It's the final month+ of awards mania and we'll have final Oscar nom predictions up shortly. But what a busy weekend it already is...
Globe Drama winner / Oscar hopeful 1917 just expanded into wide release, France's Oscar finalist Les Miserables opened in limited release (banking on a nomination Monday, no doubt). For home viewing Best Picture hopeful Joker and Oscar longshot-in-a-couple-of-categories The Lighthouse both just hit Blu-Ray. New to streaming is the Florence Pugh showcase horror film MidSommar on Amazon Prime, while action spectacle John Wick Parabellum (mysteriously not nominatd for stunts at SAG) arrives on HBO. But here's what's still to come this season...
JANUARY
12 Critics Choice Awards. Plus maybe Nathaniel's Top Ten List ... which means the Film Bitch Awards nominations begin? But it takes us a while to publish them all.
13 Oscar Nominations Announced
15 Maleficent Mistress of Evil and Gemini Man, Oscar finalists in Makeup and Visual Effects respectively, hit Blu-Ray
16 voting closes for the PGA awards, Federico Fellini Centennial celebration begins at TFE
17 Weathering With You (Japan's Oscar submission) opens in the US, plus... voting closes for SAG awards
18 PGA Ceremony, Godzilla King of Monsters hits HBO and you should watch only to marvel at how insane/inept Oscar's visual fx branch is... Cats made the finalist list but this didn't? For f***'s sake, AMPAS!
19 SAG Ceremony, plus Team Experience Awards (voted on by our contributors) are announced
20 Martin Luther King Jr Day
21 Pain and Glory (Spain's Oscar finalist) arrives on Blu-Ray. We hope it arrives with a few Oscar nominations (biting our nails about it right now)
24 voting closes for DGA awards
25 GOYA Awards (Spain's Oscars), DGA Awards, Annie Awards
27 Oscar Nominee Luncheon. Harriet and Parasite both arrive on Blu-Ray. How many Oscar nominations will they be able to advertise?
France didn't choose PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE for its submission but will it give a ton of César nominations?
29 César Nominations Announced (France's Oscars), voting closes for BAFTA, Beanpole (Russia's Oscar finalist)
opens in the US.
30 final voting begins for Oscars.
31 "Oscar Shorts Program" opens in select movie theaters in the US, The Traitor (Italy's Oscar submission) and Incitement (Israel's Oscar submission) open in the US
FEBRUARY
Will Laura win the Smackdown?
2 BAFTA Ceremony, Groundhog Day, plus "Supporting Actress Smackdown" returns with the current Oscar year
3 Film Bitch Awards Medals Ceremony
4 voting closes for the Oscars
6 Final Oscar Predictions.
7 And Then We Danced (Georgia's Oscar submission) opens in the US
8 Independent Spirit Awards Ceremony
9 OSCAR NIGHT It's the 92nd Annual Academy Awards
10 Oscar post-mortems begin and generally last about a week here at the site. We don't move on easily. Sue us.
11 Ford V Ferrari arrives on Blu-Ray
14 Valentine's Day!
19 Corpus Christi (Poland's Oscar finalist) opens in the US
28 César Ceremony in France, The Whistlers (Romania's Oscar submission) and A White White Day (Iceland's Oscar submission) open in the US in select cities. Why so many foreign Oscar submissions each year wait until after the Oscars they were competing for to release -- even if they were nominated they couldn't really capitalize on it by then -- we'll never know.
... and then TFE gets a mini-vacation during the first or second week of March. It's usually only two to three days as we're workaholics. Which dates are you most excited for?