The red carpet has been rolled out, the champagne is on ice, and Hollywood is ready to crown the year's best movie, with joint favorites Anora and Conclave seemingly poised for a tense showdown at the Oscars on Sunday, March 2.
A twisty awards season rocked by Los Angeles wildfires and a racist tweet scandal reaches its climax with the 97th Academy Awards gala, hosted by Conan O'Brien, kicking off at 4:00 pm (1 am Paris time Monday).
As stars make the final adjustments to their gowns and tuxedos, the race for Hollywood's grandest prize is too close to call, with two wildly different films seen as frontrunners for best picture.
Sean Baker's Anora – about a New York stripper and escort who weds a wealthy Russian playboy, only to learn that her dream marriage is a nightmare illusion – won the Cannes festival's Palme d'Or last May. The low-budget indie has accrued top prizes from Hollywood directors, producers, writers and critics.
Conclave – a film about the secretive and cutthroat election of a new Catholic leader, lent an uncanny timeliness by the real-life Pope Francis's health woes – appears to have won over many late voters. The film starring Ralph Fiennes and Isabella Rossellini earned top honors from Britain's BAFTAs, and the Hollywood actors' SAG Award for best cast.
Also nominated is The Brutalist, a potential dark horse about a Hungarian Jewish architect making a new life in the United States after World War II. Adrien Brody, who plays the titular gifted architect and Holocaust survivor, has been the presumed favorite to win the best actor Oscar for months.
Brody has won the prize previously, for 2002's The Pianist. If he prevails again, he'd join an elite club of double winners including Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson.
But Timothee Chalamet – who earned wide admiration for his pitch-perfect performance as a sardonic young Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown – won the Screen Actors Guild Award over Brody, and could prove a spoiler. At just 29, he arguably has the most star power of any of this year's nominees, and would beat Brody's record as the category's youngest-ever winner.
There could be an even younger winner on the actress side, if a groundswell of support for Anora carries its star Mikey Madison, 25, to the Oscars stage. But she will have to get past Demi Moore, the 1990s megastar who had enjoyed a sparkling career renaissance thanks to gory body horror flick The Substance.
If the vote is split, Brazil's Fernanda Torres could spring a surprise with I'm Still Here, about a family ripped apart by her country's military dictatorship. But the Academy Award hopes of fellow nominee Karla Sofia Gascon, of musical narco-thriller Emilia Perez, appear to have collapsed.
Gascon, the first openly trans acting nominee, saw her campaign implode after years-old racist tweets about Islam, China and American George Floyd, a Black man who died at the hands of US police in 2020, went viral.
The controversy also sunk Netflix's chance of its first best picture win, though co-star Zoe Saldana remains the favorite to win for best supporting actress.
Best supporting actor appears to be similarly locked. Kieran Culkin has won almost everything going this year for his portrayal of a charismatic but troubled cousin on an ancestral road trip through Poland in A Real Pain.
The ceremony itself is expected to be an emotional affair. It will honor firefighters who battled blazes that killed at least 29 people and devastated Los Angeles in January.
Hoping to capitalize on a recent ratings uptick – last year's gala featured a memorable Barbie-themed musical showstopper – producers have enlisted Wicked stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo to perform. Doja Cat and Lisa from the K-pop group Blackpink will also take the stage.
For the first time, the gala will stream live on Hulu, as well as on US network ABC, and in more than 200 territories worldwide.