“Please, God, give it to Harrison!”
That’s what one decades-long Academy member exclaimed to Variety, regarding industry speculation that Hollywood legend Harrison Ford is a top candidate to receive an Honorary Award at this year’s Governors Awards. This member’s passion reflects the groundswell of support for the 83-year-old movie icon.
Ford isn’t the only prominent name being discussed. By mid-June, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will settle on its honorary Oscar awardees. For weeks, studios, agents, publicists and any other Hollywood stakeholder have been lobbying Academy leaders and board members. Often a case is made over lunch or drinks at Chateau Marmont or through pointed phone calls.
The presumptive honorees are mostly in the dark about what may be transpiring on their behalf.
A maximum of four recipients can be chosen for the ceremony that Jennifer Fox has produced for the past seven editions. Meanwhile, newly revised guidelines require that at least three individual disciplines, from acting and directing to editing, cinematography or other below-the-line jobs, be represented in any given year.
Hundreds of names, across all cinematic contributions, are submitted by the Academy’s 11,000 members. Aside from the Oscar winners themselves, the process remains one of the Academy’s most guarded (and successful) kept secrets. Now, the mandate has the Board doing what it does best: considering.
Harrison Ford as the eponymous archaeologist in a scene from the film ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’, 1989
Getty Images
Ford arrives as overdue as any potential honoree. An Oscar nominee for Peter Weir’s 1985 thriller “Witness,” he is the face of the “Indiana Jones” and “Star Wars” franchises and one of the most popular actors in Hollywood history. Ford already has collected the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, holds an honorary Palme d’Or from Cannes and is the front-runner for his first Emmy for Apple TV’s “Shrinking.” His backers see “no reason the statue should wait” another year. An AMPAS spokesperson declined to comment.
Other names are also seeing growing support.
Powerhouse producer Jerry Bruckheimer, 82, among the most commercially successful figures in the medium’s history, has been floated, with one person suggesting he would be a strong pick for the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the producing kudo. Although bestowing it one year after Tom Cruise’s honorary Oscar would mean back-to-back salutes to the “Top Gun” axis. Not exactly a good look.
Also floated for a Thalberg trophy are London-based producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, the co-chairmen of Working Title, which has backed hits like “Bridget Jones’ Diary” and “Four Weddings and a Funeral.” The pair could be worth celebrating, following previously anointed duos like Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, producers of the James Bond films in 2024, and husband-and-wife power couple Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall in 2018.
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Many sources tell Variety that Glenn Close has been proposed at least four times in the past decade and was nearly selected one specific year, one source claims. She’s been submitted as either an honorary Oscar recipient for her body of work, which includes unforgettable films like “Fatal Attraction,” across her eight Oscar bids, or for the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. The case for the latter is sharpened by years of mental health advocacy with Bring Change to Mind, the nonprofit she founded in 2010. Close and the late Robin Williams were close friends after co-starring in “The World According to Garp” (1982), and to honor his memory, her foundation presents the Robin Williams Legacy of Laughter Award at its annual galas. The sting of Close’s loss for “The Wife” (2018) still lingers, and many would love to see it corrected. Another name mentioned in some circles is legendary performer Bette Midler, who has a long philanthropic resumé in addition to turns in classic films like “Beaches” and “The Rose.”
An industry source points to “growing” support for Martin Short, the veteran comedian whose close friends include Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and “Only Murders in the Building” co-star and former Honorary Award recipient Steve Martin. That tribute reel would be as starry (and funny) as any in recent memory.
Beneath the passion runs an uncomfortable calculation: How much time does a prospective honoree have left?
Coming off a year marred by the passing of beloved talents like Rob Reiner and Catherine O’Hara, people giving extra attention and love to our most cherished living figures. Often, AMPAS gets it right, as when Donald Sutherland was presented with a statuette in 2017, before his passing in 2024. But sometimes, they’re too late (i.e., Richard Burton, Stanley Kubrick, etc.)
Ridley Scott, the Oscar-less director of “Gladiator,” is 88, and his name has been circulated more than once. However, the Academy is averse to honoring anyone with a movie likely to be submitted as an Oscar hopeful. The English filmmaker has “The Dog Stars,” with Jacob Elordi, due out this year. That’s also why we’re not likely to see Mike Leigh on the list this time around, since he has a new film, “Tender Loving Care,” expected later in the season. Notably, songwriter Diane Warren was bestowed with the honor in 2022, the same year she was campaigning for a nomination for “Applause” from “Tell It Like a Woman.”
There wouldn’t be too many objections if the Board landed on any of the signature auteurs like the gothic horror and fantasy master Tim Burton, the “Queen of Romcoms,” Nancy Meyers, the hyper-stylized Michael Mann, or the poetic and ethereal Terrence Malick (though the famously reclusive Malick would be a likely no-show, and attendance is typically expected of honorees).
And what about the cultural figures who have been a constant presence in our cinematic lives? As Variety was polling industry professionals, several beloved performers came as suggestions and potential choices, including Black, Latino and Asian multihyphenates such as Don Cheadle (“Hotel Rwanda”) and Alfre Woodard (“Cross Creek”), John Leguizamo (“Carlito’s Way”) and Rosie Perez (“Fearless”), and James Hong (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) and Joan Chen (“The Last Emperor”).
Ed Lachman Carol
Weinstein Co.
The technical branches, though, are where we see advocates for overdue artisans jockeying for position. Three-time-nominated cinematographer Ed Lachman (“Maria”) was a near-inclusion during the past few ceremonies and could resurface. Composer Thomas Newman, a 15-time nominee with no win, has been name-checked before, with one Music Branch member saying he’s a perennial mention among his colleagues. Coming off of becoming one of the oldest production design nominees ever with “Marty Supreme,” the great Jack Fisk, husband to Oscar winner Sissy Spacek, is rumored to have had his name submitted.
But let’s remember, the selection circle is small. None of these names might ultimately be chosen. The Academy could instead select four other decorated industry figures it deems worthy this time around.
And believe it or not, posthumous recipients can be considered. According to two AMPAS members, screen icon Marilyn Monroe was among the final names in the running just last year, ahead of her 100th birthday. Now, with her major exhibit opening at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles, that possibility is likely put to bed (for now).
Of course, getting an honorary Oscar doesn’t preclude winning a competitive one, as Paul Newman and Spike Lee demonstrated. With that factored in, it will likely remove artists from cinephiles’ unofficial list of “will win an Oscar someday.” Some of those include director David Fincher, actor Willem Dafoe, sound mixer Greg P. Russell, and costume designer Jacqueline West, among others.
Which begs the question: Was Tom Cruise’s honorary Oscar coronation premature? He’s nearly unrecognizable as a potbellied mogul in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Digger,” which opens in October and boasts the kind of showy transformation that often leads to awards glory.
Those outcomes annoy vocal pockets of enthusiasts.
