Oscars season is well underway, with the biggest awards night in film set for Sunday, March 15. The Lindsay Theater and Cultural Center is celebrating this auspicious time of year for the movies with expert talks, film screenings and their annual Oscars contest.
Last month, the theater held an Oscars talk event with five film critic panelists, including Sean Collier (of Shady Ave Magazine), Lindsey Bahr (of The Associated Press), Amanda Waltz (Pittsburgh arts journalist and former Pittsburgh City Paper A&E editor), Megan McLachlan (of The Contending) and Josh Axelrod, director of communications and media relations at The Lindsay Theater and a founding member of the Pittsburgh Film Critics Association.
For over an hour, Axelrod said, the panelists had a spirited conversation about the upcoming Oscars with 25-30 patrons.
“The people who come to an event like this are pretty serious about the Oscars and awards season, and you could feel that in the room,” Axelrod said.
Frequently in conversations about these awards, the big-name prizes such as Best Picture and Best Director hog the majority of the attention, but he said that all of the categories got their time in the spotlight during the discussion.
“It was really affirming to see how much people in this area care about film,” Axelrod said.
As far as the panel of film critics, opinions on who will take home the coveted statuettes at the March 15 award show were fairly mixed.
“The big three are probably ‘Sinners,’ ‘One Battle After Another’ and ‘Hamnet.’ Those are probably the ones that we discussed the most,” Axelrod said.
But with the rise in popularity of international films, that category also got a fair amount of discussion.
“People did have some specific questions about certain categories. We got a really good question about film editing,” he said.
For those in Sewickley who feel like experts and want to get in on the Oscars race fun, The Lindsay will be running its annual Oscars Contest until 8 p.m. March 14.
“We have a bunch of printed ballots that you can grab at our concession counter. All 24 categories are listed there,” Axelrod said. “All you have to do is fill out who you think is going to win each category.”
Return the ballot with your name, some contact information and your winning picks, and the most accurate ballot after the awards are announced will win an unlimited, non-transferable pass for free movies at The Lindsay for the rest of 2026. The criteria for winning will be whoever gets the most categories right, and then who gets Best Picture correct as a tiebreaker.
“Like the Oscars talk, the Oscars contest is an annual tradition at The Lindsay,” Axelrod said. He also noted that it’s a great way to get the community engaged with the Oscars-nominated films, many of which have been shown or will be shown at the theater.
“We’ve played nine of the 10 Best Picture-nominated films. The only reason we didn’t play ‘Frankenstein’ is it’s a Netflix movie,” Axelrod said. “I think people northwest of Pittsburgh in our little neck of the woods know that if they want to dive into Oscar season, if they want to come see the movies, if they want to talk about it, if they want to get involved in our Oscars contest, The Lindsay is the place to go.”
To learn more about The Lindsay Theater’s Oscars contest and the films that they’re screening leading up to March 15, visit thelindsaytheater.org.
