2015 Oscar Predictions: BEST DIRECTOR – The Rise of Morten Tyldum

As with the November Best Picture predictions, the Gold Rush Gang’s thoughts on Best Director follow suit. That means Boyhood, Birdman and The Imitation Game continue to be strong with the TIG director Morten Tyldum seeing the biggest jump of the month, up 12 points. That also means that Bennett Miller (Foxcatcher), David Fincher (Gone Girl) and Ava DuVernay (Selma) all take hits with DuVernay’s being especially devastating. That bad word of mouth for Selma and the lack of a marketing push (it’s now the only major Best Picture contender without even so much as a trailer) is making people nervous and cautious. Currently, only Kenneth and myself are keeping her in our predictions. We’ll see if things change after the upcoming trailer drops and the 30-minute preview at AFI Fest this week.

Lack of faith in the Academy finally rewarding Interstellar‘s Christopher Nolan drops him a bit but with still enough votes to keep him as a top 5 contender, for now. Many of us are starting to look at outliers in previous Oscar winners Clint Eastwood (American Sniper) and James Marsh (The Theory of Everything) to shake up the race and feed off the dying hopes for the bottom-tier vote-getters here. And, just as last month, I am the single vote for Angelina Jolie (Unbroken) again. Foolish or brilliant? It will only be one or the other and we should see things start to take shape in the coming weeks.