Robert Downey Jr. locks Oscars chances, Emma Stone closes in on Lily Gladstone

With under a week to go before Oscar nominations, major developments on the precursor circuit have solidified the paths of front-running contenders — and opened up new ones for others.

Ahead of the Academy's Jan. 23 nominations announcement, the non-industry Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards revealed their winners for the best films and performances of the year at a key point for visibility prior to the Oscars' voting window, while the industry-heavy SAG and BAFTA membership unveiled a roster of nominees that further complicated projections for the Academy Awards.

The latest episode of EW's Awardist podcast (above) breaks down the chaos, as we sift through the Globes and CCA madness — beginning with odds favoring Robert Downey Jr.'s road to winning his first-ever Oscar for his work in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. Downey and his Supporting Actress counterpart, The Holdovers star Da'Vine Joy Randolph, are virtually the only performers consistent across the precursor circuit, scoring nominations and/or victories from both critic-leaning and industry-inclusive awards bodies, universally indicating that their status as future Academy Award winners is sealed.

The race complicates when examining the leading categories, with Lily Gladstone blazing a trail through the season until BAFTA unveiled its nominations on Thursday. Likely thanks to the BAFTA's increasingly frustrating reliance on smaller juries to help pick nominees in major categories, the Killers of the Flower Moon star missed out on a Best Actress nod from the British Academy — despite the film earning nine placements elsewhere, but, curiously, not one for director Martin Scorsese, either.

Killers is a distinctly American tale of capitalist toxicity and its violent impact on Native people, and one might think that's behind Gladstone and Scorsese's absence — but, clearly, BAFTA voters held the film in high regard, enough for it to show up in multiple other categories, making their snubs all the more baffling.

Rising through the ranks in recent weeks to threaten Gladstone's run is Poor Things actress Emma Stone, who won the Critics Choice Award over Gladstone while competing in the same category, and earlier took the Golden Globe on the musical/comedy side (Gladstone won among the dramatic set at the same ceremony).

Stone's appeal to both non-industry and industry-centric voters signals that she could overtake Gladstone at the Oscars, similar to the late-breaking surge over Glenn Close that Olivia Colman navigated — coincidentally, also for a Lanthimos production that also starred Stone — for 2018's The Favourite, perhaps attributable to the Academy's increasingly international tastes that could prefer the flair of Poor Things over the more traditional drama of Killers.

If there's one constant this season, it's Oppenheimer's chokehold on the Best Picture race. From SAG's ensemble category to dominating the BAFTA nominations with 13 notices, there's nothing that can stop the three-hour historical drama from writing itself into the awards history books.

Check out more from EW's The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best in TV.

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