Frontrunner Friday Oscar Predictions: War is Hell

In a shortened Oscar season such as this a lot can happen in a week. Last weekend brought us the ACE Eddie Awards (Parasite and Jojo Rabbit won there), the Producers Guild Awards (with 1917 winning) and the Screen Actors Guild Awards, where all of our acting frontrunners triumphed as expected but with the giant upset (to some) of Parasite taking the Outstanding Cast prize over the likes of The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Those wins kept tipping the balance of power between what are now our two frontrunners: 1917 and Parasite. Each film goes into the Oscars with seemingly insurmountable odds against them as Best Picture winners (1917 with no acting or editing nominations; Parasite being a non-English language film) check the history here) but here we are.

This weekend brings us no less than five guild and/or industry awards including the Directors Guild (hugely important), American Society of Cinematographers, Cinema Audio Society (see a preview and predictions for those three here), the Annie Awards for animation and the USC Scripter for adapted screenplays.

BAFTA is next weekend (February 2nd) but hasn’t been a great precursor for Best Picture this decade because of the change in the Oscar preferential ballot. But elsewhere, like acting and directing, chances are we’ll see the continued coronation of what we’ve seen so far.

While the acting races are seemingly locked (only a force of nature, or BAFTA, could unlock them) we have some races that should give some good chase. Adapted Screenplay is one of them. I think it’s a race between Little Women and Jojo Rabbit, as each might find this their only chance for a win. Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women put such a unique spin on time for a story we’ve seen told many, many times that it made something potentially stale into something vibrant. With her snub in directing (and in fact, all women), this represents an opportunity for the voting membership as a whole to make up for the directors’ branch’s choices. For Jojo Rabbit, the TIFF Audience Award winner has always won at least one Oscar this decade (with one exception) and the screenplay is electric and perverse and exactly the kind of thing that only wins screenplay (like Get Out or Call My By Your Name two years ago). The two films are also competing against each other in Supporting Actress but neither are frontrunners there. Costume Design could be where Jojo or Little Women find a win and share some of the wealth among the Best Picture nominees but that feels like where Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will find love along with Production Design (the two often go hand in hand).

Film Editing and Original Screenplay are interesting puzzles right now because they’re both places Parasite could win, and kind of needs to win at least one of them, in order to push itself through to Best Picture. Film Editing is between it and Ford v Ferrari and the voting members might simply see the multiple racing cuts of FvF as the “best” editing. Don’t forget, they just gave Bohemian Rhapsody this award for scenes like this. In Original Screenplay, it’s main competition is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Is the Academy ready to given Quentin Tarantino his third Oscar for writing, propelling him into an all-time tie with Woody Allen? But then, again last year, they gave Green Book this award over the juicy dialogue and structure of The Favourite.

Here are my Frontrunner Friday Oscar Predictions for January 24, 2020.

BEST PICTURE

DIRECTOR

BEST ACTOR

BEST ACTRESS

SUPPORTING ACTOR

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

FILM EDITING

CINEMATOGRAPHY

PRODUCTION DESIGN

COSTUME DESIGN

ORIGINAL SCORE

ORIGINAL SONG

SOUND EDITING

SOUND MIXING

MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING

VISUAL EFFECTS

ANIMATED FEATURE

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

ANIMATED SHORT

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT

LIVE ACTION SHORT