Welcome to Crosstalk, wherein A.V. Club staffers and contributors discuss their varied (or unvaried, as the case may be) perspectives on a pop-culture topic. This time, film editor Jacob Oller and film critic Monica Castillo watch on as the starting gun fires for the 2027 Oscars race.
Monica Castillo: Now that the fall festivals are winding down, awards season is under way with a few recent big contenders hitting the campaign trail with FYC screenings and many panel discussions. Jacob, what are some of your favorite fall standouts that you think we’ll continue to hear about this season?
Jacob Oller: As always happens near the end of the year, I both feel like I’ve seen a million new movies and somehow also missed half of the ones people are talking about. But I am happy that a few of my more mainstream favorites this year, like The Odyssey (and, to a lesser extent, Project Hail Mary), are holding strong. It has seemed like Christopher Nolan might be on his way to another high-level sweep, simply because of the scale of the production and the staggering craft on display, even with all the festival films that’re coming out in the next couple months. But, lo and behold, You Can See Everything showed up and I’m thrilled that it’s hanging around—not only at the box office and in the cultural conversation, but in the chatter around awards as well. Were you similarly caught off-guard by any films that surged into people’s predictions?
MC: Right now, I think it’s anyone’s game. I don’t know if people had movies like Elsinore or The Debut on their radar ahead of the festivals. There’s a flurry of great tearjerkers and crowdpleasers rolling into theaters on a near-weekly basis at this point, and with the right groundswell, they could chip away at a few of the acting awards from The Odyssey, which looked like this year’s movie to beat when it became such a sensation over the summer. We still haven’t seen what’s in store on the technical side of Dune 3, which is maybe the last film standing between The Odyssey cleaning up the technical awards if voters have forgotten about Project Hail Mary.
A few other movies, like You Can See Everything—a movie people didn’t know existed until its debut at the Telluride Film Festival—could become unexpected wild cards. I think the excitement around Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s movie may spike an interest in the awards broadcast itself, and there’s no way that host Conan O’Brien is going to miss an opportunity to spoof that movie. There’s a lot of discussion on whether or not You Can See Everything is so unconventional it could turn off voters (let alone cause a little category confusion). Do you see the movie cutting through the noise and getting its recognition?
JO: To me, there’s no way it doesn’t. Voters love a narrative, and this film’s connection with audiences (not to mention its buzzy subject matter, formal inventiveness, and quirky foundation) mean that it’s almost certainly going to have the Documentary category wrapped up. My only question is if it can break into Best Picture, which would be extremely cool, not only because a documentary has never made it into the running for the top prize, but because this is such a phenomenal year for documentaries that this kind of history-making might push people to watch more of the exceptional nonfiction that’s come out in 2026. Your Undesirable Friends might not get nominated, but it might get a little more attention thanks to Nathan Fielder.
