The 2027 Oscar Race Takes Shape: Where the Major Categories Stand After Venice, Telluride and TIFF

Awards season is officially getting serious.

Venice has handed out its prizes. Telluride has introduced another group of contenders to the conversation. And the Toronto International Film Festival has now crowned La Bola Negra its People’s Choice Award winner, with I Play Rocky and Being Heumann finishing as runners-up.

Now comes the dangerous part of awards season: deciding which festival buzz is real, which films have staying power, and which presumed contenders may begin slipping out of the conversation.

There is still plenty we haven't seen. The New York Film Festival is ahead, campaigns are only beginning to intensify, and the precursor awards haven't started handing out trophies. But after the first major wave of fall festivals, we finally have enough information to take a meaningful look at where the major Oscar categories stand.

BEST PICTURE

If there is one movie that entered the fall festivals without needing them to establish its credentials, it is Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. The film remains firmly in the Best Picture conversation and sits at or near the top of several current awards forecasts.

But La Bola Negra has become impossible to ignore.

Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi's film arrived in Toronto with momentum and left with TIFF's People's Choice Award. That matters. The Toronto audience prize has a long history of overlapping with eventual Best Picture nominees, even if winning it certainly doesn't guarantee an Oscar victory.

The result gives La Bola Negra something every campaign wants coming out of the festivals: evidence that the movie can connect beyond critics and industry insiders.

Then there is Wild Horse Nine.

Martin McDonagh's film has emerged from the festival circuit with a significant asset: John Malkovich won Venice's Volpi Cup for Best Actor. The film remains prominent in current Best Picture forecasts, and Malkovich's performance gives the campaign an obvious centerpiece.

The next group remains much less settled.

Project Hail Mary, The Debut, The Invite, Fjord, Elsinore, All of a Sudden, and Dune: Part Three are among the films appearing throughout the early conversation.

And then there are movies like Ink.

Danny Boyle's film may not currently occupy the same consensus position as The Odyssey, La Bola Negra, or Wild Horse Nine, but after seeing the film at TIFF, I'm not ready to dismiss it. Jack O'Connell gives the film a performance worth remembering, while Guy Pearce could also become part of the supporting conversation.

That's precisely why September predictions should be treated as snapshots rather than verdicts.

Films are a strong contender for The Odyssey, with Samantha Morton also being a potential candidate:
The Odyssey
La Bola Negra
Wild Horse Nine

The larger field:
Project Hail Mary
The Debut
The Invite
Fjord
Elsinore
All of a Sudden
Dune: Part Three

Don't forget:
Ink

BEST DIRECTOR

Christopher Nolan enters the season with The Odyssey, but this category could become one of the year's most intriguing races.

Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi have substantial festival momentum behind La Bola Negra. Martin McDonagh is a strong contender for The Odyssey, and Samantha Morton is also a potential candidate for Wild Horse Nine, while Cristian Mungiu's Fjord and Ryusuke Hamaguchi's films are still under consideration. Suddenly, they have also gained significant visibility in early forecasts.

Olivia Wilde with The Invite, Jesse Eisenberg with The Debut, and Denis Villeneuve with Dune: Part Three are among the filmmakers who could complicate the field.

And don't discount Danny Boyle.

Whether Ink ultimately becomes a major Best Picture contender or finds its strongest support elsewhere, Boyle's direction deserves to remain part of the conversation as the season develops.

BEST ACTOR

The best actor already looks crowded.

Andrew Scott in Elsinore, Matt Damon in The Odyssey, and John Malkovich in Wild Horse Nine have appeared consistently in the early conversation.

Malkovich has something his competitors don't yet have: a major festival acting prize. His Venice Volpi Cup gives the campaign a tangible accomplishment to build around.

But there are plenty of challengers.

Names circulating include Ryan Gosling in Project Hail Mary, Tom Cruise in Digger, Sebastian Stan in Fjord, Anthony Ippolito in I Play Rocky, and John Turturro in The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.

One performance I wouldn't overlook is Jack O'Connell in Ink.

Having seen the film at TIFF, O'Connell is precisely the type of performance I want to keep watching as the season moves beyond festival buzz and voters actually begin to see these films.

A September omission doesn't necessarily mean a January omission.

BEST ACTRESS

Julianne Moore's performance in The Debut has established her as one of the central names in the early Best Actress conversation.

But this category has considerable depth.

Performances drawing attention include Virginie Efira in All of a Sudden, Renate Reinsve in Fjord, Sandra Hüller in Rose, Olivia Wilde in The Invite, Rosalind Eleazar in Misty Green, and Ruth Madeley in Being Heumann.

Madeley received an additional boost when Being Heumann finished among TIFF's People's Choice runners-up.

Eleazar is another name worth remembering. Occasionally a performance survives even when enthusiasm around the film itself is less universal, and the reaction coming out of Toronto has ensured that she remains part of the conversation.

This is one category where the next month could significantly alter the landscape.

SUPPORTING ACTOR

This category could become especially intriguing for films with multiple acting possibilities.

Sam Rockwell has Wild Horse Nine. Paul Giamatti has The Debut. Colman Domingo is in the conversation for Michael, while John Leguizamo has The Odyssey and Edward Norton has The Invite.

Then there is Guy Pearce in Ink.

Having watched both Wild Horse Nine and Ink at TIFF, this is a category I'm particularly interested in following. Rockwell and Pearce give us two very different performances from two movies trying to establish how deep their awards support really is.

As the season progresses, Supporting Actor may also tell us something larger: which movies voters love enough to support beyond their most obvious lead performance.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Penélope Cruz may have one of the season's most unusual campaigns.

She has two performances generating awards attention—The Invite and La Bola Negra—while La Bola Negra also features Glenn Close. Anne Hathaway is firmly in the conversation for The Odyssey, with Samantha Morton another possibility from Nolan's film.

Sandra Hüller in Project Hail Mary and Olivia Colman in Elsinore are among the other names worth tracking.

The category also arrives during an intriguing rule change: Academy rules now allow a performer to receive more than one nomination within the same acting category in the same year.

That makes Cruz's situation particularly fascinating. Instead of one performance automatically eliminating the other, voters could theoretically recognize both.

THE INTERNATIONAL FEATURE IS ALREADY ONE TO WATCH.

The international race deserves much more attention this year.

Lee Chang-dong's Possible Love left Venice with the Grand Jury Prize and is South Korea's submission for International Feature.

I also saw the film at TIFF, and it is precisely the kind of title we'll be following at Cup of Soul throughout awards season—not simply because of its Oscar prospects, but because international cinema should be part of the main awards conversation rather than treated as an afterthought.

Meanwhile, La Bola Negra has demonstrated how increasingly meaningless the old dividing line between “international film” and “major Oscar contender” can become. A film can exist in the international conversation while simultaneously becoming part of the broader Best Picture, directing, and acting races.

WHAT TIFF CHANGED

Toronto didn't settle the Oscar race.

It did give us considerably more information.

La Bola Negra winning the People's Choice Award strengthened a campaign that was already gathering momentum.

I play Rocky, finishing as the first runner-up, which means Anthony Ippolito and the film itself deserve attention going forward.

Being Heumann finishing as the second runner-up keeps Ruth Madeley and the film in the conversation.

And several performances—including John Malkovich in Wild Horse Nine, Jack O'Connell in Ink, Andrew Scott in Elsinore, Rosalind Eleazar in Misty Green, and Julianne Moore in The Debut—emerged from Toronto with awards attention around them.

But one of the most important things to remember about TIFF is what it cannot tell us.

The season is not over.

It isn't even close.

WHAT COMES NEXT?

New York is the next major stop, followed by the continuing rollout of fall releases, industry screenings, guild conversations, and eventually the first nominations and critics' awards.

That's when some of today's presumed contenders will become real contenders.

Others will disappear.

And inevitably, something we're barely discussing in September will find its way into the race.

That's why Cup of Soul's awards coverage this season won't simply be a running list of predicted nominees.

We'll be following what happens to the movies as they move through the season—festival reception, performances, interviews, reviews, precursor recognition, and, importantly, the films we've actually seen.

From Sundance and SXSW to Cannes and TIFF, we've spent the year watching many of these movies long before the awards campaigns began.

Now we're going to find out which ones can go the distance.

The road to the 99th Academy Awards is officially underway.