Oscars 2018: Our Predictions in All 24 Categories (Photos) The acting categories are all sewn up, but Best Picture could yield an upset We know…
Oscars 2018: Our Predictions in All 24 Categories (Photos) The acting categories are all sewn up, but Best Picture could yield an upset
We know who’ll win the acting awards, but several other categories — notably including Best Picture — are completely up in the air as Oscar night approaches. Here are our best guesses (and for a more complete explanation, read my fuller analysis):
BEST PICTURE
Nominees:
“Call Me by Your Name”
“Darkest Hour”
“Dunkirk”
“Get Out”
“Lady Bird”
“Phantom Thread”
“The Post”
“The Shape of Water”
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
“The Shape of Water” has the most nominations, 13. It won the Producers Guild and Directors Guild awards. It’s a valentine to the art of cinema. And Guillermo del Toro is almost certainly going to win Best Director. “The Shape of Water” should be a clear front runner.
If Best Picture is so split between “Shape of Water,” “Dunkirk,” “Lady Bird” and “Get Out,” shouldn’t this race be a nail-biter between del Toro, Nolan, Gerwig and Peele? Nope. Just as it has in every recent year, the heat has coalesced around a single director, in this case del Toro. This seems to be one of the nine categories that are pretty much a lock.
Also Read: ‘The Shape of Water’ Director Guillermo del Toro Portraits (Exclusive Photos)
BEST ACTOR
Nominees:
Timothée Chalamet, “Call Me by Your Name”
Daniel Day-Lewis, “Phantom Thread”
Daniel Kaluuya, “Get Out”
Gary Oldman, “Darkest Hour”
Denzel Washington, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.”
This is another of those locks. (In fact, all four acting categories are.) While Chalamet and Kaluuya are two of the year’s big discovery, this award was Oldman’s as soon as Focus began screening his all-but-unrecognizable performance as Winston Churchill. Throw in the fact that he’s a huge influence on a couple generations of actors and he was never even nominated for an Oscar until “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” in 2012, and this is an Oscar standing ovation just waiting to happen.
BEST ACTRESS
Nominees:
Sally Hawkins, “The Shape of Water”
Frances McDormand, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Margot Robbie, “I, Tonya”
Saoirse Ronan, “Lady Bird”
Meryl Streep, “The Post”
It initially seemed to be one of the year’s most competitive categories, with McDormand, Ronan and Hawkins landing massive acclaim, Robbie sneaking into the field with a bold performance and Meryl being Meryl. But then McDormand, an absolute force of nature in “Three Billboards,” starting winning all the awards. And she’s not going to stop now.
Also Read: ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ Dominates BAFTA Awards (Complete List of Winners)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Nominees:
Willem Dafoe, “The Florida Project”
Woody Harrelson, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Richard Jenkins, “The Shape of Water”
Christopher Plummer, “All the Money in the World”
Sam Rockwell, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
The two supporting categories followed a similar path. Initially, this one seemed to be a tight race between Willem Dafoe and Sam Rockwell, with Dafoe having a slight edge because he’s been on voters’ radar for longer and his character is more likable. And then Rockwell, playing a dimwitted and thuggish racist who is one of the only people in “Three Billboards” to slightly change, won SAG and the Golden Globes and the Critics’ Choice Award and BAFTA, which has made him a prohibitive favorite.
In this category, too, the softer (and more nuanced?) performance once seemed to have the upper hand, with Laurie Metcalf’s conflicted mom in “Lady Bird” offering more to like than Janney’s fearsome harridan in “I, Tonya.” But voters for all the precursor awards embraced the fun Janney had playing the monster, and Oscar voters seem all but certain to do the same. If there’s an upset in any of the acting categories, this is the likeliest category in which it could happen — but there’s not likely to be an upset.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Nominees:
“Call Me by Your Name”
“The Disaster Artist”
“Logan”
“Molly’s Game”
“Mudbound”
This is by far the easier of the two writing categories to predict, because the five nominees only include one Best Picture contender, “Call Me by Your Name.” While voters occasionally decide that the best screenplay is the one with the most words, which would be good news for Aaron Sorkin and “Molly’s Game,” nothing seems positioned to challenge James Ivory’s adaptation of the Andre Aciman novel. Plus, it would be the first Oscar for the acclaimed filmmaker who directed such classics as “A Room With a View” and “Howards End.”
Winner: “Call Me by Your Name”
Also Read: Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet Dance With Fans in Italy After Empty Screening
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Nominees:
“The Big Sick”
“Get Out”
“Lady Bird”
“The Shape of Water”
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
This writing category, on the other hand, is fiercely competitive, with four Best Picture nominees going up against the extremely well-liked “The Big Sick.” And it’s a measure of just how competitive when you realize that the best-pic favorite, “The Shape of Water,” is probably only the fourth-likeliest winner, behind “Three Billboards,” “Get Out” and “Lady Bird.” This is likely a very close race between “Three Billboards” and “Get Out” — and while Jordan Peele wrote the year’s most zeitgeisty movie and could easily win, “Three Billboards” is a showier piece of writing.
My thinking in this category might be colored by the idea of justice — because “Blade Runner” DP Roger Deakins, a pretty unanimous choice as the greatest living cinematographer, has been nominated 13 previous times but has never won, and his astounding work on the Denis Villeneuve epic ought to finally do the trick. But the cinematographers’ names aren’t on the ballot, just their films, and the competition is fearsome, particularly Hoyte van Hoytema’s dazzling large-format work in “Dunkirk” and Dan Laustsen’s fairy-tale world in “The Shape of Water.” Either of them could win — and even without names on the ballot, voters are probably well aware of (and possibly tempted by) the fact that “Mudbound” was shot by Rachel Morrison, the first female cinematography nominee in history.
But particularly after the American Society of Cinematographers and BAFTA did it, I have to think that Oscar voters will finally do right by Roger Deakins. I just have to.
BEST FILM EDITING
Nominees:
“Baby Driver”
“Dunkirk”
“I, Tonya”
“The Shape of Water”
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
“Baby Driver” is such a virtuoso piece of fast-paced editing that it could well prove an exception to the usual rule that you need to be a Best Picture nominee to win in this category (as 13 of the last 15 winners have been). But the whole setup of “Dunkirk,” which simultaneously cuts between three different war stories taking place at different locations and different times, is an advertisement for its editing. The film may join “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Gravity,” “The Hurt Locker” and “The Bourne Identity” as a movie that sweeps film editing and both sound categories.
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Nominees:
“Beauty and the Beast”
“Darkest Hour”
“Phantom Thread”
“The Shape of Water”
“Victoria & Abdul”
It was a shock when the Costume Designers Guild gave its period-costumes award not to “Phantom Thread,” the movie about a clothes designer, but to “The Shape of Water,” most of whose characters sport lab coats or cleaning-lady smocks. But unless they think that the design of that movie’s aquatic creature qualifies as a costume, it’s unlikely that Oscar voters will go the same route. Instead, look for them to recognize the movie in which the man makes the clothes and the clothes make the man… and the women.
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Nominees:
“Beauty and the Beast”
“Blade Runner 2049”
“Darkest Hour”
“Dunkirk”
“The Shape of Water”
“Beauty and the Beast” is the kind of beautiful, wildly elaborate fantasy that often wins in this category, but it won’t help that a lot of the design is a variation on the design created by the Disney animators back in 1991. This should be a showdown between the amazing futurescapes of “Blade Runner” and the richly detailed environments of “The Shape of Water” — and the fact that voters like the latter movie better than the former one could tip the scales.
Here’s another lock, because only one of these films features makeup that is instrumental in an Oscar-winning performance. Before Gary Oldman could act like Winston Churchill, he had to look like Winston Churchill, and that was the considerable accomplishment of the “Darkest Hour” makeup team.
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Nominees:
“Dunkirk”
“Phantom Thread”
“The Shape of Water”
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi”
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
John Williams is a giant who has been nominated an astonishing 51 times, but he hasn’t won in 34 years and it’s hard to imagine his eighth “Star Wars” score breaking the streak. (He only won for the first one, in 1977.) Carter Burwell’s “Three Billboards” score is subtle and understated, Hans Zimmer’s “Dunkirk” music bold and intricate, and Jonny Greenwood’s “Phantom Thread” score alternately stately and challenging. They’re all terrific — but voters love a piece of music that instantly captures the mood of a film they admire, and Alexandre Desplat provides that in his music for “The Shape of Water.”
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Nominees:
“Mighty River” from “Mudbound”
“Mystery of Love” from “Call Me by Your Name”
“Remember Me” from “Coco”
“Stand Up for Something” from “Marshall”
“This Is Me” from “The Greatest Showman”
Nine-time song nominee Diane Warren, who has never won, has been tireless in pushing her anthemic “Stand Up for Something,” and the song does seem to have some momentum.
