The nominations for the 88th Academy Awards, honoring the best of film in 2015, are going to be released in a matter of hours – at 530 AM PST today. That’s like, less than an hour from now. Count on me to wait until the last hours to do this…
For this year, I decided to come up with my own predictions lists for the eight most important awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Adapted Screenplay. I based my predictions off Awards Circuit, Gold Derby, The Hollywood Reporter, and Variety, as well as my general gut senses, having followed the ups and downs of awards season.
Speaking of which, unlike previous years where there were always two or three frontrunners from the get-go, this year’s field is wide open in most categories, leading to a race that’s a little more exciting than usual. There are also more “mainstream” movies in contention than usual; most of these movies were showing at my local multiplex instead of being exclusive to arthouse theaters. Going hand-in-hand with that is the relatively high attention being paid to movies that were released before the conventional start of Oscars season in October.
Anything I’ve already seen as of this writing (January 14 2016) will be in bold. I’ll also throw in my own opinions about what should be nominated, but won’t be.
Best Picture
For this category, I’ll order the movies by the likelihood of them being nominated, with 1 being the most likely and 10 being the least likely. (For all other categories, I’ll list them in alphabetical order.)
There can be anywhere from 5 to 10 nominees, depending on how the votes line up. For a year as wide open as this, I’m predicting there will be 10 nominees.
- Spotlight
- The Revenant
- Carol
- The Martian
- The Big Short
- Bridge of Spies
- Room
- Mad Max: Fury Road
- Inside Out
- Straight Outta Compton
Here are the same movies, ordered alphabetically:
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Carol
Inside Out
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight
Straight Outta Compton
For good measure, here are the movies ordered by how much I liked them, from most to least. This is just off the top of my head, gut feeling; I’m not even going back and looking at any reviews and ratings I’ve given them. I’ve excluded the ones I haven’t seen yet.
Mad Max: Fury Road
Room
The Martian
Inside Out
Spotlight
The Revenant
Bridge of Spies
The Big Short
Should be nominated: Ex Machina, Joy
I found Ex Machina to be a fascinating but ultimately depressing movie when I first watched it, but as time has gone by it’s been growing on me, to the point where it might be one of the top five movies I’ve seen all year. It definitely deserves to be a Best Picture nominee. It’s innovative and it says something, which can’t be said for several of my predictions. I liked Joy a lot better than many critics gave it credit for. I also think it stands equally among several of the predictions.
Of the actual predictions that I’ve seen, I feel like only Mad Max: Fury Road and Room really impressed me. The others ones are at best, “eh it was good, but nothing mind-blowing”.
The 9th and 10th spots were a battle between Inside Out, Straight Outta Compton, and Brooklyn, and clearly Brooklyn lost the musical chairs game. I just haven’t seen Brooklyn getting enough buzz and nominations/wins in the precursors to see it securing a Best Picture nomination. Straight Outta Compton is also iffy, and Inside Out’s fortunes have plummeted in recent weeks. I can actually see the Academy just doing nine nominees and cutting out all but one of these three.
Spotlight has the strongest claim to frontrunner status, and even then it’s pretty weak. The Revenant and The Martian are probably next in line.
Best Director
Todd Haynes for Carol
Alejandro G. Iñárritu for The Revenant
Tom McCarthy for Spotlight
George Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road
Ridley Scott for The Martian
Iñárritu would be a major contender if he hadn’t just won last time. I see this race coming down to Miller versus Scott: two old geezers better known for mainstream/blockbuster action-y type movies, neither of whom have won the Best Directing Oscar before.
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Matt Damon for The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant
Michael Fassbender for Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne for The Danish Girl
Will Smith for Concussion
Should be nominated: Jacob Tremblay for Room
Tremblay is being talked up for Supporting Actor, which makes no sense as the story is told from his perspective and he’s literally in every scene of the movie. Tremblay is very good and he deserves a nomination in the Leading category. Smith is the weak link here and could get knocked out by either Bryan Cranston for Trumbo or Johnny Depp for Black Mass. If he does make it though, his performance, in my opinion, is stronger than any of the other ones I’ve seen besides DiCaprio’s. This race is DiCaprio’s to lose.
Best Actress in a Leading Role
Cate Blanchett for Carol
Brie Larson for Room
Jennifer Lawrence for Joy
Saoirse Ronan for Brooklyn
Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl
Charlotte Rampling is also mentioned a lot for 45 Years, but I feel like that movie hasn’t been getting enough play to vault Rampling past any of my predictions. 2015 was the Year of Alicia Vikander in particular and while some predictions websites have her out, I can’t imagine the Academy snubbing her. This race is Larson’s to lose.
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Christian Bale for The Big Short
Idris Elba for Beasts of No Nation
Tom Hardy for The Revenant
Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone for Creed
Should be nominated: Oscar Isaac for Ex Machina
Isaac gave one of the best performances I’ve ever seen, just melting into his role. Holy shit.
Jacob Tremblay was in contention in Supporting for what was actually a Leading Role in Room, but even for Supporting he’s getting squeezed out of what is becoming a very packed field. This might be the most crowded acting field, with Michael Shannon for 99 Homes, Benicio del Toro for Sicario, Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton for Spotlight, and Paul Dano for Love & Mercy all clawing for a spot.
Ultimately though, this is a case of a rich field of underwhelming performers. Of the four predictions I’ve seen, I wasn’t impressed with any of them, especially those of Rylance and Stallone, who are the two leading contenders (Rylance is number one, Stallone is number two). Everyone is giving Rylance and Stallone rave reviews and I’m like, huh??? I barely noticed them at all…
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Jennifer Jason Leigh for The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara for Carol
Rachel McAdams for Spotlight
Alicia Vikander for Ex Machina
Kate Winslet for Steve Jobs
This is a weird field this year because a number of these contenders, like Mara, could actually be considered Leads.
Continuing with the Year of Alicia Vikander, she has been talked up as Supporting for both The Danish Girl (in which it sounds like she’s really a Lead) and Ex Machina, in which she’s arguably a Lead as well, but the Supporting case can be plausibly made. I foresee the Academy giving us Maximum Vikander by putting her in Leading for The Danish Girl and getting her a Supporting nomination for Ex Machina (and she is quite good in Ex Machina, I can say).
Many websites have Helen Mirren up for Trumbo but I don’t see Trumbo being strong enough to get anyone besides Bryan Cranston a nomination. Early on there was also buzz for Joan Allen in Room but I think she’ll ultimately be left behind.
McAdams does fine in Spotlight but it’s a pretty understated role. She may get a boost here because everyone else in the movie could end up being shut out.
If the field does turn out as I predicted, it’ll be a pretty open race. The winner probably won’t be Leigh or Vikander, but it could be any of the other three.
Best Original Screenplay
Bridge of Spies
Ex Machina
Inside Out
Spotlight
Straight Outta Compton
Should be nominated: Clouds of Sils Maria
Man I’m gonna be such a happy camper if Ex Machina is really nominated, and even more so if it actually wins. It deserves it. It’s one of the smartest and most provocative scripts I’ve seen in a long time. Clouds of Sils Maria is also a very intelligent and mind-stimulating movie.
I’ve heard a lot of predictions for The Hateful Eight, and I struggled with choosing between that and Straight Outta Compton. While I will say that The Hateful Eight has probably one of the best Quentin Tarantino scripts (and is, consequently, one of the most tolerable Tarantino movies), I get the sense that the Academy might be sick of him. We’ll see though; I can easily see The Hateful Eight taking over Straight Outta Compton’s spot.
This would be a rather strong field. I can’t say I dislike any of the scripts for the movies I’ve seen (and that would remain so if The Hateful Eight were nominated). Even the boring Bridge of Spies had a pretty good script. Spotlight will probably win, especially if it’s also winning Best Picture.
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Big Short
Brooklyn
Carol
Room
Steve Jobs
In contrast to Original Screenplay, this field is annoying, as it’s anchored by the highly overrated scripts of The Big Short and especially Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs’s script is the epitome of talking a lot without actually saying anything, but it still managed to win the Best Screenplay Award at the Golden Globes, beating out The Big Short, The Hateful Eight, Room, and Spotlight. Of the three predictions above that I’ve seen so far, Room is easily the best.
There’s also talk about The Martian slipping into this category. The Martian is in a way stronger awards position overall than Steve Jobs, which has largely fallen off the radar and can only hope for acting and screenplay nominations at this point. If The Martian continues to pick up momentum, it could do us all a favor and sweep Steve Jobs right out of this category.
If this is the field we do end up with, the race will probably come down to The Big Short versus Steve Jobs in a titanic battle of mediocrity.
