Who are the early Oscar and Bafta frontrunners in the director and screenplay categories?

Sean Baker struck a blow for the independent sector last season when he won four Oscars including director and original screenplay for Anora. And while many of the contenders in the current cycle made their latest films at, or partnered with, studios and streamers, a fierce independent vision runs through their work.

Paul Thomas Anderson, Ryan Coogler, Joachim Trier, Jafar Panahi and previous winners Chloé Zhao and Guillermo del Toro form a strong cohort in the directing field, with features that explore humanity and love on canvasses that are by turns intimate and outsized. They are being talked up as frontrunners, although the sinuous trajectory of voter opinion, late-arriving films and the undeniable power of lavish ‘for your consideration’ events finds voters scrutinising a wide pool this season.

There has been notable work too from Kleber Mendonca Filho, Park Chan-wook, Kathryn Bigelow and Yorgos Lanthimos. Josh Safdie is also riding high on critical acclaim, as is Richard Link­later, who delivered two fine films this year.

Turning to the writing categories, several of the afore­mentioned filmmakers are early favourites, alongside the likes of Rian Johnson, Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, Noah Oppenheim, Will Tracy, James Vanderbilt and Robert Kaplow.

Director

One Battle After Another has enjoyed a sustained wave of critical and voter adulation ever since it arrived in theatres in September. That begs the question: could this be the season when Paul Thomas Anderson, one of the most acclaimed living US auteurs, finally gets the Oscar?

The madcap energy of his latest feature, an ode to a father’s love for his daughter wrapped in an action epic laced with anti-establishment sentiment, has wowed critics. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and coming in at 162 minutes, the film may struggle to show a profit, even though $204m worldwide box office is easily a record for Anderson.

The film heads the Golden Globes with nine nominations, including director and screenwriter, and was named best film by both the New York and Los Angeles critics. Anderson has been nominated three times for the directing Oscar, with Licorice Pizza in 2022, Phantom Thread in 2018 andThere Will Be Blood in 2008 (he has earned eight further nods as writer and producer), and twice for the Bafta with Licorice Pizza and There Will Be Blood.

In a mighty year at the box office for Warner Bros, the studio is behind another muscular contender in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners starring Michael B Jordan as twins opening a juke joint in the Mississippi Delta. The director of Black Panther and Fruitvale Station is in contention for directing and screenplay Golden Globes, and the film earned seven nods overall. Coogler has never been nominated for the directing Oscar and could make history as the first Black fil­m­maker to win the prize. His $368m global box-office hit presents a strong case for history-­making. The studio orchestrated a November publicity blitz of screenings and events to remind voters how much they love the allegorical period drama that uses vampire lore to elevate a story of racial injustice.

Chloé Zhao won the directing Oscar during the pandemic for Nomadland in 2021. A couple of films later she returns with Hamnet, which premiered at Telluride and used sold-out screenings in Toronto and London among other festivals to amplify its heavyweight status. Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal star as Agnes and her husband William Shakespeare in the heartbreaking story of family loss. Hamnet has been nominated for six Golden Globes, including directing and screenplay.

Frankenstein sees Guillermo del Toro angling for his second directing Oscar and Bafta after claiming both awards with The Shape Of Water in 2018. The Mexican maestro realised his lifelong ambition of adapting Mary Shelley’s 19th-century classic and premiered the gothic horror in Venice. Netflix gave it an awards-qualifying theatrical release before a November 7 platform debut; it has been nominated for five Golden Globes, including directing.

The growing international membership within the US Academy has fostered an expansive worldview within a prestigious voting bloc, returning director nominees of films not in the English language in all but one year since the 2019 Oscars.

So will Joachim Trier and Jafar Panahi join the illustrious ranks of Justine Triet for Anatomy Of A Fall, Bong Joon Ho for Parasite, Jacques Audiard for Emilia Pérez and other international directing nominees? Neon holds North American rights to both directors’ latest features and is a master at awards campaigns.

Trier’s Norwegian Oscar submission Sentimental Value starring Stellan Skarsgard and Renate Reinsve, his lead in Norway’s 2022 Oscar submission The Worst Person In The World, won the grand prix in Cannes. The ambitious drama, which tackles reconciliation and inherited family trauma, is nominated for eight Globes including director and screenplay. It has become a must-see, packing out festival screenings in Telluride, Toronto and London. Trier has never been nominated for best director at Oscar or Bafta.

Iranian master Panahi’s body of work includes Taxi and 3 Faces. He too has never been nominated for an Oscar or Bafta and has arguably his strongest chance yet with Cannes Palme d’Or winner It Was Just An Accident, a wry quilt of dread, pathos and absurdism about a group of former political prisoners who kidnap the man they believe was their torturer. The film has been nominated for four Golden Globes, including directing. Panahi won best director, original screenplay and international feature at the Gothams, and best director from the New York Film Critics Circle.

Neon is also behind Kleber Mendonca Filho’s Brazilian Oscar entry The Secret Agent and Park Chan-wook’s Korean Oscar submission No Other Choice. Both garnered three Golden Globes nods, although not for directing or screenplay. The Secret Agent won best director and lead actor for Wagner Moura in Cannes, followed by impactful stops at early fall festival staging posts Telluride, Toronto and New York. The 1970-set story of an academic falling foul of the Brazilian dictatorship has gained a reputation as one of the most affecting dramas on the circuit, and by early December had grossed $210,000 from its first two weeks in US cinemas. Filho has never been nominated for an Oscar or Bafta.

Park’s dark comedy No Other Choice premiered in Venice before opening Busan and stars Lee Byung-hun from Squid Game as an unemployed man who kills his rivals for a job. Park was Bafta-nominated in 2023 for Decision To Leave and won the British Academy’s award for best film not in the English language for The Handmaiden in 2018.

Greece-born Yorgos Lanthimos continues to beguile in the best possible way and has won admirers with Focus Features’ conspiracy thriller Bugonia, starring Jesse Plemons and frequent collaborator Emma Stone. The Venice premiere has earned $37.4m at the global box office and three Golden Globes nods, although none for directing or writing. The Greek filmmaker has an Oscar nomination for Poor Things in 2024 and Oscar and Bafta nods for The Favourite in 2019.

Josh Safdie, who made Uncut Gems and Good Time with his brother Benny (whose solo effort this season isThe Smashing Machine), is winning plaudits for Marty Supreme. The drama stars Timothée Chalamet as a table tennis player destined for greatness, loosely based on real-life talent Marty Reisman. A24 releases the film in North America on December 25 with Entertainment Film launching in the UK a day later. December also brings Avatar: Fire And Ash from Disney/­20th Century Studios and it would take a brave soul to count out James Cameron, who won the directing Oscar for Titanic in 1998.

Original screenplay

Ryan Coogler is expected to go deep into awards season and earn his first recognition as a writer by the US and UK film academies. The backbone of his immersive Sinners is a mesmerising original vision that combines a burning social conscience, glorious music and horror.

Joachim Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt will be right up there for Sentimental Value and have impressed critics with their layered family story. The pair were Oscar-nominated for their The Worst Person In The World screenplay in 2022.

Noah Baumbach partnered with UK actress Emily Mortimer, who makes her feature-writing debut, on the bittersweet Jay Kelly. The pair capture the heartache and comedy around a fictitious Hollywood legend (played by George Clooney) as he reflects on his public and private accomplishments. The film has earned two Golden Globe acting nods. Baumbach is a three-time Oscar and two-time Bafta screenplay nominee, most recently for adapting Barbie with his wife Greta Gerwig.

Jafar Panahi looks a good bet to earn his first Oscar or Bafta screenplay nod for It Was Just An Accident, which has enjoyed critical and festival support. Josh Safdie and writing partner Ronald Bronstein earned a Golden Globe screenplay nomination and are seeking their first Academy recognition with Marty Supreme, which showcases their enduring ability to infuse sharp character studies with zany energy.

A House Of Dynamite sees Noah Oppenheim craft an edge-of-your-seat ride into the nightmare scenario of nuclear threat, which reconstructs the inner sanctums of the US military complex and the people trusted to operate them. Oppenheim won the screenplay award in Venice for Jackie in 2016, but has never been nominated for an Oscar or Bafta.

Teacher and novelist Robert Kaplow’s acerbic and soulful screenplay for Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon was the gift of a lifetime for an actor, and Ethan Hawke did it proud. Sony Pictures Classics has worldwide rights to the story, which imagines the garrulous alcoholic lyricist Lorenz Hart holding court on the night his former musical partner Richard Rodgers’ career is about to enter a new phase withOklahoma!.

Many would cheer if Zach Cregger broke through the US Academy’s traditional resistance to horror and earned recognition for Weapons, one of the hits of the summer for Warner Bros on $268m worldwide and the recipients of two Golden Globe nods including cinematic and box-office achievement.

Bradley Cooper has 12 Oscar nominations across five different categories, including original screenplay for Maestro. He is bidding for a second in the category with Searchlight Pictures’ Is This Thing On?, which he directs, co-writing with Mark Chappell and star Will Arnett.

Adapted screenplay

Chloé Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell will be strong contenders for Hamnet, based on O’Farrell’s 2020 novel about the tragedy that befell Agnes and her husband William Shakespeare. Zhao earned Oscar and Bafta adapted screenplay nods for Nomadland in 2021.

Co-writers Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley shared Oscar and Bafta adapted screenplay nominations last season for Sing Sing and could be looking at back-to-back nods. Their tender drama Train Dreams is based on the novella by Denis Johnson and stars Joel Edgerton as a railroad worker and logger. Netflix snapped up the Sundance premiere and the co-writers had a Gotham nod (losing to the UK’s Harry Lighton for queer BDSM tale Pillion).

Paul Thomas Anderson is a frontrunner for his epic One Battle After Another, inspired in part by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland. The US filmmaker has earned five Oscar screenplay nods — including one for the Pynchon adaptation Inherent Vice — and four from Bafta.

Guillermo del Toro has earned Oscar and Bafta screenplay nods for The Shape Of Water and Pan’s Labyrinth and awaits his first writing win. His stirring adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein could bring further nominations at the very least.

Will Tracy likes a tense character study, as evidenced by his work on Succession and The Menu. His propulsive screenplay for Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia has earned admiration for the cat-and-mouse set-up and big reveal. Based on Jang Joon-hwan’s Korean film Save The Green Planet!, this could be the year Tracy gets a first Oscar or Bafta nod.

Rian Johnson can never be counted out, and returns with Net­flix’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. A writing nomination from Oscar would make it three out of three for Johnson’s murder mysteries. He was nominated by Bafta for the original Knives Out in 2020.

James Vanderbilt is a contender for Nuremberg, the post-war thriller adapted from The Nazi And The Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai that stars Russell Crowe and Rami Malek. Sony Pictures Classics holds North American rights and Sky Cinema released in the UK.

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