«A Star Is Born» is hardly the only film with a clear path to the Academy Awards. And here are 10 more that deserve to be in the race.<\/b>
\nYes, Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga will be in the thick of the Oscar race with \u201cA Star Is Born,\u201d the kind of crowd-pleasing film that should also figure prominently in awards talk for the next five months.
But \u201cA Star Is Born\u201d is hardly the only film with a clear path to the Dolby Theatre. Most of the season\u2019s top contenders were unveiled during the first batch of major fall film festivals: Venice, Telluride and Toronto, and then New York. So this is a good time to sit back and assess where we are at this point in the season, before a final batch of contenders is unveiled around the AFI Fest in November.
We have a few clear frontrunners, though none without question marks hanging over them. We have some upstarts who have come on strong and could be real players. And we have a couple of films from earlier in the year that just might have staying power.
Also Read: Oscars Won’t Present New Best Popular Film Category in 2019
For starters, here are 10 films that\u2019ll be in the race:
\u201cA Star Is Born\u201d WHY Bradley Cooper\u2019s new version of an old story is passionate, moving and has been wowing audiences since it premiered in Venice. Cooper, who makes a more convincing rock star in this version than Kris Kristofferson did in the last one, is a lock for a Best Actor nomination. Lady Gaga is the same for Best Actress \u2014 even if it\u2019s amusing that the closer her character gets to becoming a Lady Gaga-type pop star, the more the movie wants us to believe she\u2019s betraying her true self. BUT There\u2019s a long history of Oscar watchers overestimating the awards potential of big musicals \u2014 and this is not just a big musical, it\u2019s the third version of a big musical. (And the fourth version if you count the one that wasn\u2019t a musical, or the fifth if you count \u201cWhat Price Hollywood?,\u201d the 1932 film that was awfully similar to the first \u201cStar Is Born.\u201d)
Also Read: ‘A Star Is Born’ Film Review: Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga Reinvigorate a Classic
\u201cRoma\u201d WHY It won the jury prize in Venice, it finished second in audience voting in Toronto, and it looks and feels like something special: a deeply personal but unexpectedly universal love letter to family and to those who become family. And director Alfonso Cuaron is a known quantity to Oscar voters, winning Best Director in 2013 for \u201cGravity.\u201d BUT It\u2019s a black-and-white movie, it\u2019s in Spanish and it will certainly be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. Could voters feel that\u2019s enough reward?
\u201cFirst Man\u201d WHY Damien Chazelle\u2019s first movie since \u201cLa La Land\u201d gets visceral and overpowering when Neil Armstrong climbs into the seat as a test pilot or an astronaut. Telling the story of Armstrong and NASA\u2019s first trip to the moon, the film is a tour de force that makes space travel feel more dangerous than any previous story set above the atmosphere. BUT Trying to make an emotional movie about an unemotional man can be tough \u2014 and while the spectacle of \u201cFirst Man\u201d is unassailable, the man at its center might be a little too hard to embrace.
Also Read: ‘First Man’ Gets Bigger and Bolder in Toronto IMAX Premiere
\u201cGreen Book\u201d WHY It beat \u201cA Star Is Born\u201d in audience-award voting in Toronto. (It beat \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201cFirst Man,\u201d too.) A light-on-its-feet drama that tells the true story of an Italian-American New York bouncer who was hired to chauffeur a black pianist through the segregated South in the early \u201960s, it is an undeniable crowd-pleaser that also happens to touch on serious subjects. It also puts stars Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali in the thick of the awards race. BUT \u201cDriving Miss Daisy\u201d was a long time ago. Are voters ready to embrace \u201cDumb and Dumber\u201d and \u201cThere\u2019s Something About Mary\u201d director Peter Farrelly as an Oscar-contending director?
\u201cIf Beale Street Could Talk\u201d WHY Two years after winning the Oscar with \u201cMoonlight,\u201d Barry Jenkins has returned with a James Baldwin adaptation that won over critics and audiences in Toronto. At its heart a gentle and beautiful love story in which a young couple struggle to survive in a world of racial injustice, its intimacy (and occasional humor) give it a real punch. BUT \u201cBeale Street\u201d is a delicate mood piece that might be a little too understated for some \u2014 except in the character of a racist cop, who is such a leering cartoon villain that he can take you out of the film.
Also Read: ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ Review: Barry Jenkins Delivers Stunning Romance With Aftertaste of Injustice
\u201cThe Favourite\u201d WHY A lavish period piece about the palace intrigue in early 18th century England, Yorgos Lanthimos\u2019 film is dark and witty and has a trio of delicious performances from Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz. With a clear path to acting and below-the-line nominations, Best Picture could be a real possibility as well. BUT It\u2019s Yorgos Lanthimos, and anything from that Greek provocateur is very weird. (There are still Oscar foreign-language voters who won\u2019t forgive the executive committee for adding \u201cDogtooth\u201d to the shortlist in 2010.) Lanthimos doesn\u2019t portray human behavior \u2014 he takes it to extremes in order to mock it, which means this sumptuous period piece is also pretty vicious and unforgiving.
\u201cBlack Panther\u201d WHY Ryan Coogler\u2019s comic book movie is a huge hit and also a cultural landmark, which gives it an awards currency that no previous comic book film took into the Oscar race. BUT It may be a cultural landmark, but it\u2019s also a comic book movie. And comic book movies don\u2019t get nominated for Best Picture.
\u201cBlacKkKlansman\u201d WHY Spike Lee\u2019s blend of comedy, drama and outrage was acclaimed in Cannes and is widely seen as the best film in many years from a director who never quite got his due from the Academy. But AMPAS gave him an Honorary Oscar in 2015, and might be ready to salute a movie that\u2019s set in the \u201970s but feels as if it\u2019s about today. BUT It wowed \u2018em at the festivals but didn\u2019t do especially well at the box office. Will Lee\u2019s return to form play as well with the voters as it did with the critics?
Also Read: ‘BlacKkKlansman’: Here’s What Happened to the Real NORAD Klansmen in Charge of Protecting Us From Nukes
\u201cCan You Ever Forgive Me?\u201d WHY Melissa McCarthy makes you forget her days as a broad comic actor in her performance as Lee Israel, a real-life celebrity biographer who fell on hard times and turned to forging letters as a way to earn money. And the film itself, aided by a delightful supporting turn from Richard E. Grant, is satisfying enough to make it a contender. BUT It might be seen as an acting vehicle for McCarthy, making her nomination (or nominations for her and Grant) all voters think the movie needs.
\u201cWidows\u201d WHY \u201c12 Years a Slave\u201d director Steve McQueen has made a heist movie as his followup to that Oscar-winning drama \u2014 but this is Steve McQueen, so the heist is less important than his tough examination of the societal forces that lead a group of women (led by potential nominee Viola Davis) to attempt a robbery that had been planned by their late husbands. Turning the film into a dark drama about race and corruption gives it a heft that you might not expect from the subject matter. BUT McQueen may have done interesting things with the genre, but it\u2019s still a heist movie, and one that feels less substantial than \u201c12 Years a Slave\u201d (which the Academy loved) or McQueen\u2019s \u201cShame\u201d and \u201cHunger\u201d (which they didn\u2019t).
And here are 10 more that deserve to be in the race:
\u201c22 July\u201d
Paul Greengrass\u2019 moving drama about a far-right terrorist\u2019s attack in Norway in 2011 is less about the attack than the aftermath \u2014 it couldn\u2019t be timelier in its portrayal of a society trying to determine the value of democracy in the aftermath of tragedy.
Also Read: ’22 July’ Film Review: Paul Greengrass Calms Down but Still Packs a Powerful Punch
\u201cLeave No Trace\u201d
Debra Granik\u2019s last narrative feature, 2010\u2019s \u201cWinter\u2019s Bone,\u201d was a dark-horse Oscar nominee. Eight years later, she\u2019s even more sensitive and restrained in this story of a PTSD-afflicted veteran trying to raise his teenage daughter off the grid; it features terrific performances by Ben Foster and newcomer Thomasin McKenzie.
\u201cFirst Reformed\u201d
Paul Schrader\u2019s best film in decades is a rigorous and haunting examination of faith and responsibility, starring a restrained and unforgettable Ethan Hawke as a reverend tortured by the death of his son in Iraq.
\u201cWildlife\u201d
Paul Dano is a remarkably assured first-time director in this quietly wrenching Richard Ford adaptation, which stars Carey Mulligan as a young mother whose life veers in unexpected directions after her husband leaves to fight a forest fire.
Also Read: ‘Wildlife’ Review: Paul Dano’s Directorial Debut Is an Austere Portrait of a Family in Crisis
\u201cThe Front Runner\u201d
Jason Reitman\u2019s drama about the fall of 1988 presidential candidate Gary Hart, who was caught in an extramarital affair, is a throwback to the political movies of Robert Altman \u2014 people talk on top of each other, things get chaotic but there\u2019s a real sense of drama and high stakes. Plus the story of a politician brought down by an affair is either a quaint period piece, very timely or both.
\u201cThe Other Side of the Wind\u201d
Is the boldest movie of 2018 one that was shot by Orson Welles more than 40 years ago? Yeah, maybe. Partly the portrait of a director in free fall, partly a Michelangelo Antonioni imitation, the film \u2014 painstakingly pieced together from Welles\u2019 footage and notes on Netflix\u2019s dime \u2014 is weird and audacious and oddly touching.
\u201cWon\u2019t You Be My Neighbor?\u201d
Why should documentaries be restricted to the Best Documentary Feature category? You won\u2019t find a more moving and more necessary film in any genre this year.
Also Read: Why Mr. Rogers Is the Perfect Movie Superhero for Our Times (Guest Blog)
\u201cIncredibles 2\u201d
Why should animated films be restricted to the Best Animated Feature category? You won\u2019t have more fun at the theater than with Pixar\u2019s latest gem.
\u201cCold War\u201d
Why should foreign-language films be restricted to\u2026 Well, you know. Pawel Pawlikowski\u2019s luminous tour through post-World War II Europe is a love story infused with regret, and with glorious music.
\u201cCrazy Rich Asians\u201d
It\u2019s as much of a landmark in its own way as \u201cBlack Panther\u201d was in its, which means that an Academy increasingly attuned to diversity shouldn\u2019t ignore it.
And finally, several films have yet to be screened but could definitely muscle into the Oscar picture. Adam McKay\u2019s \u201cVice,\u201d with Christian Bale as Dick Cheney, is perhaps the biggest threat. But the list also includes the Ruth Bader Ginsburg story \u201cOn the Basis of Sex,\u201d with Felicity Jones as the justice early in her career; \u201cMary Queen of Scots,\u201d which stars two of last year\u2019s Best Actress nominees, Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie; \u201cWelcome to Marwen,\u201d Robert Zemeckis\u2019 adventurous adaptation of a story first told in the acclaimed documentary \u201cMarwencol\u201d; \u201cMary Poppins Returns,\u201d a sequel to the 1964 that received more Oscar nominations than any other Disney film ever; and \u201cBohemian Rhapsody,\u201d with Rami Malek as Queen singer Freddie Mercury.<\/p>\n

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