It’s common during festival season for a slew of major Oscar candidates to premiere within days, sometimes hours of each other. But I cannot remember a single festival, on a single opening night, unveiling four very legitimate, very deserving lead-acting contenders—in a year where their race was already looking competitive.
In Telluride, thus far, it’s been all about the men. That may soon change, as Annette Bening’s Nyad premieres later tonight and Emma Stone’s Poor Things—fresh off of red-hot reviews in Venice—makes its way to the Rockies later this weekend. But waiting in line for movies, walking down the street, sitting for big premieres, the chatter I kept hearing about last night and all of Friday centered on four male lead performances. How they’ll navigate pre-established contenders like Leonardo DiCaprio (Killers of the Flower Moon) and Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer), to say nothing of Venice’s breakouts Adam Driver (Ferrari) and, presumably, Bradley Cooper (Maestro), remains to be seen.
But let’s get into each of these—they deserve a spotlight. My first screening on Thursday evening was for Rustin, the biopic of the unsung Civil Rights Movement icon helmed by George C. Wolfe. The film is conventionally structured and occasionally a little hokey, but the sterling ensemble cast and Wolfe’s deft handling of its intersectional concerns—Bayard Rustin facing discrimination for being both Black and gay, sometimes within his own communities—keeps it afloat. What makes it soar, then, is Colman Domingo. This is the moment many of us who’ve been watching the longtime character actor have been waiting for. His performance is exuberant, filled with the kinds of capital-B Big scenes that awards voters love, but also laced with a subtler conviction throughout, the sort of actorly transformation that doesn’t win make-up and hairstyling teams Oscars, necessarily, but is no less impressive.
It’s a huge, showy turn in a movie that may not gain major traction elsewhere, an occasional liability when it comes to the Academy. (Recall Danielle Deadwyler’s unforgivable snub last year.) One actor who will not have that problem? Paul Giamatti. The Holdovers, which I caught today after my colleague Rebecca Ford covered the premiere last night, feels like vintage Alexander Payne, a substantive comedy that finds a group of loners coming together for a few hours of hijinks, personal revelation, and tender heartbreak. It’s a feel-good tale with bite and personality, ideal for a slowly evolving Academy membership. Giamatti anchors it with a wildly funny embodiment of That Teacher You Hated In High School, one that turns improbably, bracingly heroic in the moving final act.
Is it too funny to beat out the seismic dramatic work of folks like Domingo and Murphy? Maybe, since there are more in that latter category too. One new name to add to the conversation that folks may not have been paying much attention to is Andrew Scott. All of Us Strangers appears to be the toast of the fall festivals so far, scoring a clean 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and a rare 98 on Metacritic; these numbers will likely go down, but they’ll remain indicators of enormous critical support, which matters a great deal more to the Oscars than it used to. A queer love story and ghost story rolled into one emotional wallop, the drama is poised to mark Andrew Haigh’s awards breakthrough, having previously directed Charlotte Rampling to her first Oscar nod for 45 Years. Scott’s sensitive, incredibly poignant work as the anchor of Strangers means that, should the film emerge as the broader contender it ought to, he’s firmly in that conversation too—remarkable since it’s his first lead role in a movie.
Finally, Barry Keoghan is in a very different situation. Saltburn is as far from a weighty tearjerker as you can get—and, it seems, pretty far from a critical darling too. Emerald Fennell’s previous film Promising Young Woman had its detractors as well, and that didn’t hurt when it came to her Oscar win for best original screenplay, but the divide here is even sharper. One hopes that won’t intrude upon the industry’s ability to recognize the astounding physicality and emotional torment that Keoghan taps into. He was nominated for his first Oscar just a few months ago for The Banshees of Inisherin, and this is a whole new level of screen acting. The awards trajectory for Saltburn looks uncertain, but that shouldn’t get in its star’s way.