TCM ’31 Days of Oscar’ 2024 Lineup: ‘The Bandwagon,’ ‘The Sting’ & More Must-Sees
They’ve done alphabetical. They’ve tried chronological. And now, for Turner Classic Movie‘s 30th celebration of Academy Award-winning and nominated films, the classic movie network is going categorical for 31 Days of Oscar 2024.
Over one month (starting February 9), fans get to savor 348 of Hollywood’s finest dramas, comedies, musicals, and documentaries, grouped into one of 19 Oscar categories. Daytime offers a mix of winners and nominees; nighttime, it’s winners only, starting with costume design honorees.
Day 1 kicks off with Errol Flynn’s Adventures of Don Juan (6am/5c), a 1948 release that had been delayed several years, in part due to a postwar clothing materials shortage. The swashbuckling flick would eventually require several thousand costumes, good enough to earn Oscar gold in the color film category. (Black-and-white titles got their own trophy until the awards were permanently combined in 1967.)
Don Juan is followed by the 1957 nominee Raintree County (8am/7c), a historical romance that stars Elizabeth Taylor and Eva Marie Saint as belles in the antebellum South wooing Montgomery Clift. Then the pace picks up with a 1953 nominee, the energetic musical rom-com The Band Wagon (11:15am/10:15c).
The film that introduced the tune “That’s Entertainment!” features Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse as Broadway hoofers who change from one dazzling outfit to another—which is indeed entertainment. In the evening, look for award-winning favorites such as Robert Redford and Paul Newman clad as Depression-era grifters in The Sting (8/7c); the 1973 drama won legendary costume designer Edith Head the last of her eight Oscars.
That’s only a nibble of this year’s powerful slate. The next two days are devoted to Best Supporting Actress, arguably highlighted by 16-year-old Patty Duke’s astonishing turn as Helen Keller in 1962’s The Miracle Worker (Saturday, February 10, 10/9c). At the time, she was the youngest-ever winner! Stay tuned—Best Picture takes over the final seven days. And the winner is…us.
31 Days of Oscar, Friday, February 9, 6am/5c, TCM
