20 Things the Academy Would Do If They Were Cool: Year 4

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out 23 gold-plated statues once a year. The biggest night in the marathon that is the film awards season effectively beginning in November and running through March (March 2, 2025, this year to be exact), the Oscars Ceremony is one typically filled with a variety of emotions, broken predictions, and questionable decision-making from AMPAS, the foremost voting body for the highest honor in American cinema. 

While the Oscars are a night for celebration, and many nominations will certainly deserve praise, the Academy is also infamous for its most questionable decisions. If you’ve ever ended the night scratching your head after all your hopes and dreams for the biggest spotlight in Hollywood led to nothing but disappointment and you begin to channel Wooderson thinking to yourself, “well it’d be a lot cooler if they did…” then you’ve come to the right place. For the fourth year running, I continue listing 20 things the Academy could do on nomination morning ranging from the likely to the impossible and everything in between that would significantly boost their cool factor. 

In 2022, 7/20 (35%) came true:

1. Jessie Buckley was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in The Lost Daughter
2. Ryusuke Hamaguchi was nominated for Best Director for Drive My Car
3. Drive My Car was nominated for Best Picture
4. House of Gucci was blanked for above the line nominations
5. Adam McKay was not nominated for Best Director for Don’t Look Up
6. Kristen Stewart was nominated for Best Lead Actress in Spencer
7. Flee became the first film to be nominated for Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary, and Best International Feature

In 2023, 9/20 (45%) came true:

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once was enshrined as the film of the year by overperforming in nominations and winning Best Picture.
2. “Naatu Naatu” was nominated for Best Original Song and performed live on the show (and won the Oscar!)
3. Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian American woman to win Best Actress.
4. The entire Best Actor lineup was composed of first-time nominees, with Paul Mescal filling the fifth wild card slot.
5. Paul Mescal was nominated for Best Actor (see above).
6. International films made nomination appearances outside of Best International Feature (although in limited fashion with a sole nomination for Bardo outside of the category’s winner).
7. More than one Asian American woman was nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Stephanie Hsu and Hong Chau).
8. Brian Tyree Henry celebrated a year full of scene-stealing supporting work with an Oscar nomination.
9. Andrea Riseborough’s last-minute grassroots campaign ended in a nomination (with the asterisk of replacing Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler).

In 2024, 6/20 (30%) came true:

1. Nimona overcame all obstacles and was nominated for Best Animated Feature.
2. A24 entered twice into Best Picture for the second year in a row gathering nominations for the top category with Past Lives and The Zone of Interest.
3. Ben Affleck shot an ‘Air’ ball, despite being the dad movie of the year.
4. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One landed the first nomination in the franchise’s history for Best Sound.
5. Godzilla Minus One proved that Oppenheimer wasn’t the only WWII film to make atomic waves in 2023 with a nomination (and win) for Best Visual Effects.
6. An Oscar nomination for Animated Feature wasn’t just a Robot Dream(s)

In this completely subjective and arbitrary standard by which we can judge the annual nominations, last year was admittedly a down year. Coming in with a 30% success rate, it was the lowest on record, bringing the 3-year average to 36.67%. Not bad, but I believe we can pump it up this year (The Substance pun intended). This rate is of course relative to the scale of likelihood by which the list is populated, but the 20 suggestions are determined with a built-in range of possibility that hopefully will even the slate year-to-year. Some are likely, others are next to impossible. But alas, without further ado…

Here is the fourth annual pre-nomination report on “20 Things the Academy Would Do If They Were Cool” ranked loosely in order of likelihood from most to least likely to occur.

1. The Academy Takes The Substance 

In a bold move, the Academy acknowledges that body horror can be awards-worthy. Coralie Fargeat’s bombshell black market drug sweeps through the major categories and performs in a majority of Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Lead Actress, Supporting Actress, and even craft categories like Editing, and Makeup & Hairstyling. Maybe this signals a shift toward embracing the genre and its gory presentation. After all, most Academy members want to look like the Margaret Qualley version of themselves, right?

2. Payal Kapadia. Period.

Once again, the International Feature submission system gets it wrong, sidelining Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light due to outdated politicking and a bureaucratic submission process. Yet her boundary-pushing vision still earned admiration across critics’ circles, especially in recent weeks, with an eye on her breaking into Best Original Screenplay or even Best Director. Both are deserving, at least one nomination is a very cool win.

3. Nickel Strikes Gold

RaMell Ross’ artistic vision behind Nickel Boys is one of the boldest cinematic experiments of the year. In utilizing what he calls a “sentient camera,” you are forced into the shoes of Elwood and Turner as they experience racial injustice and abuse. While that decision alone isn’t enough for an Oscar nomination, the execution surely is. Jomo Fray’s first-person cinematography should be nominated alongside RaMell Ross for Adapted Screenplay and Director for his efforts in adapting Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

4. One Churro, Multiple Nominations 

If there’s a viral sensation that has lived rent-free in the heads of critics and audiences alike all year long, it’s the love triangle of Challengers, Luca Guadagnino’s steamy sports drama. With Original Score and Original Song shortlist mentions fans of the Zendaya–Faist–O’Connor triangle will be yearning for more. It’s only right to throw some awards-season love at this sweaty, stylish crowdpleaser.

5. Daniel Craig is Queer, and So are We

Queer presents a complex, symbolic allegory of sexual identity, and Daniel Craig’s nuanced, layered performance may be enough to finally see his name called on nomination morning. Forget James Bond and Benoit Blanc; this might finally land Craig his first Oscar nomination, proving he’s not just cool–he’s Academy cool.

6. The Academy Learns a Piano Lesson

We’re still making up for the Till snub, but this year, Danielle Deadwyler’s transcendent performance in The Piano Lesson leaves the Academy no room to ignore her again. Despite being an early favorite that has lost steam to the Ariana Grande/Zoe Saldana battle at the top of the category, Deadwyler presents a true supporting performance that adds significant value to one of the coolest August Wilson adaptations we’ve received. 

7. MJB Turns a Trifecta into a Quartet

Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s role as Pansy in Hard Truths made her the first Black actress to win the critics “Trifecta” with Best Actress wins at the heralded groups of LAFCA, NYCC, and NSFC. An Oscar nomination (her first since 1997) would not only be a natural conclusion to her awards run but also a well-earned moment of recognition for her dynamic talent. It’s a challenging character to play, but another hard truth is that only one other Trifecta winner has missed an Oscar nomination. Let’s not make that twice.

8. From Sing Sing to the Dolby Theater 

One of the most moving Best Picture nomination contenders comes from A24 in a story about lives behind bars. This indie gem about incarcerated artists transcends its modest scale, delivering an emotional message about prison reform while also challenging pay and equity practices in the business model of filmmaking. While the film’s limited theatrical access has held the film’s awards prospects back, Clarence Maclin still has an opportunity to emerge as one of the coolest nominations of the year for Best Supporting Actor in self-representing a participant in the RTA program.

9. No Other Land Overcomes a Lack of Distribution

If there’s one documentary that demands recognition this year, it’s No Other Land–a documentary made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective that reveals the magnitude of destruction caused by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank. The Academy’s documentary branch can be volatile and unpredictable, and the lack of distribution is cause for concern, but docs in similar positions have survived not having a distributor before. Let’s hope they get it right this time for the film that has swept documentary precursors all season long. It’s not just cool, it’s essential. 

10. Trans Stories Aren’t Overlooked

In a year where the spectrum of trans films ranges from The People’s Joker to (believe it or not) The Pope movie, there’s a wide array of storytelling to admire despite the season’s trajectory spotlighting the most divisive among them (I’m looking at you, Jacques). While Emilia Pérez is likely to garner the most nominations, stories such as Will & Harper, which follows Will Ferrell and Harper Steele on a road trip after the latter’s transition, deserve attention too. The Academy has an opportunity to amplify these stories in more ways than one. 

11. Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma (But There is in California)

Glen Powell may not be receiving a nomination for Lee Isaac Chung’s legacy reboot of the Oklahoman weather disaster film (his better chance is as a fake hitman), but Twisters was a cool summer blockbuster that could be rewarded in two categories. The film’s breakout track could become the first song from an Oklahoma-themed movie to score an Oscar nomination since Oklahoma! in 1955. Throw in Best Visual Effects for those twin tornadoes and dust off your cowboy boots–tornadoes are cool again.

12. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Bee-

Tim Burton’s legacy sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice secured shortlist nods in Costume Design, Production Design, Original Scor, and Makeup & Hairstyling. If the film manages nominations in 75% of those categories, the real challenge will be keeping presenters from saying his name three times on stage (not that we wouldn’t want to summon an undead Michael Keaton). Tim Burton is having fun making movies again, and that’s enough cause for celebration. There’s always room for more than one sandworm at the Oscars. 

13. Gray Cats are Good Luck at the Oscars

Since its premiere at Cannes, Flow has warmed the hearts of every cat mom and dad who has seen the Latvian animated feature starring Cat struggling to survive a great flood. As Latvia’s international submission, it has a chance for a double nomination, which would be extra cool for director Gints Zilbalodis, who we interviewed earlier this year. Not to mention, it’s very on-brand for cat people, who are clearly running the Academy these days.

14. The Academy Stans Sebastian

Sebastian Stan turned out a career-defining year in 2024, with recognized performances in two films–The Apprentice and A Different Man. After no publicist would allow their client to sit down with him for an Actors on Actors conversation, an Oscar nomination would be an enticing cap to a career year. Between the chilling portrayal of Donald Trump and the dark, but resonant comedy of A Different Man, the Academy has options to embrace a very cool actor. 

15. It’s a Monkey World and We’re Just Living in It

For the first time ever (don’t fact-check this), the entire Best Visual Effects lineup could feature films with iconic monkey moments: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (for obvious reasons), Gladiator II (yes, some creatures mildly resemble monkeys), Better Man (why not?), Mufasa: The Lion King (Rafiki voiced by both Kagiso Lediga and John Kani), and Wicked (throw in the flying variety of monkey). While all five getting in is next to impossible (see Dune: Part Two) four out of five is still bananas. We’ve gone full primate. Cool, I guess?

16. Robert Eggers is the Academy’s Affliction

Going back to 1922, Nosferatu is one of film history’s most adapted characters, yet Robert Eggers’ version still feels unique and singularly haunting, especially due to the physically demented performance by Lily-Rose Depp. It deserves multiple nominations above and below the line, but Best Cinematography alone would be cool for the spellbinding imagery that Jarin Blaschke generates. Makeup & Hairstyling for Bill Skarsgård’s unrecognizably rotting flesh would be even cooler. 

17. Ghostlight Doesn’t Ghost Us on Nomination Morning 

The theme of the healing power of art wasn’t present in just one movie this year, but rather matched by Ghostlight, a perfect double feature with Sing Sing. Both films should earn screenplay nominations, but Keith Kupferer would be the coolest nomination. He’s the standout of the Kelly O’Sullivan, Alex Thompson co-directed film from IFC. This FYC piece says it all: Kupferer for Best Actor.

18. Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Academy Member

Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow is a generation-defining film. It would be hard to put it into any better words than this FYC piece, but Schoenbrun’s work sets forth a new cinematic language for describing the intrinsic intersectionality of media and identity. It’s probably too cool for the Academy, but it’s also an incredibly surreal and sophisticated vision full of raw vulnerability. Any nomination would be enormously cool.

19. Kneecap Shocks the Dolby Stage

The rebellious biopic Kneecap, featuring the docufictional origin story of the Irish hip-hop trio from Belfast and their effort to save their native language through provocative lyrics, has the potential to score big with a Best International Feature nod—and if they bring the energy to the Dolby stage, a Best Original Song nomination could be legendary. BAFTA nominated it in six categories, so it’s time for the Academy to step up. “Every word of Irish spoken is a bullet fired for Irish freedom.” -Arló Ó Cairealláin

20. Fictional Pop Stars run the Best Original Song lineup

From the anthems of Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan) to the pop bangers of Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), this year’s Best Original Song lineup could be stacked with music from movies about fake stars. Who cares if they’re not real? The hits are. Nominate them all and let the stan wars ensue.

Article Courtesy of Danny Jarabek

Feature Image from ‘The Substance;’ Credit to Mubi and Metropolitan Filmexport via Filmlab