Predictions Friday — Final Oscar Nomination Predictions

And away we go…

General rules to follow:

For Best Picture: actors tend to rule.

For predicting upsets: sometimes you might be right about the one that gets in, but in so doing you might be wrong about the one that gets dropped off. As a result, you don’t really gain a point if you’re looking for an overall score. For instance, many are predicting The Lighthouse to get in for Best Cinematography — I think that is a great prediction and will probably come true. But the problem is: which of the ASC five do you discard to make way for The Lighthouse? If you pick the wrong one, then you don’t gain a point. So for me personally, even knowing The Lighthouse is a likely nominee, I do not know which one will drop off. Of course, if you are just looking for shock and awe, being one of the few that gets something right — then by all means, predict it.

Predicting based on total nominations: that can be tricky, since you don’t know for sure which categories a film will land in. I estimate about 11 nominations for Once Upon a Time. I know that’s not likely, but I’m hedging my bets that it will land in more than a few places. I know it’s probably going to land in Makeup or Costumes but I don’t know for sure which one it will land in. So I’m predicting both.

Re: the preferential ballot, Marshall Flores gives us some insight as to how it all works (WONK ALERT):

For Best Picture, voters rank five films for Best Picture on their ballots. There are three rounds of voting.

Round 1:
1) Ballots are sorted into piles by their number one choices.
2) A film needs at least 9.1% of the vote for a Best Picture nomination.
3) If a film has at least 11% support, that film is nominated and triggers the “surplus rule.” This means that bonus votes will go to the next highest ranked contender on ballots that listed that film at number one.

Round 2:
1) If any film(s) triggered the surplus rule in round 1, surplus votes are calculated and then distributed to other films.
2) Same thresholds from Round 1 still apply: 9.1% of the vote is needed for a Best Picture nomination; 11% secures a nomination and invokes the surplus rule.
3) All films with less than 1% of the vote are eliminated.

Round 3:
1) The vote required to obtain a Best Picture nomination is lowered from 9.1% to 5%.
2) Ballots from films eliminated in Round 2 are reallocated to their next highest choices among the remaining films in contention.
3) Voting concludes. All films with at least 5% of the vote are nominated for Best Picture; the rest are eliminated.

For most other categories that use a preferential ballot for nominations, the first few steps are the same: voters rank a list of five names or films, and ballots are sorted by the number one votes in the first round of voting. Beyond that, the two processes begin to diverge:

— In Round 1, you need at least 16.7% of the vote to secure a nomination. However, that percentage is not static, and will increase in subsequent rounds as the number of contenders securing a nomination increases and, concurrently, the number of open nomination slots decreases.

For example, let’s say in Best Actor balloting Joaquin Phoenix hits 17% of the vote and secures a nomination in Round 1. That means that there are four nomination slots left, which then means the minimum number of votes needed for a nomination goes up from 16.7% to 20% of the remaining ballots in the next round(s). Now let’s say, instead, that Phoenix and Leo DiCaprio both were nominated in Round 1. This means there are three open slots left, and the nomination threshold instead goes from 16.7% to 25% (this change is not arbitrary – it’s derived mathematically).

— Only one film or name is eliminated per round of voting — the one with the lowest vote total. Voting continues round by round until all five nominations are had. As such, nominations balloting in other categories goes on for a lot longer than with Best Picture.

If you made it through all of that, congratulations! But the TL;DR main takeaways from contrasting how the preferential ballot is applied are these:

— For Best Picture nominations, passion drives the process. With only three rounds of voting, films need a lot of top of the ballot support (i.e., top three support) to obtain a nomination.
— For other categories, where balloting goes on for much longer than just three rounds, broad support from the voters secures a nomination. In other words, the principles that determine a Best Picture winner under the preferential ballot — having a consensus and not being polarizing — are also in play here.

FINAL OSCAR NOMINATION PREDICTIONS

My three hardest categories to nail down, I think, are Director, Actor and Actress. Let’s get started.

Best Picture

DGA/PGA/SAG/ACE/WGA
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood*
The Irishman
Parasite
Jojo Rabbit

*not WGA eligible so N/A

PGA/DGA/ACE
1917

So that is our Big Five: the films that would likely be the five nominees if the Academy still had only five Best Pic nominees. Then we add a few more, adding in other guild nominees that might influence things:

PGA/WGA/ACE
Joker
Marriage Story
Knives Out

PGA/WGA
Little Women

PGA/ACE
Ford v Ferrari

SAG
Bombshell

That appears to be our top ten, give or take a Bombshell

Best Picture:
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
1917
Parasite
Jojo Rabbit
The Irishman
Joker
Marriage Story
Knives Out
Little Women
Ford v Ferrari
Alt: Bombshell

Best Director

Todd Phillips, Taika Waititi, Greta Gerwig or Pedro Almodóvar in that fifth spot. Honestly it could be any of them. I generally go with DGA five — the reason for that is that it’s always possible that it turns out that way. 16,000 DGA members chose their nominees while there are only 400 or so members of Oscar’s directors branch.

We started the season with these five films as the most popular. Nothing has happened since to change all that much. If you think Little Women has as much gravitas and popularity, go for Greta Gerwig to make Oscars history as the first woman ever to get two directing nominations (which you gotta admit, would be pretty cool). But I sort of see that fifth slot as being between Todd Phillips for Joker or Taika Waititi for Jojo Rabbit. I am torn between them. I do think Pedro Almodóvar has a real shot for Pain and Glory too. YIKES. I would say you could pick anyone for that fifth slot and get 4/5 right. I could also see something like Gerwig and Almodovar. I guess expect the unexpected.

Thing is, since the DGA pushed the date to announce their nominees either after or on the same day as the Oscar ballot deadline, we haven’t really seen a 5/5 match-up. That seems to tell me that it won’t be the DGA five. But it still could be. Past correspondence vis-à-vis DGA went like this:

2000 — 4/5
2001 — 5/5
2002 — 4/5
2003 — 4/5
2004 — 4/5
2005 – 5/5
2006 — 4/5
2007 — 4/5
2008 — 4/5
2009 — 5/5
2010 — 4/5
2011 — 4/5
2012 — 2/5 (date change chaos)
2013 — 4/5
2014 — 4/5
2015 — 4/5
2016 — 4/5
2017 — 4/5
2018 — 3/5

Best Director:
Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Bong Joon-ho, Parasite
Sam Mendes, 1917
Martin Scorsese, The Irishman
Todd Phillips, Joker
(Alt: Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit, but… this is a tough one)
It’s okay with me if it’s Greta Gerwig or Pedro Almodóvar

Best Actor:
It is such a competitive category that the winner is going to likely be tied to movies voters liked overall. But in general, going with SAG five is not a bad way to go. And that is what I’ll do:

Joaquin Phoenix, Joker
Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Adam Driver, Marriage Story
Christian Bale, Ford v Ferrari
Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory
(Alt. Taron Egerton, Rocketman)
But I would love it if it was Eddie Murphy for Dolemite Is My Name or Antonio Banderas for Pain and Glory

Best Actress :
Going with SAG five here as well, though I know Saoirse Ronan has a real shot.

Renée Zellweger, Judy
Charlize Theron, Bombshell
Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story
Cynthia Erivo, Harriet
Lupita Nyong’o, Us
(Alt: Saoirse Ronan, Little Women)

Best Supporting Actress:
Laura Dern, Marriage Story
Margot Robbie, Bombshell
Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers
Scarlett Johansson, Jojo Rabbit
Florence Pugh, Little Women
(Alt: Nicole Kidman, Bombshell)

Best Supporting Actor:
Brad Pitt, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Joe Pesci, The Irishman
Tom Hanks, Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Al Pacino, The Irishman
Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes
(Alt: Jamie Foxx, Just Mercy)

Original Screenplay:
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino
Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach
Parasite, Bong Joon-ho, Jin Won Han
1917, Krysty Wilson-Cairns, Sam Mendes
Booksmart, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, and Katie Silberman
(Alt: Knives Out — this is a case of knowing Booksmart is probably in but a case of not knowing how much they’ll like 1917)

Adapted Screenplay:
The Irishman, Steve Zaillian
Jojo Rabbit, Taika Waititi
Little Women, Greta Gerwig
Joker, Todd Phillips and Scott Silver
The Two Popes, Anthony McCarten
(Alt: Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood)

Documentary Feature:
For Sama
American Factory
Apollo 11
One Child Nation
Honeyland
(Alt: Knock Down the House)

International Feature:
Parasite, South Korea
Pain and Glory, Spain
Les Misérables, France
Atlantics, Senegal
Those Who Remained, Hungary
(Alt: Beanpole)

Best Cinematography:
1917
Ford v Ferrari
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Joker
The Irishman
(Alt: The Lighthouse)

Best Editing:
Ford v Ferrari
The Irishman
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Joker
Jojo Rabbit
(Alt. Parasite)

Production Design:
1917
The Irishman
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Jojo Rabbit
Ford v Ferrari
(Alt: Joker)

Sound:
1917
Ford v Ferrari
Joker
Rocketman
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
(Alt: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker)

Sound Editing:
Ford v Ferrari
Joker
1917
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
(Alt: Avengers: Endgame )

Costume Design:
Dolemite Is My Name
Rocketman
Jojo Rabbit
Little Women
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
(Alt: Judy)

Visual Effects:
The Irishman
Lion King
Alita: Battle Angel
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Avengers: Endgame
(Alt: 1917)

Original Score:
Joker
1917
Marriage Story
Little Women
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
(Alt: Jojo Rabbit)

Original Song:
“I’m Gonna Love Me Again,” Rocketman
“Into the Unknown,” Frozen II
“Spirit,” The Lion King
“I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away,” Toy Story 4
“Stand Up,” Harriet
(Alt: “A Glass of Soju,” Parasite)

Makeup and Hair:
Bombshell
Joker
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Rocketman
Dolemite Is My Name (alt. Judy)

Animated Feature :
Toy Story 4
Missing Link
Frozen 2
Abominable
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
(Alt: I Lost My Body)

Live Action Short:
Brotherhood
Little Hands
Miller & Son
The Neighbors’ Window
Refugee
(Alt: Nefta Football Club)

Documentary Short:
Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)
St. Louis Superman
In the Absence
Fire in Paradise
Ghosts of Sugar Land
(Alt: After Maria)

Animated Short:
Hair Love
Kitbull
Hors Piste
The Physics of Sorrow
Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days
(Alt: Mind My Mind)

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