We had four films release this past weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations.

Encanto

Disney and Pixar have been trading off major Oscar contenders for years now. This year, the studios have three total efforts to go into Oscar season with and all three are original properties, meaning all three have a solid chance at being nominated. This return to the musical ethos of the Disney 90s Renaissance and the success of Frozen and Moana is sure to be their best option this year, especially considering the first two films were box office weaklings with Raya and the Last Dragon performing slightly better than Luca. Of course, there was a pandemic going on, so Oscar voters might not count it against them. That said, Disney has cannibalized its own box office potential by releasing to their streaming platform at almost the same time as at the box office, meaning they are no longer the dominant force there they used to be.

For Encanto, Oscar nominee Lin-Manuel Miranda has scored the film and written songs for it, meaning not only is the film a Best Animated Feature contender, it’s also a contender for Original Score and Original Song. Now, the music branch has been reticent to nominate the scores of films like Frozen and Moana, so the Best Original Score category is probably out of the question, but the other two are possibilities with Best Animated Feature a likely Oscar winner. Miranda could also become something of a record setter. He wrote songs for three films this year and if he were to get nominated for all three, he could go down in the record books. Of course, his other efforts haven’t exactly ignited with the box office or critics, so that distinction isn’t the likeliest scenario, but don’t count it out.

House of Gucci

Some directors eventually lose the “it” factor they possessed when they were younger. Ridley Scott has become one of those directors, turning out one disappointing project after another. This year saw not one, but two of these features release to cinemas. The first one, The Last Duel, fell pretty quickly to weak box office and mediocre reviews. That left House of Gucci as his next best opportunity to wow critics and audiences alike. The end result isn’t something that will benefit him by much.

The film was released to tepid reviews and its box office numbers over the holiday weekend were unexceptional. Does that mean the film will suffer a similar fate to Last Duel. In a way, yes. Like that film, House of Gucci has enough of a presence that it could scope out a handful of nominations. Lady Gaga is earning terrific notices as campy Patrizia Gucci while the impression Jared Leto leaves varies from viewer to viewer. Beyond that, the costume design looks magnificent and for a film about a prominent fashion house, it’s to be expected. That alone might score it a nomination in Best Costume Design. If Gaga can hold on to a spot in Best Actress, a category brimming with talent this year, the film could net two nominations overall.

The Humans

Playwright Stephen Karam crafted The Humans for the Broadway stage, opening Off-Broadway in 2015 and transferring to the big time in 2016. Set at Thanksgiving, the play centered around a small Manhattan apartment complex where a group of disparate people gather to share the holiday and the drama with one another. The show blanked at the Lucille Lortel awards where it scored six nominations, but did considerably better at the Drama Desk awards going four for five. The Tony Awards similarly embraced the show giving it four awards including wins for featured actor and actress Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell. It lost two prizes out of the six it was nominated for, including director Joe Mantello. The Best Play award gave the project just enough gravitas to make it to the big screen where Karam adapted his own play and then directed the film himself.

Houdyshell reprises her stage role in the film, though Birney was replaced by Richard Jenkins. Both actors, Jenkins and Houdyshell, are probably the film’s best chances at Oscar recognition in the supporting categories. The film has received largely positive reviews, but releasing on limited screens and no numbers were released, suggesting that the film didn’t do as well as A24 had hoped. Apart from the two supporting citations, the film could make a small play at the Adapted Screenplay category, but the competition for Best Picture and Directing are fierce this year, so I wouldn’t expect Karam to repeat his Tony triumph at the Oscars.

Licorice Pizza

One of the most significant directors of the modern age is Paul Thomas Anderson. His first film, Hard Eight, released to acclaim in 1996. Since then, he’s helmed seven successful features with this film being his ninth overall. Hard Eight didn’t score any Oscar nominations, nor did Punch-Drunk Love, his fourth picture. Every other one of the eight films, six in all, managed at least a single Oscar nomination. That said, winning Oscars hasn’t been his luck yet as his films have only managed three Oscar wins to date from two different films. Anderson himself has yet to be awarded.

Of those six films, five have earned acting nominations, four have gotten writing nominations, and only two have pulled off nominations for Best Picture and Directing (There Will Be Blood and The Master). He’s also done quite well in craft categories four of them nominated. Outside of acting, his last two films each earned Best Costume Design nominations, the most recent having won the award. For Boogie Nights, the 1970s were too close to be considered much in the way of period, but we’re now two decades removed from that and it’s possible this film could nab a nod there. That said, acting is the best place to look for potential nominations. The problem is who would be in the running? It’s hard to see the two leads being contenders. Other prominent actors in the film include Maya Rudolph, John C. Reilly, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, and Bradley Cooper are the best known, though Cooper is the only one in the conversation right now. That said, a surprise nomination is still possible, though I’m not sure which actor could even contend at this point, so it might get a single nomination and nothing else. Either that or a nod for Anderson in screenwriting as a welcome back recognition since it’s been four years since his last film released.