Gotham Nominations Fire the Starting Gun: The Invite Leads, Fjord Stumbles

Olivia Wilde's The Invite collected four Gotham Film Awards nominations on Tuesday, more than any other A24 title, and now sits in the Top 10 of Best Picture odds ahead of the Oscar race it is built to contest.

The Gothans have positioned themselves as the season's first high-profile ceremony, held in downtown Manhattan as November turns to December. Last year's edition opened with Regina Hall telling co-stars Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti they were there to "officially give awards season — and this amazing night — started," and closed with One Battle After Another winning Best Feature, the first of its statuettes on the way to a Best Picture victory three months later.

What does The Invite's haul change?

A24 acquired the dark comedy out of Sundance for upward of $10 million and it has grossed upward of $60 million globally. Among four nominations, it landed Best Feature, Best Adapted Screenplay for Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, Best Supporting Actress for Penélope Cruz, and the Audience Award — the Gothams' version of the Globes' divisive Cinematic and Box Office Achievement prize.

The Invite tied with four other films for most-nominated overall. A24's other contenders fared worse: Primetime took three nods, while The Debut, Club Kid and Everything took two each. The film also finished ahead of Josephine, the Sundance double winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award — the first film since CODA to manage that feat. Josephine made the Best Feature list with acting nods for Channing Tatum and Mason Reeves, but ranks far below The Invite in Best Picture odds.

The mechanism that separates them is spread. The Invite has a path to six of seven above-the-line Oscar categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and three of four acting races. Oddsmakers expect the Gotham results to repeat on Oscar nominations morning, with Edward Norton likely in Supporting Actor and Wilde likely in both Best Actress and Best Director. As reported in July, she could become the first performer-director nominated for both in the same year, and the first woman to direct herself to an acting nod.

Why did Neon's Palme winner miss the cut?

Neon won three statuettes at the 2025 Gothams with Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident, its sixth consecutive Palme d'Or champion. But this year's Palme winner, Cristian Mungiu's Fjord, was shut out entirely: no Best Feature, no Best Director for Mungiu, and no non-gendered lead performer nods for Renate Reinsve or Sebastian Stan.

That reflects the film's cooling momentum. Fjord drew divisive reactions after Cannes and a muted audience reception in limited release. It has fallen to No. 17 on the experts' Best Picture leaderboard; Reinsve and Stan sit at No. 7 and No. 11 in their races.

Neon still holds two of the five most-nominated films. Ryusuke Hamaguchi's three-hour epic All of a Sudden earned four nods — Best International Feature, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Performance for Tao Okamoto, who shared the Cannes Best Actress prize with Virginie Efira. Efira missed the Gotham lead-performance cut but ranks No. 5 with Best Actress experts; Neon has kept her visible through a November retrospective at Manhattan's Metrograph, with Okamoto and Hamaguchi decamping from Japan for an extended U.S. trip. Hamaguchi's film ranks No. 11 for Best Picture and he ranks No. 7 for Best Director — categories where he earned nominations for 2021's Drive My Car.

Neon also distributes Clarissa, a four-time nominee including Best Lead Performance for Sophie Okonedo, and James Gray's Paper Tiger, up for Best Feature and Best Supporting Performance for Adam Driver. Neon has pushed Paper Tiger through festival appearances and FYC events moderated by Rian Johnson and Stephen Colbert since its NYFF relaunch.

What happened at the HBO premiere?

Days after Skydance Media completed its acquisition of Warner Bros., the combined company hosted the Season 4 premiere of The Gilded Age in New York on Monday. An announcer introduced Casey Bloys as CCO of Skydance's Direct-to-Consumer arm; Bloys himself stressed continuity as "Casey Bloys from HBO." Creator Julian Fellowes called him "our protector, our gladiator, and our defender." The cast, minus Christine Baranski, attended, followed by an L.A. premiere at Greystone Mansion. The show earned a personal-best eight Emmy nominations for Season 3; Carrie Coon now ranks No. 5 with experts for a Globes TV Drama Actress honor and No. 2 among SAG contenders, with the series at No. 4 for SAG Ensemble and No. 8 for Best TV Drama.