After breaking box-office records with a string of $40 million openings, the studio released Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, which just bolstered its status as the season's most formidable Oscar contender by sweeping the first week of precursor awards. And if, for some reason, One Battle stumbles before the finish line, the title that's best positioned to likely win in its stead is another Warner Bros. movie: Ryan Coogler's Sinners, which, like OBAA, has shown up everywhere it's needed to this season.
This week marks the 10th anniversary of Beasts of No Nation, the first feature film distributed directly by Netflix. Directed by Cari Joji Fukunaga and starring Idris Elba, the movie made a modest splash in that year's awards season, with Elba winning the SAG Award for Best Supporting Actor, before ultimately falling short of any Oscar nominations. Within three years, and after making a significant investment in its publicity apparatus (hiring ace awards strategist Lisa Tayback),