Thursday, March 24, 2022

Oscar Predictions: Best Picture

It’s good to be back. I scaled things back last year, but I’m ready to resume my tradition of overly in-depth Oscar predictions for each category. The guilds, BAFTAs, critics, and supposedly Golden Globes 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.

 

 

Previously:

Introduction & International Feature

Original Song & Score

Costume Design & Makeup and Hairstyling

Supporting Actor & Actress

Lead Actor & Actress  

Sound & Visual Effects

Director & Film Editing

 

Glossary

Eddie - American Cinema Editors Award

PGA - Producers Guild of America Award

BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards

Golden Globe - Award presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association

ACS - American Cinematographer Society Award

SAG - Screen Actors Guild Award

DGA - Director's Guild of America

WGA - Writer's Guild of America

 

I’d love to save this for last but the schedule never works out for that. So, here we go. As always, before I get into my actual predictions for Best Picture, I want to look at a few items that factored into my thoughts.

 

Oscar History

Best Picture is a broad category. It's the only category that shouldn't be voted on in a vacuum. For instance, Film Editing, is voted on based on the Film Editing in a film. The Production Design should have nothing to do with how Film Editing is decided. The Best Picture award should consider both of those and more. The aim of the Best Picture award is to find the movie that is the best when you take all its parts into consideration. However, four award categories have proven to be more important than the others, by a significant margin.

 

The Best Picture winner has also been nominated for…

 

Directing 47 times in the last 50 years. The only exceptions include 2012, when Ben Affleck/Argo won the Golden Globe, BAFTA, and DGA award but was snubbed for the Oscar. Appropriately enough, the other two exceptions are Driving Miss Daisy in 1989 and Green Book in 2018.

 

Acting 45 times in the last 50 years. The only exceptions are Parasite (2019), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), The Return of the King (2003), Braveheart (1995), and The Last Emperor (1987), all of which relied more on ensembles. Several also featured a lot of actors the still mostly American group were unfamiliar with.

 

Writing 49 times in the last 50 years. The only exception was Titanic (1997), which might’ve been seen more as a grand production than something well written.

 

Editing 46 times in the last 50 years. The four exceptions were The Godfather Part II (1974), Annie Hall (1977), Ordinary People (1980), and Birdman (2014). I can’t find a trend there except that Editing always seems to show up for Best Picture winners.

 

I’d argue that the screenplay nomination is the most important one for a Best Picture hopeful. Only 1 omission out of 50, and the 1 omission also holds the record for most Oscar wins. The director award is virtually as important. Many still ascribe to the auteur theory of filmmaking and see Best Picture and Best Director as going hand-in-hand. Given that there are 20 acting awards, it kind of feels like the Best Picture number should be higher. The film editing correlation has simply gone on for too long and too reliably to be a coincidence. No other nominations matter as much to the Best Picture Oscar as these four.

 

Here’s where that all starts to really matter. In the last 50 years (longer, actually), every Best Picture winner has had at least 3 of these nominations. 39 of the Best Picture winners have had all 4, but that doesn’t increase the chances to win in any meaningful way over just 3. No matter how unlikely the Best Picture winner -Chariots of Fire, Braveheart, Crashthey all had three.

 

Let’s see how this year’s nominees break down.

 

Belfast (Directing, Acting, Screenplay)

CODA (Acting, Screenplay)

Don’t Look Up (Screenplay, Editing)

Drive My Car (Directing, Screenplay)

Dune (Screenplay, Editing)

King Richard (Acting, Screenplay, Editing)

Licorice Pizza (Directing, Screenplay)

Nightmare Alley (None)

The Power of the Dog (Directing, Acting, Screenplay, Editing)

West Side Story (Directing, Acting)

 

Based on that, CODA, Don’t Look Up, Drive My Car, Dune, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, and West Side Story are right out. That only leaves Belfast, King Richard, and The Power of the Dog as realistic contenders. For other reasons I’ll get to later, that doesn’t sound right.

 

Here’s something to think about though. For 2019, this actually mattered a lot. I picked 1917 to win Best Picture because so much else said it was the frontrunner. I chose to ignore that it only had two of these four key nominations, and look where it got me. You know what movie did have 3 of the 4? Parasite. I’m going to keep coming back to CODA in this long post, but the 1917 example is a good one to explain why I rely so heavily on precedents. They are precedents for a reason.

 

Precursor Awards

 

It's also important to look outside the Oscars for guidance. There are dozens of guilds, critics groups, and random film groups handing out awards leading up to the Oscars. I've picked 8 groups with awards that either correspond closely with the Best Picture winner or are broad enough to be worth discussing. Here are the credentials of each:

 

BAFTA Award for Best Film: 19 of the last 20 Best Picture winners were also nominated for the BAFTA award. The lone miss was Million Dollar Baby, which showed up late in the season that year. The winner has only matched the Best Picture winner 8 of the last 20 years. They matched the Oscar winner last year, but the last time it happened before last year was 12 Years a Slave all the way back in 2013. So, while the Power of the Dog win is nice, this is much more useful to exclude Belfast. As a rule, British films should win the BAFTA if they expect to win the Oscar.

 

Golden Globe for Best Film, Drama & Comedy/Musical: Even with two categories to do it, the Golden Globes have only matched with the Best Picture winner 11 of the last 20 years. It is worth noting that they have nominated 19/20 winners. The only exception was having the good taste to pass on Crash in 2005. And I am including Parasite in the count, which won the International Film award. Again, I wouldn’t read too much into the Power of the Dog and West Side Story wins, especially given the reduced attention on the Globes this year. The only film this outright excluded is Nightmare Alley, but they didn’t stand much of a chance anyway.

 

Producers Guild of America Award for Best Film: Many people consider the PGA Award the single best Best Picture bellwether. They are the only other group that uses the same weighted ballot that the Oscars use for Best Picture, and they have a similarly large list of nominees. For 8 years (2007-2014) the PGA Award was the only precursor award to call every Best Picture winner. Since then, it’s only called 3/6 and has been 13/20 the last two decades overall. All 20 of the last 20 Best Picture winners had a PGA nomination at least, which means Drive My Car and Nightmare Alley have uphill battles.

 

Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Film: Call it what you want, it’s still the SAG Ensemble Award to me. Winning the SAG award has only matched Best Picture 10/20 years. It has nominated the Best Picture 17 of the last 20 years, although all three of those misses were in the last 4 years. So, calm down before anointing CODA after this win. The lack of Ensemble nomination for The Power of the Dog is certainly offset by 3 actors in the small cast getting nominations.

 

Directors Guild of America Award for Best Director: The DGA Award is the best single indicator of the Best Picture winner I’ve found among the precursor awards (although not by that much). 14 of the last 20 years, the film that won the DGA Award also won Best Picture. 5 of those misses were in the last 9 years though. Oh, and all of the last 20 Best Picture winners had a DGA nomination. Given that only 5 films are nominated each year, that’s really helpful. So, sorry CODA, Don’t Look Up, Drive My Car, King Richard, and Nightmare Alley.

 

American Cinema Editors Award for Editing, Drama & Comedy/Musical: The Eddie is no kingmaker, nor should it be dismissed outright. Of the last 20 Best Picture winners, only Spotlight wasn't nominated for an Eddie. It's hard to pull anything significant out of that exception. It cuts out several Best Picture contenders though. CODA. Drive My Car. Nightmare Alley. West Side Story.

 

American Society of Cinematographers Award for Cinematography in a Film: The ASC award is the first cut I'd make if I narrowed down the list of precursors. I mainly keep it around to show how steeply things drop if I look beyond these awards I’ve selected. The ACS nominees have only included 11 of the last 20 Best Picture winners.  The winner has only matched twice in that time (Slumdog Millionaire – 2008, Birdman – 2014). In other words, that Dune win doesn’t mean much and the 6 Best Picture nominees left out shouldn’t be that worried.

 

Writer's Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay, Adapted & Original: The WGA Award can be difficult to assess. Because of the guild rules, nearly every year a couple Best Picture nominees aren't even eligible for the WGA Award. I can only find out which films were ineligible for the WGA back to 2009, but that’s enough to say that all of the last 20 Best Picture winners were either nominated or ineligible. Sadly, that includes all the Best Picture nominees this year. Not too helpful. There was a long time when any Best Picture winner that was eligible for the WGA also won it (2005-2016). That hasn’t been true lately though. CODA and Don’t Look Up shouldn’t be breathing easy.

 

Regarding these precursor awards, here are the numbers you need to know. In the last 20 years (longer, actually), no movie has won Best Picture without at least 1 win and 6 nominations. None, no matter how surprising the win may have seemed at the time.

 

So, how do things look among those 8 groups for this year's Best Picture nominees?

 

Belfast: 7 nominations, 0 wins.

CODA: 4 nominations, 3 wins.

Don’t Look Up: 6 nominations, 1 win.

Drive My Car: 1 nomination, 1 win*.

Dune: 7 nominations, 1 win.

King Richard: 5 nominations, 1 win.

Licorice Pizza: 6 nominations, 0 wins.

Nightmare Alley: 2 nominations, 0 wins.

The Power of the Dog: 6 nominations, 3 wins.

West Side Story: 4 nominations, 1 win.

 

*I’m counting the Foreign Film Golden Globe win as equivalent to the Drama or Comedy Golden Globe award.

 

So, what do these numbers tell me? A lot if I only believe in the numbers. CODA, Drive My Car, King Richard, Nightmare Alley, and West Side Story all fell short on nominations. Belfast, Licorice Pizza, and Nightmare Alley lack the wins. The only three films meeting both conditions are Don’t Look Up, Dune, and The Power of the Dog.

 

 

Other Considerations

 

This is where I admit that Oscar prognostication isn’t all about numbers. Weird shit happens. There’s no mathematical way to factor in the anti-Netflix bias that has left them without a Best Picture win so far. It’s also tough to see the Moonlight win coming from the numbers alone.

 

The wildcard this season is CODA. It’s been collecting wins lately. When factoring in the other ways that precedent has been broken in recent years – Parasite winning as a foreign film, La La Land losing after an historic nomination count, and Birdman breaking the Film Editing nomination streak – it feels like a matter of when, not if the assorted records saying CODA can’t win will be broken. It’s wild how a film that has been widely available since the early fall is picking up this much momentum late. There’s no way to really calculate this momentum.

 

There haven’t been many other intangibles this season. West Side Story coming to Disney+ got people paying attention to it too late. I hate to say it, but had it had a simultaneous theatrical and streaming release, it seems likely it would’ve fared better this season. Licorice Pizza has had a little controversy thanks to the ages of the romantic leads. Don’t Look Up brought on the kind of heated Twitter debate that never translates to Oscar voting. The Power of the Dog stayed pretty quiet until Jane Campion started hitting the circuit in recent weeks. That extra attention either turned people off or earned it some much needed goodwill. It’s hard to say.

 

Then, there's always the consideration of the Oscar ballot itself. You see, it's a weighted ballot, meaning everyone ranks their 10 picks. If one movie doesn't have a majority of first place votes on the first count, the ballots picking whatever movie came in last get redistributed using the second pick on them, and so on and so forth until one movie has a majority. If you ever feel like the Best Picture Oscar winner is a compromise, you're kind of right. This method is more favorable for generally liked movies than ones that people run hot and cold on. For example, if The Power of the Dog has a lot of 1st and 10th place votes it will be harder for it to win than if CODA has mostly 3rd and 4th place votes, even if The Power of the Dog has more 1st place votes than CODA. In case you want to read more on how it works Variety and FiveThirtyEight both have better explanations.

 

Finally, the Academy membership. Thanks mainly to #OscarSoWhite, the Film Academy changed its membership greatly the last few years. There’s been a big influx of new members with a focus on diversity. Now with more minority, female, and international members in the Academy, do all the old metrics go out the window? Or, do we find out that, at the end of the day, people working in the industry, no matter the demographic, still vote the same way? Green Book a couple years ago suggests that not much has changed. Then again, the Parasite win couldn’t have happened a decade ago. It’ll take years to really say how much, but things have undeniably changed.

 

Best Picture

(In Order of Likelihood)

 

The Power of the Dog

12 Oscar Nominations (including Directing, Acting, Screenplay, and Editing)

BAFTA - Feature Film - Winner

Golden Globes - Drama Film - Winner

PGA - Feature Film - Nominee

DGA - Direction - Winner

ASC - Cinematography - Nominee

Eddie - Drama Film Editing - Nominee

WGA - Ineligible

 

Pros: Simply put, The Power of the Dog is the only film without a single red flag. It has the most Oscar nominations. The only precursor nominations it failed to get were the SAG Ensemble and WGA awards. It wasn’t eligible for the WGA, so no harm there. While it failed to get the SAG Ensemble nomination, it got three individual SAG nominations. The recent Best Picture winners that failed to get the ensemble nomination (Nomadland, Green Book, The Shape of Water) were similar to The Power of the Dog in that they had small ensembles. As I mentioned before, the DGA award is actually the most indicative of where the Best Picture award is going. And, while people love to point to how the PGA uses the same weighted ballot as the Oscars, look at some of the misses lately. The PGA gave their prize to 1917 and La La Land, not Parasite and Moonlight. Granted, I don’t recall exactly how those voting windows compared to this year, but the PGA doesn’t have a great history of capturing the momentum pick.

 

Cons: I have a bad habit of fighting last week’s war when it comes to Best Picture. Before Nomadland last year, the last time I got the award right was Birdman in 2014. I tend to do all this work to figure out what the numbers tell me early then refuse to acknowledge late developments in the race. Only stuffy critics actually loved Roma. The late backlash to La La Land was strong. 1917 was too technical. I ignored all these warnings. There’s a real chance that I’m doing the same thing with The Power of the Dog. While I love the movie, I didn’t love it until I saw it a second time. It’s a methodic movie that reveals itself very late. Until you realize what the movie actually is, it’s easy to miss the humor and menace of it. I think it actually is a crowdpleaser, but it’s not a very easy movie. People run very hot and cold on it. There’s a real chance that it could suffer from a preponderance of 1st and 10th place votes.

 

CODA

3 Oscar Nominations (including Acting and Screenplay)

Golden Globes - Drama Film - Nominee

PGA - Feature Film - Winner

SAG - Ensemble - Winner

WGA - Adapted Screenplay - Winner

 

Pros: The momentum is real. The PGA, SAG Ensemble, and WGA awards are major precursors. The last three times that has happened the film also won Best Picture (Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men, Argo). This kind of momentum feels a lot like those Parasite and Moonlight wins. People are picking up on this movie late and all loving it. The membership of the Oscars has changed so much over the last couple years, and the historical data matters less in the pre-weighted ballot years. The calculus for predicting Best Picture has changed so much. Maybe I should just ride the wave with CODA: a movie I do really love.

 

Cons: I’ve been watching a lot of basketball lately. That got me thinking. A lot of teams win games in a lot of ways. With the exception of points scored, there’s no single stat I could tell you that would mean one team beat another. Say one team had more rebounds. It could still lose. What if it also made more Free Throws? Still possible to lose. And if I add fewer turnovers, a better field goal percentage, fewer fouls? It’s still possible, but the likelihood gets smaller and smaller. That’s how I feel about CODA this year. It has some very compelling feathers in its cap. However, even though there’s no magic stat I can throw out to explain why it can’t win Best Picture, there are so many that stack up that its chances seem slim. They aren’t random stats either. They are indicative of other things. CODA only got 3 Oscar nominations. One of those was Best Picture: a 10-film field, as opposed to all the others that are just 5. Only two branches found enough support for CODA to put it in a top 5 field. And even those aren’t that impressive. It got 1 acting nomination out of 20. It got an adapted screenplay nomination. A screenplay nomination is only against half the field (half adapted, half original, roughly). All these theories about CODA getting 2nd and 3rd place votes takes a hit when you consider it couldn’t get top 5 votes in so many individual areas.

 

Acting, directing, writing, and editing are foundational aspects of a film. It makes sense that the last 50+ Best Picture winners got at least three of those nominations. That’s not such a high bar. I ignored 1917 only getting 2 of the 4 two years ago, and look where that got me. Why couldn’t CODA get three of them?

 

It’s a similar argument with all these precursor awards. It’s not that hard to get 6 out of the 8 major precursors. The last 20+ winners have gotten that, and many of those didn’t even qualify for the WGA award. And CODA only got four of them: Golden Globes – 10 nominees (+ International nominees). PGA – 10 nominees. WGA – only adapted films and excluding the ineligible Drive My Car and The Power of the Dog. Oh, and while a PGA, WGA, and SAG trifecta is impressive, there’s precedent for that not being enough. The film that CODA is often compared to, Little Miss Sunshine also had all three of those wins and still lost Best Picture*. I really was surprised by La La Land and 1917 winning the PGA Award. That throws a wrench in the mystique of the weighted ballot.

 

*To The Departed: The DGA winner.

 

Finally, I can’t get past how long CODA has been out. This film wasn’t a secret. It was pegged as an Oscar player back in February 2021. It’s been streaming since August and there was no delay getting screeners to Academy members. This isn’t Million Dollar Baby getting finished barely in time to qualify for the Oscars. It’s not Selma holding a release for so long that it kills its nomination count. I appreciate that people are discovering CODA late and liking it, but this doesn’t pass the smell test. If a widely available and crowdpleasing movie doesn’t catch on at the nomination stage, why should I believe it will win at the award stage?

 

Sorry to go on so long. I needed this much space to explain that I’m not saying CODA won’t win because of one or two odd precedents. There are an overwhelming number of reasons to be suspicious of its odds. It is still very possible that CODA can win. I happen to believe it’s not the most reasonable pick though.

 

West Side Story

7 Oscar Nominations (including Directing and Acting)

Golden Globes - Comedy/Musical Film - Winner

PGA - Feature Film - Nominee

DGA - Direction - Nominee

WGA - Adapted Screenplay - Nominee

 

Pros: I’ll try to be briefer with the rest of these, because it’s probably just a two film-race. If I’m to believe in CODA’s late surge, I should look at West Side Story as a contender too. It would be a less unprecedented winner by the numbers. It’s also benefitted from a late surge in popularity too. Frankly, it’s been frustrating seeing how well received it’s been on Disney+. I wish these people would’ve come to see it in theaters. West Side Story feels more like an Oscar winner than CODA. Did you ever notice how no Sundance movie ever goes on to win Best Picture? That’s because they tend to feel too small. West Side Story doesn’t. Amazingly, I haven’t even heard a backlash from fans of the original film saying it doesn’t measure up. In other words, this film has an Oscar legacy, has Oscar pedigree behind the camera, has a cast that has been all over the campaign trail talking it up, has the scale of a classic Best Picture winner, and is a crowdpleaser. Everything about it makes more sense than CODA.

 

Cons: Well, everything except the wins. West Side Story hasn’t won a precursor award other than the ignored Golden Globes. And it’s missing a screenplay or film editing nomination. And it’s missing enough precursor nominations. I’m still calling it the third most likely winner, but that’s more of a comment about how much this race is between only two movies.

 

Belfast

7 Oscar Nominations (including Directing, Acting, and Screenplay)

BAFTA - Feature Film - Nominee

Golden Globes - Drama Film - Nominee

PGA - Feature Film - Nominee

DGA - Direction - Nominee

SAG - Ensemble - Nominee

ASC - Cinematography - Nominee

Eddie - Drama Film Editing - Nominee

WGA - Ineligible

 

Pros: It’s hard to ask much more from Belfast in terms of Oscar nominations and precursor nominations. The fact that it was ineligible for the WGA makes the lack of precursor wins sting a little less. This is an easy movie to love, so it should fare well on a preferential ballot.

 

Cons: This plays into my cons for CODA and West Side Story too. There are too many crowdpleasing movies in this field. CODA. West Side Story. Belfast. King Richard. Licorice Pizza. That many accessible, easy to love movies nullifies the power of the preferential ballot. The CODA argument makes sense if it’s obvious it would be a lot of people’s 2nd or 3rd pick. But it could just as easily be 4th or 5th for an Academy member who doesn’t want to be very challenged or just wants to reward feeling good. Belfast’s entire argument for frontrunner status early on was its accessibility. As more similar options have shown up, Belfast’s chances have gone down. Now it’s looks like it may go home without any trophies Sunday night.

 

Don’t Look Up

4 Oscar Nominations (including Screenplay and Editing)

BAFTA - Feature Film - Nominee

Golden Globes - Comedy/Musical Film - Nominee

PGA - Feature Film - Nominee

SAG - Ensemble - Nominee

Eddie - Comedy/Musical Film Editing - Nominee

WGA - Original Screenplay - Winner

 

Pros: While I pretty much hated this movie, it clearly has more love elsewhere. It got a pretty good nomination haul and just enough precursor wins and nominations for me to take it seriously. Adam McKay films have come close before. Perhaps Don’t Look Up is the one to finally push him over the edge.

 

Cons: Simply put, if The Big Short couldn’t do it, how will Don’t Look Up? In 2015, there was no clear frontrunner for Best Picture. The Big Short had more nominations, more key nominations, and more precursor wins. McKay’s schtick was still fresh. After Vice and Don’t Look Up, much more divisive movies, it’s safe to say a lot more people are dug in in their distaste for his movies. The Big Short could’ve won with a bunch of top 5 or 6 votes. Don’t Look Up would have to win with 1st or 2nd place votes, because there will be plenty of 9th and 10th votes. That spread is death on the preferential ballot.

 

Dune

10 Oscar Nominations (including Screenplay and Editing)

BAFTA - Feature Film - Nominee

Golden Globes - Drama Film - Nominee

PGA - Feature Film - Nominee

DGA - Direction - Nominee

ASC - Cinematography - Winner

Eddie - Drama Film Editing - Nominee

WGA - Adapted Screenplay - Nominee

 

Pros: 2nd most nominations. You can chalk up the lack of a Director nomination to that branch being slow to embrace change. And this kind of film rarely gets many acting nominations. It was a constant in the precursor fields, even getting a win. For the crowd who believes Mad Max: Fury Road was close to a Best Picture win in 2015, you could argue that the Academy membership has finally changed enough to push Dune over the edge.

 

Cons: Dune isn’t a winsome movie. It needs to win on being austere, and no Director nomination really gets in the way of that. Everyone is aware that there will be a sequel too. That doesn’t help. Just look at The Fellowship of the Ring. That movie really blew people away. It was absolutely popular enough to win Best Picture, but there was no urgency since two sequels were coming. The reason The Return of the King dominated so thoroughly two years later was because there were all these voters who wrote a mental IOU for two years that they could pay off the third time. Personally, I believe the Dune sequel will fall in nominations, because the novelty will wear off, but voters will hold off on any big awards for this one thinking they can always vote for the sequel later.

 

King Richard

6 Oscar Nominations (including Acting, Screenplay, and Editing)

Golden Globes - Drama Film - Nominee

PGA - Feature Film - Nominee

SAG - Ensemble - Nominee

Eddie - Drama Film Editing - Winner

WGA - Original Screenplay - Nominee

 

Pros: It really shouldn’t be this low. It’s got plenty of key Oscar nominations and is only one precursor nomination short of the trend. That’s forgivable. Will Smith is looking like one of the few locks to win an Oscar. That kind of certainty can lead to high preferential ballot ranks. With a little luck, anything can happen.

 

Cons: I saw someone tweet how the success of CODA must be irritating the King Richard people. The two films are similar in a lot of ways, but for whatever reason, CODA is the one people have rallied behind. I can’t explain why that is. I can only confirm that it is. Voters can show love to King Richard with Will Smith. Maybe even Aungenue Ellis. No need to give it a Best Picture win too.

 

Drive My Car

4 Oscar Nominations (including Directing and Screenplay)

Golden Globes - International Film - Winner

WGA - Ineligible

 

Pros: Parasite. The Academy is more international now. They said Parasite couldn’t do it either. Look at it now.

 

Cons: Parasite was several rungs higher than Drive My Car. It had was more of every kind of nomination and precursor. Everywhere Bong-Joon Ho and the stars went, they were the hit of the room. The love for Parasite was undeniable. Drive My Car had a similar grass roots campaign but not of the same magnitude. Before Parasite, Drive My Car never could’ve gotten this much attention. It’s a classic “also ran” though.

 

Licorice Pizza

3 Oscar Nominations (including Directing and Screenplay)

BAFTA - Feature Film - Nominee

Golden Globes - Comedy/Musical Film - Nominee

PGA - Feature Film - Nominee

DGA - Direction - Nominee

Eddie - Comedy/Musical Film Editing - Nominee

WGA - Original Screenplay - Nominee

 

Pros: Paul Thomas Anderson winning Best Picture and Best Director is a matter of when not if at this point. Why not now?

 

Cons: The Shape of Water. No Country for Old Men. The Departed. Schindler’s List. Unforgiven. The “when not if” directors don’t finally do it with their light and breezy movies.

 

Nightmare Alley

4 Oscar Nominations

ASC - Cinematography - Nominee

WGA - Adapted Screenplay - Nominee

 

Pros: Technically, the last time del Toro was here, he won it with a similar kind of movie.

 

Cons: Look at that nomination and precursor haul. There’s no hurry to award del Toro again.

 

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