Our tradition was to issue our first predictions in May. The pandemic got in the way. Thus, our first predictions come in our normal post-festival spot with Venice and Toronto both in the rearview mirror. Looking at the top categories at the Oscars, we rely on pending releases to complete our selections, with many of them at risk of being delayed until 2021 like a number of other films have been. After the break, you’ll receive our first Oscar predictions of the year.
Category: 92nd Oscars (2019)
Precursor: 73rd Bodil Awards (2019)
Not all information is available for these awards. These are the pieces of information I’ve been able to collect so far.
Award Tallies
(3) Queen of Hearts
The Awards
Best Danish Film
Queen of Hearts
Best Actor
Jesper Christensen – For frosten
Best Actress
Trine Dyrholm – Queen of Hearts
Best Supporting Actor
Gustav Lindh – Queen of Hearts
Best Supporting Actress
Sofie Torp – Ser du manen, Daniel
Best Documentary
Q’s Barbershop
Best American Film
Marriage Story
Best Non-American Film
Parasite
Arbejdernes Landsbank Talent Prize
Ulaa Salim – Danmarks sonner (director)
Danish Film Critics Association Data
First Awards: 1947 (73)
Precursor: 45th Cesar Awards (2019)
In spite of a rather pointed protest over Roman Polanski’s Best Directing win, the big winner of the night was not his film An Officer and a Spy, even though it took three awards, it was Best Picture winner Les Misérables, which took five.
Award Tallies
(5) Les Miserables
(3) La Belle Epoque, An Officer and a Spy
(2) I Lost My Body, Papicha
The Awards
Precursor: 51st NAACP Image Awards (2019)
In spite of Harriet being among the Oscar nominees, Just Mercy, which was only loosely in the Oscar conversation this year outperformed every other film that had gotten more buzz to take a majority of the prizes.
Award Tallies
(4) Just Mercy
(2) Little, Us
The Nominations
Precursor: 22nd Film Music Critics Nominations (2019)
The Academy gave the award to the composer of Joker. That composer instead won here for Chernobyl. Instead, celebrated composer John Williams took home three prizes for his Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker score. This group was more likely to recognize Williams for his last Star Wars score ever than the Academy was. That said, even when they could have selected Joker, they went with something else. All of the nominees in the Original Score category at the Oscars, except Joker and Marriage Story won a prize here.
Award Tallies
(3) Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
The Awards
Precursor: 65th David di Dontello Awards (2020)
This organization selects only Italian productions, thus is no general precursor to the Oscars.
Award Tallies
(18) The Traitor
(15) The First King, Pinocchio
(11) Martin Eden
(9) 5 Is the Perfect Number
(6) Suspiria
(4) Bangla, The Dea Fortuna, The Mayor of Rita Sanita
(3) Memories?, The Paranza of Children
The Awards
Precursor: 8th Canadian Screen Awards Nominations (2020)
This organization selects only Canadian productions, thus is no general precursor to the Oscars.
Award Tallies
(9) The Song of Names
(8) The Twentieth Century
(7) Antigone
(6) The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
(5) And the Birds Rained Down, Goalie, Riot Girls
(4) American Woman, Anne at 13,000 ft., Disappearance at Clifton Hill, James vs His Future Self, White Lie
(3) Alexandre le Fou, Kuessipan, Run This Town, Sympathy for the Devil
The Nominations
Precursor: 65th Filmfare Nominations & Awards (2019)
Not much to go on here since no American films are on the list and no Oscar contenders are, either.
Award Tallies
(13) Gully Boy
(3) Article 15, Uri: The Surgical Strike, War
(2) Kalank, Saand Ki Aankh, Sonchiriya, Tindey
Nominations Tallies
(19) Gully Boy
(11) Article 15, Sonchiriya, Uri: The Surgical Strike
(8) Kabir Singh, Kesari, Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota
(7) Kalank, War
(6) Judgementall Hai Kya, Mission Mangal, Saand Ki Aankh
(5) Chhichhore
(4) Badia, Photograph
(3) Bala, Bharat, Good Newwz, Mardaani 2, The Sky Is Pink, Super 30
The Awards
92nd Oscars: Reflections
Our contributors have watched the Oscars, looked at the winners, and have decided to share with you their thoughts of Sunday night’s ceremony and results. Before we get to our contributors’ thoughts, let’s look at how they did at predicting this year’s Oscars.
Thomas was the winner this year with 20 correct predictions. Wesley came in just a point behind with 19, followed by Peter and Tripp tied for third with 16 apiece. Among runners-up selections, Wesley and Thomas both managed to predict all of the categories between their winners and runners up while Tripp pulled 22 out of 24 and Peter claimed 19 out of 24. Not bad at all.
The three categories all of us missed this year were Sound Editing and two big ones: Best Picture and Best Directing, a rare prognosticating failure for the quartet of us. Among the other categories, the four of us agreed on far more than we ever have and most of those were accurate. Our biggest differences were in the short film categories, but in the end, there was only one category where only one of our contributors’ managed to pick the correct winner and that was Live Action Short Film where Wesley’s prediction of The Neighbors’ Window was spot-on.
Oscar Preview: Precursor Winners & Losers, Week 11
Precursor season officially came to an end on Saturday night when the Film Independent Spirit Awards were handed out. Sunday night was the Oscars, meaning that most of what came in the week before was forgotten by this morning. As such, this article will be focused on which films came out of the precursors helped and hindered as we look at the entire season’s precursor winners and losers.
Before we get into that, let’s talk about what won and lost with the actual precursors. Starting with the big winners: The Farewell, which not only beat Jennifer Lopez in Supporting Actress at the Spirit Awards with Zhao Shuzhen’s surprise win, but it managed to surprise by winning Best Film as well. Uncut Gems was the other big winner with its three prizes from the Spirit Awards, including Oscar snubbee Adam Sandler. On the losers side, Marriage Story might have taken the previously announced Robert Altman Award as well as screenplay from the Spirit Awards, but as the sole Oscar Best Picture nominee on the Best Film list, its failure to secure that prize speaks to the film’s utter collapse during Oscar season with only star Laura Dern keeping the dream alive.
Another set of big losers this week were the nominees for the Golden Raspberry (Razzie) Awards. Although, these were predictably low-hanging fruit, Cats, A Madea Family Funeral, and Rambo: Last Blood were big losers with their eight nominations apiece. Other losers included Oscar nominees and winners Tom Hooper in Worst Directing, and actors James Franco, Matthew McConaughey, Sylvester Stallone, John Travolta, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, and Judi Dench.
Now, to the purpose of this week’s articles, a look at the winners and losers of precursor season/Oscar season 2019.
Big Winners
92nd Oscars: Best Picture
Kwak Sin Ae, Bong Joon Ho
Presented by: Jane Fonda
Standing Ovation: Yes
Correct Predictions: No one.
Runner-Up Predictions: RU:Wesley / RU:Peter / RU:Tripp / RU:Thomas
92nd Oscars: Best Actress
Judy
Presented by: Rami Malek
Standing Ovation: Yes
Correct Predictions: Wesley / Peter / Tripp / Thomas
Runner-Up Predictions: No one.
92nd Oscars: Best Actor
Joker
Presented by: Olivia Colman
Standing Ovation: Yes
Correct Predictions: Wesley / Peter / Tripp / Thomas
Runner-Up Predictions: No one.
92nd Oscars: In Memoriam
Kobe Bryant
Rip Torn
Barbara Hammer
Patricia Blau
Bernie Pollack
Steve Golin
Paul LeBlanc
John Briley
Diahann Carroll
Terry Jones
Catherine Burns
Agnes Varda
Wayne Fitzgerald
David Foster
Danny Aiello
Buck Henry
Stanley Donen
David V. Picker
Barry Malkin
Robert Forster
Robert Evans
Richard Williams
Machiko Kyo
Jim R. Alexander
Anna Karina
D.A. Pennebaker
Leonardo Goldberg
Fernando Lujan
Andre Previn
Peter Mayhew
Sylvia Miles
William J. Creber
Godfrey Gao
Bibi Andersson
Michael Lynne
Gene Warren Jr.
Alvin Sargent
Doris Day
Anna Udvardy
Sid Ramin
Michelle Guish
Sidney J. Sheinberg
Ben Barenholtz
Joss Williams
Piero Tosi
Kenneth Walker
Rutger Hauer
Syd Mead
Harriet Frank Jr.
Franco Zeffirelli
John Withserspoon
Bernard Chevry
Seymour Cassel
Peter Fonda
Branko Lustig
Gerry Lewis
John Singleton
Kirk Douglas
92nd Oscars: Best Directing
Parasite
Presented by: Spike Lee
Standing Ovation: Yes
Correct Predictions: No one.
Runner-Up Predictions: RU:Wesley / RU:Peter / RU:Tripp / RU:Thomas