30th Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards Nomination Predictions – Motion Picture: Will the SAG-AFTRA Strike Impact How Voters Choose?

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The Screen Actors Guild has one of it most tumultuous years ever with a history-making strike that lasted 118 days through summer and fall of this year.

While that, coupled with the overlapping writers’ strike, halted all film and television production for those 118 days, in the context of awards season it also kept campaigning at bay from four of the key film festivals of the fall: Venice, Telluride, Toronto and LA-based AFI FEST. These awards season kickoff fests are the jumping off point for stars to show their wares, chat with voters, critics and normal folk alike in the building of buzz, attention and visibility. Annette Bening, a four-time Oscar nominee, was set to receive the medallion tribute at the Telluride Film Festival in September for Nyad but strict strike rules forbade it. She’s actually receiving the honor anyway, just four months later, at an event this weekend. The day before SAG nomination voting ends. The number of events these closing days of voting are enough for a publicist to wish teleportation and real life holograms were real.

The strike, which ended November 9, meant a mad dash of interviews and in-person screenings with Q&As before the Thanksgiving holiday, then returning for a blitz before Christmas and New Year’s, especially for those whose films debuted in September and October. With the SAG nomination voting lasting a full month (December 5-January 7) and, as always, a randomly selected batch of about 2500 voters (of 160,000) to decide on them, how much will the strike impact their choices? With major streamers like Netflix, Apple and Amazon, and studios like Warner Bros and Universal at the forefront of the ire of both actors and writers in their fight for a fair contract, will these voters pull the lever on merit alone or with the power of their collective strike suffering? Will there be a felt impact with films like Barbie, Maestro and Oppenheimer that would point to that? I’m guessing no, there won’t be. No one was more happy to get back to work than actors and celebrating their work and each other seems more in line with their support for their fellow actor versus a gesture aimed at hurting a studio. I also can’t say I’ve heard much from actors either in person or in their interviews talk much about the strike so it seems that it’s largely behind them in the sense that most simply want to move forward.

So how about the nominations? In terms of precursors we have Critics Choice and Golden Globe nominations where a handful of people have secured both: for lead actors we have Bradley Cooper for Maestro, Leonardo DiCaprio for Killers of the Flower Moon, Colman Domingo for Rustin, Paul Giamatti for The Holdovers, Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer and Jeffrey Wright for American Fiction. That’s already a category with six top contenders vying for five SAG spots. Lead actress also has six contenders to hit both (thanks to the drama/comedy category split at the Globes and both having six slots) while the supporting categories have zeroed in on the same five: Emily Blunt for Oppenheimer, Danielle Brooks for The Color Purple, Jodie Foster for Nyad, Julianne Moore for May December and Da’Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers. For their sixth spots, the Globes went for Rosamund Pike for Saltburn and CCA went for America Ferrera in Barbie (Ferrera is also receiving the org’s SeeHer Award that night, fwiw). Supporting actress at SAG went 5/5 with Oscar last season. But we know that SAG takes wild swings and left turns all the time. Last year alone saw nominations for Adam Sandler, Danielle Deadwyler and Eddie Redmayne that didn’t go anywhere after that and I do think we’re far out now from a Sarah Silverman in I Smile Back or Naomi Watts in St. Vincent type of nom. We’re also in the SAG era of no DVD screeners unless explicitly asked for. I imagine some older voters would prefer to pop a DVD in a player than figure out the online or TV app screening versions but as each year passes that type of ‘old people can’t use computers!’ excuse to explain odd snubs feels less and less valid.

In the top category, Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, history is still on the side of films that make it here being Best Picture Oscar winners. Even when a film is a two or three-hander like a La La Land it’s an important get. It took over 20 years for a film to break the SAG Cast curse, 2017’s The Shape of Water, then it happened again the very next year with Green Book and both won Best Picture. Since then all but 2020’s Best Picture winner Nomadland have at least gotten a nomination in this category before heading to Oscar glory. While films like Barbie, Killers of the Flower Moon and Oppenheimer feel like mortal locks here it’s a bit more open after that. The Color Purple, after a robust Christmas Day opening, has faltered at the box office and is flat out flailing with early shortlist and guild nominations. It has to make a showing here. It definitely could but I’m not feeling too good about it. American Fiction‘s cast is the perfect SAG size even if the core story remains between just three people. Speaking of three, The Holdovers, which is assured two individual nominations, showing up here would be huge, Best Picture bellwether huge. A film like Air, with SAG favorite Viola Davis, is certainly in contention. Saltburn is rising at exactly the right time. Poor Things hasn’t missed anywhere yet but does it feel like a SAG Cast nominee? There’s inevitably at least one film in the SAG Cast five that misses Best Picture, the last to have all five hit Best Picture was 2014 film year and 2010 before that, both in field of an expanded Oscar lineup (2001 before that, and 1997 before that, both in fields of five at the Oscars). Could be The Color Purple or Air this year.

Award-winning actor, singer, producer, writer, and director Barbra Streisand will be the 59th recipient of SAG-AFTRA’s highest tribute: the SAG Life Achievement Award for career achievements and humanitarian accomplishments.

Nominations for the SAG Awards will be announced on January 10, 2024. The 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will take place on Saturday, February 24, 2024. The two-hour ceremony will be streamed live on Netflix at 8 p.m. (ET) / 5 p.m. (PT) from the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall.

Here are my predictions for the Motion Picture nominations:

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A CAST IN A MOTION PICTURE

• Air
• American Fiction
• Barbie
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• Oppenheimer

Other contenders: The Color Purple, The Holdovers, Poor Things, Saltburn

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

• Annette Bening – Nyad
• Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon
• Carey Mulligan – Maestro
• Margot Robbie – Barbie
• Emma Stone – Poor Things

Other contenders: Fantasia Barrino – The Color Purple, Sandra Hüller – Anatomy of a Fall, Greta Lee – Past Lives, Natalie Portman – May December

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

• Bradley Cooper – Maestro
• Leonardo DiCaprio – Killers of the Flower Moon
• Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers
• Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer
• Jeffrey Wright – American Fiction

Other contenders: Matt Damon – Air, Colman Domingo – Rustin, Barry Keoghan – Saltburn, Andrew Scott – All of Us Strangers

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

• Emily Blunt – Oppenheimer
• Danielle Brooks – The Color Purple
• Jodie Foster – Nyad
• Julianne Moore – May December
• Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers

Other contenders: Penélope Cruz – Ferrari, Viola Davis – Air, America Ferrera – Barbie, Rachel McAdams – Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., Rosamund Pike – Saltburn

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

• Robert De Niro – Killers of the Flower Moon
• Robert Downey Jr. – Oppenheimer
• Ryan Gosling – Barbie
• Charles Melton – May December
• Mark Ruffalo – Poor Things

Other contenders: Sterling K. Brown – American Fiction, Willem Dafoe – Poor Things, Glenn Howerton – BlackBerry, Dominic Sessa – The Holdovers

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A STUNT ENSEMBLE IN A MOTION PICTURE

• The Creator
• Extraction 2
• John Wick: Chapter 4
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
• Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire

Other contenders: The Convenant, Equalizer 3, Gran Turismo, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiney, The Killer, Killers of the Flower Moon