Obsessing about the Telluride Film Festival and the film awards season since 2008!
"The best Telluride predictor I know."
-Sasha Stone, Awards Daily
"The best blog out there for predicting what will be going to Telluride."-Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture
"The Nostradamus of Telluride"
-Tim Appelo, Movies for Grownups
Here are updated nomination predictions for the Supporting Acting categories for the 97th Academy Awards. These categories were last predicted on Oct. 14. An actor's previous rank appears to the right of their names in parentheses. TFF #51 actors/films are in Bold.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1) Zoe Saldana/Emilia Perez (1)
2) Danielle Deadwyler/The Piano Lesson (2)
3) Isabella Rossellini/Conclave (4)
4) Saoirse Ronan/Blitz (5)
5) Felicity Jones/The Brutalist (3)
Others: Ariana Grande/Wicked, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor/Nickel Boys and Selena Gomez/Emilia Perez.
SUPPORTING ACTOR
1) Kieran Culkin/A Real Pain (1)
2) Denzel Washington/Gladiator II (3)
3) Guy Pearce/The Brutalist (2)
4) Charles Maclin/Sing Sing (56)
5) Stanley Tucci/Conclave (4)
Others: Jeremy Strong/The Apprentice, John Magaro/September 5 and Peter Saarsgard/September 5.
I'm updating the Lead Acting categories today. These categories were last updated on Oct. 10th. An actor's previous position is indicated in (parentheses). TFF #51 films are in Bold.
Others: Paul Mescal/Gladiator II, Sebastian Stan/The Apprentice, John David Washington/The Piano Lesson
I'll be updating the Supporting Acting categories on Monday.
MIDDLEBURG FEST AWARDS ARE ALL TFF #51 FILMS
The Middleburg Film festival is one of America's standout regional festivals. They traditionally schedule an incredible lineup of films each year. This year, as usual, a number of films that screened at TFF made their way to Middleburg. Four of those films earned Audience Awards as the fest concluded last Sunday.
Conclave and September 5 tied for the Audience Award for Narrative Features. The Seed of the Sacred Fig was named Best International Feature and Martha won the award for Documentary.
Other TFF films in the MFF included: All We Imagine as Light, Anora, Better Man, Carville: Winning Is Everything...Stupid, Emilia Perez, The End, Maria, Memoir of a Snail, Nickel Boys, No Other Land, The Piano Lesson, A Peal Pain, Santosh, Saturday Night and Separated.
Other high profile and non-TFF films included: Blitz, The Brutalist, Flow, Hard Truths, I'm Still Here, The Last Showgirl, Nightbitch. The Room Next Door, Sing Sing and The Wild Robot.
Here are updated nomination predictions for the Best Picture and Direction for the 97th Academy Awards. These categories were last predicted on Oct. 7th. A film's or director's previous rank appears to the right of their names in parentheses. TFF #51 actors/films are in Bold.
BEST PICTURE
1) Anora (2)
2) Conclave (3)
3) The Brutalist (4)
4) Emilia Perez (1)
5) Dune Part Two (5)
6) Gladiator II (7)
7) Sing Sing (6)
8) September 5 (9)
9) Blitz (8)
10) A Real Pain (-)
Others: A Complete Unknown, Saturday Night and The Room Next Door.
BEST DIRECTION
1) Brady Corbet/The Brutalist
2) Sean Baker/Anora
3) Jacques Audiard/Emilia Perez
4) Edward Berger/Conclave
5) Denis Villenueve/Dune Part Two
Others: Ridley Scott/Gladiator II, Walter Salles/I'm Still Here and Coralie Fargeat/The Substance.
Thursday I' be updating the Lead Acting categories.
SNAIL WINS LONDON
Memoir of a Snail which screened at TFF #51 (and earned a solid 4.03 average rating in The People's Telluride poll) was named Best Film in the competition section of the BFI London Film Festival last night. IFC Films is distributing the film which is set to be released on Oct. 25th.
Here are updated nomination predictions for the Screenplay categories for the 97th Academy Awards. These categories were last predicted on Sept. 30th. An film's previous rank appears to the right of their names in parentheses. TFF #51 actors/films are in Bold.
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1) Conclave (1)
2) Emilia Perez (-)
3) Sing Sing (2)
4) Nickel Boys (4)
5) Dune Part Two (3)
Others: The Room Next Door, The Piano Lesson and Hit Man.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1) Anora (1)
2) The Brutalist (3)
3) A Real Pain (4)
4) September 5 (-)
5) Saturday Night (2)
Others: The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Hard Truths and Blitz.
I'll be updating the Best Picture nomination predictions on Monday.
ZUWARSKI V. TEXAS HAS A PLAN
Many of you know that I'm high on the documentary Zurawski v. Texas. I think it was the best thing I saw at TFF #51...and that's saying something as I was a big fan of Emilia Perez, Saturday Night, Conclave and September 5. Sadly I missed out on seeing Anora.
Consequently, I have been low key pushing it forward as awards season has become fully alive. I honestly think it should be a serious player for the Best Doc Oscar at a minimum and if I had an Oscar ballot, at this point it would be atop my Best Picture ballot.
The film was the top rated movie on this year's MTFB People's Telluride. It didn't make the Pros Poll or The Composite because not enough of the Pros saw it Labor Day weekend. The limited Pros rating was a 4.25 which would have put it at #2 and combined with its Peoples rank (had there been a sufficient number of Pro ballots that kept the 4.25 average) would have put it atop of the Composite Poll.
It's that good. But...
So, I have been understandably a bit nervous as no distributor has picked up the film since it's stunning debut at T-ride. So nervous that I reached out to some of the journos I know to ask them if they were hearing anything about distribution or a release date. By and large the responses were along of the lines of "no idea". I did get an encouraging note from one prominent journalist that there was a plan in place for the movie to qualify for Oscar consideration. Then yesterday afternoon came the word from Deadline.com:
"EXCLUSIVE: Zurawski v Texas, the urgent documentary about women who sued Texas after the state’s strict anti-abortion laws almost cost them their lives, will reach theaters before the presidential election.
Deadline can report the film directed by Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault, and executive produced by a team including Jennifer Lawrence, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, will launch in New York, Los Angeles and cities across Texas beginning October 25."
Deadline continued:
"The theatrical run will qualify the film for Oscar consideration as Best Documentary Feature."
In addition to the announced screenings in New York, Los Angeles and in Texas the film will screen at the upcoming AFI Fest. I'd encouraging anyone who didn't catch in Telluride to grab a chance to screen it.
Here are updated nomination predictions for the Supporting Acting categories for the 97th Academy Awards. These categories were last predicted on Sept. 30th. An actor's previous rank appears to the right of their names in parentheses. TFF #51 actors/films are in Bold.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1) Zoe Saldana/Emilia Perez (1)
2) Danielle Deadwyler/The Piano Lesson (2)
3) Felicity Jones/The Brutalist (-)
4) Isabella Rossellini/Conclave (3)
5) Saoirse Ronan/Blitz (4)
Others: Selena Gomez/Emilia Perez, Aunjanue Ellis-Tayor/Nickel Boys, Lady Gaga/Joker: Folie a Deux.
SUPPORTING ACTOR
1) Kieran Culkin/A Real Pain (1)
2) Guy Pearce/The Brutalist (5)
3) Denzel Washington/Gladiator II (2)
4) Stanley Tucci/Conclave (4)
5) Clarence Maclin/Sing Sing (3)
Others: John Magaro/September 5, Jeremy Strong/The Apprentice, Samuel L. Jackson/The Piano Lesson.
I'm updating the Lead Acting categories today and they look a whole lot like the initial predictions from Sept. 30th. An actor's previous position is indicated in (parentheses). TFF #51 films are in Bold.
BEST ACTRESS
1) Mikey Madison/Anora (1)
2) Angelina Jolie/Maria (2)
3) Karla Sofia Gascon/Emilia Perez (3)
4) Nicole Kidman/Babygirl (4)
5) Saoirse Ronan/The Outrun (5)
Others: Amy Adams/Nightbitch, Tilda Swinton/The Room Next Door, Fernanda Torres/I'm Still Here.
BEST ACTOR
1) Ralph Fiennes/Conclave (1)
2) Colman Domingo/Sing Sing (2)
3) Adrien Brody/The Brutalist (3)
4) Timothee Chalamet/A Complete Unknown (4)
5) Daniel Craig/Queer (5)
Others: Sebastian Stan/The Apprentice, Paul Mescal/Gladiator II, John David Washington/The Piano Lesson.
For the next few weeks I'll be posting updated Oscar Predictions for the Big Eight categories. I'll be updating these categories as pairs so that all eight are updated over a two week period. Soon I'll begin to add in all the other feature categories. Today's predix will include Best Picture and Best Direction. A film's previous position is indicated in (parentheses). TFF #51 films are in Bold.
BEST PICTURE
1) Emilia Perez (2)
2) Anora (1)
3) Conclave (3)
4) The Brutalist (4)
5) Dune: Part Two (5)
6) Sing Sing (6)
7) Gladiator II (7)
8) Blitz (8)
9) September 5 (10)
10) A Complete Unknown (-)
Other possibles: Saturday Night, A Real Pain, The Room Next Door.
BEST DIRECTION
1) Jacques Audiard/Emilia Perez (1)
2) Sean Baker/Anora (2)
3) Edward Berger/Conclave (3)
4) Brady Corbet/The Brutalist (4)
5) Denis Villenueve/Dune: Part Two (5)
Other possibles: Ridley Scott/Gladiator II, Pedro Almodovar/The Room Next Door, Jason Reitman/Saturday Night.
I'm getting back to checking in on the current Oscar predictions for TFF #51 films from some Oscar experts. Today I turn to Awards Radar's Joey Magidson. Magidson's website currently has 11 TFF #51 films predicted to get 47 total nominations lead by Conclave and Saturday Night. Awards Radar currently has no predictions for Original Song, International feature, Documentary feature or any of the Shorts categories.
Here's the breakdown:
Conclave (10): Best Picture, Direction, Actor (Fiennes), Supporting Actress (Rossellini), Supporting Actor (Tucci), Adapted Screenplay, Production Design, Cinematography, Film Editing and Score.
Saturday Night (10): Best Picture, Direction, Original Screenplay, Production Design, Cinematography, Film Editing, Costumes, Makeup/Hair, Sound and Score.
Emilia Perez (9): Best Picture, Direction, Actress (Gascon), Supporting Actress (Saldana), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Makeup/Hair and Score. (Note here that I fully expect Emilia to pick up at least one nomination for Song)
Anora (5): Best Picture, Direction, Actress (Madison), Original Screenplay, Film Editing.
Maria (5): Best Actress (Jolie), Cinematography, Costumes, Makeup/Hair and Sound.
September 5 (2): Best Picture, Original Screenplay.
The Apprentice (2): Best Actor (Stan), Supporting Actor (Strong).
The Outrun (1): Best Actress (Ronan).
A Real Pain (1): Best Supporting Actor (Culkin).
The Piano Lesson (1): Best Supporting Actress (Deadwyler).
Via Next Best Picture and YouTube, here is the post-screening Q+A for Maria from the New York Film Festival featuring Angelina Jolie, Ed Lachman and director Pablo Larrain:
It's time! As we end September here are my first predictions for Oscar nominations for the 97th Academy Awards. I'll start off with predicting the eight "Above the Line" categories first. I'll keep updating those from now until the day before the nomination announcement-Friday, Jan. 17th. I'll also add other categories along the way as we get closer and ultimately will have all the categories predicted before nomination day. As always TFF films are indicated in Bold. Films are listed in order of their likelihood of nomination.
BEST PICTURE
1) Anora
2) Emilia Perez
3) Conclave
4) The Brutalist
5) Dune II
6) Sing Sing
7) Gladiator II
8) Blitz
9) Saturday Night
10) September 5
Other Possibilities: A Real Pain, A Complete Unknown, The Room Next Door.
BEST DIRECTION
1) Jacques Audiard/Emilia Perez
2) Sean Baker/Anora
3) Edward Berger/Conclave
4) Brady Corbet/The Brutalist
5) Denis Villenueve/Dune II
Others: Ridley Scott/Gladiator II, Steve McQueen/Blitz, Pedro Almodovar/The Room Next Door.
BEST ACTRESS
1) Mikey Madison/Anora
2) Angelina Jolie/Maria
3) Karla Sofia Gascon/Emilia Perez
4) Nicole Kidman/Babygirl
5) Saoirse Ronan/The Outrun
Others: Amy Adams/Nightbitch, Tilda Swinton/The Room Next Door, Fernanda Torres/I'm Still Here.
BEST ACTOR
1) Ralph Fiennes/Conclave
2) Colman Domingo/Sing Sing
3) Adrien Brody/The Brutalist
4) Timothee Chalamet/A Complete Unknown
5) Daniel Craig/Queer
Others: Sebastian Stan/The Apprentice, Paul Mescal/Gladiator II, John David Washington/The Piano Lesson.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1) Zoe Saldana/Emilia Perez
2) Danielle Deadwyler/The Piano Lesson
3) Isabella Rossellini/Conclave
4) Saoirse Ronan/Blitz
5) Selena Gomez/Emilia Perez
Others: Felicity Jones/The Brutalist, Lady Gaga/Joker: Folie a Deux, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor/Nickel Boys.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
1) Kieran Culkin/A Real Pain
2) Denzel Washington/Gladiator II
3) Clarence Maclin/Sing Sing
4) Stanley Tucci/Conclave
5) Guy Pearce/The Brutalist
Others: Jeremy Strong/The Apprentice, Samuel L. Jackson/The Piano Lesson, John Magaro/September 5.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1) Conclave
2) Sing Sing
3) Dune II
4) Nickel Boys
5) The Piano Lesson
Others: Hit Man, Inside Out 2, I'm Still Here.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1) Anora
2) Saturday Night
3) The Brutalist
4) A Real Pain
5) Emilia Perez
Others: September 5, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Blitz
If I'm 100% accurate this is how nominations breakdown for TFF #51 films in these eight categories:
Emilia Perez (6 noms): Best Picture, Direction, Actress (Gascon), Supporting Actress (Saldana), Supporting Actress (Gomez), Original Screenplay.
Conclave (6 noms): Best Picture, Direction, Actor (Fiennes), Supporting Actress (Rossellini), Supporting Actor (Tucci), Adapted Screenplay.
Anora (4 noms): BestPicture, Direction, Actress (Madison), Original Screenplay.
The Piano Lesson (2 noms and 2 maybes) Nominations: Supporting Actress (Deadwyler), Adapted Screenplay. Other possibilities: Actor (Washington), Supporting Actor (Jackson).
A Real Pain (2 noms and 1 maybe): Nominations: Supporting Actor (Culkin), Original Screenplay. Maybe: Best Picture.
Saturday Night (2 noms): Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay.
September 5 (1 nom and 2 maybes): Nomination: Best Picture. Maybes: Supporting Actor (Magaro), Original Screenplay.
Nickel Boys ( 1 nom and 1 maybe): nomination: Adapted Screenplay. Maybe: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.
The Outrun (1 nom); Best Actress (Ronan).
Maria (1 nom): Best Actress (Jolie).
The Apprentice (2 maybes): Best Actor (Stan), Supporting Actor (Strong).
Overall, these 11 films account for 26 nominations and another 8 possible nominations in these eight categories.
I'm right on the cusp of MTFB's first set of Oscar nomination predictions. Those are coming Monday and will include the Big Eight categories: Picture, Direction, all four acting categories and both screenplay categories. Today, as a teaser, I thought I'd run down what feel like the chances for Telluride-specific Best Picture possibilities.
PROBABLE BP NOMINEES:
Anora
Emilia Perez
Conclave
POSSIBLE BP NOMINEES:
Saturday Night
September 5
MAYBE THEY GET IN:
A Real Pain
The Piano Lesson
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Nickel Boys
WAY OUTSIDE SHOTS:
Maria
The Apprentice
AND MY PERSONAL APPEAL:
Zarawski v. Texas
DISCLAIMER TRAILER
Apple TV+ has released a trailer for the Cate Blanchett starring, Alfonso Cuaron directed Disclaimer. The seven part series will premiere Oct. 11th. Here's the trailer from YouTube:
TRAILER AND POSTER FOR A REAL PAIN
CHARACTER POSTERS FOR EMILIA PEREZ
From Netflix this week, character posters for Karla Sofia Gascon, Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez as their character's from Jacques Audiard's audacious Emilia Perez:
As we turn the corner after The SHOW to what films from The SHOW will make an impact on the awards season, I thought it would behoove us to look back at the history of the fest and its Oscar players. So I went back to 2009, the year that the new expanded list of nominees came into effect so that there were more than five Best Picture nominees each year.
One of the reasons I decided to do that is that early Oscar BP lists are indicating that 2024 might be a record year for films that played Telluride. Since 2009 the largest number of TFF films nominated for Best Picture in a single year is four and that has happened twice. This year, at least as the early predictions are showing, TFF #51 almost certainly will be the third time that four films from the best will be nominated. But, there is a reasonable chance that there will be five films among the ten that get the noms.
Here's the history of TFF Best Picture nominees since 2009 (* indicates Best Picture winner):
2009 (2)- An Education, Up in the Air
2010 (3)- The King's Speech*, Black Swan, 127 Hours
2011 (2)- The Artist*, The Descendants
2012 (2)- Argo*, Amour
2013 (3)- 12 Years a Slave*, Gravity, Nebraska
2014 (2)- Birdman*, The Imitation Game
2015 (2)- Spotlight*, Room
2016 (4)- Moonlight*, Arrival, La La Land, Manchester by the Sea
2017 (3)- The Shape of Water*, Darkest Hour, Lady Bird
2018 (2)- The Favourite, Roma
2019 (3)- Parasite*, Ford v. Ferrari, Marriage Story
2020 (2)- Nomadland*, The Father (if TFF had happened these films would have played)
2021 (3)- Belfast, King Richard, The Power of the Dog
2022 (2)- TAR, Women Talking
2023 (4)- Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, Poor Things, The Zone of Interest
2024- ?????
That's a total of 39 Best Picture nominees over the 15 years for an average of 2.6 per year with 10 winners. Will the 2024 race be the first wherein Telluride has five nominees?
The Telluride History 1996-Present page has been updated for 2024 including Films, Guests, Tributes and Guest Director information. Also, the collection of Ratings from The Professionals, The People and the Composites have been updated with 2024 included.
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