Fall Film Festival Releases Capture Oscar Buzz, But Will it Last?

by JP Howard ’28 on September 19, 2024


Film and Television


In most years, only a few films released in the first half of the calendar year solidify themselves as major Oscar contenders. For the past few years, it seemed as if this precedent of awarding only late-in-the-year releases had been dismantled. 2022’s Best Picture winner CODA was released in August, 2023’s winner Everything Everywhere All at Once had been released in March, and this past year’s winner Oppenheimer was a July release. This year seems to be a different story, however, with the only film from the first half of the year that seems poised to make a major splash at the Academy Awards being Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, Part Two, whose predecessor won six Oscars when it was released in 2021. Other early releases, such as Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers and Greg Kwedar’s Sing Sing have emerged as “on-the-bubble” contenders for nominations in the Academy’s top categories, namely Best Picture, but many pundits doubt their ability to sustain their awards buzz from the first half of the year when the 2024 film release schedule seems so congested with late-in-the-year releases.

This is where the major fall festivals—Telluride Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), and New York Film Festival (NYFF)—come into play. Fall film festivals are an essential part of awards season, allowing late-in-the-year releases to be screened to audiences before their theatrical release. This is essential in gauging a film’s reception from both critics and audiences, which are important for studios to understand when deciding the amount of time and money they should consider putting into a film’s awards campaign.

The festivals are also essential for helping filmmakers whose films lack a distributor to find studios willing to release and promote their work. For instance, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist premiered to critical acclaim at the Venice Film Festival in the beginning of September, going on to win Corbet the Silver Lion, the festival’s award for outstanding film direction. A week later, it was announced that A24 had bought the rights to release the film with the goal of giving it an Oscar-qualifying release date before the year’s end. The film now seems poised to rack up nominations in several categories, with Corbet being deemed the runaway favorite to win the Oscar for Best Director following his big win at the Venice Film Festival. The film’s actors seem like sure bets in their respective categories as well, with its stars Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, and Guy Pearce being deemed locks for nominations (and potentially wins) for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. With a history of successful awards campaigning under distributor A24’s belt, including bringing its films Moonlight and Everything Everywhere All at Once to Best Picture victory, The Brutalist’s Oscars success story may seem to be essentially written in the stars. However, this is not a certainty.  

An issue with these fall film festivals is that they can often be seen as shopping sprees for film distributors, constantly aiming to outbid other studios and acquire the year’s most acclaimed films for release. This can lead to studios essentially biting off more than they can chew when crafting a release schedule, which can cause their awards campaigns to suffer due to the necessity of having to distribute their awards campaign resources across multiple films. A24, for instance, also acquired Halina Reijn’s Babygirl from the Venice Film Festival; the film seems poised to have awards longevity, particularly for its star Nicole Kidman’s leading performance. Kidman won the Volpi Cup, the festival’s award for the best performance by a leading actress, for her performance in the film, so it would make sense for A24 to want to fund an awards campaign for it with the hopes of getting Kidman’s performance nominated. The studio also picked up Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, which has garnered Oscar buzz for the performances of its stars Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey. Thus, funding an awards campaign for Queer also seems worthwhile. Not to mention A24 has the aforementioned Sing Sing, one of the year’s most acclaimed films, from earlier in its release schedule.

Thus, A24 must focus its energy across multiple awards campaigns for multiple films, which may cause some of its releases to get lost in the shuffle. This would not be a new development for the studio, either. Last year, their focus on campaigning The Zone of Interest for a Best Picture nomination came at the expense of two of their acclaimed 2023 releases, Priscilla and The Iron Claw, both of which received no nominations. Additionally, the studio failed to get a single release nominated for Best Picture for three years straight following the release of 2017’s Lady Bird, a pattern that was attributed to A24’s struggle to manage multiple Oscar campaigns at once. So, while we can see the ways in which films like The Brutalist and Babygirl may succeed come awards season, we can also see the ways in which they might falter.

Films that have already been locked down by a distributor prior to fall festival season, however, seem to have a more clear path to success. Take, for example, Sean Baker’s Anora, which won the top prize, the Palme d’Or, at the Cannes Film Festival back in June: Neon acquired the film after its successful awards run in Cannes, but has opted to screen the film at both TIFF and NYFF this fall to drum up additional awards buzz. Neon, which successfully brought last year’s Palme D’Or winner, Anatomy of a Fall, to Best Picture nominee status, can now essentially put all their eggs into one basket with Anora. Neon has utilized the film festival circuit to make sure that Baker’s film, starring Mikey Madison, is seen and enjoyed by as many critics and audiences as possible prior to its release. This has worked in its favor as well, with the film being announced as runner-up for the Peoples’ Choice Award at TIFF, an audience-voted award with a history of being the launching pads for several Best Picture-nominated films.

Anora’s Oscar chances still aren’t a slam dunk, though, as it may suffer from “early frontrunner fatigue.” If Anora continues to pick up major awards from each of the festivals it screens at (which is likely), then it may seem like conversation surrounding the film has already reached its peak by the time it comes time for Academy members to cast their ballots. Importantly, being deemed the early frontrunner will likely not cost Anora any of its prospective Oscar nominations, which will likely include Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Baker and Best Actress for Madison, but it very well may prevent the film from winning any top prizes. Take, for instance, 2022’s The Fabelmans, which won the TIFF Peoples’ Choice Award and was immediately deemed the frontrunner for Best Picture. Come March of 2023, the film did not win any of its seven Oscar nominations. When films are showered with awards too early on in their awards run, it often leads them to dominate the conversation for so long that, when it comes time to choose the winners, voters are simply sick of hearing about the same film.

The fall festival circuit is important in deciphering which films will find their way to Oscar glory later in the year, but the nature of the festivals themselves pose direct obstacles for the films in question to overcome. There are obvious paths for these films to Oscar success, but there are also obvious paths for the ways in which they might come up short. At the very least, the festival circuit makes sure that these acclaimed films will stay in the awards conversation for the rest of the year.