APRIL 24 ― Two big factors have more or less rendered useless the many previously established rules/markers that have been used to predict Oscar winners: the Covid-19 pandemic and Parasite’s surprise win at last year’s Oscars.
The pandemic has opened the way for many smaller films to compete at this year’s Oscars as cinema release schedules for big titles have mostly been torn to shreds, with streaming and VOD gaining more and more market share and traction.
This has resulted in a list of nominees that consist of a lot of films that would’ve been considered as “underdogs” if they were to compete in the previous years, as none of them can be considered as “big” films, at least not in the way that prestige studio films like Forrest Gump, Titanic, La La Land, Green Book and 1917 are obviously “big” films.
So, trying to predict things this year will be quite a tricky exercise compared to previous years, but that’s also where the fun lies, right?
Best Picture
Judging from how Chloe Zhao’s absolutely lovely Nomadland has dominated most of the big awards shows on the road to this year’s Oscars, it seems like the Best Picture award is really Nomadland’s to lose.
Barring a Moonlight-style upset from the same studio A24 with Minari, or a #MeToo statement from Oscar voters to propel an upset from Promising Young Woman, this year’s Best Picture award is probably the easiest one to predict out of all the categories, though deep in my heart I’m still hoping that my personal pick, the picture perfect The Father could somehow grab a deserved win.
Should win: The Father
Will win: Nomadland
Best Director
Another category in which Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland has totally dominated the preceding awards shows, and supported by the fact that she has nimbly balanced both the fiction and documentary aspects of her film wonderfully well, this one should be a deserved win for her.
Emerald Fennel may have done some truly sterling work in her debut film Promising Young Woman, but only six filmmakers have won the Best Director gong with their debut, so a nomination is probably already a win for her, as is the nomination for Danish director Thomas Vinterberg for Another Round.
If there’s an upset on the cards here, it’ll probably be from Lee Isaac Chung and his much-loved work on Minari. The fact that the Academy failed to nominate the slyly confident directing of Florian Zeller in The Father (which IMHO deserves a spot here in place of Vinterberg) meant that I couldn’t put his name in the “should win” column, which is a shame.
Should win: Chloe Zhao (Nomadland)
Will win: Chloe Zhao (Nomadland)
Best Actor
The Oscars just love giving out posthumous Best Actor awards, so let’s just wrap this one up and give it to Chadwick Boseman for his cracking performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom already, shall we?
My personal pick would definitely be Anthony Hopkins for his towering and heartbreaking performance in The Father, but he’s an Oscar staple already, and a posthumous award to honour the talents of Boseman is surely too hard to resist for the Oscar voters.
Should win: Anthony Hopkins (The Father)
Will win: Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)
Best Actress
Surely the hardest category to predict this year, with each of the preceding awards shows like the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA’s and Critics Choice Awards all yielding different winners.
Any one of the nominees, except for maybe Vanessa Kirby in Pieces Of A Woman (who failed to take home any of the pre-Oscar awards), has got a strong chance at winning this, but maybe the fact that nine of the last 10 BAFTA Best Actress winners have gone on to win the Oscar might just make Frances McDormand the favourite this year, though one must not discount Viola Davis’ rather incendiary performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom causing an upset as well.
Should win: Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman)
Will win: Frances McDormand (Nomadland)
Best Supporting Actor
Judging from the previous awards shows, Daniel Kaluuya is the clear favourite here with his performance as Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah, but the fact that the film has got two nominees in this category might just split the vote, paving the way for an upset from either Paul Raci for his unforgettable turn in Sound Of Metal or Sacha Baron Cohen for his work in The Trial of the Chicago 7.
Should win: Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah)
Will win: Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah)
Best Supporting Actress
Despite Glenn Close being currently tied with Peter O’Toole for being the most Oscar nominated actor to never actually win the award, the film she’s nominated for, Hillbilly Elegy, is simply not very good, and quite reviled.
So this might just set the stage for one of the feelgood stories of the year with a win for Korean veteran Youn Yuh-Jung, which would also honour the lovely and much beloved Minari with at least an Oscar to take home.
Personally, I’d love to see Olivia Colman, who won Best Actress with The Favourite two years back, get another win for her finely calibrated performance in The Father, but I don’t see two Oscar wins that close together happening.
Should win: Olivia Colman (The Father)
Will win: Youn Yuh-Jung (Minari)
Best Original Screenplay
Thirteen of the last 17 Best Original Screenplay winners at the Writer’s Guild of America Awards have gone on to win at the Oscars, and couple that with how solid and provocative Emerald Fennell’s screenplay for Promising Young Woman already is, it’s quite hard to see another film causing an upset here, but if there’s going to be one, it’ll be either Aaron Sorkin with his cracking screenplay for The Trial of the Chicago 7 or Lee Isaac Chung for Minari.
Should win: Promising Young Woman
Will win: Promising Young Woman
Best Adapted Screenplay
If the Academy is feeling generous and wants to spread the love a bit, like it has been doing once in a while since the Best Picture nominees were expanded to more than five films, then maybe the slyly ingenious screenplay for The Father will get the nod, but a bit more likely is Chloe Zhao winning another Oscar for her work on Nomadland.
Still, if there’s one category where The Father might benefit when a voter thinks that he/she has already voted for Nomadland a few times already but has too much love for The Father to not vote for it somewhere, it will be in this category. I’m calling an upset here.
Should win: The Father
Will win: The Father
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
