Oscarwatch: The Best Picture, Best Actor Connection

[Since the Brexit news bumped our “Predictions Friday” post, here is a make-good].

In looking over upcoming films, one thing remains true about this year that has been true for many years now: most of the films aimed at the Oscar race revolve around a singular male performance. Spotlight winning Best Picture last year was the first film since Crash to win as an ensemble film and not one that revolved around a male protagonist. Before, we had a Birdman, a slave, a CIA agent, a silent film star, a king, a soldier, a slumdog millionaire, a guy who finds a suitcase of money, an FBI informant. These films revolved around one male lead, even if they have co-stars. It’s difficult to get films made period. It’s easier if they star a man, are written by and directed by men. Movies that star men make more money internationally. The good news is that things are shifting ever so slightly. Last year had the distinction of having three films up for Best Picture driven by female performances: Room, Mad Max, and Brooklyn. But generally speaking, predicting Best Picture means tying Picture and Actor together.

Here is a look at Best Picture nominees and whether they revolved around a male character or a female character since Best Picture was expanded from five films.

Now let’s look at Best Actor vs. Best Actress nominations that corresponded to Best Picture nominations during that same period.

That’s not as bad as it could be. There is even a year, 2012, where there are more Best Actress nominees in corresponding Best Picture nominees. If you’re looking for an average, I’d say between zero and four would be your rough target for films starring women to land in the Best Picture race. It would be extremely rare to see that number to climb to 50% or higher. That means we have a lot of wiggle room when looking for Best Picture to also look for Best Actor.

While there is much to complain about in terms of inclusion, it’s difficult to make the argument that ALL of the Best Picture contenders are about male characters when they aren’t. Some are love stories involving two co-leads. Some are ensemble pieces. Let’s put the number of male driven stories right now at around 65%.

With that in mind, let’s look at the films that have the potential for a Best Actor nod by also looking for potential Best Picture contenders. Looking at three films that have the best shot at a Best Picture nomination right now, we have Birth of a Nation (Nate Parker), Manchester by the Sea (Casey Affleck), and Loving (Joel Edgerton sharing the lead with Ruth Negga). The other films that hover on the periphery, at least to my mind, would be Midnight Special (Michael Shannon) and Indignation (Logan Lerman in the lead). Ethan Hawke has already garnered excitement for his performance in Born to be Blue, maybe not a Best Picture contender but certainly a performance to watch, as named by Kris Tapley and Jenelle Reilly at their first half of the year notables. But most likely, only two of these will make it all the way to the end of the year, if that. Whether they are remembered or not will depend on how good the movies coming after them are.

The films that have not yet been seen might be ordered this way:

1. Silence – three male leads: Liam Neeson, Adam Driver, Andrew Garfield. Working with a god among directors with Martin Scorsese. Cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto, editing by Thelma! Production design by Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo. You get the idea. Best Actor nomination for Garfield and who knows who else. Scorsese is Scorsese. He’s the master and his films are, more often than not lately, nominated for Best Picture.

2. Billy Lynn’s Halftime Walk (November 11) – Joe Alwyn and Kristen Stewart star, Ang Lee directing. Lee, like Scorsese, like Steven Spielberg is always a force to be reckoned with. This film looks just great and considering Lee has never really made a bad movie the hopes are very high.

3. La La Land (December 2) – Ryan Gosling stars opposite Emma Stone in Damien Chazelle’s musical. There are high expectations for this and so far good word of mouth, inexplicably.

4. Sully (September 9) – Warner Bros. Clint Eastwood director. Tom Hanks stars. Without the right wing stigma attached to American Sniper, that one was almost Clint’s big Oscar win, let’s face it. But liberal Hollywood can’t and won’t embrace right wing ideology. It’s just never going to happen. Sully, however, is not a right wing anthem and is about an American hero. And that hero happens to be the nicest guy in Hollywood, Tom Hanks. Of course, both Eastwood and Hanks are hit and miss when it comes to the Oscars lately. Hanks having won two lead actor Oscars is often discounted because it’s such a competitive category. But I bet, unless the movie is terrible, you might have a magic formula here with Hanks, Eastwood, and an American hero. We’ll see.

5. Passengers (December 23) – Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence star, while Morten Tyldum directs. The sci-fi love story could really go either way. It could be a wildly entertaining big box office smash, or it could be an intimate moody film destined for the Oscar race, or it could be something in between. It’s hard to know what it will be since the details have been kept under wraps. I have read the screenplay so I know where it was designed to go but movies aren’t screenplays. Actors and directors, sometimes cinematographers and editors change them. But it’s probably more of a Best Picture contender and less of a Best Actor vehicle.

6. The Founder (August 5)- The Weinstein Co’s pic about the founder of McDonald’s, starring Michael Keaton. The film’s director is the only slight sticking point – John Lee Hancock (Saving Mr. Banks, The Blind Side) is not exactly an Oscar name but that might not matter. Either way, Keaton is going to be one to consider for Best Actor and has starred in two Best Picture winners back-to-back and is overdue.

7. Lion starring Dev Patel (November 25) looks to be the kind of film the Weinstein Co. can roll with. An unknown director and a heartwarming story seems to have the right stuff, at least from what some have said regarding footage that was shown at Sundance. Patel apparently gained weight and learned an Australian accent for the part.

And here are the other films that may or may not be in play, may or may not be released, and may or may not be good.

Fences, directed by and starring Denzel Washington
The Mercy, with Colin Firth, directed by James Marsh.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (November 18), starring Eddie Redmayne and directed by David Yates.
The Accountant (October 14), with Ben Affleck, directed by Gavin O’Connor
Allied (November 25) Robert Zemeckis, starring Brad Pitt
Collateral Beauty (December 16) David Frankel, starring Will Smith
Hands of Stone (August 26) Edgar Ramirez, Weinstein Co.
Light Between the Oceans (September 2) starring Michael Fassbender, directed by Derek Cianfrance
American Pastoral (October 28) Ewan McGregor, actor/director

Of all of these, and it’s impossible to know right now how it will shake down, I’d probably do something like this:

Best Picture + Best Actor nomination predictions

Nate Parker + Birth of a Nation
Joel Edgerton + Loving
Tom Hanks + Sully
Joe Alwyn + Billy Lynn’s Halftime Walk
Dev Patel + Lion
Andrew Garfield + Silence
Casey Affleck + Manchester by the Sea
Michael Keaton + The Founder

Probably not all five will be represented in both categories. In terms of films that seem to have a chance for a Best Actor nod without a Best Picture nod, those might include:

Denzel Washington, Fences
Colin Firth, The Mercy
Ethan Hawke, Born to Be Blue

And finally, films with strong Best Actor performances that might get Best Picture only with no corresponding Best Actor nod:

La La Land
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Passengers

That’s a rough sketch of the Best Picture/Best Actor connection. The conclusion is this: the chances are pretty good for either a Best Picture or a Best Actor to get a nod from the available films. Some of those will get nominations in both. If I had to go with five right now in shooting the shit mode, I’d go with:

Tom Hanks, Sully
Nate Parker, Birth of a Nation
Michael Keaton, The Founder
Joe Alwyn, Billy Lynn’s Halftime Walk
Andrew Garfield, Silence

But this means nothing, of course, since these films – except for Birth of a Nation, haven’t been seen yet. We know nothing. Thus, we are pissing in the wind. But it’s a fun kind of pissing. It’s either that or keep talking about the election or Brexit, which no one wants to talk about, right?