How the election is reshaping the 2024 Oscars race

NEW YORK — For the film world, the Monday after Thanksgiving has typically served as the unofficial launch of Oscars season.

It’s when Hollywood’s newest class of rising and already risen stars gathers in the chandelier-festooned former bank building of Cipriani Wall Street for the Gotham Awards, which has the vibe of a huge, joyous artistic family reunion.

This year, though, the mood felt more akin to the first meeting of the resistance.

Donald Trump’s name wasn’t mentioned from the stage, but there is no doubt that his election has dramatically shaken up the most wide-open Oscar race we’ve seen in years, just as it has shaken the core members of the film industry, who largely lean left. (It’s hard to argue against Republicans’ categorization of Hollywood as liberal elites when George Clooney can write an op-ed in the New York Times and dramatically influence President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside in the 2024 campaign. When I asked an Academy member — who can’t be named because … showbiz — about the state of the race, they replied: “What race?! It happened and we lost! Oh, you mean the other race.”)

All season, Oscar prognosticators have talked about this being a down year with a dearth of contenders. Could we really fill out all the best picture slots? Would they all be tiny movies from international film festivals because American production was so curtailed last year due to the screen actors and writers guild strikes? But end-of-year blockbuster entries and the total vibe shift after the election have suddenly made things interesting.

Feel-good movies with messages of tolerance and redemption, such as “Wicked,” with its two powerhouse superstars (Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande) singing about acceptance and forgiveness, and “Sing Sing” (an A24 film about a prison theater program with a cast that includes formerly incarcerated actors who are real graduates of the program), are on the rise, while violent spectacles such as “Gladiator II” seem to have taken a dive.

The first flurry of awards of the long trek to the Oscars ceremony on March 2 was announced against a week of remarkably chaotic news. The Gothams — which named A24’s droll comedy about warped beauty standards, “A Different Man,” as best feature — took place in the wake of Biden pardoning his son Hunter.

The next day, the New York Film Critics Circle met in a closed-door ceremony many have compared to the papal voting process in best picture contender “Conclave” — naming “The Brutalist” its top feature, as South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law and opposition lawmakers climbed the walls into the National Assembly to vote it down.

On Wednesday, “Anora” and “I Saw the TV Glow” got six Independent Spirit Award nominations each, and “Wicked” was named the National Board of Review’s top film of the year. Meanwhile, activists were gathered on the steps of the Supreme Court to protest the possible ban of transgender care for minors; a manhunt was underway for the killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson; and bitcoin’s value soared above $100,000 in a surge tied to Trump’s victory.

And on Thursday, as the American Film Institute named its top 10 films — a list that is highly predictive of best picture nominees — Pete Hegseth scrambled for Senate votes in a bid to become Trump’s defense secretary.

Judging from the deluge that got announced this week, the race could go six (or seven!) different ways. And that deck could be shuffled once again after the Los Angeles Film Critics Association announces its winners Sunday, and especially after the Golden Globe nominations Monday.

The Spirit Award nominations were all over the place, but it’s a ceremony that often predicts what the Academy will pick from non-studio entries, which bodes well for one of the two most-nominated films, “Anora” — which earlier this year won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

The biggest post-election shake-up in the race is probably the ascendancy of “Wicked.” Oscar voters reeling from a Trump win seem ready for escapism, and eager to see two very talented musical theater nerds do their thing. But there’s also an unexpectedly robust thematic resonance, too, about the pain of being othered and the beauty of acceptance. In a shocker, NBR gave “Wicked” best feature, best director, and a spotlight award for Erivo and Grande’s “creative collaboration.”

Meanwhile, the Gothams reinvigorated Oscar hopes for “Sing Sing,” which had hit theaters this summer with little fanfare and much criticism of A24’s distribution strategy.

“Let’s keep doing the work, the work that really matters, that makes a difference. That’s what we can really do right now. That can be the light in the darkness,” said Colman Domingo, the sole name actor in “Sing Sing,” playing a prisoner who maintains his innocence.

His gist was clear in the room, which rose to its feet every time “Sing Sing” was honored. It took home the preannounced social justice tribute award, plus (in gender-neutral categories) the lead acting award for Domingo and outstanding supporting performance for Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, who served a 17-year sentence for robbery in Sing Sing, where he found purpose acting in Shakespeare plays.

The day after the Gothams, the company announced that the film would be rereleased in theaters on Jan. 17, the day Oscar nominations are announced.

As Maclin spoke about the men with him onstage, he referenced how his castmate Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez had been formally exonerated on Sept. 30 after 23 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. With tears in his eyes, another formerly incarcerated actor, Sean “Dino” Johnson, told the room, “We’re living proof that no matter where you start, you should always be able to dream of where you can go and be.”

And with that, this tiny feel-good prison movie that had been flying under the radar now seems poised for a “CODA”-esque run toward a best picture nod. Little-cast-that-could. Heartfelt message of art as salvation. The chance to see rehabilitated men of color become advocates for the arts and live their best lives among the likes of Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet.

Elsewhere throughout the night and week, the specter of OUR CHANGING WORLD and THE TIMES WE NOW LIVE IN seemed potent.

Take Sebastian Stan. A month before the election, there was talk that he could get a best actor nod for playing a young Donald Trump in “The Apprentice,” but his chances felt dead in the water the minute Trump won. Then, this week, he got a Spirit nomination for “The Apprentice.” Will the Academy follow suit? Or perhaps reward his performance in “A Different Man,” as a way of recognizing his work on both films, while avoiding any mention of 45 and 47?

Accepting her performance tribute honor at the Gothams, a radiant Angelina Jolie — a close-to-sure-thing best actress nominee for playing opera singer Maria Callas in “Maria” — paid tribute to her mother, who was such an advocate of literature that she kept books inside the oven due to lack of shelf space in their tiny apartment. She dedicated her award to “all those who teach and inspire art in others,” and she spoke of art as a conduit for people to laugh together and to understand each other. “And that’s why it’s so important that art is taught in our schools, and so concerning that many of those programs are being reduced,” she said, to applause.

That night also saw Vera Drew, winner of breakthrough director for “The People’s Joker,” confess that seeing Nicole Kidman — another best actress contender for “Babygirl” — in “Batman Forever” in a theater in Wisconsin when she was 6 was the moment Drew knew she was trans. Kidman screamed and raised her hands in the air in enthusiastic affirmation.

Tuesday, studios took advantage of everyone being in town for the Gothams and threw one of the most packed nights for movie events the city has seen all year. The hope is to stay fresh in Academy members’ minds as they head toward the holiday break — and barrel toward Trump’s inauguration.

At the Museum of Modern Art, the heretofore best picture front-runner, “Anora,” was screening, with director Sean Baker and star Mikey Madison in tow (both high on the list for predicted best director and best actress nods, respectively). Also in Midtown, at the Whitby Hotel, Patti Smith came out to support best actor hopeful Daniel Craig at a premiere of yet another A24 film, “Queer.”

Down in SoHo, at the Crosby hotel, Karla Sofía Gascón was tirelessly working the room full of Academy members, including directors Paul Schrader and James Schamus, until nearly midnight. She will possibly be the first trans person ever nominated for an acting Oscar, for her starring role in Netflix’s “Emilia Pérez,” an audacious Spanish-language musical from French master Jacques Audiard about a vicious cartel boss who transitions to being a woman.

She’d done 35 six-minute interviews that morning, and barely knew what city she was in, having traveled from Los Angeles to Berlin to Rome to Madrid to New York. She’d be heading for London the next day. “The hallways of the hotels are nice,” she said, through an interpreter.

And across town, at Metrograph, an independent theater with a bar on the Lower East Side, Grande was hugging small children and holding space for Erivo at a screening of “Wicked” attended by Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and what looked like all their kids, plus Lively’s mother. (Lively wore bedazzled ruby Mary Janes from Marc Jacobs and carried a Chanel purse decorated with embroidered poppies.)

“It’s a lobbying opportunity, right? And they spend millions and millions of dollars,” said actor Joe Pantoliano at the “Wicked” screening. His friend Anne Ramsey got him into the Academy after they both played cartoonish villains in “The Goonies,” and right now, he likes “Conclave” and is hoping June Squibb and Richard Roundtree get surprise acting nominations for “Thelma.”

“It’s a machine, and, in the end, it’s a big f---ing joke,” he continued. “You spend 30 percent of your budget, and you get the [tax] write-off, everybody gets to go to parties and all this bulls---, and then, in the end, the obvious movies get nominated. Sometimes people vote from their heart, but you know, the Academy is becoming more autocratic than democratic.”

Mostly, he’s looking forward to catching up on all the movies and tuning out “the end of democracy,” he said. “As George Carlin says, I’m just kicking back and waiting for the fireworks. And they’re coming. Especially for our world. It’s all going to change, and the manipulation of the fascist government will demonize the creatives, because creative people are the first that they’re going to go after.”