The two films could hardly be more different: a raucous, rip-roaring indie about a sex worker and an elegant, big-studio drama set in the Vatican.
But Anora and Conclave appear to be locked in a tight two-horse race to win best picture at the Oscars on Sunday.
With a twisty awards season rocked by Los Angeles wildfires and a racist tweet scandal reaching its climax, the battle for Hollywood’s ultimate prize is too close to call.
“I don’t think anyone can honestly tell you,” said The Hollywood Reporter’s awards expert Scott Feinberg. “Both sides are feeling more nervous than confident… that should be an indicator that this is really a nail-biter.”
Sean Baker’s Anora – about a New York exotic dancer who weds a wealthy Russian playboy, only to learn that her dream marriage is a nightmare illusion – is the year’s most awarded film to date.
The low-budget indie won the Cannes festival’s Palme d’Or last May, and has accrued top prizes from Hollywood directors, producers, writers and critics.
But Conclave – a film about the secretive and cutthroat election of a new Catholic leader, lent an uncanny timeliness by the real-life Pope Francis’ ailing health—appears to have won over many late voters.
Released by NBCUniversal’s prestige label Focus Features, with an impeccable A-list cast led by Ralph Fiennes, it earned top honors from Britain’s BAFTAs, and the Hollywood actors’ SAG Award for best cast.
Almost every surprise best picture Oscar winner in recent times – from Shakespeare in Love and Crash to Parasite and CODA – first won the top SAG prize, said Feinberg.
“I personally put Conclave… it’s just more of a traditional, classic ‘best picture’ film,” one Oscars voter told AFP.
The voter, anonymous because Academy members cannot reveal their picks, also expressed admiration for The Brutalist, a saga about a Hungarian Jewish architect making a new life in the post-WWII United States.
Adrien Brody, who plays the titular gifted architect and Holocaust survivor in The Brutalist, has been the presumed favorite to win best actor for months. Brody has won the prize previously, for 2002’s The Pianist. If he prevails again, he’d join an elite club of double winners including Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson.
But Timothee Chalamet earned wide admiration for his pitch-perfect performance as a sardonic young Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, won the Screen Actors Guild Award over Brody, and could prove a spoiler.
At just 29, he arguably has the most star power of any of this year’s nominees, and would beat Brody’s record as the category’s youngest-ever winner.
There could be an even younger winner on the actress side, if a groundswell of support for Anora carries its star Mikey Madison, 25, to the Oscars stage.
But she will have to get past Demi Moore, the 1990s megastar who had enjoyed a sparkling career renaissance thanks to gory body horror flick The Substance.
