Gold Rush Gang 2016 Oscar Predictions: BEST DIRECTOR (June)

As what happened in our Best Picture chart, The Revenant from 20th Century Fox is also losing steam in Best Director. Also from 20th Century Fox, Joy‘s David O. Russell continues to keep his #1 status and by a good margin, too. Every single Gold Rush Gang member has him as their #1 or #2, save Adam Norbury, who has him at #4. Even Steven Spielberg doesn’t have full support with two members, Jason Osiason and Chris Pepper not seeing the two-time Best Director winner being a player this year. Todd Haynes sits comfortably at #3 with The Weinstein Company‘s Carol, his Cannes Best Actress winning film that could be his big Oscar breakthrough. Alejandro González Iñárritu, this year’s Best Director Oscar winner for Birdman is tumbling in our June predictions and it’s making way for newcomer Sarah Gavron with Suffragette from Focus Features. With a new trailer that debuted just this morning and swelling support from the Gold Rush Gang, Gavron (and her film) has found herself in the top 5.

Elsewhere on the chart, Youth‘s Paolo Sorrentino sees a boost of support from Cannes, just as his film did in the Best Picture chart. He has votes from half of the GRG members for June. With Fox Searchlight behind Youth, they should and will mount a significant campaign for the film and its Foreign Language Film Oscar winning director (The Great Beauty). Top five Best Picture player The Danish Girl from Oscar-winner Tom Hooper shows up in 6th place this month. If The Revenant continues to fall, Hooper could be back in the top 5 by July. A few single votes wrap up the list with Quentin Tarantino (The Hateful Eight), Cary Fukunaga (Beasts of No Nation) and Oscar-winning Best Director Danny Boyle (for Slumdog Millionaire).  Boyle’s Steve Jobs could be a strong player and move up on this list quite easily. With a baity subject, Oscar-winning writer (Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network) and an Oscar-nominated Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave) in the lead, it could really go places.

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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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