Frontrunner Friday Oscar Predictions: Fall festival frenzy in full swing

Erik Anderson October 15, 2021

Frontrunner Friday is back! Weekly Oscar predictions will be coming your way all season along with monthly official predictions.

Venice, Telluride and Toronto made good – as they always do – with major contenders securing early spots in multiple categories. Focus Features shrewdly dropped Belfast into Telluride for its world premiere (pulling the red carpet out from under TIFF’s feet) and in the process aligned itself with the strong Telluride-to-Best Picture trajectory we’ve seen the last decade. To cap it off, Belfast also won the TIFF People’s Choice Award, which only cemented its early frontrunner status. That isn’t to say the film doesn’t have challengers, it does. Netflix’s The Power of the Dog has been a stellar performer, hitting every festival under the sun, grabbing tributes and spotlights for director Jane Campion and topping IndieWire’s critics list as the top film of the fall festivals (Belfast didn’t even place). NEON’s pair of films in Flee and Spencer hit nearly every festival and brought with them frontrunners in animated and documentary categories (Flee) and Best Actress (Spencer with Kristen Stewart) and possibly even more. There’s also Denis Villeneuve’s epic Dune, another festival and critics’ hit that is sure to dominate the below-the-line categories. Should the film’s box office prove successful, and we’ve seen real box office successes recently, it could become the ‘return to theaters’ example the Academy wants to present.

But we also have several high-profile contenders that will not see a festival run of any kind, leaving us wondering and waiting until official screenings begin. November will see the releases of Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci with Lady Gaga and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza with Bradley Cooper (both from MGM/UA) landing in just over a month at Thanksgiving. Amazon’s Being the Ricardos, Searchlight’s Nightmare Alley, 20th Century’s West Side Story and Netflix’s Don’t Look Up are late December. That’s a lot of titles that could push out any number of already seen films if they aren’t strong enough to withstand the onslaught of Oscar-winning A-list talent in front of and behind the camera that those films bring.

Our old friend ‘category placement’ starting to take shape as well. With word last week that Focus Features would be pushing all of the adult cast of Belfast in supporting (Caitríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds) and only pint-sized newcomer Jude Hill in lead, that changed the game in the best way possible for Balfe and Dornan, who have a healthy amount of screen time over their older co-stars but can they both get in? Can the film land four supporting slots? Double supporting actress nominations have been quite easy to nab (it’s happened 35 times in 93 years) and double supporting actor nominations are now back in vogue with 2017’s Three Billboards breaking a 25-year drought and The Irishman doing it just two years later. There are a few more placements that might need to be cemented but the Belfast clan was the one we all had our eye on (and interestingly enough, we were all told slightly different things before official confirmation).

The list of International Feature Film Oscar submissions keeps growing but still in its infancy with 40 titles so far (less than half of what we can expect by the deadline). We’ve already seen some wild and vibrant choices including Spain snubbing Pedro Almodóvar and France going with this year’s Palme d’Or winner Titane from Julia Ducournau. NEON released the film in the U.S. on October 1 and it will hit VOD next week. Can they make magic happen again like they did with Parasite?

Elsewhere, the London Film Festival and the Mill Valley Film Festival are wrapping up this weekend (with Middleburg kick offing yesterday) and while they won’t give us any major premieres, we’ll get more reviews and perspectives. Next month, AFI FEST will give us world premieres of Apple’s Swan Song and Bruised and tick, tick…BOOM! both from Netflix.

The Gotham Award nominations are out next week, the first real kick off of awards season, even if nominations and winners are decided upon by just a handful of people (around 5-7). It will be interesting to see how their new non-gendered categories pan out and if we’ll see which of our current indie frontrunners plant their flags their first.

Here are my Frontrunner Friday Oscar predictions for October 15, 2021.

BEST PICTURE

1. Belfast (Focus Features)
2. The Power of the Dog (Netflix)
3. Dune (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
4. King Richard (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
5. Nightmare Alley (Searchlight Pictures)
6. The Tragedy of Macbeth (A24/Apple)
7. Licorice Pizza (MGM/UA)
8. West Side Story (20th Century Studios)
9. Spencer (NEON)
10. Flee (NEON)

DIRECTOR

1. Kenneth Branagh – Belfast (Focus Features)
2. Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog (Netflix)
3. Denis Villeneuve – Dune (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
4. Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza (MGM/UA)
5. Reinaldo Marcus Green – King Richard (Warner Bros/HBO Max)

BEST ACTOR

1. Will Smith – King Richard (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
2. Denzel Washington – The Tragedy of Macbeth (A24/Apple)
3. Benedict Cumberbatch – The Power of the Dog (Netflix)
4. Peter Dinklage – Cyrano (MGM/UA)
5. Bradley Cooper – Nightmare Alley (Searchlight Pictures)

BEST ACTRESS

1. Kristen Stewart – Spencer (NEON)
2. Frances McDormand – The Tragedy of Macbeth (A24/Apple)
3. Penélope Cruz – Parallel Mothers (Sony Pictures Classics)
4. Jessica Chastain – The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Searchlight Pictures)
5. Olivia Colman – The Lost Daughter (Netflix)

SUPPORTING ACTOR

1. Bradley Cooper – Licorice Pizza (MGM/UA)
2. Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Power of the Dog (Netflix)
3. Richard Jenkins – The Humans (A24)
4. Timothy Spall – Spencer (NEON)
5. Ciarán Hinds – Belfast (Focus Features)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1. Caitríona Balfe – Belfast (Focus Features)
2. Ruth Negga – Passing (Netflix)
3. Kirsten Dunst – The Power of the Dog (Netflix)
4. Judi Dench – Belfast (Focus Features)
5. Aunjanue Ellis – King Richard (Warner Bros/HBO Max)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1. The Power of the Dog – Jane Campion (Netflix)
2. The Lost Daughter – Maggie Gyllenhaal (Netflix)
3. The Tragedy of Macbeth – – Joel Coen (A24/Apple)
4. Nightmare Alley – Guillermo del Toro, Kim Morgan (Searchlight Pictures)
5. CODA – Sian Heder (Apple)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1. Belfast – Kenneth Branagh (Focus Features)
2. Licorice Pizza – Paul Thomas Anderson (MGM/UA)
3. C’mon C’mon – Mike Mills (A24)
4. King Richard – Zach Baylin (Warner Bros)
5. The Worst Person in the World – Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt (NEON)

FILM EDITING

1. Dune – Joe Walker (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
2. Belfast – Úna Ni Dhonghaile (Focus Features)
3. King Richard – Pamela Martin (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
4. The Power of the Dog – Peter Sciberras (Netflix)
5. Don’t Look Up – Hank Corwin (Netflix)

CINEMATOGRAPHY

1. Dune – Greig Fraser (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
2. The Power of the Dog – Ari Wegner (Netflix)
3. The Tragedy of Macbeth – Bruno Delbonnel (A24/Apple)
4. Belfast – Haris Zambarloukos (Focus Features)
5. Spencer – Claire Mathon (NEON)

PRODUCTION DESIGN

1. Dune – Patrice Vermotte, Richard Roberts, Zsuzsanna Sipos (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
2. Nightmare Alley – Tamara Deverell, Shane Vieau (Searchlight Pictures)
3. The French Dispatch – Adam Stockhausen, Rena DeAngelo (Searchlight Pictures)
4. The Tragedy of Macbeth – Stefan Dechant, Nancy Haigh (A24/Apple)
5. The Last Duel – Arthur Max, Judy Farr (20th Century Studios)

COSTUME DESIGN

1. Dune – Jacqueline West (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
2. Nightmare Alley – Luis Siqueira (Searchlight Pictures)
3. Cruella – Jenny Beavan (Walt Disney)
4. Spencer – Jacqueline Durran (NEON)
5. The Tragedy of Macbeth – Mary Zophres (A24/Apple)

MAKEUP and HAIRSTYLING

1. Dune (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
2. The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Searchlight Pictures)
3. Cruella (Walt Disney)
4. The Suicide Squad (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
5. Nightmare Alley (Searchlight Pictures)

ORIGINAL SCORE

1. Dune – Hans Zimmer (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
2. Spencer – Jonny Greenwood (NEON)
3. The Power of the Dog – Jonny Greenwood (Netflix)
4. Belfast – Van Morrison (Focus Features)
5. The French Dispatch – Alexandre Desplat (Searchlight Pictures)

ORIGINAL SONG

1. “Be Alive” from King Richard (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
2. “No Time to Die” from No Time to Die (MGM/UA)
3. “Colombia, Mi Encanto” from Encanto (Walt Disney)
4. “Believe” from The Rescue (NatGeo)
5. “Somehow You Do” from Four Good Days (Vertical Entertainment)

SOUND

1. Dune (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
2. No Time to Die (MGM/UA)
3. The Last Duel (20th Century Studios)
4. West Side Story (20th Century Studios)
5. Belfast (Focus Features)

VISUAL EFFECTS

1. Dune (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
2. The Matrix Resurrections (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
3. Eternals (Walt Disney/Marvel)
4. Godzilla vs. Kong (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
5. Free Guy (20th Century Studios)

ANIMATED FEATURE

1. Flee (NEON)
2. The Mitchells vs the Machines (Netflix)
3. Encanto (Walt Disney)
4. Raya and the Last Dragon (Walt Disney)
5. Belle (GKIDS)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. Flee (NEON)
2. The Rescue (NatGeo)
3. Julia (Sony Pictures Classics)
4. Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (Searchlight Pictures)
5. Attica (Showtime)

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM (coming soon)

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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.