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The Oscars 2024 Preview
The Oscars has been a functioning ceremony for almost 100 years, in which nominees receive the coveted Oscar trophy to recognise their excellence in cinematic achievements.
This has slowly turned into one of Hollywood’s biggest nights and in its 96th edition, the Academy Awards returns with plenty of cinema and film to celebrate from the year just passed including familiar titles such as Oppenheimer, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, and of course Barbie.
We preview the 96th edition of the Academy Awards below.
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Who is hosting?
Hosting the Oscars is a real privilege and this year it’ll be none other than the beloved American late-night chat show host Jimmy Kimmel, who will be hosting the Academy Awards for the fourth time after taking on the duties in 2017, 2018, as well as last year’s 2023 awards.
Which nominations should you look out for?
Having swept up at the BAFTAs in seven categories, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is naturally the film which will attract the most attention at this year’s Oscars, with 13 nominations to its name. The most notable of which are Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Cillian Murphy), Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr.), and Best Supporting Actress (Emily Blunt).
However, given this year has seen many fabulous films enter the cinemas, there are plenty of other notable films that’ll garner some attention such as Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, which has received 11 nominations, as well as Academy Award regular Martin Scorsese for his Killer’s of the Flower Moon, with 10 nominations.
Finally, a film that broke the internet alongside the release of Oppenheimer was Barbie by Greta Gerwig, which threw the world into an absolute frenzy. Barbie has received eight nominations, however, shockingly they have been left out from both the Best Director and Best Lead Actress categories.
Best Picture
As previously mentioned, this has been a very strong year for cinema. Unsurprisingly, Oppenheimer leads the running for Best Picture and is the overwhelming favourite at 1/50 to pick up the most coveted award of the entire night. Poor Things sits in second place at 16/1 narrowly ahead of both Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer and Barbie at 20/1. Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers takes fifth spot at 25/1, with the rest of the nominations 33/1 or bigger.
Best Actor
Cillian Murphy has been praised for what could be his most significant role to date as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer and seems a shoo-in for the Best Actor award at 1/12. Murphy has been on the circuit for a while now, best known for his iconic role as Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders as well as performances in Dunkirk, Inception, and The Dark Knight. Paul Giamatti lines up as the second-place candidate at 11/2 for his performance in The Holdovers which was only released on the 19th January this year and is the most recent addition to the shortlist. Finally, the last in contention from our perspective is Bradley Cooper (14/1) in Maestro, a film which he both directed and starred in.
Best Actress
With the absence of Oppenheimer from this category, the Best Actress award looks to be more competitive between the frontrunners, most notably Lily Gladstone for her performance in Killers of the Flower Moon, for which she finds herself favourite at 1/2 to pick up the award. In a close second is Emma Stone (6/4) who appeared in yet another of Yorgos Lanthimos’ films following her performance in The Favourite alongside Olivia Coleman in 2018 and is nominated this year for her role in the dystopian Poor Things. Third in the running is Sandra Huller (16/1), who has appeared in two films this year which have both got the nod at the Oscars but is competing in this category for her main role in Anatomy of a Fall.
Best Director
The final category from the big four to discuss is the Best Director. Christopher Nolan picked up the award at the BAFTAs just last month and is set to make it two for two at this year’s Oscars. Nolan is a 1/50 shot to secure his first ever Oscar having been nominated in previous years for Memento (2002), Inception (2011), and Dunkirk most recently in 2018. Yorgos Lanthimos lies in second place with his Poor Things at 14/1, followed closely by Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, who are 22/1 and 25/1 respectively. Jonathan Glazer takes the fifth and final spot in the shortlisted nominations at 28/1 for The Zone of Interest.
Don’t forget that these are just four of 23 markets William Hill are offering on the 96th Academy Awards so have a look below at some of the other nominations.
