2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE (May) – A Star Is Born, The Front Runner enter the top 10
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I know, I know, it’s laaate. I was going to do May predictions ahead of the Cannes Film Festival and then save any changes as a result of the festival until June. But instead, I’m doing May’s predictions now.
So, what, if anything did Cannes tell us? Not a whole but the Grand Prix win for Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman is exactly what his film needed. I had dropped it from the #1 spot for April and it sits at #4 again for May. It will get a major push from Focus Features but with an August release, it won’t have any more festival play than that so it’s going to have to ride that Cannes win and a boatload of marketing to make sure it gets seen. I think it can do it if Focus prioritizes it.
The top 6 is actually same as last month; I have a hard time moving them right now. Post-Cannes is a bit of a doldrum period. There have been a few test screenings of Oscar hopefuls recently but I’m hesitant to give them too much credit, too early. So I’ll just keep those in my pocket for now.
The big changes this month come from the bottom of the top 10. There are three new entries: The Front Runner, which just got a pickup from Sony Pictures Classics; A Star Is Born, because the word of mouth is through the roof; and The Favourite, because it’s Fox Searchlight, which just won yet another Best Picture prize and had a spare just in case. They also have Can You Ever Forgive Me? and I’m keeping that in place until I see if it’s going to get a festival play or not. If it doesn’t it will likely start dropping.
That means that Ad Astra, Destroyer and Black Panther all tumble down into the Next Up section. Something has to come out about Ad Astra to give it some holding power, Destroyer just got picked up by Annapurna, which normally would be a great thing, but the new studio is really stacking itself for the fall and they haven’t been able to manage one Oscar campaign much less four. Black Panther was a reluctant drop but it’s box office success and even its reviews might not be enough to keep it, or bring it back, to the awards conversation come end of the year. People will make comparisons to Get Out but that film had both of those things plus the full weight of industry and critics’ support throughout awards season. We’ll have to see if that happens but I feel like it’s less likely than I did two months ago.
Here are my predictions for Best Picture as of May 21, 2018.
Green – moves up
Red – moves down
Blue – chart debut
| 1. Widows (20th Century Fox – 11/16) |
| 2. First Man (Universal – 10/12) |
| 3. Backseat (Annapurna – 12/14) |
| 4. BlacKkKlansman (Focus Features – 8/10) |
| 5. If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna – 11/30) |
| 6. Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Fox Searchlight – 10/19) |
| 7. The Front Runner (Sony Pictures Classics) |
| 8. A Star is Born (Warner Bros – 10/5) |
| 9. The Favourite (Fox Searchlight – 11/23) |
| 10. Mary Queen of Scots (Focus Features – 12/7) |
| NEXT UP |
| Ad Astra (20th Century Fox – 1/11/19) |
| Beautiful Boy (Amazon – 10/12) |
| Black Panther (Disney – 2/16) |
| Boy Erased (Focus Features – 9/28) |
| Destroyer (Annapurna) |
| Roma (Netflix) |
| OTHER CONTENDERS |
| The Aftermath (Fox Searchlight) |
| Bohemian Rhapsody (20th Century Fox – 11/2) |
| Burden |
| Colette (Bleecker Street Media) |
| Crazy Rich Asians (Warner Bros – 8/17) |
| Eighth Grade (A24 – 7/13) |
| Everybody Knows (Focus Features) |
| Fast Color |
| Fighting with My Family |
| Gloria Bell |
| Green Book |
| Hereditary (A24 – 6/8) |
| The Hummingbird Project |
| Isle of Dogs (Fox Searchlight – 3/28) |
| Kursk (STX Entertainment) |
| Leave No Trace (Bleecker Street Media) |
| The Little Stranger (Focus Features – 8/31) |
| Loro (Focus Features) |
| Mary Poppins Returns (Disney – Christmas) |
| The Mercy (Lionsgate) |
| Mid 90s (A24) |
| Old Man and the Gun (Fox Searchlight – 10/5) |
| On the Basis of Sex (Focus Features – 11/9) |
| Outlaw King (Netflix) |
| Peterloo (Amazon) |
| The Sisters Brothers (Annapurna) |
| Wendy (Fox Searchlight) |
| Where’d You Go, Bernadette (Annapurna) |
| The Wife (Sony Pictures Classics – 8/3) |
| Woman Walks Ahead (A24 – 6/28) |
| The Women of Marwen (Universal – 11/21) |
| Untitled Pippa Bianco aka Share (A24) |
2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST DIRECTOR (May)
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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