Predictions Friday: Last Look Before Those Golden Globes

On January 5th, the Golden Globes will announce their winners. It will be the only major publicity event to take place before Oscar ballots are due. As a result, the Globes will likely have more of an influence on what get nominated, how many nominations a film gets, and perhaps push one or two long shots into the race. There are several people who could benefit from this, depending on who wins and how speeches go. I can imagine several scenarios playing out in good ways for some people and in bad ways for others.

If a film that’s expected to win doesn’t win anything, that could be an early sign that it isn’t the frontrunner to win Best Picture — although that certainly is not always the case, as we found out from The Hurt Locker and Spotlight going home empty-handed at the Globes.

But it will be an audition of sorts for winners before we get to the SAG awards, where those wins might consolidate the frontrunners. We sort of have an idea of where this is all going, but we can’t be certain until the big guilds ring in, specifically the Producers Guild, the Directors Guild, and, eventually, the Screen Actors Guild.

It is a rare year indeed where we don’t know which film is the frontrunner, and honestly, we still might not after the Golden Globes announce. But let’s look, for the fun of it, where Gold Derby is for Best Picture.

They have three films out front: The Irishman, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Parasite. And there’s a good chance all three could win on Globes night, give or take a 1917. A few of the pundits have Marriage Story down and that could happen, but without a Best Director nomination at the Globes it’s a long shot for now.

No one has 1917 predicted, but it does seem to be catching a lot of last minute enthusiasm and I might end up predicting that, and not The Irishman, to win Best Picture at the Globes. I keep hearing more and more people raving about it as they finally see it. It is breathtaking in all ways and hits hard by the end of it. 1917 is a massive cinematic achievement and seems like the kind of film the HFPA often rewards. But then again, The Irishman has the bling in terms of the necessary nominations: Picture, Director, Screenplay, acting.

At the moment, my own predictions haven’t changed much since the beginning of the year. I thought Once Upon a Time in Hollywood started the year as the frontrunner and nothing has happened yet to change the dynamics of the race. It has always been and will forever remain a mistake to judge what will happen at the Oscars by what happens with the critics. Sometimes there is alignment, but not always.

The factors that drove the Best Picture race last year are back again this year: for example, the Netflix factor remains a big question mark. As in, is the Academy really ready to go all in with Netflix? The idea that a foreign language film can win both Best International Film and Best Picture is also a question mark. Parasite earning a well-deserved SAG nod for ensemble and the passion for it on Film Twitter are the main reasons why folks are imagining it winning and making Oscar history. Last year, the same thing happened with Roma — you could not convince anyone that there was no way it was going to win. But one problem remains: getting enough people to sit down and watch it (or any movie) in order to vote for it.

Oscar season can be be heartbreaking for those who watch it closely; the reason being outcomes usually don’t come down to nuanced choices. A lot of time, the Oscar race has nothing to do with what is deserving and what isn’t. No, it simply comes down to performances and films that thousands of people can agree is best. Where we come from, who we are — these things inform how we interpret films and how we vote. It’s remarkable how different our preferences can be. You’re always looking for the one unifying thing.

With Best Picture, where votes are tallied using the preferential ballot system, the film that wins has to be one people feel an urgency to vote for. What is the reason they push that movie to the top of their ballots? Is it that they just love it the most? Is there some other reason? It’s hard to predict how that wave of sentiment towards or against any particular movie will go. We have our precursors that we use to give us an idea of where it’s headed. But even then the race can still turn up surprises as it did with Moonlight, which didn’t win any of the big three guilds but still won Best Picture. Many quirks of the preferential ballot remain a mystery.

The rest of the categories are somewhat easier to predict, although as we saw last year with Best Actress, surprise wins can still turn up.

Either way, here are my current predictions:

BEST PICTURE
Surest bets:
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
The Irishman
Parasite
1917
Joker
Jojo Rabbit
Marriage Story

And then one or two of these films:
Ford v Ferrari
Bombshell
Little Women
Dolemite Is My Name
Knives Out
The Two Popes

BEST ACTOR
Surest bets:
Joaquin Phoenix, Joker
Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Adam Driver, Marriage Story

And then two of these actors:
Christian Bale, Ford v Ferrari
Eddie Murphy, Dolemite Is My Name
Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes
Taron Egerton, Rocketman
Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory
Adam Sandler, Uncut Gems
George MacKay, 1917

BEST ACTRESS
Surest bets:
Renee Zellweger, Judy
Charlize Theron, Bombshell
Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story

And then two of these:
Lupita Nyong’o, Us
Cynthia Erivo, Harriet
Saoirse Ronan, Little Women

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Surest bets:
Brad Pitt, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Joe Pesci, The Irishman
Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Al Pacino, The Irishman

And one of these:
Jamie Foxx, Just Mercy
Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes
Willem Dafoe, The Lighthouse
Wesley Snipes, Dolemite Is My Name
Tracy Letts, Ford v Ferrari

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Surest bets:
Laura Dern, Marriage Story
Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers
Margot Robbie, Bombshell
Scarlett Johansson, Jojo Rabbit

And one of these:
Kathy Bates, Richard Jewell
Nicole Kidman, Bombshell
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Dolemite Is My Name
Florence Pugh, Little Women

BEST DIRECTOR
Surest bets:
Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Bong Joon-Ho, Parasite
Sam Mendes, 1917
Martin Scorsese, The Irishman
Todd Phillips, Joker

But one of these could bump someone above:
Noah Baumbach, Marriage Story
Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit
James Mangold, Ford v Ferrari
The Safdie brothers, Uncut Gems
Greta Gerwig, Little Women

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Surest bets:
Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Noah Baumbach, Marriage Story
Bong Joon-Ho and Jin Won Han, Parasite

And then two of these:
The Safdie brothers, Uncut Gems
Krysty Wilson-Cairns and Sam Mendes, 1917
Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, Dolemite Is My Name
Rian Johnson, Knives Out
Lulu Wang, The Farewell
Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, and Jason Keller, Ford v Ferrari
Lena Waithe, Queen & Slim
Charles Randolph, Bombshell

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Steve Zaillian, The Irishman
Anthony McCarten, The Two Popes
Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit
Greta Gerwig, Little Women
Todd Phillips and Scott Silver, Joker

CINEMATOGRAPHY
1917
Ford v Ferrari
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Joker
The Irishman

Possible:
The Lighthouse
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
A Hidden Life
Ad Astra
Parasite

EDITING
Ford v Ferarri
The Irishman
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Joker
Parasite

Possible:
Jojo Rabbit
1917
Knives Out
Uncut Gems
Marriage Story

PRODUCTION DESIGN
1917
The Irishman
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Ford v Ferrari
Little Women

SOUND MIXING
1917
Ford v Ferrari
Rocketman
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Joker

COSTUME DESIGN
Dolemite Is My Name
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Little Women
Downton Abbey
Jojo Rabbit

SOUND EDITING
Ford v Ferarri
1917
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Avengers: Endgame
Joker

VISUAL EFFECTS
1917
Avengers: Endgame
The Irishman
The Lion King
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

ORIGINAL SCORE
1917
Marriage Story
Little Women
Joker
Ford v Ferrari

ORIGINAL SONG
“Into the Unknown,” Frozen II
“Spirit,” The Lion King
“Stand Up,” Harriet
“I’m Gonna Love Me Again,” Rocketman
“I’m Standing With You,” Breakthrough

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Bombshell
Joker
Judy

ANIMATED FEATURE
Toy Story 4
Frozen II
Missing Link
The Lion King
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
For Sama
American Factory
Apollo 11
Honeyland
Knock Down the House

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Parasite, South Korea
Pain and Glory, Spain
Les Misérables, France
Atlantics, Senegal
Honeyland, North Macedonia