In a season that featured the longstanding frontrunner Boyhood seemingly fending off all challenges for months, I would have bet a month ago that it was a near certainty to carry the Best Picture race to the very end. And it almost did, until all three of the major guilds (Producers, Directors, and Actors), surprisingly each gave their biggest award to Birdman instead. And while I don't buy the idea that there could be a surprise win for American Sniper or The Grand Budapest Hotel lurking for the night's biggest prize, we do have an honest-to-goodness race on our hands now, and it's nearly impossible to pick a winner.
It's very hard (though not without precedent) to go against all three guilds when it comes to Best Picture, and if recent Oscar wins for Argo and The Artist have taught us anything, its's the the Academy is into a serious (some would say too serious) love affair with films that celebrate the movies and those who make them. But Birdman is not nearly the kind of crowdpleasing movie that previous Best Picture winners were; it's a decidedly odd and existential piece wrapped in great acting and Emmanuel Lubezki's fantastic "one-take" camerawork. Is it the kind of thing that the often older, more conservative subset of filmmakers that make up the Academy as opposed to the guilds will completely embrace?
Then again, Boyhood is also certainly not the stuff most Oscar-winning movies are made of. By telling its story through a series of scenes shot over 12 years in a documentary-esque "fly-on-the-wall" style, it's something of a quiet triumph of storytelling, never less than fully absorbing but without the "big" moments or traditional climaxes that most movies have. I think that both are tremendous achievements and worthy winners, but ultimately, that Boyhood was the more memorable film, and the most likely choice.
It should be noted even if the Best Director award goes to either Boyhood's Richard Linklater or Birdman's Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, we won't know for sure which film will win Best Picture until the final envelope, no matter how the other awards go. In fact no matter how the earlier awards are handed out, I'd expect the Academy to spread the wealth around to several films, which should only help the unpredictability of the evening as it continues. Sure, several of the major awards have been locks for what seems like forever (Julianne Moore, J.K. Simmons, Patricia Arquette), but Best Actor is still very much up in the air even though Eddie Redmayne has a tenuous grip on frontrunner status, and both Screenplay awards are almost total guesswork. And I'm having trouble remembering a year when so many of the technical Oscars have been such wide-open races. Again, there are some obvious choices (The Grand Budapest Hotel in Costume and Production Design; Birdman for Cinematography), but there are just as many cases where two, three, or even four films have excellent chances to grab the prize. In other words, I fully expect that my predictions below will be off the mark in many cases, and I'm not exactly mourning that fact.
BEST PICTURE
WINNER - Boyhood
2) Birdman
3) The Grand Budapest Hotel
4) American Sniper
5) The Imitation Game
6) Whiplash
7) Selma
8) The Theory of Everything
BEST DIRECTOR
WINNER - Richard Linklater - Boyhood
2) Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu - Birdman
3) Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel
4) Morten Tyldum - The Imitation Game
5) Bennett Miller - Foxcatcher
BEST ACTOR
WINNER - Eddie Redmayne - The Theory of Everything
2) Michael Keaton - Birdman
3) Bradley Cooper - American Sniper
4) Benedict Cumberbatch - The Imitation Game
5) Steve Carell - Foxcatcher
BEST ACTRESS
WINNER - Julianne Moore - Still Alice
2) Reese Witherspoon - Wild
3) Felicity Jones - The Theory of Everything
4) Marion Cotillard - Two Days, One Night
5) Rosamund Pike - Gone Girl
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
WINNER - J.K. Simmons - Whiplash
2) Edward Norton - Birdman
3) Ethan Hawke - Boyhood
4) Mark Ruffalo - Foxcatcher
5) Robert Duvall - The Judge
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
WINNER - Patricia Arquette - Boyhood
2) Emma Stone - Birdman
3) Keira Knightley - The Imitation Game
4) Meryl Streep - Into the Woods
5) Laura Dern - Wild
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
WINNER - Whiplash - Damian Chazelle
2) The Imitation Game - Graham Moore
3) American Sniper - Jason Hall
4) Inherent Vice - Paul Thomas Anderson
5) The Theory of Everything - Anthony McCarten
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
WINNER - Birdman - Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo
2) The Grand Budapest Hotel - Wes Anderson
3) Boyhood - Richard Linklater
4) Foxcatcher - E. Max Frye, Dan Futterman
5) Nightcrawler - Dan Gilroy
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
WINNER - Birdman - Emmanuel Lubezki
2) The Grand Budapest Hotel - Robert D. Yeoman
3) Unbroken - Roger Deakins
4) Ida - Richard Lenczewski, Lukasz Zal
5) Mr. Turner - Dick Pope
BEST FILM EDITING
WINNER - American Sniper - Joel Cox, Gary Roach
2) Whiplash - Tom Cross
3) Boyhood - Sandra Adair
4) The Grand Budapest Hotel - Barney Pilliing
5) The Imitation Game - William Goldenberg
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
WINNER - The Theory of Everything - Johann Johannson
2) The Grand Budapest Hotel - Alexandre Desplat
3) Interstellar - Hans Zimmer
4) The Imitation Game - Alexandre Desplat
5) Mr. Turner - Gary Yershon
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
WINNER - Selma - "Glory"
2) The LEGO Movie - "Everything Is Awesome"
3) Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me - "I'm Not Gonna Miss You"
4) Begin Again - "Lost Stars"
5) Beyond the Lights - "Grateful"
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
WINNER - The Grand Budapest Hotel - Adam Stockhausen, Anna Pinnock
2) The Imitation Game - Mara Djurkovic, Tatiana Macdonald
3) Mr. Turner - Suzie Davies, Charlotte Watts
4) Into the Woods - Dennis Gassner, Anna Pinnock
5) Interstellar - Nathan Crowley, Gary Fettis, Paul Healy
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
WINNER - The Grand Budapest Hotel - Milena Canonero
2) Into the Woods - Colleen Atwood
3) Mr. Turner - Jacqueline Durran
4) Maleficient - Anna B. Sheppard, Jane Clive
5) Inherent Vice - Mark Bridges
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
WINNER - Guardians of the Galaxy
2) The Grand Budapest Hotel
3) Foxcatcher
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
WINNER - Interstellar
2) Guardians of the Galaxy
3) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
4) Captain America: The Winter Soldier
5) X-Men: Days of Future Past
BEST SOUND MIXING
WINNER - American Sniper
2) Whiplash
3) Interstellar
4) Birdman
5) Unbroken
BEST SOUND EDITING
WINNER - American Sniper
2) Interstellar
3) The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
4) Birdman
5) Unbroken
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
WINNER - Poland - Ida
2) Argentina - Wild Tales
3) Mauritania - Timbuktu
4) Russia - Leviathan
5) Estonia - Tangerines
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
WINNER - Big Hero 6
2) How to Train Your Dragon 2
3) The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
4) The Boxtrolls
5) Song of the Sea
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
WINNER - CITIZENFOUR
2) Virunga
3) The Salt of the Earth
4) Finding Vivian Maier
5) Last Days in Vietnam
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
WINNER - Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
2) Our Curse
3) Joanna
4) White Earth
5) The Reaper (La Parka)
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
WINNER - Aya
2) The Phone Call
3) Parvaneh
4) Boogaloo and Graham
5) Butter Lamp (La Lampe Au Buerre De Yak)
BEST ANIMATED SHORT
WINNER - The Dam Keeper
2) Feast
3) Me and My Moulton
4) The Bigger Picture
5) A Single Life
