Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey might be the film to beat, but a crop of competitors is only starting to materialise in this year's Oscars race.

The fall festival circuit — Venice, Telluride, Toronto — once offered a streamlined guide to the season: what's good, what's bad, what's being sold, what has Oscar chances. With each passing year, the season instead arrives with larger, more existential questions.

The 2025 run was notably underwhelming. It took place months after Sinners went from box-office hit to legitimate contender, and at the same time as One Battle After Another skipped festivals entirely and went on to win best picture at the 2026 Oscars — on 15 March, according to the Guardian's report.

The shift marks a break with recent history. The festival pipeline that once birthed winners such as Birdman, Spotlight, 12 Years a Slave and The King's Speech no longer plays as big a part. The Covid-affected Nomadland remains the last fall festival film to win the top prize.

Even without an awards lens, the Guardian's correspondent reports a general lack of buzz — an excitement about something new that has become harder to find as more films of considerably lower quality took up underserved space.

If the trades are to be believed, much of the retreat comes down to studios choosing against the risk of bad buzz and potential embarrassment to A-listers. The calculus is blunt: for every The Shape of Water or Poor Things, there's a White Noise or Joker: Folie à Deux.

The consequence for the current season is stark. New films starring Tom Cruise, Timothée Chalamet, Anne Hathaway, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Ben Affleck and Mikey Madison are on the way, yet none of them are braving a festival premiere.

That leaves Nolan's The Odyssey as the apparent heavyweight in a field still forming. With the traditional launchpad weakened and star vehicles avoiding the circuit altogether, this year's race may be decided less by festival momentum than by whichever contender can command the conversation from outside it.