Contenders Film: The Nominees Kicks Off Today As Awards Season Hits High Gear

The awards season is winding down, the nominations are out and the final stretch of the race that concludes at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood with the 97th annual Oscars is on. That means it’s time for Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees, our annual virtual nominees showcase that kicks off this morning at 9 a.m. PT.

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In a season in which the Los Angeles wildfires tragedy have also affected the race — postponing some precursor ceremonies, delaying Oscar voting and the nominations announcement and putting into question whether the large number of voters in the area have had time to even see the movies, much less vote — Contenders offers one-stop shopping for a cross-section of nominated movies and designed to get voters more engaged and excited, and maybe even to catch up in this troubled season.

Although Emilia Pérez led the Oscar nominations with a near-record 13, recent unearthing of past social media posts by its Best Actress-nominated star Karla Sofía Gascón, the first-ever trans acting nominee at the Oscars, has made a hard-to-call race even harder to call, and has by extension made a one of the most wide-open races in years even tighter. Other controversies regarding much-nominated films like The Brutalist and its use of AI, the acting nominations for the Donald Trump origin film The Apprentice and more are making the race not just unpredictable, but also political, whether the Academy wants it or not.

Controversies around awards season are nothing new, but the purpose and goal behind Contenders is, as always, to let the films speak for themselves. Today, you’ll hear from Oscar Best Picture nominees Wicked, Nickel Boys and Anora, along with animated standouts The Wild Robot, Inside Out 2 and Memoir of a Snail. The lineup spans several categories, with Sugarcane in the Documentary Feature race and and I Am Not a Robot and The Last Ranger repping Live Action Shorts.

The filmmakers, nominated across the board in many of the upcoming awards shows and the Oscars themselves, will be on hand to talk about their achievements and just what got them to this point.

Follow along with our panel coverage all morning on Deadline and our social media channels via #DeadlineContenders, and check back Monday when we launch the streaming site featuring the complete panel videos.

See below for today’s rundown of films and panelists in order of appearance.

Contenders Film: The Nominees

NEON

Anora

Sean Baker (Writer/Director/Producer/Editor/Casting Director)

Mikey Madison (Actor)

Alex Coco (Producer)

Samantha Quan (Producer)

DISNEY/PIXAR

Inside Out 2

Kelsey Mann (Director)

ORION PICTURES/AMAZON MGM STUDIOS

Nickel Boys

RaMell Ross (Co-Writer/Director)

Joslyn Barnes (Co-Writer/Producer)

OAK MOTION PICTURES

I’m Not a Robot

Victoria Warmerdam (Writer/Director)

Trent (Producer)

SIX FEET FILMS

The Last Ranger

Cindy Lee (Director)

Darwin Shaw (Writer/Producer/Editor)

IFC FILMS

Memoir of a Snail

Adam Elliot (Writer/Director)

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTARY FILMS

Sugarcane

Emily Kassie (Director/Producer/Cinematographer)

Julian Brave NoiseCat (Director)

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Wicked

Myron Kerstein (Film Editor)

Nancy Nugent Title (Supervising Sound Editor/Sound Design)

John Marquis (Supervising Sound Editor/Sound Design/Re-Recording Mixer

Andy Nelson (Re-Recording Mixer)

DREAMWORKS ANIMATION

The Wild Robot

Chris Sanders (Writer/Director)

Kris Bowers (Composer)

Randy Thom (Supervising Sound Designer)