Frontrunner Friday Oscar Predictions: It’s peach season as ‘Parasite’ ripens this weekend

The big news this week was the official list from the Academy of the record-breaking 93 countries that will compete for the (newly named) International Feature Film Oscar.

Not only did that number beat the 2017 number of entries (by just one), this year’s films also blew down the doors for women-directed films: a full 30% of the submissions (29 films) were directed or co-directed by women.

There were also a record number of films with LGBTQ+ subjects or themes (7) and Africa found itself with a record 10 entries, including a potential top contender or two.

Elsewhere in Oscar land, the London Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival and New York Film Festival are all wrapping up this weekend (with the Hamptons and Middleburg fests are about to kick off) and while they won’t give us any world premiere closers, we’ll get more reviews and perspectives. Next week, however, we’ll get the lineup for next month’s AFI FEST, which will definitely have world premieres of a handful of November and December releases like Universal’s Queen & Slim, Apple’s The Banker and Warner Bros Richard Jewell. Others that could (and kind of need to) pop up: Focus Features’ Dark Waters, Lionsgate’s Bombshell and Sony’s Little Women are all possible.

After winning the Cannes Palme d’Or this summer, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (Neon) played every major fall festival under the sun and is finally opening this weekend in three theaters (one in NY and two in LA) and already the fever pitch and likely box office for the film could set some records of its own.

Here are my Frontrunner Friday Oscar predictions for October 11, 2019.

BEST PICTURE

1. Marriage Story (Netflix – 11/6, theatrical / 12/6, streaming) – Venice/Telluride/TIFF/NYFF
2. Parasite (Neon – 10/11) – Cannes/Telluride/TIFF/NYFF
3. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Sony/Columbia – 7/26) – Cannes
4. Jojo Rabbit (Fox Searchlight – 10/18) – TIFF
5. 1917 (Universal – 12/25)
6. The Farewell (A24 – 7/12) – Sundance
7. The Irishman (Netflix – 11/1 theatrical / 11/27 streaming) – NYFF
8. The Two Popes (Netflix – 11/27, theatrical / 12/20 streaming) – Telluride/TIFF
9. Ford v. Ferrari (20th Century Fox – 11/15) – Telluride/TIFF
10. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Sony/TriStar – 11/22) – TIFF

DIRECTOR

1. Bong Joon-ho – Parasite (Neon)
2. Noah Baumbach – Marriage Story (Netflix)
3. Quentin Tarantino – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Sony/Columbia)
4. Sam Mendes – 1917 (Universal)
5. Lulu Wang – The Farewell (A24)

BEST ACTOR

1. Adam Driver – Marriage Story (Netflix)
2. Jonathan Pryce – The Two Popes (Netflix)
3. Joaquin Phoenix – Joker (Warner Bros)
4. Leonardo DiCaprio – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Sony/Columbia)
5. Antonio Banderas – Pain and Glory (Sony Classics)

BEST ACTRESS

1. Renée Zellweger – Judy (Roadside Attractions)
2. Scarlett Johansson – Marriage Story (Netflix)
3. Awkwafina – The Farewell (A24)
4. Cynthia Erivo – Harriet (Focus Features)
5. Saoirse Ronan – Little Women (Sony)

SUPPORTING ACTOR

1. Brad Pitt – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Sony/Columbia)
2. Tom Hanks – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Sony/TriStar)
3. Christian Bale – Ford v Ferrari (20th Century Fox)
4. Anthony Hopkins – The Two Popes (Netflix)
5. Al Pacino – The Irishman (Netflix)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1. Laura Dern – Marriage Story (Netflix)
2. Jennifer Lopez – Hustlers (STX Entertainment)
3. Shuzhen Zhao – The Farewell (A24)
4. Margot Robbie – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Sony/Columbia)
5. Maggie Smith – Downton Abbey (Focus Features)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1. The Two Popes (Netflix)
2. Jojo Rabbit (Fox Searchlight)
3. The Irishman (Netflix)
4. Little Women (Sony)
5. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Sony/TriStar)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1. Marriage Story (Netflix)
2. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Sony/Columbia)
3. Parasite (Neon)
4. The Farewell (A24)
5. 1917 (Universal)

FILM EDITING

1. The Irishman (Thelma Schoonmaker) – Netflix
2. Ford v. Ferrari (Andrew Buckland, Michael McCusker) – 20th Century Fox
3. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Fred Raskin) – Sony/Columbia
4. Marriage Story (Jennifer Lame) – Netflix
5. Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (Maryann Brandon, Stefan Grube) – Disney

CINEMATOGRAPHY

1. 1917 (Roger Deakins) – Universal
2. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Robert Richardson) – Sony/Columbia
3. The Irishman (Rodrigo Prieto) – Netflix
4. Ford v. Ferrari (Phedon Papamichael) – 20th Century Fox
5. The Lighthouse (Jarin Blaschke) – A24

PRODUCTION DESIGN

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Barbara Ling) – Sony/Columbia
2. The Irishman (Bob Shaw) – Netflix
3. 1917 (Dennis Gassner) – Universal
4. Cats (Eve Stewart) – Universal
5. Downton Abbey (Donal Woods) – Focus Features

COSTUME DESIGN

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Arianne Phillips) – Sony/Columbia
2. Little Women (Jacqueline Durran) – Sony
3. The Irishman (Sandy Powell) – Netflix
4. Downton Abbey (Anna Robbins) – Focus Features
5. Dolemite Is My Name (Ruth E. Carter) – Netflix

ORIGINAL SCORE

1. 1917 (Thomas Newman) – Universal
2. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (John Williams) – Disney
3. Little Women (Alexandre Desplat) – Sony
4. Joker (Hildur Guðnadóttir) – Warner Bros
5. Marriage Story (Randy Newman) – Netlfix

ORIGINAL SONG

1. Frozen II – “Into the Unknown” (Disney)
2. Toy Story 4 – “The Ballad of the Lonesome Cowboy” (Disney/Pixar)
3. Rocketman – “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again”
4. The Lion King – “Spirit” (Disney)
5. Harriet, “Stand Up” (Focus Features)

SOUND EDITING

1. 1917 (Universal)
2. Ford v Ferrari (20th Century Fox)
3. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Disney)
4. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Sony/Columbia)
5. Ad Astra (20th Century Fox)

SOUND MIXING

1. 1917 (Universal)
2. Ford v Ferrari (20th Century Fox)
3. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Disney)
4. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Sony/Columbia)
5. Rocketman (Paramount)

MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING

1. Judy (Roadside Attractions)
2. Joker (Warner Bros)
3. Dolemite Is My Name (Netflix)
4. Bombshell (Lionsgate)
5. Downton Abbey (Focus Features)

VISUAL EFFECTS

1. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Disney)
2. The Lion King (Disney)
3. Avengers: Endgame (Disney)
4. 1917 (Universal)
5. The Irishman (Netflix)

ANIMATED FEATURE

1. Toy Story 4 (Disney/Pixar)
2. Frozen II (Disney)
3. Weathering With You (GKIDS)
4. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (Dreamworks)
5. I Lost My Body (Netflix)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. American Factory (Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar) – Netflix
2. Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller) – Neon
3. One Child Nation (Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang) – Amazon
4. Honeyland (Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov)
5. The Cave (Feras Fayyad) – National Geographic

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

1. South Korea – Parasite (Bong Joon-ho) – Neon
2. Spain – Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar) – Sony Classics
3. France – Les Misérables (Ladj Ly) – Amazon
4. Sweden – And Then We Danced (Levan Akin) – Music Box
5. Senegal – Atlantics (Mati Diop) – Netflix

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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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