2019 Oscars: FINAL Oscar Nomination Predictions for the 91st Academy Awards
A host of controversies (including a host yet not a host), critics vs audiences, pundits vs pundits. This season has been a roller coaster unlike any I’ve seen in maybe all of my time covering Oscar season, both as a viewer and as a pundit in the mix.
It’s been messy, ugly and has seeped into the race to infect multiple contenders. Harvey Weinstein must be sitting at a desk somewhere cackling. But, for all of the controversies – be them about Green Book or Bohemian Rhapsody – 2018, to me, was a stellar year for film. Both for critics and for audiences. Everyone got something they could root for, something the loved or were passionate about. Sometimes the two converge and we get Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians and A Star Is Born. Sometimes we’re deeply divided in what is a ‘good’ or ‘great’ film and why.
When it comes to the Oscars, those two factions haven’t matched up as much recently. The latter half of the 2000s moved away from studio film dominance and high-grossing films being Oscar leaders and staunch campaigning of indies began an impressive run that has given us winners like The Hurt Locker and Moonlight. Check out the box office totals of Best Picture winners since 2000.
It’s fascinating to see winners from 2000-2004 be audience hits to the back and forth we see from 2005-2012. Since 2013 we haven’t had a Best Picture winner gross more than $65M. That was one reason the Academy execs (with the ‘guidance’ of ABC/Disney) tried to prop up a ‘Popular Film’ Oscar category this season. Dwindling ratings and winners the majority of the audience hadn’t seen yet made for an unenthusiastic viewing experience. A recent poll from The Hollywood Reporter found that only 20% of Americans could name last year’s Best Picture winner and most still think La La Land won over Moonlight.
This year though, has hits. It has audience passion. Indies are still going to play well and part of their expansion and visibility is the Oscars. Haven’t seen If Beale Street Could Talk yet? If it lands top 8 nominations you’ll probably get the chance if Annapurna sees value in expanding it. But we’re looking at potentially one of the highest grossing sets of Best Picture nominees since the expansion in 2009. There’s going to be something for everyone and, in the midst of caustic rhetoric (to which its participation I am not immune), maybe that can be a pivot point.
This all culminates into my Oscar predictions. In this wild season we started with the potential of four powerhouse, directors coming back from their Oscar-winning films with their follow-ups: Steve McQueen (Widows), Alfonso Cuarón (ROMA), Damien Chazelle (First Man) and Barry Jenkins (If Beale Street Could Talk). Each of these films has taken hits as the season has progressed with just ROMA fending off major guild or industry nomination misses. Widows and First Man both struggled at the box office, If Beale Street Could Talk is chugging along, but at a conservative pace, even for a limited release. We’ll never know true box office stats for ROMA, but the fact that it’s still in theaters, and entered cinemas a full two weeks before its streaming debut on Netflix, should account for something. First Man could become the film with the most nominations (most of us are predicting it for 6-8) that misses Best Picture in the expansion era. Widows is putting flowers on the coffin at its own funeral. If Beale Street Could Talk missed at multiple guilds and at this point needs the Academy to save it. How it ultimately plays out for these recent Oscar winners is going to inspire a lot of conversation.
But it’s not just an indie like Beale Street that the Academy needs to save. Two of the years biggest hits, Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians – both of which have SAG and PGA nominations – are in a precarious place. As the highest grossing domestic release of 2018, Black Panther should be a shoe-in for 10+ nominations as the comic book film that’s going to break Oscar’s glass ceiling in that regard (last year, Logan made a crack in Adapted Screenplay). But weirdly, the film is a bit on the ropes right now. It didn’t help that it was completely shut out of the Visual Effects Society nominations this week (and one measly nom from BAFTA) but it’s also, still, fighting the idea of ‘importance’ and ‘worthiness’ of an Oscar Best Picture nomination, and especially the comic book genre curse, despite its $700M+ and huge critical praise. Crazy Rich Asians is likely to fall to a different Oscar curse – being a comedy. The genre is still looked down upon, even if it’s successful. It’s not simply that it’s a comedy (or a “comedy” like Green Book and Vice are considered to be) but it’s a romantic comedy. It’s a groundbreaking film that deserves multiple nominations, including Best Picture, but is likely to find itself like another SAG and PGA-nominated blockbuster comedy to get shunned here – The Birdcage. That film managed to win the SAG Cast award and then end up with a sole nomination for Art Direction/Production Design. Weirdly, I think Crazy Rich Asians could end up with exactly that same single mention.
With the last three years seeing an unprecedented amount of new members, new members that represent previously overlooked groups like women, the LGBTQ film community and international filmmakers, will we see a tide change with these nominations? This is still an Academy that gave Mel Gibson a Best Director nomination just two years ago so even when they reach out to embrace diversity there are still branches that keep their problematic favorites close to the vest.
Oscar Podcast #71: FINAL Oscar nominations predictions with guest Will Mavity
One factor that seems to have gone under-reported this season is one that I feel could have the greatest impact. This is the first year ever with no paper ballots for Oscar nominations; everything is online now. I talked to some Academy members last weekend who told me that the process for voting was a bit complicated, requiring verifications of passwords and multiple devices to get them. Those hurdles could prove difficult for a large portion of older Academy voters who are used to doing things the same way for decades. I don’t know the true impact of this changeover immediately unless we see some wildly different nominations than we’re expecting, especially in favor of smaller, riskier work instead of broader, old-school Oscar bait, but I certainly can’t wait to find out.
Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 22nd by Oscar nominee Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick) and Emmy nominee Tracee Ellis Ross (ABC’s black-ish) and will broken into two segments; one starting at 5:20am PT with nine categories, and the larger portion at 5:30:30am PT. Here is the category breakdown.
Expecting ROMA, A Star Is Born and The Favourite to lead with strong showings for Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, First Man and If Beale Street Could Talk, here are my final 2019 Oscar nomination predictions.
BEST PICTURE
BlacKkKlansman
Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
If Beale Street Could Talk
ROMA
A Star is Born
Vice
DIRECTOR
Spike Lee – BlacKkKlansman
Barry Jenkins – If Beale Street Could Talk
Alfonso Cuarón – ROMA
Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born
Adam McKay – Vice
ACTOR
Christian Bale – Vice
Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born
Rami Malek – Bohemian Rhapsody
Viggo Mortensen – Green Book
John David Washington – BlacKkKlansman
ACTRESS
Yalitza Aparicio – ROMA
Glenn Close – The Wife
Olivia Colman – The Favourite
Lady Gaga – A Star Is Born
Melissa McCarthy – Can You Ever Forgive Me?
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Mahershala Ali – Green Book
Timothée Chalamet – Beautiful Boy
Adam Driver – BlacKkKlansman
Sam Elliott – A Star Is Born
Richard E. Grant – Can You Ever Forgive Me?
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams – Vice
Emily Blunt – A Quiet Place
Regina King – If Beale Street Could Talk
Emma Stone – The Favourite
Rachel Weisz – The Favourite
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
BlacKkKlansman
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
The Death of Stalin
If Beale Street Could Talk
Leave No Trace
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Eighth Grade
The Favourite
Green Book
ROMA
Vice
FILM EDITING
Bohemian Rhapsody
First Man
ROMA
A Star Is Born
Vice
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Cold War
First Man
If Beale Street Could Talk
ROMA
A Star is Born
PRODUCTION DESIGN
Black Panther
The Favourite
First Man
Mary Poppins Returns
ROMA
COSTUME DESIGN
Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Mary Poppins Returns
Mary Queen of Scots
ORIGINAL SCORE
Black Panther
First Man
If Beale Street Could Talk
Isle of Dogs
Mary Poppins Returns
ORIGINAL SONG
Black Panther, “All the Stars”
Boy Erased, “Revelation”
Mary Poppins Returns, “The Place Where Lost Things Go”
RBG, “I’ll Fight”
A Star Is Born, “Shallow”
SOUND EDITING
First Man
Mission: Impossible – Fallout
A Quiet Place
Ready Player One
ROMA
SOUND MIXING
Bohemian Rhapsody
First Man
A Quiet Place
ROMA
A Star Is Born
MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Border
Mary Queen of Scots
Stan & Ollie
VISUAL EFFECTS
Avengers: Infinity War
Black Panther
Ready Player One
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Welcome to Marwen
ANIMATED FEATURE
Incredibles 2
Isle of Dogs
Mirai
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Dark Money
Minding the Gap
RBG
Shirkers
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Denmark – The Guilty
Germany – Never Look Away
Japan – Shoplifters
Mexico – ROMA
Poland – Cold War
ANIMATED SHORT
Bao
Bilby
Lost & Found
One Small Step
Weekends
DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Black Sheep
End Game
Lifeboat
Period. End of Sentence
Zion
LIVE-ACTION SHORT
Caroline
Detainment
Fauve
Marguerite
Whale
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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