AFTER IRELAND’S STELLAR performance in the 2023 Oscar nominations, how might we perform in 2024?

There were two Irish wins at this year’s awards ceremony with Best Live-Action Short going to An Irish Goodbye and Dubliner Richard Baneham winning his second Oscar for visual effects for his work on the Avatar movies. 

Hopes had been high for wins for Banshees of Inisherin and An Cailín Ciúin on the night, back in March – but teams behind both movies left the Dolby Theater in Hollywood empty-handed.

The bets and predictions from inside Hollywood are already beginning.

There are quite a few Irish actors in high-profile films this year, and a new Yorgos Lanthimos film (Poor Things) produced by Ireland’s Element Pictures, so hopes are high about what might be to come. 

One hint for what to expect came with the Golden Globes nominations in early December. As each major awards event rolls around, the nominations give a good idea of what’s likely to nab an Oscar nomination, though each awards has its own flavour.

In addition, trends can change throughout the year. For example, there was no telling in early 2022 that Everything Everywhere All At Once would end up storming the 2023 Oscars.

The Oscar shortlists for a number of categories – including, crucially, Best International Feature and two short film categories, in which we’re hoping Irish films will make an appearance – will drop on 21 December.

This will be followed by the Oscar nomination period which will run from 11 – 16 January, and the official nominees will be announced on 23 January 2024.

Almost 10,000 Academy members will vote for the winners ahead of the 96th Oscars on 19 March 2024. 

Hints at the Golden Globes

Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott in a still from All of Us Strangers. IMDB IMDB

Already this year, we’ve seen Ireland take a third of the Booker Prize nominations. And in next year’s Golden Globes, three of the Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama nominations have gone to Irishmen: Barry Keoghan (for Saltburn), Cillian Murphy (for Oppenheimer) and Andrew Scott (for All of Us Strangers).  

One of the best predictors of who will be nominated and win at the Oscars is US magazine Variety. It’s currently predicting that Cillian Murphy will be nominated for Best Actor at the 2024 Oscars – but that Bradley Cooper will win for Maestro. It also predicts an Irish-ish nomination for Poor Things, with Mark Ruffalo predicted to appear in the Best Supporting Actor category. 

It also predicts a Cinematography nomination for Irishman Robbie Ryan for Poor Things – Ryan was also nominated in 2018 for an Oscar for working on Lanthimos’s film The Favourite. 

So far, there are no predictions for nominations for other prominent Irish films or actors this year – like Eve Hewson in Flora and Son, or Michael Fassbender in The Killer. But the Academy voters might have a different feeling towards these films. 

Other potential Irish nominations could be given to Jessie Buckley for Fingernails, or Saoirse Ronan for Foe, though these seem a little unlikely at this point.

In the Best Documentary category, we could see a potential nomination for The Deepest Breath, directed by Laura McGann, which has both a huge critical reaction and the Netflix promotional juggernaut behind it. It’s already on the longlist for Best Documentary, as is North Circular (about the road of that name in Dublin), directed by Luke McManus.

International feature

There are high hopes for In the Shadow of Beirut, an Irish documentary which has been selected by IFTA as Ireland’s entry for the 2024 Oscars.

This was co-directed by Stephen Gerard Kelly and Garry Keane and is described as “a cinematic portrait of modern-day Lebanon as seen through the eyes of four families living in the impoverished Sabra and Shatila neighbourhoods of the city, the scene of an infamous massacre in 1982″.

Short films

In addition to the features, there are three films from Screen Ireland’s flagship short film schemes in the running for the Oscars.

These are two shorts made in the Focus scheme, Sinéad O’Loughlin’s Lamb and Lochlainn McKenna’s Two For The Road, and one Frameworks short, Jessica Patterson’s Worry World.

The trio are now eligible for the Best Live Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film awards respectively.

Lamb premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and won 15 awards during its festival run, as well as a nomination at this year’s IFTA Awards. It stars Éanna Hardwicke and Aoife Duffin, and is about a woman and her child who are shaken when a sinister stranger walks into their rural home. 

Two For The Road won the Best Short Drama and Best Cinematography in a Short Film awards at the Galway Film Fleadh. This film stars newcomer Ewan Morris as a young boy and Steve Wall as his father. 

Finally, Jessica Patterson’s Worry World is set in a black-and-white world, and features a rebellious young factory worker who thinks in colour. At the Galway Film Fleadh, it received the James Horgan Award for Best Animated Short Film, while at the Newport Beach Film Festival it received the Audience Award for Best Short – Animation.

So to recap: on 21 December we’ll find out if any of our documentaries or short films made it into the shortlists for this year’s Oscars. And after that – let the speculation run wild about how many Irish actors will make it into next year’s nominations.

As previous years have taught us, some things are practically guaranteed, like a nomination for Cillian Murphy.

But there’ll also be some surprises along the way.