Oscar Volley: The Inaugural "Best Casting" Race

We kick off our annual post-nomination Oscar Volley series with the newest Oscar category: Best Casting. There have been calls to add Casting as a category for decades but the Academy always resisted... until now. 

Regina Hall & Chase Infiniti in ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER. Casting by Cassandra Kulukunis

NATHANIEL: Abe, I'm sure I've shared this before but since we were assigned Best Casting -- in its inaugural year! -- I feel the need to shout that this film craft, alongside Editing, are the only two I feel I would have been great at, had my life taken a different path. I never took any steps toward making movies -- mostly scared off by how much time people devote to making just ONE if they're on the filmmaking side when my appetite is closer to 200 movies a year and ample time to obsess over about 30 of them as an audience member.

To jog your memory as we begin our discussion, here were the finalists in the category with the eventual nominees in bold...

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First Oscar Predictions of the Year - Complete!

Whew. That took longer than expected but you can now see all of the "April Foolish" first-round predictions for this Oscar year, albeit compiled in May & June and delivered to you in early July. Since the first wave of 20 categories takes so long to compile (updates are easier) we should note up front that James Vanderbilt's Nuremberg, another film centered on the Nuremberg Trials, was scheduled for a November 2025 release after the weeks of research for these charts so it is not yet included.  That said we can hardly claim it a certainty as a competitor. World War II is no longer automatic "Bait" for voters, Vanderbilt is not (yet) an Oscar player and though the cast has four previously nominated actors none are the sort that Oscar voters ALWAYS watch regardless. Anyway, we'll save it for the next up date.

What follows are a dozen key questions were asking ourselves in July about the upcoming competition before things really heat up during the fall film festivals. We've love to hear your thoughts on these 12 questions...

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Get Ready for a New Oscar Category: Best Casting

by Cláudio Alves

Until today, Animated Feature was the youngest category. SHREK was its first winner .

Though some people say the Oscars already have too many categories, the Academy disagrees. Today, AMPAS announced a new awards category meant to honor casting directors. It won't be an Honorary or Special Achievement Oscar like it happened in the early days of such races as International Film and Visual Effects, but a regular competitive category. We'll see the first nominees for this new prize in two years' time, during the season of the 98th Academy Awards, honoring 2025 releases. One assumes the Board of Governors will use that time to establish specific rules and eligibility requirements…

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Weekend Awards Wrap-Up: From the PGA to Cinema Eye

by Cláudio Alves

THE ZONE OF INTEREST proved an unexpected hit with the Producers Guild of America.

Oscar voting is ongoing, so this past week's honors feel especially important. They can be the spotlight that shines on a movie at just the right time, reminding Academy members of its merit as a contender. But of course, in terms of guild honors, they're also a way for awards obsessives to get a sense of what movies the industry values most. For example, the latest onslaught of guild nods makes the picture clear for those doubting that Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest could succeed beyond critics' prizes. If an organization as mainstream-inclined as the PGA can embrace Jonathan Glazer's latest nightmare, what's stopping AMPAS from doing the same?

So, from producers to regional critics, Annie nominees to Cinema Eye winners, this is what happened last week…

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Best Ensemble, Casting, Stunts, and More...

by Nathaniel R

EEAAO an easy choice for "Best Ensemble" discussions.

With the SAG Awards airing tonight -- we expect to see encore speeches from Blanchett, Fraser, Bassett, and Quan since the acting winners tend to get set in stone once televised ceremonies begin -- let's talk acting categories that Oscar doesn't have. Here are my personal favourites for Casting, Ensemble, Stunts, and Juvenile Performances, a couple of prizes which SAG has and two that they don't...

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