Oscars 2024: Shortlists reveal front-runners for documentary, international features

When the motion picture academy announced the shortlists for 10 categories for the 2024 Oscars, you could hear the usual rumblings and grumblings around town. Ignoring “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” in hair and makeup — despite the movie’s world-record 22,500 prosthetics — feels like a choice, just the latest sign that people have moved past Marvel fatigue and entered a new stage: complete and utter indifference.

The other thing you might have been hearing went a little something like this:

Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches
Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches

Were you shedding a tear for Bowser and Jack Black or breathing a sigh of relief that this one-note (almost one-word) piano ballad from “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” did not make the original-song shortlist? I started the day somewhere in the middle. But since I can no longer get the song’s chorus out of my head and will be hearing it for the rest of the time I spend writing this column, I’ll be happy to be rid of it sooner than later.

What did the shortlists tell us about how some of the Oscar races might pan out this year? Let’s survey the international feature and documentary feature categories and see what — Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches — sorry ... this is turning into a problem — we might learn.

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

I’ve written a fair amount about Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest,” predicting that Glazer will earn an Oscar nomination from the director’s branch and that the film itself is a likely best picture nominee. Glazer’s chilling drama, set in the shadow of Auschwitz and focusing on the family life of its commandant Rudolf Höss, will also, of course, be nominated for international feature. Its shortlist mentions for sound designer Johnnie Burn and composer Mica Levi mirror the awards that the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. gave the movie last month, heralding the film’s richly detailed soundscape, which provides an often nightmarish contrast to the idyllic scenes we’re seeing on the screen.

Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona’s “Society of the Snow” also popped up in multiple shortlists — international feature, hair and makeup, original score and visual effects. The movie focuses on the 1972 Uruguayan rugby team forced to resort to cannibalism to survive after their plane crashed in the Andes on the way to a match in Chile. It’s a familiar story, told in countless books and movies, mined for dark humor and the basis for an Emmy-nominated TV show. Bayona manages to reclaim the tale, making “Society of the Snow” the most meticulously faithful account to date. Its Netflix platform guarantees that, like last year’s Oscar powerhouse “All Quiet on the Western Front,” it will be widely seen.

There’s much to recommend from the remaining baker’s dozen of shortlisted international features, and voters could go any number of ways in winnowing the list down to five nominees. Tran Anh Hung’s beautiful romance “The Taste of Things” has everything you’d want from a French film — gourmet food, lively conversation, passion, love and Juliette Binoche. “Fallen Leaves” is a dry, deadpan romantic-comedy from Finnish master Aki Kaurismäki. It’s a hopeful film set in a hardened world, and we need more movies like that. Plus, it’s 81 minutes long. We need more movies like that, too.

Mexican director Lila Avilés’ “Tótem” showed up on a ton of Top 10 lists for its bittersweet portrait of a young girl navigating through the tension of a party thrown to celebrate the life of her dying father. It’s unforgettable and, as the only Latin American film shortlisted, distinct from the other movies cited.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

This hasn’t been a buzzy year for documentaries, and a trio of excellent titles — “Pigeon Tunnel,” “Little Richard: I Am Everything” and “Kokomo City” — didn’t make the cut. Two obvious standouts that did, “Four Daughters” and “20 Days in Mariupol,” also showed up on the international feature shortlist. Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters” blends real interviews with staged reenactments to depict a mother trying to understand what compelled two of her girls to flee and join ISIS in Libya. “20 Days in Mariupol,” Ukrainian filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov’s document of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, premiered at the 2023 Sundance festival and remains essential viewing a year later.

“Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” began the season as the documentary that voters knew best. Fox received an honorary Oscar at the 2022 Governors Awards, earning the evening’s warmest ovation. “Michael J. Fox never asked for the role of Parkinson’s patient, disease advocate,” Woody Harrelson said that night. “But make no mistake, it is his greatest performance. Vulnerable? Yes. Victim? Never. An inspiration? Always.” Davis Guggenheim’s film followed along those lines in its heartwarming, unsparing portrait of an icon transcending his affliction. It also demonstrated, through incisive new interviews, how Fox’s self-deprecating wit remains as spiky as ever.

But the Fox documentary’s viewership may now have been surpassed by “American Symphony,” Matthew Heineman’s look at musician Jon Batiste trying to realize a professional dream while his wife, writer Suleika Jaouad, battles leukemia that had been in remission for a decade. What began as a chronicle of Batiste’s attempt to write a symphony capturing America in all its contradictions and complexity, turned into a document of love, faith and perseverance as well.

Netflix acquired “American Symphony” shortly after its fall premiere at the Telluride Film Festival and screened it frequently throughout the fall before it landed on the platform in November. Music branch voters gave it a boost, too, shortlisting the love ballad Batiste wrote for his wife, “It Never Went Away,” for original song. It’s not going to best “Barbie” in that category, but its mention indicates that “American Symphony” could well go on to claim the documentary Oscar at the Academy Awards in March.