After two delays attributed to the wildfire crisis in Los Angeles, the Producers Guild of America has at last revealed its nominees for the best in f
After two delays attributed to the wildfire crisis in Los Angeles, the Producers Guild of America has at last revealed its nominees for the best in film and television. The organization, whose choices are considered a critical Oscars predictor at the final stage of campaigning, forecast all of the Academy’s eventual best-picture selections last year, including international contenders The Zone of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall, even though foreign films rarely find traction with the American-studio-minded PGA. Will it keep the streak going this year?
The PGA’s list includes the front-runners we’ve been talking about all season: Golden Globe winners The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez, Cannes champ Anora, box office king Wicked, meme queen Conclave, and surging late-breaker A Complete Unknown. Dune: Part Two also made the cut, something there’d been little doubt about, even as enthusiasm for the sequel as an awards contender waned. The PGA then rounded out its top 10 with The Substance, A Real Pain, and, in the biggest surprise, September 5.
It’s seemed for a while now that four movies are battling it out for the final three best-picture slots. Nickel Boys and A Real Pain have fared well up to this point, cracking the American Film Institute’s top 10 and receiving Golden Globe nominations for best picture. The Substance has proven stronger internationally—a key signal when it comes to the Academy—while Sing Sing has trucked along despite missing a few key precursors along the way (including certain Globe nods and a nom for the SAG Award for best ensemble). Thursday’s PGA list certainly adds September 5 to the mix, and likely affirms The Substance and A Real Pain as probable nominees. For Nickel Boys and Sing Sing, meanwhile, this news puts them on shaky ground.
Recent PGA nominees to miss out on the Academy’s best-picture category include Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Being the Ricardos, A Quiet Place, and the Knives Out films. Almost always, such relatively mainstream films have been replaced at the Oscars by international or independent contenders (Women Talking, Drive My Car, Triangle of Sadness). In a year as wide open as this one, it seems fair to expect some turnover when the Oscar nominations are revealed next week.
The PGA has followed in the Writers Guild of America’s footsteps by, after several postponements, releasing its nominations list without ceremony or advance notice. (The WGA noms went live on Wednesday.) These industry unions are still struggling to navigate how to best proceed with awards season as wildfires continue to rage around the city, with so many of their members directly impacted. As of now, the PGA and WGA awards ceremonies are still set for their originally scheduled dates, but changes may soon come. The Critics Choice Awards have twice been delayed, now set to take place on an unspecified date in February, and the Academy canceled the annual Oscar nominees luncheon, donating the amount that the event would have cost to wildfire relief efforts.
The WGA only deems movies made under its auspices eligible for its awards, rendering a slew of top Oscar contenders ineligible, including The Brutalist, Emilia Pérez, Conclave, and Sing Sing. This allowed the remaining best-picture contenders, including bubble players like Nickel Boys and A Real Pain, to get some points on the board with relative ease, and also put a spotlight on some stellar work that has gone rather unrecognized this season, including the scripts for Megan Park’s My Old Ass and Hit Man, Richard Linklater’s collaboration with star Glen Powell. Meanwhile, despite so many of their competitors being ineligible here, hopefuls like Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night and Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu were blanked by the WGA, once more suggesting they’ve got a mighty climb when it comes to any above-the-line Oscar recognition.
See the full list of PGA nominees below, including the guild’s picks for the best TV of the year. Among highlights there, the second seasons of Bad Sisters and The Diplomat earned recognition in the episodic-drama field, bolstering their hopes to receive their first Emmy nominations for outstanding drama series.
Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures
- Anora
- The Brutalist
- A Complete Unknown
- Conclave
- Dune: Part Two
- Emilia Pérez
- A Real Pain
- September 5
- The Substance
- Wicked
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