Oscar Voting Day One Takeaways: Robert Downey Jr a Near-Unanimous Choice, Sandra Hüller Surges for ‘Anatomy of a Fall’

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” which nabbed five Oscar nominations, will become available to stream on Hulu starting March 22.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor All five of this year’s Academy Award-nominated original songs will be performed on the Dolby Theatre stage at the 96th Oscars. Jon Batiste, Becky G, Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell, Scott George and the Osage Singers, and as Variety previously reported, Ryan Gosling and Mark Ronson will perform the memorable numbers.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent A rare flagship indie producer left on the French market, Bruno Nahon‘s Paris-based company Unité is preparing to conquer international audiences with “Rematch,” a period psychological thriller chronicling the historical battle between world chess champion Garry Kasparov (Christian Cooke, “That Dirty Black Bag”), and IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue in 1997. The sprawling show, directed by Yan England (“The Red Band Society”) and co-created with Nahon and André Gulluni (“Sam”), was commissioned by Arte in France and has already been sold by Federation Studios to major outlets around the world, including HBO Europe for Spain, Portugal, the Nordics, Iceland, Baltics, Central Europe, Greece and the Netherlands.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor That’s all, Oscar folks! In just 12 days, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will crack open 23 illustrious envelopes to unveil the victors of this year’s 96th Oscars. It’s a night where predictability usually reigns supreme, but hey, there’s always room for a curveball or two. During the past six days of intense voting, Variety has been on the scene, chatting it up with over 50 AMPAS members to get the lowdown on which movies and performances have been getting the thumbs-up on their ballots.

Neon announced on Tuesday that it will bring Academy Award nominee Ava DuVernay‘s acclaimed drama Origin back to 500 U.S. theaters on February 28, for a one-night-only special screening event, featuring an exclusive pre-recorded introduction and post-screening Q&A with DuVernay.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Zendaya, Michelle Pfeiffer and Oscar winners Nicolas Cage and Al Pacino are among the first group of presenters for this year’s 96th Oscars ceremony. Also presenting are last year’s four acting winners — Brendan Fraser from “The Whale” and Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Jamie Lee Curtis from the best picture winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Oscar winners Mahershala Ali (“Moonlight” and “Green Book”), Jessica Lange (“Tootsie” and “Blue Sky”), Matthew McConaughey (“Dallas Buyers Club”), Lupita Nyong’o (“12 Years a Slave”) and Sam Rockwell (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”) also are set to take the stage. Raj Kapoor serves as the Oscars’ executive producer and showrunner, alongside executive producers Molly McNearney and Katy Mullan.

Alex Ritman “La Cocina,” the Rooney Mara-starring drama that recently bowed in competition at the Berlinale, has been acquired for most international territories. HanWay Films has closed sales for France (Originals Factory), Australia and New Zealand (Vendetta), Spain (Avalon), Italy (Teodora Film), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Switzerland (Filmcoopi), Scandinavia (Mis.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Just 30 minutes after final voting for the Screen Actors Guild Awards wrapped up, I made a last-minute switch in my best actress prediction — from Lily Gladstone in “Killers of the Flower Moon” to Emma Stone in “Poor Things.” Let this be a lesson: Second-guessing yourself is seldom a good idea. Lily Gladstone made history as the first Native American and Indigenous person to clinch an individual SAG Award for her portrayal of Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman, in Martin Scorsese’s gripping crime saga.

Naman Ramachandran Kumar Shahani, one of the pioneers of India’s arthouse parallel cinema movement, died at a hospital in Kolkata on Feb. 24 after a period of illness. He was 83.

Sandra Huller is nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Anatomy of a Fall and she just picked up a Cesar Award for her work!

Justine Triet’s Anatomy of A Fall won Best Film and Director at the 49th edition of the French César awards on Friday.

Palme d’Ors don’t grow on trees, so it’s small wonder that the world has fallen for Justine Triet’sAnatomy of a Fall, and the outstanding lead performance of Sandra Hüller, since it won the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize. Hüller’s turn dominates the ‘sort of’ courtroom drama of the film, in which her German novelist — also called Sandra — is accused of pushing her French husband Samuel (Samuel Theis), also a writer, from the top floor of their alpine home. Sandra maintains he fell, or jumped, and the film spends much of its runtime chewing over the truth, though never revealing it.

Anatomy of a Fall French producer Marie-Ange Luciani put in a flying appearance at the Berlinale this week with Claire Burger’s coming-of-age drama Langue Étrangère which received a warm reception in competition.

Micheline Presle, the French actress whose controversial Devil in the Flesh role was the start of a career that included starring opposite John Garfield, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn and Paul Newman, has died at 101.

Jenelle Riley Deputy Awards and Features Editor Sure, Sandra Hüller received an Oscar nomination for her performance in “Anatomy of a Fall,” and the film itself won the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes. But Messi the Border Collie really set tongues and tails wagging following the film’s debut at the festival, going on to receive the Palm Dog honor for his performance as Snoop, a service pooch for a vision-impaired tween (Milo Machado Graner) whose mother (Hüller) is accused of murder. Snoop plays a pivotal role in her defense, but the canine performer portraying him hasn’t let his moment in the spotlight go to his fluffy head.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor With just four days remaining until final Oscar voting officially opens, the race has taken a few unexpected turns at the BAFTA Awards. Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” a biographical drama about the father of the atomic bomb, has continued to surge ahead after seven wins, including best film and director. Its trajectory towards a triumphant night on the Dolby Theatre stage on March 10 seems assured.

K.J. Yossman Emma Stone thanked her mother for giving her life and her “Poor Things” screenwriter Tony McNamara for the line “I must go punch that baby” when she accepted her leading actress BAFTA award on Sunday evening. “Tony, thank you for the line ‘I must go punch that baby.’ It was life-changing for me,” Stone said on stage, while also thanking director Yorgos Lanthimos, her fellow cast and crew and her dialect coach Neil Swain.

The 2024 BAFTAs have kicked off, and we’re bringing you a list of the biggest VIPs in attendance!

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Cohen Media Group, the U.S. distribution company behind Matteo Garrone’s Oscar-nominated “Io Capitano,” has acquired North American rights to “The President’s Wife,” a biting movie starring Catherine Deneuve as the former first lady Bernadette Chirac. The deal closed during the European Film Market currently taking place and running alongside the Berlin Film Festival.

As we race to the Oscar finish line, it has certainly been a year to remember. The movie business all but shook off the last vestiges of the Covid era with the phenomenon that was Barbenheimer — collectively, Barbie and Oppenheimer earned more than $2 billion globally at the box office. Not only is cinema alive and kicking, but both of those box office behemoths are Oscar-nominated for Best Picture.