Every awards season there are the favourites who tend to win big gongs at other ceremonies before picking up the Oscar at the end of it all.
This year the most likely contender across the board in the Best Actor categories is Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer.
The 47-year-old star is hotly tipped to win the Academy Award after picking up the Golden Globe for Best Drama Actor.
However, the big shock of last night’s Critics’ Choice Awards was the Irish actor losing to Paul Giamatti.
The Holdovers star also picked up a Golden Globe for Best Comedy/Musical Actor and it looks like the awards race between the two is closer than expected.
There was a similar race between The Whale’s Brendan Fraser and Elvis’ Austin Butler last year. The latter won the Golden Globe and the BAFTA, but the former took the Critics’ Choice Award, the SAG Award and the Oscar.
As it stands on Oddschecker, Murphy’s chances of taking the Academy Award have slipped slightly from 1-3 to 2-5, but he remains odds on. Meanwhile, Giamatti has been cut from 5-1 to 3-1 after leapfrogging Maestro’s Bradley Cooper, who has slipped back from 9-4 to 8-1.
Presumably, after the BAFTA winner is announced in a month we will see the odds shift again. In all the other major Oscar categories (except actresses), Oppenheimer is expected to sweep the board, with odds on chances for the likes of Christopher Nolan and Robert Downey Jr.
Meanwhile, there’s a close Best Actress race between Killers of the Flower Moon’s Lily Gladstone on 8-13 and Poor Things’ Emma Stone on 6-4, who both won Golden Globes.
The 96th Academy Awards will take place on March 10, 2024.
