2020 Oscar Nomination Predictions: ANIMATED, DOCUMENTARY, INTERNATIONAL FEATURE (November)

Netflix’s Klaus made a big splash last week and it moves up into the top 10. They also have a major contender in I Lost My Body. My top 5 remains the same with LAIKA’s Missing Link inching up frame by frame, much like the pain-staking animation process itself. LAIKA is just really good at getting in here and with the new Shaun of the Sheep movie not eligible it makes for the best/only shot for a stop-motion animated film to earn a spot. While both Toy Story 4 and Frozen II are certified blockbuster hits and having them at #1 and #2 makes a certain kind of sense, the animated branch has denied Disney/Pixar sequels here before (Finding Dory) but then has also found room for them (Incredibles 2).

Here are my 2020 Oscar Nomination Predictions in Animated Feature, Documentary Feature and International Feature Film for November 25, 2019.

ANIMATED FEATURE

Green – moves up Red – moves down Blue – new/re-entry

1. Toy Story 4 (Disney/Pixar)
2. Frozen II (Disney)
3. I Lost My Body (Netflix)
4. Missing Link (LAIKA/Annapurna/UAR)
5. Weathering With You (GKIDS)

NEXT UP (alphabetical by film)

The Addams Family (MGM)
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (Dreamworks)
Klaus (Netflix)
Spies in Disguise (Blue Sky/Sony)
The Swallows of Kabul (TBA)

OTHER CONTENDERS (alphabetical by film)

The Angry Birds Movie 2 (Sony)
Away
Abominable (Dreamworks/Universal)
Another Day of Life (GKIDS)
Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles (GKIDS)
Children of the Sea (GKIDS)
Dilili in Paris (Samuel Goldwyn Films)
Funan (GKIDS)
Genndy Tartakovsky’s ‘Primal’ – Tales of Savagery (Adult Swim)
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (Warner Bros)
The Last Fiction
Marona’s Fantastic Tale (GKIDS)
Ne Zha (Well Go USA Entertainment)
Okko’s Inn (GKIDS)
Pachamama (Netflix)
Promare (GKIDS)
Rezo
The Secret Life of Pets 2 (Illumination/Universal)
This Magnificent Cake!
The Tower
Upin & Ipin: The Lone Gibbon Kris
White Snake (GKIDS)

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We have nominations in from the Independent Documentary Association, Producers Guild of America Documentary Awards and Independent Spirit Awards and winners of the Critics Choice Documentary Awards (Apollo 11) to help guide us through the Documentary Feature prediction process along with the official Academy submission list of 159 films.. But the doc branch, through many iterations and ‘fixes’ still often finds a way to snub frontrunners. I still have Apollo 11 making the final cut but I’m equally ready to believe it’s the most vulnerable with this group.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Green – moves up Red – moves down Blue – new/re-entry

1. American Factory (Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar) – Netflix
2. Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller) – Neon
3. One Child Nation (Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang) – Amazon
4. Honeyland (Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov)
5. The Cave (Feras Fayyad) – National Geographic

NEXT UP (alphabetical by film)

Diego Maradona (Asif Kapadia) – HBO
The Edge of Democracy (Petra Costa)
For Sama (Waad Al-Khateab and Edward Watts)
Gaza (Garry Keane and Andrew McConnell)
Sea of Shadows (Richard Ladkani) – National Geographic
Western Stars (Bruce Springsteen, Thom Zimny)

OTHER CONTENDERS (alphabetical by film)

Advocate (Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaïche)
Always in Season (Jacqueline Olive)
The Apollo (Roger Ross Williams)
Ask Dr. Ruth (Ryan White)
The Biggest Little Farm (John Chester)
Cold Case Hammarskjöld (Mads Bruegger)
The Elephant Queen (Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone)
Framing John DeLorean (Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce)
Gay Chorus Deep South (David Charles)
The Great Hack (Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim)
Hail Satan? (Penny Lane)
Halston (Frédéric Tcheng)
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (Alex Gibney)
The Kingmaker (Lauren Greenfield)
Knock Down The House (Rachel Lears)
Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein)
Maiden (Alex Holmes)
Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound (Midge Costin)
Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love (Nick Broomfield)
Meeting Gorbachev (Werner Herzog)
Midnight Family (Luke Lorentzen)
Midnight Traveler (Hasan Fazili)
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (Stanley Nelson Jr)
Moonlight Sonata: Deafness In Three Movements (Irene Taylor Brodsky)
Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz
Raise Hell: The Life & Times Of Molly Ivins (Janice Engel)
Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project (Matt Wolf)
Rewind (Sasha Joseph Neulinger)
Roll Red Roll (Nancy Schwartzman)
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story (Martin Scorsese)
Serendipity (Prune Nourry)
Shooting the Mafia (Kim Longinotto)
Tell Me Who I Am (Ed Perkins)
Tigerland (Ross Kauffman)
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (Timothy Greenfield-Sanders)
What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali (Antoine Fuqua)
Where’s My Roy Cohn? (Matt Tyrnauer) Sony Classics

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Some changes this month in International Feature Film include the rise of Invisible Life from Brazil. The Amazon-distributed film earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination right alongside Les Misérables from France, also Amazon. It’s going to be an interesting challenge to see if the streamer begins to play favorites and even more interesting to see what makes the shortlist in three weeks.

Colombia (Monos), Germany (System Crasher) and Italy (The Traitor) move up as well.

Be on the lookout for an extensive examination on all 92 entries coming next week, broken down by region and likelihood of a nomination by new contributor AD Tranchina.

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

Green – moves up Red – moves down Blue – new/re-entry

1. South Korea – Parasite (Bong Joon-ho) – Neon
2. Spain – Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar) – Sony Classics
3. France – Les Misérables (Ladj Ly) – Amazon
4. Sweden – And Then We Danced (Levan Akin) – Music Box
5. Senegal – Atlantics (Mati Diop) – Netflix

6. Brazil – Invisible Life (Karim Aïnouz) – Amazon
7. Colombia – Monos (Alejandro Landes) – Neon
8. Germany – System Crasher (Nora Fingscheidt)
9. Italy – The Traitor (Marco Bellocchio) – Sony Classics
10. Russia – Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov) – Kino Lorber

OTHER CONTENDERS

Algeria – Papicha (Mounia Meddour)
Argentina – Heroic Losers (Sebastían Borensztein)
Australia – Buoyancy (Rodd Rathjen)
Austria – Joy (Sudabeh Mortezai)
Belgium – Our Mothers (César Díaz)
Canada – Antigone (Sophie Deraspe)
Czechia/Czech Republic – The Painted Bird (Václav Marhoul) – IFC Films
Denmark – Queen of Hearts (May el-Toukhy) – Breaking Glass
Hungary – Those Who Remained (Barnabás Tóth)
Israel – Incitement (Yaron Zilbrman)
Japan – Weathering With You (Makato Shinkai) – GKIDS
Luxembourg – Tel Aviv on Fire (Sameh Zoabi)
Mexico – The Chambermaid (Lila Avilés) – Kino Lorber
Netherlands – Instinct (Halina Reijn)
North Macedonia – Honeyland (Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov)
Norway – Out Stealing Horses (Han Petter Moland) – Magnolia
Palestine – It Must Be Heaven (Elia Suleiman)
Poland – Corpus Christi (Jan Komasa) – Film Movement
Romania – The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboui) – Magnolia
Saudi Arabia – The Perfect Candidate (Haifaa Al-Mansour)