2017 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE (October)

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Not a lot of major changes this month other than La La Land locking in its Best Picture frontrunner status with a perfect score of 100 from the Gold Rush Gang. Billy Lynn remains at #2. Manchester by the Sea swaps with Silence for the #3 and #4 spot with Moonlight, Arrival, Fences, Sully and Lion rounding out the top 10 once again. But wait, we do have a big change to report – Fox Searchlight’s new pickup, Jackie, makes a massive debut into the top 5. The film, picked up after Toronto (FSL already had a first look/first right of refusal for the film) has been making waves since Venice for Natalie Portman’s performance as first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and for director Pablo Larraín. As it turns out, all Gold Rush Gang members have it in…except me. I’m sure I’ll take a ration of crap for that but I’m not sold on it quite yet. It could just be an Actress play or it could go all the way.

Loving falls from 8-11 this month and The Birth of a Nation falls out entirely. The press for that film hasn’t gotten any better and FSL grabbing Jackie and giving it an immediate release date tells me that, despite the contract with director Nate Parker for an awards campaign, that they’re going to do as little for the film as possible and focus on Jackie instead. Fences also falls out of the top five this month, even with a strong teaser trailer released. Sully keeps chugging along and just passed the $100M mark this weekend. Since Warner Bros. still hasn’t committed to a December qualifying release for Ben Affleck’s Live by Night this will really be there only awards play (no one is counting on Collateral Beauty in that regard) so this could easily find the Bridge of Spies spot for the meat-and-potatoes voters.

As of now, all but three films on our list have been seen. Silence, which finally got a release date (December 23rd), Fences and Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. Billy Lynn will be the next seen as it will premiere at NYFF on October 14th. Fences is most likely to end up at AFI and Silence would be extremely unlikely to show up ahead of its release.

I’m going to keep an eye out for Ava DuVernay’s prison documentary 13th, which opened NYFF to some of the best reviews of the year. It’s being released day/date on Netflix this week, October 7th.

Here are the 2017 Oscar predictions for Best Picture from The Gold Rush Gang for October:

OTHER CONTENDERS
13th
20th Century Women
Allied
American Pastoral
The Birth of a Nation
Bleed For This
The Founder
The Girl on the Train
Gold
Hell or High Water
Live by Night
Nocturnal Animals
Passengers

Follow the updated Gold Rush Gang predictions in these Oscar categories here:

BEST PICTURE
BEST DIRECTOR
BEST ACTOR
BEST ACTRESS
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
BEST FILM EDITING
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
BEST SOUND EDITING
BEST SOUND MIXING
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM (the shortlist)