It’s a 1-2-3 punch this week the Directors Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild announcing their nominees on January 11 and the Producers Guild of America announcing on January 12. So let’s get right into it.
The DGA continues to skew more traditionalist and less adventurous than their Academy branch counterparts, often opting for your Aaron Sorkins and Peter Farrellys over your Thomas Vinterbergs and Paweł Pawlikowskis. The DGA isn’t the place you go hunting for that ‘foreign language film’ director (that would be BAFTA and the EFAs) but more down the line top Best Picture Oscar contenders.
This year has those and then some. The Daniels (Everything Everywhere All At Once) and Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin) are sure bets. Baz Luhrmann (Elvis) looks surer by the day. Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans) has the most DGA nominations (12) and the most wins (3), there’s no way he’s missing for the story of his own life. So who’s that fifth spot going to? This is where it gets interesting because we’ve got the two biggest box office titans of 2022 battling it out with an outside chance for the season’s biggest auteur and his return to directing.
Here are my DGA predictions for Feature Film and First-Time Feature Film Director.
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures
Watch out for: James Cameron – Avatar: The Way of Water (20th Century Studios), Todd Field – TÁR (Focus Features)
Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Feature Film Director
Watch out for: Elegance Bratton – The Inspection (A24); Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović – Murina (Kino Lorber), Davy Chou and Park-il Min – Return to Seoul (Sony Pictures Classics), Jane Schoenbrun – We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (Utopia)
Between the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice, nine films show up on both lists: Avatar: The Way of Water, Babylon, The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Fabelmans, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, TÁR and Top Gun: Maverick. For arguments sake, add in AFI and NBR Top 10 lists and the number of films that hits them all drops to five: Avatar: The Way of Water, The Banshees of Inisherin, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Fabelmans and Top Gun: Maverick. So let’s say those five are locked in for PGA (because they are). Who are the next five and how closely will it look like Oscar’s Best Picture 10?
Since the expanded Oscar lineup back in 2009, PGA and Oscar have never aligned perfectly and a big part of that has been the Oscars’ sliding scale of number of nominees. For the film years 2009 and 2010, it was a straight 10 (PGA changed to 10 at the same time and stayed there) but then every year until 2020 has been either eight or nine nominees. They returned to 10 last year and matched up 8/10 with Being the Ricardos and tick, tick…BOOM! getting in at PGA but being replaced by Drive My Car and Nightmare Alley at the Oscars. That’s pretty par for the course so it’s fair to expect no more than eight PGA nominees to transfer over to the Oscars (maybe nine in a less open race), which is why PGA predicting isn’t really Oscar predicting, but it’s definitely one of the most important puzzle pieces we have.
Here are my predictions for the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures.
Watch out for: Babylon (Paramount Pictures), Triangle of Sadness (NEON), The Whale (A24), Women Talking (UAR/Orion)
This season is primed for possible record-tying results with The Banshees of Inisherin and Everything Everywhere All At Once in the running for five Screen Actors Guild nominations, one for cast and four individual, which would match 1998’s Shakespeare in Love, 2002’s Chicago and 2008’s Doubt. This would be the first time in SAG history that two films have accomplished that in a single year.
While both of those are possible, prevailing thought is that The Banshees of Inisherin is the more likely to do it, as the film’s four actors: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon, have all showed up in precursors so far. For Everything Everywhere All At Once, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan are guaranteed but Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu have been struggling to both find spots, with Curtis the more successful of the two so far with both Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe nods (Hsu just has CCA). Even if Hsu misses, the film should be able to nab a stunt ensemble nomination, which would give it five. If ALL of them get in we’ll have new SAG history with six. There’s also the possibility that one of them manages the individual nominations and is a shocking snub in the top category. While that used to be a death knell for Best Picture hopes, in recent years it hasn’t mattered as much. 2017’s The Shape of Water, 2018’s Green Book and 2020’s Nomadland managed to escape that curse.
While we never know who among the 2000-2500 of the SAG nominating committee are (it changes every year), we do know they can often gravitate to star power and that bodes well for possible nominations for Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Hanks in Elvis and Eddie Redmayne in The Good Nurse. Top Gun: Maverick will definitely get a stunt ensemble nomination but could even be so popular that it finds its way into the top category.
Here are my predictions for the 29th Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations in motion picture.
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Watch out for: Elvis (Warner Bros), Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount Pictures), Women Talking (UAR/Orion)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role in a Motion Picture
Watch out for: Gabriel LaBelle – The Fabelmans (Universal Pictures); Hugh Jackman – The Son (Sony Pictures Classics); Paul Mescal – Aftersun (A24)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role in a Motion Picture
Watch out for: Jessica Chastain – The Good Nurse (Netflix), Olivia Colman – Empire of Light (Searchlight Pictures), Emma Thompson – Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Searchlight Pictures)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Watch out for: Paul Dano – The Fabelmans (Universal Pictures); Brian Tyree Henry – Causeway; Judd Hirsch – The Fabelmans (Universal Pictures)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Watch out for: Dolly De Leon – Triangle of Sadness (NEON); Jessie Buckley – Women Talking (UAR/Orion); Stephanie Hsu – Everything Everywhere All At Once (A24)
Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture
Watch out for: All Quiet on the Western Front (Netflix), Thirteen Lives (Amazon Studios), The Woman King (Sony/TriStar)
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