Are the new Best International Film rules a good idea?

As the summer stands between us and the awards season to come, Cláudio Alves and Juan Carlos Ojano discuss some of this year’s new Oscar rules, focusing on their beloved Best International Film race.

Visar Morina's SHAME AND MONEY became the first film eligible for the Best International Feature Oscar this season, when it won the World Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival.

CLÁUDIO: Much was said about the Oscar rule changes when they were first announced at the beginning of May, with various opinions going around. While the possibility of actors double-dipping in the same category for the first time since the 1930s is enticing, the transformations to the Best International Film race are perhaps more important and worthy of discussion. And who better to discuss it with than Juan Carlos Ojano, the only person I know who has seen every single nominee in the category's history and discussed them through The One-Inch Barrier podcast? But first, let's assess the rules themselves…

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Who’s our next three-peat champion?

by Cláudio Alves

And just like that, Sean Penn became the eighth actor to win three Oscars.

With One Battle After Another, Sean Penn became the eighth person in Academy Award history to win a third acting Oscar. He follows Supporting Actor king Walter Brennan, most honored thespian ever Katharine Hepburn, Swedish superstar Ingrid Bergman, New Hollywood enfant terrible Jack Nicholson, nomination queen Meryl Streep, method actor extraordinaire Daniel Day-Lewis, and too-cool-for-school Oscar favorite Frances McDormand. This honor comes after a period when Penn was fairly removed from the awards conversation, regularly panned at Cannes for his directorial work while winning the favor of a few critics for underseen performances like those in Daddio and Asphalt City. Indeed, he seems so uninterested in playing the game that he barely campaigned and didn’t even show up to collect his prize.

Disregarding whether he deserves it or not, Penn’s victory leads me to wonder who’s next? Who is closest to joining this exclusive club? There are currently 19 two-time acting Oscar winners alive, each a different case, with some landing in the “just a matter of time” field, while others are surely “not happening.” Join me as I go over these possibilities…

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Triple Crown of Acting: Who's Next?

by Eric Blume

Kieran Culkin will have to wait a bit longer before he can add a Tony to his SUCCESSION Emmy and A REAL PAIN Oscar. | © Searchlight Pictures

Back in 2016, I wrote an article here when one of my favorite actresses, Jessica Lange, won a Tony for Long Day’s Journey into Night, thereby joining the club of elite actors who had achieved the Triple Crown of Acting (competitive Oscar, Emmy, and Tony). Only 24 actors have ever achieved this, and since Lange eight years ago, only two people have joined that list (Viola Davis in 2017 with her Emmy; Glenda Jackson in 2018 with her Tony).

I thought it would be fun to take a look at who is a realistic possibility to join that club.  I’m reminded of it because, until just a few days ago, there was a chance that person was going to be Kieran Culkin!  Culkin had been largely predicted to be nominated for a Tony Award (and possibly win!) for his performance in the revival of Glengarry Glen Ross.  Alas, Culkin was shut out of the nominations on May 1.  Had he won, he would be the first person to win all three awards in such tight timing (he just won his Emmy for Succession and Oscar for A Real Pain within the last three  years).   It took Jessica 33 years and Glenda 47 years!

So since it's not going to be Kieran Culkin, let’s take a look at who might be next.  I’m working on probability here, not possibility:  meaning that I’m not counting likelihood for actors who rarely or never work in that given medium.  Here are some thoughts…

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1980s Best Foreign Language Film: Personal Rankings

by Juan Carlos Ojano

While we’ve got the 1980s fever on this site with Nathaniel listing some of his favorite films and Cláudio sharing his personal Best Actress ballots from the decade, I will chime in with perhaps the category that is one of the closest to me: Best Foreign Language Film (now named International Feature Film). That’s why in 2020, I started my podcast called The One-Inch Barrier where I - together with guests - discussed this category per year...

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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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