Sizing up Oscar frontrunners “One Battle After Another” and “Hamnet ”— and if “KPop Demon Hunters” can slide into the Best Picture race

Oscar season is officially underway!

The 98th Academy Awards are a little over five months away, and with most of the fall festivals behind us (the New York Film Festival wraps up in a week, and AFI Fest is later this month), frontrunners are emerging.

Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet doesn’t open wide until mid-December, but it wowed audiences at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals, winning the latter’s People’s Choice Award (several Best Picture nominees have also claimed this prize, including Zhao’s Nomadland, which won the Oscars’ top award at the 2021 ceremony). Jessie Buckley delivers an emotional powerhouse of a performance as Agnes Shakespeare — more commonly known as Anne Hathaway, wife of William (Paul Mescal) — who takes center stage in this story about the loss of their son, Hamnet.

But quickly stealing that movie’s thunder was Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro, Chase Infiniti, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall, and more. The movie, which opened Sept. 26, is Anderson’s best-reviewed film of his career and quickly catapulted to the top of many pundits’ lists.

“The best picture race might be over, to be honest,” Entertainment Weekly Sr. Writer Joey Nolfi says on the first Oscar-season episode of The Awardist podcast. “You can just look at the science of it all on paper: the themes of this film; the characters, revolutionaries [both] left-leaning and right-leaning; the political aspect of it all is very timely; there’s a lot of really heavy-hitting stars in this, a lot of overdue stars.”

Joey also cites the movie’s appeal to multiple branches of Academy membership, including actors and producers, as a huge boost for its chances. “It’s One Battle After Another’s to lose right now, and I will not change that prediction until something comes in and makes me think otherwise,” he says.

EW Sr. Editor and self-described “awards nerd” Joyce Eng agrees with the momentum around the movie and its director, and the building narrative that this is Anderson’s time.

“I already have it in first. I have PTA in first [for] director,” she shares. “This was the first movie I saw of the fall season, so like four weeks ago, and I immediately loved it. And no shade to the movies I’ve seen since; I haven’t seen everything, obviously, but this remains my favorite of what I’ve seen this past month.”

In addition to the movie’s timeliness and being “highly entertaining,” Joyce thinks there’s a different aspect of the story that will resonate with voters far and wide.

“It’s really about parenthood, and I think that is highly relatable, whether you have kids or not but we all have parents,” she says. “If you’ve seen the movie, you know there’s touching aspects to it and the relationship between Bob and Willa — even if other parts of the movie don’t hit with you.”

As much as the race might seem over at this point, there’s still plenty to come, including Wicked: For Good, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Marty Supreme (which just had a surprise world premiere at NYFF) starring Timothée Chalamet, and Song Sung Blue with Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson.

But there could be a Best Picture dark horse contender in an unexpected pop culture phenomenon that debuted in August: KPop Demon Hunters.

“It’s hard to call KPop Demon Hunters a dark horse, but I do wonder if it could enter the peripheral best picture conversation. Is that too wild of a thought?,” he asks. “I think the people that are inclined to put this at number one on their nominations ballot are gonna ride for this movie hard. So could there be a movement to sort of, I don’t wanna say game the system — because I think if you’re voting for something that you really appreciate, you’re voting for it with all of your heart — but for lack of a better term, is there going to be a swell of people that are like, I really think it’s important to make a statement and vote for this film? And given its popularity, could it be in the race?”

Joyce admits she has considered it. “If it happens, I would not be shocked,” she says, explaining that sometimes it’s difficult to pick the ninth and tenth slots in the category. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the passion for it persists and other things fall by the wayside in the upcoming months. Or, you know, some of these voters have their kids fill out their ballots, their assistants, then maybe they’re just KPop Demon Hunters stans.”

Check out more from EW’s The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year’s best in TV, movies, and more.

You can listen to my conversation with Joey and Joyce in full on The Awardist podcast, below, where we also discuss the movies that gained the most out of the fall festival circuit and the big contenders still to come, and why Jessie Buckley is the one to beat for Best Actress.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly