The 95th Academy Awards have come and gone and Everything Everywhere All At Once took home the top prize. With one season concluding, it’s never too early to look into the cinematic hourglass at possible contenders for the 96th Academy Awards.
I present my year in advance contenders for Best Picture at the 96th Oscars:
- Dune: Part Two: “The film will explore the continuing journey of Paul Atreides who is united with Chani and the Fremen. He seeks revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. He seems to face a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe; he endeavors to prevent a terrible future that apparently only he can predict.”
- Maestro: “A biopic about the life of Leonard Bernstein, with a focus on his marriage to Felicia Montealegre”
- Oppenheimer: “The film follows the life of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during the Manhattan Project, and his contributions that led to the creation of the atomic bomb.”
- Killers of the Flower Moon: “Members of the Osage tribe in northeastern Oklahoma are murdered under mysterious circumstances in the 1920s, sparking a major FBI investigation directed by a 29-year-old J. Edgar Hoover and former Texas Ranger Tom White, described by Grann as “an old-style lawman.“
- The Color Purple: “A story of the life-long struggles of an African American woman living in the south during the early 1900s.”
- Saltburn: “The film depicts the lives of a grand, aristocratic English family.”
- Past Lives: “The film follows a reunion between two childhood friends as they contemplate their relationship and their own lives.”
- Barbie: “After being expelled from “Barbieland” for being a less-than-perfect doll, Barbie sets off for the human world to find true happiness”
- Next Goal Wins: “Dutch-American football coach Thomas Rongen is tasked with turning the American Samoa national team, considered one of the weakest football teams in the world, into an elite squad.”
- The Bikeriders: “Set in the 1960s, it follows the rise of a fictional Midwestern motorcycle club. Seen through the lives of its members, the club evolves over the course of a decade from a gathering place for local outsiders into a more sinister gang, threatening the original group’s unique way of life.”
- Air: “Sonny Vaccaro, a shoe salesman at Nike, works to sign rookie Michael Jordan to a deal to wear their shoes”
- Rustin: “The story revolves around gaycivil rights activistBayard Rustin, who helped organize the 1963 March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King Jr. “
- Ferrari: “Follows the life of Italian driver and entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari in 1957 as he deals with family problems while also preparing for the 1957 Mille Miglia”
- Foe: “The lives of a married couple are turned upside down when a stranger arrives at their farm and informs the husband he will be sent to a large space station, and his wife will be left in the company of someone else.”
- The Holdovers: “The disliked Deerfield Academy teacher Paul Hunham is put in charge of supervising Angus, a smart and rebellious student unable to journey home for Christmas. Joining them is Mary, the school’s head cook.”