Contenders Collect More Prizes

Just days before Oscar voting opens, career achievement honors and guild awards may boost nominees’ prospects

BEST PICTURE

Anatomy of a Fall

Messi, the film’s scenestealing border collie who plays Snoop in the French film, stole the show at the Oscar nominees luncheon on Feb. 12, posing with the likes of Billie Eilish and Ryan Gosling. He was later centered in The New York Times’ coverage of the event. His trip to L.A. came weeks after virtually “accepting” the L.A. Film Critics honor for best non-English film.

Maestro

The New York Philharmonic, led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, celebrated the Netflix film on Feb. 14 by performing selections of composer Leonard Bernstein’s work (many of which are featured in the film), after which Oscar nominees Bradley Cooper (who earned three nods, for writing, producing and starring in the film) and Carey Mulligan conversed with music-world luminaries.

BEST ACTOR

Paul Giamatti

The Holdovers

On Feb. 14, the two-time Oscar nominee returned to Santa Barbara — near the Solvang, California, setting of his previous collaboration with Alexander Payne, 2004’s Sideways — for a careerretrospective conversation with yours truly and to collect the film festival’s Cinema Vanguard Award from his Sideways co-star Virginia Madsen.

Jeffrey Wright

American Fiction

The Santa Barbara Film Festival feted this firsttime Oscar nominee Feb. 15 with a career-retrospective conversation — covering everything from his Tonywinning turn in Angels in America to his work in the Bond, Batman and Hunger Games films — followed by the presentation of its Montecito Award by his co-star John Ortiz.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Bobi Wine:

The People’s President Nat Geo’s doc about a Ugandan music star turned activist — it follows Wine as he challenges Uganda’s corrupt incumbent president, Yoweri Museveni, and faces harassment — was screened Feb. 18 in Los Angeles, followed by a Q&A with co-director Moses Bwayo. In addition, Wine attended the Oscar nominees luncheon.

BEST ACTRESS

Annette Bening

Nyad

The veteran five-time Oscar nominee was set to become the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s first Arlington Award recipient Feb. 16, looking back on her long career before collecting her hardware from her American President co-star Michael Douglas. But the event was canceled when the actress had to pull out at the last minute due to illness.

Lily Gladstone

Killers of the Flower Moon “Dream came true tonight!” the breakout star posted Feb. 14 on Instagram after joining Stephen Colbert for an interview on The Late Show to discuss her Oscarnominated performance in Martin Scorsese’s film. They talked about her high school yearbook, in which she was named by her classmates “Most Likely to Win an Oscar.”

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

Oppenheimer

Christopher Nolan’s composer, Ludwig Göransson, a 2019 Oscar winner for Marvel’s Black Panther and a nominee last year for an original song (co-written with Rihanna) for its sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, was the recipient of the best original score (for a studio film) prize at the Society of Composers & Lyricists’ SCL Awards on Feb. 13 in Los Angeles.

Killers of the

Flower Moon

The late Robbie Robertson was also celebrated at the Society of Composers & Lyricists’ SCL Awards on Feb. 13 (he and Martin Scorsese shared the Spirit of Collaboration Award, commemorating their 11 film projects together, from 1978’s The Last Waltz to the director’s latest) and at an event at L.A.’s The Aster on Feb. 15.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

The Last

Repair Shop

On Feb. 17, this 40-minute Searchlight/L.A. Times documentary — directed by Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot and prolific film composer Kris Bowers — about a service that provides free musical instruments to Los Angeles public school students will air on ABC-owned stations and affiliates nationwide, a rare spotlight for a short.