2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR (April) – Bale’s VP is VIP
Christian Bale (Untitled Dick Cheney biopic) holds onto the #1 spot, a phrase I feel like I will repeat quite often this year. Despite just having a Best Actor statue go to another actor with a ‘fat’ transformation biopic, Bale is an exception because he actually physically transforms his body rather than adding on a fat suit and makeup. His commitment is there and it won him an Oscar before.
The campaign is starting early for First Man as pieces go up describing the terror of space travel and ‘Whiplash at NASA’ comparisons. That boosts two-time Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling up one to the #2 spot this month, displacing Willem Dafoe playing Vincent Van Gogh in At Eternity’s Gate.
2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE (April)
The top five sees two new entries (meaning two other fall). Steve Carell in Beautiful Boy and John David Washington in BlacKkKlansman. Carell has another lead role (in Robert Zemeckis’s The Women of Marwen) and will compete against himself unless critics and groups swing their support to one film. Beautiful Boy should be the gut punch, playing the emotionally exhausted father of a drug-addicted son (played by Oscar-nominee Timothée Chalamet). Although I’ve bumped BlacKkKlansman down a bit in Picture and Director, I feel good about Washington (yes, son of Denzel) to find a lot of breakthrough notices that could push him all the way.
Falling this week are Lucas Hedges (Boy Erased) and Brad Pitt (Ad Astra). Both previous nominees in possibly big awards films this year but at this early stage, movement within the top 10 shouldn’t give too much pause.
2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST DIRECTOR (April)
John C. Reilly debuts with what I’m being told is the best performance of his career in Jacques Audiard’s English-language debut The Sisters Brothers. Reilly also has a ‘fat suit’ performance in the Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy biopic later this year.
Here are my predictions for Best Actor as of April 17, 2018.
| 1. Christian Bale – Untitled Dick Cheney biopic |
| 2. Ryan Gosling – First Man |
| 3. Willem Dafoe – At Eternity’s Gate |
| 4. Steve Carell – Beautiful Boy |
| 5. John David Washington – BlacKkKlansman |
| 6. Lucas Hedges – Boy Erased |
| 7. Brad Pitt – Ad Astra |
| 8. Hugh Jackman – The Front Runner |
| 9. John C. Reilly – The Sisters Brothers |
| 10. Rami Malek – Bohemian Rhapsody |
| OTHER CONTENDERS |
| Javier Bardem – Everybody Knows |
| Chadwick Boseman – Black Panther |
| Steve Carell – The Women of Marwen |
| Timothée Chalamet – Beautiful Boy |
| John Cho – Search |
| Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born |
| Jesse Eisenberg – The Hummingbird Project |
| Colin Firth – The Mercy |
| Ben Foster – Leave No Trace |
| Garrett Hedlund – Burden |
| John Huston – The Other Side of the Wind |
| Oscar Isaac – Operation Finale |
| Rory Kinnear – Peterloo |
| Roman Kolinka – Maya |
| George MacKay – The True History of the Kelly Gang |
| Viggo Mortensen – Green Book |
| Jack O’Connell – Trial by Fire |
| Nick Offerman – Hearts Beat Loud |
| Robert Pattinson – High Life |
| Joaquin Phoenix – The Sisters Brothers |
| Joaquin Phoenix – You Were Never Really Here |
| Chris Pine – Outlaw King |
| Jonathan Pryce – The Wife |
| Robert Redford – Old Man and the Gun |
| John C. Reilly – Stan and Ollie |
| Paul Rudd – The Catcher Was a Spy |
| Toni Servillo – Loro |
| Alexander Skarsgård – The Hummingbird Project |
| Christoph Waltz – Georgetown |
2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE (April)
2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST DIRECTOR (April)
2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR (April)
2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTRESS (April)
2019 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTOR (April)
2019 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTRESS (April)
2019 Oscar Predictions: ADAPTED and ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY (April)
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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