#awards-season

#awards-season

After breaking box-office records with a string of $40 million openings, the studio released Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, which just bolstered its status as the season's most formidable Oscar contender by sweeping the first week of precursor awards. And if, for some reason, One Battle stumbles before the finish line, the title that's best positioned to likely win in its stead is another Warner Bros. movie: Ryan Coogler's Sinners, which, like OBAA, has shown up everywhere it's needed to this season.

The Gothams have always prided themselves on being the starting gun for awards season, but in recent years, an event created to spotlight independent film has leaned further into its status as an essential stop on the Oscars pole dance. Two years ago, the Gothams removed their budget cap, allowing films that cost over $35 million to compete for the first time.

She plays a CEO well versed in the language of corporate virtue and strategic contrition. That comes into play for her when she's kidnapped by a pair of conspiracy-addled cousins (Plemons and Aidan Delbis), who believe Stone's character is a member of an alien race that has secretly been pushing Earth toward destruction. Typical of a Lanthimos movie, the narrative is both absurdly funny and darkly unsettling.

Opening with David Freyne's "Eternity," featuring Craig Brewer's "Song Sung Blue" as the Centerpiece, and closing with Rian Johnson's "Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery," the 28th edition of the festival will also feature gala screenings of Yorgos Lanthimos' "Bugonia," David Michôd's "Christy," Kristen Stewart's "The Chronology of Water," Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein," Chloé Zhao's "Hamnet," Bradley Cooper's "Is This Thing On?," Noah Baumbach's "Jay Kelly,"

Welcome back, friends and fools, to year FIVE of the Vulture Movies Fantasy League. We are about to turn the corner into a fall movie season that is packed with box-office behemoths, visionary auteurs bringing their latest films into the bosom of awards season, and a whole lotta questions about whether a vampire movie about race in America can play the long game all the way to Oscar gold.

"I had no idea we were even eligible for an Emmy, quite honestly," said Steele to IndieWire over Zoom. "Depending on the mood I'm in, it was either a cherry on the top or a sad surprise," she joked, thinking back on the prospect of a second year of awards campaigning.

Campaigning can only go so far, as seen in various events that showcased the lengths networks and studios went to for Emmy nominations, creating a buzz around their shows.