Meet This Year's Best Picture Contenders

▣ Aftersun pictured above
A moving, haunting, and enigmatic depiction of a father-daughter relationship starring Paul Mescal (Normal People) and newcomer Frankie Corio, the debut from writer-director Charlotte Wells is, right now, the highest-scoring movie of 2022. But extremely high Metascores don't correlate with best picture nominations, and experts consider the A24-released indie a longshot (at best) in the race.

▣ All Quiet on the Western Front
Though the previous film adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's WWI novel—released in 1930—was a best picture (then called "Outstanding Production") winner and remains an all-time classic, this German remake has a bit less acclaim and is subtitled, which doesn't sound like an Oscar-ready formula.

▣ Armageddon Time
Filmmaker James Gray's autobiographical drama following a young boy growing up in early 1980s Queens received solid reviews at its Cannes debut. But Gray's films usually get solid reviews, and they usually get ignored by the Academy. Armageddon Time just expanded nationwide, so go ahead and increase its chances slightly if it somehow catches fire at the box office.

▣ Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Originally expected to be a contender, Alejandro González Iñárritu's first film since The Revenant (which, like Birdman before it, was a best picture nominee) was met with surprisingly lackluster reviews when it debuted at Venice in September. It's also mostly in Spanish (which didn't hurt a previous Netflix contender, Roma, though that was a much better movie). Still, Bardo is not without its supporters, its main character is a filmmaker, and it has been re-edited since its festival premiere—so it's not entirely a lost cause.

▣ Bones and All
Director Luca Guadagnino certainly captivated Academy voters with his 2017 romance Call Me by Your Name, and this one returns several of that film's stars including Timothée Chalamet and Michael Stuhlbarg (but oddly, given that it's a movie about cannibalism, not Armie Hammer). But a cannibal road trip movie isn't exactly typical best picture fare, even if reviews were fairly good. If it gets nominated, it will likely be in the screenplay category.

▣ Close
The devastating second feature from Belgian director Lukas Dhont (Girl) traces the dissolution of a friendship between two 13-year-olds. It collected the second-place prize at Cannes in May, where the film earned raves from most (but not all) critics for the performances of its two young leads, and prestige label A24 signed on to release the film (date still tbd). Some experts give it a shot at a nomination, but that's a lot to ask of a small-scale French-language coming-of-age drama.

▣ Decision to Leave
Can a Korean-language thriller get a best picture nomination? Thanks to Parasite, we know the answer to that question is a definitive "yes." But it seems unlikely that a film as under-the-radar as Decision to Leave will do so, no matter how good Park Chan-wook's modern noir might be. (Park's previous film, The Handmaiden, had the same level of critical acclaim but failed to receive a single Oscar nomination.)

▣ Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
It's one of 2022's best-reviewed films and will be able to reach a wide audience on Netflix. But getting an animated film into the best picture race is a big ask: Only three animated films (with 2010's Toy Story 3 the most recent) have ever been nominated in the category, and all three had Disney's marketing muscle behind them.

▣ The Inspection
Elegance Bratton’s semiautobiographical debut feature follows a young, gay Black man (Jeremy Pope) who enlists in the Marine Corps as a way to escape homelessness. Reviews have been positive for the drama (which opens Nov. 18) but experts consider it a longshot.

▣ Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Netflix's steamy drama (streaming Dec. 2) based on the D.H. Lawrence novel hasn't wowed critics so far, but some critics still give it an outside chance at a nomination.

▣ Living
An English bureaucrat (Bill Nighy) attempts to find purpose in his life after being diagnosed with a terminal illness in Oliver Hermanus's drama. Reviews were excellent out of Sundance, where Sony Pictures Classics shelled out $5 million for the film, and there's a chance it could enter the Oscar picture if buzz begins building following its late-year (Dec. 23) release.

▣ A Man Called Otto
Marc Forster's English-language adaptation of A Man Called Ove stars Tom Hanks as the titular grumpy old man who forms an unlikely friendship with his new neighbor (presumably after telling her to get off his lawn). It's another movie that hasn't been seen yet by anyone, and it won't even reach theaters until January (following a qualifying L.A. run next month), so it's more wildcard than anything else right now. The original Swedish film was Oscar-nominated, but there has been surprisingly little buzz for the remake so far.

▣ The Menu
An eat-the-rich (or, more accurately, the-rich-eat) satire from frequent Succession director Mark Mylod and starring Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Nicholas Hoult, The Menu received solid reviews out of the fall festivals but is considered by pundits to be a longshot. It'll need to build significant buzz when it opens in theaters on Nov. 18.

▣ Nope
Some experts actually give it an outside chance at a nomination, but Jordan Peele's latest horror film wasn't reviewed as highly as his Oscar nominee Get Out. In fact, it had a lower score than his second film, Us, and the latter was ignored by the Academy, which tends not to vote for genre films.

▣ The Pale Blue Eye
Another still-unseen wildcard, the latest from Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper (which gets a brief theatrical run on Dec. 23 before heading to Netflix in January) is a gothic whodunnit based on the novel of the same name by Louis Bayard that is set at West Point in the 1830s. Christian Bale, Harry Melling, and Gillian Anderson head a good cast, so there's always a chance at a nomination if the film turns out to be good, but experts appear to think that the subject matter isn't quite Oscar-worthy, and the film doesn't really appear to be on anyone's radar yet.

▣ RRR
Will this well-reviewed action-adventure epic become the first Indian film to receive a best picture nomination? Almost certainly not, but RRR was an international box office hit and was even widely seen in the U.S., where the film remained in Netflix's top 10 for 14 consecutive weeks—and Netflix will likely wage a spirited FYC campaign in its support. Shockingly, India did not submit RRR in the international feature category, so it will likely be shut out completely when nominations are announced.

▣ The Son
Despite returning star Anthony Hopkins and reuniting the core behind-the-scenes team of recent best picture nominee The Father, Florian Zeller couldn't quite recreate that film's magic with this prequel also starring Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern. Critics found The Son to be a bit of a slog when it debuted at Venice.

▣ Till
It is likely to be nominated in at least one category—most likely for Danielle Deadwyler’s performance as Mamie Till Mobley as she see seeks justice for the lynching of her teen son, Emmett Till, in 1955 Mississippi—but best picture buzz has been surprisingly limited for a well-reviewed film about an important historical subject.

▣ Triangle of Sadness
The Square director Ruben Ostlund's latest satire represents his English-language debut, and it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in May. But no one is going to see it in theaters, and reviews are relatively tepid for a Cannes winner (and for an Ostlund film). Also: Might there be too much vomit to merit Oscar consideration?

▣ The Whale
Controversial casting aside, Darren Aronofsky's drama (in theaters Dec. 9) about a severely obese teacher who attempts to reconcile with his teen daughter will almost certainly result in at least one Oscar nomination: for Brendan Fraser's lead performance. But the film around him probably isn't good enough to secure a best picture nomination.

▣ White Noise
Though Noah Baumbach's adaptation of Don DeLillo's thought-to-be-unfilmable 1985 novel turned out better than some may have feared, the Adam Driver- and Greta Gerwig-starring dark comedy is far from the director's best work. More than one reviewer found the film distant, uninvolving, and long when it debuted at Venice. Can the Netflix promotional machine overcome the good-but-not-great reviews?

▣ The Wonder
Another Netflix title, Sebastián Lelio's first film in four years is an adaptation of Room author Emma Donoghue’s 1862-set novel about miraculous happenings in an Irish town. Many critics like the film, and Lelio has won an Oscar before (albeit in the foreign-language category), but its score is lower than that of his other recent films (which weren't nominated), and it might be too slight to merit attention from the Academy. It hasn't yet debuted on Netflix, so there's still a chance it could take off.