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Hello, and welcome to The Voting Booth — TheWrap’s new awards-season smorgasbord built to guide you through the Oscars race as it unfolds.
I’m Casey Loving, an awards reporter for TheWrap and all-around Oscars fanatic. Each week, I’ll take you inside the race: who’s rising, who’s fading, what insiders are saying and more.
The Voting Booth franchise has three parts you’ll see every week: a newsletter, video posts and TheWrap’s real-time Awards Tracker, a data-driven snapshot of the awards race based on historic trends. Here’s how it works: our tracker sifts through more than 50,000 data points to reflect the precursor awards that are the greatest indicators of success at the Academy Awards, dating back to 2000.
If you like this preview edition and want to receive The Voting Booth every week → Sign up for The Voting Booth Here.
As a stats-obsessed nerd trying to fill out his own Oscar ballot every year, I always wished there was a place that compiled this data for me. There is no expert analysis or opinion-based calculation here: the Awards Tracker is based only on numbers.
But unbiased doesn’t always mean correct. As every awards season has underdogs and history-makers, there are going to be candidates that the statistics overlook. After all, as the Academy continues to change and get more international, surprises and upsets are only becoming more common.
That’s where my videos and newsletters come in. I will chime in each week to chat about the wider race, see who’s beating the odds and ask why the numbers are or aren’t on their side.
I love awards season. When I was growing up in the Midwest, ceremonies like the Academy Awards helped point me to films and artists I would probably never discover on my own. Now, after moving halfway across the country, I feel lucky to chat with the people behind these films and share what I’ve learned.
So welcome to the Voting Booth. We’ve got a lot to talk about, so I hope you’ll stick around.
Nomination Roundup: Takeaways from the National Board of Review, Gotham Awards & Critics Choice
Meet Your Frontrunner: "One Battle After Another"
Anyone predicting that "One Battle After Another" would be this season's frontrunner was vindicated this week when it saw cross-ceremony success at various precursors.
At the Gotham Awards, Paul Thomas Anderson's latest won Best Feature, a title shared by six Best Picture winners since the Gothams started in 2004. "OBAA" also cracked AFI's Motion Pictures of the Year list — a necessary stop on the awards trail for any American films hoping to make it into Best Picture.
The National Board of Review (which simply awards films rather than doling out nominations) gave "One Battle" an early set of wins this week. There, the movie took home Best Film, Best Director (Anderson), Best Actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), Best Supporting Actor (Benicio Del Toro) and Best Breakthrough Performance (Chase Infiniti). Del Toro also won at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, where "OBAA" was anointed Best Film.
At Critics Choice, "One Battle After Another" snagged 14 nominations, trailing "Sinners'" 17. Five actors from the film were nominated in their respective categories, which would tie the record at the Academy Awards if those translated into Oscar nods (though, Critics Choice names six nominees rather than the Academy's five).
Rose Byrne Rises Ranks
One of the big question marks this early season has been how voters would respond to Rose Byrne's turn in "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You." It's an exceptional performance at the center of a bracing, anxiety-inducing film — something it's easy to imagine some awards bodies turning away from.
If this week is any indication, voters are feeling the Byrne. Her performance won Best Actress at the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, with additional nominations at the Gothams (which were announced in late October) and Critics Choice. Byrne was recognized at the Independent Spirit Awards, as was Mary Bronstein in Best Director.
While none of these ceremonies will individually make or break a campaign (our Awards Tracker has Byrne at 74% post-CCAs), they do show a general trend of voters embracing "If I Had Legs" and, more specifically, Byrne's performance. In a year where Timothée Chalamet has been declared a Best Actor frontrunner alongside "Marty Supreme," it seems awards bodies can stomach some anxiety.
In the Conversation
The first week of December was a big one for the awards race, with several films and individuals establishing themselves as contenders.
"Train Dreams" has had steady word of mouth since its Sundance premiere nearly one year ago, but its placement in this race has long been debated. This week, Clint Bentley's soulful film starring Joel Edgerton cracked Best Picture lists at Critics Choice, AFI, the National Board of Review and the Independent Spirit Awards. The film got five nods at Critics Choice (including Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay), while Bentley and Greg Kwedar won Best Adapted Screenplay at NBR.
Another Sundance hit, "Sorry, Baby" from writer/director/star Eva Victor saw success at multiple ceremonies, with a screenplay nod at Critics Choice, a Best Directorial Debut win at NBR and four nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards. These will prove instrumental in making this film the little engine that could at the Oscars, potentially securing Victor a screenplay nomination.
Finally, Wunmi Mosaku established herself as a significant Best Supporting Actress contender for her work in Ryan Coogler's "Sinners." Amid a successful week for "Sinners," Mosaku made the Best Supporting Actress lineup at Critics Choice and won the (non-gendered) Outstanding Supporting Performance category at the Gothams. In a packed Best Supporting Actress field, Mosaku will be one to watch come nomination morning.
Coming to a Screen Near You: 'Jay Kelly,' 'Avatar: Fire and Ash,' 'Marty Supreme' and more
As a young awards obsessive, the week of Thanksgiving always marked a time of preparation. It was around then that the release slate would finally shift, giving me a steadier trickle of movies I’d been hearing about for months on the awards radar.
If you want to catch up on the awards season as more nominations start rolling in, December will be your time to do it. The last month of the year features a slew of releases that will be important to the race finally reaching audiences nationwide.
December 5 — Actors to Watch
- Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly,” starring George Clooney as a famous actor on a European quest of self-understanding, will finally release on Netflix following a festival run and limited theatrical window.
- Kleber Mendonça Filho's "The Secret Agent," a soulful film starring Wagner Moura as a father attempting to survive a military dictatorship after the loss of his wife, releases wide as Brazil's Best International Feature entry.
- Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet,” a tragedy about the Shakespeare family that you will want to watch out for in multiple above-the-line categories, expands to a wide release.
December 12 — Streaming Double Feature
- Rian Johnson’s “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” will hit Netflix on Dec. 12 following its own limited theatrical run.
- Apple TV+ subscribers will have access to the technical juggernaut “F1,” which was recently featured as the cover story for TheWrap’s below-the-line magazine issue.