An exhaustive guide to building the perfect roster.
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Were heading towardan uncertain fall at the movies.
It could be an all-time chaotic awards season.
What better time to kick off a prediction-based strategy game?
Altogether its a comprehensive overview of the massive moving target that is the 202324 awards season.
Building a team that can go the distance will be hard.
Jump down to the full list of movie options.
Visit thelanding pagefor the complete rules, scoring, and prize information.
When youre ready,draft your team.
If youre not yet ready,sign up here to receive a reminder to draftbefore the registration period ends.
Hold Up, What Is This Fantasy League?
You have until noon ET on September 28 to select your team.
(you might find thescoring system at the MFL hub.)
Whichever team has the highest score following the Oscars wins.
Read on to learn more and immerse yourself in the eligible movies.
Thats not to say that the calculus will be the same this year.
Every awards year is different.
This one, for example, has aBarbenheimer.
Its easy to predict that there will be alotof action onOppenheimerandBarbiethis season.
But its still very early in the season and so much could happen.
Roster Construction
It wont be easy to select bothOppenheimerandBarbie.
That puts you in a bargain-bin hunt to fill out your roster.
Its a big risk and one that makes it vital to draft wisely among the cheap movies.
The opposite strategy is to go for a more balanced roster.
Instead of drafting Barbenheimer for $75, you could get five movies in the $15 range.
Or $24 to spend on two more films if you also draftDicks: The Musical.
Also look at the specialty Oscar categories: Documentary Feature, International Feature, and Animated Feature.
Nominees in these categories dont always start accumulating buzz until later in the season.
Last year, the $2 documentaryFire of Loveended up being a great value.
Revisit the Cannes reviews for the buzz on foreign-language films.
These arent guarantees, but thats why they wont cost you much.
Pay Attention to Festival Talk
This season weve launched the drafting window before fall festival season.
Thats going to make things harder to predict.
Which movies and performances are getting raves?
Do the reviews and reactions mention Oscar hopes?
Are any international films being mentioned as France/Italy/Denmark/Irans potential Oscar submissions?
Seek out the buzz sometimes its fraudulent, but it should give you a sense of whats worth considering.
Festival insights are what divide the people who draftedThe Banshees of Inisherinfrom the people who draftedThe Son.
Timing is Everything
Roster selection doesnt close until September 28.
Depending on when youre reading this, you likely still have some time.
Its not a bad idea to use it.
Movies such asKraven the Hunterand Luca GuadagninosChallengershave already been pulled from the fall calendar and moved to 2024.
A grabby nom de guerre makes perusing the leaderboard more fun.
Billie Eilish could be targeting back-to-back wins in Original Song.
Mulligans a two-time nominee herself in the Oscar-friendly role as Bernsteins wife.
But this is being sold as a big ol war epic, which could give it multiplex appeal.
The films focus on Napoleons marriage to Josephine could give Kirby some heat.
His last big Oscar movie was 2015sThe Martian, so he might be due.
pre-COVID), the Christmastime box office was a tide that tended to lift all boats.
This should show up during awards season the question is which groups will gravitate toward it.
Davis is an Oscar winner who should have more career nominations than she does.
Before that, hes gotten two Screenplay nominations for writingMoonrise KingdomandThe Royal Tenenbaums.
Miyazaki won the Animated Film Oscar for 2002sSpirited Away.
The film is set to initiate the Toronto Film Festival.
His last two films, 2020sThe Midnight Skyand 2021sThe Tender Bar,passed without any notice at all.
Its been a while since then.
Adam Driver is a two-time nominee forBlacKkKlansmanandMarriage Story.
Fassbender hasnt been nominated sinceSteve Jobs.
Meanwhile, Chin and Vasarhelyis filmFree Solowon the Best Documentary Oscar in 2019.
Shell certainly have plenty of material to work with.
That said, the firstAquamandid $335 million domestic.
In 2009, she was Oscar nominated for her documentary filmThe Betrayal.
the House That Minions Built.
But that was beforeTom Cruise saved cinemawithTop Gun: Maverick.
1 film at the yearly box-office hasnt gone without an Oscar nomination sinceThe Hunger Games: Catching Firein 2013.
Jeffrey Wright belongs in every conversation about the best working actors who have never been nominated for an Oscar.
The Golden Globes are trying some new things this year.
Are You There, God?
Unfortunately it may have opened too early for awards voters to remember it.
Anyone who saw this movie pretty much liked it, and Howerton in particular was praised for his performance.
This sequel doesnt have that same prestige to it, but the Aardman movies tend to be good.
But Anne Hathaway gives a tremendous supporting performance that got a lot of praise in Utah.
Listen for chatter coming out of the fall festivals on this one.
(And keeping it very real, he deserved to go three for three withSing Street).
This one has a musical element to it, too, so keep an eye on it.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.
Independent awards feel like the most likely place for this one to score points.
This is a long shot that will depend a lot on its performance at festivals.
Similarly, you could see either Sherry Cola or Sabrina Wu as particularly cool breakthrough performance nominees somewhere.
Last year, SPC campaigned Bill Nighy to his first ever Oscar nomination for another Sundance hit,Living.
The critics would need to revive this one in a major way.
andAmmoniteandThe Son(aww).
Look, hes going to keep making these big, operatic action blockbusters until he earns some damn respect.
Will that be this year?
Taylor Swift, if you havent noticed, has some fans.
And they immediately took to crashing the AMC ticketing sites as soon as the film was announced.
Concert films simply dont get awards recognition.
If youre picking this movie, its going to be a pure box-office play.
A Thousand and One($5)
Director:A.V.
Teyana Taylors lead performance deserves to be remembered, but whether it will be is a question.
TheBargainBin
Popcorn emoji () denotes a film that iseligible for box-office pointsbased on its release date.
