Why A Complete Unknown Will Win Best Picture
Less than a week until the Oscars, and no less than 10 films are ramping up their campaigns in a last-minute push for the top prize of them all, Best Picture. This also appears to be a far more competitive race than in years past, which has often spat out at best two-horse races (like The Power of the Dog vs. CODA in 2022, or 1917 vs. Parasite in 2020), but more often a runaway coronation (as we've had in the last two years, with Oppenheimer and Everything Everywhere All At Once).
No, this one genuinely feels wide open in large part because of how many new names are up for the big awards. For the first time in history, the 5 Best Director nominees at these Oscars are all first-time nominees. Only 1 out of the 10 combined Best Actor and Best Actress nominees has ever won an Oscar, and only 4 of them have even been nominated before. But it's not just the absence of bona fide star power helming the nominated movies; it's the fact that there isn't a traditional frontrunner, as a small handful of films have split honors across the awards circuit thus far.
Those facts, as well as the Oscars' less predictable preferential voting system means that no nominee can truly be counted out of the race. Spotlight's and Moonlight's back-to-back upsets in 2016 and 2017, Parasite's stunner in 2020, and CODA's late surge in 2022 all taught us to expect the unexpected, so we're here to give fans of all 10 nominees reason to believe on Sunday the 2nd.
Yesterday, we highlighted a Best Picture nominee starring Timothée Chalamet as something of a complicated heroic figure, a young prodigy who earns the love and adoration of thousands, despite an increasingly petulant streak of self-interest. Today, our featured Best Picture nominee is one that... well, stars Timothée Chalamet as something of a complicated heroic figure, a young prodigy who earns the love and adoration of thousands, despite an increasingly petulant streak of self-interest.
That enormous parallel aside, though, that is about where the similarities stop between Dune: Part Two and A Complete Unknown. Directed by James Mangold, of Walk The Line and Ford v Ferrari fame, the Bob Dylan biopic tells the story of the world-famous musician and his relationships with other music legends Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and Joan Baez, in the specific timeframe of Dylan's arrival on the scene up through his "forsaking" folk at the infamous 1965 Newport Folk Festival. It's one of many
It may sound crazy, but one source Complete Unknown may be able to look to for inspirational hope of victory on Sunday? Last year's winner, Oppenheimer. Sure, the two films are vastly different in subject matter and scope. But a drum I beat very often last year, to the uninitiated (aka various friends who were casually interested in the Oscars but skeptical about the eventual Best Picture winner): contrary to common expression, Oppenheimer was not actually typical 'Oscar bait.' Biographical movies have certainly appeared to become all the rage, but if that itself is not a fairly recent trend, them actually picking up significant awards recognition certainly is. Yes, they have become a breeding ground for Best Actor and Best Actress contenders, but prior to 2024, the last straight-up biopic to actually win Best Picture was A Beautiful Mind, in 2002. And with all due respect to the late John Nash, even that film wasn't about a particularly well-known person in history. My point: up until last year, it was not in fact all that common for profiles of larger-than-life historical figures to actually win top awards. Musical biopics have given us Oscar and Golden Globe winners for Best Actor and Actress in recent years (Rami Malek as Freddy Mercury, Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland, Taron Egerton as Elton John, Jessica Chastain as Tammy Faye Bakker), but this is the closest one has come to actual critical acceptance-- most of those referenced above weren't even nominated for Best Picture, and 2019's inclusion of Bohemian Rhapsody was roundly mocked. One year after the long "Bio Pic/Best Pic" drought was ended, might the Academy be ready to go back to that well and set history with a first-ever musician profile winner? It certainly doesn't hurt that, like Oppenheimer before it, A Complete Unknown is adapted from a book about a very specific era of its main character, rather than his whole life story, and also does not shy away from portraying the "hero" in a less-than-glamorous light.
Perhaps the main driving force behind any momentum for this movie would be Bob Dylan, himself though; both the man on the screen and off the screen. I saw a tweet earlier in the awards cycle paint a painfully accurate depiction of Academy voters as "the white family from Get Out:; in that vein, Dylan could be somewhat of a religious figure for the Hollywood oldhead brand of liberalism, and voters might feel indebted to this flick for bringing the gospel to younger generations. But no, really, what this film's odds rest on are the shoulders of the man portraying Bob: one TImothée Chalamet. Over the last 3 months or so, we have witnessed a promotional circuit truly unlike anything most of us have seen before: Timothée has been front and center at just about everything, starting with an incredibly viral appearance on College GameDay on conference championship weekend in December. He was on your favorite talk show. He was dropping impressive music knowledge on podcasts. He was popping up at European soccer matches and discussing his favorite soccer teams on English radio shows. He was hopping on a Lime e-bike to ride to the London premiere. He appeared on Saturday Night Live as host AND musical guest, singing 3 Dylan songs for his set. And here's the thing- it's all a circus, yes, but not an unwarranted one. Chalamet is one of Hollywood's brightest stars, and he is brilliant in this movie. When, just a couple days ago, he finally earned his first significant win over Adrien Brody on the awards circuit at the SAG Awards, it was seen by many as both a culmination of this entire campaign and a sign that he really might just snag Best Actor at the Academy Awards this Sunday. As has ben discussed in this series already a couple times, from the Actress perspective, it's become an increasing trend in recent years for lead acting winners to ride their films to a Best Picture win as well. I trust you don't need me to remind you that the reigning Best Actor happened to be the star and titular character of the sweeping biopic that also went on to win Best Picture?
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