In what was potentially the most important weekend for the Oscar race, with three major prizes awarded and Oscar voting starting in two days on the 11th, one film stood tall, winning all three major prizes: Sean Baker’s Anora.
Baker won Best Director at the Directors Guild of America (DGA), and the film won Best Picture at the Producers Guild of America (PGA) and the Critics Choice Association. The DGA and PGA are incredibly important precursors because their voting bodies have significant overlap with the Academy voters, unlike the Golden Globes and Critics Choice, which are independent bodies. For Anora to win both, it shows significant passion among those voting for Best Picture. After a disappointing January, where it was shut out at the Golden Globes, Anora has risen back to frontrunner status.
Here are some stats about the DGA and PGA: 18 of the last 20 winners of the DGA have gone on to win the Oscar for Best Director. 14 of the last 20 winners of the PGA have gone on to win the Oscar for Best Picture.
Since 2000, 16 films have won both the PGA and DGA, and 13 have gone on to win Best Picture. Gravity also won both but tied for PGA with the eventual Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave. The three that lost were Brokeback Mountain, La La Land, and 1917. Both Brokeback Mountain and 1917 lost to a late-breaking SAG ensemble winner in Crash and Parasite. Unfortunately for the films looking for the late surge, the SAG awards this year are on February 23rd, four days after Oscar voting closes.
The two Best Picture winners at the Golden Globes, The Brutalist and Emelia Perez, took significant hits this weekend. The Brutalist‘s Best Picture chances, in particular, look very bleak. It was the betting favorite to win the Critics Choice, and Brady Corbet was the strong favorite to win DGA. It only won one Critics Choice award for lead actor Adrian Brody. Combine these losses with a poor showing at the SAGs, and it appears the industry is not as passionate about the film as other bodies. It could still have a strong showing at the BAFTAs (which is on 2/16), but the BAFTAs don’t translate well to Best Picture; only 2 of the last 10 winners of BAFTA Best Film have won Best Picture at the Oscars. Emelia Perez‘s losses aren’t as bleak, as it was always very unlikely for it to win PGA, which has never awarded an international film Best Picture, and Critics Choice, as the film was not universally acclaimed by critics. The DGA loss does sting, as it was a guild that has awarded international films and would have shown a lot of strength going into the Oscar voting. Emelia Perez does have a chance to do well at both the BAFTAs and SAG, but it might be too little too late.
Wicked and Conclave are the only other two films I see potentially pulling off an upset. Wicked appears to have a very passionate base of voters and could win SAG. A PGA win would have really helped it, however. Conclave could win both SAG and BAFTA (Edward Berger is a BAFTA favorite), and has been able to win awards at most award shows up until this.
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