The last of the Hollywood televised awards is this weekend and everyone will be watching for what the Screen Actors Guild does. Will they cement the frontrunners or will they throw in a wrench. This is the place to test out theories ahead of the Oscars with the last televised film-only awards, BAFTA, the last say in the race.
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Since the creation of the SAG awards in 1995, there is a trend where if a film wins at SAG, PGA, and DGA, the chance of winning the Oscar skyrockets. In those fifteen years where they didn’t align, seven of those years saw the PGA winner also take the Oscar for Best Picture. So, this is the group that can forecast trends such as Green Book last year, The Shape of Water the year before.
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The Motion Picture Sound Editors are a chaotic group. With so many categories, it’s possible that the Oscar winner is already here and the winners of this group’s award will point that out to us. The Sound Editing category at the Oscars is most closely associated with this organization; however, Academy members are more likely to vote the two sound awards in tandem than they are separately. So, if there’s a winner here that matches at the Cinema Audio Society, that’s probably a good bet for the Oscars.
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For our third Rundown article, we look at once-labeled foreign language films. After the jump, you’ll find our winner and runner-up predictions for Best International Film as well as general commentary about the race. Next week, we’ll start off on Monday with a category the documentary categories.
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The chaotic nature of this year’s Oscar season has led to a rare divergence among our contributors where none of this year’s American Cinema Editors nominees get universal predictions. Most often reflected in the Academy’s Best Film Editing Oscar, this winner could help us narrow down the players for the Oscars.
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For our second Rundown article, we look at the other musical category. After the jump, you’ll find our winner and runner-up predictions for Best Original Song as well as general commentary about the race. Friday, we’ll cover the international film category.
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For our first Rundown article, we look at one of two musical categories. After the jump, you’ll find our winner and runner-up predictions for Best Original Score as well as general commentary about the race. Thursday, we’ll cover the other musical category: Best Original Song.
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With all of the shocks and surprises of the Academy Awards nominations, our contributors have put together these first post-nomination predictions. We’ll do individual posts this week discussing our individual predictions and we’ll have a final set of predictions the Friday before the Oscars.

Some of our contributors even provided commentary. I present that here before we get into the nominations. Please note that this has not been edited yet:

Peter J. Patrick – I found myself agreeing with this year’s Oscar nominations more than any in recent memory. I liked all nine Best Picture nominees, all five Best Directing nominees and 19 of the 20 acting nominees. It seemed to me that Academy members and the BAFTA membership rather than SAG and the various critics’ groups went for “the best” as opposed to “the most popular”, a reversal of the general perception as to how these things are generally done.

Thomas La Tourrette – The Academy can still surprise us on Nomination day, though that is not always a good thing.

I am surprised by the love for Joker, a film I detested. It leads the pack with 11 nominations. Having the most nominations can also be sign for the film that goes on to win best picture, though I will hope that is not the case this year. The Academy did muddy the race for best picture. Joker and The Irishman were the only two films that received noms for directing, writing, cinematography and film editing, in addition to acting ones. Films no longer necessarily need these to win, but it should help the chances for these two. Coming off its Golden Globes wins, 1917 seemed the one to beat. An unexpected screenplay nom bolsters its chances, but the lack of a film editing nom would hurt it. If it wins, it will be the first film without acting noms since Slumdog Millionaire in 2008 to get best picture. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood’s chances would have been helped with a film editing nom. Ditto Jojo Rabbit if it had gotten a directing nom, like it did from the Directors Guild. Little Women might have truly been a contender, but without the directing nom, it is probably out. Joker is a divisive film, and The Irishman may just be too long for some people. They did not make it easy to predict what might win instead.

For me, the biggest snub is not nomination Greta Gerwig for best director. She did a great job with Little Women, and was nominated for its screenplay. In a year when several well received films were directed by women (The Farewell, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Honey Boy), it is shocking that the Academy could not come up with one if not more to nominate. Both BAFTA and the DGA had all male rosters, and have gotten grief for it. One would have hoped that the Oscars might have tried to correct that. No such luck.

The Academy did nominate Cynthia Erivo for best actress, so they can avoid the tagline #OscarsSoWhite again. It is a pity that they also have room for Golden Globe winner Awkwafina. Noms for Jennifer Lopez, Lupita Nyong’o, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Wesley Snipes, Michael B. Jordan, Alfre Woodard or Zhao Shuzhen would have helped quiet things down. Zhao Shuzhen and Jennifer Lopez had seemed likely nominees, and it is a pity they did not make the final list.

I am somewhat saddened that The Farewell was totally shut out. And surprised that Bombshell, Star Wars, Avengers: Endgame, Little Women, Rocketman and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood garnered so few nominations. I expected each to do better. Several lost spots to Joker.

Best picture went basically as I guessed. I am pleased with the inclusion of Jonathan Pryce, a deserving nominee for The Two Popes. I am sorry that Golden Globe winner Taron Egerton is not up for best actor for Rocketman, especially as he did his own singing. It is a huge upset that Frozen II was not nominated for animated feature. I did not expect it to win, but one assumes the all-time highest grossing animated film would at least be nominated. I did expect Jennifer Lopez to be nominated and thought she might give Laura Dern a bit of a race. I am truly sorry that A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood did not get a nomination for its screenplay. ABC is probably ruing the fact that the song “Spirit” was not nominated from Lion King, as having Beyonce sing the song she co-wrote would have boosted ratings. They probably thought the same thing when Taylor Swift’s number from Cats did not even make the short list. Rocketman’s only nomination comes for a song, so it may turn out to be quite the battle between and the song from Frozen II. 1917 did get a surprise nom for visual effects, which could bode well for it in the best picture race, as it is getting love from other parts of the Academy. Avengers’ only nomination, and Lion King’s too, are for visual effects, so it should be quite the race between them and the anti-aging work done for The Irishman. And I would be remiss if I did not mention the huge omission of Apollo 11 from the documentary feature list. The Academy had a habit of not nominating front runners in this category, but this one seems surprising, even for them.

On a cheerier note, there were four double nominees, a rarity. Scarlett Johansson scored her first two noms for lead and supporting actress, the 12th person to do that. Time will tell if she is the 8th to win on one of those, though it looks unlikely. Cynthia Erivo is up for best actress and song. Randy Newman received noms for song and score, though from different movies. It is the fifth time he has competed in those two categories at once. And the second time he is up against his cousin Thomas Newman for score. Honeyland is up for both documentary feature and international film, the first time that has happened.

So the race is officially on. I will write more in depth as we get closer to February 9.

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Based on our predictions, here’s how we did (I changed two of mine in the days after this post was made, but I didn’t afford the others said opportunity, so I’m leaving them as previously predicted).

Once again, it was an incredibly close competition. 1 correct prediction separated first and a tie for second with fourth only five behind the others. Wesley Lovell came out on top with 94 with Tripp Burton and Thomas La Tourrette in second with 93 each. Peter J. Patrick came in fourth with 88 correct predictions. A caveat. Had I used my actual final predictions in lieu of the ones that were posted in the shared article, it would have been a three-way tie for first.

For the first time I can remember, all four of us predicted the same nine titles for Best Picture with our tenth slot each going to a different film. Thus, the nine we all agreed on were the nine nominees for Best Picture.

Of the predictions that all four of us agreed upon, seven of them didn’t come to fruition. Frozen II in Animated Feature, “Glasgow” in Original Song, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood for Film Editing, Rocketman for Costume Design, The Irishman for Sound Mixing, and both After Maria and Fire in Paradise in Documentary Short Subject.

As to the nominees that no one predicted there were four. In Animated Feature, Klaus. In Costume Design, Joker. In Makeup & Hairstyling, 1917. In Sound Mixing, Ad Astra.

Finally, we have the visionaries. These are the nominations that only one of us foresaw, ordered by contributor. Wesley picked Saria in Live Action Short Film. Peter was the most prescient, but also the most likely to go left-field, which didn’t pay off a lot of times, but did in these eight circumstances: Jonathan Pryce in Best Actor, Joker in Film Editing, The Irishman in Costume Design, Joker in Sound Mixing, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood in Sound Editing, Corpus Christi in International Film, and Life Overtakes Me in Documentary Short. Tripp got two unique predictions right, Jojo Rabbit in Film Editing and Nefta Football Club in Live Action Short. Thomas had five himself with Jojo Rabbit in Production Design, Honeyland in International Film, Walk Run Cha-Cha in Documentary Short, Dcera (Daughter) in Animated Short, and A Sister in Live Action Short.

FOR AN OSCAR MORNING TRACKING SHEET, CLICK HERE. My predictions are in BOLD.

It’s hard to know precisely how the Academy will handle this year’s announcements. We have the list of categories that will be announced and in which grouping, but we have no idea in what order they will be announced and we only found out on Friday that the presenters will be John Cho and Issa Rae, neither of whom will be nominated, making them a good, if film-limited combo just like last year’s selection. Whether they will be any good or not remains to be seen, but hopefully they’ll be more organic than Nanjiani and Ross.

We don’t know if there will be taped introductions then a voice-over reading of the nominees. We don’t know whether there will be directors announcing the first batch. We don’t know what order the nominees will be announced in. Suffice it to say, the traditions of almost three decades of morning announcements are likely gone forever and probably won’t be back. Based on the announcement info we know so far, my guess is that the announcement will be exactly like last year’s in terms of production values and oddness.

The category breakdown will be unchanged form last year. Group 1 is Actor in a Supporting Role, Actress in a Supporting Role, Costume Design, Film Editing, Original Score, Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing. Group 2 is Actor in a Leading Role, Actress in a Leading Role, Animated Feature Film, Cinematography, Directing, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, Foreign Language Film, Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Picture, Visual Effects, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, and Original Song.

Other than Best Picture being presented last, it’s still noteworthy that two of the most prominent categories that were usually announced in the latter half are getting shunted to the early half: Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress. That’s the kind of tacky breakdown the Golden Globes often do. Other than that, they have not announced a category announcement order, so the information below will be ordered as I see fit, largely tackling categories that won’t impact others first, then digging into the other categories.

Below, embedded in this article, is a video where you can watch the announcement streamed live starting at 5:18:30am PST / 7:18:30am CST / 8:18:30am EST / 1:18:30pm GMT / 9:18:30pm China for Group 1 and 5:30:30am PST / 7:30:30am CST / 8:30:30am EST / 1:30:30pm GMT / 9:30:30pm China for Group 2.

Every year, I put together an article that goes through the order of announcement and gives you not only an idea of what to expect, but how it might affect later announcements or might have been impacted by earlier ones. The above PDF features all of the films and individuals I’ve listed as Hopefuls on my site so that you can print it out and follow along as the announcements are made (at least as best you can).

With some of my personal opinions about the race highlighted in yesterday’s other final nominations predictions post, I’m going to try and keep things brief. However, we all know how that usually turns out.

Without knowing how they will make the announcements and in what order, the below may be a bit arbitrary. At the end of each category, there’s a short, alphabetized list in the order the nominations would be announced so you can quickly look over the order in a small space. Traditionally, the nominations had been announced in alphabetical order by film title in all except the acting categories, which will be ordered by last name.

It must be noted that in the past films that start with numbers are typically ordered by the first letter of the word of the number (such as 127 Hours being listed under “O”). That said, 1917 has been listed most frequently at the head of the list because it’s only a number. It’s possible they could list it under the letter “N.” We’ll know pretty early on if that’s the case as 1917 looks to earn several below-the-line tech nominations. I will hedge my bets and list it under “N” based on what I’ve seen the Academy do in recent years.

Group 1

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This is not a placeholder post, but a post letting you know that my annual Oscar Morning article will be forthcoming. Typically, I post it the day before the Oscar nominations, but that day is Sunday as for some strange reason, the Academy chose to announce nominations on Monday instead of the traditional Tuesday announcement. As such, it has truncated my available time to work on things and with other projects dominating my time, I haven’t finished writing the article (I think I got through three or four categories before having to stop). As such, the article will post either Saturday morning (most likely) or Sunday morning (if an emergency arises). So, keep an eye out for that post this weekend.

The Make-Up Artists and Hair-Stylists Guild give out awards in five categories. The hairstyling categories hardly ever mimic the Oscars, but the makeup categories, especially the special make-up effects category are the best representations of what could happen. The only selection we completely agreed on was Bombshell for contemporary make-up.
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As is our tradition, May begins our first predictive look at the year’s Oscar hopefuls. A lot of factors will play into how well our guesses hold up. Expect many of them to fall by the wayside as the year progresses and new contenders to rise into their places.

It’s finally here. It feels like it’s too early to believe, but Oscar nomination morning is this coming Monday. We’ve analyzed and re-analyzed, guessed and second-guessed ourselves until we are blue in the face. We will continue to agonize over these picks until they are reality. That said, it has been an interesting year with plenty of changes from beginning to end. Parasite wasn’t a major contender earlier this year and now is. 1917 was a minor blip and is now a frontrunner. Films that were once thought potent disappeared from the radar entirely. Whatever the reason, our choices have changed dramatically over time, but now is the final moment.

We have our standard overall introductions as well as individualized thoughts on each category with limited commentary depending on who is providing it.

Here are our final predictions, come rain or come shine. Here’s wishing everyone the best of luck and for their favorites to get recognized.

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While Oscar season began in late November, January is the beginning of the televised and guild awards season, so as we do every year, we’re looking at the Golden Globe Awards. here are our predictions and our commentary to go along with them.

GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS

Best Picture, Drama

The Irishman (Peter, Tripp, Thomas, RU:Wesley)
Marriage Story
1917 (Wesley, RU:Peter, RU:Tripp, RU:Thomas)
Joker
The Two Popes

Wesley Lovell: Things have been slowly shifting from 1917 to The Irishman as folks get to see the film. Either here or at BAFTA, the Oscar race will be upended and 1917 will take the lead and I suspect it will be here that it happens. Then again, Netflix knows how to campaign (bribe), so I could imagine this group going with the Martin Scorsese film instead.
Peter J. Patrick: The most likely winner is The Irishman, one of three Netflix entries, but if they don’t want to reward Netflix with the big prize, then 1917 seems a much more likely winner than Joker.
Tripp Burton: You could make a case for any of these winning, but the HFPA does have a love for big, classically made epic, and this will be a battle between frontrunner The Irishman and the emerging contender 1917.
Thomas LaTourette: I have not seen 1917 yet, but it sounds like it would be the best of the films that stand a chance of winning. My favorite so far is The Two Popes which stands little chance of success. So I think the HFPA will go with the big name Martin Scorsese film.

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As is our tradition, May begins our first predictive look at the year’s Oscar hopefuls. A lot of factors will play into how well our guesses hold up. Expect many of them to fall by the wayside as the year progresses and new contenders to rise into their places.

Precursor season is upon us and our contributors have been hard at work revising, revising, and revising their lists. This is the month where the most significant changes typically take place with our January, pre-nominations predictions being the final chance to get it right. Here are some interesting notes. In a very rare occurrence, the four of us all predicted the exact same five Best Directing nominees. In Best Picture, we are unified on eight of ten potential Best Picture nominees. We were also agreed on four of the five nominees in Best Animated Feature, Best Actress, Best Original Song (one of our new categories this month), and Best Foreign Language Film. We each agree on more than 50% of the nominees in every category except Best Actor (we are only unified on two of the nominees), Best Adapted Screenplay (we fully agree also on two), Best Original Score (another two agreements), Best Makeup & Hairstyling (we have only one title entirely in common), Best Documentary Feature (likewise only one), Documentary Short Subject (two agreements), Animated Short Film (no agreements), Live Action Short Film (one agreement). Apart from Best Picture, the categories where we have agreed the least, selecting ten films between the four of us are Best Makeup & Hairstyling, Best Documentary Feature, and Best Animated Short Film with Best Original Score, Best Documentary Short, and Best Live Action Short near that with nine films each.

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