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James Mottram

The Barbenheimer phenomenon gripped the public’s imagination in 2023 and helped prop up ailing cinema chains. Now, with the 96th Academy Awards ceremony coming on March 10, that battle resumes.
Christopher Nolan’s atomic-bomb drama Oppenheimer has 13 nominations to the eight enjoyed by Greta Gerwig’s pink-hued comedy Barbie – which, notably, do not include a best director nod for Gerwig.
Not that they have it all their own way: Yorgos Lanthimos’ feminist fantasy Poor Things and Martin Scorsese’s thriller Killers of the Flower Moon, set in a Native American community in Oklahoma, have 11 and 10 nominations respectively.
So who will win? And who should win?
Dune: Part Two – Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi sequel is a masterful epic
Best picture
Who will win: Oppenheimer
This is Nolan’s moment. Despite critical adoration and enormous box office for films like Inception, Interstellar and his Dark Knight trilogy, the British-American director has never quite won over the Academy.
But his three-hour drama about theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki is ideally suited to voter tastes.

Already triumphing in every awards show going, it is the red-hot favourite here.
Who should win: Oppenheimer
Despite a strong field, including Lanthimos’ Venice-winning curiosity Poor Things, Nolan’s epic look at a vital moment in 20th century history deserves its prize.
Best actor
Who will win: Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer)

Nominated for an Oscar for the first time, Irish actor Murphy has already taken home the Golden Globe and Bafta (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) best actor prizes for his tightly wound turn as the father of the atomic bomb.
After graduating from supporting roles in earlier Nolan films, Murphy has the momentum to win best actor.
Who should win: Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers)

There is a lot of love for Giamatti, who should have won for his previous Alexander Payne collaboration Sideways two decades ago.
He may yet lose to Murphy, but his performance as a curmudgeonly teacher kicking around an empty private school in 1970 is sublime, and rewarding Giamatti would be a fine way to pay homage to a brilliant career.
Best actress
Who will win: Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon)

Scorsese’s film has not quite been the awards bait you might expect, overshadowed by Oppenheimer, but this is one category it is destined to win. Gladstone’s performance as a determined Osage wife is the heart of the movie.
Although she was beaten by Emma Stone (for Poor Things) at the Baftas, the Academy is likely to veer towards her.
Who should win: Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall)

Starring in two of the finest films this year – Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest – German actress Hüller deserves every gong going.
Best supporting actress
Who will win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers)
Randolph’s work as grieving mother and cafeteria manager Mary Lamb in Payne’s bittersweet 1970-set comedy is as poignant as it is funny. While Payne saw her in the brash Eddie Murphy comedy Dolomite Is My Name, this is proof of what a dramatic talent she is.

Who should win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers)
Randolph is streets ahead of her fellow nominees, although in another year America Ferrara – with that monologue she delivers in Barbie about the impossible double standards women are held to – would win.
Best supporting actor
Who will win: Robert Downey Jnr (Oppenheimer)

Up for his transformative turn as Atomic Energy Commissioner Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer, Downey Jnr has been on the charm offensive, delivering entertaining speeches for his Bafta and Golden Globe wins.
And after previous nominations – for Chaplin and Tropic Thunder – this will cap a remarkable turnaround for Downey Jnr, going from one-time Hollywood pariah to Marvel’s Iron Man and now Oscars darling.
Who should win: Ryan Gosling (Barbie)

Gosling will perform “I’m Just Ken”, his song from Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, at the Oscars, a rendition everyone is gagging to see. But would it not be great if Gosling’s comic turn as Barbie’s paramour bagged an Oscar? It is a note-perfect performance, delivered without a shred of irony.
Best adapted screenplay
Who will win: Poor Things

Cunningly adapted from Alasdair Gray’s Victorian-set novel, Tony McNamara’s script is a fruity delight – filled with clever word play.
While Poor Things could well dominate technical categories, Academy voters will probably see crowning the script with an Oscar as the ideal chance to celebrate one of the year’s most idiosyncratic films.
Who should win: American Fiction

Taken from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel, about an academic who writes a novel deliberately pandering to black stereotypes, debut director Cord Jefferson’s screenplay is a brilliant, brave, on-the-nose satire – and screamingly funny.
Best original screenplay
Who will win: Anatomy of a Fall
Of its five Oscar nominations – remarkable for a non-English film – this is surely where the Academy will reward Justine Triet’s dense, beautifully constructed work.

Co-written with actor-writer-director Arthur Harari, Triet’s courtroom saga about a German woman accused of murdering her French husband is so dexterously penned, switching between French and English, it seems impossible to imagine anything besting it.
Who should win: Anatomy of a Fall
Playwright Celine Song’s Past Lives – which took the best feature prize at the Independent Spirit Awards – is beautifully written. The same goes for David Hemingson’s work for The Holdovers. But this is surely Triet and Harari’s to lose.
Best director
Who will win: Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer)

Remarkably, Nolan has only previously been nominated once for a best director Oscar – for the second world war drama Dunkirk (2017) – when he lost out to Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water.
This time, he has already taken the Golden Globe, the Bafta and the DGA (Directors Guild of America) best director prizes, making him odds on to claim the Oscar. Even mighty Martin Scorsese, notching up a record 10th nomination in the category (one more than Steven Spielberg), looks unlikely to derail Nolan.
Who should win: Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest)
Glazer is the maverick outsider in the category, adapting Martin Amis’ Holocaust story in German and directing with absolute precision to create a definitive masterpiece.
Best animated feature
Who will win: The Boy and the Heron

For this dreamy, imaginative tale of childhood fantasy, sentiment is likely to get the better of the Academy and see it honour Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki – already an Oscar winner for Spirited Away – for what is possibly his final film.
Who should win: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

This exhilarating, balmy superhero sequel was easily the most inventive animation of the year, closely followed by Pablo Berger’s also-nominated beauty Robot Dreams.
Best international feature film
Who will win: The Zone of Interest
Set in Auschwitz, Jonathan Glazer’s chilling look at the banality of evil has been an awards magnet ever since its debut in Cannes in 2023, where it took the Grand Jury Prize.

At the Baftas in London recently, the film found itself in the unusual position of winning the prizes for both best British film and best film not in the English language. This is certainly its best chance of Oscars glory.
Who should win: The Zone of Interest
As good as some of its rivals are – especially J.A. Bayona’s real-life survival drama Society of the Snow, an impeccably made work and worthy winner in any other year – Glazer’s masterful film is simply far too good not to claim its prize.
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Academy Awards

Oscars 2024: why Oppenheimer should and will win best picture, and other Academy Awards predictions, from Ryan Gosling to Holocaust film The Zone of Interest

Cillian Murphy and Emily Blunt in a still from Oppenheimer.

Cillian Murphy in a still from Oppenheimer. We reveal our 2024 Academy Awards predictions, from why Oppenheimer should and will win best picture to how Ryan Gosling may be pipped to the post for best supporting actor. Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon

Cillian Murphy and Emily Blunt in a still from Oppenheimer. Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon

Cillian Murphy (centre) on the set of Oppenheimer. Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon

Dominic Sessa and Paul Giamatti (right) in a still from The Holdovers. Photo: Miramax

Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in a still from Killers of the Flower Moon. Photo: Apple

Sandra Hüller in a still from Anatomy of a Fall. Photo: Le Pacte

Da’Vine Joy Randolph in a still from The Holdovers. Photo: Focus Features via AP

Robert Downey Jnr in a still from Oppenheimer. Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon

Ryan Gosling (centre) in a still from Barbie. Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures

Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo in a still from Poor Things. Photo: Atsushi Nishijima

Erika Alexander and Jeffrey Wright in a still from American Fiction. Photo: TNS

Samuel Theis, Sandra Hüller and Milo Machado Graner in a still from Anatomy of a Fall. Photo: Neon via AP

Christopher Nolan on the set of Oppenheimer. Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon

A still from The Boy and the Heron. Photo: Studio Ghibli/TNS

A still from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Photo: Sony Pictures

Christian Friedel in a still from The Zone of Interest. Photo: A24

Berlin International Film Festival 2024: 10 of the best movies, from Kristen Stewart’s Love Lies Bleeding to Hong Kong LGBTQ drama All Shall Be Well

Katy O’Brian (left) and Kristen Stewart in a still from Love Lies Bleeding. Photo: Anna Kooris

Sebastian Stan in a still from A Different Man, one of the Post’s picks of the best movies from the Berlin International Film Festival 2024. Photo: Faces Off

(From left) Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve and Adam Pearson in a still from A Different Man. Photo: Faces Off

Justice Smith (left) and Brigette Lundy-Paine in a still from I Saw the TV Glow. Photo: A24

Deba Hekmat in a still from Last Swim. Photo: Caviar, Pablo & Zeus

Julianne Nicholson (left) and Zoe Ziegler in a still from Janet Planet. Photo: A24

How ‘shocking’ true stories on Hong Kong gay couples’ rights inspired director Ray Yeung’s new film All Shall Be Well

Maggie Li (left) and Patra Au in a still from All Shall Be Well. Photo: Mise en Scene filmproduction.

Hong Kong director Ray Yeung at the premiere of All Shall Be Well, at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival. The director says his film is based on “shocking” true events, and gives his opinion on rights for same-sex couples in Hong Kong.

A still from All Shall Be Well. 

Ben Yuen (left) and Tai Bo in a still from Suk Suk, Yeung’s film about a gay couple in their fifties. Photo: New Voice Film Productions

Au in a still from All Shall Be Well. Photo: Mise en Scene filmproduction

Yeung at the Berlin premiere of All Shall Be Well.

Maggie Li (left) and Au in a still from All Shall Be Well.

A still from All Shall Be Well. Photo: Mise en Scene filmproduction

James Chen (left) and Jake Choi in a still from Yeung’s 2013 film Front Cover, about a gay fashion stylist and his relationship with an overseas actor.

Can’t wait for My Name is Loh Kiwan? The 10 best North Korea-themed films made in South Korea, from Joint Security Area to The Spy Gone North and 6/45

Jung Woo-sung (left) plays the South Korean President in Steel Rain 2: Summit.

North Korean-themed 1999 film Shiri was followed by a succession of South Korean box office hits about North Korea. From Joint Security Area to The Spy Gone North (above), here are our top 10 picks. Photo: CJ Entertainment


Song Joong-ki as Loh Kiwan in a still from My Name Is Loh Kiwan. Photo: Jung Jae-gu/Netflix

Expats shot in Hong Kong, not shown there: 10 other times that happened with movies banned or pulled from screens, from The Kite Runner to A Clockwork Orange

A still from The Kite Runner, set in and partly filmed in Afghanistan but banned from screening there. 

A still from A Clockwork Orange, set in and filmed in the UK but pulled from cinemas there after it triggered acts of copycat violence. Expats, a series set in and filmed in Hong Kong, is unavailable to viewers there. Other films shot in various countries have suffered a similar fate. Photo: Getty Images

12 Hollywood movies we can’t wait to see in early 2024, from Migration and The Color Purple to Dune 2, Kung Fu Panda and Ghostbusters sequels

Timothée Chalamet (left) and Zendaya in a still from “Dune: Part Two”. Photo: Niko Tavernise.

Emma Stone (front) and Ramy Youssef in a still from “Poor Things”, one of this winter’s top Hollywood films. Photo: Yorgos Lanthimos/Searchlight Pictures.

Lifestyle

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Film & TV

Ahead of the 96th Academy Awards ceremony there has been feverish debate over which films and actors will come away from the night with Oscars
Oppenheimer is set to win best picture, Ryan Gosling may lose out on best supporting actor, and best international feature film is probably already in the bag


Our 2024 Academy Awards predictions, from why Oppenheimer should and will win best picture, to how Ryan Gosling may be pipped at the post for best supporting actor.
