‘Sinners’ vs. ‘One Battle After Another’: How Many Oscars Can Each Film Win?

It’s a New York in-person special edition of IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” podcast, with Anne Thompson in town to join Ryan Lattanzio to share our Academy Awards predictions. (Except for the short film categories, which we’ll dig into next week.)

In an awards season cycle you can argue annually lacks an element of surprise, there’s a real Best Picture race this year between “One Battle After Another” (which peaked early and continued peaking across precursor awards) and “Sinners” (which has more sentiment suddenly in its favor after SAG wins for Ensemble and Best Actor Michael B. Jordan). How many Oscars, and which ones, can each film win?

We break down the likelihood of Ryan Coogler’s period vampire musical overtaking Paul Thomas Anderson’s politically charged Thomas Pynchon adaptation in top categories. Can sustained goodwill for Michael B. Jordan outpace Timothée Chalamet’s thirsty campaign for “Marty Supreme”? That’s a question we try to answer in this week’s episode.

A few sure bets you can take to the bank: “Avatar: Fire and Ash” wins Best Visual Effects, “Frankenstein” picks up a bevy of crafts honors, and “The Perfect Neighbor” wins Best Documentary. Less certain are categories like Best International Feature, which feels split between Best Picture nominees “Sentimental Value” and “The Secret Agent.”

Speaking of “Sentimental Value,” Anne believes internationally revered veteran actor Stellan Skarsgård will walk away with the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. After SAG and BAFTA wins for Sean Penn, Ryan thinks the controversial two-time previous Oscar winner (who is far from universally beloved in Hollywood) will clinch the win. The Academy nominated four actors for frontrunner “One Battle After Another,” and the “Milk” and “Mystic River” winner is the likeliest horse to cross the finish line. Anne will share her final Oscar predictions in all categories on IndieWire next week.

At the top of this week’s episode, though, we must first dive into Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!,” opening on Friday from Warner Bros. This quasi-horror, quasi-musical feminist opera is an ambitious mess from the Oscar-nominated writer/director of “The Lost Daughter.” Ryan and Anne disagree on the quality of the performances, especially Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s monster, who just happens to grave-rob a dead woman (Jessie Buckley) possessed by Mary Shelley while seeking a wife in Chicago. Annette Bening, in an atypically inert performance that is purely the script’s fault, brings Buckley back to life to scream and rage while she and Bale go on a lovers’ killing spree all the way to New York City.

Warner Bros. likely moved “The Bride!” from fall 2025 to this spring to steer clear of “Frankenstein,” to keep Gyllenhaal’s movie out of the studio’s banner year of releases like “Sinners” and “One Battle,” and to evade any proximity to the disastrous “Joker: Folie à Deux,” whose cinematographer Lawrence Sher and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir both contribute to this film. “The Bride!” is likely to crash-land with audiences, but it will have its cult followers.

Listen to the episode below or on your preferred podcast platform.