Draft Strategy 102 – Pictures

by Paulo Bautista, Host of the Oscars Death Race Podcast

Introduction and Review

Welcome to part 2 of my series on draft advice for the 2023-2024 Red Carpet Rosters film awards fantasy season!

In case you missed part 1, be sure to check it out here.

A quick recap though on what we covered last time that is relevant to this installment

• PIC players make up about 1300 points over the course of the season
  • 800 of those come from Best Picture awards. 500 from Genre films, 400 from Ensemble films and 100 from Stunts
    • I don’t really value Genre that much since those are spread out amongst multiple genres. Stunts are also mostly negligible from my point of view as outside of a Mad Max: Fury Road situation, we don’t really have Best Picture contenders who are also stunt heavy. 
    • On the other hand, I do value Ensemble in my rankings – a stronger ensemble film that is Best Picture competitive will get you higher on the rankings than BP films that are really only heavily feature one or two actors. Last year, Glass Onion had nice value solely because of the Ensemble points.
  • As an individual category, Best Picture awards are the second highest after a strong Screenplay (worth 1000 points), ahead of directors (650).
• The Animation / International / Documentary category is worth 1350 points total.
  • An estimated 500 will go to Documentary (last year it was 900 points but rule changes are likely to bring this down)
  • International films will get 450 points
  • Animated films will get 400 points
• In this series I’m looking at 3 different methodologies on how to value players
  • My method is to prioritize players that I think will win Oscar night first and foremost. This gives up some win percentage during the matchups leading into the playoffs, but assuming that the contenders at the Oscars will do well with the various awards, you hopefully coast through.
  • Nico (the winner of two separate leagues last year) is a bit less focused on films that will win at the Oscars and goes for players likely to get points at critics and industry awards. This let’s you get a bye going into the playoff assuming you are in a commanding lead throughout the season, but will require more active involvement on the waiver wire week to week.
  • John (the admin of Red Carpet Rosters) manufactures the official RCR pre-draft rankings based on a mix of his own gut based over years of running RCR as a format, Oscars pundits, categories not present at the Oscars, and goes for a more holistic approach. 

In this installment, we will be talking about the PIC category and ANI/INT/DOC category. These two categories are combined because it is actually possible to run an ANI/INT/DOC film in your PIC slot (though not vice versa). So if your pick for PIC is starting to struggle in points, you could consider swapping in a strong ANI/INT/DOC player in there (though you may miss out on Best Picture points unless you get lucky).

Best Picture

First, here is a chart showing how myself, Nico and John ranked the top 20 PIC contenders. Note here we are not including films that could also show up in the ANI/INT/DOC slot. I also took an average of the rankings and ordered those to give an average rank, with any tie breaks broken by having a smaller standard deviation between our rankings (I know standard deviation for this small a sample size is not great, but it’s all I had so bear with me). For films that some of us rated but not others, I gave the film a rank of “21” for the individual who didn’t rate it. 

Let’s go through the top contenders

• Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon are a clear number one and number two regardless of methodology. These are films that will likely dominate all awards season long and are our frontrunners for winning Best Picture. In fact if you look at the Mock drafts I posted in the last entry, all three of us have these two films going round 1 pick 4 and pick 5 for the draft.
  • The reason for this is pretty obvious – both are likely to get multiple above the line nominations (particularly a double Director / Adapted Screenplay), acting nominations (Lead Actor, Supporting actor and then at least one Actress category), and then probable to get multiple below the line nominations. The films themselves, with all this Oscar buzz surrounding their casts and crews, will score plenty of points.
• Barbie and Poor Things are the consensus number 3 and 4, with John favoring Barbie over Poor Things. In our mock drafts, Nico and I had Poor Things going pick 6 in the first round, while John had Barbie going in the second pick of round 2. In either case, these two films in our mock drafts are all gone by pick 9 of Round 2 at the latest.
  • In my view, Poor Things I think has a bit of a better chance at Above the Line nominations than Barbie (plus a Golden Lion win from Venice), as well as strength in some Below the Line nominations. That said, Barbie does have a stronger case for those technical noms, as well as more popularity among general audiences being the highest grossing film of the year, so neither is a bad choice.
• In 5th we have The Holdovers, which got the runner up People’s Choice award at TIFF and has decent Above the Line nominations going for it. Nico and John both have it at 5 while I have it at 6. Meanwhile, I have Maestro at 5 and they both have it at 7, giving it the 6th best ranking
  • Personally I think the lack of potential Below the Line nominations hurts Holdover’s chances relative to Maestro, which I think is why I have Holdovers slightly higher. Maestro also is shaping up to be Netflix’s main push while Holdovers will likely be second fiddle to Oppenheimer from Universal.
• In 7 place, we have a pretty divisive pick – Past Lives. An early favorite of the year, I have it as low as 11 (outside my top 10), while Nico has it as high as 6, and John has it at 8.
  • Personally I think as far as Oscars chances go, A24 is likely to prioritize The Zone of Interest over Past Lives, and a lot of the hype for Past Lives going into awards season is simply because we haven’t really seen what the rest of the slate has to offer (not to take anything away form it – it’s one of my favorite movies of the year). It will do well for debut films and such (though those points will go to Celine Song and not the film). 
  • On the other hand, Nico has it getting a lot of love in the film awards leading up to the Oscars, hence why he has it higher up. It is, after all, the best reviewed debut film of the year. 
• For 8 and 9. We have two films with identical average rankings, though one was more consistent than the other – The Color Purple was ranked either 8 or 9 by all of us, while American Fiction was as high as 6 from John and as low as 13 from Nico
  • The Color Purple is a bit of a wild card in this race – we only really have one trailer from it and the reputation of some of its lead actors, and the good reception of its source material of the Broadway musical it is based off of. I still think it’ll get a Best Picture nomination, but the unknown factor of it has me ranking it near the bottom of that top 10. 
  • American Fiction on the other hand is pretty mixed. John and I both have it around 6/7 – likely due to the trend that the TIFF Peoples Choice Award winner is guaranteed a Best Picture slot. That said, I see it getting in with maybe one ATL nomination. Nico has it lower down, suggesting that even if it is a player, it likely won’t win a lot of awards throughout the season, hence a lower priority. This one had the highest standard deviation of any film in the top 10
• Finally at number 10 we have All of Us Strangers. I had it at number 10, while Nico had it at 8 and John at 11.
  • I personally have this outside my top 10 for Best Picture (there are two international films I think get in over it), but I see it as a strong dark horse to sneak in, especially given that it is likely Disney’s second priority, and they historically have had multiple films in Best Picture. 
  • Nico is a bit higher on it, likely due to it being a probable critic’s favorite. Meanwhile, John is less convinced and has it lower than either of us. 

Looking at the films we all ranked but didn’t make top 10. 

• Air –  Paulo 14 / Nico 10 / John 17 / Overall 11
  • I’ll admit I still haven’t seen this but there seems to be a dedicated faction saying this is in. Nico at least thinks it can get some industry and critics love, but I don’t think it makes Best Picture, especially if we assume American Fiction gets a higher priority at MGM (which Nico doesn’t based on his ratings)
• May December – Paulo 9 / Nico 15 / John 18 / Overall 12
  • I think this is Netflix’s second priority. It was a big acquisition coming out of Cannes and has their historically juicy date of Dec 1, the same weekend as say The Power of the Dog, Mank and Marriage Story. It also is the film showcased at the NYFF that I think is most likely to get a nom, which historically one of their three showcased films do get a nom. Maestro seems to have taken the lead in early reviews but we’ll see if it can turn the tides. 
• Saltburn – Paulo 13 / Nico 14 / John 20 / Overall 14
  • It didn’t resonate with critics at the initial film festivals, but seems to have some sort of love as a Screenplay nominee likely. I think this could get some critics love but unlikely to really berak out
• The Bikeriders – Paulo 17 / Nico 20 / John 19 / Overall 20
  • For me this one is probably Disney’s third priority. Jodie Comer is having a moment right now and Austin Butler is still in the public’s eye after Elvis last year. That said, this one is a bit of a stretch all things considered. 

Looking at films that 2 out of 3 of us rated in the top 20 

• Rustin – Paulo NA / Nico 11 / John 13 / Overall 13
  • Nico’s note to me is that this one is looking to be a bit of a crowdpleaser which could do well at industry and critics awards. Again with my Oscars centric approach I don’t think it gets a picture nomination, especially with Netflix having two other strong contenders
• Napoleon – Paulo 12 / Nico NA / John 16 / Overall 15
  • I’m the highest on this one, mostly because I have it as a potential dark horse Best Picture nominee – it would be Sony’s main priority for Best Picture (when they don’t already have a nominee), and on paper sounds great (Joaquin Phoenix + Ridley Scott), and would get in through a predominantly BTL route. That said, it is a bit of an unknown, with even less known about it than The Color Purple, so I understand rating it lower. 
• Origin – Paulo NA / Nico 19 / John 10  / Overall 16
  • This got some buzz out of the film festivals, but I personally don’t see a real path for it to Best Picture and Nico is kind of shaky on its release date. John is particularly bullish on this one since it shows up as a “last-in or first-out” Best Picture nominee on many pundit lists. His thinking is that if you’re drafting the tenth picture off the board, you want to set yourself up to advance in the playoffs with a picture that can break into the Oscar Best Picture, and he’s putting those chips on a Selma-like repeat for Ava DuVernay’s Origin.
• Asteroid City – Paulo 20 / Nico 12 / John NA / Overall 17
  • I see this as a bit of a stretch personally and probably could swap it out for another film. That said Nico has it getting some critics love as Wes Andreson is wont to do. 
• Ferrari – Paulo 18 / Nico NA / John 15 / Overall 18
  • This one is probably Neon’s second shot after Anatomy of a Fall, though that seems unlikely given overall reviews for the film.

And then finally films only one of us were wiling to go to bat for.

• Paulo
  • The Killer – 15 – I wouldn’t count out David Fincher’s film especially with some of his favorite technical collaborators involved, but Netflix does have a stacked slate. 
  • Bob Marley One Love – 16 – A bit of a speculative pic for me, but Ben Kingsley-Adir as a beloved historical figure could be a surprise curveball from WB with a mid January wide release
  • Wonka – 19 – I have this in mostly for some technical love, though the WB slate is a bit too crowded for it. 
• Nico
  • Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One – 16 – mostly getting in for the Stunt Points 
  • Bottoms – 17 – mostly getting in for a decent box office performance, and as a follow up from the creator of the critically loved Shiva Baby – could do well in critics awards even if not at Oscars
  • John Wick: Chapter 4 – 20 – Another action / stunt film nominee
• John
  • Nyad – 12 – The only film with one supporter in our overall top 20 (at 19) on account of him rating it really high. The first feature debut of the documentary team behind Free Solo, this has some technical merit and potential dark horse acting noms.
  • Dream Scenario – 14 – A bit of an out there Nicolas Cage film, perhaps some love after his success with Pig?

INT Films in Best Picture?

Now as I mentioned above, I went about this with my Oscar nomination focused approach. However, I actually only have my top 8 as getting Best Picture here. Ranks 9-12 (May December, All of Us Strangers, Past Lives and Napoleon) are my dark horses to maybe sneak into Best Picture. The reason for this is that two films that are considered Foreign – Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest – are in my eyes current contenders for Best Picture. Let’s look at where we would rate those films relative to Best Picture (ignoring the INT category for a second)

• Paulo – Simple enough, I have them at number 9 for Zone of Interest and 10 for Anatomy of a Fall, below The Color Purple. International films are always tricky to predict (remember Triangle of Sadness last year?) Zone is a bit higher than Anatomy for me even if Anatomy is the Golden Palm winner, mostly because Zone got selected as the UK’s international submission while France did not pick Anatomy of a Fall, limiting its points potential.
• Nico – In the rankings he provided, Anatomy was his number 10 (between The Color Purple and Air), being one of the most in demand films at fall circuits and a clear number one from Neon, its distributor. Zone of Interest he has lower at number 17 (between May December and Mission Impossible) since while it is a well reviewed film and the international submission, it is not as much of a crowd pleaser so might get less critics love (though not none by any means).
• Going by John’s pre-draft rankings, he has Zone of Interest pretty high at number 37 overall, between Past Lives and The Color Purple (so it would be number 8 on his list). Meanwhile Anatomy of a Fall is much lower, at 301 overall (below films like Blackberry and Cassandro), probably because it did not get the International nomination love. 

Looking at our mock drafts, 

• I took Zone of Interest pretty highly – the start of Round 2, since it is a front runner to win Best International Feature, so ahead of Barbie and Maestro even as the 4th “Picture”. Anatomy of a Fall on the other hand was the 10th “Picture” I took at the start of round 4 after The Color Purple.
• Nico took Anatomy of a Fall at the start of round 3, after Barbie and The Holdovers (so the 6th overall pick among Picture eligible fllms). Meanwhile he took Zone after the top couple of documentaries and animated films, all the way down in Round 6 
• John took Zone near the beginning of round 4, after six Picture only nominees and Across the Spider-Verse was taken as the first animated film. He did not draft Anatomy of a Fall.

This segues us nicely to our other category we’re looking at

Animated / International / Documentaries

Now this category again has 1300 points up for grabs, but spread across 3 potential categories (500 for Doc, 450 for Int, and 400 for Animated). Again you can play these players in your PIC slot, though it’s unlikely they’ll actually win the Best Picture awards outside of a couple. 

A couple of things to note here

• Even if a film is not selected as a country’s official nomination for Best International Feature, it can still get points for International films because critics and industry awards don’t really restrict themselves to the same list the Oscars do. The best example of this is RRR last year, which was not India’s submission but was highly valuable, nearly sweeping the regular season ceremonies. 
• There are films here that can play double duty – there are animated documentaries, documentaries from foreign countries, foreign animated films, and in rare cases, all three in one. Those films get a bit of a higher priority.
• Again since they all compete for the same slot, you’re going to need to weigh whether you want to take the 3rd or 4th best Animated film vs say the 1st or 2nd best documentary. 
• Even if Documentary will get the most points and Animated gets the least, personally with my Oscar centric approach, I am a bit more confident in my predictions for Animated feature nominees so I have those higher up. Meanwhile which International films are still somewhat up in the air, not to mention how Documentary is pretty hard to predict a lot of the time, so I have them lower on my list. I still did my best to have at least 5 or 6 nominees for each category represented among my 20 though. Consider Documentary a more high risk high reward kind of pick given the sheer volume of Documentary contenders. Although total points for Documentary is greatest, they are spread out much more than their Animated or International counterparts.

Without further ado, here are the consolidated rankings. 

These are a bit more all over the place – as opposed to the Best Picture category where there were 13 films that we didn’t all rate, here there are 19 films. Let’s go through the ones we all did rank in the top 10.

• Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse – Paulo 6 / Nico 2 / John 1 / Overall 1
  • While my rating does seem low I do have a method to my madness – it is below the two films I think make Best Picture, the other front runner for Animated Feature (The Boy and the Heron), which also happens to be an International film (and could get some International points as a result), and two documentaries that are also international films (20 Days in Mariupol from Ukraine and Four Daughters from Tunisia). By comparison even if Across the Spider-Verse is a favorite for Best Animated feature, it lacks the double categories which lowers it in my rankings. Still I can’t blame you if you go with the favorite early. 
• The Zone of Interest – Paulo 1 / Nico 7 / John 2 / Overall 2
  • We already mentioned how this is a potential Best Picture contender, and the UK’s submission for International Feature. That said Nico doesn’t think it’ll be as crowd pleasing as other films, hence his lower score. 
• The Boy and the Heron – Paulo 3 / Nico 3 / John 5 / Overall 3
  • The return of Hayao Miyazaki, an easy contender for Best Animated Feature, with some International upside to boot. 
• 20 Days in Mariupol – Paulo 4 / Nico 4 / John 6 / Overall 4
  • Already mentioned, a double documentary / international contender (Ukraine’s official submission), it will probably get at least nomination on nomination day, if not two. Plus being about a current event topic everyone is aware of can’t hurt.
• Elemental – Paulo 7 / Nico 7 / John 9 / Overall 5
  • This is kind of a safe pick for Animated Feature at this point, even if it was initially panned by critics. is has bounced back to audience success and feedback, which for the animated category, when you add in the Pixar brand name might be enough. 
• Perfect Days – Paulo 9 / Nico 14 / John 3 / Overall 7
  • This one is a bit all over the place – it did win some recognition at Cannes and was a bit of a surprising pick for Japan’s international feature film – over even The Boy and the Heron – which might be why John has it rated highly. Nico seems less confident of its appeal to critics circles over say Zone of Interest, while I have a bit of a Japan bias ranking it (though it is probably the only other film in International I can call a near lock).
• Beyond Utopia – Paulo 11 / Nico 12 / John 5 / Overall 8
  • A Sudance favorite for documentary, I think this has a good shot at getting a nom, though nothing is locked in the documentary race, even if it is super popular. 
• Wish – Paulo 8 / Nico 14 / John 10 / Overall 9
  • Personally I would actually think Wish is a more sure thing than Elemental (No way Disney is letting their 100th anniversary film not get nominated). That said it does come out later in the season making Wish an unknown quantity, so I do understand it being marked down for that. 
• Nimona – Paulo 12 / Nico 11 / John 11 / Overall 10
  • Again, I think ther’s another Netflix film with a better chance – Chicken Run 2 – but I understand this being a bit more of a known quantity giving it a higher overall score, and a probably 5th film from what’s already been released. 

Aside from these 10, we all also ranked 

• Eternal Memory – (a Chilean documentary – Nico as high as 5, me as low as 19 – though at the time I ranked them I didn’t know it was international so maybe I retrospectively should have it higher)
• Still: A Michael J Fox Movie (a crowd pleasing documentary – Nico as high as 8, John as low as 18) – Overall 13
• The Teachers’ Lounge (Germany’s International Submission – John as high as 8, Nico as low as 20) – Overall 14

For films two of us nominated.

• Anatomy of a Fall (overall 6) – Nico and I had this as 1 and 2 respectively, probably because there is Best Picture contention here in our eyes even without the France nomination.
• The Taste of Things (overall 11) – Nico 9, John 8, France’s International submission (I am seeing this at NYFF so maybe I change my mind after seeing it)
• The Deepest Berath (overall 15) – Nico 10, John 12 – A Netflix documentary about an Italian free diver
• Fallen Leaves (overall 17) – Me 14, Nico 17, Finland’s International submission
• American Symphony (overall 19) – Me 20, John 13, a Netflix documentary about Jon Batiste
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (outside top 20) – Nico 18, John 20 – Paramount’s newest adaptation of the turtles we all know and love
• Little Richard: I Am Everything (outside top 20) – Nico 19, John 19 – A Sundance documentary about the eponymous musician

And then for films we ranked by ourselves

• Paulo
  • Four Daughters (5) – Tunisia’s submission that is also a documentary – double points
  • Chicken Run 2 (10) – A sequel to the most successful stop motion animated film financially, there is usually at least one stop motion animated film in Animated feature if the Academy can help it
  • Monster (16) – Not Japan’s submission but a respected director I think can get some love
  • Evil Does Not Exist (17) – My Japanese bias is showing here, again not the official submission but could get some love at circles
  • The Peasants (18) – Poland’s submission that is also an animated film, done in the style (and by the same team) as the formerly nominated Loving Vincent – perhaps a sleeper pick for animated film as well. 
• Nico
  • Stamped From the Beginning (15) – Documentary
  • Silver Dollar Road (16) – Documentary
• John
  • The Pigeon Tunnel (14) – Documentary
  • Society of the Snow (15) – Spain’s submission
  • Kokomo City (16)- Documentary
  • Anselm (17) – Documentary

As a bonus here are my rankings for Best Animated Feature, as someone who’s favorite category is the animated category

• As Locked as you can be at this point
  • The Boy and the Heron
  • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
• More likely than not
  • Wish
  • Chicken Run 2
• Vying for the Last slot
  • The Peasants
  • Elemental
  • Nimona
• Surprise Dark Horse?
  • TMNT: Mutant Mayhem
  • Robot Dreams
  • Ernest and Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia
  • They Shot the Piano Player
  • Trolls Band Together

Hopefully that has given you a lot to think about. Next time we’ll be back with arguably the most important category – Screenplay and Director, with a bit of talk about Editing and Cinematography as well. 

Till next time

~Paulo