Oscars heat index: Poor Things, Priscilla eyeing potential Oscar nominations after fall festivals

The Oscars race is officially on, and potential nominations are in store for a host of Hollywood royalty — as well as some bright-eyed newcomers — as the fall festivals wrap up.

With contenders buying up prime real estate in the awards conversation, EW will survey the Oscars race as it progresses, analyzing who has the momentum to go all the way to the Academy Awards. Read on to find out which films and performances have the gusto to earn gold Oscars race in our Awardist heat index, before winners are announced on March 10.

• PICTURE, DIRECTOR, ACTRESS: Poor Things — Usually, bonkers vibes don't sit well with the Academy, but Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Favourite) has found an oddball sweet spot as the industry's outsider darling, regularly landing big-name stars to play around in his twisted cinematic sandbox. His latest offering, a tale of a dead Victorian woman (Emma Stone) who embarks on a journey of personal liberation after she's revived by a mad scientist, earned universal raves out of Venice and Telluride, placing it on an ideal pedestal as the must-see title of the first round of fall festivals.
• PICTURE, ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: American Fiction — Thanks to the concurrent WGA and SAG strikes barring talent from promoting their projects, the Toronto International Film Festival's 2023 slate was a relatively muted affair when it came to potential awards players, with its commercial might and Oscars prognostication profile weakening as a result. Still, statistics are statistics, and Cord Jefferson's Jeffrey Wright-starring satire American Fiction joined an elite rank upon taking the TIFF People's Choice Award — 10 eventual Best Picture winners or nominees across the last decade have won the Canadian festival's top prize before winning win or scoring a nomination for the Best Picture Oscar, including Nomadland, Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, and last year's Steven Spielberg-directed drama The Fabelmans.
• ACTRESS: Cailee Spaeny, Priscilla — With critics (and early awards bodies) crooning in favor of Priscilla, the Presley family biopic is shaping up to be director Sofia Coppola's first across-the-board awards contender since 2003's Lost in Translation. Following Priscilla Presley's complicated relationship with Elvis, the film's reportedly muted tone offers a stark contrast to last year's bombastic Elvis blockbuster but has all the hallmarks of a typical Oscars contender: a respected filmmaker casting buzzy actors (Euphoria's Jacob Elordi plays Elvis) for a fact-based dive into entertainment industry history. The film has already earned ace marks on the trail, with the Venice Film Festival bestowing its Best Actress prize to Spaeny for her work in the titular role. With the victory, the 25-year-old could fall in line with the likes of Venice winners such as Emma Stone (La La Land), Joaquin Phoenix (Joker), Olivia Colman (The Favourite), and more who went on to win the Oscars' corresponding prize.

• ACTRESS: Margot Robbie, Barbie — Before you freak out and banish us to Weird Barbie's basement that smells like soup, hear us out. Robbie is still very much a contender in the race, and we fully expect her to land among the Academy's eventual nominees for Best Actress, but, at this moment, the buzz around summer blockbusters (like Barbie and Oppenheimer) tends to cool as the festivals usher in shiny new contenders. Robbie's campaign has yet to reach its peak, so look out for her to soar in the weeks ahead, but all of the focus right now appears to be on emerging performances from Stone, Spaeny, Carey Mulligan (Maestro), and Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon), but once the novelty of festival praise wears off outside of the seasonal vacuum, the strengths of Robbie's work — coupled with her producing hand in making Barbie happen in the first place — will surge and make the awards trail a pink Barbie world once again.

• The New York Film Festival kicks off on Friday, with many of the usual suspects in the race so far (Maestro, Anatomy of a Fall, Poor Things, Priscilla, The Zone of Interest) hitting this end of the circuit. Fringe hopefuls including Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers and Todd Haynes' May December could get a boost from NYFF screenings as well.

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.

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