There are a lot of alternative ways to measure a terrific movie awards season.  

Final 12 months, “Barbenheimer” put two billion-dollar blockbusters on the heart of the awards chatter. “Barbie” settled for an Oscar and a “field workplace achievement” Golden Globe, whereas “Oppenheimer” fulfilled its promise as the primary (much-needed) awards season megahit and awards juggernaut in a few years. In addition to sweeping up a number of Oscars, Christopher Nolan’s opus additionally garnered each Oscar and Golden Globe finest image wins. 

Twenty-five years in the past, the Oscar race was a Weinstein-era slugfest for finest image, with the Harvey-handled “Shakespeare in Love” protecting Steven Spielberg’s WWII epic “Saving Personal Ryan” out of the highest Oscar perch, whereas each movies took residence Golden Globe finest image trophies. This 12 months has been knocked by some critics and a few awards season pundits as maybe not one for the historical past books, with a lower than stellar lineup of key contenders.  

However whereas it would lack the extraordinary buzz of populist relevance like final 12 months, this awards season has an enchantment for anybody who values the movie business’s most distinctive and creatively bold movie administrators. 

For these of us who should confess compulsive auteurism, 2024 appears to be like like a flood of fascinating director-driven dramatic options that might make a hell of an A-list movie competition competitors lineup. 

Hiding in plain sight this 12 months is the truth that a dozen of the highest contenders for Golden Globes and Oscars — airing Jan. 5 and March 2 , respectively — are helmed by administrators who’re veterans of the world’s high movie competition competitions. Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Sundance, San Sebastian: these 12 movie artists have graced their hallowed and prestigious screens.  

 Pedro Almodóvar

Present awards contender for Oscar-winning Spanish maestro Almodóvar is the touching finish of life drama “The Room Subsequent Door,” which additionally boasts the pedigree of getting gained the coveted Golden Lion award at this 12 months’s Venice Movie Pageant. Almodóvar’s no stranger to the worldwide competition circuit, having been an award-winning mainstay of Cannes, Berlin and Venice for 40 years.  

 Jacques Audiard

If you happen to’re hip sufficient to know why Audiard is a French nepo child, you’ll in all probability additionally recognize his Cannes Jury Prize win for present awards season contender “Emilia Pérez.” It’s been 30 years since Audiard debuted in Cannes with “See How They Fall.” Two years later, he gained the most effective screenplay award at Cannes for “A Self-Made Hero,” and Audiard’s hardly ever been out of the competition highlight since. He earned his Palme d’Or in Cannes in 2015 with “Dheepan” and scored a finest director award at Venice for “The Sisters Brothers.” 

 Sean Baker

One of many key movies of the Golden Globe and Oscar finest image races, Baker’s “Anora” burst out of Cannes with a Palme d’Or win and the critics’ plaudits haven’t let up since. In his 20 years of distinctive filmmaking, Baker has gained acclaim on the competition circuit from SXSW to Locarno and Mar del Plata. Named as certainly one of Selection’s Administrators to Look ahead to his Sundance hit “Tangerine,” Baker moved on to the Cannes Administrators’ Fortnight part along with his Golden Globe- and Oscar-nominated movie “The Florida Venture.” 

 Brady Corbet

Earlier than rising as one of many decade’s most necessary filmmakers, Corbet starred in a protracted string of worldwide movie competition contenders. Options akin to “Martha Marcy Could Marlene” and “Clouds of Sils Maria” have been hits at fests from Sundance to Locarno to Cannes. In 2015, Corbet’s directing debut, “The Childhood of a Chief,” scooped up the most effective new director award in Venice, and this 12 months, Corbet had a triumphant return to the Pageant when his newest movie, “The Brutalist” scored a finest director prize. 

 Clint Eastwood

Eastwood has been a treasured competition filmmaker for 40 years, debuting his allegoric Western “Pale Rider” at Cannes in 1985. He introduced his jazz biopic “Fowl” to the Croisette in 1988 and his John Huston roman à clef “White Hunter, Black Coronary heart” premiered in Cannes in 1990. His newest, “Juror #2” is incomes the 94-year-old legend among the strongest evaluations of his profession, main many to hope his long-time studio, Warner Bros., will take heed to the audiences and critics and help the movie with some awards season panache.  

 Robert Eggers

Eggers emerged as a visionary thriller filmmaker a decade in the past, successful the directing prize at Sundance along with his first function, “The Witch.” Since then, his distinctive, visually creative movies have scored in festivals. His new movie, “Nosferatu,” is the third display telling of this famed vampire story. There have been no movie festivals in 1922 when German movie maestro F.W. Murnau made his model, however in 1979, Werner Herzog premiered his tackle Depend Orlok’s nefarious designs in competitors at Berlin and got here away with a high prize.  

 Coralie Fargeat

Just lately named to Selection’s twenty eighth annual Administrators to Watch checklist, French writer-director Fargeat took residence the most effective screenplay award in Cannes this 12 months for her tour de drive physique horror provocation “The Substance.” On this facet of the pond, “Substance” related with the Toronto Pageant crowd at its packed opening night time slot within the fest’s “Midnight Insanity” part. 

 James Mangold

“A Full Unknown” helmer Mangold’s acclaim comes straight from his Hollywood friends, relatively than on the competition circuit. He made an auspicious debut along with his award-winning movie “Heavy” at Sundance, Gijon and Cannes in 1995, however since then his key recognitions have been home-grown gold, receiving a finest image Oscar nod for “Ford v Ferrari,” a screenplay nomination for his work on “Logan” and a finest image Golden Globe for “Stroll the Line,” together with a finest actress win for Reese Witherspoon.