Why Emilia Pérez 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 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.
If there's a God that cares at all about movies...it won't.
And I think, between the loud, consistent backlash and opposition from the online contingent and a growing number of critics, and the exposé on star Karla Sofia Gascón's track record of extremely offensive views, that its momentum is likely quelled, once and for all. Still, this movie should have no business winning any awards, and yet it has been a consistent player on the awards circuit, and landed the 2nd-most Oscar nominations of ANY PERIOD MOVIE PERIOD EVER PERIOD. So. You know. We'll see.
But I'm sincerely hoping we don't witness the crowning of-- and I mean this -- the worst Best Picture winner ever on Sunday night.
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