FINAL 2021 Oscar Nomination Predictions: ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Only Promising Young Woman and The Trial of the Chicago 7 have earned all four main screenplay precursors: BAFTA, BFCA (Critics Choice), Golden Globe and WGA. Trial won the Globe, PYW won BFCA.

If Minari gets in with just BFCA, it will be the first Best Picture nominee to get a screenplay nomination without one from BAFTA, WGA and Golden Globe first since 2010’s Winter’s Bone. While this is likely only because of its WGA ineligibility, it doesn’t happen that often. As Minari is also a non-English language film it’s good to look at the recent history of non-English language films getting in at the Oscars, which folds in the BAFTA nomination that Another Round got this week.

2020 – Another Round
2019 – Parasite
2018 – Cold War, Roma
2012 – Amour
2010 – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2008 – I’ve Loved You So Long
2007 – The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Kite Runner, The Lives of Others (ineligible at the Oscars)
2006 – Pan’s Labyrinth
2004 – The Motorcycle Diaries, The Chorus
2003 – The Barbarian Invasions
2002 – Y tu mamá también, Talk to Her
2001 – Amelie
2000 – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

That’s 11/16 times in the last 20 years that a non-English language film gets a BAFTA screenplay nomination that translates into an Oscar nomination. All but Y tu mamá también earned nominations elsewhere (including Foreign Film/International Feature Film) with Parasite, Roma, Amour and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon making it into Best Picture and Best Director. Minari will get other nominations to bolster a spot here as will Another Round, which is the frontrunner for IFF and a possible contender in both Best Actor and Best Director.

That’s a long way of saying though that films like Sound of Metal and Judas and the Black Messiah would both have to fall short in order for Another Round to make it in. For Sound of Metal, it’s literally a story of how we use language and music to communicate and I have a hard time not seeing writers connect with that. While Judas only managed a WGA nomination to this point could spell weakness (it also missed ASC just this morning) Oscar voters may feel differently and maybe it peaked at just the right time for the writer’s branch. Maybe we’re in for a shocker and former frontrunner Mank is one of the morning’s shocking snubs. Unlikely, but never say never.

Here are my final 2021 Oscar nomination predictions in Original Screenplay.

• 1. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix) – BAFTA, BFCA , GG, WGA
  Aaron Sorkin
• 2. Promising Young Woman (Focus Features) – BAFTA, BFCA , GG, WGA
  Emerald Fennell
• 3. Minari (A24) – BFCA (WGA ineligible)
  Lee Isaac Chung
• 4. Mank (Netflix) – BFCA, GG (WGA ineligible)
  Jack Fincher
• 5. Sound of Metal (Amazon Studios) – BFCA, WGA
  Abraham Marder, Darius Marder (screenplay), Derek Cianfrance (story by)

Watch out for: Judas and the Black Messiah (Warner Bros) – WGA

Image courtesy of Amazon Studios

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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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