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2016 Oscar Nomination Predictions

Every year, Oscar bloggers put on a pretty good show in pointing out how, unlike all previous years, this year is truly a wild, unpredictable free-for-all.

Carol
Photo: The Weinstein Company

Every year, Oscar bloggers put on a pretty good show in pointing out how, unlike all previous years (which were inevitably forgone conclusions long before the ballots were even tallied), this year is truly a wild, unpredictable free-for-all. Maybe it’s only an affectation that allows them an opportunity to furtively inflate their own sense of accomplishment when they end up nailing at least 85 percent of the eventual nominees. But damned if this isn’t one of those years where you can at least forgive the indulgence.

Every day for the last week has seen some guild slate or another either kill or revive almost every film’s chances at least once, each twist and turn cueing a chorus of “I told you so” from those momentarily proven right. “You see? I told you Carol was too cold and cerebral.” “No way they’re going to be able to restrain themselves from nominating Star Wars: The Force Awakens when it’s slaying box-office records.” “I knew you were all underestimating how much people loved Ex Machina when it was literally the only quality studio film in theaters for a three-month span.”

While it would be an exaggeration to categorize all this sound and fury about something signifying next to nothing “fun,” at the very least the hubbub this Oscar year offers welcome respite from the grinding monotony of the presidential race. Though even there, and most certainly unlike this year’s Best Director prospects, at least the possibility exists that a woman will get a nomination.

BEST PICTURE

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Mad Max: Fury Road

Standing at the calm center of the Oscar race storm is Spotlight, which has been the presumed taster’s choice of 2015 since before it even opened, but really cemented its status as the only mortal lock in the category when it started defeating the Film Comment poll-winning Carol among some of the loftiest of critics’ groups. You know we’ve stepped through the looking glass when the group that sidestepped the Boyhood locomotive last year in favor of Jean-Luc Godard’s 3D dog-and-poop show say, with a straight face, that a Tom McCarthy film trumps all this year. Even Spotlight’s precursor performance hasn’t been entirely spotless; some started chewing a fingernail or two when it failed to get nominated for an ACE Eddie Award (unlike Ant-Man), but there’s no one betting against it earning a seat at the Eucharist.

Beyond that, you could at least entertain arguments against nearly every one of the remaining hopefuls. The Big Short was a late-arriver, but its performance in the guild heats has been nothing short of impressive (only cinematographers understandably shrugged their shoulders, as they also did over Spotlight). One of the two most BAFTA-nominated movies, Carol, missed out on the PGA nod, and also the SAG’s speciously “important” best ensemble category. But it’s maintained position as the most viable option for the AMPAS demographic that got The Tree of Life and Amour into the main drag recently.

Unless, of course, that honor goes to Mad Max: Fury Road, a movie absolutely no one knows how seriously to take as a major Oscar contender, but might just earn the highest number of first-place ballot placements. Well, that or Bridge of Spies. Post-War Horse, it’s difficult to determine just where the Academy’s limit for embracing late-Spielberg classicism is, but as Bridge of Spies tied with Carol for the most BAFTA nods, we’re guessing this movie isn’t it.

The sense that there’s anywhere from 15 to 20 movies with legitimate shots at a nomination is making it difficult for some to know whether the sliding scale in this category will tip toward the minimum or the maximum. But until we see evidence to the contrary, and because these changes were implemented by the AMPAS specifically to get more films into best picture and avoid any further embarrassment over their shameful preference for historical dramas over superhero movies, we’re going to keep betting on more, not fewer.

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And because the system honors consensus, this year might see a lot more well-received populist entertainments—for sure The Martian, though perhaps not Straight Outta Compton (despite its guild nods from actors, writers, and producers)—and fewer divisively received, slogging wankjobs. (Well, okay, maybe one, given The Revenant’s warm reception at the Golden Globes.)

Will Be Nominated: The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Carol, Creed, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Room, Sicario, Spotlight

Closest Runners-Up: Brooklyn, Ex Machina, Inside Out, Straight Outta Compton, Trumbo

Should Be Nominated: Creed, Heart of a Dog, In Jackson Heights, Mad Max: Fury Road, Magic Mike XXL

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BEST DIRECTOR

Todd Haynes

You’d think it would be more insulting that Ridley Scott is a long-standing frontrunner in the category for delivering a sci-fi movie so comparatively light on its feet that people are marveling at how much if doesn’t feel like a Ridley Scott film. Then again, Thomas McCarthy’s certainly going to get nominated for Spotlight, which doesn’t feel like a movie directed by anyone at all (BAFTA certainly felt that way), so maybe the stakes are just lower all around in this race.

Given the Altman-esque cast of dozens all jockeying for attention in the Best Picture race, Best Director doesn’t feel like it has all that many names on everyone’s lips. One of them, Alejandro González Iñárritu, just took the prize last year and his chest-puffing pomposity has only gotten more pronounced since, but for every person who sees in The Revenant a heroic statement on man’s legacy of inherited violence, there’s another who’d find lukewarm bison liver more palatable than Iñárritu’s warmed-over Terrence Malick-Werner Herzog overtures. That said, if the warm reception he received during last night’s Golden Globes ceremony is any indication, he’s still fooling enough people that a nomination seems inevitable.

The BAFTA nominations confirmed the undeniable groundswell for The Big Short. And though even Thomas McCarthy isn’t intimidated by Adam McKay’s visual sensibilities, McKay’s film delivers its NPR-listener-courting infotainment with the smirk of Nero fiddling away. That leaves George Miller and Todd Haynes dueling for the last spot. Though Miller huffs enough testosterone to dissolve Iñárritu on contact, the likelihood the latter is in play at all suggests voters prefer their toxic masculinity to at least have the courtesy of being insufferably self-important, and not irrepressibly fun. Ergo, we’re betting on there being a lot of disappointed fanboys when the architect behind Imperator Furiosa takes a back seat to Haynes’s Her-Sapphic Park.

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Will Be Nominated: Adam McKay, The Big Short; Todd Haynes, Carol; Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Revenant; Thomas McCarthy, Spotlight; Ridley Scott, The Martian

Closest Runners-Up: Ryan Coogler, Creed; George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road; Steven Spielberg, Bridge of Spies

Should Be Nominated: Laurie Anderson, Heart of a Dog; Hou Hsiao-hsien, The Assassin; George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road; Abderrahmane Sissako, Timbuktu; Peter Strickland, The Duke of Burgundy

BEST ACTRESS

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Jennifer Lawrence

Easy, easy, easy, easy, hard. That’s how choosing the five nominees for Best Actress will feel to voters this year. You’ll find few people arguing against nominations for Brie Larson, Cate Blanchett, Saoirse Ronan, and Charlotte Rampling. But then, oy. First and foremost, will the category fraud police prevent Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl) or Rooney Mara (Carol) from slumming in supporting? And, if so, would the reasonably level playing field for the fifth slot here allow one of them an easy nod? If Rampling is in the category, what does that do for or against the chances of Lily Tomlin, Maggie Smith, or Blythe Danner? Are Sarah Silverman and Helen Mirren’s surprise SAG nominations anything other than respectively welcome and less-than-welcome flukes from early on in the precursor season? Will there be enough anti-MRA voters in the actors’ branch to engineer a path for Charlize Theron to slip into the mix? Is Sicario’s late surge in the game real enough to benefit Emily Blunt? Or will the AMPAS look at all their options and simply default to the candidate whose prerelease buzz can outweigh her movie’s subsequent nosedive? Congrats, Jennifer Lawrence, you are the likely beneficiary of voters’ disinterest in overthinking tough decisions.

Will Be Nominated: Cate Blanchett, Carol; Brie Larson, Room; Jennifer Lawrence, Joy; Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years; Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

Closest Runners-Up: Emily Blunt, Sicario; Rooney Mara, Carol; Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl

Should Be Nominated: Brie Larson, Room; Julianne Moore, Freeheld; Elisabeth Moss, Queen of Earth; Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years; Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

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BEST ACTOR

Michael B. Jordan

Speaking of voter disinterest, the only category with what everyone is presuming to already have a winner-elect this year, Best Actor, suffers from an entirely different problem than its distaff cousin. Whereas everyone is expected to have one slot reserved for Leonardo DiCaprio’s Night of the Living Pelt Trader, the other four choices are likely to be filled by a combination of serviceable star performances lifted by the popularity of the films containing them and, like with Jennifer Lawrence, roles that put actors on “the list” when the films were still in preproduction. And though their film’s fortunes have since fallen in best picture, well, why change course here at this late stage of the game?

In the former camp is Matt Damon’s disco-bashing, poop-hoarding cosmonaut Robinson Crusoe in The Martian. Damon’s performance is a solid fit for the movie’s profile, lightly likable without ever really getting ugly for art. And then in the latter category are Michael Fassbender’s Shakespearean spin on Steve Jobs and Eddie Redmayne’s trembling, wilting, blushing transgender pioneer in The Danish Girl. Fassbender has proven among the few actors capable of devouring Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue instead of the other way around. But Redmayne’s disastrously miscalculated feints, nervous tics, and nosebleeds will probably appeal to exactly the same crowd that can’t fathom citing Tangerine’s vibrant Mya Taylor. Pencil all three in.

Bryan Cranston is a legitimate threat for the last spot for yielding to dull biopic shenanigans (though we’re frankly smelling whiffs of Hitchcock), as is Johnny Depp’s latest masquerade ball. But if you ask us it’s down to Steve Carell, who serves as the conscience of The Big Short (crying and dry-heaving at each new fiduciary obscenity) and Michael B. Jordan, who may be the Academy’s only hope to avoid another year of #OscarSoWhite.

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Will Be Nominated: Matt Damon, The Martian; Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant; Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs; Michael B. Jordan, Creed; Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl

Closest Runners-Up: Steve Carell, The Big Short; Bryan Cranston, Trumbo; Johnny Depp, Black Mass

Should Be Nominated: Christopher Abbott, James White; Tom Courtenay, 45 Years; Michael B. Jordan, Creed; Ben Mendelsohn, Mississippi Grind; Jacob Tremblay, Room

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

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Kristen Stewart

So far as the critics are concerned, there’s only one choice here. And in recent years, when critics have really rallied around a performance that wouldn’t otherwise be considered standard Oscar fare, Oscar has started listening. (Just ask Emmanuelle Riva.) But this time it’s a pretty big ask. Kristen Stewart? The actress who moped her way through the Twilight series? For an Olivier Assayas movie that maybe only critics actually saw? No one’s going to convince us a performance this nuanced isn’t on the bubble, but given last year’s Best Actress-winning Still Alice gave Oscar voters a dry run to consider the idea of Stewart as serious thesp, we think she’s in.

And then, of course, so are the two leading performances being fraudulently demoted to supporting—at the expense of Alicia Vikander’s fascinating albeit far more fanboy-friendly work in Ex Machina. Because Stewart plus Rooney Mara plus Vikander makes for an awfully introspective, internalized slate, we could easily see voters getting thirsty to include Jennifer Jason Leigh’s turn in The Hateful Eight, regardless of their widely-presumed disinterest in the movie as a whole. Most prognosticators favor Kate Winslet’s dazzling display of unpredictable accent changes in Steve Jobs, though it’s beyond us why no one notices how clearly superior Katherine Waterston is in that same film. Instead, we’re playing it risky, ignoring precursors and betting on Joan Allen earning her first nomination since swiping Björk’s back in 2000.

Will Be Nominated: Joan Allen, Room; Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight; Rooney Mara, Carol; Kristen Stewart, Clouds of Sils Maria; Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl

Closest Runners-Up: Rachel McAdams, Spotlight; Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina; Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

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Should Be Nominated: Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight; Cynthia Nixon, James White; Jada Pinkett Smith, Magic Mike XXL; Kristen Stewart, Clouds of Sils Maria; Mya Taylor, Tangerine

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Mark Ruffalo

Jennifer Jason Leigh can rest easier than the rest of her cast-mates who are bloodily cancelling each other out over here, which especially pains us to say in the cases of Tim Roth and Walton Goggins. But not half as much as it pains us to say there’s virtually no chance for the incredibly endearing Emory Cohen to land a nomination along on-screen wife Saoirse Ronan’s for Brooklyn. It should chide us that Jacob Tremblay’s clearly leading performance in Room is getting the same second-class treatment fellow child actor Hailee Steinfeld’s did, but at least he’ll get invited to the dance (and we’re so looking forward to his eventual pop single). Category fraud works a treat with kids, but probably won’t do anything for Paul Dano’s chances in Love & Mercy.

And though vote-splitting will affect The Hateful Eight cast’s chances, the same probably won’t be said for the cast of Spotlight. Michael Keaton’s Best Actor award from the New York Film Critics Circle may have just sealed his fate, allowing the focus to turn to Mark Ruffalo, who gets the only traditionally splanchnic Oscar clip in the whole movie, as Spotlight’s best shot at an acting nod. Michael Shannon in 99 Homes emerged as nearly as big a critics’ choice as Kristen Stewart, but his impending omission feels like the classic Oscar boondoggle that rankles the awards blogosphere. It’s looking like the rest of the category will be filled with vets of three distinct varieties—movie star (Sylvester Stallone), character actor (Mark Rylance), and perpetual Oscar nominee (Christian Bale).

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Will Be Nominated: Christian Bale, The Big Short; Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight; Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies; Sylvester Stallone, Creed; Jacob Tremblay, Room

Closest Runners-Up: Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation; Benicio del Toro, Sicario; Michael Shannon, 99 Homes

Should Be Nominated: Evan Bird, Maps to the Stars; Emory Cohen, Brooklyn; Walton Goggins, The Hateful Eight; Tom Noonan, Anomalisa; Sylvester Stallone, Creed

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

The Hateful Eight

Eligibility issues routinely plague the WGA’s status as a legitimate Oscar precursor, ensuring some of the Academy Award frontrunners have to be assessed blindly. Of course, WGA nominees Spotlight, Bridge of Spies, and, arguably, Sicario would’ve been to varying degrees probable here even if they hadn’t been WGA-eligible. Spotlight is going to get nominations in nearly every viable category, Bridge of Spies affords the writers the chance to honor the Coens for a film they didn’t also direct, and Sicario feels nearly as red-hot at the guilds as The Big Short.

And as divisive as his film has proven, Quentin Tarantino’s brand name seems likely to at least earn him a ticket to ride. That narrows the odds for WGA-nominee Straight Outta Compton, which will have to fight off Ex Machina, 99 Homes, and Inside Out. We’re betting voters will take most strongly to Pixar’s cotton candy-delicate version of thorny child psychology.

Will Be Nominated: Bridge of Spies, The Hateful Eight, Inside Out, Sicario, Spotlight

Closest Runners-Up: Ex Machina, 99 Homes, Straight Outta Compton

Should Be Nominated: About Elly, Heart of a Dog, Inside Out, Mistress America, Timbuktu

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Brooklyn

Our boldest prediction of the year? That the writers’ branch will summon within themselves enough restraint to ignore a hagiographic tribute to an Oscar-winning screenwriter, if only because it bends the life and difficult times of Dalton Trumbo into the most unflattering biopic-friendly format. It’s a big gamble on our part, especially given Trumbo’s shockingly healthy precursor performance up to this point. Fortunately, this is among the most crowded fields of the year, with only Adam McKay and Charles Rudolph’s ambitious, if sporadically condescending, distillation of one of the most complex financial cataclysms of our era sure to be included.

Nick Hornby’s adaptation of Brooklyn is lovely, warm, and humorous. Carol and Room both boast attractive structural architecture—one circular, the other sharply bifurcated—and the former in particular puts glorious things in Cate Blanchett’s mouth. Aaron Sorkin and Charlie Kaufman are big enough screenwriting superstars that anything they do automatically merits the benefit of the doubt, though it’s a lot easier to see Sorkin’s latest three acts in support of American exceptionalism making a bigger impact than Kaufman’s aching wallow in American alienation and paranoia.

And then there are the two last men standing, between which we’re presuming Oscar will favor The Martian’s sardonic quips. Unless, of course, they like their grand gestures to climax with dialogue that would be specious coming from Freddy Krueger’s mouth, much less Tom Hardy’s.

Will Be Nominated: The Big Short, Brooklyn, Carol, The Martian, Steve Jobs

Closest Runners-Up: The Revenant, Room, Trumbo

Should Be Nominated: Anomalisa, Brooklyn, Carol, Chi-raq, 45 Years

Eric Henderson

Eric Henderson is the web content manager for WCCO-TV. His writing has also appeared in City Pages.

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