1 hour ago
1
One Battle After Another has been named best picture by the Producers Guild of America. The announcement, a relatively modest one in a media economy dominated by bigger events, has one crucial footnote: it positions the film as a likely best picture winner at the Oscars later this month.
In securing the win – the prize’s full title is the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for outstanding producer of theatrical motion pictures – One Battle After Another defeated nine other films: Bugonia, F1, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, Sentimental Value, Sinners, Train Dreams and Weapons.
Many of those films have dominated media coverage in the past year, notably Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, which stars Australian actor Jacob Elordi, and Josh Safdie’s sports comedy Marty Supreme, which stars Timothée Chalamet.
But ultimately, it looks like the Oscars will be a showdown between Paul Thomas Anderson’s black comedy One Battle After Another and the only film with the buzz potential to knock it off, Ryan Coogler’s horror film Sinners.
Between 2006 and 2025, the PGA Zanuck recipient matched the Oscar best picture recipient 15 out of 20 times. They disagreed only five times: in 2006 (PGA: Brokeback Mountain, Oscar: Crash), 2007 (PGA: Little Miss Sunshine, Oscar: The Departed), 2016 (PGA: The Big Short, Oscar: Spotlight), 2017 (PGA: La La Land, Oscar: Moonlight) and 2020 (PGA: 1917, Oscar: Parasite). A 75 per cent chance of a match? Anyone would take those odds.
To some extent this year’s Oscar race is almost a no-brainer. At every step One Battle After Another has dominated awards season since it began in New York in December with the Gotham Awards. Since then, at every turn – at the New York and LA Film Critics, the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs and others – One Battle After Another has come up a winner.
There are a number of other factors in play steering the data, the most significant of which is that there is a substantial overlap in the award-voting bloc of the PGA, and the producers branch members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), who vote for the Oscars.
The overlap between bodies like AMPAS and the industry guilds, including the PGA, the Director’s Guild of America (DGA), the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG), is the reason the second half of awards season, where guild-voted awards step into the spotlight, is generally held to be a more accurate set of Oscar predictors.
The first half of awards season is composed of awards given out by film critics, journalists and other industry professionals, notably the Gotham awards, the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics awards, the National Board of Review awards and the Critics Choice and Golden Globe awards. Often they get it right, but their thinking can also be shaped by sentiment and personal taste.
Australia’s Rose Byrne, for example, has dominated the best actress category off the back of a stunning performance in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. That is, until last weeks BAFTAs, which seemed to confirm Jessie Buckley (Hamnet) was a legitimate threat to her run. Whether Byrne or Buckley wins at this weekend’s SAG awards – Monday, Australian time – will be the key step in whose Oscar campaign is edging ahead.
Similarly, Paul Thomas Anderson has dominated the director category so far in awards season, winning six awards so far, including the Critics Choice, Golden Globes and BAFTAs. But it was the sixth of those wins, from the Director’s Guild, which effectively bolts Anderson into position as the likely winner of Oscar’s best director statue.
In her opening remarks ahead of the awards ceremony, the PGA’s CEO Susan Sprung acknowledged the escalating war in the Middle East, saying: “The events of the past 24 hours have us all concerned. Even as we go about our lives, even as we celebrate, forever, we pray for peace.”
This year’s full slate of PGA winners includes Sesame Street (children’s program), The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (live entertainment, variety, sketch or talk program), The Studio (episodic television, comedy), The Pitt (episodic television, drama), Adolescence (limited series), KPop Demon Hunters (animated motion picture) and Mariska Hargitay and Trish Adlesic’s documentary about Hargitay’s mother, film legend Jayne Mansfield, My Mom Jayne (documentary motion picture).
The 98th annual Academy Awards will be aired on the Seven Network on Monday, March 16 (AEST).
Must-see movies, interviews and all the latest from the world of film delivered to your inbox. Sign up for our Screening Room newsletter.
