The Oscar race, like politics, relies on intel from just one year prior. So this year, where the Best Picture race is concerned, the predictions will bounce off of the Roma/Green Book shocker from last year. Every so often the pundits are proven wrong, but for the few who guess right. Only a few of us had Green Book, while the majority had Roma. They were bouncing off the year before where The Shape of Water won the DGA and then Best Picture and Director. They assumed Roma would follow suit. But many who thought they were in the know were unable to call the Best Picture race correctly because it, like politics again, has an insular feedback loop online that can be misleading. They weren’t really getting how well Green Book was playing and how angry the backlash to its backlash had become. We had doubts about Roma over here at Awards Daily because something didn’t quite add up.
Though Roma played favorably in Telluride, it didn’t win the audience award in Toronto. Nor did A Star Is Born. Green Book surprised and won. Ordinarily, winning at Toronto isn’t that big of a deal. But it beating those movies WAS a big deal, in particular A Star Is Born, which had the most hype of any movie heading in. When things didn’t go as expected in Toronto, it was an early signal that there was a problem. But the same could have been said about Roma.
The critics loved Roma, practically to exclusion of everything else. So at the end of the year when so many critics upended the card table because they didn’t like who won the game, it became clear that they’d put all of their chips behind only one movie. Others were blaming the Academy for not choosing Black Panther or BlacKkKlansman even when they themselves did not choose either of those movies to help build the kind of momentum you need for a Best Picture. But at the end of the day, Green Book was simply the one that most people liked best. It’s hard to remember that is what a consensus vote is — the one the greatest number of people like best.
When you fold in the math of the preferential ballot, it is even more important that the film that survives ballot redistribution is the one that most people like or even love. It’s hard to game the system with that kind of ballot. A movie has to build healthy stacks of ballots in 1st, 2nd, 3rd place, 4th, and even 5th place. It has to hit high on ballots or win on the first round.
Green Book was a very popular film outside the feedback loop of outrage. There was some intelligent, valid discussion to be had about the film. Instead, it was a year of extreme reactions, think pieces, Twitter swarms of outrage. And even now, the Green Book story is misread, with the film continuing to symbolize for many viewers some kind of racial injustice done to someone somewhere. How those attitudes will echo in this year’s race is not yet known, but there could be unpredictable leverage if films about race are in play.
Beyond that, there were other factors to consider last year that I wrote a lot about (you were here, readers, so you know it happened). Netflix vs. theatrical, an unprecedented year for black auteurs, the plea to recognize more women directors (while support for women was split up, making it impossible for one to gain any consensus). There was also “popular” movies vs. the kinds of insular festival darlings that populate the race but get mostly ignored by the public.
There is no getting around the continuing activism of the film and awards communities to offer fair representation across all spectrums. The idea that any film about a straight white male hero could still matter is in question. Everything seems to somehow be a comment on Donald Trump — so much so that, to a extent, we’ve all become a little confused as to what these awards are actually supposed to mean at all.
In general, Anne Thompson does not predict anything this early. Yet, for whatever reason she has her Oscar columns out fairly quickly this year. This is how she opens her piece on Best Picture column:
In order for a movie to wind up in the Best Picture race, everything has to go right. So it’s way too early to jump into real predicting. For now, let’s assess the likely players. And we will update as we see where the chips fall, from Cannes to the all-important gatekeepers, the fall film festivals.
She knows it’s way too early, and yet the pressure is always on to compete with other sites, shape the race, please advertisers, etc.
Either way, it sort of sets up how this year might go, with Netflix is now a major player with another highly-anticipated pony in the race, and a film like Roma having proven that it can get pretty close to winning Best Picture. The Green Book fight will rage on, no doubt, and the “woke factor” will remain ever present in how films are chosen. Popular movies will still be a thing — as in, will Avengers: Endgame, at around $800 mil, make it in for Best Picture? Can the sleeper hit Booksmart (overhyped by critics to an absurd degree but still a well-liked film and a sharp debut by Olivia Wilde) make it in? If not, why not?
This early, it’s hard to see how a movie might make it in. The sure bets that seem like sure bets (First Man) can falter, and the films people write off as genre movies can do quite well (Get Out, Bohemian Rhapsody). The trick is to keep your mind open to the possibilities and try to see into the future as to how things might go. I could never have seen the First Man shutout coming. I loved the movie. It was paced perfectly and remains Damien Chazelle’s best film. And yet, because it didn’t make as much money as expected and it didn’t deliver the emotional highs and visual thrills that space movies that land in the Oscar race often do, the Academy just didn’t go for it. First Man did win a single Oscar for visual effects, which was better than nothing.
Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood looks like a promising bet now that people have seen it at Cannes. Yes, it will be greeted with shitstorms and think pieces, and who knows how far those will go, but at the end of the day his films are so entertaining and I would guess audiences are so hungry for those kinds of movies, so it will make a lot of money and do very well with awards.
If the idea of Best Popular Film category were to be brought back (doubtful amid massive public blowback), Endgame would be an easy nominee there, as would Captain Marvel, Us, and whatever else shatters the box office this year. It’s tricky, though. Reading the tea leaves myself, I would guess that popular movies won’t be a thing this year as they were last year because there is no Black Panther to fight for — all that remains are franchise pics.
At any rate, I suspect that Anne is playing it very safe here(at least I hope) and that we will have many more than these titles to choose from. Her column is informative and definitely worth the read.
Here is her rundown, with the usual caveat that a film isn’t listed as a frontrunner unless she’s seen it.
As always, contenders are listed in alphabetical order; no film will be deemed a frontrunner unless I have seen it.
Frontrunners
“The Farewell”
“A Hidden Life”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
“Pain & Glory”
“The Report”
Contenders
“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”
“Cats”
“Dry Run”
“Fair and Balanced”
“Ford v. Ferrari”
“The Goldfinch”
“Harriet”
“The Irishman”
“The Laundromat”
“The Lighthouse”
“Little Women”
“Motherless Brooklyn”
“Untitled Noah Baumbach”
“Wendy”
“The Woman in the Window”
Here is how Erik Anderson at AwardsWatch sees the race unfolding:
Frontrunners:
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Harriet
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
1917
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Ford v. Ferrari
Little Women
The Pope
Just Mercy
Second Tier:
The Farewell
The Laundromat
The Personal History of David Copperfield
Queen & Slim
The Woman in the Window
OTHER CONTENDERS:(alphabetical)
Ad Astra
Cats
The French Dispatch
The Goldfinch
The Last Thing He Wanted
Motherless Brooklyn
The Report
Rocketman
Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker
Untitled Roger Ailes Project aka Fair and Balanced
Us
Waves
If I were making a list, I would do it a little differently. The films on our radar are the same films on most everyone’s radar and films no one has seen. That can go either way. There are no guarantees. Hype can destroy even the best of films. In a sense, it’s foolish to even try to imagine whether the films will be good or not. If expectations fly too high, the film has nowhere to go but down.
Still, there are things you can look at: studio, producer, star, subject matter. These days, you want to always look more closely at films directed by women or women of color: films with political themes, epics, etc. We know that there is no knowing until the film is seen at last.
But, casually, these are the films that stand out most to me right now:
Frontrunners:
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Harriet
The Irishman
The Woman in the Window
Little Women
The Good Liar
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
The Report
Ford V Ferrari
The Goldfinch
Without a doubt, I’ll be looking at all of these movies, as we do every year, and at other movies that might not fit the Oscar cookie cutter mold but will nonetheless remain in the minds of voters by year’s end. It is a wide open year so far. Let’s hope it stays that way.
the pope is in!
It would save a couple paragraphs to just say that Green Book was The Shape of Water 2.0. Many of us identified this a long way out. It had nothing to do with backlash, they are both equally moronic, pandering films.
How is The Shape of Water even remotely like Green Book, other than your disappointment they won Best Picture?
Moronic and pandering I can see for GB, but I’m having trouble connecting the dots with TSOW.
They both feature black or gay characters, perhaps? Anything featuring those is a write-off, apparently.
Another best picture contender showed a little more of its hand today:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aa532aadd49fbda1142e32dcfdf4dda8b78ed97dabac0caa5883deae242c5222.jpg
The second trailer came out today on YouTube (find it yourselves as I’m sick and goddamned tired of this website flagging legit URL’s). Not every link is malware, guys.
Honestly, “Frozen” was SO overrated… that doesn’t mean “Frozen 2” ain’t going to be good or even great… but I guess this is not going to be close to Best Picture (Animated Feature is another issue… I would nominate “The Lego Movie 2” but I am conscious it underperformed critically and b.o. wise – to me it’s just one inch lower than the original, but hey, that’s me – and it won’t be even promoted for the “Catchy Song” deserving Original Song nomination).
Let it gooooo!
My favorite film of the year so far is ‘Aladdin’. In fact, its the very first time I enjoy a film directed by Guy Ritchie, so I guess I have reached quite an important personal milestone already. I am also very much looking forward to the ‘Downton Abbey’ movie. I have no idea how these two will fare Oscar-wise but I already consider it a good year when I get to watch films I enjoy.
Goddamn you, what’s with the waiting to be approved shit on legitimate URL’s
If AVATAR and BLACK PANTHER can get in for BP… Then ENDGAME SHOULD
The scuttlebutt I heard was that the Black Panther campaign was basically Disney’s dress rehearsal for a huge campaign for Endgame this year. They’re hoping it to be their answer to Return Of The King, with the Academy showering awards on the “final” installment of an epic series. This seems farfetched to me, but I do think it’ll get a nomination. And rightly so, since I strongly doubt I’ll see eight or nine better movies than it this year.
I wonder if Woman In The Window’s chances (and Amy Adams’ chances by extension) could be harmed by the weird controversy surrounding the book’s author:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/11/a-suspense-novelists-trail-of-deceptions
While I admit that “Pain and Glory”‘s place doesn’t belong (till it is officially released in the US and after it is well received) to the Best Picture contenders shortlist… it certainly belongs after Cannes into the Original Screenplay and Director. It’s going to be a fun ride if Banderas actually gets double nominated for this and “The Laundromat” (then, certainly he’s winning one of them, despite the many precedents of double nominations that lead to nothing, like most infamously, Sigourney Weaver). Still, as usual, half a year to go, anything can happen.
Avengers : Endgame will probably make the BP cut in the end just like Black Panther did. Not because they are cinematic masterpieces but because both made movie history regardless. I do think both were well-made by the way, I just didn’t consider them brilliant. Good, yes. Great, no.
The one I am very curious to see how it will fare is Little Women. While the cast couldn’t be better and Greta Gerwig is great, I was probably one of the very few who didn’t get the Lady Bird love. Having said that this is a beloved property with a kickass cast so it is definitely hard to imagine it could go wrong. But then again so many “sure things” do go wrong every year. Here is hoping this adaptation won’t be one of them.
I didn’t get Lady Bird the first time I watched it. It seemed too understated and anticlimactic. Why did college seem duller than her high school years — isn’t that the wrong way round? I had to watch it a second time to understand that it was the right way round. The second time, something clicked and all the masterpiece raves made sense to me.
No Avengers: Endgame, and a dozen other nominations to go with BP, no cred.
A:E, realistically has chances at…
Picture (PGA, maybe SAG Ensemble)
Adapted Screenplay (longshot, in a weak year)
Film Editing (that’s possible, honestly and would be probably deserved)
Production Design
Sound Mixing
Sound Editing
Visual Effects
Score
That’s it. I think the Russo Brothers have also an extreme longshot chance of a nom at directing… same with Robert Downey Jr and Chris Hemsworth… but we’re talking that for those nominations to happen a miracle has to happen and to be an horribly weak year in performances, as both of them are great but hardly anything deserving an Oscar nomination.
“They weren’t really getting how well Green Book was playing and how angry the backlash to its backlash had become. ”
Except Bohemian Rhapsody was playing even better. I suspect that if Bryan Singer hadn’t been…well…Bryan Singer…then BH would have run the table in an 8-10 Oscar sweep. He was a bridge too far, and frankly Green Book took big time advantage of that. But the whole “woke Twitter” thing will be the talking point that will never die.
One would THINK Tarantino has this in the bag, but I suspect the eventual winner is from the “Other Contenders” list. I’d suggest “French Dispatch” as long as Anderson doesn’t twee it into irrelevance.
Agreed… the only thing that prevented BH to be a 10+ nomination and 6+ Best Picture Winner was the Singer affair. Regardless of what anyone would think about the film’s quality itself, it was a slam-dunk on the appeal aspect.
So it won 4. Nominated for 5. What are the 4+ categories it would have won in order to get to 8-10? Keeping in mind the film is 20 points less than Green Book on Metacritic.
Take away Bryan Singer’s justifiably bad reputation, I could easily have seen a directing win and a script win. The fact that Rami Malek waltzed to the Acting win for literally lip syncing tells me how well the film was playing. Singer was just a bridge too far.
That still doesn’t get to 8-10. Plus, I highly doubt the Writer’s Branch would have even nominated it. Singer’s reputation aside the critics roasted it. Singer has no story or screenplay credit and they still didn’t give it a nomination. I doubt it was even close.
The French Dispatch is still listed as a 2020 film, so the information from Erik Anderson seems inaccurate. As for its potential tweeness, it should help that there are no animals or children in the cast — just like in The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Why is no one mentioning Parasite? Certainly as a favorite for Best International Feature Film. Captain Marvel for Best Popular Film? Are you kidding me? Us is already an afterthought. Forget it. The Goldfinch is being released on September 13, before the Fall Oscar season is in full swing, not a good sign. As much as I loved Brooklyn, I think its going to be a disaster on the level of Winter’s Tale, a 771 page literary work reduced to a 2 hour plus film that would have been better served as a limited TV series. My money is on The Irishman living up to its high expectations. My dark horse pick is 1917.
for obvious reasons. There will be only room for a Foreign Language film at Best Picture and that ticket has been clear since Cannes (actually, since first reviews came out from its release in Spain) and that’s “Pain and Glory” because of who stars in it and who directs and writes it… and also the themes, technical aspects and overall reception. While I seriously love Joon-ho Bong and find him a master at the same level as Almodovar (maybe more), Almodovar is LOVED in Hollywood and is a party and promotion master. That’s why many of us is saying that IF a Foreign Language film is going to be a huge player this year, that’s clearly Almodovar’s film unless something even bigger this way comes.
There is no doubt that Almodovar is beloved by the Hollywood community. The Academy, as you know, has changed the Best Foreign Film category to Best International International Feature Film. I think it will be a two way race between Pain and Glory and Parasite for that accolade. I don;t know if either film will be pushed tor Best Picture as Roma was. Almodovar could very well snag a Best Director nomination. I think Banderas has a good chance for a Best Actor nomination, but it’s going to be a very crowded field. Sony is already thinking of promoting both DiCaprio and Pitt for Best Actor for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Out of what’s already around… I think ONE mid-year film is going to make it. It’ll be either Us, Avengers: Endgame or Rocketman (or so I feel). Then, out of Cannes, maybe one more is going to make it (Rocketman, Pain and Glory or Once upon a time in Hollywood). So that leaves us with 1 or 2 nominees out of 5 titles. PGA and SAG Ensemble work in heavy favor of all of them but Pain and Glory… Pain and Glory being the “quality” / auteur vote, in my opinion (if Banderas wasn’t soooo Oscar-worthy, I would be in doubt about its chances to break in, into Best Picture).
I think we should definitely watch out for Jojo Rabbit.
yes. Taika Waititi is one of those filmmakers about to break into the Oscar game. I’ll add for future reference on other cult director: Nacho Vigalondo is SO winning Original Screenplay some day in the future. The spanish Charlie Kauffman
I certainly hope you’re right, though I am wondering whether a Hitler comedy might be something a bit too out there for Oscars… I totally agree with most of your reasoning though and have no doubt Waititi will be in the Oscar race again at some point but I’m not sure this is it. I hope I’m wrong, I’ve loved him for so many years and I’m so happy the rest of the world is finally getting to appreciate him en masse.
Agreed, Waititi is a talent on the brink of a major breakthrough, I believe. I also think this could be Scarlett Johansson’s first Oscar nomination, most likely in supporting. Weird how she is still very young, currently is widely considered to be this huge action star which of course she is and a lot of people have seemingly forgotten that she has been delivering Oscar calibre work for over two decades now : excellent performances in The Horse Whisperer (1998), Ghost World (2001), Lost in Translation (2003), The Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), Match Point (2005), Vicki Cristina Barcelona (2008), Hitchcock (2012), Don Jon (2013), Under the Skin (2013), Her (2013), Hail Caesar! (2016).
Yep! After the hype from Lost in Translation and Girl with a Pearl Earring, it’s kind of amazing she DIDN’T get nominated for Match Point – supporting actress nominations from well-received Woody Allen films were certainly abundant back in those days
That was a very strong year for her, she got Golden Globe and Bafta nominations for BOTH Lost in Translation and The Girl with a Pearl Earring, winning a Bafta for former. It was quite the surprise when in the end she didn’t get the Oscar nomination, she may have cancelled herself out with two strong lead performances in the same year. Crazy trivia : she was 19!
For your consideration:
An Elephant Sitting Still
Long Day’s Journey into Night
The Souvenir
I haven’t seen The Souvenir, but it seems like a total contender to me, although people seem to be leaving it out of the conversation.
Is it very obscure / high brow? Seems like something that could be positioned as a “prestige” pick – I mean the directing branch did nominate Cold War last year, so there are at least some branches trying to display more “high brow” tastes…
The main problem is probably that it’s EXTREMELY gentle. Not much really happens, it’s a lot about internal growth that isn’t really expressed in an externally in a way that Academy members like. It’s a film of astonishing emotional power if you’re up to it but it might seem slight or pointless very easily to someone who wants more to “happen” or is interested in a film that expresses its emotionality in a way that’s expressed outwards (I for example think that this lack of showing strong emotional reactions is what hurt Carol). And the film is about a young woman figuring her life out, and we know how difficult a time the Oscars have with films about those kinds of things
(sorry for the late answer, I was at a festival and didn’t have enough time to answer the question properly)
Thanks! I’d say Lost in Translation was pretty gentle, but that was probably the exception rather than the rule (& also probably reasonably successful at the B/O? I don’t remember, also Bill Murray, obv, & also more hipster than artsy).
Lost also definitely gives you the feels, whereas it sounds like Sovenir might give you more of the thinks? which is a tougher sell, of course.
I love all three, but I highly doubt any of them make it into the Oscar conversation. Maybe The Souvenir if it has legs and critics push it.
The other two are technically 2018 films with too much time having passed (but they’re among the best of last year).
I absolutely loved The Souvenir, but a lot of people hate it for its formal perfection, its depiction of the privileged, and some aspects of its plot that people find confusing and/or unsatisfying (no spoilers here). So I am not sure an arty indie movie that has a lot of hate can make the grade. I feel like that kind of movie needs to be widely loved for it to make it into the BP nominees — e.g. Roma.
Does anyone know what is the literal translation of the title of the Chinese film Long Day’s Journey Into Night? I’m curious because I understand that the English title, chosen by the distributors and obviously evoking the Eugene O’Neill play, is not similar to the actual Chinese title.
From what I’ve heard the direct translation would actually be something along the lines of “The Last Night on Earth”, which is probably the best title that movie could have
Thanks! Very interesting. I’d prefer they literally translate than go for the O’Neill reference!
The fact that Avengers:Engame with it’s great reviews, record-breaking box office and cultural milestone significance isn’t even listed among anyone’s “contenders” is a sign that prognosticators aren’t going to try and keep it in the conversation like many did for Black Panther last year. If Disney preps a huge campaign, perhaps it has a shot at Best Picture, but this is quite telling. FWIW, I feel it should be considered. It was a great film with terrific action, a satisfying conclusion to a huge arc of film, and an impressive technical undertaking.
Won’t happen, and in fact it’s “record-breaking box office” was absurdly front loaded and the film quickly fell out of #1 position in the weekly charts
When you make $357M on opening weekend – over $100 million more than the prior record-holder, you are going to be “absurdly front loaded” no matter how much the audience loved it (and they certainly loved it based on Cinemascore, exits and RT %’s) Do you think Oscar voters truly care how front loaded a box office behemoth is anyway? All they remember is what the headlines read – that it made a sh**load of $$ and everyone saw it.
The lack of legs past the third week of release was interesting and unexpected. And frankly it got noticed by more than a few pundits in the industry.
However, thanks big time for signalling that Endgame stanners will actually manage to be more annoying that Dark Knight fanboys were ten years ago. And that’s an accomplishment because I thought that geek freakout would never be topped in terms of misplaced outrage.
The fact that you’re lumping me in with Endgame fanboys is amusing. I certainly don’t fit that category, nor did I think my response was a “geek freakout”. I’m a 50-year old financial analyst that loves all kinds of film (hence why I’ve been a fan of this site for a decade), and I don’t think I’ve ever even picked up a Marvel or DC comic book in my life.
That said, would I like to see it nominated? Yeah, I would. It was well-made and very entertaining, and represented the culmination of quite an amazing series of movies. Do I think it will be nominated? Actually I don’t… and my first post indicates that, in relation to the first prognosticators not even mentioning it in their predictions.
To discount it’s box office performance though… No one’s going to put any kind of historical asterisk on a film that will likely earn $840 million domestically and $2.75 billion internationally. It was a big cultural event this year, and will be remembered whether it is nominated for awards or not…
Except Black Panther was actually a GOOD movie. Endgame is just as snooze-a-rific as all the other ones.
来了一次又一次,总是情不自已!
来了一次又一次,总是情不自已!