As the dust settles from 2023’s celebrated cinematic offerings, the film industry —  not to mention cinephiles and movie-loving members of the public — are already abuzz with anticipation for the 96th Academy Awards, set to take place at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday March 10th in Hollywood, Los Angeles.

While predicting the winners can be as unpredictable as a plot twist in a thriller, we can’t resist speculating on the potential nominees in the most prestigious category: Best Picture, the category that is always the most talked-about, representing a diverse array of genres and storytelling styles.

In preparation for the Oscar ceremony two months from now, we can expect a mix of groundbreaking films, from the intimate drama that captured hearts and minds at film festivals this past year to the surprise dark horse entry that emerges as a critical favourite in the eleventh hour.

Nine locks for one of the 10 Best Picture Oscar nominations include a few front-runner titles: Christopher Nolan’s hard-hitting biopic Oppenheimer, whose stars Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, and Robert Downey, Jr. will chase Oscars.

Greta Gerwig’s pastel-pink Mattel extravaganza Barbie, starring likely acting contenders Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.

Martin Scorsese’s western gangster epic Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Best Actor winners Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and rising breakout Lily Gladstone.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ fantastical coming-of-age tale Poor Things, starring certain Best Actress nominee Emma Stone, the film winning the Golden Lion (Best Film) at last September’s Venice Film Festival.

Alexander Payne’s Christmas comedy The Holdovers, which reunites him with his Sideways star Paul Giamatti — a certain Best Actor nominee, and probable winner — in VanRamblings favourite film of the holiday season just passed.

Tackling the real life composer Leonard Bernstein and putting himself both in front of and behind the camera, as he did in 2018 with Best Picture nominee A Star is Born, Bradley Cooper’s new film Maestro represents his evolution as a filmmaker, and at this point in the Oscar campaign is waging a pitched battle with Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers to take home the 2024 Academy Award for Best Picture. Also starring certain Best Actress nominee Carey Mulligan, look for Maestro to continue to generate a lot of buzz  over the next two months.

At the Cannes Film Festival in May this year, British auteur Jonathan Glazer won the Grand Prix for the German-language film, The Zone of Interest, a dark holocaust movie starring German actress Sandra Hüller.

Hüller also scored raves for French director Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner, the courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall, half in English, half in French.

Both films will feature in the Oscar race.

Winning the coveted — and often predictive of a Best Picture nomination — People’s Choice Award winner at the Toronto Film Festival in September was American Fiction, director Cord Jefferson’s adaptation of Percival Everett’s novel Erasure, starring Jeffrey Wright.

What other films are in contention for a Best Picture Oscar nod?

David Fincher’s thriller The Killer, starring Michael Fassbender as an assassin under threat (available on Netflix).

In a follow-up to her Oscar-winning Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennell skewers the British upper crust in outrageous ways in Saltburn, starring Rosamund Pike and Barry Keoghan (available on Prime).

As always, a raft of biopics will compete in the Oscar fray.

Early buzz was upbeat on veteran Ridley Scott’s pricey epic Napoleon, toplining Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix and nominee Vanessa Kirby. Napoleon is available On Demand, or Apple TV+ (currently $24.99 rental).

In Priscilla, Oscar-winner Sofia Coppola pits Jacob Elordi as Elvis opposite newcomer Cailee Spaeny, winner of Best Actress in Venice, in the title role.

Director Michael Mann also hit the fall film festivals with his racing biopic Ferrari, starring Adam Driver, who played Italian in House of Gucci, alongside Penélope Cruz, a certain Best Actress nominee, as his wife.

The Sundance critical and box-office breakout Past Lives, from Korean-Canadian playwright-turned-director Celine Song, about a married New York writer (Greta Lee) who reunites with her Korean childhood sweetheart (Teo Yoo) is certainly in consideration for a Best Picture nod when nominations are announced on Tuesday, January 23, 2024.

But don’t count out (in order of most likely to join the race):

Todd Haynes, with the fictionalized true story May December, starring Oscar-winners Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, which opened the New York Film Festival.

Cannes box-office specialty hit Asteroid City which proved to be Wes Anderson’s most entertaining film since The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Amazon and MGM will push the film that opened South by Southwest to much acclaim, the new film from Argo Best Picture winner Ben Affleck, co-produced by (with Affleck) and starring Matt Damon, the well-received sports drama, Air.

Steven Spielberg’s 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple holds a distinct record as the most-nominated — yet undecorated — film in Oscar history, with 11 nods that didn’t translate to a single victory. In 2024 Spielberg and co-producer Oprah Winfrey look to right that wrong with a musical revival of Purple, starring lead actress Fantasia Barrino, along with Halle Bailey, H.E.R., and Ciara.

Then there’s Nyad, the biopic of Diana Nyad, who swam from Cuba to Florida at age 64 in an epic feat of endurance, starring Annette Bening, who has never won an Oscar despite an impressive resume and four nominations, co-starring Best Actress Oscar winner, Jodie Foster.

Colman Domingo becomes an instant Best Actor Oscar contender with Netflix’s civil rights drama Rustin, which is also in the hunt for a Best Picture nomination.

Pundits also have Ava DuVernay’s new film, Origin, firmly in the Oscar hunt, the film starring sure-fire contender for Best Actress Anjanue Ellis-Taylor as a journalist on the journey to write the bestseller, as she grapples with tremendous personal tragedy.

Loosely based on Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel Strangers, there’s Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers. The film follows screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott), who, after an encounter with his neighbour Harry (Paul Mescal), is mysteriously pulled back into his childhood home, where it appears his long-dead parents (played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) are actually alive — and haven’t aged in 30 years.

While predicting the Best Picture Oscar nominees and winners is an exercise in speculation, it’s also a celebration of the incredible talent and creativity that the film industry offers each year.

As we eagerly await the red carpet and the opening of the golden envelopes, one thing is certain: the magic of cinema will continue to inspire and transport us to new and exciting worlds.

The full slate of Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Oscar nominations will be announced at 5 a.m. on Tuesday, January 23rd.