As surely as the world turns on its axis, the Academy Awards cycle continues, year after year. Though the 97th Oscars ceremony is not until March 2, 2025, and the nominations will not officially be announced until January 17, 2025, there is already buzz for this year’s season. Last week brought announcements about India and Kazakhstan’s cinematic submissions, hopefully, a nod to Danielle Deadwyler, and a potentially historic set of nominations for Saoirse Ronan.
According to the Oscars website, feature films eligible for consideration (for Best Picture, among other categories) must have been released for an expanded theatrical run between January 1, 2024, and December 31, 2024. The film must have been released in Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles County, New York City, the Bay Area, Chicago, Illinois, and Atlanta, Georgia. International Feature Films must have been released between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024.
Laapataa Ladies, screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2023 and theatrically released in March 2024, has officially been submitted as India’s 2025 entry to the Best Foreign Film category. Netflix describes the Hindi-language film as the story of “Two brides’ lives [that] take unexpected turns when they accidentally swap places on a crowded train.”
“I am very happy,” said director Kiran Rao. “I was not expecting an Oscar entry as many good films have been made this year.”
100% of Laapataa Ladies’ Rotten Tomatoes reviews are positive, giving an average 7.5/10 rating. Critics are somewhat mixed, mostly rating the film 3/5.
Here’s the list of submitted films for the International Film category of the Oscars.
In domestic Oscars news, Variety reported on September 23 that the film adaptation of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson will be submitted for Best Picture and other artisan categories. The Piano Lesson (2024), to be released in November, will be set in 1936 Pittsburgh and will explore familial trauma and ancestral ghosts. Numerous actors from the film will be submitted for their roles: Danielle Deadwyler will be submitted for her Best Supporting Actress as Berniece Charles; John David Washington will be submitted for Best Actor for his role as Boy Willie; Samuel L. Jackson (this could be his first nomination since his nomination for Pulp Fiction in 1994), Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, and Corey Hawkins will all be submitted for Best Supporting Actor.
Variety also reported that Saoirse Ronan could become the youngest person in Oscars history to be nominated in both the supporting and the lead acting categories; Ronan has been submitted for consideration as a supporting actor in Blitz (2024) and lead actor in The Outrun (2024). If she is nominated for both, she would be the thirteenth person to be nominated as such and she would be the youngest double nominee.
Blitz, premiering in November, follows the World War II story of a British boy running away from his mother back to London and her subsequent search for him. The Outrun, premiering in October, is the story of a woman coming to terms with her past by returning to where she grew up.
Over the next few months, we’ll hear more and more about what movies and actors have been submitted for consideration for nominations. Those submissions will be narrowed down to the nominations that will be announced in January. The beginning of the year will see the campaigns for those nominated films, all leading up to the biggest award ceremony of the year, the Academy Awards, in March.
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