Last week, Searchlight Pictures launched an earthquake heard ’round Hollywood with the sudden dating of A Complete Unknown, its buzzy Bob Dylan biopic helmed by Oscar nominee James Mangold. The film will be released this December—which is to say, this awards season. It completed production only recently, following delays induced by last year’s industry strikes, and the assumed approach would be that it’d be taking this cycle off. But as discussed on this week’s Little Gold Men (listen below), Mangold is a pro who knows how to work efficiently—and the studio must like what it sees enough to swiftly mount a campaign.

Dylan is played in the film by Timothée Chalamet, in what could be the actor’s first Oscar-nominated turn since his 2017 breakout in Call Me by Your Name. In the seven years between that indie and A Complete Unknown, of course, Chalamet has emerged as one of his generation’s most established movie stars, toplining the likes of Dune and Wonka to massive box office success. Searchlight released a surprisingly thorough teaser for the movie alongside the date announcement that highlights Chalamet singing as Dylan in the musical icon’s signature, polarizing twang. Some inevitable debate ensued over just how close Chalamet—who prepared for years all told—got to the real voice, but Searchlight was right to project some confidence that Chalamet has risen to the occasion.

The 28-year-old star will crash a fairly unformed best actor field. By this point last year, Cillian Murphy’s Oscar-winning Oppenheimer performance had already been seen by millions, and the likes of Bradley Cooper, Paul Giamatti, and Colman Domingo were widely expected to figure into the race (as they ultimately did). This year, so far, the field has been dominated by smaller festival discoveries like Sing Sing (expected to net Domingo a second consecutive nomination) and A Different Man (starring Sebastian Stan); the big fall festival bows will inevitably complicate that picture, from the Ralph Fiennes vehicle Conclave to Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker encore. But things hardly feel as top-heavy now as they did in the summer of 2023. A Complete Unknown’s mere dating adds a seeming new heavy hitter to a mix that could really use one.

We haven’t had many quick-turnaround, late-breaking awards contenders since COVID. Movies like West Side Story and Nightmare Alley scored best picture nominations after last minute, end-of-year releases—but only after being held for a full year, essentially, due to the pandemic’s impact on production and theatrical attendance. The last few winners for best picture premiered well before the fall in their respective years, from CODA (Sundance, in January) to Everything Everywhere All at Once (South by Southwest, in March) to Oppenheimer (theatrical, in July). But there’s also precedent for dark horses swooping in near the end of the season and dominating anyway.

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Back in 2009, The Blind Side started filming in the early spring. At that time, they year’s best actress race was expected to be led by Sundance discoveries Carey Mulligan (An Education) and Gabourey Sidibe (Precious). Like A Complete Unknown, this was a mid-budget studio true story adaptation helmed by a filmmaker (John Lee Hancock) known for solid, mainstream filmmaking. The movie premiered near the end of the year, skipping festivals since it wasn’t done—and star Sandra Bullock promptly waltzed to the best actress Oscar, beating out Mulligan and Sidibe as well as Meryl Streep (competing for Julie & Julia) and Helen Mirren (The Last Station).

Or how about five years later, when Still Alice premiered in Toronto without even a distributor, and Julianne Moore’s heartbreaking performance got an eleventh-hour campaign from acquiring studio Sony Pictures Classics to go all the way?

It’s too soon to tell just how far Chalamet can go, of course. That also goes for his supporting stars, particularly Elle Fanning and Monica Barbaro—who I’m hearing pop as Dylan’s girlfriend Sylvie Russo and as folk icon Joan Baez, respectively. For now, I’d suggest looking out for Mangold too. He directed Angelina Jolie to an Oscar 25 years ago for Girl, Interrupted, and nearly two decades ago, helmed Walk the Line, a big awards hit (winning Reese Witherspoon an Oscar) that also inspired a beloved parody of the cradle-to-grave musical biopic (Walk Hard). But he wasn’t recognized by the Academy until 2017’s Logan, his gritty Wolverine drama that earned a screenplay nod. Two years later, Mangold earned his first best picture nomination for Ford v. Ferrari.

A Complete Unknown brings Mangold back to the musical biopic genre. But this movie is quite unlike Walk the Line in its narrow, intimate focus, tracing Dylan from his 1961 arrival in New York—when he had $12 in his pocket and no idea of what was ahead—to 1965, as he faced a crossroads over his swelling fame (and a rapidly shifting musical landscape). This is a filmmaker who’s been working at a consistently high level, with tremendous industry goodwill, still seeking his first recognition by the directors’ branch. If this movie delivers as Searchlight certainly hopes it will, he could emerge as just as much of a story on the awards circuit as his superstar lead.