The Telluride Film Festival, as usual, clarified this year’s Oscar race.
Now that the assembled media has weighed in breathlessly on the various emerging contenders, it’s time to parse the lineup more soberly.
One movie looms ahead of the festival pack with multiple Oscar chances: British auteur Martin McDonagh’s “Wild Horse Nine” (Searchlight): Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Best Actor (John Malkovich) and Supporting Actor (Sam Rockwell). Telluride gave Malkovich two Tributes.
The other movie that built strong word-of-mouth at the festival was Los Javis’ Cannes prize-winner “La Bola Negra” (Netflix), a tour-de-force gay epic drama: Picture, Director, Original Screenplay and a long-shot Supporting Actress (Penélope Cruz) are possibilities, along with Best International Feature Film.
Three strong performances grabbed raves and will play well for the Academy Actors Branch. Two are set in the theater world, which doesn’t hurt: Andrew Scott nabbed raves as a dying actor taking on Hamlet in “Elsinore” (Focus); Julianne Moore was also lauded as a sad sack housewife finding herself as a fledgling actress in a New Jersey community theater in Jesse Eisenberg’s “The Debut” (A24). And inspired by Guy Nattiv’s grandmother’s true story, “The Liberation” (Bleecker) gives Carrie Coon a chance to shine as an unfulfilled woman who abandons her family for a cult.
That rising distributor is also releasing British treasure Mike Leigh’s likely swan song “Tender Loving Care,” a relatable and poignant audience favorite at the festival. The respected Leigh has been nominated seven times and never won, for Director (“Secrets & Lies” and “Vera Drake”) and Original Screenplay (five), not to mention the many actors who have been recognized for his films. (“Secrets & Lies” made it to Best Picture.) It could happen again with support from critics.
One movie that played well to audiences is “Ink” (Netflix), Danny Boyle’s entertaining portrait of 60s Fleet Street. Jack O’Connell is superb as the hard-driving sensationalist “The Sun” editor Larry Lamb, but the Best Actor race is crowded. And Australian actor Guy Pearce could follow up his 2025 nomination for “The Brutalist” with another for playing Rupert Murdoch.
The Best International Feature race will be dominated by Cannes Competition titles “La Bola Negra,” Neon’s “Fjord,” and Mubi’s “Fatherland” and “Minotaur,” which all built strong responses at Telluride.
Each has potential in other categories, especially “Fatherland” rising star Sandra Hüller.
Among the documentaries the “Free Solo” Oscar-winning team Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin outdid themselves with “Everest: The Other Side” (NatGeo), the exhilarating and terrifying portrait of heroic mountaineer-skier Jim Morrison’s attempts to ascend and ski down Everest’s North Face — for the first time. Oprah Winfrey threw a Telluride party to honor the film, and conducted the Q&A with the now-estranged filmmakers and Morrison.
While Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s TBA event “You Can See Everything” (A24) reminded us of how rare it is to experience a new movie without knowing anything about it (review here), the fact that it exploded at Telluride does not an Oscar movie make. Critics and box office could boost its chances, but while Oppenheim (who flew in from Venice after the premiere of “Primetme”) is a respected documentarian, Fielder is a comedian and non-fiction outsider. The movie, which follows disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes as she preps for prison, makes you laugh. It is transgressive in entertaining ways that wreak havoc on established documentary rules of engagement. That is a good thing, but the idiosyncratic movie may not play for the opinionated doc branch.
These films commanded the most initial buzz, and other films like Andrew Haigh’s tragic drama “A Long Winter” (Mubi) and Cannes crowdpleaser “Club Kid” (yet another A24 title) will continue to build their profiles at the other fall festivals, where other breakouts are waiting.
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