Sometimes, when I poll Oscar voters about the films and performances they plan to nominate, they turn the tables on me.
“Who do you want to happen?” they ask.
Maybe they’re expecting me to advocate for an underseen movie or steer them toward a performance that hasn’t gotten its flowers. Usually, though, my answer is simple: I want them to surprise me. Don’t adhere to the conventional wisdom. Take a chance on things that no one would expect to be nominated.
That goes double for this season, which has remained fairly fluid after back-to-back years when the names of the best picture winner and many of the acting victors felt engraved on statuettes months in advance. No single film has yet dominated this season, and many still have a plausible path to victory at the Oscars. It’s fun!
That’s why I hope that more surprises are in store when the Oscar nominations are announced on Thursday, even though part of my job is predicting exactly which way the wind is going to blow. Here is what I project will be nominated in the top six Oscar categories after taking into account industry chatter and the nominations already bestowed by influential precursors like the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, Producers Guild of America, and Directors Guild of America. I hope I’m right, but I’d enjoy being wrong.
At the beginning of the season, it felt like the five strongest best picture contenders came from what I called the A-B-C-D-E tier, since they happened to begin with the first five letters of the alphabet.
I still expect those films to claim half of the best-picture slots, though one of them has slipped somewhat. The four that are best-positioned remain “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” “Conclave,” and “Emilia Pérez,” along with their alphabet buddy “Dune: Part Two,” knocked down a few pegs for failing to score a DGA nomination.
After conquering the box office and earning a hefty nomination haul at the SAG Awards, “Wicked” should extend its magic touch with the Oscars; ditto “A Complete Unknown,” which took top nominations from the actors and directors guilds, indicating a broad swath of industry support. The wild and gory “The Substance” is the furthest thing from a traditional Oscar contender, but Demi Moore’s strong campaign has helped nudge it over the line. And two smaller but well-liked films, “A Real Pain” and “Sing Sing,” should claim the final slots on the strength of some sure-to-be-nominated performances.
This category typically goes 4 for 5 with the directors guild, and I project that the auteurs likeliest to make both nomination lists are the Golden Globe winner Brady Corbet (“The Brutalist”), Sean Baker (“Anora”), Jacques Audiard (“Emilia Pérez”), and Edward Berger (“Conclave”). The fifth and most vulnerable DGA nominee is James Mangold (“A Complete Unknown”), who has never been nominated for a best director Oscar despite making Oscar-bait movies like “Walk the Line” and “Ford v Ferrari.” If Mangold doesn’t make the cut, then who might?
The academy’s directors branch often turns a blind eye to blockbuster filmmaking, so if Jon M. Chu (“Wicked”) and Denis Villeneuve (“Dune: Part Two”) couldn’t pass muster with the far friendlier directors guild, you shouldn’t expect them to pop up here. This branch is far more partial to international directors, so I expect the European contingent to turn out for the French auteur Coralie Fargeat (“The Substance”), though you can’t count out Payal Kapadia (“All We Imagine as Light”), RaMell Ross (“Nickel Boys”), or Mohammad Rasoulof (“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”).
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