2021 Oscar Nomination Predictions

That Slant Magazine’s take on each year’s awards season arrives as a tacky burden and a chance to air out a year’s worth of snarky bad faith should come to no surprise to anyone who’s been along with us for the ride in years past. But 2020 was by no measure a business-as-usual year, so don’t expect our gripes to be either.

When it became clear that the Covid-19 pandemic, having forced most movie theaters to scale down or close entirely, would find most major studios pushing the cream of their crops to 2021, we weren’t the only ones who wondered quixotically whether this might finally be the decisive merit-over-profit Oscar year we’ve been hoping for since, frankly, 1996, when the field was almost entirely dominated by non-studio features. Would this be the year in which recent nominations for Bryan Singer’s Bohemian Rhapsody, Black Panther, Joker, and American Sniper gave way to First Cow, Fourteen, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, and, even, our collective number one, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets? That was clearly never going to happen, but if the precursors’ attempts at putting into motion this year’s web of award narratives have felt obligatory and narrow-minded, it’s annoying not for lack of options.

This year’s list of 366 eligible features represents the largest field of contenders in 50 years. And yet, survey what enticed the Golden Globes or the Broadcast Film Critics Association this season and tell us the field doesn’t feel like the smallest. Or, at any rate, it did until Tuesday’s jaw-dropping BAFTA nominations were announced. Oscar’s British cousin had arguably even more to atone for when it came to representation, so their overly zealous compensation feels like a blip compared to what the few guild slates have proffered during this extended awards season. The slate gives off the air of a group negotiating its way out of a hostage situation. Or, in the words of Jaida Essence Hall’s Drag Race campaign promise: “Look over there!”

Still, considering that America, 11 months after Parasite’s historic Oscar win, endured a literal domestic invasion, it’s not outside the realm of possibility for AMPAS to resist falling back on old habits and to, if not quite meet woke BAFTA in the middle, at least throw a few token vanguard options into the mix following the last few months of tedious inevitability.

Best Picture

The one movie that comes out of the BAFTA nominations feeling like a much surer bet than it did prior: The Father, which along with the quietly trucking-along Minari, and Thomas Vinterberg’s crowd-pleasing Another Round, feels like its cachet is ascending at just the right moment. Whether Oscar has room for two non-‘Merican nominations remains to be seen, but it wouldn’t be a shock to see its Husbands-reminiscent examination of masculinity in a state of crisis move past the much less conflicted likes of Mank. Of course, we’re still betting on David Fincher’s pastiche to make the cut, because in a year when theme parks shut down everywhere, his film was about the only escapist ride Hollywood could board.

On the flip side are the films whose momentum feels sluggish, foremost among them Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Da 5 Bloods, which go to show how quickly the conversation can evaporate in a streaming-only landscape. The centrality of Chadwick Boseman in the former should help it stay afloat, but as for the latter, Spike Lee’s ensemble drama hasn’t moved many needles since the critics’ awards, which now feel as though they happened half a year ago. Finally, there are the films that never really needed momentum in the first place, the ones with almost pre-assigned roles in the overall race: the enigmatic critics’ darling Nomadland, the starchy traditionalists’ liberal hagiography The Trial of the Chicago 7, and Promising Young Woman, this year’s foremost call-to-man (and yes I do mean “man”) battle stations.

Will Be Nominated: The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, Mank, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Minari, Nomadland, One Night in Miami, Promising Young Woman, and The Trial of the Chicago 7

Closest Runners-Up: Another Round, Da 5 Bloods, The Mauritanian, and Soul

Best Director

Hours after BAFTA nominations were announced, the Directors Guild of America’s nods reassured anyone actually investing coin the betting market right now that they didn’t make a grave error neglecting to place a side gamble on, say, Quo Vadis, Aida? helmer Jasmila Žbanić. Oscar’s directors’ wing has proven itself ever so perceptibly to the artistic left of the DGA, which means that we’re by no means counting out potential surprise nominations for Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round) or Florian Zeller (The Father) alongside Lee Isaac Chung (Minari), but if ever a year feels like one where the guild stands to go five-for-five, it’s this one. As for Regina King, even if One Night in Miami (which, it was just announced, will be in the Criterion Collection soon) overperforms against our dimming expectations, it’s hard to imagine the more bristly factions of the branch welcoming an actor turned director on her first time out.

Will Be Nominated: Lee Isaac Chung, Minari; Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman; David Fincher, Mank; Aaron Sorkin, The Trial of the Chicago 7; and Chloe Zhao, Nomadland

Closest Runners-Up: Regina King, One Night in Miami; Thomas Vinterberg, Another Round; and Florian Zeller, The Father

Best Actress

Awards Twitter was gagged when Andra Day upset Viola Davis, Frances McDormand, Vanessa Kirby, and Carey Mulligan to take the Golden Globe for best drama actress, but it seems safe to say that the confusion was more strongly focused among those who hadn’t seen her more-than-solid performance in Lee Daniels’s more-than-solid biopic The United States vs. Billie Holiday. Up until her win, hers was the only slot that didn’t seem utterly sewn up, with most pundits working up cases for Sophia Loren to take it more or less by default, giving her director son, Eduardo Ponti, solid cause for proper maternal beatification in the resolutely backward-looking The Life Ahead. Now, unless fellow Globe-winning actress Rosamund Pike manages to ride some of Carey Mulligan’s support, Day’s a sure thing.

Will Be Nominated: Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holiday; Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman; Frances McDormand, Nomadland; and Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman

Closest Runners-Up: Yeri Han, Minari; Sophia Loren, The Life Ahead; and Rosamund Pike, I Care a Lot

Best Actor

Riz Ahmed, Chadwick Boseman, and Anthony Hopkins haven’t significantly faltered once during this year’s seemingly endless awards season, and it’s hard to make a case against any one of them, regardless of how voters feel about their films overall. (In contrast, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’s Viola Davis would feel a lot more vulnerable were her category’s bench not noticeably thinner.) Depending on where you look, there’s at least four people contending for the last two slots, but sad to say, Da 5 Bloods’s astonishing Delroy Lindo—who started the season out as the critics’ frontrunner alongside the other aforementioned three—now appears down for the count, having missed nominations at the Globes, the SAG Awards (outside of the ensemble nod), and BAFTA. Meanwhile, Gary Oldman, Steven Yeun, and Tahar Rahim all have some combination of industry and Oscar-predictive precursor support, but the one that we’re identifying as owning what feels like the biggest groundswell of support is Another Round’s Mads Mikkelsen, owning the screen as he’s done many a time before but now representing what in Covid times qualifies as a genuine zeitgeist moment.

Will Be Nominated: Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal; Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; Anthony Hopkins, The Father; Mads Mikkelsen, Another Round; and Steven Yeun, Minari

Closest Runners-Up: Delroy Lindo, Da 5 Bloods; Gary Oldman, Mank; and Tahar Rahim, The Mauritanian

Best Supporting Actress

There will be plenty of time to wring hands over, as Instagram’s maniacally obsessed @dublin_zoetrope put it, the perfect 2021-ness of Glenn Close finally winning her Oscar only in the supporting category during a ceremony held on Zoom for a film that had 25% approval on Rotten Tomatoes. There will be plenty of time for self-proclaimed actressexuals to get the vapors over Close’s showdown against Olivia Colman (the Hilary Swank to Close’s Annette Bening). And there will be plenty of time to wonder where it all went wrong for Ellen Burstyn’s shot to be the oldest actor ever nominated for an Oscar. Now is the time to point out that, despite widespread skepticism, Maria Bakalova is the only actress gunning for a slot here who basically has a perfect track record so far, with nominations from BAFTA, the SAGs, the Golden Globes (in leading), and the BFCA. Sure, AMPAS’s notorious anti-comedy bias could rear its head, as it did when Tiffany Haddish failed to score a nod for Girls Trip. But did Haddish get a jump start on the shitshow that was Rudy Giuliani’s 2020? Point one in Bakalova’s favor.

Will Be Nominated: Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm; Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy; Olivia Colman, The Father; Amanda Seyfried, Mank; and Yuh-jung Youn, Minari

Closest Runners-Up: Ellen Burstyn, Pieces of a Woman; Dominique Fishback, Judas and the Black Messiah; and Jodie Foster, The Mauritanian

Best Supporting Actor

This is the category with the fewest sure bets and the most on-the-bubble possibilities. That’s what we’re telling ourselves in order to live with the fact that not only the Hollywood Foreign Press Association but also the Screen Actors Guild actually watched Jared Leto’s performance in The Little Things and still nominated him over Sound of Metal’s Paul Raci. We’re counting on Oscar’s now-trademark last-minute bouts of good taste—not unlike the one that pushed Lesley Manville into best supporting actor a few years back—to keep us from going over the edge. Certainly the potential for vote-splitting among the all-male casts of One Night in Miami, The Trial of the Chicago 7, and Da 5 Bloods won’t help matters, though the precursors have mostly lined up behind Sacha Baron Cohen, Leslie Odom Jr., and Chadwick Boseman as their films’ respective candidates. The Golden Globe win for Daniel Kaluuya has firmed up his position in the race, but if Promising Young Woman is the phenomenon some seem to think it will be, maybe there’s room for Bo Burnham.

Will Be Nominated: Sacha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7; Chadwick Boseman, Da 5 Bloods; Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah; Leslie Odom Jr., One Night in Miami; and Paul Raci, Sound of Metal

Closest Runners-Up: Bo Burnham, Promising Young Woman; Jared Leto, The Little Things; and Mark Rylance, The Trial of the Chicago 7

Best Original Screenplay

Along with best actress, best original screenplay certainly feels like the category with the least room for surprise, especially given the fact that it actually would be a surprise for Spike Lee to break through and get a nomination here at this point for Da 5 Bloods. As in a number of other categories, Another Round could be the beneficiary of the large influx of international AMPAS voters…or it could just as easily be Pixar again.

Will Be Nominated: Mank, Minari, Promising Young Woman, Soul, and The Trial of the Chicago 7

Closest Runners-Up: Another Round, Da 5 Bloods, and Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Adapted Screenplay

The first Borat scored an Oscar nomination in this category, so its sequel showing up here would hardly be a benchmark by which to measure how much the academy’s efforts to unstogify its voting body have succeeded. Same goes for this year’s Charlie Kaufman whatsit. The fact of the matter though, as we see it, is that the dialogue-rich stage adaptations seem too juicy for the writers to ignore, even if they falter in a number of other categories. Additionally, all those BAFTA nominations for The Mauritanian can’t be written off entirely.

Will Be Nominated: The Father, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Mauritanian, Nomadland, and One Night in Miami

Closest Runners-Up: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, and The White Tiger