Oscars race rages as Disney's Elemental bubbles up, Annette Bening challenges Emma Stone in Best Actress

Like water to ice, the hunt for Academy glory will solidify into Oscars gold for potential contenders in the race ahead, but not before major players turn up the heat in two key categories to watch in the weeks ahead.

In addition to an emotional interview with Elemental director Peter Sohn, the new episode of EW's Awardist podcast (below) examines the standing of the filmmaker's latest project among Best Animated Feature contenders — and how it could become the category's top contender after building strong word of mouth following its titanic Disney+ streaming debut and slow roll to becoming a $500 million global box office success for the studio.

With stiff competition from fellow box office titans such as The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($1.4 billion worldwide) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ($690 million globally) as well as prestige, artist-driven fare (Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron) and even its own studio brethren (Disney's Wish debuts later this year), Elemental is far from a sure bet to win Best Animated Feature. For starters, its, uh, start at the domestic box office was rocky, with a mere $29 million opening weekend — numbers that left Sohn "heartbroken" thinking audiences didn't care about this very personal story — atop difficult feedback that initially indicated the movie's themes revolving around an inter-element relationship between a drop of water and a little flame might've been too mature for youngsters to fully appreciate.

The movie fronted Disney's biggest streaming premiere of 2023, however, indicating that word of mouth at home is just as strong as it was at the box office, and that's a healthy sign when it comes to film's staying power in the Oscar race, too.

Speaking of fire and water, Annette Bening's chances at winning an Oscar are often, unfortunately, regarded as about as likely as a squirt gun dousing a five-alarm blaze. With four unconsummated nominations to her credit for her brilliant turns in films including The Kids Are All Right, Being Julia, American Beauty, and The Grifters over the last 30 years, Bening is perhaps one of the most overdue performers in Hollywood.

That narrative has worked in favor of many actresses who've won recent Academy Awards (Jessica Chastain, Viola Davis, Julianne Moore), though Bening's film, Netflix's biopic about long-distance swimming legend Diana Nyad, lacks a buzzy edge that those actresses' films (or, even, the performers themselves) had at the time of their respective campaigns. Nyad has been received well, but not enthusiastically well, despite significant praise for both Bening and supporting actress Jodie Foster. The problem for both, however, is that stronger contenders will likely rise around them, and praise for Nyad itself needs to be stronger to help bolster their bids over the next few months.

The likeliest contenders for Best Actress nominations at the 2024 Oscars remain Emma Stone (Poor Things, from Yorgos Lanthimos, who directed Olivia Colman to a victory in 2018's The Favourite) and Carey Mulligan (Maestro, director-star Bradley Cooper's artful, historical entertainment industry biopic about Leonard Bernstein that's square within Oscar voters' wheelhouse), with Lily Gladstone making a sturdy case for a nod as Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon rolls out to theaters to universal acclaim.

Other contenders who only stand to make up ground that Bening will likely soon lose (Nyad quietly debuted in a select number of theaters in October, and rolls out on Netflix Friday) include Fantasia Barrino in the heavily buzzed Color Purple musical, as well as Cailee Spaeny, whose Priscilla Presley film dazzled critics before its limited theatrical bow, but has consistently stacked hardware on the circuit so far (including Venice's Best Actress prize and an early nod at the Gotham Awards).

Follow along with Elemental, Bening, and more potential 2024 Oscars contenders in the race as EW breaks down the awards season in the latest Awardist podcast episode above.

Listen to EW's The Awardist podcast on Amazon Music to get the latest awards season analysis and hear from the actors, creators, and more who are contenders this season.

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