Best Picture:

The highest honor at the Academy Awards has proven quite difficult to anticipate in the last few years as films favored to win like La La Land, Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, and Roma have all lost the prize in recent years and splits between Best Picture and Best Director winners have been commonplace in the expanded nominee era. Conventional wisdom would say that 1917, the Sam Mendes WWI film that looks as if it was filmed in a single shot, is destined to win the prize after a near sweep at the guild awards and winning big at the Golden Globes, but anything is possible. Another favorite to win the prize, Parasite, Bong Joon-ho‘s class conflict picture, is the first Korean film ever nominated for an Academy Award and would be the first film not in English to win the prize if it were to win. Receiving rave reviews since Cannes and picking up many awards since it won the Palme d’Or, it is certainly a possibility even if it breaks from a ninety year tradition of disregarding all foreign films. Also seemingly in a good position to win is Quentin Tarantino‘s alleged penultimate film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a vision of fading fame in the Golden Age of the silver screen. The Oscars always seem to love a story about Hollywood and a stellar lineup of Hollywood veterans brought this one to the forefront of the Oscar discussions despite a fairly early release in the year.

Netflix is once again in the race with Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach‘s portrait of a modern divorce happening simultaneously in New York and Los Angeles, and The Irishman, Martin Scorsese‘s gangster epic that also serves as a mediation on mortality. Either would see Netflix winning its first Best Picture prize, but both have had a muted response from awards despite premiering to strong reviews. Joker, the Todd Phillips character study about the comic book character of the same name, has the most nominations this year with a whopping eleven and could very well win given the history of films with similar counts. Little Women is the cause of some controversy this year as director Greta Gerwig was not nominated for Best Director; nevertheless, the film is one of the best received retellings of the classic story and otherwise has a strong showing with six nominations. It may serve as a redemption of sorts after Gerwig’s last feature, Lady Bird, failed to win any of the ten awards for which it was nominated. James Mangold‘s story of the 1966 race at Le Mans, Ford v Ferrari, and Taika Waititi‘s Jojo Rabbit, a satire set in Nazi Germany, are perhaps less likely to win than their fellow nominees but reflect the wide variety of tastes in the Academy. With the ranked choice ballots, however, nothing can ever be truly discounted. Once again, these nominees are the films with the most nominations. Even fewer total films were nominated this year than in recent years, and most will likely walk away from the night with something even if they lose Best Picture.

Prediction: 1917

Best Director:

With two notable exceptions, the Best Director category is filled with veteran directors who have seen some recognition by the Academy. Both The Irishman and Once Upon a Time In Hollywood feel like valedictory films from their directors to some extent. Both are period pieces that use nostalgia for very different purposes. For Scorsese, he revisits familiar material with a decidedly strong undercurrent of mortality and nihilism, and for Tarantino, nostalgia is his opportunity to lovingly recreate and pay homage to his influences while also raising questions of relevance and coming to terms with his own mortality as well. Even 1917, which was based on stories that Sam Mendes heard from his grandfather, has a certain unspoken desire to return to a time when honor and stoicism were valued, though the technical achievements tend to overwhelm the more reflective moments of that epic.

Todd Phillips has drawn a lot of attention for presenting himself as a filmmaker who got away with making a “real film” in the guise of a comic book movie in Joker. But Phillips’ public antics aside, the real star of this award season has been Parasite’s director Bong Joon-ho. The narrative of the whole publicity campaign for Parasite is that the film’s real star was behind the camera. Bong has been on a packed publicity tour ever since Parasite won the Palme d’Or back in May of last year. His film nerd enthusiasm and self-effacing manner have charmed many people, so much so that when the Parasite cast won Best Ensemble at the SAG awards, the whole audience of very famous people (and Academy voters) gave them a standing ovation. Even though Sam Mendes won the Best Director award at the Director’s Guild of America awards, Bong will be an immensely popular choice for predictors.

Prediction: Bong Joon-ho

Best Cinematography:

Perhaps the most locked away and certain category at the Oscars this year is Best Cinematography. Having finally won his first Academy Award back in 2018 for Blade Runner 2049, American cinematography legend Roger Deakins is back to almost assuredly take home his second for 1917. The Sam Mendes WWI film was conceived and executed to appear as a single, unbroken take, and like many of the other technical categories at the Oscars, the more visibly impressive, the more likely it is for a nominee to land the award. Also in the running are the respectable candidates of Rodrigo Prieto for The Irishman, Lawrence Sher for Joker, and Robert Richardson for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Yet the most shocking nominee is Jarin Blaschke for The Lighthouse, Robert Eggers‘ twisted black-and-white horror fable. Not only is it surprising that a horror film is being nominated – the cinematography nod also marks A24’s one and only chance at an Oscar this year. Like the appreciative inclusion of Cold War to the category last year, however, it’s highly unlikely that Jarin Blaschke will be able to beat out Roger Deakins for the Oscar.

Prediction: Roger Deakins