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\n Illustration: James Clapham\n <\/p>\n
Welcome back, friends and fools, to year FIVE of the Vulture Movies Fantasy League<\/a>. We are about to turn the corner into a fall movie season that is packed with box-office behemoths, visionary auteurs bringing their latest films into the bosom of awards season, and a whole lotta questions about whether a vampire movie about race in America<\/a> can play the long game all the way to Oscar gold.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve played the Movies Fantasy League before, the game hasn\u2019t changed much; if you\u2019re new, welcome to the circus. You can check out the rules for how to play on our MFL hub<\/a>, but here is the nutshell summary: You select a roster of exactly eight films within a budget of 100 imaginary dollars. Once the scoring phase of the game begins, the films you\u2019ve drafted will accumulate points for achieving milestones in box-office take, precursor awards\/nominations, critical approval, and more. The movies we expect to do best will cost more, so your first task will be to manage your budget wisely.<\/p>\n In order to help you make wise choices, we have assembled the following draft guide. Below, you will find a listing for every movie that\u2019s eligible to draft in the MFL this year. You can see how much they cost, the talent behind them, what film festivals they\u2019ve played, and when they will debut to the public, either in theaters or on streaming (if they haven\u2019t already).<\/p>\n Movies begin to accumulate points on kickoff day, September 26. Any movie that opens on that day or after is eligible to earn box-office points. Anything that has already opened, or will open before the 26th, is box-office ineligible and will be denoted as such in the guide. Between September 26 and the final deadline on December 18, you\u2019ll still be able to draft a team, but during that span, you will only be able to draft films that haven\u2019t started accruing points. That means you\u2019ll be limited to unreleased movies that haven\u2019t been nominated for any awards. So you\u2019ll have to decide carefully when you want to draft your roster. We\u2019ll remove movies from this guide when they\u2019re no longer eligible to be drafted to avoid any confusion and disappointment.<\/p>\n It\u2019s going to be an exciting few months, so why waste any time \u2014 read ahead and start researching!<\/p>\n \u27bc Show me the movies.<\/a><\/p>\n \u27bc I\u2019m ready to draft my team.<\/a><\/p>\n \u27bc I\u2019m not ready yet! Remind me to draft before the deadline<\/a>:<\/p>\n Don\u2019t Miss Out on the Movies Fantasy League<\/p>\n Sign up here to get a reminder to draft your team by September 25.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Notice<\/a> and to receive email correspondence from us.<\/p>\n Director: <\/strong>Jon M. Chu Our top point-earner from last season, Wicked, was priced to sell at $20, mostly because there was still a lot of uncertainty around whether the film would bomb with critics (and subsequently awards voters). It didn\u2019t, though, so last year\u2019s success means a trip back to Oz for your fantasy squad won\u2019t come cheap.<\/p>\n \u27bc Box-office ineligible Sinners is pretty much the only known quantity from the first half of 2025 that you can feel confident will be a major part of this year\u2019s Oscar race. And while you won\u2019t be able to benefit from the film\u2019s hefty box office, the confidence of being able to select a film that you already know critics and audience loved could be worth the price tag.<\/p>\n Director: <\/strong>Paul Thomas Anderson Paul Thomas Anderson hasn\u2019t whiffed with the Academy since 2002\u2019s Punch-Drunk Love (though it\u2019s worth noting that 2014\u2019s Inherent Vice only got a screenplay nomination). Academy members seem to be big PTA fans. Combine that with DiCaprio as a former \u201960s radical, plus Oscar winners like del Toro and Sean Penn and breakthrough-ready talent like Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti, and things are looking good. Plus, Warner Bros. is said to have pumped up to $175 million into this project, so you better believe it\u2019s going to push hard to get a return on that investment.<\/p>\n Director: <\/strong>Noah Baumbach Baumbach had his big Oscar breakthrough with Marriage Story several years ago; now he\u2019s back with a very Oscar-friendly story about an aged movie star (Clooney) and his loyal agent (Sandler). Oscar narratives abound: Clooney has big \u201cwe\u2019re so back\u201d potential, while the already-percolating Supporting Actor campaign for Sandler feels like it\u2019s been in the works for 25 years. This has every indication of being Netflix\u2019s top-tier awards push.<\/p>\n Director:<\/strong> Joachim Trier While it fell short of winning the Palme d\u2019Or at Cannes, Sentimental Value did emerge from the festival with buzz as the most likely of the Cannes competition titles to follow the path to Oscar victory recently traversed by recent Palme winners Anatomy of a Fall and Anora.<\/p>\n Director: <\/strong>James Cameron The first Avatar made $2.9 billion worldwide and got nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. The second Avatar made $2.3 billion worldwide and got four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture but not Best Director. Even with that rate of diminishing returns, the third Avatar should still bring in plenty of points. The question is whether this third one can deliver something that puts Cameron back in the Oscar conversation.<\/p>\n Director: <\/strong>Guillermo del Toro Del Toro has been hot with Oscar ever since The Shape of Water took Best Picture eight years ago. His strange but artful Pinocchio adaptation turned out to be a huge MFL bargain a couple years ago after it ran the table in the animation categories all season. The question is how much Netflix as the distributor will cap Frankenstein\u2019s value. It\u2019s giving del Toro\u2019s film the rare three-week theatrical run as opposed to the customary two, but that doesn\u2019t mean you should expect much in the way of box-office points. Still, given del Toro\u2019s reputation \u2014 and the recent performance of other high-end gothic horror like Nosferatu \u2014 this should be a strong player across at least the craft awards (production design, costume, cinematography, visual effects) all season.<\/p>\n Director: <\/strong>Yorgos Lanthimos With The Favourite and Poor Things, Lanthimos has directed two previous films to double-digit Oscar nomination totals, including Best Picture\/Best Director nominations and Best Actress wins for Olivia Colman and Emma Stone. Whether he can do the same with a film from writer Will Tracy (Succession, hooray!; The Menu and The Regime, hmmm) remains to be seen. Plemons and Stone reunite after Lanthimos\u2019s perplexing Kinds of Kindness, but Focus Features is putting out all the indicators that this has big Oscar ambitions.<\/p>\n Director: <\/strong>Scott Cooper Last year, Searchlight pushed the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown all the way to major Oscar nominations and a near Best Actor win for Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet. This year, 20th Century Studios wants in on that action with its Bruce Springsteen biopic starring TV\u2019s most intense performer, Jeremy Allen White. Cooper has already put a guitar in one actor\u2019s hands and directed him to an Oscar \u2014 Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart \u2014 and Strong is already starting to build Supporting Actor buzz after his nomination last year.<\/p>\n Directors: <\/strong>Jared Bush, Byron Howard Last year, Moana 2 opened on Thanksgiving weekend and racked up $225 million right out of the gate, despite pretty much everyone agreeing the film wasn\u2019t good<\/a>. The original Zootopia cleared the original Moana\u2019s domestic take by nearly $100 million. That math could really end up working in your favor.<\/p>\n Director: <\/strong>Benny Safdie Of the two Solitary Safdie Sibling movies this year, this is the one about MMA fighting. Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt reunite from their Jungle Cruise days to play real-life Ultimate Fighting Champion Mark Kerr (him) and his loyal, understandably concerned wife (her). If Blunt ends up with two Oscar nominations to her name for playing the Wife<\/a>, that\u2019s going to be wild, but that\u2019s a conversation for another day. This movie is going to be either too middlebrow for awards appeal or the sentimental fave of awards season. (And I could see A24 making it a bit of a box-office hit, too.)<\/p>\n
Stars: <\/strong>Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh
Release date: <\/strong>November 21<\/p>\n
Director: <\/strong>Ryan Coogler
Stars:<\/strong> Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Delroy Lindo
Release date: <\/strong>Already released<\/p>\n
Stars:<\/strong> Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro
Release date: <\/strong>September 26<\/p>\n
Film festivals:<\/strong> Venice, Telluride, New York
Stars:<\/strong> George Clooney, Adam Sandler
Release date: <\/strong>November 14<\/p>\n
Stars:<\/strong> Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd
Film festivals:<\/strong> Cannes, Telluride, Toronto, New York
Release date:<\/strong> November 17<\/p>\n
Stars:<\/strong> Sam Worthington, Zoe Salda\u00f1a
Release date: <\/strong>December 19<\/p>\n
Stars:<\/strong> Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi
Film festivals:<\/strong> Venice, Toronto
Release date: <\/strong>October 17<\/p>\n
Stars:<\/strong> Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone
Film festivals:<\/strong> Venice, Telluride
Release date: <\/strong>October 24<\/p>\n
Stars:<\/strong> Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong
Film festivals:<\/strong> New York
Release date: <\/strong>October 24<\/p>\n
Stars:<\/strong> Jason Bateman, Ginnifer Goodwin
Release date: <\/strong>November 26<\/p>\n
Stars:<\/strong> Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt
Film festivals:<\/strong> Venice, Toronto
Release date: <\/strong>October 3<\/p>\n