It’s July Fourth weekend, which can only mean one thing: The season of fall-festival announcements—and, in turn, of Oscar campaigns laying out their strategies—is upon us.

A guide to Hollywood’s biggest races

The Venice and Toronto lineups, both of which almost always feature at least one best-picture nominee in addition to other major contenders, will be revealed in full later this month. But if you read between the lines of which films are “world premieres” versus “Canadian” or “international,” the lineups also implicitly reveal the projects that might be headed to Telluride (which keeps its selection secret until the fest kicks off over Labor Day weekend). In the meantime, we’ll get a trickle of confirmations, a steady stream of rumors, and a few twists in terms of who is going where.

And to the outside eye so far, we’ve got nothing but surprises.

To begin, Toronto announced its first slate of screenings last month, including the world premiere of Nightbitch, a dark, magical-realist comedy about a stay-at-home mom (played by Amy Adams) who discovers a unique transformational ability that can be gleaned from the movie’s title. (It’s adapted from Rachel Yoder’s 2021 novel.) Directed by Marielle Heller, who’s gone three for three in terms of critically acclaimed festival plays (The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), the movie is being distributed by Searchlight, one of the most reliable awards engines every year. The recipe for it to make a major splash seems clear.

Yet that studio’s most successful recent Oscar plays, such as Poor Things and The Banshees of Inisherin, launched at Venice and/or Telluride, higher-brow events that can make art house contenders out of passionate critical response and a relatively curated audience reaction. (Its other notable fall 2024 contender, Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, launched to raves at Sundance.) Some of Searchlight’s big TIFF hits, on the other hand, have been crowd-pleasing if not especially well reviewed—see Jojo Rabbit and The Eyes of Tammy Faye—even as they went on to major Oscar wins. We’ll see whether Nightbitch, which began production way back in 2022, falls into that category, but one thing’s for sure: With Adams slated to receive the Oscar-tipped TIFF Tribute Performer Award, consider the six-time nominee back in the race after a string of misfires (including The Woman in the Window, Dear Evan Hansen, and Hillbilly Elegy).

The same may be true for Saoirse Ronan, who scored four Oscar nominations by age 25 but has more recently hit a few speed bumps, with her last film credits being on the middling See How They Run and Foe. (She also earned great reviews for Sundance premiere The Outrun, which is seeking US distribution.) I’ve been hearing for months about Apple putting its might behind Blitz, Steve McQueen’s sweeping drama starring Ronan as a mother searching for her missing son in WW II–era London, and at last that appears confirmed. But again, contrary to expectations, it’s skipping those early prestige festivals—as well as Toronto. The movie will instead open the BFI London Film Festival as a world premiere. While that debut is certainly a major get for the October event, and a thematically logical move for a film steeped in the city’s history, McQueen’s best awards success came with a Telluride launch (12 Years a Slave)—and London openers rarely emerge as significant Oscar players. See last year’s Saltburn or 2022’s Matilda the Musical; though seemingly backed by significantly different campaign budgets, neither ultimately netted any Oscar nominations. Apple is surely hoping for Blitz to turn that page.

And then there’s the biggest surprise of all: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Yes, Tim Burton’s long-awaited sequel starring Jenna Ortega is getting the full Euro-red-carpet treatment, as it’s set to open the Venice Film Festival. This is an unusual move for the Lido, which tends to launch with smaller auteur-driven titles like last year’s Italian war drama Comandante or Pedro Almodóvar’s most recently released feature, the Oscar-nominated Parallel Mothers. Call it a show of confidence from Warner Bros., which memorably brought Joker to Venice in 2019 before it went on to win the Golden Lion there, and then two Oscars thereafter. That movie’s sequel, Folie à Deux—bringing back Joaquin Phoenix and adding in Lady Gaga—is also rumored to be Venice-bound, which means WB will have its hands full with tentpoles. Could Paramount get in the game with its buzzy Gladiator II? As long as there’s room for more than just sequels, why not?

Alas, this does not mean Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is suddenly an Oscar contender. But it’s a fun, if bizarre, way to get the machine up and running. At this innocent early point in the season, anything feels possible—and nothing can be counted out.