Our Film Critic Picks Her Winners for Best Picture, Actress

Hello! I’m Esther Zuckerman, and I write about movies for Pursuits. Which means I watch a lot of them. In 2024, for instance, I watched 220 new movies. The Oscars are tomorrow and that means I’ll finally have answers to questions I’ve been thinking about for the last nine months.

Yes, I start thinking about awards season as early as May, around the time of the Cannes Film Festival, which I typically attend. Last year’s installment of the glitzy affair in the South of France was where I first saw some of this year’s major contenders including Anora, The Substance and Emilia Pérez. At that point if you’d asked me which of those would be nominated for top prizes I would have definitely said Anora—which blew me away and took home the Palme d’Or—and argued there’s no way that the Oscars would go for The Substance considering how absolutely gross it is.