Oscars Outsider

Oscars Outsider

Oscars Outsider is a podcast where Craig Midwinter and Dylan Ferguson break down the Oscars the way most people break down sports. We follow the awards race week by week — the narratives, the precursors, the surprises, the discourse, and the strategy behind every contender’s campaign. We treat awards season like a competitive ecosystem, tracking momentum, analyzing the politics of voting bodies, and running our own Oscars Fantasy Draft to score nominations, wins, snubs, and everything in between. If you care about movies and the game behind the movies, you’re in the right place.

  1. 3d ago

    How Do You Predict the Oscars’ Newest Category? | Best Casting Predictions

    Best Casting is only entering its second year at the Oscars — so what exactly are voters looking for?We make our early predictions for one of the hardest categories in the race, debating whether the Academy will favour huge star-studded ensembles, smaller perfectly cast films, or simply follow the Best Picture field. Is The Odyssey already the obvious frontrunner? Can The Invite break through with only four major roles? And what do we make of Wild Horse Nine, Being Human, The Debut, Prime Time and the rest of the field?Before that, we dig into the Gotham Award nominations and what they might tell us about The Invite, Tender Loving Care, You Can See Everything and the International Feature race. We also look at whether the Oscars’ new International Feature rules actually changed anything, Netflix running into resistance over the Cliff Booth IMAX release, The Odyssey beginning its full awards-season push, and the latest campaign moves around the race.Plus: Dune, Fjord, La Bola Negra, Léa Seydoux, Project Hail Mary and more as Oscar season keeps taking shape.Oscars Outsider covers the awards race, Hollywood history and the movies fighting their way toward Oscar night.Tell us your Best Casting picks in the comments.Chapters:0:00 Gotham Awards Nominations14:31 International Feature Rule Change23:14 Hollywood News Roundup39:00 Best Casting History40:36 Best Casting Predictions51:40 Winner and Omissions

    How Do You Predict the Oscars’ Newest Category? | Best Casting Predictions

  2. Oct 27

    Golden Globes Category Fraud and the history of Horror at the Oscars

    Is it category fraud? The Golden Globes just rejected Michael's musical/comedy submission, and Obsession got through. We rule on it. Dylan and Craig play Fraud or Fair across Golden Globes history: Walk the Line, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Martian, Get Out, The Substance and If I Had Legs I'd Kick You. They then rule on Michael and Obsession. They also cover the Netflix firings, Cliff Booth, Zendaya for Dune III, You Can See Everything's Best Picture buzz, and a Halloween history of horror at the Oscars from The Exorcist to Sinners. "The Golden Globes Are Rigged": https://youtu.be/zAhB_upf1rs Tell us your own fraud calls in the comments. Chapters: 0:00 Intro 1:48 Netflix and awards news 18:34 Golden Globes category controversy 21:40 Fraud or fair rulings 36:21 History of horror at the Oscars

    Golden Globes Category Fraud and the history of Horror at the Oscars

  3. Oct 20

    Which Oscar Predictions Did We Get Wrong? + The VFX Race

    With festival season behind us, it’s time to check the receipts. This week on Oscars Outsider, Craig and Dylan revisit some of their earliest predictions for the 2027 Oscar race. Which calls have aged surprisingly well — and which ones are looking increasingly difficult to defend? We reassess our early reads on films and performances including Fjord, The Social Reckoning, Artificial, Fatherland and more. Then we turn to Best Visual Effects, looking back at the history of the category before predicting this year’s five nominees. Are Dune: Part Three, The Odyssey and Project Hail Mary already locks? Could Godzilla Minus Zero, Wildwood or an unexpected contender crash the lineup? And which film is actually positioned to win? Plus: another big Oscars fantasy-draft trade, Netflix’s changing theatrical strategy, the increasingly serious awards push for Obsession, and our extremely measured response to the plan to release four Beatles movies at once. Tell us which early predictions you got completely wrong — and who we’re overlooking in Best Visual Effects. https://oscarsoutsider.com #Oscars2027 #OscarsPredictions #AwardsSeason #BestVisualEffects #OscarsOutsider

    Which Oscar Predictions Did We Get Wrong? + The VFX Race

  4. Oct 14

    Who Will Be the Villain of the 2027 Oscars?

    Craig and Dylan ask one of the juiciest questions of awards season: who is going to become this year’s Oscar villain?What actually makes a movie the villain of an awards race? We look back at some notorious examples — The Greatest Show on Earth, Crash, La La Land, and Green Book — and examine how politics, frontrunner fatigue, backlash, and the movie positioned as the “hero” can completely reshape an Oscar season.Then we turn to 2027. Could Fjord become the political lightning rod? Is I Play Rocky the kind of broad, backward-looking crowd-pleaser that awards watchers eventually turn on? Could Michael, Obsession, or even Toy Story 5 become the movie everyone is desperate to see lose?Plus: immediate changes to our Oscars Fantasy Draft, Artificial surging after New York, The Social Reckoning stumbling, Digger fading, and which films came out of NYFF looking stronger — or much weaker.Who do you think will be the villain of this awards season?#Oscars2027 #OscarsPredictions #AwardsSeason #OscarsOutsider

    Who Will Be the Villain of the 2027 Oscars?

  5. Oct 6

    Will Digger even get drafted? It's our 2027 Oscars Fantasy Draft!

    It's DRAFT DAY on Oscars Outsider! Craig and Dylan go head-to-head in our second annual Oscars Fantasy Draft, selecting 26 films they think will dominate the 2027 Academy Awards and the awards season leading up to them. With *The Odyssey* looking like the obvious first overall pick, is there any strategy that can beat Christopher Nolan's epic? And how much should we be willing to gamble on films like *Dune: Part Three*, *Project Hail Mary*, and *I Play Rocky*? Plus, we dig into the disastrous opening of *Digger*, debate whether Tom Cruise still has a shot at an Oscar nomination, and discuss what the Warner Bros. shake-up could mean for the future of ambitious studio filmmaking. There are risky picks, an actual draft-day trade, some immediate regrets, and a few movies we might already be betting against. **Follow the draft all season long:** https://oscarsoutsider.com Who has the stronger roster? What did we draft way too early? And which movie did we foolishly leave on the board? Let us know in the comments! #Oscars2027 #OscarsPredictions #TheOdyssey #Dune3 #OscarsOutsider

    Will Digger even get drafted? It's our 2027 Oscars Fantasy Draft!

  6. Sep 29

    Oscar News, NYFF Buzz & Best Documentary Predictions

    The Oscar race keeps getting messier. We break down the first reactions to Digger, the New York Film Festival relaunch of Paper Tiger, the growing momentum behind I Play Rocky, and the latest category-placement news around The Odyssey. Then we dive into what may be the most controversial Oscar category: Best Documentary. We make our early documentary predictions and get into NAZA, Musk, 14th, You Can See Everything, The History of Concrete, Once Upon a Time in Harlem and more — plus the bizarre history of a category where Academy voters once reportedly used flashlights to signal when they wanted a movie eliminated. And before we wrap up, we preview next week’s Oscars Outsider fantasy draft and some of the rule changes we’re making for year two.

    Oscar News, NYFF Buzz & Best Documentary Predictions

  7. Sep 22

    Does Digger Have A Tom Cruise Problem? + NYFF Preview

    Is Digger already in trouble before it even opens?With the film’s release approaching, we look at the warning signs around Warner Bros.’ campaign, the strange press tour built around Tom Cruise’s “Mr. Movies” persona, and whether Cruise can still sell an original movie the way his reputation suggests.We also wrap up TIFF, where La Bola Negra won the People’s Choice Award and cemented itself as a major Best Picture contender, before previewing the New York Film Festival. Which films could surge in New York—and which could leave with their Oscar stock damaged?Plus: Artificial, Behemoth!, Fjord, Paper Tiger, You Can See Everything, I Play Rocky, and more as the fall festival season starts reshaping the Oscar race.Oscars Outsider covers the awards race, film festivals, Hollywood history, and the movies fighting their way toward Oscar night.Our last year's Oscars fantasy draft: https://youtu.be/wlQ7VZcnNPo

    Does Digger Have A Tom Cruise Problem? + NYFF Preview

  8. Sep 15

    Venice Shocks the Oscar Race! Is Fjord Starting to Fall?

    The fall festival season is starting to reshape the Oscar race.We break down the surprising end of the Venice Film Festival, where Woman Unknown pulled off an unexpected Golden Lion win, before turning to one of the biggest questions coming out of Telluride and TIFF: is Fjord suddenly in trouble? After winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes, its North American reception has been much more divided—and the backlash could matter when awards season gets serious.We also get into the huge TIFF response to I Play Rocky, whether it could become this year’s crowd-pleasing Best Picture contender, the growing buzz around Artificial, Netflix finally giving some of its awards movies real theatrical windows, France’s latest International Feature dilemma, and some increasingly wild Oscar predictions.Oscars Outsider looks at the awards race, film festivals, Hollywood, and Oscar history from slightly outside the usual consensus.Subscribe for weekly Oscar predictions, reactions, and film history.I’d use “Is Fjord Starting to Fall?” rather than repeating “Is Fjord in Trouble?” verbatim—the thumbnail and title reinforce each other without saying exactly the same thing.

    Venice Shocks the Oscar Race! Is Fjord Starting to Fall?
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Ratings & Reviews

4.3
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

Oscars Outsider is a podcast where Craig Midwinter and Dylan Ferguson break down the Oscars the way most people break down sports. We follow the awards race week by week — the narratives, the precursors, the surprises, the discourse, and the strategy behind every contender’s campaign. We treat awards season like a competitive ecosystem, tracking momentum, analyzing the politics of voting bodies, and running our own Oscars Fantasy Draft to score nominations, wins, snubs, and everything in between. If you care about movies and the game behind the movies, you’re in the right place.

Information

  • Creator
    Oscars Outsider
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    138
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Oscars Outsider
  • Show Website
    Oscars Outsider

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