Frontrunner Friday: More category changes, ‘Widows’ rises, Best Actress is a fight

It’s been yet another week of category changes but this time two about faces; just a week after Paramount announced Emily Blunt would be positioned in Best Actress for A Quiet Place and Sony Classics was touting Jonathan Pryce in Best Actor for The Wife, both studios flipped and official FYCs from each studio have them both in supporting.

For Blunt, the powers that be decided to put everyone in supporting but really it just looks like they want to get out of the way of Mary Poppins Returns. For Pryce, it’s definitely a co-lead role; he even has his own subplot story happening right along Close. There is a bit of karmic retribution though as wives of Best Actor contenders so often are pushed into Supporting.

Oscar Podcast #69: Breaking Down the Acting Categories with guest Kyle Buchanan

Best Actress sees both Viola Davis (Widows) and Yalitza Aparicio (ROMA) in the top 5 for the first time, pushing Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) out. In such a competitive category there is going to be a major player, be it a newcomer or seasoned Oscar winner or previous nominee, that’s going to find themselves at #6. It’s just hard to call which yet. 

Speaking of Davis, Widows keeps climbing back up and does so again this week in multiple categories. This is a film that’s dividing Oscar pundits this season; some, like myself and Kyle Buchanan (listen the podcast above where we talk at length about it) see the film as not simply a genre film but one that crosses off multiple Academy boxes; a huge ensemble, jammed packed with Oscar winners and nominees, great festival response and reviews to back it up and a likely box office hit. It’s basically everything the ‘Popular Oscar’ category gambit asked for. Same goes for Black Panther, also a part of the conversation between Kyle and myself on what makes an Oscar film.

As always, you can see that and follow my 2019 Oscar predictions (in broader context), updated live and in real time, in 21 categories right here.

Here are my Frontrunner Friday picks for October 26, 2018.

BEST PICTURE

1. ROMA (Netflix – December)
2. A Star is Born (Warner Bros – 10/5)
3. If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna – 11/30)
4. The Favourite (Fox Searchlight – 11/23)
5. Green Book (Universal – 11/21)
6. BlacKkKlansman (Focus Features – 8/10)
7. Widows (20th Century Fox – 11/16)
8. Black Panther (Disney – 2/16)
9. First Man (Universal – 10/12)
10. Vice (Annapurna – 12/14)

DIRECTOR

1. Alfonso Cuarón – ROMA (Netflix)
2. Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born (Warner Bros)
3. Barry Jenkins – If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna)
4. Yorgos Lanthimos – The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)
5. Spike Lee – BlacKkKlansman (Focus Features)

BEST ACTOR

1. Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born (Warner Bros)
2. Christian Bale – Vice (Annapurna)
3. Viggo Mortensen – Green Book (Universal)
4. Lucas Hedges – Boy Erased (Focus Features)
5. John David Washington – BlacKkKlansman (Focus Features)

BEST ACTRESS

1. Glenn Close – The Wife (Sony Classics)
2. Lady Gaga – A Star Is Born (Warner Bros)
3. Olivia Colman – The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)
4. Viola Davis – Widows (20th Century Fox)
5. Yalitza Aparicio – ROMA (Netflix)

SUPPORTING ACTOR

1. Mahershala Ali – Green Book (Universal)
2. Richard E. Grant – Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Fox Searchlight)
3. Timothée Chalamet – Beautiful Boy (Amazon)
4. Sam Elliott – A Star Is Born (Warner Bros)
5. Daniel Kaluuya – Widows (20th Century Fox)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1. Regina King – If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna)
2. Amy Adams – Vice (Annapurna)
3. Emma Stone – The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)
4. Rachel Weisz – The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)
5. Nicole Kidman – Boy Erased (Focus Features)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1. If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna)
2. BlacKkKlansman (Focus Features)
3. Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Fox Searchlight)
4. Black Panther (Disney)
5. Widows (20th Century Fox)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1. ROMA (Netflix)
2. The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)
3. Green Book (Universal)
4. Vice (Annapurna)
5. First Reformed (A24)

FILM EDITING

1. First Man (Universal)
2. ROMA (Netflix)
3. The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)
4. A Star is Born (Warner Bros)
5. If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna)

CINEMATOGRAPHY

1. ROMA (Netflix)
2. If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna)
3. First Man (Universal)
4. A Star is Born (Warner Bros)
5. The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)

PRODUCTION DESIGN

1. First Man (Universal)
2. The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)
3. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (Disney)
4. Mary Poppins Returns (Disney)
5. Black Panther (Disney)

COSTUME DESIGN

1. The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)
2. Mary Poppins Returns (Disney)
3. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (Disney)
4. Black Panther (Disney)
5. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Warner Bros)

ORIGINAL SCORE

1. If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna)
2. First Man (Universal)
3. Mary Poppins Returns (Disney)
4. Widows (20th Century Fox)
5. BlacKkKlansman (Focus Features)

ORIGINAL SONG

1. A Star Is Born, “Shallow” (Warner Bros)
2. Black Panther, “All the Stars” (Disney)
3. A Star Is Born, “I’ll Never Love Again” (Warner Bros)
4. Boy Erased, “Revelation” (Focus Features)
5. Mary Poppins Returns, “The Place Where Lost Things Go” (Disney)

SOUND EDITING

1. First Man (Universal)
2. ROMA (Netflix)
3. Incredibles 2 (Disney)
4. Black Panther (Disney)
5. A Quiet Place (Paramount)

SOUND MIXING

1. A Star Is Born (Warner Bros)
2. First Man (Universal)
3. ROMA (Netflix)
4. Black Panther (Disney)
5. Mary Poppins Returns (Disney)

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

1. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (Disney)
2. Border (Neon)
3. Vice (Annapurna)

VISUAL EFFECTS

1. Black Panther (Disney)
2. Ready Player One (Warner Bros)
3. Bumblebee (Paramount)
4. Mary Poppins Returns (Disney)
5. Avengers: Infinity War (Disney)

ANIMATED FEATURE

1. Incredibles 2 (Disney)
2. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Sony)
3. Isle of Dogs (Fox Searchlight)
4. Ralph Breaks the Internet (Disney)
5. Mirai (GKids/Fathom Events)

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

1. Mexico – ROMA (Netflix)
2. Lebanon – Capharnaüm (Sony Classics)
3. Poland – Cold War (Amazon)
4. Denmark – The Guilty (Magnolia)
5. United Kingdom – I Am Not a Witch (Film Movement)
6. Italy – Dogman (Magnolia)
7. Germany – Never Look Away (Sony Classics)
8. Japan – Shoplifters (Magnolia)
9. Sweden – Border (Neon)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. RBG (Magnolia / CNN Films)
2. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (Focus Features)
3. Hale County This Morning, This Evening (Cinema Guild)
4. Shirkers (Netflix)
5. Minding the Gap (Hulu / Magnolia)

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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), 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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