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My Predictions For The 91st Academy Awards Nominations

Kent Tong

It’s my favorite time of the year - Oscar season! Next Tuesday morning they’ll finally announce the nominees for the 91st Academy Awards, which will take place Sunday, February 24th. The following are films I think will get nominated for each category, not necessarily ones I want to get nominated. Also, I don’t have predictions for all 24 categories since several of them I’m fairly clueless about, such as Foreign Language Film, the shorts categories, and sound design categories.

Best Picture

  1. Black Panther

  2. BlackKklansman

  3. Bohemian Rhapsody

  4. The Favourite

  5. Green Book

  6. If Beale Street Could Talk

  7. Roma

  8. A Star Is Born

  9. Vice

Maybe: ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’, ’Crazy Rich Asians’, ’First Man’, ’Eighth Grade’, ’A Quiet Place’, ’The Wife’

Best Picture is the only category that can accommodate up to ten nominees, with five being the minimum. I predict this year’s ceremony will have nine nominees like the previous two years have had. Every year there are a handful of films that are pretty much guaranteed to be nominated and this year is no different. Films like ‘A Star Is Born’, ‘BlackKklansman’, ‘Green Book’, and ‘Roma’ are for sure getting nominated based on the slew of awards they’ve been nominated for already, like the Producers Guild and Directors Guild Awards.

More populist flicks like ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ are also in contention despite not being typical Oscar nominees (‘Black Panther’ being a superhero film and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ didn’t exactly get rave reviews). ‘Vice’ director Adam McKay got a Directors Guild nomination, which is a strong sign of being nominated for not only Best Director but also Best Picture at the Oscars. ‘The Favourite' has a strong chance due to the strength of its leading ladies (Olivia Colman, Rachel Wiesz, Emma Stone), all of whom have been nominated for several acting awards for the film. Lastly, ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ is a contender for Best Supporting Actress (Regina King), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best and Cinematography, which gives me a feeling it’ll have a chance at being nominated for Best Picture.

It feels weird to be hesitant about ‘Beale Street’s’ Best Picture chances since it’s the type of film you’d think would easily make the cut, but 2018 has been a crazy year! With the Oscar voting body growing more diverse the past several years (though, don’t be mistaken, it’s still heavily old and white) more interesting choices have resulted: ‘Moonlight’ and ‘The Shape of Water’ winning the top prize, all of the nominations for ‘Get Out’, etc. ‘Black Panther’ is the first superhero film since ‘The Dark Knight’ that feels like it has an actual chance at a Best Picture nomination. Traditionally, Oscar-bait films are released in the fall (dubbed “awards season”), yet some of the best films of the year were released early in the year, like ‘Black Panther’ or ‘A Quiet Place’. ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ made huge strides in representation and also set box office records. ‘Roma’ may be the first Netflix film to be nominated for Best Picture.

‘A Star Is Born’ was considered the frontrunner before it was even released, but then a little-known film called ‘Green Book’ surprised everyone at TIFF and has been making gains (and controversies) ever since. Barry Jenkins (‘Moonlight’) and Damien Chazelle’s (‘La La Land’) respective films were the frontrunners two years ago, and both released awards-friendly follow ups this past year, Jenkin’s ‘Beale Street’ and Chazelle’s ‘First Man’. Though these two films have received critical acclaim, they’ve both been surprisingly left out of many discussions. Regina King’s surprising snub from the SAG Awards was a major hit to ‘Beale Street’s’ Oscar chances, and ‘First Man’ fizzled at the box office. The same can be said for Steve McQueen, who previously won Best Picture for ‘12 Years a Slave’. His 2018 follow up ‘Widows’ was supposed to be a strong awards contender but it bombed at the box office and was left out of major awards.

Here’s me hoping ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ gets nominated instead of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, despite it also not being a traditional Oscar flick. The fact that it got nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Cast at the SAG Awards gets my hopes up (fingers crossed).

Best Director

  1. Bradley Cooper (‘A Star Is Born’)

  2. Alfonso Cuaron (‘Roma’)

  3. Peter Farrelly (‘Green Book’)

  4. Yorgos Lanthimos (‘The Favourite’)

  5. Spike Lee (‘BlackKklansman’)

Maybe: Barry Jenkins (‘If Beale Street Could Talk’), Ryan Coogler (‘Black Panther’), Adam McKay (‘Vice’)

You can usually rely on the Directors Guild Awards nominees to predict who the Oscar nominees will be for the same category, with maybe one difference. I’m thinking Adam McKay has the biggest chance of being swapped out for another director at the Oscars. The past few years have given us fairly predictable nominees, with the addition of one artsy pick. In this case, I’m thinking McKay, who was given a DGA nomination, will be swapped out for Yorgos Lanthimos at the Oscars.

Best Actor

  1. Christian Bale (‘Vice)

  2. Bradley Cooper (‘A Star Is Born’)

  3. Rami Malek (‘Bohemian Rhapsody’)

  4. Viggo Mortensen (‘Green Book’)

  5. John David Washington (‘BlackKklansman’)

Maybe: Ethan Hawke (‘First Reformed’), Robert Redford (‘The Old Man and the Gun’), Willem Dafoe (‘At Eternity’s Gate’), Ryan Gosling (‘First Man’)

These five men are pretty much guaranteed to be nominated. The Acting branch of the Academy Awards shares a lot of members with the Screen Actors Guild, so I believe they’ll align with the SAG nominees.

Best Actress

  1. Emily Blunt (‘Mary Poppins Returns’)

  2. Glenn Close (‘The Wife’)

  3. Olivia Colman (‘The Favourite’)

  4. Lady Gaga (‘A Star Is Born’)

  5. Melissa McCarthy (‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’)

Maybe: Rosamund Pike (‘A Private War’), Nicole Kidman (‘Destroyer’), Charlize Theron (‘Tully’), Constance Wu (‘Crazy Rich Asians’), Elsie Fisher (‘Eighth Grade’), Saoirse Ronan (‘Mary Queen of Scots’), Toni Collette (‘Hereditary’)

Like Best Actor, I think the Best Actress nominees will line up with the SAG nominations, though I hope I’m wrong because I want a Constance Wu nomination for phenomenal performance in ‘Crazy Rich Asians’!

Best Supporting Actor

  1. Mahershala Ali (‘Green Book’)

  2. Timothee Chalamet (‘Beautiful Boy’)

  3. Adam Driver (‘BlackKklansman’)

  4. Sam Elliott (‘A Star Is Born’)

  5. Richard E. Grant (‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’)

Maybe: Michael B. Jordan (‘Black Panther’), Sam Rockwell (‘Vice’)

I’m going to sound like a broken record. My prediction for this category is that it’ll match up with the SAG nominations. Mahershala Ali is expected to easily win this category, too!

Best Supporting Actress

  1. Amy Adams (‘Vice’)

  2. Emily Blunt (‘A Quiet Place’)

  3. Regina King (‘If Beale Street Could Talk’)

  4. Emma Stone (‘The Favourite’)

  5. Rachel Weisz (‘The Favourite’)

Maybe: Claire Foy (‘First Man’), Margot Robbie (‘Mary Queen of Scots’)

Amy Adams, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz are pretty much guaranteed to be nominated. I’m also predicting a Regina King nomination, though what makes me hesitant is because she was snubbed by the Screen Actors Guild, which usually correlates strongly with the Oscars. I would have said King was the frontrunner had it not been for this snub. And then there’s Emily Blunt, who has a good chance of being nominated for two acting categories in the same year (Best Actress for ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ and ‘Best Supporting Actress for ‘A Quiet Place’). It’s a shame Michelle Yeoh isn’t even in many discussions for this category because I personally felt she delivered a powerful, yet low-key performance in ‘Crazy Rich Asians’; her performance spoke volumes with her character’s calculated body language. I thought it was brilliant!

Best Original Screenplay

  1. ‘Eighth Grade’

  2. ‘The Favourite’

  3. ’Green Book’

  4. ’Roma’

  5. ’Vice’

Maybe: ‘A Quiet Place’, ‘First Reformed’, ‘Cold War’

‘Eighth Grade’, ‘Green Book’, ‘Roma’, and ‘Vice’ were all nominated at the Writers Guild Awards except for ‘The Favourite’, which was deemed not eligible. Instead, ‘A Quiet Place’ was nominated at the WGAs. I think ‘The Favourite’ will take the spot from ‘A Quiet Place’ at the Oscars simply because it’s a more awards-friendly feature.

Best Adapted Screenplay

  1. ’BlackKklansman’

  2. ’Black Panther’

  3. ’Can You Ever Forgive Me?’

  4. ’If Beale Street Could Talk’

  5. ’A Star Is Born’

Maybe: ‘Crazy Rich Asians, ‘First Man’

These five were all nominated for the Writers Guild Award so that’s what I’m going with.

Best Animated Feature

  1. ’Incredibles 2’

  2. ’Isle of Dogs’

  3. ’Mirai’

  4. ’Ralph Breaks the Internet’

  5. ’Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’

You can always count on Disney and/or Pixar to be nominated here when they release a new animated film. The surprise here is that neither studio is the clear frontrunner! Instead, that honor belongs to Sony’s ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’, one of the biggest surprises of the year. I’m a little hesitant because everyone, including myself, thought ‘The Lego Movie’ was going to be nominated - and win - in 2015 but was surprisingly shut out. Hopefully the same won’t happen here.

Best Original Score

  1. ’Black Panther’

  2. ’Crazy Rich Asians’

  3. ’First Man’

  4. ’If Beale Street Could Talk’

  5. ’Isle of Dogs’

Maybe: ‘BlackKklansman’, ‘Vice’, ‘Mary Poppins Returns’

Best Original Song

  1. “All the Stars” (‘Black Panther’)

  2. “I’ll Fight” (‘RGB’)

  3. “The Place Where Lost Things Go” (‘Mary Poppins Returns’)

  4. “Shallow” (‘A Star Is Born’)

  5. “Trip a Little Light Fantastic” (‘Mary Poppins Returns’)

Best Cinematography

  1. ’The Favourite’

  2. ’First Man’

  3. ’If Beale Street Could Talk’

  4. ’Roma’

  5. ’A Star Is Born’

Maybe: ‘Black Panther’, ‘Cold War’

Best Film Editing

  1. ’BlackKklansman’

  2. ’First Man’

  3. ’Green Book’

  4. ’Roma’

  5. ’A Star Is Born’

Maybe: ’Bohemian Rhapsody’, ’The Favourite’, ’If Beale Street Could Talk’, ’Vice’

Best Documentary - Feature

  1. ‘Free Solo’

  2. ‘Minding the Gap’

  3. ‘RGB’

  4. ‘Three Identical Strangers’

  5. ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor’