Predictions Friday – Here Come the Critics Awards

The end of the November will mean the first announcement of the major critics awards. Even the Critics Choice voters will be on their way to voting.

The Independent Spirit Awards will be announced November 21, which is literally days from now. Those awards this year seem likely to produce some familiar titles and names. We fully expect the following to earn multiple nominations:

Get Out
Lady Bird
The Florida Project
Mudbound (here’s hoping)
Good Time
Call Me By Your Name

Those movies are, for the most part, probably going to dominate. There will be some crossover with Oscar, too. And there will be plenty of films and people nominated that no one saw coming.

The Gotham Awards choose their winners November 27. I have no idea what will win but I suspect Jordan Peele will win something, either screenplay or director. But we’ll do those predictions later.

National Board of Review announces November 27.

The NBR is really good at putting a director or a film on the Oscar map that wasn’t there before — legitimizing them, as it were. Pretty sure you have to go all the way back to Return of the King to find a year when the eventual Best Picture winner was not in their top ten. Since Best Picture has to be broadly liked across all types now under the preferential ballot, it really should show up as many places as possible. With the way the ballot works and the short time frame, there just isn’t enough time to build a consensus outside of what we start to see at the end of November.

Between 2009 and last year, the NBR’s picks average around 50% matching with the Academy’s choices. Four is the smallest number of films that went on to earn a nomination, and seven is the most. The average number of films is around five or six. But sometimes they can be misleading. Inside Llewyn Davis which shockingly was not nominated for the Oscar but showed up at NBR, as did Drive, The Town, Saving Mr. Banks, and Nightcrawler — films that we thought MIGHT make it but then don’t.

Like the AFI’s list, NBR almost always includes an animated film and we expect that one this year will be Pixar’s Coco. I would not be surprised if their list looked something like:

Blade Runner 2049
The Shape of Water
Dunkirk
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Darkest Hour
Get Out
The Florida Project
The Post
Coco
Lady Bird or I, Tonya

That is just a shot in the dark. Who knows how that will go. Maybe NBR will boost a movie like Downsizing.

So the first bump is really the National Board of Review. The second big bump is the New York Film Critics, who announce just two days after the NBR. And then the next big bump would be the Golden Globe award nominations, and right around that same time the Critics Choice announce their picks — EARLY.

Either way, we know that each awards announcement will help to shape how the Oscar race will ultimately go.

As far as the New York Film Critics go, you can take a guess as to how you might think they will go. We’ll certainly put out our predictions the day before they announce, but predicting them is harder than you’d think.

Still, to help fill out the picture, the film that wins Best Picture there has a pretty good chance of getting in the Oscar race because it represents one big prestige boost.

The only NYFCC winner that didn’t get a Best Picture nomination since the Academy expanded the ballot was, sadly, Carol. When they gave Far from Heaven Best Picture, the Academy also, infamously, ignored it. But every other winner has gotten in.

AFI Awards are announced December 7, that’s another big bump.

SAG voting ends December 10 and the Golden Globes announce their nominations the next day, December 11. So it’s a blitz, a blitz, a ballroom blitz. All coming in the next few weeks!

Right now, nobody knows how this race is going to go, for Best Picture anyway and for some of the other categories. But here is how I think it MIGHT go as of today.

Best Picture
Top three to beat at the moment:  Dunkirk, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Shape of Water
Biggest challengers:
Darkest Hour
Get Out
The Florida Project
Call Me By Your Name
Mudbound
I, Tonya
Lady Bird
Battle of the Sexes

Dark horses:
The Big Sick
Hostiles
Downsizing

Long shots:
Wonder Woman
Detroit

Coming soon:
The Post
All the Money in the World
Greatest Showman

Best Actor
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour

Biggest challengers:
Jake Gyllenhaal, Stronger
Timothee Chalame, Call Me By Your Name
James Franco, Disaster Artist
Andrew Garfield, Breathe

Also strong contenders
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Garett Hedlund, Mudbound
Algee Smith, Detroit
Steve Carell, Battle of the Sexes
Matt Damon, Downsizing
Sam Elliot, The Hero
Harry Dean Stanton, Lucky

Coming soon:
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
Tom Hanks, The Post

Best Actress
Three frontrunners: Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water, Frances McDormand, Three Billboards
Margot Robbie, I Tonya

Strongest challengers:
Jessica Chastain, Molly’s Game
Soairse Ronan, Lady Bird
Emma Stone, Battle of the Sexes
Judi Dench, Victoria and Abdul

Strong Contenders:
Carey Mulligan, Mudbound
Brooklynn Prince, The Florida Project
Jennifer Lawrence, mother!

Coming soon:
Meryl Streep, The Post

Supporting Actor
Two frontrunners: Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project, Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards

Strongest Challengers
Armie Hammer, Call Me By Your Name
Michael Shannon, The Shape of Water
Jason Mitchell, Mudbound
Ben Mendolsohn, Darkest Hour

Strong contenders
Mark Rylance, Dunkirk
Jason Clark, Mudbound
Harrison Ford, Blade Runner 2049
Idris Elba, Molly’s Game
Will Poulter, Detroit

Supporting Actress
Frontrunner: Alison Janney, I Tonya

Strong challengers:
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, Shape of Water
Hong Chau, Downsizing
Mary J. Blige, Mudbound

Strongest challengers:
Kristen Scott Thomas, Darkest Hour
Michelle Pfeiffer, mother!
Holly Hunter, The Big Sick
Jennifer Ehle, A Quiet Passion

Best Director
Three Frontrunners: Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk, Guillermo Del Toro, Shape of Water, Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards

Strongest challengers:
Joe Wright, Darkest Hour
Jordan Peele, Get Out

Strong contenders:
Sean Baker, The Florida Project
Luca Guadagnino, Call Me By Your Name
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Dee Rees, Mudbound
Dayton and Faris, Battle of the Sexes

Longer shots:
Scott Cooper, Hostiles
Alexander Payne, Downsizing
Angelina Jolie, First They Killed My Father
Kathryn Bigelow, Detroit
Sofia Coppola, The Beguiled

Original Screenplay
Frontrunners: Get Out, Jordan Peele, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Martin McDonaugh, The Shape of Water, Guillermo Del Toro

Strongest challengers:
Sean Baker, The Florida Project
Darkest Hour, Anthony McCarten

Strong contenders:
Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan
The Big Sick, Emily V. Gordon, Kumail Nanjiani
The Florida Project, Sean Baker
Battle of the Sexes, Simon Beaufoy
Downsizing, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor
Detroit, Mark Boal

Coming Soon:
The Post, Phantom Thread

Adapted Screenplay
Frontrunners: Call Me By Your Name, James Ivory, Mudbound, Dee Rees, Virgil Williams

Strongest challengers:
Molly’s Game, Aaron Sorkin
Wonderstruck, Brian Selznick
The Disaster Artist, Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber

Strong contenders:
Hostiles, Scott Cooper
First They Killed my Father, Angelina Jolie

Editing
Dunkirk
Darkest Hour
Three Billboards
Shape of Water
Get Out

Cinematography
Blade Runner 2049
Dunkirk
Darkest Hour
Mudbound
Shape of Water

Production Design
Dunkirk
Darkest Hour
Shape of Water
Blade Runner 2049
Beauty and the Beast