It’s Oscar season! It’s the time of year when movie studios watch their proudest works of the year slaughter each other at the box office in hopes of taking home some trophies. While the true fun is in watching these movies, there’s also quite a bit of fun in predicting who gets the edge in getting the gold. It’s not usually a discussion of quality; it’s always who has the biggest and buzziest names that seem to make it in. And there’s the fun in predicting! Pitting celebrities and movies against each other and choosing the candidate with the most hype. Who cares how good Detroit is? Its lack of box office attention saw it fall from theaters and out of the voting booth.
2017 is an insane year. Aside from some crazy genre standouts (comedy, horror, and sci-fi romance in best picture discussions?), there’s nobody leading the pack. There’s no La La Land or Spotlight in sight, which makes it a legitimately interesting year. Even more bizarre is how many movies lasted through the year. Get Out (February), The Big Sick (June) and Dunkirk (July) followed the lead from Mad Max: Fury Road (May 2015) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (March 2014) that a movie released earlier in the year can make it to award season.
Only time will tell if studios will learn from these signs. Could you imagine more movies as bizarre as The Shape of Water? Movies that studios believe to be award-worthy released earlier in the year? 2017 was progress.
These predictions are strictly for nominees of some of the Academy Awards categories. This list will be updated until nominations are announced on Tuesday, Jan. 23. All completely biased and guessed nominees are in alphabetical order.
Last updated: 1/21
UPDATE: 1/23 – Well, the Oscars went terribly for me this morning. One of these was correct and three of them didn’t even have the correct nominee in the “Maybe” section. But, oh well. The corrections have been made and the final grade is below.
LEFT OUT
SHOULD’VE LEFT OUT
Best Picture (7/9)
Call Me By Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
The Florida Project
Get Out
I, Tonya
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Maybe:
All the Money in the World
The Big Sick
Darkest Hour
The Disaster Artist
Molly’s Game
Mudbound
Phantom Thread
Best Director (4/5)
Paul Thomas Anderson – Phantom Thread
Guillermo del Toro – The Shape of Water
Greta Gerwig – Lady Bird
Martin McDonagh – Three Billboards
Christopher Nolan – Dunkirk
Jordan Peele – Get Out
Maybe:
Paul Thomas Anderson – Phantom Thread
Sean Baker – The Florida Project
Luca Guadagnino – Call Me By Your Name
Ridley Scott – All the Money in the World
Steven Spielberg – The Post
Best Actor (4/5)
Timothée Chalamet – Call Me By Your Name
James Franco – The Disaster Artist
Daniel Day-Lewis – Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya – Get Out
Gary Oldman – Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington – Roman J. Israel, Esq.
Maybe:
Tom Hanks – The Post
Denzel Washington – Roman J. Israel, Esq.
Best Actress (5/5!!!)
Sally Hawkins – The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand – Three Billboards
Margot Robbie – I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan – Lady Bird
Meryl Streep – The Post
Maybe:
Jessica Chastain – Molly’s Game
Judi Dench – Victoria & Abdul
Michelle Williams – All the Money in the World
Best Supporting Actor (4/5)
Willem Dafoe – The Florida Project
Armie Hammer – Call Me By Your Name
Woody Harrelson – Three Billboards
Richard Jenkins – The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer – All the Money in the World
Sam Rockwell – Three Billboards
Maybe:
Christopher Plummer – All the Money in the World
Michael Shannon – The Shape of Water
Michael Stuhlbarg – Call Me By Your Name
Best Supporting Actress (4/5)
Mary J. Blige – Mudbound
Hong Chau – Downsizing
Allison Janney – I, Tonya
Lesley Manville – Phantom Thread
Laurie Metcalf – Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer – The Shape of Water
Maybe:
Holly Hunter – The Big Sick
Best Original Screenplay (4/5)
Paul Thomas Anderson – Phantom Thread
Greta Gerwig – Lady Bird
Martin McDonagh – Three Billboards
Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani – The Big Sick
Jordan Peele – Get Out
Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor – The Shape of Water
Maybe:
Sean Baker & Chris Bergoch – The Florida Project
Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani – The Big Sick
Steven Rogers – I, Tonya
Liz Hannah and Josh Singer – The Post
Best Adapted Screenplay (4/5)
James Ivory – Call Me By Your Name
Scott Frank, Michael Green and James Mangold, Story by James Mangold – Logan
Brian Selznick – Wonderstruck
Aaron Sorkin – Molly’s Game
Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber – The Disaster Artist
Dee Rees and Virgil Williams – Mudbound
Best Animated Feature (3/5)
The Boss Baby
The Breadwinner
Coco
Ferdinand
Loving Vincent
Maybe:
The LEGO Batman Movie
Total (39/49) – 80%
P.S. Awards are dumb, enjoy these movies!
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