By Chad W. Shreeves

As 2024 winds down, the major outlets have begun to release their biggest films of the year. With several big studio and independent releases vying for top honors, the awards season buzz has begun.

One of the first major outlets to release their winners every year is the National Board of Review. Considered one of the biggest precursors to the Oscars, The NBR awards some of the year’s biggest films.

And this year, the NBR chose ‘Wicked’ as the Best Picture. The megahit Broadway adaptation has not only become a box office juggernaut, but has begun to garner significant awards buzz. The NBR result is the first step in Universal’s mounting Oscar campaign. This puts ‘Wicked’ as the potential frontrunner for the big Best Picture award.

And ‘Wicked’ went on to win two other awards from the NBR. Director John M. Chu went on to receive the coveted Best Director award and stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande obtained a “Creative Collaboration” spotlight award.

While ‘Wicked’ took the top honors, several other 2024 films have awards as well. Daniel Craig(‘Queer’) and Nicole Kidman(‘Babygirl’) obtained the Best Actor and Actress awards, respectively. Meanwhile, ‘Conclave’ Received top honors Best Ensemble, with ‘Hard Truths’ and ‘Sing Sing’ nabbing the top screenplay awards.

Surprisingly, a potential building for an Oscars Upset, ‘Flow’ received the Best Animated Feature Award, a category thought to be a toss up between two giant hits this year ‘Inside Out 2’ and ‘The Wild Robot’. Finally, the Christmas’ horror epic, ‘Nosferatu’ managed to overtake the believed frontrunner ‘Dune: Part 2’ for the Cinematography award.

While the NBR has been pretty accurate in the past, they have on occasion given out awards that did not align with Oscar votes. Similarly, last year, where the Board granted their Best Picture to ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ even though ‘Oppenheimer’ went on to win the award at the Oscars.

And with more ceremonies to come, things are beginning to look like ‘Wicked’ will be one of the films to beat once the SAG and Oscar nominations release.

The Everything Entertainment Network is an Independent News Site dedicated to the Entertainment Industry. All images are copyrighted to their original owners. Follow everythingentertainment.network for more entertainment news.