Red Carpet RostersI had the great fortune of being featured in a New York Times article about my experience with Oscars betting! Next year, look to this site to see more suggestions on betting picks as I will release them much more periodically to go with the planned new features of the site!
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/business/oscars-betting.html
The 96th Academy Awards are on Sunday, March 10, and if predicting the winners in each category sounds too daunting, here’s a little contest for you.
https://forms.gle/XTwzuqYrdJWAeqrM8
The rules are simple. Each Oscar-nominated feature film has an “O/U” with a number by it. All you have to do is pick whether that film will get MORE wins than the specified number (i.e. the OVER) or that film will get LESS wins than the specified number (i.e. the UNDER.)
You’ll get a point for every one you get correct. In case of tie, the tiebreaker is the timestamp of your submission. Earlier submissions will break the tie in your favor.
Only one submission allowed per person.
Top three winners will receive an e-gift card to the theater chain of their choice sent to their email.
Good luck!
We didn’t really learn a whole lot from Matchup #4 in terms of waiver suggestions that we didn’t already know. All the prior waiver advice is still valid. And your league may even have some additional valuable picks from impatient owners who dropped players who have underwhelmed but still are good enough to own.
Instead, let’s shift our focus for more plug and plays. Matchup #5 is short, and the point potential seems to be less than the prior matchups, mostly because then-unscheduled ceremonies were added to Matchups 1-4 where I’m skeptical that Matchup #5 will get many, if any, additional ceremonies. This is a prime matchup to plug in some music to take advantage of the Oscar shortlists for Score and Song along with the nominations from the Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL). You might get some bonus points from the other critics groups from these music categories.
And an additional note before we get into it: I’m not highlighting other technical categories because the Oscar shortlists are only worth a point apiece. Yes, there are a lot of technical players who will get points, but they are hard to predict and chasing one point here and there is a fool’s errand and could leave you burnt. Instead, plug your technical players you already have on your team. The Oscar shortlists inform FUTURE waiver suggestions.
I would be shocked if Timberlake didn’t have at least three points in Matchup #5: Two from the SCL and one from the Oscars shortlist. His song (co-written with Amy Allen and Shellback, who are both worth consideration) “Better Place” from Trolls Band Together is a contender for nominations here.
She has four songs, two of which are in contention. You can get two easy points for pluggin her in.
In a HUGE snub for his The Batman score, Michael Giacchino returns with two scores from Next Goal Wins and Society of the Snow. The former has yielded no points, but Society of the Snow has gotten a little buzz, including Giacchino’s score.
His song “Road to Freedom” from Rustin has gotten him 10 points thus far, and he’s all but guaranteed to be shortlisted.
And that’s all I can muster right now. Good luck!
We’re at the point of the regular season where the waiver wire offers some pretty slim pickings. I don’t like to repeat myself often, but my last waiver wire advice does still water as well as the one before that, albeit less so. In other words, if there are unowned players who either have appeared in my waiver advice OR have significant points, go after ‘em.
I can’t even really do a plug and play for Matchup #4 because it’s mostly “mainstream” awards. The Satellite Awards Nominations will account for a LOT of points due to the sheer volume of categories and the likelihood there will be six nominees per category. Predicting those would be hard, but points is a pretty good predictor. All the other scheduled ceremonies are from regional critics organizations, and we’ve had plenty of those already. Again, points talk. Given there aren’t any guild ceremonies or other category specific ceremony, there aren’t any good candidates for plug and plays.
I could also talk about some stashes for when we do get to that point in the season where there are more guilds, but most of those are taken too. And let’s be honest, if you’re scouring the waiver suggestions, you probably don’t have the bench spots to stash away because you are in a win-now mentality.
Nonetheless, let’s try to get a few waiver suggestions, shall we? And I’m not highlighting anyone I’ve already mentioned.
There are only two locks for any ceremony honoring Animated Features. You already know that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and The Boy and the Heron are trading wins and nominated everywhere. You know the third animated feature in points? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. It’s tied for 13th when combined with the Documentaries and International Features, but we’re still early enough in the season where documentaries are more unjustly inflated, so expect TMNT to rise in the rankings. It won’t win much, if at all, but an Oscar nomination and all those other nomination points are not out of the question.
If you’re chasing stunt or action movie genre points, John Wick: Chapter 4 is the better option, but the second best option is Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. Very low ceiling with this one, but you could plug it in for matchups that have high stunt and action movie potential.
Teyana Taylor is the 8th ranked actress right now, which means she should be owned. It’s that simple. Ten teams, and she’s in Top Ten. (At least) Ten nominations for actresses at every ceremony, and she’s Top Ten. She should be owned in every league.
Jack Black appeared here, and he’ll get a few bonus points for voiceover performances as Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie. The other songwriters of “Peaches” deserve consideration. They are Aaron Horvath, John Spiker, Eric Osmond, and Michael Jelenic. They are also all tied for tenth in this category.
He does have SONG eligibility, but he has appeared a few times in screenplay nominations. If he picks up steam, he can camp out in the SCORE/SOUND/SONG/VFX slot on your lineup. He’s also not out of contention for an Oscar screenplay nomination. Full disclosure, I’m not targeting him even though I really enjoyed Asteroid City, but I can see the argument for rostering him.
The costume designer for The Color Purple (and They Cloned Tyrone) has nabbed a few nominations at these critics organizations. Period films generally do well for costume designers, so if you’re desperate to fill your PD/CD/MUAH slot, you can do worse.
And that’s it for a little early peek into the waiver wire before Matchup #4.
Matchup #2 is all but in the books, and in hindsight, this matchup should’ve been shorter. But when the matchup schedule was finalized, we didn’t know when the AFI was going to announce their top ten films of the year, not to mention nomination announcements from regional critics groups such as Las Vegas Film Critics Society and Washington DC Area Film Critics Association, to name a couple more. Ah the intricacies of a head-to-head format in film awards fantasy leagues! I wouldn’t have it any other way.
More importantly than my hindsight being 20/20 is that Matchup #2 is really the first chance we get to see how the rest of the regular season is likely to shake out. Matchup #1 does offer a few hints to it, including Charles Melton from May December becoming a top waiver priority, but we don’t really get a sense of how our teams will fare in the remaining eight matchups plus the eventual playoffs if our team is lucky enough to get there. Now because a handful of regional critics associations, the National Board of Review, AND the AFI Top Ten are known, we have a good, albeit small, sample size to see which players on our team will help, or hurt, us getting to the playoffs.
We also have some more mainstream technical awards nominations and/or wins to see if we can glean any kind of substantial value in those so-called “below-the-line” categories. There aren’t as many points to go around in general, but in the, for example, SCORE/SONG/SOUND/VFX spot on your team, there will be a minimum of TWENTY Oscar nominees (more because most of the song contenders have multiple songwriters) as opposed to the ACTR spot, which will only have ten (five for lead and five for supporting). In other words, in the first round of the playoffs, the fifteenth SCORE/SONG/SOUND/VFX suddenly becomes more valuable than the fifteenth ACTR.
Let’s take a look at some potential unowned players you should have on your team.
The supporting actor from BlackBerry, Glenn Howerton is a priority add if you need an actor or a flex spot. He did get nominated at both the Gothams and Independent Spirit Awards, but he’s also been nominated at some regional critics awards. Again, that’s a small sample size but hard to ignore. The wins will be hard to come by, but getting nominated this many times will lead to some great points for your team.
Lead actress from Past Lives, Greta Lee, has now been nominated at a few regional critics, plus Gothams and Independent Spirit. Past Lives is getting a lot of buzz, and Lee is starting to convert that into a few nominations for her effort. The wins will be scarcer, but she would be a nice replacement if you spent a draft pick on someone like Cailee Spaeny who has yet to make an impact.
Dominic Sessa has a chance to nab some great breakthrough and youth acting points for his supporting turn in The Holdovers. Most ceremonies combine actors and actresses into these categories, if they give them in the first place, but Sessa appears poised to appear on many of these lists. He has somewhat of a low ceiling because I doubt he’s going to get many general acting nominations, but in a traditionally thin pool of youth actors, he’s worth consideration.
Another youth actress with her role in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Abby Ryder Fortson will undoubtedly appear everywhere there is a youth actress award. Not all ceremonies honor these youth awards, but she can nab a few easy and safe points.
I recommended her last time, and I’m doing it again this time since she’s unowned in a lot of leagues. May December is a rare movie where if one thing is off, it becomes absolutely abominable. But the thing is, everything about it is tweaked to perfection, and that begins with Samy Burch’s masterful script. Being a first-timer probably hurts her a little bit, and she only has SCRN category designation, so her ceiling is a little low, but she’s worth rostering all over to at least fill a FLEX spot.
Speaking of May December, if this is still somehow unowned in your league, put in a waiver request right now. Nothing on the AFI Top Ten should go unowned. Period.
She now has several screenplay nominations with critics for her adaptation of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. This coming-of-age movie was highly praised with critics, so I imagine she’ll get a few more screenplay nominations. She does have the appealing DIR-SCRN designation, but the director field is way too crowded to consider her a dual threat at this point. Still, she’s worth a roster spot.
Godzilla Minus One has exploded onto the scene and is getting some much-deserved buzz with the movie itself and its visual effects. In fact, it was one of the twenty films that are advancing to the next round of consideration for the Academy Award for Visual Effects. This is significant because other films like The Little Mermaid, Blue Beetle, and Oppenheimer missed this cut. Critics are appearing to start rallying around this film. The potential is capped because Japan didn’t select Godzilla Minus One has their official submission, and I highly doubt it’s going to get a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars, but there is good point potential here for the film itself, but even more potential for its visual effects to pop up a few more times. The visual effects branch of the Academy Awards do like to recognize creature effects, and you don’t get much more creature-y than Godzilla.
Finland’s official submission for the Academy Awards, Fallen Leaves has popped up a few times in Best International Feature nomination lists. If you’re desperate to fill the ANI/INT/DOC spot, you can do worse.
Mexico’s official submission for the Academy Awards, Tótem has three nominations: Gothams, Indie Spirit, and National Board of Review. Critics haven’t nominated it yet, but this can be treated as a speculative add if you can spare the roster spot.
The editor from John Wick: Chapter 4 is an unlikely Oscar nomination, but there seems to be some buzz generating around the John Wick technical that could earn him some good points for editing. I would also not be surprised if the American Cinema Editors (ACE) throw an Eddie nomination his way too.
I always try to keep an eye on cinematographers throughout the season, because of all the technical categories, CIN and SCORE seem to be at pretty much every ceremony. Enter Dariusz Wolski for shooting Napoleon. All the other cinematographers are drafted, but if you’re desperate, Wolski could gain some traction.
As of this writing, anyone with critics points instead of industry points are at least worth consideration. In other words, look for the ones with critics nominations and not the ones from European Film Awards and/or British Independent Film Awards.
The potential is capped at stunts and genre awards, which are substantially less than Best Picture, but this film will likely win all of them, cornering the Action and Stunt market. Pick it up, plug it in when there are enough stunt awards (including SAG noms), and get a handful of easy points.
Jack Black and his co-songwriters Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, John Spiker, and Eric Osmond have a few nominations under their belt now, including a Golden Globe nomination. The song category is crowded, but Peaches from The Super Mario Bros. Movie is becoming a song that can appear alongside those Barbie songs on nomination lists.
If Robot Dreams only won the European Film Award for Best Animated Feature, which it did, I wouldn’t consider it. But it also has four critics nominations/runner-up points in Matchup #2. While Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and The Boy and the Heron are trading wins, it’s nice to have another animated film that can at least get nominations if you missed on this category in the draft.
If you’re active on the waiver wire, that also means you have to drop someone. I get it, dropping a player is hard to do. After all, at some point you liked them enough to put them on your team, so it’s really hard to cut them loose. You and I both have major FOMO along with the desire to be loyal with your picks. But your opponents are hoping you just hold onto your players so they can nab all those worthwhile waivers. Anyway, here are some drop candidates to make room for your new and exciting players.
Cailee Spaeny
She should’ve gotten some more noms by now, even if she did get a Golden Globe nomination Nonetheless, her lead actress turn as the titular Priscilla appears to be at a standstill. The actress race is too loaded to hold on to her. Yes, she’ll get a few points, but there are way more players with higher potential than Spaeny. Consider anything, besides maybe production design and costume design, from Prisclla as dead in the water.
Anything from The Bikeriders
The qualifying run for The Bikeriders is next year, so this is an easy one. If you have ANYTHING from The Bikeriders, drop it because it will net you exactly zero points (or REALLY close to it.)
Anything from Origin
I’m still a little hopeful that this will pick up steam, but Ava DuVernay’s film Origin seems to be stuck in the mud. I was really high on this one, but I’m afraid I got this one wrong. Cut them loose, and if they happen to pick up steam later, just put in a waiver request for them. Ava DuVernay does have a little standalone value, so if you want to hold on to her, I can support that.
The Mission
Really any documentary that is struggling can be dropped, but The Mission is most notable because despite the NatGeo generating buzz before October, it has failed to get ANY points. By now, any documentary worth anything got at least a point or two, and if they haven’t, time to drop ‘em.
Emerald Fennell
As much as Saltburn is deserving to be in the conversation, there just aren’t enough points to go around, and Fennell is on the outside looking in at most of these ceremonies. Although appealing that she can sit in the ACTRS slot, she just doesn’t seem to be getting the points.
Kristoffer Borgli
The multi-hyphenate Kristoffer Borgli was a potential sleeper with Dream Scenario, but he has laid a goose egg. You can safely drop him.
Ridley Scott
He only has DIR designation, and the Director field is WAY too crowded. He hasn’t scored any points yet, and I would honestly be surprised if he scored any points at all. Mildly surprised, but surprised nonetheless.
The Little Mermaid VFX
Oppenheimer VFX will get points before the Oscars, so don’t drop them yet. However, the VFX from The Little Mermaid can be dropped for something else.
And that’s all the waiver advice I can muster! As always, the best way to see which waivers are available is to peruse the Waiver Wire in your own league.
We are wrapping up Matchup #1, the quirkiest of all the matchups in the regular season because it skews VERY heavily to documentaries, indie films, and music. I won’t take too deep of a dive into the ceremonies…I mean, you have Google…but I do want to highlight some things we’ve learned from the various awards. The biggest takeaway, we didn’t learn much. And there are several reasons for this. For one thing, the documentary race is REALLY hard to predict. And the voting bodies for these early awards don’t have a lot, if any, overlap with other industry bodies, including the Academy.
The top docs right now are Bobi Wine: The People’s President, about the Ugandan singer turned opposition leader, 20 Days in Mariupol, Ukraine’s official submission to the Academy Awards, Four Daughters, Tunisia’s official submission to the Academy Awards, Apolonia, Apolonia, about a young French painter, and Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, a crowd-pleaser already nominated for 7 Emmy’s. Special mention to Kokomo City and American Symphony, because if the Critics Choice Documentary Awards nominations were also counted for points, they would be in the thick of the points race.
If you’re looking for a documentary replacement, be warned that documentaries come with a disclaimer of being high risk. Officially, I’m neither recommending nor discouraging any documentary, but I will say a few things. It’s hard to ignore the point total for Bobi Wine: The People’s President. In fact, I’m putting in a waiver request for it myself. I do doubt its endurance, though. Although completely unjustified, documentaries about African subject matter that are also NOT about animals struggle to find an audience where the points come from. There are also a lot of other competing geopolitical events happening in the world, which also have their own documentaries, like 20 Days in Mariupol. All I’m saying is to temper your expectations with documentaries, especially this year when there doesn’t appear to be a clear frontrunner. Nonetheless, to its advantage, Bobi Wine is a NatGeo doc, which is owned by Disney, and NatGeo habitually churns out quality documentaries.
Another documentary to keep an eye on is 32 Sounds. This is a unique documentary that could be a dual threat for any ceremonies with a sound award too. The sound category is pretty sparse with regular season ceremonies, but Oscar winner Mark Mangini did the sound design for it, and it’s all but assured to be shortlisted for the Oscar due to its ingenuity and cleverness. Currently, the only way to see this documentary is to attend a screening, and the screenings aren’t all created equal either. You can attend one of three different types of screenings: a normal theatrical screening, one with a headphone experience for audience members, and one with live commentary during the film. It’s new. It’s different. And sometimes that can yield some unexpected points. I’m looking to roster that one and stash it for the matchups that are heavy in sound, especially when the Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards in Matchup #9 and Cinemas Audio Society Awards in Matchup #8 announce their nominations with their special documentary categories.
And if you’re really feely risky, the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) honored Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros on Thursday. This was the first recognition in the regular season this documentary got. The glaring things about this doc is that it’s four hours long. However, it’s from nonagenarian Frederick Wiseman, who hasn’t ever been nominated for a competitive Oscar despite this being his 44th documentary. Maybe he’s long overdue for some recognition. I’m not targeting it, but the case can be made here that NYFCC started a trend.
The only other doc that piques my interest for points going unowned in leagues is Our Body about women’s health wards in hospitals. Very little commentary, but still timely given the Roe v. Wade reversal earlier this year, so groups could decide to highlight that.
Before I get into the rest of waivers, where has Cord Jefferson been? I really don’t want to overreact, but I’m thinking I was too high on Cord Jefferson. He and Celine Song were supposed to corner the breakthrough director market while they both nab a few screenplay nominations too. Yes, it’s too early to drop him and there hasn’t been many so-called mainstream awards so far, but I’m feeling nervous about his prospects. A big reason for this is the emergence of my first official waiver suggestion…
UPDATE FROM MICHIGAN MOVIE CRITICS GUILD 12/1/2023
Okay so maybe I was too worried about Cord Jefferson. He just got nominated thrice at the newly formed Michigan Movie Critics Guild, so maybe he just got a slow start. This is good news for you other Cord Jefferson owners out there.
I did have A.V. Rockwell as a sleeper pick because I thought she would get nominated with Jefferson and Song while the latter two trade wins. In a fairly big surprise, however, A.V. Rockwell, not Celine Song, WON the Gotham Award for Best Breakthrough Director while Cord Jefferson wasn’t even nominated. A Thousand and One is grittier than Past Lives, but I argue it’s as every bit as good as Past Lives. Celine Song is going to get more points, but she’s expected to. If you need someone in a flex spot, A.V. Rockwell fits that bill.
WOW! What a week for Charles Melton of Todd Haynes’s film May December. It wasn’t THAT much of a surprise that he won a Gotham Award for Best Supporting Performance, but it was he instead of Da’Vine Joy Randolph. Then when the NYFCC winners were announced, there’s Charles Melton again! Make him a top priority if he’s unowned in your league. I get the vibe that he could be that unpredictable critics darling we see every year only to then get snubbed for an Oscar nomination. That might not happen here, where he could get nominated, but right now, you’re just trying to fill your roster with point getters, not Oscar nomination locks.
The leading man in Gotham-nominated Best Feature Passages, he was nominated for a Gotham Award, and then, in a complete shocker, he WON for Lead Actor at NYFCC. This could be ANOTHER critics darling like Charles Melton. Any winner at NYFCC should be considered. Last year, it was Keke Palmer who surprised, and she was a worthy pickup to snag a few points here and there even if she didn’t nominated for the elusive Oscar. I can see Rogowski turning this win into quite a few more nominations at other regional critics organizations, especially considering he has a bona fide win under his belt now.
Another Gotham nominee and NYFCC winner is Samy Burch, writer of May December. May December is starting to pick up a lot of steam lately, and Samy Burch has now notched her first screenplay win at NYFCC. This was a surprise, so if she’s unowned in your league, you better nab her.
A multihyphenate CIN-DIR-SCRN for her debut How to Have Sex, she has double digit points all from the BIFA and European Film Awards. Both those bodies are announcing their winners for Matchup #2, so she’s worth a plug and play. After that, though, you can let her go. I really only see her getting any additional value for these first two matchups. But because she has Cinematography eligibility, plug her into your CIN/EDIT slot for Matchup #2 then drop her for someone you can play in Matchup #3 and beyond.
I’m not quite sold on pulling the trigger on a waiver request for an actress yet, but if you feel differently or are desperate for an actress, consider these: Greta Lee, Teyana Taylor, Cailee Spaeny or maybe even Claire Foy or Penelope Cruz.
It’s way too early to suggest any waiver priorities for any below the line categories, but I will say that Alicia Keys has written a song for The Color Purple that we didn’t know about until now.
And while I’m at it, the VFX from The Marvels could be a sleeper visual effects pickup. VFX’s are more stash candidates, but the VFX race is really up in the air, and The Marvels do feature some pretty clean and effective visual effects that I won’t explain because I hate spoilers more than you do.
And I have to, I’m sorry, half-seriously recommend Nicolas Cage for Dream Scenario. His performance is endearingly earnest, and I could see him getting a few points here and there. He could also snag an acting nomination at Golden Globes in Matchup #2 since a LOT of actors and actresss get points there since they split drama and comedy/musical performances.
And lastly, Halle Bailey is a soft dual threat for being a newcomer in two huge movies, The Little Mermaid and The Color Purple, while also writing a song for the latter, for which she has already earned a couple points at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards.
Zac Efron from The Iron Claw and Rachel McAdams from Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
That’s it for the waiver picks. Stay tuned for the subsequent podcast highlighting these waiver priorities along with a live look at the betting markets and, who knows, maybe a deeper dive into some more waiver potentials.
Welcome to Red Carpet Rosters Podcast, your hub for film awards fantasy advice, betting advice, some history, and the Academy Awards themselves. I am your host, John Richards of RedCarpetRosters.com, and welcome to this short bonus episode where we highlight early betting picks! If you followed me last year, you came out like gangbusters! On the blog, here are the notable hits:
I suggested Jamie Lee Curtis thrice, at +160, +450, and a whopping +1800 before the nominations even came out.
Daniels when it was paying +700.
Ruth E. Carter at +200.
Michelle Yeoh at +200, +190, +110, and -125.
Everything Everywhere All at Once to win Best Picture was something like -2000 before Oscar night. I suggested it at -165 and +150.
Top Gun Sound at +125.
Brendan Fraser at +120, +100, -150, -150 again, and -185.
The short film An Irish Goodbye at +115 and +110.
And lastly, Ke Huy Quan was something like -3000, or something absolutely ridiculous like that. I got him at -275, above my -200 threshold, but I knew I could lock that one in early.
So make sure you’re subscribing so you don’t miss out on these betting picks because they change often and quickly.
I don’t have the luxury of living in a state that allows Oscar betting on some sites, like DraftKings, so I prefer to use Bovada, BetUS, and MyBookie. If you find similar odds at your preferred sportsbook, then gravy.
Full disclosure, I don’t really like betting too early on the Oscars. There are just too many unknowns, but that won’t stop me at taking a LIVE look here. That’s right, I’m looking as live as I can, so there will be little editing of this podcast. Record, upload, post. Let’s do this!
As always I will give you the betting line, the implied probability from that betting line, and unless I specify otherwise, I’m assuming one full betting unit.
I think most people would agree that this is a two-horse race between Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon. The betting lines also point that direction.
| Platform | Category | Pick | Betting Line | I.P. | Bet? |
| Bovada | Best Actor | Cillian Murphy | -120 | 54.5% | Yes |
| Bovada | Best Actress | Emma Stone | 150 | 40.0% | No |
| Bovada | Best Actress | Lily Gladstone | 150 | 40.0% | No |
| Bovada | Best Actress | Annette Bening | 600 | 14.3% | No |
| Bovada | Best Actress | Carey Mulligan | 500 | 16.7% | No |
| Bovada | Best Director | Christopher Nolan | -160 | 61.5% | Yes |
| Bovada | Best Director | Martin Scorsese | 200 | 33.3% | No |
| Bovada | Best Picture | Oppenheimer | 150 | 40.0% | Yes |
| Bovada | Best Picture | Killers of the Flower Moon | 300 | 25.0% | Yes |
| Bovada | Best Picture | Past Lives | 1000 | 9.1% | No |
| Bovada | Best Picture | Barbie | 1800 | 5.3% | No |
| BetUS | Best Picture | Oppenheimer | -125 | 55.6% | No |
| BetUS | Best Picture | Killers of the Flower Moon | 165 | 37.7% | No |
| BetUS | Best Picture | Past Lives | 1100 | 8.3% | No |
| BetUS | Best Picture | Barbie | 1400 | 6.7% | No |
| BetUS | Best Director | Christopher Nolan | 110 | 47.6% | Yes |
| BetUS | Best Director | Martin Scorsese | 500 | 16.7% | Yes |
| BetUS | Best Actress | Emma Stone | 100 | 50.0% | No |
| BetUS | Best Actress | Lily Gladstone | 350 | 22.2% | Yes |
| BetUS | Best Actress | Annette Bening | 700 | 12.5% | No |
| BetUS | Best Actress | Carey Mulligan | 600 | 14.3% | No |
| BetUS | Best Actor | Cillian Murphy | -150 | 60.0% | Yes |
| BetUS | Best Supporting Actress | Lily Gladstone | 200 | 33.3% | No |
| BetUS | Best Supporting Actress | Da’Vine Joy Randolph | 300 | 25.0% | Yes |
| BetUS | Best Supporting Actor | Robert Downey Jr. | 100 | 50.0% | No |
| BetUS | Best Supporting Actor | Ryan Gosling | 1000 | 9.1% | Yes |
| MyBookie | Best Actor | Cillian Murphy | -120 | 54.5% | Yes |
| MyBookie | Best Actress | Emma Stone | 137 | 42.2% | No |
| MyBookie | Best Actress | Lily Gladstone | 152 | 39.7% | No |
| MyBookie | Best Actress | Carey Mulligan | 285 | 26.0% | No |
| MyBookie | Best Actress | Annette Bening | 340 | 22.7% | No |
| MyBookie | Best Director | Christopher Nolan | -145 | 59.2% | Yes |
| MyBookie | Best Director | Martin Scorsese | 200 | 33.3% | No |
| MyBookie | Best Picture | Oppenheimer | 120 | 45.5% | Yes |
| MyBookie | Best Picture | Killers of the Flower Moon | 250 | 28.6% | Yes |
So that’s the betting market right now. Stay tuned for future episodes where I will get more aggressive on the markets as the season progresses.
Speaking of the season, the regular season kicked off with the Gotham Awards Nominations last Tuesday. The Gothams are always quirky and full of surprises. In my humble opinion, there are no snubs at the Gothams, only surprises. You can find the Gotham Awards Nominations online, so I won’t hash them out here. It’s also worth noting that Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon did NOT submit their films for consideration, but that didn’t stop Lily Gladstone, who plays Mollie Burkhardt in Killers of the Flower Moon, from getting a nomination from another film. This helps her, so this boosts her stock, even if it wasn’t for Killers of the Flower Moon. I’ve always considered her a lock for an Oscar nomination, and anyone owning Gladstone in their fantasy leagues has to be happy about the bonus points.
Another name whose stock just rose is Ryan Gosling, who was nominated for Barbie. I loved this movie, but if the Gothams nominated him, I feel like he can get nominated everywhere. Ryan Gosling owners have to be ecstatic about this nomination, because it certainly bodes well for future ceremonies (i.e. future points.) I always say to not overreact with the Gothams, and this is me overreacting to the Gothams, but if you are in a league that skips Matchup #1, bump Ryan Gosling up in your rankings.
Remember I said that there are no snubs at the Gothams. I still think that’s true, but where in the world was Poor Things? It only got nominated for Best International Feature. No Emma Stone, No Mark Ruffalo, No Willem Dafoe, no Tony McNamara for writing it. I’m not overreacting, but anyone who went heavy into Poor Things has to be disappointed.
Is it too early to sound the panic alarm on Cord Jefferson? He was supposed to be the market cornerer, if you will, with Celine Song of Past Lives, but he failed to get a nomination for American Fiction while Celine Song did. Did I pick the wrong debut director and screenwriter? If you listened to my podcast earlier, we tabbed A.V. Rockwell as a sleeper pick for her debut A Thousand and One. Well she got nominated AND A Thousand and One itself got nominated for Best Feature. If A.V. Rockwell is undrafted in your league, put in a waiver request right now. If you have Cord Jefferson, don’t drop him yet. Again, don’t overreact to a Gotham miss!
I’m also calling it right now. Past Lives is going to win the Gothams. If any movie can pull a CODA like upset, it’s Past Lives. I don’t think it will because CODA upset Netflix’s The Power of the Dog for reasons you already know.
And rapid fire….
Glad to see 20 Days in Mariupol get a nomination, and I still think it’s a dual threat for points being Ukraine’s official Oscar submission.
Glad They Cloned Tyrone got some love with a Jamie Foxx nomination.
Don’t discount Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret. The documentary Judy Blume Forever got nominated for a Critics Choice Award for Best Doc, and now Rachel McAdams shows up with a Best Supporting nom here. This bodes well for her as well as youth actress Abby Ryder Fortsom.
Teyana Taylor, sleeper pick from last podcast, also showed up in the nominations for Lead Performance. Anatomy of a Fall had a good showing with Best International and Best Screenplay for Justine Triet and Arthur Harari. Sandra Huller also picked up a nomination, but for The Zone of Interest, which seems to solidify her as a dual threat.
And speaking of The Zone of Interest, why did I not start Jonathan Glazer?
That’s it for me! Turn on notifications for future episodes of this podcast. Thank you to Patrick Richards for writing the show music exclusively for Red Carpet Rosters Podcast. This is John. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
Parts 1 and 2 of the Season Two Premiere of the Red Carpet Rosters Podcast takes a deep dive into draft strategy, including tiers, sleepers, busts, draft and stashes, and more! Take a listen.
by Paulo Bautista, Host of the Oscars Death Race Podcast
Welcome to the finale of my five-part series on draft advice for the 2023-2024 Red Carpet Rosters season!
In case you missed parts 1-4, check the links below:
A quick recap though on what we covered in previous entries that is relevant to this installment
For this final iteration of this series, we will be looking at the technical categories we have left to cover, and then we’ll take all the overall rankings we’ve generated and do one overall mock draft combining the three perspectives mentioned above.
As noted above, PD/CD/MUAH is a category with a steep drop off from the top of the category. Because Production Design is so much more valued in terms of how many awards are given out each season, you want to prioritize that above everything else – in my rankings I have three Production Designers before the first Costume Designer, and 9 Production Designers to 6 Costumes and only 5 Makeup (which all are 15/20 or worse).
As we’ve done for the previous entries, here are the rankings that John, Nico, and I have done, as well as an overall ranking based on the average and standard deviation of our rankings (unranked players were given 21). I also have the category for each player, and color coded them, Orange for Production, Blue for Costume and Purple for Makeup and Hair
You can see that it worked out we have the same breakdown of 9 PD / 6 CD / 5 MUAH in the overall category, though Nico and John were able to get Costume and MUAH a bit higher. However we still have 5/10 PD in the top 10, vs only one 1 MUAH, though 2 of the PDs worked on the same film.
Looking at the representation of ranked players in these categories, you have those in the top 10 (green), those in the top 20 (Yellow) and those outside the top 20 but still ranked (Red). We obviously are more confident in the Production category than Makeup and Hair at this point when it comes to who we want to draft.
Going through the individuals ranked, there are generally 6 players head and shoulders above the rest, with 4 of them in all of our top 6. I’ll also note here that at the Oscars, the Costumes Branch tends to nominate their favorites with maybe one new nominee each year, so it highly favors former nominees.
The earliest you should take any of these players is Sarah Greenwood sometime in round 5 or 6, based on if you have your above the line players locked up and whether or not the top Score players have been taken. Otherwise, the rest of these 6 will probably go in round 7 or later. The remainder of our top 10 will fill out round 8, or even later. Aside from ranked 8 Shona Heath who we’ve mentioned we have the following:
Since this is a relatively lower value category I won’t go into as much detail for the rest of the top 20 and honoralbe mentions but in order they are
Outside of these some other ranked players
And then some other players in each category I want to call out as to keep an eye on the waivers for
Moving then to our last category
The rankings for these show how all wipe open the race is, and they also reflects how it’s really hard to know who to go for outside of the top 5 picks or so. It also shows how we definitely did not coordinate on these rankings ahead of time, adding not only credibility to these rankings but also illustrates the what makes film awards fantasy so much fun: the uncertainty.
Based on the values available for this category, you are really going to want to go for Score over anything else. In our top 20 we have 9 solo composers (technically 10 but the last two tied) and 3 song/score composers. There are 3 in this category that are solo song credits (though one is also an actress), 3 VFX players and only 2 sound players. Personally I would take only Song or Score through the top 15 or so, before looking at any VFX or Sound players. VFX and Sound players are more “draft and stash” for the matchups that heavily feature those categories.
The big takeaway here are what the top 5 players to draft are. In my pre-draft rankings, these could go as early as round 3 for the very top composers, or around middle of round 4 for John or as late as the end of round 5 for Nico.
Rounding out the top 10 you have the following:
The rest of the top 20 have
Other contenders you may want to consider – again, focus mostly on Score and maybe song, and only go for the other two if you are sure they will win Oscar night
Now that we have the final category done, here are the overall rankings for all categories
Using these with the general rule of thumb of SCRN > PIC > DIR > ACTR/ACTRS > SCORE > ANI/INT/DOC > EDIT/CIN > PD > other tech categories, and generally going for the top 2-3 per category before moving to the next one, and trying to fill out your roster, here is the overall mock draft for the first 8 rounds, presented without too much comment. Obviously trying to figure out the players to fill out the flex and bench spots gets a bit trickier so that’s left up to the reader as an exercise.
With that, hopefully you are well equipped to tackle your draft this year! Feel free to message me on Discord if you have any feedback or any questions about drafting.
Till next year
~Paulo