AwardsWatch - 2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST DIRECTOR (April)

2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST DIRECTOR (April) – McQueen is King

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As was with Best Picture, Best Director sees a change-up from last month with Widows‘ Steve McQueen taking the pole position for April. Adam McKay (Cheney), Damien Chazelle (First Man), Barry Jenkins (If Beale Street Could Talk) and Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman) round out the top 5.

The rest of the top 10 plays out similarly to the top 10 in Best Picture and will do so until/if we see some divergence between the two categories. The second half of the top 10 is ripe with potential first-time nominees, including what could be the first Asian-American female directing nominee, Karyn Kusama (Destroyer).

Here are my predictions for Best Director as of April 16, 2018.

1. Steve McQueen – Widows

2. Adam McKay – Untitled Dick Cheney biopic

3. Damien Chazelle – First Man

4. Barry Jenkins – If Beale Street Could Talk

5. Spike Lee – BlacKkKlansman

6. Ryan Coogler – Black Panther

7. Marielle Heller – Can You Ever Forgive Me?

8. Karyn Kusama – Destroyer

9. James Gray – Ad Astra

10. Josie Rourke – Mary Queen of Scots

OTHER CONTENDERS

Felix van Groeningen – Beautiful Boy

Dexter Fletcher – Bohemian Rhapsody

Joel Edgerton – Boy Erased

Jon M. Chu – Crazy Rich Asians

Asghar Farhadi – Everybody Knows

Julia Hart – Fast Color

Yorgos Lanthimos – The Favourite

Jason Reitman – The Front Runner

Sebastián Lelio – Gloria

Ari Aster – Hereditary

Kim Nyugen – The Hummingbird Project

Wes Anderson – Isle of Dogs

Justin Kelly – JT Leroy

Thomas Vinterberg – Kursk

Debra Granik – Leave No Trace

Paolo Sorrentino – Loro

Terry Gilliam – The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

Rob Marshall – Mary Poppins Returns

Jonah Hill – Mid 90s

Jennifer Kent – The Nightingale

David Lowery – Old Man and the Gun

Mimi Leder – On the Basis of Sex

David Mackenzie – Outlaw King

Mike Leigh – Peterloo

Alfonso Cuarón – Roma

Jacques Audiard – The Sisters Brothers

Bradley Cooper – A Star is Born

László Nemes – Sunset

Luca Guadagnino – Suspiria

Jason Reitman – Tully

Benh Zeitlin – Wendy

Richard Linklater – Where’d You Go, Bernadette

Paul Dano – Wildlife

Susanna White – Woman Walks Ahead

Robert Zemeckis – The Women of Marwen

Lynne Ramsay – You Were Never Really Here

Pippa Bianco – Untitled Pippa Bianco aka Share

2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE (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)

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

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.