We had one film release this past weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations.

Sully

Were the film made by any other director and starring any other actor, we wouldn’t be discussing the film’s Oscar potential. Based on the true story of pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger who successfully crash landed his plane on the Hudson River after multiple-engine failure. It’s a dramatic event, but one which doesn’t lend itself to the cinematic venue easily considering much of the film takes place in the aftermath of the event.

Starring Oscar winner Tom Hanks as Sully, Aaron Eckhart as his co-pilot, and Oscar nominee Laura Linney as his wife, director Clint Eastwood navigates the investigative fall-out of the incident. The plot loosely mirrors that of Robert Zemeckis’ 2012 two-time Oscar nominee Flight starring Denzel Washington. There, an alcoholic pilot successfully crash-lands his plane in spite of a hangover. In this film Sully is merely contradicting the inquiry board’s assertion that he could have safely landed at an airport rather than the full-survivor landing he did make.

Both films are/were strong box office performers (Flight opened to $24.9 million before ending at $93 million while Sully is opening around $35 million. Both films have solid reviews. The difference here is that Zemeckis’ Oscar history is limited whereas Eastwood has had so many Oscar nominees on his resume that yet another wouldn’t be surprising. I expect Sully might be able to outperform Flight in total Oscar nominations.

Hanks is likely a shoo-in nominee for Best Actor while Eckhart and Linney are decent possibilities for supporting nominations. The film could be in the hunt for a Best Picture nomination, but Eastwood couldn’t even manage a nomination for American Sniper two years ago, so I suspect something this uncomplicated for him won’t likely result in another nomination in that field. The film could also make appearances in several below-the-line categories including Film Editing, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and, to a lesser possibility, Cinematography and Visual Effects. The screenplay by Todd Komarnicki isn’t likely to merit inclusion as the Adapted Screenplay field looks to have a number of strong contenders this year.