Predictions Friday – The Oscars on the Eve of Telluride

The Oscar race has not yet begun to take shape. The new category has upended everything, or at least thrown us all off our game. And you know, that’s what I like about it. What I have always liked about predicting the Oscars – going back twenty years of history of this website, but even before that – was challenging my set of skills. It has gotten all too predictable, with the exception of Best Picture, which remains the only surprising part of it. Now that unpredictability has gotten even more intense. We still don’t know what the rules will be. How many contenders there will be in both Best Picture or Best “Popular” Picture. We don’t even know if it’s really going to happen or if they were just testing the waters.

But let’s assume it will go like this: the usual procedure for finding Best Picture: each Academy member chooses five Best Picture contenders of the year. The Academy then extends the number of nominees depending on how many number one votes trickle in. They will then add a “Best Popular” category of an even five. This category, unlike the Best Picture category, will be majority rules. There will be no preferential ballot process to find the winner. The movie that wins will be the one that gets the most votes. (Remember how that used to work?) No doubt there are several films in our recent history that would love to have been in that category instead of Best Picture, where the preferential balloting system leads to odd results. Think: Avatar, or Gravity or La La Land. If the Academy sticks with the current system for Best Picture and the old system for Popular Picture, it will be much easier to predict Popular than regular Best Picture.

Whew. This could prove challenging indeed, but as I said, after all of these years I welcome the shake-up. Moving forward with these spitballing choices, I can predict, for the most part, that they will be REALLY off. They have to be because there are so many films that haven’t been seen – in fact, most of them haven’t been seen.

I am not going to divide them between seen and unseen. I’m just going to predict based on nothing so much as whatever buzz there is in the air, whatever hunches I might have, and what we already know. I fully expect, a week from Monday, everything will have changed.

But let’s do it anyway, as an experiment, to mark where we were before Telluride to compare it to where we are after.

Best Picture
BlackKklansman
First Man
The Front Runner
Roma
Backseat
The Favourite
Beautiful Boy
First Reformed
Eighth Grade
A Star is Born
Also potential nominees: Suspiria, Welcome to Marwen, Mary Queen of Scots, Boy Erased, Leave No Trace

Best Popular Picture
Black Panther
A Quiet Place
Crazy Rich Asians
Mary Poppins Returns
Mission Impossible: Fallout

Best Director
Spike Lee, BlackKklansman
Jason Reitman, The Front Runner
Damien Chazelle, First Man
Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
Adam McKay, Backseat
Also potential nominees here: Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favorite; Luca Guadagnino, Suspiria; Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born; Paul Schrader, First Reformed; Debra Granik, Leave No Trace; Karyn Kusama, Destroyer

Best Actress (toughest category – it’s PACKED)
Glenn Close, The Wife
Saoirse Ronan, Mary Queen of Scots
Lady Gaga, A Star is Born
Olivia Colman or Emma Stone for The Favourite
Viola Davis, Widows
Also potential nominees include: Felicity Jones, On the Basis of Sex; Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me? Julia Roberts, Ben is Back; Emma Thompson, The Children Act; Nicole Kidman, Destroyer; Dakota Johnson, Suspiria; Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade; Emily Blunt, Mary Poppins Returns or A Quiet Place; Kiki Layne, If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Actor (also packed, but always is)
John David Washington, BlackKklansman
Hugh Jackman, The Front Runner
Christian Bale, Backseat
Ryan Gosling, First Man
Steve Carell, Beautiful Boy
Other potential nominees: Lucas Hedges, Ben if Back; Robert Redford, The Old Man and the Gun; Lucas Hedges, Boy Erased; Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born; Ethan Hawke, First Reformed; Steve Carell, Welcome to Marwen; Matthew McConaughey, White Boy Rick

Best Supporting Actor  
Adam Driver, BlackKklansman
Timothee Chalamet, Beautiful Boy
Lin Manuel-Miranda, Mary Poppins Returns
Russell Crowe, Boy Erased
Steve Carell, Backseat
Also: Jonathan Pryce, The Wife; Harry Belafonte, BlackKklansman; Mahershala Ali, Green Book

Best Supporting Actress
Margot Robbie, Mary Queen of Scots
Amy Adams, Backseat
Rachel Weisz, The Favourite
Claire Foy, First Man
Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Also: Michelle Yeoh, Crazy Rich Asians; Tilda Swinton, Suspiria; Vera Farmiga, The Front Runner; Nicole Kidman, Boy Erased

Original Screenplay
Paul Schrader, First Reformed
Adam McKay, Backseat
Bo Burnham, Eighth Grade
Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara, The Favourite
Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
Also potential nominees here: Diablo Cody, Tully; Chloe Zhao, The Rider; Caroline Thompson, Robert Zemeckis, Welcome to Marwen; Peter Hedges, Ben is Back

Adapted Screenplay
Charlie Wachtel,David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, Spike Lee, BlackKkLansman
Josh Singer, First Man
Matt Bai, Jay Carson, Jason Reitman, The Front Runner
Gillian Flynn, Steve McQueen, Widows
Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk
Also possible: Luke Davies, Felix Van Groeningen, Beautiful Boy; Jane Anderson, The Wife; David Lowery, Old Man and the Gun

It’s difficult to predict the rest of the categories, like editing, cinematography, animated feature. We’ll have to wait on those. The films I feel, right now, that have the most ‘heat’ on paper, pre-Telluride are most definitely:

BlackKklansman
Roma
Backseat
The Front Runner
First Man

That doesn’t mean they are the Big Five, but it just means, right now, that is how it seems to be. Only one of these movies has been seen. A lot can change in a few weeks. We will check back next Friday to see if anything significant has shifted.

If you’re looking for more predictions, head on over to Gold Derby or to Awards Watch or Awards Circuit. All of them are keeping a running tally on where they see the race.