'Conclave' Quietly Maneuvers Into Position as a Potential 'Anora'-Killer
Timothée Chalamet wins his fellow thesps' vote as I analyze takeaways from a big Hollywood weekend filled with surprises
Clutching their SAG Award trophies — which everyone on stage seemed to agree were exceptionally heavy — Demi Moore and Timothée Chalamet each looked across the starry room at the Shrine Auditorium and saw their heroes looking back at them. At least that’s how they described it, in speeches that seemed tailored for the Hollywood crowd, which included many Academy voters who may have already helped hand each star their first Oscar, too.
Oscar voting ended last Tuesday, which means that Sunday night’s SAG wins can’t affect the outcome. But whether confirming the comfortable leads for some frontrunners (Zoe Saldaña and Kieran Culkin, you have no excuse to look surprised on March 2) or adding yet another layer of uncertainty into the race, the SAG Awards felt in many ways like a clubby warm-up event for the Academy’s night at the Dolby. That’s a compliment, I promise.
It was a big weekend for cozy, insider-y awards events all around Hollywood, with the Motion Picture Sound Editors Awards and the Cinema Audio Society Awards honoring the best in sound design, the USC Scripter Awards focusing on writers and the Spirit Awards all happening in the last few days. The winners of all these awards, in terms of pointing to a true Oscar frontrunner, were — as they have been for nearly this entire wild season — inconclusive.
Following Conclave’s big, somewhat surprising best ensemble victory at the SAG Awards, Chalamet besting Adrien Brody in lead actor for the first time all season and the crucial victory for Demi Moore, there’s a lot of upheaval to get into and just a few more days before the Oscars to figure it all out. Lets rewind across this jam-packed weekend to figure out what happened and what, if anything, we can learn from it.
Independent Streak
Anora was a steamroller at the Spirit Awards, as I predicted it might be, and Sean Baker gave yet another rousing speech tailored to the crowd, calling himself an “indie film lifer.” Baker won for best director, the film won best feature, and star Mikey Madison extended her winning streak following her BAFTA win last weekend, taking best lead performance in a gender-neutral category that included Demi Moore as well as best actor Oscar nominees Colman Domingo and Sebastian Stan.
The Spirit Awards, marking its 40th edition, also created a big moment for A Real Pain, which didn’t just win the by-now-obligatory supporting actor statue for Culkin, but also best screenplay for Jesse Eisenberg, who will go head-to-head with Baker in the same category at the Oscars. (Anora, in a somewhat puzzling turn, wasn’t even nominated for its screenplay at the Spirits). Could Eisenberg be far more competitive than many people assumed at the Oscars, where he’s also up against The Brutalist, September 5 and The Substance?
Many of the other Spirits winners, like Sean Wang’s film Didi or breakthrough performance winner Maisy Stella of My Old Ass, aren’t factors in the Oscar race. To me this is how it should be — if we’re going to have this many awards shows, we may as well spread the wealth.
That said, I’m completely baffled that I Saw The TV Glow, which tied Anora for the most Spirit Awards nominations, went home completely empty-handed. The film’s director. Jane Schoenbrun, was one of the undeniable breakthrough talents of 2024 and makes the kind of uncompromising, personal films the Spirits were created to honor. Given that Spirits voting ended just after Anora’s big guild wins, I’m guessing the voters — a wide-ranging group of Film Independent members — were simply eager to be part of the Anora wave.
Not exactly what I think of as an independent spirit, but hard to blame them.
A Call From the Vatican
I’ll try not to make too much of the results of the USC Scripter Awards, handed out Saturday and voted on by a small selection committee that may or may not overlap much at all with the Oscar voting body. But it marked another moment of victory for Conclave writer Peter Straughan, who seems to be cruising to victory in the adapted screenplay category even up against fellow best picture nominees A Complete Unknown, NIckel Boys and Emilia Pérez.
Straughan’s work adapting Thomas Harris’ bestseller to the screen was, as he admitted to me, a remarkably easy process, which isn’t usually what you hear from someone gunning for a major award. But that also captures the polished charm of Conclave itself, a well-crafted thriller for grown-ups that plays well for virtually any audience.
I’ll make a lot more of Conclave’s SAG Award for best ensemble, which was a bit of a surprise — beating out the mega-popular Wicked and the still-surging Anora — but also a bit not. Conclave won the BAFTA for best film just a week ago, and being universally well-liked surely helps with the 150,000-plus SAG-AFTRA members who take part in final SAG Awards voting.
Accepting the award on behalf of the cast, the usually unflappable Ralph Fiennes looked a bit dazed, holding hands with co-star Sergio Castellitto (aka the vaping Cardinal Tedesco) and referencing the evening’s running theme of “community,” given the show’s focus on L.A. wildfire relief and the union hosting the show itself.
The SAG win for Conclave was probably the worst-case scenario for Anora, which still has three major precursor wins to Conclave’s two, but is now running against a genuine second-place threat, not the divided field we’ve been looking at all season. Conclave’s European bona fides — filmed in Rome, produced in the UK — could give it an even stronger edge with the more international Academy than with BAFTA, and the best picture Oscar ballot’s use of the preferential ballot means that even second or third place votes for Conclave could help put it over the top.
Then again, Anora has the Palme d’Or, robust critical acclaim and the crucial best director nomination that Conclave lacks. We now have to spend the next week wondering just how fragile Anora’s frontrunner status has been and whether the plot of Conclave — in which a quieter contender swoops out of nowhere at the end to clinch the papacy — is about to play out in real life, too.
The Best Actress Toss-Up That Wasn’t
It seems likely that the SAG Awards producers expected a bigger night for Anora than what actually happened. Mikey Madison had the prime opening spot in the beloved “I’m an Actor” opening sequence, her co-stars and fellow ensemble nominees Yura Borisov and Mark Eydelshteyn beaming behind her. The trio showcased what reads as genuine affection for one another later as they laughed through some teleprompter flubs introducing a clip from their film.
But in the end it was Demi Moore who won the lead actress prize, giving another rousing, emotional speech that reflected back on the many decades of her career and what it means to finally win a major award after being dismissed so long, as she said at the Golden Globes, as a “popcorn actress.” Surely many of the SAG-AFTRA voters can relate to that feeling of being underestimated, and can aspire to their own comeback story far more easily than they can imagine a breakthrough at the age of 25 like Madison’s.
Surely plenty of Academy members already voted for Madison on the basis of her barnburner, utterly transformative performance. But if the question has been whether Moore’s awards season narrative is enough to lead to a best actress Oscar triumph . . . I think that question has now been answered. Then again, I know pundits who still think Madison is going to win, so you tell me.
The Best Actor Race Finally Gets Some Heat
I confidently assumed last week that Adrien Brody would win yet another lead actor award from SAG, but I was as delighted as anyone to see Timothée Chalamet take home his first major prize for playing Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. Chalamet’s speech, a little bit rambling but also very genuine as he spoke about his aspirations for greatness, is exactly what you want from a 29-year-old movie star. But, again, Oscar voting is closed. So did it come too late?
Brody, it turns out, has never won a SAG Award. The year he won his Oscar for The Pianist, the SAG winner was a veteran Oscar winner in a vast historical drama — Daniel Day-Lewis for Gangs of New York. Is history about to repeat itself and allow Chalamet to beat Brody’s own record and become the youngest ever best actor winner? Brody still has the BAFTA and Golden Globe wins behind him, plus the longstanding Academy tendency to make younger actors pay their dues before a big win. But if there’s ever a year for those old rules to fall by the wayside, this might be it.
3 SAG Standouts Including Emmy Hints
There was so much else going on at the SAG Awards besides the Oscar race drama, so before we wrap up, three more memorable moments from the Shrine:
I. Hostess With the Most
Kristen Bell once again made a terrific host, particularly in the opening musical parody of her big Frozen song paired with clips from some of the nominees’ first-ever acting jobs. The SAG Awards always do a better job than any other awards show of looking back at the long arc of a Hollywood career, and how many dinky stops there are on the way to greatness. This montage captures that skill beautifully.
II. Fonda’s Fire
Jane Fonda’s rousing speech was by far the most political moment of this awards season, but truly you would expect no less from someone who’s been a political activist so long that she was on Richard Nixon’s enemies list. I doubt anyone will come to the Oscars as fired up as Fonda, but I do wonder if Hollywood’s hesitation to publicly speak out against Trump is starting to crumble in the face of relentless bad news from Washington. Maybe if more of Hollywood could find the courage of their convictions, 87-year-old Fonda could finally get some rest!
III. Murders’ Moment
On the TV side, many of the winners were rubber-stamped from the previous Emmy season and are at last taking their final bow — please enjoy your return to normal life, Baby Reindeer and Shōgun casts. But I think we can officially call Colin Farrell the frontrunner for best actor in a limited series this fall for his performance in The Penguin, which has already earned him Critics Choice and Golden Globe awards.
I’m very curious if there’s a real surge happening for Only Murders in the Building, which picked up a surprise comedy ensemble win over both Hacks and The Bear, as well as a comedy actor statue for Martin Short. Murders will be eligible at this year’s Emmys for last summer’s Hollywood-set fourth season, and though it’s rare for a show to gain steam with awards shows as it gets older, it’s not unheard of (Schitt’s Creek, anyone?). Who wouldn’t want to see another stunned speech from Selena Gomez speaking on behalf of that terrific cast?
Excellent analysis. One note: Robert Harris (not Thomas Harris) wrote the novel Conclave.