Producers Guild Nominations Suggest Joker and Knives Out are Best Picture Contenders
The PGA nominations are in, and the most reliable Oscars prognosticator loves Joker, Knives Out, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and more.
Awards season is a long and illustrious process. Sunday saw the highly visible the Oscars that come with it, then probably the most reliable prognosticator remains the Producers Guild of America—and they just announced their nominations for the equivalent of Best Picture.
Hence in what might be the best evidence yet of blockbuster hits like Parasite will continue punching outside of its “Foreign Language” weight class, as the Bong Joon-ho thriller is also nominated for the Zanuck award.
While none of these nominations are wholly surprising, they show a continued shift in awards voter thinking. If Parasite follows suit from the PGA to the Academy, it will be only the fifth foreign language film to be nominated for Best Picture in the last 20 years. Rarer still is seeing a superhero movie nominated for Best Picture. The PGA has been ahead of the curve in accepting that genre (and its producer-friendly box office receipts) than the Academy, Black Panther a Best Picture nomination. If Joker follows suit at the Academy, it will be only the second time a comic book movie has been nominated for Best Picture.
Perhaps the biggest surprise among these nominees is both Ford v Ferrari and Knives Out getting in. Both are considered surprise hits in the fall season, each earning over $100 million in the U.S. alone based off elusive older adult audiences turning out in droves. While Knives Out was nominated for Best Comedy at the Golden Globes, there is no genre distinction at the PGA or Oscars, and it was notably snubbed a Best Screenplay nomination by the Globes (and went ignored by the Critics Choice Awards in the Best Picture category, with Ford v Ferrari and Joker taking up the populist slots).
With all three nominated for Best Picture, as well as Richard Jewell.
While less well-known to casual moviegoers, the Producers Guild is generally the most accurate at predicting how the Academy will vote. The Academy itself is comprised of about a thousand currently, with producers being among the bigger blocs. The Producers Guild has more than 8,000 though, who are often more quick to reflect the “conventional” tastes of Hollywood, often by factoring in the box office’s vote.
The PGA have matched the Oscar’s pick for Best Picture 21 of the last 30 years, including most recently Green Book and The Shape of Water. So their embrace of Netflix, foreign language, and superhero movies in the Best Picture category all portend an evolving criteria of what is “best.” Although, it’ll be interesting to see if they’d crown any of those, particularly Netflix’s The Irishman or Marriage Story, with a Best Picture win…
The list of nominees is below:
The Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures
1917
Ford v Ferrari
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Knives Out
Little Women
Marriage Story
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Parasite
Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures
Abominable
Frozen II
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Missing Link
Toy Story 4
The Norman Felton Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Drama
Big Little Lies
The Crown
Game of Thrones
Succession
The Danny Thomas Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Comedy
Barry
Fleabag
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Schitt’s Creek
Veep
The David L. Wolper Award for Outstanding Producer of Limited Television
Chernobyl
Fosse/Verdon
True Detective
Unbelievable
When They See Us
Outstanding Producer of Televised or Streamed Motion Pictures
American Son
Apollo: Missions to the Moon
Black Mirror: Striking Vipers
Deadwood: The Movie
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
David Crow is the Film Section Editor at Den of Geek. He’s also a member of the Online Film Critics Society. Read more of his work here. You can follow him on Twitter @DCrowsNest.
Written by
David Crow is the movies editor at Den of Geek. He has long been proud of his geek credentials. Raised on cinema classics that ranged from…