Oscar hopefuls descend on Venice and Toronto film festivals in search of buzz, awards season liftoff
With the 81st Venice International Film Festival coming August 28 to September 7 – overlapped by the 49th Toronto International Film Festival (better known as TIFF) from September 5 to 15 – the Academy Awards races are about to shift into a higher gear.
Not only are Toronto and Venice some of the most prestigious stops on the annual awards circuit, but with both taking place in the fall, many of the biggest Oscar players seeking a big festival premiere and a late-year release will often look to these two events to kickstart their awards campaign. Last year, three of the ten Best Picture nominees premiered at one of these two festivals: “Poor Things” and “Maestro” launched at Venice and “American Fiction” at Toronto. In fact, “American Fiction” was completely off the awards radar until it took home TIFF’s People’s Choice Award, a prize won by an eventual Best Picture nominee every year since 2012. In fact, five of the last ten winners of Best Picture at the Academy Awards have premiered in either TIFF or Venice.
In other words, we are likely to find at least a few of our future Best Picture nominees premiering this September, and it’s time to ponder which films in both festival lineups have the best chance to make it all the way.
Perhaps the most highly-anticipated film –– at least among Oscar prognosticators –– to premiere at TIFF will be “Conclave,” director Edward Berger’s follow-up to “All Quiet on the Western Front.” The war drama was a surprise Oscar phenomenon in the spring of 2023, taking home four Academy Awards (Best Cinematography, Score, Production Design and International Feature Film) while also receiving nominations in five other categories, including Best Picture. With that level of success, it’s no surprise that “Conclave” is fourth in Gold Derby’s combined odds to receive a Best Picture bid while star Ralph Fiennes lands second for Best Actor. The film is a psychological thriller, a genre not often rewarded by the academy. Berger is seeking first Academy Award nomination for directing after landing a screenplay nom for “All Quiet.” He’s currently ranked fourth in our odds for director.
SEE Edward Berger (‘Conclave’) seeks Best Director Oscar nomination two years after ‘All Quiet’ snub
The other big follow-up to a surprise Oscar player premiering at a festival this fall is “Joker 2: Folie à Deux.” Few expected in 2019 that “Joker” would go on to become the most nominated film at the Academy Awards that season, picking up eleven bids, ultimately winning Best Actor and Best Score. The sequel, which is reportedly a jukebox musical/thriller, stars Joaquin Phoenix, reprising the titular role, and Lady Gaga, herself an Oscar winner for Best Original Song. Gold Derby users currently expect both to receive a lead acting nomination (ranked fourth and fifth in our odds, respectively) along with a Best Picture nod for the film, which is eighth on GD. Like its predecessor, “Joker 2: Folie à Deux” will premiere at Venice.
According to our combined odds, Samuel L. Jackson and Danielle Deadwyler are currently the frontrunners to pick up the Best Supporting Actor and Actress statuettes, respectively, at next year’s Academy Awards for their performances in “The Piano Lesson,” which launches this year at TIFF. Our odds may see the film just outside the top 10 (11th) for Best Picture, but if it does manage to snag the currently-predicted three acting nominations (John David Washington is ranked fifth in our odds for Best Actor), a Best Picture bid will surely go along with the package. Expect this August Wilson adaptation to challenge for an adapted screenplay nomination as well.
Two-time Oscar-winning writer-director Pedro Almodóvar will see his English-language debut, “The Room Next Door,” premiere this year at Venice. Ranking 14th in our combined odds for Best Picture, we may be even more likely to see either Tilda Swinton or Julianne Moore’s names read come Oscar nominations morning. Three of Almodóvar’s films have received acting nominations, no small feat for a director whose films have all been in Spanish. Like “Conclave,” “The Room Next Door” may expect to benefit from taking the leap from the director’s native language to English, historically a more Oscar-friendly proposition.
“Nightbitch” and “Maria,” premiering at TIFF and Venice, respectively, will also be vying for Best Actress nominations. Marielle Heller, director of “Nightbitch,” has already directed three actors toward Oscar bids, and Amy Adams is currently ranked first in our combined odds. None of Heller’s films have received Best Picture nominations so far, and neither have any of Pablo Larraín’s. Director of “Jackie” and “Spencer,” Larraín has seen two of his lead actresses nominated for an Academy Award. Can Angelina Jolie’s portrayal of the legendary opera singer Maria Callas make it three?
Ranked 17th and 18th in our combined odds for Best Picture are TIFF contenders “Saturday Night” and “Hard Truths.” The former, directed by two-time Oscar nominee Jason Reitman, chronicles the lead-up to the first-ever broadcast of the show currently known as “Saturday Night Live” (or more commonly, “SNL”). Set in 1975 and starring an ensemble cast, it isn’t hard to imagine “Saturday Night” being a crowd pleaser and eventual People’s Choice winner and will more than likely see its odds for Best Picture skyrocket. “Hard Truths” is written and directed by seven-time Oscar nominee Mike Leigh. If the film is a hit with critics and the TIFF audience, it could very well lead Leigh to his long-overdue Academy Award.
Other TIFF premieres to watch out for are “The Wild Robot” –– a strong contender for a Best Animated Feature nomination –– and “The End,” Oscar-nominated documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer’s narrative feature debut starring Tilda Swinton. At Venice, two other films to look out for are “Queer” –– Italian director Luca Guadagnino’s more awards-friendly follow to this year’s “Challengers” –– and “The Brutalist,” a three-and-a-half-hour Holocaust drama starring Oscar winner Adrien Brody, which may turn out to be this year’s critic favorite along the lines of “Tàr,” “Drive My Car” or “The Zone of Interest.”
PREDICT the 2025 Oscar nominations through January 17
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