Two of the most high-profile awards bodies in Oscars season unveiled their nominees today, giving us a firmer sense of which movies are likely to become Oscar frontrunners. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards are an actor-oriented ceremony, but their membership has major overlap with the Academy. The Directors Guild Awards (DGAs), meanwhile, give us a sense of which directors might wind up nominated for Best Director.
The SAG nominations turned out to be particularly good for Wicked, which received nominations for three of its actors and its ensemble and its stunt performers for a total of five nominations. A Complete Unknown was just behind it with four, including an ensemble nod and three acting nods, and Anora, Conclave, and Emilia Perez rounded out the best ensemble lineup.
This best ensemble nomination has been a rock-solid precursor for the eventual winner of Best Picture, which suggests particular strength for the five movies that made it here. The Brutalist, meanwhile, only received one nomination even after coming out of the Golden Globes with the perception of momentum. You can see the full list of SAG nominations here.
The DGA nominations clipped Wicked‘s wings slightly, snubbing director John Chu for his work on the film. Instead, the nominated directors were Brady Corbet for The Brutalist, James Mangold for A Complete Unknown, Sean Baker for Anora, Edward Berger for Conclave, and Jacques Audiard for Emilia Perez.
These nominations suggests continued strength for Anora, A Complete Unknown, Emilia Perez and Conclave, and leaves us without a clear sense of which of those films could emerge as the frontrunner. This year’s Oscar race is wide open, and the movies with frontrunner status are fairly different from one another. Given the mix of nominated films, and the disparity in passion between different voting groups, we might not have a clearer picture of who is running ahead until we get to the Oscar nominations.
