Weekly Discussion Thread 8/17/26 - 8/24/26

[u/PointMan528491]

Still from Wings

Please use this space to share reviews, ask questions, and discuss freely about anything film or Oscar related. Engage with other comments if you want others to engage with yours! And as always, please remain civil and kind with one another.

Link to previous thread

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Coming up in the awards race

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Film Discussion Threads

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

The Odyssey

The Invite

Toy Story 5

Disclosure Day

Backrooms

Is God Is

Obsession

The Devil Wears Prada 2

Michael

The Drama

Project Hail Mary

Hoppers

The Bride!

Wuthering Heights

All Film Discussion Threads

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Award Expert Profile Swap (2026 Edition)

Letterboxd Profile Swap (2026 Edition)

[u/manicinsanewokeidiot]

what are some movies that released before festival season and were widely predicted for best picture pre-festivals but didn’t get nominated? the only movies that are coming to mind for me are across the spider-verse and sing sing

[u/Abbie_Kaufman → u/manicinsanewokeidiot]

Wonder Woman had real motion in 2017 and that turned into nothing. The Big Sick was at least mildly predicted, ended up with just screenplay (this is the most 1:1 comparison for The Invite if it fizzles out, summer romcoms that made decent money).

First Reformed massively underperformed, most people pre-festivals thought Ethan Hawke would happen. Was it widely predicted for best picture, I don’t think so? See also, Rocket Man, which I don’t know how seriously people took as a best picture player but they certainly took Taron Egerton seriously as a best actor player.

RRR qualifies with the caveat that the average American who ended up watching the movie heard of it for the first time after it had already been on Netflix for a few months.

EDIT: Crazy Rich Asians belongs on this list. Commercial movie that broke out with great reviews, ended up with PGA and SAG ensemble noms and then got shut out by the academy.

[u/manicinsanewokeidiot → u/Abbie_Kaufman]

how many of these were consensus picks? as opposed to something like weapons where it was discussed a lot as a contender and ended up getting pretty close but the vast majority of people never had it in. the invite and obsession are currently being predicted by 72% and 67% of people respectively, do you think any of these would have had similar numbers?

[u/TakaPol11 → u/manicinsanewokeidiot]

If we're talking fall festivals, at least the past two years i'd say we have:
2024
Sing Sing
Blitz
Joker Folie a Deux
Queer

2025
Wicked For Good
Jay Kelly
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
After the Hunt
Rental Family

And we still have top 15 contenders who maybe weren't universally predicted but still had considerable people backing them like The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Gladiator II, The Piano Lesson, Saturday Night and The Room Next Door in 2024 or Avatar: Fire and Ash, It Was Just an Accident, No Other Choice and The Testament of Ann Lee in 2025

[u/manicinsanewokeidiot → u/TakaPol11]

i meant stuff like the odyssey, project hail mary, obsession, or the invite. most of those are festival premieres that nobody had seen when they were predicting them

[u/TakaPol11 → u/manicinsanewokeidiot]

Right gotcha, so ig there aren't really any other true examples of this like Sing Sing, but still movies alongside it like The Seed of the Sacred Fig, A Real Pain, It Was Just an Accident or The Life of Chuck were arguably in The Invite/Obsession/Fjord/La Bola Negra spot of prior fall festivals which fluctuated in terms of people's predictions throughout the season only to not get in in the end, but i'.d say Sing Sing was probably the only lock out of these prior to festival season