Barbie, which is why it edges ahead here despite Barbie's bigger footprint.
No. 7, with the caveat that ranked-choice makes it either a 10 or a 2 depending on how ballots break: the exact question they save for Tom Oyer. America Ferrera's nomination and Werner Herzog's stray endorsement both come up.
No. 8. People think it's too long ('that's on them,' Sean says), and Lily Gladstone's live Best Actress race is the film's one real shot at hardware.
No. 9. Cord Jefferson has a real chance in Adapted Screenplay (he won at the Spirits and the BAFTAs), but the film has little juice elsewhere.
No. 10. 'Really not the award season you wanted if you're on the Maestro team.' The hosts put it last and mean it.
Tom Oyer on how Oscar voting really works
The standing example for why Best Picture expanded: the film whose omission is credited with pushing the category toward a wider, eventually locked-at-10 lineup.
Oyer's favorite illustration of ranked-choice working: a documentary lineup (an archival concert film, a verite piece, an animated doc) that could only have come from different pools of voters each backing their passion pick.
One of the five Documentary Feature nominees Oyer cites as proof the ballot surfaces wildly different styles of filmmaking.
Another of that Documentary Feature five, in Oyer's example of a lineup no single bloc could have produced.
The animated documentary in Oyer's five-nominee example (evidence, he says, that proportional ranked-choice lets divergent tastes each get represented).
Rounds out Oyer's Documentary Feature lineup, the verite entry among five very different approaches.
Part of Oyer's run through Oscars that match their moment: a 1967 winner about race, followed by pure escapism the next year.
The escapist Best Picture winner in 1968, 'such a tumultuous year,' in Oyer's read of how the awards track the social weather.
The X-rated 1969 winner that closes Oyer's late-'60s example of the Academy swinging with the times.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Best Picture history and analogies Slumdog MillionaireThe Lord of the Rings: The Return of the KingThe Lord of the Rings: The Two TowersGladiatorThe Power of the DogParasite
Original Screenplay history Talk to HerA Man and a WomanBlow-UpThe Fortune CookieKhartoumThe Naked PreyThe GodfatherDivorce Italian Style
Precursor also-rans The WifeIf Beale Street Could Talk
Tangents and bits The Devil Wears PradaPlus OneTedImaginaryPredatorThe Parent TrapDune: Part Two
Repertory and vintage Flower Drum SongCasablancaThe Way We WereCarrotblancaRabbit of Seville
The Jennifer Lopez detour This Is Me... Now: A Love StoryThe Greatest Love Story Never ToldArgo
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV BeefSuccessionThe CurseTed (Peacock series)Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2024 series)The BearMonsieur SpadeCurb Your EnthusiasmAbbott ElementaryDinner Time (Netflix)
Podcasts The WatchWTF with Marc Maron
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