Can A24 Handle 4 Best Picture Contenders for 2027 Oscars?

Since the Best Picture field expanded, you can count on one hand the number of times a single studio has had three Best Picture nominees in the same year. It happened just last season, when Warner Bros. celebrated its final year of existence by getting One Battle After Another, Sinners, and F1 (an Apple film WB distributed) into the Oscar lineup. The other time was in 2017, when Lionsgate’s his-and-hers set of Hacksaw Ridge and La La Land was nominated, as well as Hell or High Water (a CBS Films movie it distributed). As you can tell from those examples, on the rare occasions it happens, the third film tends to carry an asterisk. Even with ten spots, it’s very, very hard for a company to occupy nearly one-third of the available seats. Besides the low odds of releasing that many good movies in one year, Oscar campaigns are simply too expensive for a studio to be able to afford the outlay. You don’t want to spread yourself too thin.

All of which makes A24’s Oscar slate all the more notable. The indie studio doesn’t just have three plausible contenders in the race this year — it has four! It’s a veritable feast of riches for a specialty label that can usually only handle one Best Picture campaign a year. (Though it did get two in 2024, Past Lives and The Zone of Interest.) How are they going to juggle them all?

A24 itself demurred on this question when I tried to get a sense of the pecking order. “It’s a long season and we’ll see how it goes” was the gist. However, here’s how I see it:

First out of the gate was Olivia Wilde’s aging-millennial sex farce, which A24 acquired out of Sundance for a reported $12 million–plus. Opening in late June as pre-Odyssey counterprogramming, the film was a modest hit, grossing $26 million domestic, kicking off a fresh round of nonmonogamy discourse and righting the ship of Wilde’s directing career after the Don’t Worry Darling brouhaha. As one of the few films already on the board by the time Oscar season kicked off, The Invite was essentially grandfathered into pundits’ predictions by default, though I occasionally wondered whether it might prove too small-scale a success to sustain itself.

However, this week’s Gotham Awards nominations should dispel any notion of The Invite as a seat filler: Wilde’s film proved it was a contender in earnest by tying for the most nominations in the field. Though The Invite wasn’t a huge blockbuster, one thing its fans keep mentioning is that it was, in its own way, a movie where the theatrical experience was paramount. Wilde emphasized this point on the trail, revealing that she turned down higher bids from streamers in order to get her movie into theaters. The simplicity of its setup — four actors, one apartment — puts the screenplay and performances at center stage, which in turn gives the Best Picture campaign plenty of footholds downballot. Rashida Jones and Will McCormack’s script is expected to RSVP “yes” in the Adapted Screenplay race, and actors Penélope Cruz, Edward Norton, and Wilde herself give finely tuned performances that could earn recognition in their respective categories. (Seth Rogen may have a harder time; for comic actors, voters like to see them show something they never have before.) Maintaining momentum for a summer release is never easy, but A24 has done it before with Past Lives, and The Invite at least has plenty of star power to draw on over the months to come.

The buzziest film of the fall is also the one that no one outside A24 knew existed until a few weeks ago. (It’s also the only one of the four contenders A24 produced itself.) YCSE’s ascent has been dizzying. Two weeks ago, we were wondering if Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s film could become the first documentary to ever be nominated for Best Picture. Last week, pundits began wondering whether it had the juice to beat The Odyssey. If those are indeed our two frontrunners, they make a compelling pair: blockbuster and doc; classical and postmodern; timeless and timely. There’s a you’ve-never-seen-anything-like-this before quality to YCSE that feels of a piece with recent left-field Best Picture winners like Parasite and Everything Everywhere All at Once. Those films were able to sustain their buzz throughout the six-month season, a test that YCSE must itself now pass — with so much effusive praise, you have to figure a backlash will set in soon.

Furthermore, YCSE faces a more difficult gauntlet than any contender has run before: As a documentary, it will meet with eligibility issues at precursor ceremonies like the Golden Globes and the guild awards, making it hard to determine just how strong a horse it is. Just this week, Indiewire’s Anne Thompson poured cold water on the YCSE hype, noting that older voters and international ones may not go as gaga for the film as the online tastemakers have. Valid concerns, though I still believe YCSE has what it takes to make Oscars history: When I go to Academy events, it’s the one movie everyone in the room wants to talk about. But even I have to admit that its range of possible outcomes is the widest in the field.

The Debut’s Best Picture case rests on two words: Julianne Moore. As a middle-aged wallflower who comes alive in the high-stakes world of New Jersey community theater, Moore has been pegged as a shoo-in to win the second Best Actress trophy of her career from the moment Jesse Eisenberg’s film, well, debuted at Telluride. It’s a performance that lets Moore do what she does best: swing for the fences in a way that seems to destabilize the very nature of cinematic reality. Opposite her is Paul Giamatti as a dictatorial director, who seems like he’ll make his own mark on the Supporting Actor race. With two surefire acting noms in hand, could The Debut book its own spot in the Best Picture lineup?

While its case looks strong, there have been plenty of films — from I, Tonya to Being the Ricardos to The Apprentice — that scored multiple acting nominations and yet got left out of the top category. Or you could just look at Eisenberg’s previous film, A Real Pain: Despite Keiran Culkin sweeping the Supporting Actor race, the dramedy still couldn’t crack Best Picture. What The Debut has going for it is that it’s both more audacious than A Real Pain and better-liked than Being the Ricardos, with our own Bilge Ebiri calling it the best film Eisenberg has made to date. I’ve also seen grumblings that the film’s heightened reality undercuts its emotional stakes, though those feel like small-potatoes complaints compared to the effusive reactions the film has received on the festival circuit, winning the Audience Award at Middleburg and Basque-ing in the glow of a prize from the San Sebastian Film Festival. Crucially, all of these laurels are coming for the film itself rather than Moore’s performance in particular. The Debut doesn’t hit theaters until December, but everything we’ve seen so far makes me confident that Eisenberg can land the first Best Picture nom of his directorial career.

That’s three Best Picture spots that seem earmarked for A24, already a major feat. Surely a fourth would be impossible … right? But it wasn’t so long ago that Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid was being talked up as a potential Best Picture entrant, too. From its debut at Cannes, where A24 snapped it up, audiences have warmed to the film, which takes a trite premise — what if a gay party promoter found out he had a 9-year-old son? — and invests it with delightful specificity and endearing humor. Anecdotally, I’ve seen plenty of people go into Club Kid ready to be skeptical. Firstman can be a contentious figure online, and since he serves as writer, director, and star, it’s easy to see the movie as a calculated personal-brand-rehabilitation effort. Yet most of them come out totally won over, even if from my perspective, the film is not totally immune from actor/director-itis. (Do a bump every time someone calls Firstman’s character “handsome” or “interesting.”)

If anything, Club Kid might be the biggest loser of the You Can See Everything phenomenon. A chart of its Oscar buzz would show a sharp drop-off the day YCSE unveiled itself at Telluride. But I don’t think it’s impossible for its fortunes to turn around. The very “gooey heart” that critics allude to could make it an appealing alternative to hyperintellectual films like YCSE, especially for Academy members for whom this movie will be an introduction to the whole Jordan Firstman experience. But that depends on those older voters coming out to see it. With so many irons in the fire, can A24 mount the necessary full-court press to get Club Kid back into the Best Picture conversation? Or will it merely be content for this to be an Original Screenplay and First Feature play? Despite what one of A24’s Oscar success stories might say, a studio actually can’t campaign everything everywhere all at once.

Every week between now and January 21, when the nominations for the Academy Awards are announced, Vulture will consult its crystal ball to determine the changing fortunes in this year’s Oscars race. In our “Oscar Futures” column, we’ll let you in on insider gossip, parse brand-new developments, and track industry buzz to figure out who’s up, who’s down, and who’s currently leading the race for a coveted Oscar nomination.

The Gotham Awards are the first nominations of awards season but they’re also the least representative since every category is determined by a tiny jury. This leads to the perennial question: Do they matter? The official position of this column is that it’s always better to be nominated for something than not, particularly for a film like The Invite, which came out four months ago and thus needs every fresh headline it can get. More good news came from the Palm Springs Film Festival, which just announced The Invite will receive one of its tribute awards in January, right in the thick of Oscar-nomination voting. Having four famous people in your movie really is the secret sauce!

Ordinarily, getting blanked at the Gothams is not the end of the world. But coming on the heels of a muted critical reception for the Palme d’Or winner, it’s a sign that Fjord might be drying up. Worse, its Neon stablemate All of a Sudden tied The Invite for the most total nominations and looks by every indication a better bet to nail down a Best Picture spot. Still, the moral drama is by no means out of the hunt for a Best International Film nom — which would be its own victory for director Cristian Mungiu, after his first Palme winner, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, was controversially snubbed in that category.

All of a Sudden, La Bola Negra, The Debut, Elsinore, The Invite, The Odyssey, Possible Love, Project Hail Mary, Wild Horse Nine, You Can See Everything

Having won over the Academy with Drive My Car, a three-hour examination of the impenetrability of grief, can Hamaguchi do it again with a three-hour treatise on care work and the psychological underpinnings of capitalism? The Gothams got onboard, recognizing the Japanese auteur in their Directing and Adapted Screenplay categories. (Actress Tao Okamoto was also honored in the gender-neutral Supporting Actor category, though her co-star Virginie Efira missed out in the lead category — a surprising result, since the two have been treated as a linked pair since Cannes.)

If this tender family dramedy — which shares similar thematic concerns as All of a Sudden, though with a characteristically earthier approach — really is Leigh’s final film, the Gothams gave him a fitting sendoff: Tender Loving Care tied The Invite and All of a Sudden in the Gothams leaderboard, as Leigh earned the same brace of noms as Hamaguchi. That and a nice cup of tea will do you good.

Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, La Bola Negra; Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, You Can See Everything; Ryusuke Hamaguchi, All of a Sudden; Martin McDonagh, Wild Horse Nine; Christopher Nolan, The Odyssey

After wowing critics at TIFF, the religious-hitman thriller hasn’t been able to sustain its festival buzz at the box office, grossing only $3 million so far. But at least the TIFF placement did the job of injecting Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother into the year-end awards conversation. Ali earned a Best Actor nod from the Gothams, and since this is the film he and director Bassam Tariq made after their Blade movie fell apart, it’s incumbent on me to mention that YMYMYM has now earned more Gotham Award nominations than the entire MCU put together.

Could Pattinson’s Primetime bid be another victim of YCSE taking off? Besides the fact that the Bush-era docudrama has been bumped further down A24’s internal pecking order, it now bears the unfortunate distinction of being director Lance Oppenheim’s “other” film in the race. There’s more to come in this developing story, but the situation at the Gothams — where Pattinson missed out even as the same jury nominated one of his co-stars — could be cause for alarm.

Tom Cruise, Digger; Matt Damon, The Odyssey; John Malkovich, Wild Horse Nine; Andrew Scott, Elsinore; John Turturro, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York

Like me in the ’90s, the Gothams went crazy for TLC and Clarissa. Arie and Chuko Esiri’s modern-day Nigerian Mrs. Dalloway also tied atop the leaderboard, earning four noms including one for Okonedo as the middle-aged version of the title character. (India Amarteifio was also nominated for playing her younger self.) As Corey Atad put it, she embodies the weariness of “a woman whose relationship to her country and culture have become aestheticized to the point of emptiness.” I had wondered if this would be too internal a performance to catch on with awards voters, so good on the Gothams for giving Okonedo some shine. She feels like a contender where a well-timed Gotham win really would make a difference.

It’s a slow week for new releases on the awards front; the only vaguely Oscar-y film hitting theaters is this European drama about a woman grappling with her husband’s dark secret. (It will head to Netflix in November.) Gentle Monster received mixed reviews at Cannes and is by accounts an extremely tough sit, though critics effused enough about Seydoux’s “implosive” performance that the streamer is giving the French actress a Best Actress push. Whether or not anything comes of it, Gentle Monster has produced one of this young season’s best memes, as Seydoux stopped by Elle UK to talk about pastries with a level of disdain only a five-time César Award nominee could muster.

Virginie Efira, All of a Sudden; Sandra Hüller, Rose; Julianne Moore, The Debut; Inde Navarrette, Obsession; Olivia Wilde, The Invite

As the unofficial chairperson of the Skyler Gisondo Oscar campaign, I was tickled to see the 30-year-old crack the Gothams’ Supporting Actor lineup. (Primetime was also nominated for Best Feature and Adapted Screenplay, so maybe it’s doing fine.) If Gisondo can follow up this nom with love from critics’ groups, could the dream of a nomination for Decoy Dan transform from online meme to actual possibility?

Amazon has been putting Ortiz at the front of PHM’s awards-season re-introduction, including throwing him a celebratory luncheon in New York earlier this month. Now we know why: According to Variety, he is getting an unprecedented supporting-actor push. After all, there’s no rule that says a puppeteer and voice performer can’t be nominated for an acting Oscar. Was Amazon emboldened to try it after seeing that you-know-who was eligible in supporting actress? Either way, I’m delighted. More campaigns should push the envelope in this manner!

Andrew Garfield, Artificial; Paul Giamatti, The Debut; Guitarricadelafuente, La Bola Negra; John Leguizamo, The Odyssey; Sam Rockwell, Wild Horse Nine

The Gothams jury couldn’t resist nominating the Widow’s Bay standout in its Supporting Actor category. (We can have the category-fraud conversation if need be, though given TLC has three actresses of roughly even prominence, someone has to go Supporting.) She turns in a very likeable performance as a social worker whose life is stuck in second gear, displaying a different timbre than she does in her Apple TV show. Is that a boon to her awards fortunes? On the one hand, that difference allows the Brit to show off her range; on the other, when voters have handed Oscars to recent Emmy winners like Laura Dern or Kieran Culkin, it’s been for characters who were fairly similar to the people they played on TV.

This is another situation where not getting in at the Gothams might actually matter. Though the Gothams handed YCSE the major nominations one might expect, they passed on the chance to set the precedent that Seyfried was indeed doing nomination-worthy acting in the documentary. Considering the eligibility issues she’ll face at the precursors to come, missing the chance to get on the board could hurt.

Penélope Cruz, La Bola Negra; Penélope Cruz, The Invite; Anne Hathaway, The Odyssey; Samantha Morton, The Odyssey; Tao Okamoto, All of a Sudden

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