Why One Battle After Another Will Win Best Picture
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Less than a week now 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!
It's been a marvelous year for movies, and this race has been a fascinating one. It's certainly not quite as wide-open as last year's felt, and in fact, early indications were that we might be headed for a runaway coronation (as we've had twice in recent years, with Oppenheimer and Everything Everywhere All At Once). But the wealth has begun to be spread a little more in recent awards shows, and two changes to this year-- a much later ceremony than usual and the requirement for all voters to screen all films before voting --both would seemingly favor the nominees with late-breaking momentum as opposed to the early ones.
What's more, I can't remember an Oscars with a more wide-open race in most of the acting categories; of the four, only one (Jessie Buckley for Best Actress) has been a constant winner, and even she doesn't feel like a guarantee, with the groundswell of support some of her fellow nominees have. Acting races can usually tip off a Best Picture race: Mikey Madison's "upset" over Demi Moore last year spelled a huge night for eventual Best Pic winner Anora. As such, with so much unknown in those categories, it's highly possible we get some chaos in the biggest of them all as well.
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 15th.
If you took a poll of movie critics and the general populace alike, of who the greatest director to never win an Oscar for either Best Picture OR Best Director, my guess the top answer would likely be a dead heat between Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson. Considering Tarantino has two wins for best Screenplay, if you then limit the poll question to “greatest that has never won any Academy Award,” I've gotta imagine it's Anderson in a landslide. Well, "PTA," as they call him, has a very real chance to end that drought and win his first of each award at tomorrow’s ceremonies for his latest movie, One Battle After Another.
Despite a somewhat confusing rollout with minimal promo, One Battle still ended up a sensation. In retrospect, how could it not be? This was a film from a beloved director trying his hand at the most overt action movie he's made, with a backdrop that feels extremely relevant to these sociopolitical times. And oh by the way, a cast that includes A-list stars, multiple past Oscar winners, an exciting young breakout in a lead role, and even adored comedy figures. It's no surprise that among its many nominations is one for inaugural "Best Casting" award.
And its nominations are in fact many; the chief storyline from the Oscar nominations announcement was the record-setting number by Sinners, but hot on their tail-- about as close behind as the Christmas Adventurer was to Willa Ferguson on the road -- was One Battler After Another with a whopping 13 nods of its own. It's represented in just about every category you could want your Best Picture contender to be represented in: Director, Actor, both Supporting fields, Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography....hell, even Score for good measure. While each of the actors have their own tightly-contested battle (ha!) in their respective categories, Anderson enters Oscar night as the favorite to take home 3 of his own for Picture, Director, and Screenplay. Where does that heavy favorite status come from? Well, you know, just the simple fact of him winning those honors at a non-exhaustive list of: the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, the Critics' Choice, the Writers' Guild, the Directors' Guild, and the Producers' Guild. Granted, I haven't done an exhaustive deep dive on this, but I would highly doubt there has many any movie in history-- at least recent history -- that has swept each of those prestigious awards and NOT gone on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Now, you certainly can't take anything for granted, especially in the era of ranked-choice voting, and heated online discourse. This has been a much longer awards season than usual, making a wire-to-wire lead more difficult, a race that in past years would have felt like an inevitably has instead seen others, most notably Sinners, gain real momentum in their race to catch up to One Battle After Another.
But, whether you're someone involved with the making of One Battle, or just a fan and ardent supporter, it's hard not to like where you're sitting right now. It was the most universally-agreed upon favorite of both critics and the masses alike from this year, and a slightly unexpected box office success as well. It's exceedingly rare that one of the "buzziest" movies of the year is also the unanimous critical favorite. It's even rarer still that a movie that satisfies both criteria also would also represent a first-ever Academy Award triumph for one of the most celebrated and popular directors of his time. And yet, there is a very recent example of such a film: 2023's Oppenheimer. The sweeping epic biopic shattered box office expectations, commanded the most discourse of any movie its year not named Barbie, won the day in many a critic's year-end ranking, and also represented the famous Christopher Nolan's best opportunity yet at winning an elusive Oscar. The result? 8 awards, including both Best Director and Best Picture for Nolan. It would not be an unexpected development in the least to see PTA end up with the same result tomorrow night.
If that does come to pass, recent discourse has shown it will not be a universally celebrated result-- when has an Oscar winner ever been without controversy? Parasite, maybe? --but that will not make it any less deserving or earned. One Battle After Another is the rare near 3-hour movie that doesn’t feel anything like it, it's hilarious and absurd, it's bleak and timely, and it's a showcase for acting masterclasses across the board. Despite the sudden drama this Best Picture race faces, don't be surprised if this takes the top prize, and if it does, don't be surprised if people act like it was inevitable; we very well may look back and say it was.
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