Who Will Win: Oppenheimer
Who Should Win: Oppenheimer/Barbie (tie)
Also nominated: American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Past Lives, Poor Things, The Zone of Interest
In the year of the summer blockbuster two-fer “Barbenheimer,” it figures that either the daring inventiveness of Greta Gerwig’s feminist fable Barbie, the highest grossing film of last year, or Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s epic story about the father of the atomic bomb, would stand out as the frontrunners. Barbie got snubbed in a few key categories, notably Gerwig for best director and star Margot Robbie for best actress, and has lost some heat in the awards race. Alexander Payne’s 1970s-set throwback The Holdovers, about a curmudgeonly, acerbic prep school teacher stranded on campus over winter break with two fellow lost-souls (Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph), is a feel-good crowd-pleaser, in the vein of 2022 winner CODA, and has growing support in this category. And it’s still surprising that Martin Scorsese’s pulse-pounding masterpiece Killers of the Flower Moon, chronicling the unsolved murders of the native Osage people in the 1920s, didn’t gain more traction among voters. So look for the visually daring, high-concept, swooping historical narrative of Oppenheimer to win out over the candy-colored subversion and brain-tickling creativity of Barbie.