It’s been a wild lead-up to the 97th Academy Awards, which take place Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. Over the past several weeks, a number of films nominated for best picture have found themselves embroiled in scandals big and small, creating a volatile race for the evening’s top prize.
Here are five key storylines that have shaped the narrative of this year’s Oscars season.
1. “Emilia Pérez” star Karla Sofía Gascón shrugs off scandal, will attend ceremony
Directed by French director Jacques Audiard and starring Spanish actor Karla Sofía Gascón, “Emilia Pérez” is a Spanish-language musical that tells the story of a fictional Mexican drug trafficker who leaves behind a life of crime by becoming a transgender woman.
Despite receiving mixed reviews, including heavy criticism from Mexican critics and those within the LGBTQ community, the Netflix film managed to pick up 13 Oscar nods, making it an early front-runner for best picture. Gascón also became the first openly trans actor to earn an Oscar nomination.
The film’s momentum came to an abrupt halt in late January, when Canadian journalist Sarah Hagi unearthed a disturbingly large trove of offensive social media posts by Gascón, which included Islamophobic and racist rhetoric. The scandalous discovery caused an immediate uproar and turned “Emilia Pérez” into the awards season supervillain.
Despite the controversy, Gascón plans to attend the Oscars ceremony and the film remains a favourite in several categories, including best supporting actress (Zoe Saldaña) and best international feature.
2. Can Timothée Chalamet pull off a best actor upset?
No one wants that Oscar more than Timothée Chalamet, who has been hustling on the campaign trail for months to promote his film “A Complete Unknown,” in which he portrays Bob Dylan. “I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness,” he told the audience at the Screen Actors Guild Awards after taking the prize for male actor in a leading role, before name-dropping acting greats like Marlon Brando, Viola Davis and Daniel Day-Lewis.
If Chalamet wins, he’ll become the youngest actor to take home the trophy for best actor. But to do that he’ll have to beat the presumptive front-runner, Adrien Brody, who currently holds that record after winning best actor for “The Pianist” back in 2003. This will be a race to watch.
3. Demi Moore powered through awards season. Can she win the big trophy?
“When we don’t think we’re smart enough, or skinny enough, or successful enough, or basically just enough, just know: you will never be enough,” said Moore, 62, upon accepting a Golden Globe, her first major acting award, in January. “But you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.”
Moore’s unexpected victory for her brilliant performance in the bonkers body horror film “The Substance” marked a high point in this year’s awards season.
Typically, the Academy Awards don’t hand out many statues for horror movies — and especially not movies that are as bloody and absurd as this one — but Moore’s comeback is the feel-good story of the season, making her the front-runner for best actress.
4. Will (relatively) minor controversies derail ‘The Brutalist’ or ‘Anora’?
The race for best picture has been more volatile than any in recent history. “The Brutalist” is an epic, three-hour and 30-minute period drama that tells the story of visionary architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody), who immigrates to America to rebuild his life. The film was considered an early contender, but came under fire after it was discovered that director Brady Corbet and editor Dávid Jancsó utilized artificial intelligence to adjust and perfect the Hungarian lines delivered by Brody and his co-star Felicity Jones. The film also used generative AI to make some of László Tóth’s drawings and completed buildings at the Venice Biennale.
”(‘The Brutalist’ used AI) not only to avoid paying visual artists for their work but also to manipulate the actors’ accents, a fundamental aspect of acting,” read a viral post on X. “This is a disgrace.”
Corbet defended the decision to use AI, stating: “Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own … The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.”
Meanwhile, “Anora,” a screwball comedy about a stripper who impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch, also faced backlash after the film’s star, Mikey Madison, turned down the chance to work with an intimacy co-ordinator.
“It was a choice that I made,” Madison said during a Variety Actors on Actors discussion. She added that the film’s director Sean Baker and his wife, producer Samantha Quan, offered her the chance to work with an intimacy co-ordinator, but she and her co-star “decided that it would be best just to keep it small. We were able to streamline it, shoot it super quickly.”
Madison described her experience as positive, but Baker still faced criticism from those who say that the presence of a intimacy co-ordinator should be mandatory on film sets. Others, including intimacy co-ordinator Marci Liroff, said that Baker’s decision to let his actors decide “neglects to understand the power dynamics that are inherent on set … it is next to impossible for a performer to say no to someone who has hiring and firing power.”
These controversies sparked plenty of discourse about the use of AI in films and about the safety of performers on movie sets, but it’s unclear how or if they impacted Oscar voters. As things stand, “Anora” is considered the favourite.
5. “No Other Land” couldn’t find a North American distributor. Can it win an Oscar?
Directed by a collective of four Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, “No Other Land” is a harrowing documentary about Israel’s systemic demolition of Palestinian homes in Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in the occupied West Bank. But despite receiving critical acclaim — the film currently has a 100 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes — the documentary was not able to secure a North American distributor, forcing the filmmakers to release the film independently.
“I read it as something that’s completely political,” Israeli co-director Yuval Abraham said in an interview with Variety, pointing out that the film has received distribution in several markets around the world. “The film is very, very critical of Israeli policies. As an Israeli I think that’s a really good thing, because we need to be critical of these policies so they can change. But I think the conversation in the United States appears to be far less nuanced — there is much less space for this kind of criticism, even when it comes in the form of a film.”
“I hope this movie will be seen, really seen, by a lot of people,” Palestinian co-director Basel Adra said. “That would mean a lot to us, and we hope to influence people: not just to change their minds but to move them to act and to keep us in mind.”
This awards season has largely avoided wading into contemporary politics, but a “No Other Land” victory in the best documentary category has the potential to thrust the Palestinian cause into the spotlight.
