‘Oppenheimer’ overtakes ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ in Oscar Experts’ Best Picture predictions

When we opened our predictions center for the 2024 Oscars “Killers of the Flower Moon” emerged as the front-runner for Best Picture. But the release of Christopher Nolan‘s “Oppenheimer” has changed that. Based on the combined predictions of all Gold Derby users the two films are tied at 7/1 odds as of this writing. But when you consider just the Expert journalists we’ve surveyed from major media outlets, “Oppenheimer” has now taken the lead. Scroll down to see the Experts’ graph illustrating just how close this race has become.

We now have 19 Experts forecasting Best Picture, and just over half of them (10) are betting on “Oppenheimer,” compared to eight who are sticking with “Killers of the Flower Moon.” “Oppenheimer” has the benefit of just having been released and therefore being the subject of greater media and industry attention. It has also grossed around $650 million worldwide so far — not bad for a three-hour biopic about a morally conflicted scientist. And critics have proved just as enthusiastic about the film, which scored 88 on MetaCritic and 93% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes.

“Killers of the Flower Moon” isn’t going to take that lying down, though. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May to equally sterling reviews. When it opens in the United States on October 6 “Oppenheimer” will be in the rearview, giving Martin Scorsese‘s epic the chance to recapture the conversation. Of course, we mustn’t assume that “Oppenheimer” will simply be forgotten because of its earlier release date. Remember that the last Best Picture winner, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” was released in March 2022 and survived an entire year’s worth of Oscar talk to take top honors from the motion picture academy.

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