Don’t underestimate ‘American Fiction’ for Best Picture Oscar: Here’s why it could win

According to the combined predictions of Gold Derby users as of this writing, “American Fiction” is in ninth place with 16/1 odds for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars. The movie wasn’t high on pundits’ radar until it surprisingly won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival last month. Could we be sleeping on its chances of going all the way to win Best Picture?

Adapted from Percival Everett‘s 2001 award-winning novel “Erasure,” “American Fiction” follows Monk (Jeffrey Wright), a frustrated novelist who’s tired of the offensive tropes in “Black” entertainment. To prove his point, he writes his own outlandish book that propels him into the heart of hypocrisy and madness he claims to disdain. “American Fiction” marks the feature directorial debut of Cord Jefferson, who previously worked as a writer on quite a few TV shows such as “Master of None,” “The Good Place,” “Succession” and “Station Eleven.” He also won an Emmy in 2020 for the HBO limited series “Watchmen.”

Christopher Nolan‘s “Oppenheimer” has been the front-runner to win Best Picture ever since it was released to rave reviews and blockbuster ticket sales. It’s possible it could hang onto that status all season long and win it big in the end like “Nomadland” did in 2020. But as we’ve seen in the past, it’s often bad luck to be the front-runner early on in the race. After all, movies like “The Social Network,” “Roma” and “The Power of the Dog” were considered the ones to beat in their respective years … until they lost to feel-good crowd-pleasers “The King’s Speech,” “Green Book” and “CODA,” respectively.

In this case, “Oppenheimer” is a three-hour character study that may leave academy members feeling cold, which could result in the film itself not doing well on the preferential ballot. While some doubted films like “Birdman,” “The Shape of Water” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” would survive that consensus-driven voting system too, it was mainly because they thought voters would find them too weird. Instead, we’ve seen that the more emotionally reserved movies tend to have a harder time than the idiosyncratic ones.

“American Fiction,” on the other hand, is a satirical dramedy, which might be an easier sell to voters than a lengthy historical drama. Plus it won audience prizes at Toronto, Mill Valley and Middleburg, already proving that it is a crowd-pleaser. Critics who have gotten to see the film think so too. Lovia Gyarke (Hollywood Reporter) writes “‘American Fiction’ is smart and, thanks to its fine cast, has genuine heart.” So this could be the feel-good alternative to “Oppenheimer.”

“American Fiction” has two other important factors in common with several recent Best Picture winners, the first being its diverse cast. Consider “Moonlight” (which had a Black cast) beating “La La Land” in 2016, “Parasite” (a Korean film) over “1917” in 2019, the aforementioned “CODA” (which featured Deaf actors) over “The Power of the Dog” in 2021 and “Everything Everywhere” (led by Asian actors) over “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “The Fabelmans” in 2022.

The second factor is that since 2008 every Best Picture winner except one came from a director who never had a film nominated in that category before. The exception was Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s “Birdman” in 2014 (2006’s “Babel” was his previous Best Picture bid). You could look at that as a coincidence, but I think there’s more to it. With a name like Christopher Nolan at the helm of “Oppenheimer,” there are always going to be high expectations from critics, audiences and awards voters because of his previous history with the Oscars; so far he has scored two Best Picture nominations, for “Inception” and “Dunkirk.” Meanwhile, a new voice like Cord Jefferson coming onto the scene tends to offer more of a surprise factor and an underdog rooting factor for voters.

While Nolan could still very much win Best Director this year (where he is currently sitting in first place with 71/20 odds), that doesn’t necessarily mean “Oppenheimer” will win Best Picture. Since Best Picture expanded its nominations and switched to a preferential ballot, the two categories utilize separate voting systems. As a result, Best Picture and Best Director have often split, and Best Picture champs that lost the directing award (or weren’t even nominated there as was the case with “Argo,” “Green Book,” and “CODA”) instead won a screenplay prize to go along with it. “American Fiction” is currently in fourth place with 11/2 odds to win Best Adapted Screenplay behind “Poor Things,” “Oppenheimer” and front-runner “Killers of the Flower Moon,” but Joyce Eng recently made the case for a “Fiction” win in this race.

So if “American Fiction” does end up winning this year’s Academy Award for Best Picture, you heard it here first.

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