Oscar Experts Typing: Jon M. Chu rises after his big NBR Best Director win

Welcome to Oscar Experts Typing, a weekly column in which Gold Derby editors and experts Joyce Eng and Christopher Rosen discuss the Oscar race — via Slack, of course. This week, we revisit Best Director following Jon M. Chu’s surprising National Board of Review victory.

Christopher Rosen: Hello, Joyce! We’ve successfully emerged from “Under the Skin” to type about this year’s Best Director race. (Please watch our rebranded podcast, Awards Magnet, on a YouTube channel near you, or better yet just subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.) The critical precursors that arrive this time of year don’t mean all that much in the grand scheme of things — particularly because the industry is not making its collective voice known at this time — but my Peter tingle is telling me there is one Blockbuster Filmmaker who has emerged ahead of the others: Jon M. Chu. The “Wicked” filmmaker won Best Director at the National Board of Review this week, a result that had many on Film Twitter losing their minds and cracking wise — particularly since the NBR winners since 2014 have been Clint Eastwood, Ridley Scott, Barry Jenkins, Greta Gerwig, Bradley Cooper, Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg, and Martin Scorsese. Not bad company for the director of “Jem and the Holograms.” But while I’m not ready to put Chu in my Oscars Five, I have to admit he has seemingly taken the pole position among mainstream filmmakers — ahead of Denis Villeneuve for “Dune: Part Two” and Ridley Scott for “Gladiator II.” Chu feels like the person this year who gets in at the Golden Globes and Directors Guild Awards and then misses an Oscar nomination despite directing one of the year’s biggest movies (we can call this the Gerwig). But what’s vexing me is: If not Chu, then who else? Most people expect Brady Corbet, Sean Baker, Jacques Audiard, and Edward Berger to land Oscar nominations next year — and while I could quibble about each, I think they’ll have enough support within the small branch to make it through. That final spot, however, feels like it has many possibilities. There’s Chu, of course, or Scott or Villeneuve or James Mangold — traditional directors making Big Tent Movies. There’s RaMell Ross, Best Director winner at the New York Film Critics Circle and Gotham Awards, who has rapidly become the critics’ favorite. Then there are a couple of international names that have me intrigued: Mohammad Rasoulof for “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” and Payal Kapadia for “All We Imagine as Light.” I’ve thought about each, but this week I switched in Kapadia because of vibes. My sense at the Gotham Awards, where “All We Imagine as Light” won Best International Feature thanks to a jury of five, was that the movie is one of the sneaky beloved features of the year. It also placed atop the Sight and Sound list of the year’s best films. I think Kapadia feels like a future BAFTA nominee for Best Director. Basically, I wanted to get in early before people started coming onto the bandwagon. Or is this an overthink and will Rasoulof get in for the bigger title? Or maybe someone I’m not even typing about right now?

joyceeng: Hilarious because I just put in Rasoulof this week after jettisoning Villeneuve. Apologies to Christopher Nolan and Josh Brolin, but he was always just kind of a placeholder for me. I once had Ross in and flirted with the idea of slotting him back, but I went with Rasoulof for now because he too fits the profile of an austere branch pick. I currently do not have “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” in my Best Picture lineup, so if that shakes out, he’d be the first directing nominee without a corresponding bid for the top prize since Bennett Miller for “Foxcatcher” 10 years ago. We talked about Chu’s possible trajectory in the mailbag this week and how he could hit every precursor and miss the Oscar quintet. That would be a huge shock to the locals (I can already see the SNUB headlines), but real ones know how anti-populist the directing branch is. It’s no shade to him, but it’s just how they are. At least he’s in the conversation more than DGA nominee and Oscar snubbee Joseph Kosinski was for “Top Gun: Maverick.” I’ve also considered having Corbet, Baker, Rasoulof, and Ross as a super highbrow top four, which means just room for one of Audiard and Berger — or someone else, like your one-time prediction Coralie Fargeat. I’ve talked to a few people the past few weeks about Audiard and the common refrain was they don’t know what to do with him, especially since “Emilia Pérez” has polarized the general public after hitting Netflix. You’ve had him in and out. Will you drop him again?

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Christopher Rosen: Rasoulof kind of feels too “default” to me, but I can’t fault anyone for putting him in there. If Twitter were voting for this field, Audiard would not make it. But we know the industry likes “Emilia Pérez,” certainly the actors most of all. I think even the directors will appreciate the swing, however, perhaps even more than what Ross does with “Nickel Boys.” Plus, if “Emilia Pérez” is the Oscars villain, then Audiard probably makes it in here anyway: think Todd Phillips for “Joker.” Ross and Fargeat feel like two sides of the same coin to me: relative newcomers for the branch (even though Ross is an Oscar nominee already) who have made polarizing movies with great directorial intent. It’ll be ironic when both miss here and find themselves as Oscar nominees for screenwriting. One name I’ve toyed with as a possibility is Mangold. The guy is a pro’s pro who has made a really solid movie in “A Complete Unknown.” The Bob Dylan biopic is another burgeoning Oscars villain — I know you’re soft on it and plenty of people we work with think it’s Not Great, Bob (wrongly, of course, from my perspective). But I think he’s a dark horse DGA nominee and could pop here even ahead of Chu. Am I just too high on the Dylan supply? Is this because I interviewed some people behind the movie? You be the judge.

joyceeng: I’m shocked you haven’t added it in supporting actress and costume design after talking to Elle Fanning and Arianne Phillips. Such restraint! My issues with “A Complete Unknown” are mainly with the script, but it’s a totally solid, entertaining film, especially if you’re a Dylanphile. It’s such boomer bait and Mangold is a master of one of my favorite cinematic genres, Dad Movies — I am one of “Ford v Ferrari’s” 11 fans — but he still reads too mainstream to me for this category unless “A Complete Unknown” becomes a top five film, which, hey, could happen. I do wanna mention Searchlight’s other player, “A Real Pain,” which has had a fantastic week with Kieran Culkin‘s NYFCC and NBR wins and top 10 placements at NBR and AFI. We’ve discussed before how people have been low on it most of the year and have excluded it in Best Picture. It feels pretty solid for a lower tier Best Picture slot now and you can also make the argument that it might even be as high as sixth. Fifth? That’s a long way of saying no one has seriously considered Jesse Eisenberg in Best Director. I’m not gonna put him in, but he should certainly be higher than 38th place. Similarly, the “Sing Sing” resurgence is on, but Greg Kwedar is in 21st place. I’m not putting him in either, but with A24 treating it as a new film like the July release never happened, could he gain some momentum?

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Christopher Rosen: Kwedar always felt like Sian Heder, so I never really considered him for one of those slots — and even if the industry loves “Sing Sing” he doesn’t really profile as the type of filmmaker to crash this party. We’ve barely mentioned Scott and I’ll happily eat crow as someone who once thought he would win in this category (like Scorsese for “The Departed”). It feels like Film Twitter has made “Gladiator II” a mini-villain and many pundits like myself have jumped off the Ridley train. I know no one is out of it until they’re out of it, but can you imagine a “comeback” for Scott in this category or will he remain in search of his fourth Best Director nomination for another year?

joyceeng: As someone who loved “Gladiator II,” I never really considered Scott and never had him in. I could just tell while watching it that a lotta people were not gonna jibe with its unserious aspects and I think the film needed to be way more explosive at the box office to mitigate that. The industry could be head over heels for “Glad II ator” (I’m gonna lean no, though), but its best non-Denzel above-the-line nomination chance is in Best Picture, where I just have it in 10th as a placeholder, not Best Director. Maybe “Glad III ator” will be the charm.