Each year the big shots of Tinseltown gather around to bestow praise, awards and a little bit of light ribbing on one another. If you love celebrity culture you might enjoy it, if you love cinema it will probably make you wretch.
The reason for this is due to the fact that over the last three decades the broadcast has slowly mutated from an award show into a pulpit where the audience is reminded that the world is racist, sexist and homophobic, thus awards are bestowed upon films about these minority groups (whether or not they deserve it).
It is only in this upside down world that Sean Penn in Milk beats Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler for best actor of the year.
Having said that, let’s turn to my Oscar predictions (which have had a 90% accuracy rating since 2000). The list is broken down into who will win (which means nothing) and who should win (which means everything).
For example, Ordinary People was always going to win Best Picture in 1982, but Raging Bull should have won (see where I’m going with this?).
The list is focusing only on the main 6 categories that people only seem to tune in for (Best Picture, Best Director and all 4 acting categories). Has anyone ever cared about sound effects editing?
I will also include a short list of “Shoulda been Nominated” and “Get the Fuck Outta Here”.
Note, I am not a professional film critic and no longer have access to advance and free screenings. I work full-time as a lawyer and admit I have not seen all of the nominated films across the main categories. Still, that never stopped me from predicting something as obvious as Heath Ledger taking home gold for The Dark Knight.
Also, these predictions are coming out before the directors guild awards and other pre-Oscar ceremonies which always show the shift in direction that Academy voters will take. If for example, Phantom Thread starts sweeping these awards prior to March 4th then all my predictions are going to get blown out of the water.
Best Picture:
Call Me by Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Who will win:
Tough call. The Academy has shot itself in the foot by awarding unworthy films of similar tone and content in previous years (and they never want to award the same themes in short succession of each other). Had Moonlight not accidentally won last year, Call me by your Name (another bloated love story) might have had this in the bag. Same with The Post, which is superior to the made for TV winner Spotlight. In any other year these would be the top runners, but in my opinion it will be either The Shape of Water or Three Billboards.
Who should win:
Dunkirk. No contest. It’s one of the best films of the last decade. But too many white men, not enough women or minorities = no awards.
Lead Actor:
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.
Who will win:
Gary Oldman. If anyone is going to take this by surprise it will be Daniel Kaluuya because people really loved Get Out for some reason.
Who should win:
Gary Oldman. Long overdue.
Lead Actress:
Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Meryl Streep, The Post
Who will win:
Saorise Ronan.
Who should win:
Saorise Ronan by process of elimination. Meryl already has 10, Margot Robbie will eventually get one, Frances already has one and Sally Hawkins’ performance is too underplayed and not impactful enough.
Supporting Actor:
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Who will win:
Christopher Plummer because of his age and experience in the industry, and for the Oscar voters to further remove themselves from/humiliate paedophile, Kevin Spacey.
Who should win:
Woody Harrelson because he deserved and Oscar for Rampart and I’m still angry that he did not even get a nomination.
Supporting Actress:
Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water
Who will win:
Octavia Spencer because people are still furious about her being neglected in The Help and because people loved her in Hidden Figures (and black women tend to do better in supporting Oscar wins than in leading roles).
Who should win:
Octavia Spencer for all the reasons listed above and because she’s the only one in that list who gave a memorable performance.
Best Director:
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Jordan Peele, Get Out
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread
Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water
Who will win:
Christopher Nolan. 100% (unless the DGA gives it to Guillermo)
Who should win:
Christopher Nolan because uh… because he directed the best film of the last 10 years.
“Shoulda been nominated”
Blade Runner 2049 for Best Picture
Patrick Stewart for Best Supporting Actor for Logan.
“Get the Fuck Outta Here”
Denzel for best actor for Roman J. Israel, Esq. (What the hell? Bad movie, bad performance, the nomination is likely a typo to be corrected on the night of the ceremony.)
Baby Driver across all technical achievement nominations.
Final thoughts…
It will be a dull ceremony like years past, very few surprises and Jimmy Kimmel is an obnoxious host (although not as bad as Seth McFarlane). It could easily be a clean sweep across most categories for The Shape of Water, as it has been many years since any film has won 9 or more (Return of the King). My gut feeling is the same scatter gun showering we see most years, each film wins one or two and the Best Picture winner will take home no more than 4.
I’ve never understood how the “best film of the year” most of the time struggles to take home any more than 3… it’s the best film of the year right?
Follow Noel @reeves_noel .