Best Supporting Actor:

In a rare occurrence, the Best Supporting Actor category this year is made up entirely of Oscar winners. Brad Pitt, the only one of them to have not won for acting (he won for producing Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave), is the presumptive winner after a slew of other wins for his performance as stuntman Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Effortlessly cool in the role and out, he’s got the respect built up over the years and the powerhouse performance in a film with other acting greats. Others up for the award include The Irishman‘s Joe Pesci in what will presumably be his last performance as he has announced his second retirement, and Al Pacino in his best role in years. Anthony Hopkins also returns to the ranks of Oscar nominees for his role in The Two Popes and Tom Hanks has received his first Oscar nomination in nearly two decades for his portrayal of Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Every nominee delivered an absolute powerhouse of a performance and interestingly none of them cried as part of their performance, a rarity in acting categories.

Prediction: Brad Pitt

Best Supporting Actress:

The Best Supporting Actress category this year is pretty much split in half between relative newcomers and well-established Oscar regulars. Kathy Bates receives her fourth Oscar nomination for Richard Jewell, having been last nominated in 2003 and 1999 and winning in 1991. For her charismatic role as a divorce lawyer in Marriage Story, Laura Dern earns her second Best Supporting Actress nomination and third overall. Shockingly, this is the first time that Scarlett Johansson has been nominated for any Academy Awards, but she makes up ground by landing double nominations in the Supporting and Lead Actress categories for Jojo Rabbit and Marriage Story, respectively. For Bombshell, Margot Robbie returns for her second Oscar nomination, and 24-year-old breakthrough Florence Pugh also joins the competition for her endearingly memorable work in Little Women. Laura Dern seems the most likely bet for this category, but her grip over the win is far from guaranteed.

Prediction: Laura Dern

Best Original Screenplay:

Both of the screenplay categories typically lend themselves to the films receiving a nomination for Best Picture and this year; that is the case with four out of the five nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story is a tender and emotionally exhausting look at a marriage coming apart while a family stays together. Baumbach’s script about divorce is written from an obvious place of love, which makes it one of the best of the year. Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won‘s script for the masterful thriller Parasite also makes for some of the best writing of the year, combining humor and exciting suspense to create a gripping takedown of class division and capitalism. Also nominated is Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns for 1917. While the film itself is made wonderfully, the script is easily overshadowed by the technical prowess from Roger Deakins.

Rian Johnson‘s incredibly popular Knives Out has also been given some much-needed love, although it is the only nomination for the film in any category. The electric murder-mystery has proven itself to be one of the most crowd-pleasing films of 2019, full of hilarious dialogue and a fantastic twist. However, in a category very often belonging to Tarantino, seeing as he has won the award twice, it is hard to see this year become an exception. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is not only his personal love letter to the city that made him such a critical part of auteur history but a passionate look at an alternate version of said history that could (and should) have been. Tarantino’s craft has never been this mature and his script, reflecting on brotherly love and the art of getting older, is just what his filmography needed.

Prediction: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood