Living in a post-Venice/Telluride/Toronto world means it's time get serious about our Oscar predictions and that's just what we're doing this week. On episode 307 of the AwardsWatch podcast, AW Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson is joined by Executive Editor Ryan McQuade and Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello to look at what shined at the fests, what lost its luster and the introduction of a new bombshell in the villa.

In our conversation, we begin with the top winners at Venice and with Alexander Payne's contentious jury, including how Jim Jarmusch's Father Mother Sister Brother could factor in and if Benny Safdie's Silver Lion Best Director win for The Smashing Machine was what that film needed. Next we move to Telluride, where Hamnet was the most-liked film (while we still await the results of Michael's Telluride Blog polls of critics and non-critics) and how the Cannes winners held their ground. Moving to Toronto and Hamnet's People's Choice Award win keeps it at as a top tier contender and we talk about some films, like 1st runner-up Frankenstein, fared better at TIFF than it did at Venice and Telluride.

Then we dive into Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, which began screening last week. While Ryan and Sophia had the film at the top of their predictions list last month, I was the idiot who rashly dropped it out of my top 10. That mistake is corrected here and we talk about the narratives at play for PTA, Chloé Zhao for Hamnet, Ryan Coogler for Sinners and Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value.

You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music, YouTube and more.

This podcast runs 1h37m. We will be back next week with a preview of the 2025 New York Film Festival. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).