Oscar Predictions: Best Supporting Actress

The Oscars are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part Oscar predictions.

I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominees from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.

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Previously:

Introduction & Best Documentary Feature

Foreign Film
Visual Effects

Production Design
Supporting Actor

Glossary:

BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards

Golden Globe - Presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association  Award

SAG - Screen Actors Guild Award

I was expecting much more of a dogfight for Supporting Actress this year, but the precursors have spoken and they are very reliable. The Golden Globes and SAG only failed to nominate the Oscar winner once in the last 20 years: both in 2000, when Marcia Gay Harden came out of nowhere to win for her work in Pollack. The BAFTA award is slightly behind at 17. All three awards matched winners with the Oscars between 12-15 times in 20 years, although a lot of those numbers are skewed by several actresses switching between Lead and Supporting for different groups. Except for 2000, 19 of the last 20 years, the Oscar winner has also won at least one of the three other awards.

Allison Janney (I, Tonya)

Golden Globes - Supporting Actress - Winner

SAG - Supporting Actress - Winner

BAFTA - Supporting Actress - Winner

The people have spoken. When the three groups have agreed on a winner, they are 6/6 calling the Oscar winner. There's not much else to say about that. It wouldn't be crazy to suggest that the Winter Olympics going on before the voting period this year only helps Janney too.

Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird)

Golden Globes - Supporting Actress - Nominee

SAG - Supporting Actress - Nominee

BAFTA - Supporting Actress - Nominee

Seriously, I didn't expect this to be so lopsided. Metcalf and Janney are both established character actresses with a shelf of Emmy awards, playing overbearing mothers to Oscar nominated female protagonists in modern period pieces. This is the first Oscar nomination for either. Janney has worked in more films while Metcalf's film is a Best Picture nominee. Alas, Metcalf's work is a little less showy, I guess.

Mary J. Blige (Mudbound)

Golden Globes - Supporting Actress - Nominee

SAG - Supporting Actress - Nominee

Every couple years, there's a novelty nomination: an "Oh wait. They can act?!" nomination (Monique in Precious, Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side, Jonah Hill in Moneyball). Blige is very good in Mudbound, but something tells me that if she had Oprah's role in Selma or a couple roles like that, she wouldn't've had the same juice for a nomination this year.

Octavia Spencer (The Shape of Water)

Golden Globes - Supporting Actress - Nominee

BAFTA - Supporting Actress - Nominee

I'll be perfectly honest. I thought Octavia Spencer's nomination and win for The Help was one of those "novelty nominations", since she was mainly known for comedies and character roles before then. I was very wrong. She's on nomination #3 now. However, she'll need something a lot better than this or a lot more years of roles like this before I suspect she'll be considered for a second win.

Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread)

BAFTA - Supporting Actress - Nominee

Studios need to give up on this strategy of sneaking in a movie in late December. When was the last time that worked? Million Dollar Baby back in 2004? Films are much more likely to end up like Selma with that strategy (Best Picture, Best Original Song, and nothing else in that case). Even if the film gets lucky enough to get a few nominations, like Phantom Thread, it's absent from so many guild awards that it loses all momentum.