Frontrunner Friday: No one knows anything (and that’s a good thing)

Frontrunner Friday has returned after a month to digest the impact that Venice, Telluride and Toronto had on the Oscar playing field and it was definitely substantial. 

What it didn’t do, however, is solidify among us Oscar pundits an actual frontrunner. You ask one of us and they’ll say A Star Is Born has it. You ask another and it’s ROMA, breaking barriers and history. Another will say TIFF People’s Choice Award winner Green Book.

2019 Oscar Predictions (September)

It’s still a wide-open race people, one that often finds Oscar watchers at odds not just with others, but with themselves. Every year is rife with ‘early frontrunners are boring, there’s no surprise’ but the moment things are up in the air and there’s a real race on our hands, those same people get frustrated they can’t lock in predictions. Can’t have it both ways, folks. 

As always, you can follow my 2019 Oscar predictions, updated live and in real time, in 21 categories right here.

Unlike previous Frontrunner Fridays, my predictions will only be a top 10 in Best Picture, top 5 in all other categories save Makeup & Hairstyling (a top 3) and Foreign Language Film (a prediction of the 9-film shortlist).

Here are my Frontrunner Friday picks for September 28, 2018. 

BEST PICTURE

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

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Alfonso Cuarón – ROMA (Netflix)
2. Barry Jenkins – If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna)
3. Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born (Warner Bros)
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. Lucas Hedges – Boy Erased (Focus Features)
4. John David Washington – BlacKkKlansman (Focus Features)
5. Viggo Mortensen – Green Book (Universal)

(check out Sasha Stone’s Best Actor predix at Awardsdaily here)

BEST ACTRESS

1. Glenn Close – The Wife (Sony Classics)
2. Lady Gaga – A Star Is Born (Warner Bros)
3. Melissa McCarthy – Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Fox Searchlight)
4. Viola Davis – Widows (20th Century Fox)
5. Yalitza Aparicio – ROMA (Netflix)

SUPPORTING ACTOR

1. Mahershala Ali – Green Book (Universal)
2. Timothée Chalamet – Beautiful Boy (Amazon)
3. Richard E. Grant – Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Fox Searchlight)
4. Daniel Kaluuya – Widows (20th Century Fox)
5. Stephan James – If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

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

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1. BlacKkKlansman (Focus Features)
2. If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna)
3. Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Fox Searchlight)
4. Boy Erased (Focus Features)
5. A Star Is Born (Warner Bros)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1. ROMA (Netflix)
2. The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)
3. Vice (Annapurna)
4. Green Book (Universal)
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. BlacKkKlansman (Focus Features)

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. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Warner Bros)

COSTUME DESIGN

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

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. Free Solo, “Gravity” (NatGeo)

SOUND EDITING

1. First Man (Universal)
2. Sicario: Day of the Soldado (Sony)
3. Incredibles 2 (Disney)
4. Alita: Battle Angel (20th Century Fox)
5. Black Panther (Disney)

SOUND MIXING

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

MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING

1. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (Disney)
2. Stan and Ollie (Sony Classics)
3. Border (Neon)

VISUAL EFFECTS

1. Alita: Battle Angel (20th Century Fox)
2. Ready Player One (Warner Bros)
3. Black Panther (Disney)
4. Bumblebee (Paramount)
5. Mary Poppins Returns (Disney)

ANIMATED FEATURE

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

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

(predictions are for the 9-film shortlist due in December)

1. Mexico – ROMA*
2. Lebanon – Capharnaüm*
3. Poland – Cold War*
4. Denmark – The Guilty*
5. Colombia – Birds of Passage*
6. United Kingdom – I Am Not a Witch*
7. Germany – Never Look Away*
8. Japan – Shoplifters*
9. Sweden – Border*

*official submission

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. RBG (Magnolia)
2. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (Focus Features)
3. Three Identical Strangers (Neon)
4. Free Solo (NatGeo)
5. Minding the Gap (Hulu)

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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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