Our BIG CHART is up. We do this every year – but keep checking back because we improve it, add to it, correct it in the days/hours/minutes leading up to Sunday’s Oscars. These charts go back to my favorite Oscar year, 2006. It’s fun to look at them through the ages.
Previous Years – MAIN PREDICTS 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | Current
Previous Years – TECH PREDICTS 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | Current
Scott Feinberg switched from Jennifer to Lupita.
@Sammy, but JL didn’t win SAG.
^ A toast to despicable characters and the actors who have the skill and courage to play them without regret:
Fassbender, Leo, Close, Fiennes…. Oscar may be afraid to appreciate you, but we’re not.
“If Leo doesn’t win Sunday night I have a feeling one of two things will happen: either the Academy will treat him the way they did Henry Fonda and give him an Oscar at the very end of this career, or they will treat him the way they did Peter O’Toole and never award him a competitive Oscar. McConaughy was great but I think Leo is really getting the shit end of the stick.”
Jay, I feel the same way. I have gone on record stating how hesitant I was in going to see WoWS, but after seeing it, I was blown away by Leonardo. The man had proven himself time and time again, and this is the same year of The Great Gatsby, which I just watched earlier this week. It’s Leo’s time and it would just be awful to see Matt Mc come in and take it. DBC was a great movie, but of all the films, these two roles are candy coated Oscar baity performances that voters feel good about themselves voting for. The harder roles of playing despicable men, (Dicaprio and Fassbender) may be overlooked simply because voters didn’t see the film, or hated the character so much that they project it upon the actor and deny him a valid vote. That’s what I see here.
Along with a 12YAS BP win, I would be so thrilled for Leonardo if he won.
a Jasmine BJ?
Jennifer Lawrence will win, again. She got the Globes and BAFTA already.
If Barkhad Abdi wins the Oscar (in an upset), I then proclaim that Minneapolis no longer be called Minneapolis. I proclaim it be called “Abdiville”. So shall it be, so shall it is!
You should be checking out the Hollywood Reporter’s “Brutally honest Academy” voting entries. They all pick Cate and most go Lupita but other ideas are wild and show how nuts people can be (for example, one guy actually says Blanchett only impressed him in “Bandits”).
*that bit about De Niro was from last year, obviously.
…and I still absolutely love the fact that the consensus randomly formed around De Niro for no reason. Still get a good laugh from that to this day. Just goes to show that they are completely clueless sometimes.
The only other consensus that I disagree with this year is Film Editing. It could very well be Captain Phillips (the ACE Eddie winner), but I still think they’re going to give it Gravity, the most technically amazing film of the year (and of the last several years).
Looking at the charts, it makes me feel even better about Her’s chances of winning Original Screenplay. Last year they obviously didn’t pay attention to the precursors where Django Unchained won the Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, and the BAFTA (it was “ineligible” for the WGA), causing several people to mistakenly predict Amour and Zero Dark Thirty. This year most of them obviously haven’t paid attention again.
2009 when every fucking person thought Up in the Air was winning Original Screenplay.
If Leo doesn’t win Sunday night I have a feeling one of two things will happen: either the Academy will treat him the way they did Henry Fonda and give him an Oscar at the very end of this career, or they will treat him the way they did Peter O’Toole and never award him a competitive Oscar. McConaughy was great but I think Leo is really getting the shit end of the stick.
thank you Jay 🙂
I skimmed the current year’s “main predicts”. For the time being our own editor Ryan Adams’ current year’s predictions are not being included — if you’d like, I’d like to see it.
I like the way his Argo year’s predictions went regardless of the outcomes: he chose Life of Pi [though wrongly but #commendably, to me, #for I believe he did it despite trusting that Argo had a much higher chance (I did Argo if my mem serves me)], Ang Lee [correctly; so was I], Sally Fields, ZDT for its respective Screenplay, Lincoln for its Writing.
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By the way, I like “Paddy”’s first comment [Feb. 28 1:57 pm AD time] – satirically funny. : )
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Yesterday, re my own prediction, I was about to make up my mind for Hustle to win BP [I think many readers now might want to kick me where it hurts lol]. But I’m not so sure now, given the majority trend, understandably, towards 12 Years, to begin with.
Anyway, on the “main predicts”, somehow the consensus looks odd to me. Repetitious. . . . But gurus are supposed to know better, I guess, right? : )
“Maybe it’s the now cult of personality and celebrity surrounding J’Law that sticks in my craw. Judy Davis, Amy Adams, Laura Linney, Julieanne Moore, Annette Bening are Oscarless.”
Well said, Daveinprogress
^ Make a crappy movie!
What did Woody Allen do to deserve such inane and pretentious dismissals of his latest work?
‘I found BJ depressing’
‘I can’t watch the BJ DVD. painful.’
Not like any BJs I remember…
‘If Argo wins BP again this year, Paddy, yours is the only blog I’ll read from now on.’
*sniffs* And here was me thinking it already was! :'(
(By *sniffs* I mean cocaine duh, I’m not crying or anything, plz!)
These comments are funny. 🙂
The deciding factor on Make Up is going to be, whether they judge final results given extremely limited budget (DBC) or the realism, enough to fool unaware people (Jackass). A really close call.
Well, this is going to come down to 4-5 categories. Many people are very close with their predictions. Few are taking actual risks: Happy for Best Song, for instance? A non-frontrunner acting winner? I think we’re ripe for upsets. I hope there’s something that shocks the hell out of everyone…like Girl with the Dragon Tattoo winning editing, Meryl Streep winning (apparently very few people were going for her), etc.
Editing might upset, “Captain Phillips” is not the frontfunner. Also, just because DBC is the only BP nominated film in make-up, it does not mean it’s going to win. “Mrs. Doubtfire” won over “Philadelphia” and “Schindler’s List”, so look out for “Bad Grandpa”.
I know. I can’t watch the BJ DVD. painful.
similar Structure as Streetcar used to make a very different work of art. entirely about the sickness of great entitlement.
“Blue Jasmine is a blatant updating of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE”
Yes, and West Side Story an updated Romeo & Juliet, House of Cards/Macbeth, and so on. Nothing wrong with that.
One thing in Blue Jasmine’s favour comes when you compare the endings. In Streetcar, Blance is taken into medical care while in BJ, Jasmine is raving alone on the street. I thought it was a good illustration of changing times.
But I’ll agree – I found BJ depressing and likely won’t be watching it agin anytime soon either.
Further heresy by me – Jane Austen.
Yes my sister and others will hate me, but Austin’s works have a certain sameness to them. But comparing one writer to another is a different thing to comparing multiple works by the same author.
while we’re at it, the Jasmine’s most direct relationship is with Paul Bowle’s novel, “The Sheltering Sky”.
if Jasmine is nothing but a rip of Streetcar, then every Jane Austin novel is identical.
Bob, i’m with you on the ‘awful people’ of Blue Jasmine. If i didn’t admire Cate so much and root for her to win a 2nd Oscar, i wouldn’t care to see another frame of Blue Jasmine ever again!
It reeked of Streetcar, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, there wasn’t a redeeming character in it. No self awareness; just self deluded people. I can sit through brutality (just); i can embrace unlikeable characters, but there seemed little or no purpose in Allen’s script. None that i hadn’t heard or seen in plenty of other contemporary tales.
Give me Interiors, Alice, Another WOman, Crimes and Misdemeanors – any number of his fine dramatic works, but not this one.
hoping for a lupita win but it’s beginning to look more & more like jlaw 🙁
Mike, thanks for including the incredible Glenn Close (how did i forget her, she should be at the top of the list and La Pfeiffer too)
I’m not sure about Jennifer – time will indeed tell. The Hunger Games is the turning point. She will in all likelihood be the Julia Roberts/Sandra Bullock of the next decades as she gets an obscene amount of money for popcorn box office hits and after an Oscar (please not a 2nd) not need critical acclaim and be an actor like Tom Cruise or Bruce Willis or Sly Stallone (in their heyday), action and franchise kings. That’s the sort of trajectory I predict for her, and good luck to her – the world is her oyster!
Blue Jasmine is a blatant updating of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE- if Before Midnight has to be in the adapted category han BJ should have been there to. Everything good about the screenplay Allen can give thanks to Tennessee Williams for.
a Woody Allen win win be so cool. watch heads explode.
Allen created a devastating, and accurate, portrait of the entitlement mentality of our betters. Jasmine, her husband and son, all three. Awful people.
yeah, the screenplay has some unlikely coincidences. so what? that’s true of most classic literature. I think it’s more powerful than Wolf. Not a better film, but a much more powerful political punch. and certainly moreso than the wimpy AH.
I’m not sure where to put this, but I thought everyone on AD would enjoy this brief article from the Onion.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/how-oscar-winners-are-selected,35399/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview:2:Default&recirc=late-night
I think Swank was great in both her performances but she is still someone who’s overall career has been deemed by many as less than stellar and thus surprising that she would have two Oscars.
I understand your sentiment about the great Oscar-less actors (and add Glenn Close, Michelle Pfeiffer and Annette Bening to that list) but to be honest I would imagine Jennifer Lawrence is in the grand scheme of things more likely to have a career with the kind of prestige and longevity to justify two Oscar wins than any other of the women in her catagory this year.
ps. Imelda Staunton was the standout for me the year that Swank won #2
Hmm, i’m not as conflicted or angered by Swank’s wins as others. They were not back to back, and they were, in my opinion, great performances, and her work in Freedom Writers and Conviction showed a maturing actress.
Maybe it’s the now cult of personality and celebrity surrounding J’Law that sticks in my craw. Judy Davis, Amy Adams, Laura Linney, Julieanne Moore, Annette Bening are Oscarless.
Two words: Hilary Swank
Can Christoph Waltz and Jennifer Lawrence then go off into the sunset; make hideous movie choices and we never have to consider them in the awards’ race ever again? I know that is unlikely in J’s case, but is she really that good? Winter’s Bone notwithstanding, i’m not sure that her or the Academy’s image would ever be the same again if she is a double Oscar winner with those 2 movies. But then again….
“Best Actress: Philomania”
Paddy – you mean “Willamina”? . . .
I think the one thing it could do is keep one film from sweeping as people will hypothetically be able to see that they’ve already voted for say GRAVITY on five other categories and might want to throw another film a bone when it comes to editing or cinematography, etc.
In the same vein you are going to have sound guys voting for costumes and musicians voting for cinematography- so who knows what will happen.
I’m pretty sure Tom O’Neil from GoldDerby is predicting Leonardo DiCaprio to win best actor. Unless he just changed it, but he didn’t according the the goldderby website.
The only sure bets are for Director, Actress, Supporting Actor, Cinematography, Sound Mixing, Original Score, Makeup & Hairstyling, & Visual Effects. Everything else is anyone’s game. The only thing that could deter ’12 Years a Slave’ from winning Best Picture is, and that’s IF there’s any truth to the rumors, that voters were afraid to watch the film. I’m picking ’12 Years a Slave’ to win, but honestly, I hope ‘Gravity’ wins.
It just hit me once more how this year, we don’t have Roger Ebert’s own predictions to work off of.
^ Finally! Someone with balls!
If Argo wins BP again this year, Paddy, yours is the only blog I’ll read from now on.
My final predictions:
Best Supporting Actress: June Squibb
Best Supporting Actor: Jonah Hill
Best Actress: Philomania
Best Actor: Tom Hanks
Best Director: Steven R McQueen
Best Picture: Argo
Jesus—I’m half hoping your predictions are right just to see the total meltdown at forums like this at Hustle winning so much.
Mike—I agree that having everyone voting everywhere can lead to some shifts but just hard to see it being massive in many regards. Sure, Hustle and Gravity can get more as surely all the tech guys will go for Gravity but enough to really win? Likewise, you really see Blanchett undone by more voters from different fields? Might be a surprise here and there (still think Hawkins could pull off from a Lupita/Lawrence vote split) but think you might be reading too much into this voter change really affecting the huge races.
Why is it that every time we get to this point, it looks as though one should hire Little Bo Peep and a couple of border collies to look after the gurus? Especially this year. I understand that this may well be how things turn out, but I doubt it’s a cut and dried as the chart would indicate.
Ryan – I didn’t see your input on te chart – get in there an shake things up!
I concur with the main predix (12 Years, Cuarón, Blanchett, McCohnaughey, Ngoy’o and Leto) but I can’t resist to share the hunch it’s going to be:
Picture: American Hustle
Director: Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity)
Actress: Amy Adams, American Hustle
Actor: Bruce Dern, Nebraska
Supp. Actress: Lupita Ngoy’o, 12 Years a Slave
Supp. Actor: Bradley Cooper, American Hustle or Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club, but fearing Cooper.
American Hustle winning Picture, Actress, Original Screenplay and 1 technical at least, Editing or Costume, probably.
The one thing I perhaps wonder if people are forgetting is that for the 1st time EVER the entire membership of the AMPAS gets to vote in every single category. This is a huge deal and makes the guild wins pretty much irrelevant.
Yes, of course you can understand why the small auteurish WGA would pick HER, but I think when you throw in members of the SAG, PGA, ACE, Costume Design, Special Effects teams also voting in that race — it suddenly seems much more likely that something like AMERICAN HUSTLE will win.
Bottom line: there is NO WAY that the evening’s winners list is going to look as cookie-cutter cut and dry as this prediction chart with its consensus views across the board is indicating.
The one thing I perhaps wonder if people are forgetting is that for the 1st time EVER the entire membership of the AMPAS gets to vote in every single category. This is a huge deal and makes the guild wins pretty much irrelevant.
Well not really. The only categories we’re talking about here are foreign, doc and the shorts.
Mike—-On that comment “the AMPAS vote for who they think is best,” I counter that argument with two words:
Roberto Benigni.
Pulling for Lupita but just worried that voters will be unable to resist the symmetry of two actresses both holding awards in both best and supporting on the same night. Then again, wouldn’t be as shocked if Hawkins benefits from a Lawrence/Lupita split and the power of Blanchett rubbing off on her to win.
“Well, Simone the AMPAS voters simply vote for what they like best.”
Mike, surely you’re not that naïve? You know that’s not the case. You know this.
And I still have doubts in Matt McC, just hard to see more staid members of the Academy rewarding him his very first time out and with his infamous goofball behavior of old. I am feeling a bit more for DiCaprio but still hoping Ejiofor can be rewarded as he deserves.
Great analogy: If Cate Blanchett doesn’t win Actress, she becomes the acting equivelant of the Denver Broncos, utterly dominant in the season only to lose in the big prize.
Seriously, the only possible way it’s not her is if literally every other member went “ah, she’s a sure thing, I’ll throw a vote to Bullock or Adams for the hell of it.” Just can’t see it and it is refreshing to see the Oscar actually go to the best performance of the year.
The person I think we have to watch out for is Bruce Dern. He has a lot of support in the older guard of the Academy. He could steal the vote if there is a split between Matthew, Leo and Chiwetel.
Yes, the uniformity across those main categories is fascinating. Looking at my list, mine resembles it too! I have been oscillating between Matthew and Chiwetel. The latter would make me scream for joy, but I will be happy with Matthew too. I would love to see a surprise in Supp Actor, but alas my hopes for Fassbender i think are hopeless. Barkhad would be the likely alternative. I’m even unsure of whether 12 years will prevail but am predicting it, as the heart swamps the mind on this one. I wonder what propels most of the prognosticators to predict this split. Is it the PGA tie? The DGA and BAFTA outcomes?
Is Gravity too slim as an overall narrative to scoop both BP and BD?
If everyone predicts Cuaron to win, why would they not tick both categories. Is his achievement better than the film itself? And if 12 years does win, did it direct itself? I know these conundrums have been the subject of many posts and comments, but at the eleventh hour, it is interesting that all of the above are predicting the same split. It would be a gargantuan surprise for McQueen and the film to win both, but not nearly as big a shock for Gravity to win BP and BD. And as Sasha pointed out previously noone is predicting American Hustle!
Interesting year. But more than most, comparing a 3D masterpiece set in space with a cast of two, to a masterpiece of storytelling in an epic ensemble tale set a 170 years ago is just the oddest, impossible task.
Yes, the precursors point to what a lot of us are predicting. The analysis for this outcome will still be fascinating, but not as much as if any of the other configurations of wins occurs.
Well, Simone the AMPAS voters simply vote for what they like best. They’ve said it in interviews time and again, and in the case of Lawrence, several have gone on record as saying they voted for her last year and this year because in both instances it was the performance they liked best.
And in fairness if that is how they feel, isn’t that the way they should vote? I think we, as film enthusiasts in our overall eagerness about winners in their proper place in the lexicon of movie history – way over think statistics, “should” wins etc.
A win for Jennifer Lawrence, back to back will be simply put, fucking ridiculous!
A win for Jennifer Lawrence, back to back will be simply put, fucking ridiculous!
Any of them would be better winners than her. It would be beyond embarrassing. But you know, that’s how they roll.
You think that the one hold out on the list would have submitted his response by now. Shhhheeeesh!
I think Lawrence is going to take it too. Just a gut feeling.
Wow! Look at all of you that had Julie Christie winning in 2007…which she should have. I didn’t know that Cotillard was THAT much of an upset. I assumed she had it in the bag that night. Even though I really was hoping for Christie and she deserved it.
Update! Tom O’neil recently switched from Lupita to Jlaw ;-(
I just don’t see Matt Mc winning Best Actor… either Chiwetel or Leo got this.
When there’s this much consensus I start to worry – especially in a year that’s been so topsy turvy.