‘Project Hail Mary’ vs. ‘Dune: Part Three’, 2027 Oscar analysis

Are you regularly refreshing Gold Derby’s Oscar leaderboards to see if we’ve opened the pod bay doors and ejected The Odyssey from its front-runner status? Sorry, Dave, we’re afraid we can’t do that.

Months into its still-lucrative Imax-enhanced theatrical run, Christopher Nolan‘s Grecian epic shows little sign of abating in its march to total Oscar domination. The Odyssey is firmly ensconced among the Top 5 contenders in virtually every category — minus the four where it’s simply not eligible — and has a strong shot at equaling or surpassing the historic 16 nominations that Ryan Coogler’s Sinners earned earlier this year.

So no, House Odysseus isn’t about to be toppled anytime soon. But there is a galactic horse race between Project Hail Mary‘s House Grace and Dune: Part Three‘s House Atreides to claim bragging rights as Oscar voters’ top space Odyssey. Can Rocky defeat Muad’Dib? It depends on how the worm turns…

Spice up your life

Since officially making the Sinners-style pivot from box-office blockbuster to Oscar contender at the beginning of October, Project Hail Mary has been able to hold plenty of space in the awards conversation while Denis Villeneuve is putting the finishing touches on his Dune trilogy capper. And Amazon MGM has taken advantage of the open field with coast-to-coast FYC events that initially went forward without leading man Ryan Gosling, who was notably out of the spotlight for unspecified reasons, even missing out on an American Cinematheque award that will now go to Primetime‘s Robert “The Batman” Pattinson.

Fortunately, Gosling has resurfaced in recent weeks adding fresh fuel to Project Hail Mary‘s skyrocketing awards campaign. Amazon MGM is going big with the studio’s biggest hit to date, submitting the film in 15 categories including a potential history-making nod for James Ortiz, the puppeteer responsible for bringing Gosling’s stone-faced sidekick Rocky to life. The film’s flesh-and-blood leading man is now back on track for his third career Best Actor nomination as the major movie star alternative to Matt Damon‘s almost certain nod for The Odyssey.

Best Actor

John Malkovich

Wild Horse Nine

Ryan Gosling

Project Hail Mary

Robert Pattinson

Primetime

John Turturro

The Only Living Pickpocket in New York

Anthony Ippolito

I Play Rocky

10.

But Dune: Part Three is about to strike back in a big way. Villeneuve’s absurdly attractive A-list ensemble of Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Pattinson, Florence Pugh, Jason Momoa, and Anya Taylor-Joy recently sat for a New York Times exit interview that will almost certainly tee up a first wave of tastemaker screenings and FYC gatherings ahead of the movie’s Dec. 18 theatrical release.

And you can expect Warner Bros. and its new Skydance Media overlords to throw plenty of Imperium Solari at the Dune campaign. After all, it’s the studio’s last best chance at recapturing a fraction of its lucrative One Battle After Another and Sinners-fueled Oscar haul last cycle after Margot Robbie’s Wuthering Heights withered and Tom Cruise’s Digger dug itself into a hole.

Best Picture

10.

Right now, our expert oddsmakers have Project Hail Mary and Dune: Part Three deadlocked at nine likely nominations apiece, and seven of those predicted nods are in the same categories, including Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, Best Score, Best Sound, and Best Visual Effects. On the PHM-only side of the Oscar ledger, Gosling and screenwriter Drew Goddard are in top contention for Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay, while the third Dune is seen as more competitive in the Best Costume Design and Best Makeup and Hairstyling races.

One potential scale-tipper is the Best Director race, where Villeneuve is ranked at No. 6 just ahead of the Lord and Miller duo at No. 8. The incoming James Bond franchise helmer and his co-writer, Brian K. Vaughan, could also join Goddard in the Best Adapted Screenplay race, giving Dune: Part Three that all-important 10th nod. The first Dune accomplished that feat at the 2021 Oscar ceremony, but Villeneuve has yet to land in the Best Director race for the franchise.

Best Director

Christopher Nolan

The Odyssey

Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo

La Bola Negra

Martin McDonagh

Wild Horse Nine

Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim

You Can See Everything

Denis Villeneuve

Dune: Part Three

Ryusuke Hamaguchi

All of a Sudden

Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

Project Hail Mary

Jesse Eisenberg

The Debut

10.

Alejandro G. Inarritu

Digger

On the other hand, Project Hail Mary could break the deadlock with a costume or makeup and hairstyling bid (or both!) or if Ortiz’s Best Supporting Actor bid gains serious steam. And since history has shown that the acting categories haven’t been the Dune franchise’s strongest spice blend, it’s unlikely that Warner Bros. could make up any ground there. Neither Chalamet nor Zendaya, who is submitting as Best Actress, is registering in our leading actor odds, and the movie has to screen before it can be determined if there’s a strong supporting contender in the mix.

Here’s a wild thought: What if Jason Momoa — whose resurrected Arrakis alter ego Duncan Idaho (now known as Hayt) will play a major role in the franchise’s endgame — passes the Gom Jabbar test to become a Best Supporting Actor nominee? The classic versions of Conan and Rocky never crossed paths at the Oscars; maybe their intergalactic descendants will.

Paper champions?

Speaking of the Italian Stallion, Amazon MGM’s other 2027 Oscar hopeful, I Play Rocky, is headed to theaters this weekend after nearly two-month run that started with its Toronto International Film Festival world premiere in early September. For much of that time, Rocky himself — Sylvester Stallone — seemed to be treating Peter Farrelly’s biopic with kid gloves, declining to speak much about it while he was on the press circuit for the return of his Paramount+ series Tulsa King and his new memoir, The Steps.

But one day before I Play Rocky steps into the theatrical ring, Sly finally went all-in on the film and Anthony Ippolito, the young actor who plays his younger self. The two shared the stage at Brooklyn’s historic Kings Theatre on Thursday night, where Stallone enthusiastically praised Ippolito’s portrayal.

“He really had to work hard,” the action movie icon remarked. “He had to build his body up, and his voice up. There’s a certain form of relaxation with the way I speak and he got all that. But that takes months and months of grinding — you’re constantly on point. He put in the time and it’s very, very obvious. It’s not easy to do.”

Stallone’s seal of approval comes as Ippolito — and I Play Rocky itself — seeks to firmly establish itself as the heavyweight contender some prognosticators presumed it to be following its boisterous TIFF premiere. But the movie was dealt an Apollo Creed-style blow when it saw the much-coveted People’s Choice Award go to La Bola Negra, with Balboa landing as the first runner-up.

Since then, its odds have dipped with each passing week, making Rocky, once again, an underdog. On the day it opens in theaters, I Play Rocky has officially fallen out of the Top 10 on our experts-only Best Picture leaderboard to land at No. 11, while Ippolito is sitting at No. 8 among Best Actor contenders.

Funnily enough, the audience enthusiasm for the movie hasn’t dipped — on the festival circuit anyway. Gold Derby recently attended the closing weekend of the 2026 Denver Film Festival, where we were told I Play Rocky played to a packed opening night house with screenwriter Peter Gamble taking a victory lap in front of the eager crowd. Not surprisingly, the film claimed the Audience Award for Narrative Feature when the DFF awards were unveiled. Now we have to see if that audience enthusiasm translates into dollars, as it’s likely going to take boffo box-office for I Play Rocky to defy Clubber Lang’s stinging claim that Rocky Balboa is just a paper champion.

The DFF reaction for I Play Rocky stood in marked contrast to the festival’s closing night presentation of Paper Tiger that we were in the house for. James Gray’s crime drama drew tepid applause as the credits rolled, and we heard decidedly mixed reactions among after-party attendees. The Denver audience’s response indicated that Neon was wise to use the New York Film Festival to relaunch this very New York story — and points to the struggles it may face as it plays markets beyond the five boroughs.

But Neon isn’t putting this Tiger in a cage anytime soon; the company is aggressively campaigning the movie with FYC events and Academy voter meet-and-greets. Gray’s film also just picked up two Gotham Awards for Best Feature and Best Supporting Performance for Adam Driver, who earned the more positive comments from DFF viewers. While our experts still have the twice-nominated actor way, way down in the Best Supporting Actor rankings, there’s still time for Driver’s roar to carry outside New York.