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You might argue that director Paul Thomas Anderson’s current sentiment of “I’m not a politician… I’m a filmmaker” summarizes why he has gone zero and 11 on the Oscars within the first place. No, awards contenders needn’t concern themselves with the specifics of tariffs, for instance, however these Oscar campaigns are inherently political.
To be truthful to him, on-the-spot interviews within the winners room after an awards present just like the BAFTAs don’t yield essentially the most thought-out solutions, so I’ll share one thing that I just lately skilled at a “One Battle After One other” screening I attended on the Warner Bros. lot, the place the director was joined onstage by his star Leonardo DiCaprio and producer Sara Murphy. Anderson responded to a query about his response to his newest movie seeming so “well timed” by saying, “I can’t say it feels nice and I can’t say that it makes me pleased. It simply makes me really feel peculiar. It’s only a film, on the finish of the day. It’s simply speculated to be an motion film a few man making an attempt to get his daughter again. And, what I see day by day, it weighs heavy on my coronary heart for the world.”
Although his description is true to the core of the movie’s plot, “One Battle After One other” has a couple of sequence of Latino migrants being liberated from the oppression of immigration enforcement led by the movie’s antagonist, who’s related to a sinister cabal of rich conservative white males. This specific screening occurred a few week after intensive care nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by U.S. Border Patrol, so it was a topic that was weighting on the viewers’s minds.
Subsequently, it was clear what Anderson was alluding to when he added, “It was good to come back into the again of the theater and sneak in and watch everyone laughing and having fun with it. Truly, that warmed me up. It’s only a movie. It’s speculated to be humorous and entertain you and have enjoyable, however it’s a fucking journey actually to see these Christmas Adventurers speak the best way they speak, and I don’t know, it appears there’s bought to be a room like that someplace proper now. Dudes speaking like that.”
However this all pertains to the politics of awards campaigns as effectively. Exterior of a handful of interviews he did prematurely of the movie’s launch, usually with DiCaprio by his aspect, Anderson seemingly selected to chorus from doing any extra press, focusing solely on the extra managed atmosphere of post-screening Q&As that, for essentially the most half, are attended completely by awards voters.
When the movie got here out in September 2025, there was not as a lot of a give attention to what the movie needed to say about immigration in America exterior the scope of what we see onscreen. When issues took a flip at the start of the 12 months, with the ICE raids in Minneapolis and the killing of Renée Good mirroring the phobia Sean Penn’s character Colonel Lockjaw inflicts on the immigrant-heavy group of Baktan Cross (all taking place parallel to the movie profitable a number of Golden Globesand incomes 13 Oscar nominations), awards season watchers started to query if anybody within the largely press-shy “One Battle After One other” camp could be keen to talk on the Greatest Image nominee’s specific urgency.
And the explanation that’s even a query within the first place is as a result of Anderson doesn’t actually must. As I’ve beforehand addressed on this column, “One Battle After One other” already had large Oscar buzz surrounding it, partially as a result of Anderson has by no means received earlier than. And, as quickly as individuals bought to see the movie (and liked it), that line of considering, that the modern filmmaker is owed an Oscar, went into impact.
In spite of everything, many of the filmmakers we consider as dwelling legends, like Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese, acquired their Greatest Director Oscar a number of movies and nominations after the film that put them on a pedestal.
The odd a part of this 12 months is that, in the event you took “One Battle After One other” out of the race, Ryan Coogler, the person behind fellow Warner Bros. Photos launch “Sinners,” would probably win for those self same kinds of causes, turning into the primary ever Black filmmaker to win Greatest Director within the course of.
However finally we, the viewers for the Oscar telecast, are extra about historical past being made than the Academy is.
One of many extra nerve-wracking outcomes on the 2026 BAFTA Awards was “Marty Supreme” star Timothée Chalamet dropping Greatest Actor to “I Swear” star Robert Aramayo, who isn’t even Academy Awards eligible. Within the final 10 years, the Academy has solely differed from the BAFTA winner as soon as. Chalamet’s marketing campaign has been way more specific concerning the implication he’s in some way owed or due for an Oscar, even organizing an American Cinematheque retrospective for the 30-year-old to showcase how a lot notable work he has executed, regardless of his younger age.
And it does look like this gambit will work, however extra due to the perceived feat of receiving back-to-back Greatest Actor nominations than the truth that he could be the second youngest winner ever within the class. If that factoid actually made a distinction, then he would’ve damaged the document for youngest Greatest Actor winner final 12 months, over record-holder Adrien Brody.
The Greatest Supporting Actor race calls to thoughts one other attention-grabbing side of this “owed” dialog. The BAFTA winner ended up being “One Battle After One other” star Sean Penn, quite than the perceived frontrunner Stellan Skarsgård, a veteran character actor who lastly acquired his lengthy overdue first Oscar nomination for “Sentimental Worth.”
What has been neglected, nonetheless, is that that is the primary time Penn has ever received a BAFTA award. So the calculus that we, as People, are working on, considering that Penn received’t win the Oscar as a result of he has two already, is in tune with why BAFTA voters probably gave them an award. He was owed one.
All this to say, I’m holding the road on most of my predictions. Whereas the BAFTA winners have been initially shocking within the total scope of how the awards race goes, they make extra sense within the native context.
Greatest Worldwide Function Oscar frontrunner “The Secret Agent” was not as a lot of a contender there, for the reason that movie has a distinct distributor within the U.Ok. Simply as Aramayo probably received due to native love for “I Swear,” a biopic a few British activist, “Sinners” star Wunmi Mosaku probably received Greatest Supporting Actress partially attributable to her being a hometown hero who has been nominated for a BAFTA Movie Award earlier than (and a BAFTA TV Award in addition).
I do assume that, along with Chalamet, and the ever-dominant “Hamnet” star Jessie Buckley, Golden Globe winner Teyana Taylor might be an Actor Award winner for Greatest Supporting Actress, given to her for her efficiency in “One Battle After One other.” However, since Skarsgård was not nominated for Greatest Supporting Actor, this weekend’s ceremony may very effectively turn into the turning level that forces me to vary my thoughts about Penn profitable a 3rd Oscar. Particularly since Oscar nominee Delroy Lindo is just not nominated in that Actor Award class both (although he’ll nonetheless get a trophy when “Sinners” probably wins Greatest Ensemble).
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