Surprise SAG Win Gives ‘CODA’ an Oscar Boost for Best Picture

Marlee Matlin made history by becoming the first (and still only) deaf actor to win an Oscar, picking up best actress for Children of a Lesser God. This year Matlin is not nominated, but her film Coda is up for three awards: best picture; best adapted screenplay and best supporting actor for her co-star and on-screen husband, the deaf actor Troy Kotsur (he’s the leading contender after trousering the Bafta on Sunday). On paper, Coda doesn’t look like a gamechanger.

Clayton Davis “CODA” is on the rise as Oscar voting gets underway — and writer and director Siân Heder admits she’s surprised by the love and adoration the film has received in recent months.That includes, most recently, her BAFTA win for adapted screenplay. On the latest episode of the award-winning “Variety Awards Circuit Podcast,” we talk to Heder about what it feels like to be an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, and working with her talented cast, which includes the Oscar-nominated Troy Kotsur, along with Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin, Emilia Jones and Daniel Durant.

Clayton Davis A weekend trio of big wins for Netflix at the DGA, BAFTA and Critics Choice awards has given Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” the gas required to make it over the finish line. That’s if it can keep its closest competitors — “Belfast” from Kenneth Branagh and “CODA” from Siân Heder — at bay.The Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures, which is the top prize from the PGA Awards, has been one of the most vital and telling precursors from all major guilds.

Each of this year’s Best Picture nominees has survived a journey to cross the finish line, before earning the Academy’s consideration. Here’s how they came together.

Clayton Davis With Oscar voting set to begin on March 17, four new actors will be entering the history books with “Academy Award winner” next to their name. The honor of an Oscar nomination is one of the highest a person can receive in Hollywood.

Clayton Davis Women filmmakers are taking the reins of their destinies in Hollywood, with many stepping behind the camera and creating stories universal to the human condition. This has been a slow-moving machine to see these talents recognized at the Oscars, especially in best director.In the 94-year history of the Academy Awards, there have been 581 films nominated for the top prize for best picture.

Claudia Eller Co-Editor-in-ChiefThe latest prediction from our film awards maven Clayton Davis is that coming-of-age drama “CODA” will run away with the best picture Oscar at the March 27 ceremony.I have to say that would be awfully fabulous given that everyone — me included — loves a little-engine-that-could underdog story, and this feel-good, scrappy movie filmed in a short amount of time certainly fits that bill. A remake of an award-winning French film, “La Famille Bélier,” the story, written and directed by Siân Heder, centers on the only hearing member of a deaf family (played by Emilia Jones) who’s torn between pursuing her passion for music and her fear of abandoning her family’s fishing business.

Clayton Davis The best picture Oscar race is in a dead heat, with any number of paths to victory. But there’s another fierce competition, years in the making, to be the first streaming giant to win the Academy Awards’ most coveted honor.On the television side, Netflix and Amazon each made a play to become the first streamer to win the Emmy Award for either of the top series categories, but Hulu shattered the glass ceiling with “The Handmaid’s Tale” in 2017.

As Oscar nominees circulate in theaters, exhibitors are studying where and when to play Best Picture contenders during the long run-up from nominations February 8 through the awards March 27, juggling holdovers and new releases. (See this weekend’s specialty box office offerings below).

Clayton Davis The most shocking snub of the Oscar noms was Denis Villeneuve’s omission from the best directing category for his science-fiction epic “Dune.”The film’s 10-nomination haul includes best picture and adapted screenplay, the latter perceived to be its most difficult to attain. Yet, Villeneuve’s lack of recognition for directing could rally widespread support from Academy voters and result in the film tying or surpassing a 50-year record held by “Cabaret” (1972).Bob Fosse’s classic adaptation of the Broadway stage musical set a record at the 45th Academy Awards for the most Oscars received without winning best picture.

Todd Gilchrist The push-pull relationship between an individual developing his or her sense of self and the external forces trying to steer them — be they parental, professional, political or cultural — creates a tension that is common, and formative, to many people’s lives. Despite the wildly different stories that they tell, many of this year’s best picture nominees vividly illustrate this universal conflict, examining the challenge of retaining or asserting one’s identity while the world around them attempts to impose pressure or exert its influence.As perhaps the most fantastical of the nominees, “Dune” sends young Paul Atreides ( Timothée Chalamet) on a journey that owes no small debt to Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, but director and co-writer Denis Villenueve weaves a complex tapestry between the lineage into which the character was born, the overlapping but sometimes dueling ambitions of his mother and father, the feudal aristocracy of the film’s futuristic setting, and the almost primal sense of home and harmony that Paul feels once he arrives on the desert planet of Arrakis.

Weekend grosses popped higher for Oscar Best Picture nominees led by Licorice Pizza, Belfast and Drive My Car.

Of all the nominees that screened this weekend, the highest grossing one was MGM/United Artists’ “Licorice Pizza,” which grossed $922,500 from 1,977 theaters, its widest release yet. The next best result was Focus Features’ “Belfast” with just $285,000 from 928 theaters, though that film is having much better fortunes in the U.K.

No Spide-Man? No Peace! At least according to director Kevin Smith, who has xpressed his vehement displeasure about the Oscar snub of Spider-Man: No Way Home from the Best Picture Oscar nominees.

here. Based on a short story by Haruki Murakami, “Drive My Car” revolves around Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a recently widowed theater artist who is offered to direct a production of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” at a theater festival.

Clayton Davis After years of trying, does Netflix finally have the suitable film, at the right time, to win the coveted top category at the Academy Awards — and become the first streamer to do so?Based on the showing for “The Power of the Dog” at the Feb. 8 nominations announcement — it leads the field with 12 — it sure looks like it might.Netflix received its first feature film Oscar nominations for “Mudbound,” a groundbreaking 2017 release recognized in four categories, including Rachel Morrison for cinematography.

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran producer and executive Michael De Luca was named Chairman of the Film Group at MGM in early 2020, and hired veteran producer and executive Pam Abdy as MGM Motion Picture Group President just a few months later. The iconic studio, which includes Annapurna joint venture United Artists Releasing and a rebooted Orion, on Tuesday scored eight Oscar nominations across such films as No Time To Die, House Of Gucci, Cyrano and Licorice Pizza. The latter nabbed three mentions and also brought the studio its first Best Picture nod for a fully produced, marketed and distributed MGM title since 1988’s Rain Man.

Sky have this week released a host of new discounts on their TV packages.

Perhaps the Best Picture race is truly over. When the 2022 Oscar nominations were announced Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” landed 12 nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, four acting nominations, and Editing.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime VideoDirector: Kenneth Branagh | Starring: Caitriona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciaran Hinds, Colin Morgan, and Jude HillA semi-autobiographical film that chronicles the life of a working-class family and their young son's childhood during the tumult of the late 1960s in the Northern Ireland capital. Where to watch: Apple TV+Director: Sian Heder | Starring: Emilia Jones, Eugenio Derbez, Troy Kotsur, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Daniel Durant, Marlee MatlinRuby is the only hearing member of a deaf family from Gloucester, Massachusetts. At 17, she works mornings before school to help her parents and brother keep their fishing business afloat.