At the 64th Academy Awards (which honored the films released in 1991), The Silence of the Lambs made history by becoming the first horror movie to win Best Picture. The film actually dominated the ceremony, taking home awards in all of the “Big Five” categories (also winning for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay). In the 34 years since Silence of the Lambs accomplished that remarkable feat, select horror films have been recognized by the Academy on occasion (Get Out winning Best Original Screenplay, for instance), but none have won the top prize. That could potentially change at the 98th Academy Awards, which take place on March 15th.
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Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is one of the 10 films up for Best Picture, and it certainly isn’t a token nomination for a hit genre film. Sinners has established itself as one of the frontrunners for the award and could realistically win, ending a decades-long drought for horror movies. For many reasons, it would be very exciting to see Sinners come out on top, but there’s one film standing in its way that arguably has a better chance of taking home Best Picture.
One Battle After Another Is the Favorite to Win Best Picture
Releasing to widespread critical acclaim last fall, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another has emerged as the film to beat this awards season. It’s performed very well at the various Oscar precursors, winning Best Film at the BAFTA Awards and earning the top prizes at the Directors Guild Awards and Producers Guild Awards. This illustrates that One Battle After Another has tremendous support within the film industry, which is important for the Oscars because the Academy consists of film industry professionals. Anderson also won Adapted Screenplay at this year’s Writers Guild Awards, but Sinners took home Original Screenplay, so they cancel each other out here. The DGA and PGA wins are the bigger story.
Since its inception in 1989, the PGA Awards have historically been a strong predictor for Best Picture. In the previous 36 years, the winner at PGA has gone on to win Best Picture 26 times. It is important to note that three of those discrepancies have happened in the last 10 years, most recently in 2019 when 1917 won PGA and Parasite won at the Oscars. Still, the PGA Awards have a strong track record that’s difficult to bet against. By winning at PGA, One Battle After Another got a leg up on Sinners, especially when you also consider its win at the DGA Awards.
Right now, we seem to be in an era where one movie becomes an awards season juggernaut and steamrolls the competition throughout the season. Four of the five Oscar Best Picture winners this decade, including the last three (Anora, Oppenheimer, and Everything Everywhere All at Once), won at DGA and PGA, cementing themselves as the favorite heading into Oscar Sunday. The one outlier was CODA, which won PGA but wasn’t even nominated at DGA. So, statistically, One Battle After Another is in great position to win Best Picture, and there’s something else to consider.
Prior to One Battle After Another, Anderson received 11 Oscar nominations, winning none. As the director of modern classics like Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, and more, there’s a very strong “overdue” narrative behind his campaign that could push him across the finish line. Oscar voters love to reward a veteran who has amassed an incredible body of work over the course of their career, feeling that it’s finally time for them to get their just due. Similar to how Christopher Nolan won for Oppenheimer, One Battle After Another could be Anderson’s big moment at the Oscars, recognizing not just the merits of the film itself but the remarkable work Anderson has done for decades.
Can Sinners Upset One Battle After Another for Best Picture?
Sinners may have come up short at the DGA and PGA Awards, but it’s still done well for itself at the Oscar precursors. In addition to Coogler’s win at the WGA Awards, Sinners was the big winner at the Actor Awards (formerly the SAG Awards). It won Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, which is the show’s big award of the night and essentially its Best Picture equivalent. Even more noteworthy was Michael B. Jordan’s surprise win in Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, which established him as a legitimate threat to win Best Actor at the Oscars.
These wins show that Sinners has a lot of support amongst actors, and the acting branch just so happens to be the largest branch in the Academy by membership. Granted, the voting bodies for the Oscars and the Actor Awards are very different, but it still helps Sinners‘ chances that it performed so well here. The Actor Awards may not be as reliable a predictor as PGA, but 15 of the previous 30 winners in Outstanding Ensemble went on to win Best Picture, so by that metric, Sinners has a 50% shot of winning the Academy’s top prize. What’s also notable is four of this decade’s five Best Picture winners had a lead performance win an acting Oscar (CODA was once again the outlier, though it did win Best Supporting Actor). If Jordan can become the favorite for Best Actor, the case for Sinners strengthens.
Even before any precursor was handed out, Sinners was a force to be reckoned with on the awards circuit. It earned 16 nominations, the most for a single film in Oscars history. This proves that support for Sinners is widespread across the industry, going well beyond the actors. That will help Sinners perform well on the preferential ballot that decides Best Picture. The way voting works is Academy members rank the nominees in order of preference, meaning second- and third-place votes can come into play once some films are eliminated after a round of counting. Something as beloved as Sinners will likely score a ton of those second- and third-place votes, which could sway the results.
Of course, One Battle After Another is almost as respected as Sinners (it has 13 nominations to its name) and has already emerged victorious on one preferential ballot (the PGA Awards). It too should net a considerable amount of second- and third-place votes, assuming it doesn’t win Best Picture outright with its first-place votes after the initial round of counting is completed. Again, the PGA and Academy have different voting bodies, which could play a role in determining Best Picture, but right now, the odds favor One Battle After Another. Even if Sinners falls short of the top prize, Coogler should still get an Oscar for his screenplay, which will be a great moment.
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