We had six films release this past weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations.

Babylon

After his auspicious debut with the acclaimed Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, director Damien Chazelle earned attention for his second film, Whiplash, which picked up his first Oscar nominations. The film received five in total and won 3 for supporting actor J.K. Simmons, Film Editing, and Sound Mixing. His third directorial effort was an even more massive success, earning a record-tying 14 nominations with his first for directing. The film did incredibly well through precursor season, but always seemed to be struggling against Moonlight. By the time the final prize was announced, it had 6 Oscars to its name including one for Chazelle himself for directing. Yet, the biggest gaffe in Oscar history happened when La La Land was announced as the winner, but had to be walked back when the real winner, Moonlight was revealed. That thoroughly unprecedented incident may well have presaged his future appeal to Oscar voters.

He followed that up with First Man, which had all the earmarks of a major contender, but fumbled through the season only early four nominations, all craft citations, and winning a single award for Best Visual Effects. Now we have Babylon when the film was announced, it seemed like another surefire Oscar contender featuring Oscar winner Brad Pitt and Oscar nominee Margot Robbie in a lavish return to silent-era Hollywood. Then the reviews came out. Critics have been fairly well split with supporters and detractors on diametrically opposed extremes. While the film has earned universal praise for its production values, here’s another film that could struggle to make the final Best Picture slate.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Back in 2001, animation had earned such a solid reputation as a dependable genre that the Academy decided to bestow its first ever Best Animated Feature Oscar. Shrek, which was a big box office success, was one of the first three films nominated for the award. It even managed to pick up the trophy, one of the small number of non-Disney/Pixar films to earn that prize even though Pixar is the main reason the category existed at that point. Its entry that year, Monsters, Inc.. lost.

The second film, Shrek 2 released three years later and was again nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar, but by then, Academy voters were tiring of sequels and the film lost and its subsequent two films didn’t earn nominations at all. Then Puss in Boots spun off 10 years after the first film released and was incredibly popular, managing to buck the trend and earn an Animated Feature nomination. We’re now 11 years past that film’s release and the sequel has finally reached theaters, but its box office has been lackluster. While the film is earning high praise, that box office defeat might injure its chances with the Academy. That said, most of Disney/Pixar’s releases have fizzled out and the minor animated efforts are struggling to catch on. It’s still possible The Last Wish makes the final list, but sequels always struggle and so its place is nowhere near guaranteed.

Corsage

Marie Kreutzler’s biopic of Empress Elisabeth of Austria and her obsession over her looks. The film stars Vicky Krieps and premiered at Cannes and was Austria’s submission for Best International Feature Film. Krieps has earned acclaim in the role and the film made the shortlist for consideration for Best Animated Feature, so its prospects are looking up. While it’s unlikely Krieps will make it into Best Actress, the film has a pretty solid chance at an International Feature nomination. While it might not be a shoo-in for Best Actress, the film has decent chances at Best Production Design and Best Costume Design, two categories that have been known to look kindly upon non-English language entries, especially period films.

Living

Americans have been remaking foreign cinema for decades, but they don’t always wait so long to take their stab at it. Enter Living with a screenplay by renowned novelist Kazuo Ishiguro. The film is adapted from Akira Kurosawa classic Ikiru (which was itself based on The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy) and features Bill Nighy as a civil servant who decides to take time off and live a full life in the face of a deadly diagnosis.

While the film hasn’t mustered much attention from critics, Nighy’s performance has been regularly cited as a highlight of the year’s male performances. It’s been so frequently recognized (when Brendan Fraser and Colin Farrell aren’t soaking up the awards) that he’s certain to nab his first nomination at the age of 73. While the film hasn’t made many waves outside of Best Actor, the respected Ishiguro might just slip into the Adapted Screenplay race as a nominee. Neither are likely to win.

The Pale Blue Eye

In spite of his auspicious debut in 2009 with Crazy Heart, writer/director Scott Cooper has been struggling to get Oscar’s attention. This is his sixth film so far and may well be the closest he’s come to Oscar in 13 years. The film stars Christian Bale, who has appeared in two of his prior efforts, as a detective trying to uncover the culprit in a grisly series of murders taking place at West Point. It’s based on a novel by em>Louis Bayard. The film co-stars Henry Melling as Edgar Allan Poe, Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, Timothy Spall, and Robert Duvall.

This noteworthy cast might have bolstered the film’s chances with the Academy except for two issues. The first is that the film released abysmally late in the year after much of the conversation had started to solidify. The second is that critics haven’t been exactly enthusiastic about the film. As such, why would it be considered for the Oscar Preview? three words: production design and costumes. The designers in the Academy can look past a film’s detractions to elevate films to Oscar consideration and while this still seems like a bit of a long shot, the potential is there.

Women Talking

The final film on our lengthy list this week is the new film from Sarah Polley. Polley started her career as an actor in 1985. Her most noteworthy role came in 1997 as the lone survivor of a bus crash in Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter. She stepped behind the camera in 1999 to make a series of short films, but it was her feature debut with 2006’s Away from Her that put her on the map. That film starred Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent, and Olympia Dukakis. It was a critical hit and although it didn’t make it into the Best Picture slate, Christie was nominated for Best Actress and Polley herself was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. Her second film, Take This Waltz, although well received, was ignored by the Academy.

Her third film was a documentary, one that played to great critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the Academy’s Best Documentary Feature award. It was a shock to many that the Academy ignored the film, which brings us to her first big screen effort in 10 years. Women Talking is set at an ultraconservative Mennonite colony in Bolivia where the women grapple with the revelation that the men of the community had been drugging and raping them for years, something that conflicts directly with their devout faith. The film has been amassing a surprising number of citations this year, earning spots on numerous best of lists and earning several Best Picture nominations. The film is quietly becoming one of the prominent films of this Oscar year and could land Polley her second Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay along with several others for the film itself.