Nineteen years ago, directors Alexander Payne and Martin Scorsese had competing best picture nominees. Payne, an indie darling making his biggest foray yet into the mainstream, had Sideways, a dyspeptic but ultimately warmhearted comedy starring Paul Giamatti. Scorsese had The Aviator, a dense historical epic starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

This year, Payne has a strong best picture contender in The Holdovers, a dyspeptic but ultimately warmhearted comedy starring Paul Giamatti. Scorsese has Killers of the Flower Moon, a dense historical epic starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Perhaps there truly is nothing new under the sun.

Both directors have honed their viewpoints in the nearly 20 years since their last matchup, of course. Killers of the Flower Moon has a solemn social conscience, the product of Scorsese taking time in his golden years to truly process the American greed and violence that has long been a focus of his work. Payne, following a swing into the surreal with 2017’s Downsizing, is returning to his lo-fi roots with The Holdovers—but there is a weary compassion present in the film that was perhaps harder to find in more biting earlier efforts like Citizen Ruth and Election. The Holdovers was a hit at both Telluride and Toronto. Killers of the Flower Moon earned raves at the Cannes Film Festival. Both films are strong contenders, mature works from masters assured in their craft.

Another seasoned pro in the mix is Christopher Nolan, the technical wizard behind many (maybe even most) of this century’s cerebral blockbusters. He’s still riding high on this summer’s Oppenheimer, a three-hour opus about humanity’s determination to destroy itself. Not only was Oppenheimer a well-reviewed box office smash, it was the agreeably somber half of the Barbenheimer phenomenon, a double-feature monoculture event that revived faith in the theatrical distribution model.

Many industry folks, some of whom are no doubt Oscar voters, are grateful to Nolan for all that he’s done for the business: tethering auteur-ish prestige to marketability, vocally resisting the streaming incursion. That, coupled with the fact that Nolan is widely seen as overdue for his first Oscar, makes him a strong best director contender. But Oppenheimer as a whole should not be discounted. It may not be as screener-friendly as some of its competitors, but Oppenheimer has enjoyed one of the defining film narratives of 2023. A best picture win would be a fitting end to that story.

As for the other half of the summer box office equation, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie made more money than Oppenheimer, most of it without the advantage of IMAX pricing. It’s not a weighty, masculine affair like Oppenheimer—which better fits the traditional best picture mold—but Barbie’s difference is probably its greatest asset. Gerwig’s film created a new version of branded filmmaking, swaddling its IP commercialism in sociopolitical commentary. If 2023 becomes known for one film, it will be Barbie, a movie that leaned into its cynical origins hard enough that it broke through to some other realm.

But maybe the Academy, or at least enough of the Academy, isn’t quite ready for that seismic shift. They could, instead, turn to Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, a Leonard Bernstein biopic that is comfortably recognizable as an old-fashioned awards movie while still taking artistic swings. Cooper is mesmerizing in the lead role, as is his costar, Carey Mulligan. While reviews for the film may be somewhat muted, the stars have been almost universally praised. Which might mean that Maestro’s best chances are in the acting categories—or, the film, buoyed by its beloved performances, could snatch best picture as a popular tiered-ballot second choice.

At this year’s Venice Film Festival, Maestro was perhaps the glitziest competition entry. But it had a bit of its thunder stolen by Yorgos Lanthimos’s sex-happy bildungsroman Poor Things, a movie originally scheduled for release in early September but that was, in a bit of strange luck, pushed to the more prestigious climes of December. Poor Things is in much better position now, with time to build on the momentum created by its top-prize victory at Venice and sustained good notices from subsequent festivals.

All of the filmmakers I’ve thus far mentioned have directed best picture nominees in the past. So what of the new class? First-time filmmaker Celine Song had a debut for the ages in Past Lives, a Sundance breakout that was a modest summer hit for A24. A decades-spanning romantic drama, Past Lives is gauzy and gentle but far from insubstantial. It offers a bleary, soul-stirring consideration of immigration and aging, animated by lovely performances from Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, and John Magaro.

Jonathan Glazer is perhaps one of the cinéaste world’s most respected filmmakers, despite having made only four films. His latest is The Zone of Interest, a Holocaust movie focused on the perpetrators rather than the victims. Glazer’s film is harrowing, operating at a clinical remove but certainly not spare in style or effect. The Zone of Interest is such a visceral statement of artistic vision that even the more art-film-averse members of the Academy might embrace it. The Zone of Interest took second place at Cannes; the Palme d’Or winner was Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, an electrifying drama starring best actress contender Sandra Hüller, who also plays a supporting role in Glazer’s film. Anatomy has played like gangbusters at subsequent film festivals—a frequent Telluride talking point, a hot-ticket sensation at Toronto—and may be the best positioned of any non-American film.

Speaking of Telluride, those weeping sounds you may have heard from that festival can likely be attributed to Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers, a ghostly tearjerker about a lonely middle-ager (played with delicate intensity by Irish cult favorite Andrew Scott) reconnecting with his long-dead parents. He also strikes up a romance with a younger man, gracefully embodied by actor of the moment Paul Mescal. All of Us Strangers, largely well reviewed and already bolstered by the stars’ die-hard fandom, may be on the fringes of what the Academy deems acceptable gay material, what with its sex and drugs and, you know, adults talking about being gay. Hopefully, some of that old institutional bias has lessened, given the group’s younger and more international contingent of members.

Which could also mean good things for Todd Haynes, to whom the Academy has long seemed allergic. Some Haynes films have scored nominations, but he himself has only been nominated once. (His Carol directing snub was one of the great shames of that year.) Might that change with his Cannes hit May December? There’s a chance, if the Academy decides to embrace Haynes’s mix of genuine pathos and winking melodrama. May December concerns risqué subject matter—it details the decades-later fallout of a much older woman’s relationship with a middle-school student—but there is nonetheless something disarmingly (almost discomfitingly?) accessible about it.

While not a film about queer people, May December approaches its material from a queer perspective—it’s not camp, exactly, but it maybe lives next door, wry and arch as it is. That’s not a wavelength that the Academy tends to groove on, but it could be that the glowing star presence of Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman—each giving near career-best performances—attracts enough voters. Regardless of what other nods it gets, May December ending up on the best picture list of 10 would be a coup for one of American independent cinema’s most cherished filmmakers.

Or maybe The Color Purple, which at press time had not screened for critics, will run away with the top prize. It’s adapted from a hit musical, which is itself adapted from a beloved novel that was previously turned into a Steven Spielberg film. The film has a formidable pedigree and features an array of strong performers: Colman Domingo, Danielle Brooks, Taraji P. Henson, and Fantasia Barrino, who was a stellar replacement in the original Broadway cast.

Whatever the chances of the films I’ve ruminated on here, a dynamic and almost certainly ever-changing road to the Dolby is newly laid out before us. The Academy is still in the throes of redefinition: continuing its diversity push, trying to stop the ratings hemorrhaging, and confronting a broader film industry at war with itself. Maybe the Oscars can help make some sense of it all.