Meet This Year's Best Picture Contenders
As we head into the holiday season, we also head into the heart of film awards season. And once again, we are looking at a rather unpredictable year. Though cinemas have mostly reopened this year, the Oscar race is once again being impacted by the pandemic, with many films failing to reach the large audiences that would have greeted them in a normal year—or reaching them directly in their homes rather than on the big screen.
But the uncertainty doesn't mean we don't have a general idea of which films will contend for best picture nominations at the upcoming Oscars. We have surveyed industry experts, calculated the Metascores, and examined the top performing films at this year's major film festivals to come up with a list of 20 potential best picture contenders from 2021, plus a few bonus wildcards.
What is it? A Steven Spielberg-directed remake of one of the most beloved movie and stage musicals of all time.
Why is it a contender? The original 1961 film adaptation won more Oscars (10) than any other musical in history. Spielberg is certainly no stranger to Academy voters—he has directed more best picture nominees than any person not named William Wyler—and this film reunites him with Oscar-winning screenwriter Tony Kushner (Lincoln, Munich).
What are its chances? This is another film that has yet to be screened for anyone (despite the fact that it has sat on the shelf for a year thanks to the pandemic), so a lot will depend on how good it turns out to be. And experts, without the benefit of seeing the film, are mixed on its Oscar chances. While the success of the earlier film shows the material is clearly Oscar-worthy, Spielberg's remake lacks established stars and will have to jump an extra hurdle by offering a convincing answer to the question of why West Side Story needed to be made again. (One possible answer: The new film doesn't deviate from the Broadway version as much as the first film did.) But it's an encouraging sign that Stephen Sondheim (a co-writer of the original Broadway musical version of West Side Story) has praised Spielberg's version.
When can I see it? December 10 in theaters.
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