5 podcasts for Hollywood’s awards season
The 2024 awards season is looking unusually hectic so far, thanks to the Emmy Awards being postponed from their usual fall broadcast date to January. To help make sense of it all — and reveal the turbulent state of Hollywood right now — these five podcasts offer a mix of expert analysis and predictions for the big ceremonies, original reporting on industry trends and behind-the-scenes machinations influencing voting, and reflections on Oscar front-runners of the past that you may not have missed. It wasn’t meant to be.
This Vanity Fair series debuted in 2015, which means it was on hand to chronicle some of the strangest moments in Academy history, like the 2017 Best Picture award (when “La La Land” was mistakenly announced as the winner instead of… “Moonlight”), 2021’s muted Covid ceremony held in a cavernous Los Angeles train station, and slapping heard around the world in 2022. But even when there’s nothing unusual going on, the analysis here always makes awards season that much more interesting . Vanity Fair journalists Katie Rich, Richard Lawson David Canfield, and Rebecca Ford’s always comprehensive and knowledgeable conversation explores not only the contenders for Hollywood’s biggest awards, but also the campaigns and strategies shaping the race. Since many Oscar journeys begin at film festivals like Sundance, Cannes, Venice, and Toronto, there’s no shortage of news and releases to cover throughout the year, not to mention interviews; Recent guests have included Andrew Scott (“All of Us Strangers”) and Emma Stone (“Poor”). Things”) and Greta Lee (“Past Lives”).
Episode 1: “Oscars Voters, Start Your Engines”
There’s a strange category of films that debut to great fanfare, attract tons of awards, and then fade from the cultural consciousness without a trace (and no awards). Not all of the films discussed in “This Had Oscar Buzz” fall into this category, but, as the title suggests, the focus is on films that had that buzz around them, at least for a while. An early episode of “Cake,” the 2014 film starring Jennifer Aniston as a woman suffering from chronic pain, exemplifies what works so well in this format — Aniston was praised for her box-office performance, and campaigned extensively during the season. Awards this. But he was snubbed on the morning of the Oscar nomination. The show’s hosts, Joe Reed and Chris Vill, don’t downplay the performances or the hype, but rather use the hype around “Cake” as a jumping-off point to discuss Aniston’s career and wider fame, along with the ins and outs of the series. How exactly is the hype built in the first place?
Episode 1: “Alexander (with David Sims)”
Although it’s not a traditional awards season podcast with predictions or theatrical recaps, “The Town” is an invaluable resource for anyone hoping to make sense of the turmoil in Hollywood. In quick, 30-minute episodes, Matthew Bellone, former editor of The Hollywood Reporter and co-founder of digital media company Puck, delivers exclusive insights and reporting on the industry, from the issue to last year’s book over the course of months. And actors’ strikes, or Disney’s succession problems, or the broadcast cost crisis. In a recent episode, Belloni and Brooks Barnes, the New York Times’ Hollywood correspondent, delved into the current status of the “unkillable” Golden Globe Awards, which returned last year after a hiatus sparked by controversy over non-traditional voting that has now ended. Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Traditionally the first — and most chaotic — awards ceremony on the calendar, the awards show has proven to have more staying power than many expected, and this analysis is a good resource for anyone wondering why.
