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

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Steve McQueen, Widows

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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)

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.

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