What Will Get The Final Two Slots In Best Picture At The 97th Academy Awards?

Unless “Nosferatu” stretches out five technical nominations into a Best Picture shocker, or unless “All We Imagine as Light” or “I’m Still Here” prove bigger with international voters than BAFTA suggested, there are now four films left fighting for just two available spots in Best Picture. After crashing the PGA field, “A Real Pain” and “September 5” are presumed bigger favorites than “Sing Sing” and “Nickel Boys” for those final slots, yet is that more misleading than it looks on paper?

These are the cases for and against “A Real Pain,” “September 5,” “Sing Sing,” and “Nickel Boys” for Best Picture – and where recent history suggests they may end up.

“A Real Pain”As previously written about, “A Real Pain” is a very maddening case. Even now, it still isn’t locked into Best Picture despite Kieran Culkin’s Best Supporting Actor sweep, a safe nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and the backing of Searchlight’s considerable Oscar season muscle. In fact, aside from “September 5,” it has the fewest precursor nominations of any film still in the race and would be much further back if not for its placement in NBR, AFI, the Golden Globes, and PGA.

Those major groups are doing more heavy lifting for “A Real Pain” than any film this year, or at least the heavy lifting that Culkin isn’t doing by himself. In truth, if several critics had gotten their way in arguing that Culkin belongs in Best Actor and not Best Supporting Actor – and taken away his chance at winning as a result – “A Real Pain” might have already been eliminated by now.

Also, as previously written, no male actor has won an Oscar in the expanded ballot era without a Best Picture nomination unless they are overdue, like Jeff Bridges and Christopher Plummer, or have a transformation/comeback narrative like Brendan Fraser. Without any of those advantages, does Culkin automatically go from overwhelming favorite to being in serious trouble if “A Real Pain” misses – or is his sweep so inevitable that it has to automatically ride his coattails in?

The PGA nomination was a massive help, and Searchlight is usually always a much bigger help. Yet with Searchlight guiding “A Complete Unknown” to such a big overperformance lately, and with Timothee Chalamet’s Best Actor case taking off as a result, will the studio become too distracted to give “A Real Pain” that final push? And can it get two films into Best Picture even if none of them are a threat to win, unlike with “The Shape of Water” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” in 2017?

If not for Culkin and the PGAs, the answer might be a painful one for “A Real Pain.” But as it stands, with those advantages and the disadvantages of its other competition, it might still be as safe a bet as any to get in – by default or otherwise.

“Nickel Boys”After missing the PGAs, missing a nomination at ASC, and missing several major directing nominations for RaMell Ross, it has become very easy to count “Nickel Boys” out altogether. However, the last two years have offered late bailouts to other movies that fell off before nomination morning, too.

In 2022, “Women Talking” was pegged as a serious threat not just in Best Picture but for acting and directing nominations and at least one or two techs. In 2023, “Past Lives” was heralded as the most acclaimed pre-Barbenheimer movie of the year and was racking up precursor nominations in Best Director and Best Actress early in the season. But after strong starts in the preseason and during critics award season, both “Women Talking” and “Past Lives” missed so many industry precursors and raised so many red flags they went from nomination locks to having their bubbles ready to pop – until they were spared with Best Picture and Screenplay nominations only.

“Nickel Boys” was also touted as a film that could get a Director nomination, an acting nomination, and at least a few tech nominations early in the season. But after a strong start in the preseason and critics award season, it has missed so many industry precursors and put Ross, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, and cinematographer Jomo Fray in such dire straits that people are now talking about it only getting a lone Best Adapted Screenplay nomination or absolutely nothing at all.

And yet, after two straight years of preseason favorites barely holding onto by a fingernail to reach Best Picture, a three-peat can’t be discounted out of hand. Assuming it does hang on to that Best Adapted Screenplay nomination, even missing in Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Cinematography won’t totally eliminate it until the final category. A nomination might come by default only because other candidates have even bigger weaknesses – but at this point, “Nickel Boys” will take it however they can get it.

“Sing Sing”Like “Past Lives” in 2023, “Sing Sing” went from being A24’s early season darling to a film barely hanging on by a thread while A24 makes another film its top priority. Like “Women Talking” in 2022, a snub from the PGA has put “Sing Sing” in an especially fragile position before nomination morning. But unlike those films, “Sing Sing” at least has one other nomination secured in Best Actor for Colman Domingo and could still get a second for Clarence Maclin in Best Supporting Actor.

If Domingo, Maclin, and the screenplay all have nominations announced before Best Picture is revealed, nearly everyone will assume “Sing Sing” will have the final spot locked up. However, that combination is not foolproof for a bubble movie.

Two acting nominations and a screenplay nom didn’t boost “The Lost Daughter” in 2021, “The Two Popes” in 2019, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” in 2018, “Carol” in 2015, “Foxcatcher” in 2014, even when it also got Best Director, or “Blue Jasmine” in 2013 even when Cate Blanchett won for Best Actress. “Sing Sing” would still breathe easier if it had those three nominations in hand before Best Picture, yet that doesn’t mean it can completely relax – though a Maclin miss wouldn’t automatically knock it out either.

In a very long season where “Sing Sing” has gone from highs to crushing lows in the blink of an eye, maybe getting three major nominations only to then miss Best Picture is the most fitting way this can all end. But if it is snubbed, the conversation and the blame game will be very different depending on what knocks it out – if it is “Nickel Boys” or something else.

“September 5”With one PGA nomination, “September 5” went from being a film that could completely blank to a film now projected for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing nominations in one big last-second package deal. However, that would still look extremely improbable in the context of recent history.

Before the PGAs, BAFTA seemed like it had knocked “September 5” out for good by virtue of having zero longlist mentions. While several Best Picture nominated films in the last few years have missed the BAFTA Best Film longlist, they still appeared in other categories that helped keep them going – yet no film this decade has made Best Picture without making one single BAFTA longlist.

Combine that with its near complete shutout in other precursors except for the Golden Globes and PGA, and it would make a “September 5” Best Picture nomination come from virtually nowhere. Then inevitable questions would come over why voters made this exception for a relatively apolitical film about the 1972 Munich Olympic attack, what led up to it, and what it says or doesn’t say about the conflict 50+ years later.

In a year where “Emilia Pérez” isn’t being subjected to the normal standards of a Best Picture frontrunner for one reason or another, maybe an outcome like this would be all too telling or fitting. Nonetheless, it is far more obvious that the PGA is the only reason people are remotely considering this outcome today – and except for last year, the PGA and the Academy do not match up 100% of the time.

Without any sign of support beyond two groups, “September 5” is still a massive underdog to make the cut. Without much help in other categories, “Nickel Boys” may also be doomed, yet “Sing Sing” and “A Real Pain” still can’t be locked in even as they cling to nominations from other categories for dear life. This is truly not a bubble that looked as formidable as it did a month ago, and even the smallest surprise surge or additional nomination from films like “Challengers,” “Nosferatu,” “All We Imagine as Light,” and “I’m Still Here” could have made all these films pop by now.

But without that, “A Real Pain” seems destined to squeeze in right behind Culkin – and “Nickel Boys” may well be the “No Guts, No Glory” pick that has massive critical support narrowly cancels out all its other misses, as is the newfound tradition these days.

Which of these four films do you think will receive the final two slots in the Best Picture nominations later this week when the 97th Academy Award nominations are announced?Please let us know in the comments below or on Next Best Picture’s X account, and be sure to check out Next Best Picture’s latest Oscar predictions here.

You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984