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 true-story-inspired drama depicting three decades in the life of the Gucci family (and their eponymous fashion house) in Italy, focusing mainly on events related to the 1995 murder of Maurizio Gucci and its aftermath. It's also esteemed director Ridley Scott's second film of the fall (following The Last Duel).
Why is it a contender? It's a biopic (always an Oscar-friendly genre) with a juicy story (described by some critics as The Godfather set in the fashion industry) and a lot of big names involved, including a cast led by Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons, Salma Hayek, and Al Pacino. It's also getting a lot of free publicity thanks to complaints from members of the real-life Gucci family who are unhappy with how the family is depicted.
What are its chances? At the moment: Decent, but not great. We won't really know until full reviews are published on the eve of its theatrical debut, and it's probably not a terrific sign that Gucci skipped the major fall festivals. That cast leads us to believe its chances are very good, but early impressions of the film from industry experts strongly suggest Gucci may be too bloated and too campy to be taken seriously and is likely to receive middling reviews at best. (It is also being compared, thematically, to the director's recent All the Money in the World, which failed to make much of a mark on the awards circuit.) Gucci has a much better chance at scoring at least one acting nomination (with Lady Gaga, in her first film since A Star Is Born, the most likely nominee), while Scott, who will turn 84 in a few weeks, also has a chance at becoming the oldest best director nominee in Oscar history.
When can I see it? In theaters over Thanksgiving weekend (beginning the night of November 23).
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