Argo — Telluride, early September, 2012
The Artist — Cannes, May, 2011
The King’s Speech — Toronto, September, 2010
The Hurt Locker — the previous year, Toronto Film Fest
Slumdog Millionaire — Telluride, Toronto, September 2008
No Country for Old Men — Cannes, May, 2007
The Departed — October, 2006
Crash — May, 2005
Million Dollar Baby, December, 2004
Million Dollar Baby was the last film arriving in late release to take the Best Picture Oscar. Back then, though, there wasn’t the same kind of industry monolith that there is today. There was still some disagreement between the major voting bodies. That would continue on through to 2006, when Little Miss Sunshine and The Departed split the vote among guild voters, though The Departed won the DGA and eventually Best Picture. But since Slumdog Millionaire, there has been mostly monolithic voting starting with the PGA, then onto the DGA, sometimes the SAG ensemble, and Oscar.
Now you can mostly set your watch by what the PGA decides is Best Picture and, for the most part, barring some great catastrophe, the Oscar race is over. I have no idea whether this will ever change or not. Will it change this year? Next? In ten years? Or should we be resigned to the idea that the Academy no longer stands as the singular voice for the Hollywood film industry’s awards?
The recent pattern dictates that our Best Picture winner will show up either at or before the Toronto Film Fest. It is likely to show up at Telluride, if it hasn’t already opened to the public to great reviews. Box office is not a strong consideration anymore. How the contenders and the studio play the bloggers and voters is a consideration.
That means you should look now at what’s opening, or about to about. You should pay close attention to the Telluride lineup, and then the Toronto lineup. If a film is released after that there isn’t enough time to rally a monolithic win. The ship becomes too big to turn around and your Oscar race for Best Picture is mostly finished.
I would love to see this change but so far, in the last few years, it hasn’t. It can’t. The monolith is too big. The consensus rules the day.
But let’s take a look at the films that have been seen, what directors are currently in play, and who might be showing up relatively soon. Late entries that aren’t seen at the fall festivals are going for the long shot. They could be this year’s Million Dollar Baby — there’s always that chance. When a film like that is released late in the game people have already fallen in love with it, studios have already gotten it seen by people who do early voting so it is likely that the PGA will have seen it — it is likely that it will have already run the Twitter gauntlet and passed with flying colors. In other words, surprises in the Oscar race now are going to be few.
How has the year gone down so far and who is in the running right now?
Alexander Payne, Nebraska
Ryan Coogler, Fruitvale Station
Joel and Ethan Coen, Inside Llewyn Davis
Jeff Nichols, Mud
Richard Linklater, Before Midnight
JC Chandor, All is Lost
Sarah Polley, Stories We Tell
These films have either been released already or were screened at Cannes. It’s a crowded Oscar year already since all of these are very good, highly acclaimed films. Mud has been the surprise indie hit of the season, with a strong performance by Matthew McConoughey. JC Chandor’s All is Lost pulls off a magic trick with beautifully realized film that has no dialogue. Linklater finishes his magnificent relationship trilogy with the best film of the three. Sarah Polley invents a genre of film that is somewhere between fiction and non-fiction autobiography. Ryan Coogler writes and directs one of the most stirring films of the year already, raw and powerfully rendered. Joel and Ethan Coen’s Llewyn Davis was the Jury Prize winner at Cannes and a standout, with one of the year’s best performances in Oscar Isaac and a wayward cat. Finally, the most promising for the big Oscar win, at this very early stage in the game, is Alexander Payne’s best and most personal film to date, Nebraska. It’s a dangerous game to enter the race so soon — it invites critics and bloggers to tear down the movie that is in the frontrunner’s spot so here’s to hoping Nebraska never gets there, at least not yet.
Still, if I had to bet right now which of these would get in for Best Director? I’d probably go with: Payne, Coogler, Coens, Chandor. And probably two out of four of these names will.
The films that haven’t yet been released or seen, but have the kind of name attached where attention must be paid include:
Martin Scorsese, Wolf of Wall Street
George Clooney, The Monuments Men
David O. Russell, American Hustle
Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher
Paul Greengrass, Captain Phillips
Ridley Scott, The Counselor
Jason Reitman, Labor Day
Woody Allen, Blue Jasmine
Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
Spike Lee, Old Boy
Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity
Who are the wild cards who will need a boost from critics to be in the running?
John Wells, August, Osage County
Jean-Marc Vallee, Dallas Buyers Club
Lee Daniels, The Butler
Spike Jones, Her
Sofia Coppola, The Bling Ring
Justin Chadwick, Mandela Long Walk to Freedom
John Lee Hancock, Saving Mr. Banks
Ben Stiller, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Brad Furman, Runner Runner
Of the films that haven’t yet been seen, it is simply too early to start putting them on any lists, but that won’t stop many a blogger from doing it. Not long from now, David Poland will invite Gurus of Gold to make their predictions. And those predictions will be based on nothing but blind perception, which sometimes pays off and sometimes doesn’t.
GoldDerby.com already has pundits ordering this category and right now, their Best Director list looks like:
1. Martin Scorsese
2. George Clooney
3. David O. Russell
4. Joel and Ethan Coen
5. John Wells
6. Baz Lurhmann (that will change)
7. Alexander Payne
8. Alfonso Cuaron
9. Bennett Miller
10. Ridley Scott
Their list is 100% white males. While it’s possible that will be the likely outcome — you never know this early — I would not personally order them that way. I always think you should start with what you know and work backwards from there. My list would look like this:
1. Payne
2. Coogler
3. Greengrass
4. Clooney
5. Scorsese
6. Russell
7. Coens
8. Miller
9. Chandor
10. Scott
11. Reitman
12. Allen
13. Cuaron
This order is surely to change but for now, that is what it’s looking like. I tend to base my early predictions not on the name of the director but on the faith of the marketing team behind the film: they know what they have. To that end, underestimate the Weinstein Co at your own peril. Warner Bros., Paramount, Fox, Focus Features … they will all fight hard to represent.
The race for Best Picture will broaden this list some, since they don’t need to whittle it down to five. We have a couple of months before the Oscar race really starts, but come Telluride the picture will begin to come into focus.
Scorsese’s WALL STREET trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cz_J-DKNHMo
Thanks!
Agreed about McQueen. His talent combined with material that’s a helluva lot more digestible for the Academy than Hunger or Shame, and I see the film getting more than a few nominations.
“Sarah Polley invents a genre of film that is somewhere between fiction and non-fiction autobiography.” Fang Song has also done this sort of film with her “Memories Look at Me,” released, I think, last year.
Lots of Columbia on those lists. I don’t see it. lots of Paramount, too.
If the argument is the publicity teams, quote them, by name. At the very least post the distributor next to the contender.
If the argument is the publicity teams, quote them, by name.
I don’t know them by name.
But I learned something fun reading this week. In 1978 Universal had the jitters about how to promote The Deer Hunter as an Event Film. They looked at what Paramount had done a few months earlier with Grease — which had rocketed to the top of the 1978 box-office and to this day is the highest grossing musical of all time.
Universal said, hey, maybe we can hire the guy who promoted Grease so brilliantly, and let him handle our Oscar campaign for The Deer Hunter.
They approached that guy. The guy said, “I knew I wouldn’t like it. It’s about two things I don’t care about: Vietnam and poor people. I used to know this guy Cimino. He directed Ann-Margret in Canada Dry ads five years ago. A three-hour movie about Pittsburgh steelworkers? I’m going to HATE it.”
But Universal screened it for the promoter (who was in fact Ann-Margret’s former manager) and he changed his mind: “By the middle of the movie I was crying so hard I had to go to the mens room to put cold water on my face.”
He set up a series of invitation-only screenings for The Deer Hunter in Beverly Hills on a limited basis. He had Academy members fighting for tickets. Then he pulled the movie and wouldn’t let anybody else see it until after Christmas. At holiday parties, everybody was talking about the movie that only a select few had been allowed to see.
Can you tell from those quotes and that catty strategy whether this Oscar publicity guy was gay or not? It was Alan Carr. His swimming pool had pink water in it. The Deer Hunter won 5 Oscars.
Well last year the Oscars had a little fun throwing in 2 surprises in the director category with Zeitlin and Haneke. But for now,
1)David O. Russell wins best director and American Hustle wins Best Picture.
2)John Wells
3)Alfonso Cuaron
4)Coen bros
5)Ryan Coogler/Martin Scorsese
I like Sasha’s list a lot more than Gold Derby’s, but I have to echo Duke’s comment above: watch out for Steve McQueen. If he doesn’t stumble on 12 Years a Slave, his film will be a force of nature – no middle ground on this one.
I have a feeling that 12 Years a Slave will do very well in the awards season, so I am definitely putting Steve McQueen, one of the most interesting directors nowadays, in my predictions. And Gravity, based on the trailer itself, seems like a big directors showcase, and Cuarón has showed in Children of Men that he has great skills. Martin Scorsese should be in the list too, The Wolf of Wall Street looks so good and such a comeback to style for him. Since The Monuments Men screams Oscar, it seems safe to bet in Clooney, at least for now. And my last spot would go to the Coen Brothers, since the movie looks like the unanimity of the year.
So, here’s my predictions today:
1. Martin Scorsese – The Wolf of Wall Street
2. Steve McQueen – Twelve Years a Slave
3. Alfonso Cuarón – Gravity
4. George Clooney – The Monuments Men
5. Joel & Ethan Coen – Inside Llewyn Davis
But it’s too early to leave some others off the radar. Here are 5 more to consider:
1. Woody Allen – Blue Jasmine
2. David O. Russell – American Hustle
3. Ridley Scott – The Counselor
4. John Wells – August: Osage County
5. Paul Greengrass – Captain Phillips
It sure looks like a very good year for my favorite category at the Oscars!
Hummmmmmmmm… “Hurt Locker” opened in Venice film festival a few days before Toronto, no?
good point, Joao
The Hurt Locker was unusual though because it’s 2008 screenings in Venice and Toronto weren’t enough to make it eligible for the Oscars awarded in 2009. The Hurt Locker didn’t have a US presence until 2009 — so it had to wait for Oscar night 2010.
Given Academy prefererrnces, I would rearrange the list. To me, Greengrass, Clooney, Russell, Coens, and Cuaron look like the strongest choices.
@FiveEasyPlaces – Yes, it is runner-up in general ranking and number one in the English language films ahead of Nebraska etc. This is a big push for a BP nod for this film.
This is a small correction, but I’ve noticed that whenever you refer to “Inside Llewyn Davis,” you say it won the Jury Prize at Cannes, which is the de facto third prize. It didn’t. It won the GRAND PRIZE, or the second place, runner-up spot.
You are being a bit rude and unpleasant, Bennett.
As far as I know there are no clear consensus among scholars of any discipline on whether or not Hispanics are caucasian or not, or “white” or not.
It would be in everyone’s favor to discard the racial typologies in favor of cultural or language-based affiliations, though. In that regard, “Hispanics” are a distinct, “meaningful” category, surely.
Thank you, julian.
I tried to make a point above, but you said much nicer and more eloquently.
Sasha, thanks for a good read.
Within this article’s context, besides other films whose names I’ve been economically mentioning along with brief remarks here and there — I’m also looking forward to #Spike Lee’s# new piece. Lee is an intrigue to an extent; and although to me he’s seemingly come across at times a tea-cup stirrer, whether or not he is right at least he seems to have been genuine in the way he represents, particularly re African American community and its issues as reflected upon in some of his films, all the more the man seems to have depths as well. So, I’d like to see what he has to offer these days. . . . (Personally, I’m hoping he’ll keep doing satirical films, or those related to African American sociopolitical films, and in his case staying away from Inside Man type. )
And other than the obvious to me i.e. #American Hustle#, #Blue Jasmine#, etc., I’m also interested in #All Is Lost#, given the film “has no dialogue” at all. We were given Cast Away, and 127 Hours, and they both were great; so, with Redford starring, and the positive buzz around, I’m in.
… I’m also hoping Blue Jasmine will be doing well in box office and critics’ world. . . .
#Before Midnight#, too. . . .
I sort of appreciate your “start with what you know”-approach, but in this case it’s not very instructive, is it?: Payne and Coogler as the first and second favorite to win for best director? No one even talked about Coogler in Cannes going in to second week as far as I heard (Guy Lodge and Greg Kennedy, among others, declared it a weak “Sundance candidate”) and Payne’s Nebraska was deemed a non-Academy-friendly passion project by most. I didn’t get the impression that Payne will be anywhere near the top five for best director this season, what with all the A-list directors’ material still looming.
I agree on Payne and Coogler, to a point. While I understand Sasha’s point – they are the early frontrunners as far as what’s been seen – I also am anticipating their stock dropping somewhat once the later contenders show their hands. Scorsese is a safe bet, as is Clooney, and most others are wild cards. I’ve seen Nebraska, and I certainly think it has a shot, but the Academy didn’t take to About Schmidt all that much aside from the acting nods, and that is the most similar film in Payne’s catalog to Nebraska. Perhaps that will change this year because his awards cred has risen considerably since then.
Cuaron directed the shit out of Gravity, but genre is genre and I worry that it just isn’t baity enough for the big show. John Lee Hancock has a great chance for Saving Mr. Banks, trust me. If he doesn’t get in its because there’s bitter feelings about The Blind Side. But here he has directed a film that magically seems to confirm the (initially) unwarranted early love he got on his previous film. It’s like he got the love first and directed something that earned that love after the fact. I keep hearing about The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, and honestly, if it is as good as I’m hearing, I’ll be shocked. I’ve always liked Ben Stiller as a director, but I would never take him seriously as a prestige director. The guy who did The Cable Guy, Zoolander and Tropic Thunder? Really? Color me intrigued by the film, no doubt, but it seems like a stretch to put it in consideration without seeing a single frame of the movie.
My list of most likelies would look like this:
Martin Scorsese
The Coen Brothers
David O Russell
George Clooney
Alexander Payne
Bennett Miller
Ryan Coogler
Woody Allen
Jason Reitman
Alfonso Cuaron
In reference to Ben Stiller, a lot of people probably would’ve said the same about pre-“Annie Hall” Woody Allen. Not saying I disagree with your point, but I’m just saying that you never know.
Extremely fair point. I’m excited regardless.
Not very instructive to rely on Cannes for Oscar Best Director guidance either, is it? How many times has Cannes acclaim even led to an Oscar nomination for Best Director? Maybe Twice in the past 50 years?
“Payne’s Nebraska was deemed a non-Academy-friendly passion project by most.”
Sorry? …”by most” what? by most guys like Greg Kennedy? Remind me, who is Greg Kennedy?
You know what might be instructive? If you could name the 5 or 6 A-List directors in play this year who you believe are bigger A-Listers than Payne.
Well, that’s easy: Clooney, Greengrass, Ridley Scott, the Coens, Scorsese, Russell. That’s six names.
But it’s not so much that I don’t consider Payne an A-lister (because I do), it’s that Nebraska seemingly fails to match the scope of the other A-lister’s material this season. That was my point and I think it is a valid one, especially considering that this discussion is an “OSCAR watch”-discussion.
That doesn’t mean I’m not personally just as invested in Payne’s effort or not looking forward to seeing it just as much as more Academy-friendly fare.
The five nominated directors could very well come from your list of six.
I thought we were looking for 6 more important directors than Alexander Payne. I guess I’m surprised that Clooney and Russell have somehow had more impressive careers than Payne, that’s all. That’s fine if you think their filmographies are more impressive. I don’t agree.
If Best Director was based on the scope of material, then last year Anthony Hemingway would’ve been nominated for Red Tails and Roger Miller for Anthony Hemingway.
Does the scope of and significance of Nebraska seem trivial next to Juno or Little Miss Sunshine? The subject of Nebraska seem less important than Michael Clayton or Midnight in Paris. What was the scope of Precious exactly?
I hope to hell the scope of Nebraska has a little more substance than The Artist.
We still have to see if Russell’s next movie is as fabulous as his last one. Won’t that be swell, to see him nominated two years back to back.
“Academy-friendly fare” is what makes me sick of the Oscars year after year.
Ok, Ryan, let me tell you this: We completely agree.
My comment was a minor dig at the wisdom of hoping for Coogler and Payne to be top contenders for the best director win, because (for the reasons you stated) they are not. “Academy-friendly fare” is the enemy, exactly, but you can’t analyze the Oscar race without factoring in that loathed concept.
To be clear, I personally treasure Payne over Clooney and Russell (don’t even get me started on Russell, I find his later films repulsive), yes, but in the Academy climate of “now”, they are in a better position to take the big prize than a small-scale Payne production.
I won’t go into the whole “scale” semantics thing, because you know what I mean and I agree with you wholeheartedly.
“I won’t go into the whole “scale” semantics thing, because you know what I mean”
I do know what you mean. I know you know that I was playing loose with the concept. Because we understand each other.
Also, Payne needs to get his act together: The Descendants in my opinion was a stale attempt at making, yes, “academy-friendly fare”. It never struck the right balance between drama and comedy and therefore felt hollow and insincere.
But: I’m willing to trust Sasha on Nebraska (despite minor gripes from Lodge and the who-is-he-again?-Kennedy-fella…). When Payne is good he is a fountainhead for paradoxical viewing pleasures: Is he a flawed humanist or a levelheaded misanthrope? I still can’t decide.
Alfonso Cuaron is white, but he’s also Mexican. So he would be the second Mexican to be nominated following Iñárritu in 2006 for “Babel”.
That is entirely possible. Is he a direct descendant from both sides of his family of European immigrants in Mexico. That is, along the way, none of his ancestors (again, from both sides of his family) mixed with Indians making him in fact a mestizo or whatever word pleases you. Do you know either way for a fact? By this I mean do you know his family tree going back to the supposed immigrants however many generations ago. If you’re answer is no then I’d stick with referring to him as a Hispanic or a latino both of which would be a correct term regardless of Alfonso Cuaron’s race. Having said all that, the whole thing is irrelevant.
Of course all of this is irrelevant (here). Except the racism. And since III Reich is over, Americans are the best at being racist. But at this point, I’m leaving this topic and this blog and start this discussion somewhere else.
Bryce, I’m not trying to be racist at all.
My dear friend, I would also be called hispanic in the USA (and I wouldn’t like it one bit).
What I’m saying is that Cuaron is not like Payne in that he is not an AMERICAN director and he shouldn’t be lumped together with Scorsese and the Coens as a “standard white male choice” because he is not. He is in fact Mexican and only one other director has ever been nominated in the past from that country, so it would be a small achievement by the academy that didn’t nominate him for Children of Men, one of the best movies of the decade if he were to get nominated for Gravity.
Oh no, don’t get me wrong. It never crossed my mind that you were trying to be racist. I was just trying, unsuccessfully, to clarify a tricky concept. In fact reading all the comments in this thread, I don’t find any racism whatsoever. Perhaps some confusion, but that’s it. I don’t know what this bennet person’s deal is but he sounds to me like one o’ those guys with saliva dribbling out of his mouth who wanders into a cafeteria with a shopping bag screaming about socialism.
LOL Just because Cuarón is hispanic he’s not white? He is a white caucasian male, yes he is. I don’t know what is you idea of “white” male, but this concept isn’t exclusive for anglo-saxon or escandinavian people. People sometimes get so mad about Oscar race that sometimes they forget to finish high school…
I don’t think Sasha’s point is that they’re all Anglo-Saxons. I think it’s that there are no people of other ethnicities nor genders. I don’t consider either race or ethnicity to be particularly substantive concepts, but Hispanic is generally regarded as an ethnicity in its own right. There are differences between Hispanic and Caucasian.
I don’t have an idea of ‘white’ because I reject the notion entirely. We’re all the same colour, just different shades.
Bitch, I ain’t mad, but you’re real fucking close to making me mad. And you wanna write about finishing high school? Plz, I spent fourteen years in school getting damn good grades and you can’t even spell ‘your’. Eat it.
Well, you learn something new every day. I guess now Hispanics are White people too. They should tell the cops that and maybe they’ll stop profiling them. Or tell the Republicans and maybe they won’t want to put an electric fence between us and Mexico anymore. Or maybe, just maybe, tell ACTUAL white people that so they don’t say racist shit like “beaner” or “spic” anymore.
Can you not make this political?
I referenced social issues as well, don’t harp on one part of what I was saying and miss the point entirely.
Just because I asked a question doesn’t mean I missed your point, I got it, but you’re stretching so far beyond what needed to be said just to make a snide dig. I generally don’t harp on anything because, frankly, all my comments are partisan-aside. I’m just curious what business that had on a film website, that’s all.
http://www.artsjournal.com/engage/2013/02/considering-whiteness/
A worthwhile piece to look at on Whiteness and the arts
8. Alfonso Cuaron… Their list is 100% white males.
Sort of, since Alfonso Cuaron is Hispanic.
The directors, according to last year’s Oscar nominations, have the best taste in the Academy, followed by the writers. The others are all bollocks-up bozos.
True.
And usually the worst and least imaginative branch – the actors. Unfortunately the largest branch at the Academy!