Oscar Winner Predictions

BEST PICTURE

1) The Revenant

2) The Big Short

3) Spotlight

4) Room

5) Mad Max: Fury Road

6) The Martian

7) Bridge of Spies

8) Brooklyn

SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED - The Hateful Eight

BEST DIRECTOR

1) George Miller - Mad Max: Fury Road

2) Alejandro G. Innaritu - The Revenant

3) Tom McCarthy - Spotlight

4) Adam McKay - The Big Short

5) Lenny Abrahamson - Room

SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED - Ridley Scott - The Martian

BEST ACTOR

1) Leonardo DiCaprio - The Revenant

2) Matt Damon - The Martian

3) Michael Fassbender - Steve Jobs

4) Bryan Cranston - Trumbo

5) Eddie Redmayne - The Danish Girl

SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED - Michael B. Jordan - Creed

BEST ACTRESS

1) Brie Larson - Room

2) Saorise Ronan - Brooklyn

3) Cate Blanchett - Carol

4) Charlotte Rampling - 45 Years

5) Jennifer Lawrence - Joy

SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED - Charlize Theron - Mad Max: Fury Road

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1) Mark Rylance - Bridge of Spies

2) Sylvester Stallone - Creed

3) Christian Bale - The Big Short

4) Mark Ruffalo - Spotlight

5) Tom Hardy - The Revenant

SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED - Benicio Del Toro - Sicario

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Alicia Vikander - The Danish Girl

2) Kate Winslet - Steve Jobs

3) Rachel McAdams - Spotlight

4) Jennifer Jason Leigh - The Hateful Eight

5) Rooney Mara - Carol

SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED - Kirsten Stewart - Clouds of Sils Maria

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) Spotlight - Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer

2) Inside Out - Pete Doctor, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley, and Ronnie del Carmen

3) Straight Outta Compton - Jonathan Herman, Andrea Berloff, S. Leigh Savidge, and Alan Wenkus

4) Bridge of Spies - Matt Charman, Joel Coen, and Ethan Coen

5) Ex Machina - Alex Garland

SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED - Clouds of Sils Maria - Olivier Assayas

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) The Big Short - Adam McKay and Charles Randolph

2) Room - Emma Donoghue

3) Brooklyn - Nick Hornby

4) The Martian - Drew Goddard

5) Carol - Phyllis Nagy

SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED - Anomalisa - Charlie Kaufman

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

1) Inside Out

2) Anomalisa

3) Shaun the Sheep Movie

4) When Marnie Was There

5) Boy & the World

SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED - Nothing coming to mind here!

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

1) Son of Saul (Hungary) - Laszlo Nemes

2) Mustang (France) - Deniz Gamze Erguven

3) Theeb (Jordan) - Naji Abu Nowar

4) Embrace of the Serpent (Colombia) - Ciro Guerra

5) A War (Denmark) - Tobias Lindholm

SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED - The Clan (Argentina)

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1) Amy

2) The Look of Silence

3) Cartel Land

4) What Happened, Miss Simone?

5) Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom

SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED - Listen to Me Marlon; or Best of Enemies

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

1) The Revenant - Emmanuel Lubezki

2) Sicario - Roger Deakins

3) The Hateful Eight - Robert Richardson

4) Mad Max: Fury Road - John Seale

5) Carol - Ed Leachman

BEST FILM EDITING

1) The Big Short - Hank Corwin

2) Mad Max: Fury Road - Margaret Sixel

3) The Revenant - Stephen Mirrione

4) Spotlight - Tom McArdle

5) Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

1) The Hateful Eight - Ennio Morricone

2) Star Wars: The Force Awakens - John Williams

3) Bridge of Spies - Thomas Newman

4) Carol - Carter Burwell

5) Sicario - Johann Johannsson

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

1) "Til It Happens To You" - The Hunting Ground - Lady Gaga and Dianne Warren

2) "Writing's On the Wall" - Spectre - Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith

3) "Simple Song #3" - Youth - David Lang

4) "Earned It" - Fifty Shades of Grey - Ahmad Balshe, Stephan Moccio, Jason Dahela Quenneville and Abel Tesfaye

5) "Manta Ray" - Racing Extinction - J. Ralph and Antony Hegarty

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

1) Mad Max: Fury Road - Colin Gibson and Lisa Thompson

2) The Revenant - Jack Fisk and Hamish Purdy

3) The Martian - Arthur Max and Celia Bobak

4) The Danish Girl - Eve Stewart and Michael Standish

4) Bridge of Spies - Adam Stockhausen, Rena DeAngelo, and Bernhard Henrich

COSTUME DESIGN

1) Cinderella - Sandy Powell

2) Mad Max: Fury Road - Jenny Beavan

3) The Revenant - Jacqueline West

4) Carol - Sandy Powell

5) The Danish Girl - Paco Delgado

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

1) Mad Max: Fury Road

2) Star Wars: The Force Awakens

3) The Martian

4) The Revenant

5) Ex Machina

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

1) The Revenant

2) Mad Max: Fury Road

3) The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

BEST SOUND MIXING

1) Mad Max: Fury Road

2) Star Wars: The Force Awakens

3) The Revenant

4) The Martian

5) Bridge of Spies

BEST SOUND EDITING

1) Mad Max: Fury Road

2) Star Wars: The Force Awakens

3) The Revenant

4) The Martian

5) Sicario

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT

1) Everything Will Be Okay

2) Day One

3) Stutterer

4) Shok

5) Ave Maria

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

1) Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah

2) Last Day of Freedom

3) Body Team 12

4) A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness

5) Chau, beyond the Lines

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

1) World of Tomorrow

2) Sanjay's Super Team

3) Bear Story

4) We Can't Live without Cosmos

5) Prologue

Oscar Nominee Predictions

BEST PICTURE

1) Spotlight

2) The Martian

3) The Revenant

4) The Big Short

5) Room

6) Bridge of Spies

7) Mad Max: Fury Road

8) Carol

9) Brooklyn

10) Inside Out

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11) Straight Outta Compton

12) Star Wars: The Force Awakens

13) Creed

14) The Hateful Eight

15) Trumbo

16) Concussion

17) Steve Jobs

18) The Danish Girl

19) Joy

20) Sicario

BEST DIRECTOR

1) Ridley Scott - The Martian

2) Tom McCarthy - Spotlight

3) Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu - The Revenant

4) George Miller - Mad Max: Fury Road

5) Steven Spielberg - Bridge of Spies

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6) Adam McKay - The Big Short

7) Todd Haynes - Carol

8) Lenny Abrahamson - Room

9) Quentin Tarantino - The Hateful Eight

10) J.J. Abrams - Star Wars: The Force Awakens

11) F. Gary Gray - Straight Outta Compton

12) Ryan Coogler - Creed

13) Danny Boyle - Steve Jobs

14) Pete Doctor - Inside Out

15) John Crowley - Brooklyn

BEST ACTOR

1) Leonardo DiCaprio - The Revenant

2) Michael Fassbender - Steve Jobs

3) Matt Damon - The Martian

4) Bryan Cranston - Trumbo

5) Michael B. Jordan - Creed

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6) Eddie Redmayne - The Danish Girl

7) Johnny Depp - Black Mass

8) Tom Hanks - Bridge of Spies

9) Will Smith - Concussion

10) Ian McKellen - Mr. Holmes

BEST ACTRESS

1) Brie Larson - Room

2) Saorise Ronan - Brooklyn

3) Cate Blanchett - Carol

4) Charlotte Rampling - 45 Years

5) Jennifer Lawrence - Joy

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6) Lily Tomlin - Grandma

7) Helen Mirren - Woman in Gold

8) Charlize Theron - Mad Max: Fury Road

9) Carey Mulligan - Suffragette

10) Maggie Smith - The Lady in the Van

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1) Mark Rylance - Bridge of Spies

2) Sylvester Stallone - Creed

3) Christian Bale - The Big Short

4) Idris Elba - Beasts of No Nation

5) Benicio Del Toro - Sicario

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6) Michael Keaton - Spotlight

7) Mark Ruffalo - Spotlight

8) Michael Shannon - 99 Homes

9) Jacob Trembley - Room

10) Paul Dano - Love & Mercy

11) Tom Hardy - The Revenant

12) Joel Edgerton - Black Mass

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Kate Winslet - Steve Jobs

2) Alicia Vikander - The Danish Girl

3) Rooney Mara - Carol

4) Rachel McAdams - Spotlight

5) Helen Mirren - Trumbo

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6) Jennifer Jason Leigh - The Hateful Eight

7) Jane Fonda - Youth

8) Elizabeth Banks - Love & Mercy

9) Julie Walters - Brooklyn

10) Kristen Stewart - Clouds of Sils Maria

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) Spotlight

2) The Hateful Eight

3) Inside Out

4) Bridge of Spies

5) Straight Outta Compton

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6) Ex Machina

7) Sicario

8) Trainwreck

9) Joy

10) Son of Saul

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) The Big Short

2) Room

3) Steve Jobs

4) The Martian

5) The Revenant

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6) Carol

7) Brooklyn

8) Trumbo

9) The Danish Girl

10) Creed

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

1) Son of Saul - Hungary

2) Mustang - France

3) Labyrinth of Lies - Germany

4) Theeb - Jordan

5) A War - Denmark

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6) The Brand New Testament - Belgium

7) Viva - Ireland

8) Embrace of the Serpent - Columbia

9) The Fencer - Finland

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

1) Inside Out

2) Anomalisa

3) Shaun the Sheep Movie

4) The Good Dinosaur

5) Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet

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6) The Peanuts Movie

7) When Marnie Was There

8) Boy and the World

9) The Boy and the Beast

10) Home

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1) Amy

2) Cartel Land

3) Listen to Me Marlon

4) The Look of Silence

5) He Named Me Malala

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6) Where to Invade Next

7) Best of Enemies

8) Winter on Fire; Ukraine's Fight for Freedom

9) What Happened, Miss Simone?

10) Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

1) Star Wars: The Force Awakens - John Williams

2) The Hateful Eight - Ennio Morricone

3) The Danish Girl - Alexandre Desplat

4) Inside Out - Michael Giacchino

5) Carol - Carter Burwell

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6) Bridge of Spies - Thomas Newman

7) Spotlight - Howard Shore

8) Sicario - Johann Johannson

9) Mad Max: Fury Road - Junkie XL

10) The Martian - Harry Gregson-Williams

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

1) "See You Again" - Furious 7

2) "Simple Song #3" - Youth

3) "Until It Happens to You" - The Hunting Ground

4) "So Long" - Concussion

5) "Writing's on the Wall" - Spectre

BEST FILM EDITING

1) Mad Max: Fury Road

2) The Revenant

3) The Big Short

4) The Martian

5) Sicario

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6) Star Wars: The Force Awakens

7) Spotlight

8) Creed

9) Bridge of Spies

10) Steve Jobs

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

1) The Revenant - Emmanuel Lubeszki

2) Sicario - Roger Deakins

3) Mad Max: Fury Road - John Seale

4) Carol - Edward Lachmann

5) The Hateful Eight - Robert Richardson

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6) Bridge of Spies - Janusz Kaminski

7) The Martin - Darius Wolski

8) Son of Saul - Matyas Erdely

9) Room - Danny Cohen

10) The Danish Girl - Danny Cohen

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

1) The Martian

2) Bridge of Spies

3) Mad Max: Fury Road

4) The Danish Girl

5) The Revenant

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6) Star Wars: The Force Awakens

7) Crimson Peak

8) Cinderella

9) The Hateful Eight

10) Trumbo

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

1) Cinderella

2) The Danish Girl

3) Carol

4) Brooklyn

5) Star Wars: The Force Awakens

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6) The Revenant

7) Bridge of Spies

8) Mad Max: Fury Road

9) The Hateful Eight

10) Crimson Peak

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

1) The Martian

2) Mad Max: Fury Road

3) Star Wars: The Force Awakens

4) Jurassic World

5) Ex Machina

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6) Avengers: Age of Ultron

7) The Revenant

8) The Walk

9) Ant-Man

10) Tomorrowland

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

1) The Revenant

2) Mad Max: Fury Road

3) Mr. Holmes

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4) Black Mass

5) Legend

6) The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

7) Concussion

BEST SOUND MIXING

1) Mad Max: Fury Road

2) Star Wars: The Force Awakens

3) The Revenant

4) The Hateful Eight

5) Straight Outta Compton

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6) The Martian

7) Bridge of Spies

8) Sicario

9) Jurassic World

10) Avengers: Age of Ultron

BEST SOUND EDITING

1) Star Wars: The Force Awakens

2) Mad Max: Fury Road

3) The Martian

4) The Revenant

5) Jurassic World

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6) Avengers: Age of Ultron

7) The Hateful Eight

8) Straight Outta Compton

9) Bridge of Spies

10) Sicario

Oscar Winner Predictions

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

2015 Academy Award Nominations - Predictions

BEST PICTURE
1) Boyhood
2) Birdman
3) The Imitation Game
4) The Theory of Everything
5) The Grand Budapest Hotel
6) Selma
7) American Sniper
8) Whiplash
9) Nightcrawler
10) Foxcatcher
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11) Gone Girl
12) Mr. Turner
13) Inherent Vice
14) Wild
15) Unbroken

BEST DIRECTOR
1) Richard Linklater - Boyhood
2) Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu - Birdman
3) Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel
4) Morten Tyldum - The Imitation Game
5) Ava DuVarney - Selma
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6) Clint Eastwood - American Sniper
7) David Fincher - Gone Girl
8) Damien Chazelle - Whiplash
9) Dan Gilroy - Nightcrawler
10) Bennett Miller - Foxcatcher

BEST ACTOR
1) Michael Keaton - Birdman
2) Eddie Redmayne - The Theory of Everything
3) Benedict Cumberbatch - The Imitation Game
4) Jake Gyllenhaal - Nightcrawler
5) David Oyelowo - Selma
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6) Steve Carell - Foxcatcher
7) Bradley Cooper - American Sniper
8) Timothy Spall - Mr. Turner
9) Ralph Fiennes - The Grand Budapest Hotel
10) Miles Teller - Whiplash

BEST ACTRESS
1) Julianne Moore - Still Alice
2) Reese Witherspoon - Wild
3) Felicity Jones - The Theory of Everything
4) Rosamund Pike - Gone Girl
5) Amy Adams - Big Eyes
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6) Jennifer Aniston - Cake
7) Hilary Swank - The Homesman
8) Scarlett Johannsen - Under the Skin
9) Jessica Chastain - The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby
10) Gugu Mbatha-Raw - Beyond the Lights

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
1) J.K. Simmons - Whiplash
2) Edward Norton - Birdman
3) Ethan Hawke - Boyhood
4) Mark Ruffalo - Foxcatcher
5) Robert Duvall - The Judge
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6) Christoph Waltz - Big Eyes
7) Steve Carell - Foxcatcher
8) Josh Brolin - Inherent Vice
9) Tom Wilkinson - Selma
10) Riz Ahmed - Nightcrawler

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1) Patricia Arquette - Boyhood
2) Keira Knightley - The Imitation Game
3) Emma Stone - Birdman
4) Meryl Streep - Into the Woods
5) Laura Dern - Wild
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6) Jessica Chastain - A Most Violent Year
7) Rene Russo - Nightcrawler
8) Kirsten Stewart - Still Alice
9) Naomi Watts - St. Vincent
10) Tilda Swinton - Snowpiercer

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1) The Imitation Game - Graham Moore
2) The Theory of Everything - Anthony McCarten
3) Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
4) Whiplash - Damien Chazelle
5) Wild - Nick Hornby
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6) American Sniper - Jason Hall
7) Inherent Vice - Paul Thomas Anderson
8) Still Alice - Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland
9) Unbroken - Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese, William Nicholson
10) A Most Wanted Man - Andrew Bovell

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1) Birdman - Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo
2) Boyhood - Richard Linklater
3) The Grand Budapest Hotel - Wes Anderson, Hugo Guinness
4) Nightcrawler - Dan Gilroy
5) Mr. Turner - Mike Leigh
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6) Selma - Paul Webb
7) Foxcatcher - E. Max Frye, Dan Futterman
8) A Most Violent Year - J.C. Chandor
9) St. Vincent - Theodore Melfi
10) Fury - David Ayer

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
1) Birdman - Emmanuel Lubezki
2) The Imitation Game - Oscar Faura
3) Nightcrawler - Robert Elswit
4) Interstellar - Hoyte Van Hotema
5) Mr. Turner - Dick Pope
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6) The Grand Budapest Hotel - Robert D. Yeoman
7) The Theory of Everything - Benoit Delhomme
8) Unbroken - Roger Deakins
9) Ida - Riszard Lenczewski, Lukasz Zal
10) Foxcatcher - Greig Frasier

BEST FILM EDITING
1) Birdman - Douglas Crise, Stephen Mirrione
2) Boyhood - Sandra Adair
3) Whiplash - Tom Cross
4) Nightcrawler - John Gilroy
5) The Imitation Game - William Goldenberg
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6) Gone Girl - Kirk Baxter

7) American Sniper - Joel Cox, Gary Roach

8) The Grand Budapest Hotel - Barney Pilling

9) The Theory of Everything - Jinx Godfrey

10) Interstellar - Lee Smith

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

1) The Theory of Everything - Johann Johannsson 

2) The Imitation Game - Alexandre Dusplat

3) Interstellar - Hans Zimmer

4) The Grand Budapest Hotel - Alexandre Desplat

5) Gone Girl - Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross

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6) Unbroken - Alexandre Desplat

7) Nightcrawler - James Newton Howard

8) The Judge - Thomas Newman

9) Under the Skin - Mica Levi

10) Fury - Steven Price

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

1) Selma - "Glory"

2) The LEGO Movie - "Everything Is Awesome"

3) Begin Again- "Lost Stars"

4) Big Eyes - "Big Eyes"

5) Beyond the Lights - "Grateful"

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6) Unbroken - "Miracles"

7) Boyhood - "Ryan's Song"

8) Annie - "Opportunity"

9) The Book of Life - "The Apology Song"

10) The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - "The Last Goodbye"

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

1) The Grand Budapest Hotel

2) The Imitation Game

3) Mr. Turner

4) Into the Woods

5) Big Eyes

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6) Interstellar

7) Birdman

8) Guardians of the Galaxy

9) The Theory of Everything

10) The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

1) The Grand Budapest Hotel

2) Into the Woods

3) Mr. Turner

4) Selma

5) Maleficent

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6) The Imitation Game

7) Inherent Vice

8) The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

9) Big Eyes

10) Grace of Monaco

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

1) Guardians of the Galaxy

2) The Grand Budapest Hotel

3) The Theory of Everything

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4) Foxcatcher

5) Maleficent

6) Noah

7) The Amazing Spider-Man 2

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS1) Interstellar

2) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

3) Guardians of the Galaxy

4) The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

5) Godzilla

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6) Maleficent
7) X-Men: Days of Future Past
8) Captain America: The Winter Soldier
9) Transformers: Age of Extinction
10) Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb

BEST SOUND MIXING
1) Guardians of the Galaxy
2) American Sniper
3) Birdman
4) Interstellar
5) Whiplash
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6) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
7) The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
8) Noah
9) Into the Woods
10) Unbroken

BEST SOUND EDITING
1) Guardians of the Galaxy
2) American Sniper
3) Interstellar
4) Birdman
5) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
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6) Whiplash
7) The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
8) Unbroken
9) Noah
10) Fury

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
1) Ida - Poland
2) Leviathan - Russia
3) Timbuktu - Mautitania
4) Wild Tales - Argentina
5) The Liberator - Venezuela
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6) Force Majeure - Sweden
7) Tangerines - Estonia
8) Accused - Netherlands
9) Corn Island - Georgia

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
1) The LEGO Movie
2) How to Train Your Dragon 2
3) The Boxtrolls
4) Big Hero 6
5) Song of the Sea
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6) The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
7) The Book of Life
8) Mr. Peabody & Sherman
9) Cheatin
10) Rio 2

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
1) CITIZENFOUR
2) The Overnighters
3) Life Itself
4) Tales of the Grim Sleeper
5) Virunga
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6) Last Days in Vietnam
7) Keep On Keepin' On
8) The Case Against 8
9) Finding Vivian Maier
10) The Kill Team

2014 Oscar Predictions

It's been a refreshingly wide-open Oscar season this year, and as a result we head into this year's telecast with what might be the first actual wide-open Best Picture race in some time (at least since 2006, when The Departed won over Babel, Little Miss Sunshine, Letters from Iwo Jima, and The Queen). Of course, calling it "wide-open" is a bit of a misnomer, as should anything other than 12 Years a Slave, Gravity, or American Hustle win the big prize, it would be a monumental upset.

But while each of the three frontrunners could conceivably win, most predictions have it coming down to 12 Years and Gravity, with 12 Years emerging last-minute as the slight favourite to win. And it does make sense: it's won the most Best Picture precursors, and has the obvious advantage in genre and subject matter to the traditionally conservative Academy. But Gravity's strengths can't be ignored. It's almost guaranteed to win more total awards than any other film (with wins for Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and Cinematography nearly set in stone), and Alfonso Cuaron is the large favourite to win Best Director no matter what happens. But notably, it doesn't have a screenplay nomination, and with only Sandra Bullock's performance to draw on, it won't have the above-the-line support amongst the Academy that 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle will.

And while I don't think that American Hustle is going to win, its level of support there could be the tipping point towards either of the two favourites.  Because for the most part, I think that the more votes American Hustle gets, the more it will siphon them away from 12 Years a Slave and give Gravity a chance to take the prize. Gravity has obvious support from the technical branches and younger Academy members, and the overseas contingent is probably split evenly between it and 12 Years. But the acting branch of the Academy has always been its largest by far, and they were the ones that propelled Hustle to four acting nominations including unexpected ones for Christian Bale and Amy Adams. If the actors continue to show their support for David O. Russell's film, it probably won't be enough to propel any of the four actors to an individual statue, but their votes in the Best Picture race are far more likely to take away 12 Years a Slave than they will Gravity. I'm going a bit against my gut with my pick here, but I can't shake that nagging feeling that it might just turn out that way.

And how the technical awards play out as the broadcast goes on will be telling. Watch categories like Costume Design, Production Design, and Film Editing. If they end up going to Gravity, we could be heading for a sweep; likewise, if 12 Years a Slave picks up unexpected wins in those categories it will almost certainly win Best Picture at the end. If those categories end up being spread around to films like Hustle, Captain Phillips, and The Great Gatsby, then we'll still be in suspense all the way up to when the final envelope is opened.

My predictions follow (and yes, I'm picking Bad Grandpa to win Best Makeup, because why not? I know if I were an Academy member I wouldn't be able to resist voting for it):

BEST PICTURE: Gravity
2) 12 Years a Slave
3) American Hustle
(Dallas Buyers Club; Captain Phillips; The Wolf of Wall Street; Her; Nebraska; Philomena)

BEST DIRECTOR: Alfonso Cuaron - Gravity
2) Steve McQueen - 12 Years a Slave
3) David O. Russell - American Hustle
(Martin Scorsese - The Wolf of Wall Street; Alexander Payne - Nebraska)

BEST ACTOR: Matthew McConaughey - Dallas Buyers Club
2) Leonardo DiCaprio - The Wolf of Wall Street
3) Chiwetel Ejiofor - 12 Years a Slave
(Bruce Dern - Nebraska; Christan Bale - American Hustle)

BEST ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett - Blue Jasmine
2) Sandra Bullock - Gravity
3) Amy Adams - American Hustle
(Judi Dench - Philomena; Meryl Streep - August: Osage County)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Jared Leto - Dallas Buyers Club
2) Michael Fassbender - 12 Years a Slave
3) Barkhad Abdi - Captain Phillips
(Bradley Cooper - American Hustle; Jonah Hill - The Wolf of Wall Street)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Lupita Nyong'o - 12 Years a Slave
2) Jennifer Lawrence - American Hustle
3) June Squibb - Nebraska
(Julia Roberts - August: Osage County; Sally Hawkins - Blue Jasmine)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: American Hustle - David O. Russell and Eric Singer
2) Her - Spike Jonze
3) Nebraska - Bob Nelson
(Dallas Buyers Club; Blue Jasmine)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: 12 Years a Slave - John Ridley
2) The Wolf of Wall Street - Terence Winter
3) Captain Phillips - Billy Ray
(Philomena; Before Midnight)

BEST FILM EDITING: Captain Phillips - Christopher Rouse
2) Gravity - Alfonso Cuaron and Mark Sanger
3) American Hustle - Alan Baumgarten, Jay Cassidy, and Crispin Struthers
(12 Years a Slave; Dallas Buyers Club)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Gravity - Emmanuel Lubezki
2) Nebraska - Phedon Papamichael
3) Prisoners - Roger Deakins
(Inside Llewyn Davis; The Grandmaster)

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: The Great Gatsby - Catherine Martin and Beverly Dunn
2) Gravity - Andy Nicholson and Rosie Goodwin
3) 12 Years a Slave - Adam Stockhausen and Alice Baker
(Her; American Hustle)

BEST COSTUME DESIGN: American Hustle - Michael Wilkinson
2) The Great Gatsby - Catherine Martin
3) 12 Years a Slave - Patricia Norris
(The Invisible Woman; The Grandmaster)

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Gravity
2) The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
3) Iron Man 3
(Star Trek Into Darkness; The Lone Ranger)

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING: Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa
2) Dallas Buyers Club
3) The Lone Ranger

BEST ORIGINAL SONG: Frozen - "Let It Go" by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
2) Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom - "Ordinary Love" by U2
3) Despicable Me 2 - "Happy" by Pharrell Williams
4) Her - "The Moon Song" by Karen Orzolek and Spike Jonze

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: Gravity - Steven Price
2) Philomena - Alexandre Desplat
3) Saving Mr. Banks - Thomas Newman
(Her; The Book Thief)

BEST SOUND MIXING: Gravity
2) Captain Phillips
3) Lone Survivor
(The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug; Inside Llewyn Davis)

BEST SOUND EDITING: Gravity
2) Captain Phillips
3) All Is Lost
(Lone Survivor; The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: The Hunt - Denmark
2) The Great Beauty - Italy
3) Omar - Palestine

(The Broken Circle Breakdown - Belgium; The Missing Picture - Cambodia)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: Frozen
2) The Wind Rises
3) Despicable Me 2
(The Croods; Ernest & Celestine)

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: The Act of Killing
2) 20 Feet from Stardom
3) The Square
(Dirty Wars; Cutie and the Boxer)

The Lone Flop - The Trouble with Disney's Live-Action Division

Johnny Depp in The Lone Ranger wonders where it all went wrong

This month, Disney's live-action The Lone Ranger, re-teaming Johnny Depp with Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski, landed with a resounding thud at the box office, with an opening weekend of $29 million (compared to the $83.5 million gross of animated sequel Despicable Me 2). Made for a reported $250 million budget, one that may possibly be inflated even more thanks to marketing costs and various delays, the film won't even be able to reach $100 million in the North American box office or $200 million including overseas. And while every major production house is allowed an expensive flop from time to time, this is Disney's second recent live-action disaster following 2012's John Carter, and even Carter had a successful overseas run ($209 million compared to $73 million domestic) to help offset its bloated investment cost.

Even with the largely successful Oz the Great and Powerful opening in between the two bombs and grossing $500 million worldwide, the failures of Carter and Lone Ranger have cast doubt over the future of Disney's live-action films division, particularly with two more big-budget films set for 2014 (Maleficient starring Angelina Jolie and the time-travelling epic Tomorrowland), neither of which will come with any guarantee of success in the same way that, say, a fifth Pirates film would. While, to a large degree, Disney's recent failures can be blamed on both budget spiralling out of control and a poor choice of subject matter (neither John Carter nor The Lone Ranger were properties that held any intrinsic appeal today), I'd also argue that Disney's recent decision to scale back their live-action division and focus only on big-budget "tentpole" films has actually hurt both the company's image and its bottom line.

In happier times, Depp's Pirates of the Caribbean launched a new era for Disney

In the 90's, Disney's fortune's at the box office were largely due to the renaissance in their animated films starting with The Little Mermaid. Their live-action films were largely low-budget family comedies  like The Parent Trap or sports movies like The Mighty Ducks, and their highest-grossing non-animated film domestically was Tim Allen's The Santa Clause with $144 million. However, 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean changed everything, becoming a runaway success that spawned a new focus by Disney on live-action franchises, from the four Pirates films to the huge grossers that were the first two Chronicles of Narnia and National Treasure films, and climaxing with 2010's Alice in Wonderland, which grosses over $1 billion worldwide. However, even as Disney was raking in the dollars with these films, there were also several aborted attempts at live-action franchises that were either middling successes (The Haunted Mansion, Race to Witch Mountain), or outright flops (Around the World in 80 Days, The Shaggy Dog).

But through the first decade of the 2000's, Disney continued to make lower-budget sports and family movies simultaneously with its new big-budget special effects extravaganzas. And many of these films, such as Remember the Titans, The Princess Diaries, Freaky Friday, and Bridge to Terabithia, were large successes for Disney, especially relative to their budget. Even when a film like Ice Princess or Old Dogs came and went at the box office with relatively little fanfare, they still grossed enough money to be worthwhile. There was some belief that forgettable stuff like many of the above films was "diluting" the Disney brand and hurting its overall reputation as a studio, but as recent years have shown, I believe the opposite has come true instead. By only releasing a few films, all of which have massive budgets, Disney is actually drawing more attention to itself when it performs poorly, and doesn't have the near-guaranteed profits of its smaller productions to help ease the losses a film like The Lone Ranger suffers.

Disney has moved away from budget-conscious films like The Muppets, to diminishing returns 

Since 2010, Disney has only released one sports film (Secretariat), and two low-budget kids films (Prom and The Odd Life of Timothy Green), as well as 2011's The Muppets, made for a budget conscious $50 million. Alongside these every other live-action film has had at least a $150 million budget, and only half of them have been true successes (Alice in Wonderland, Tron: Legacy, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and Oz the Great and Powerful). The rest have either barely broken even (The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Prince of Persia) or flopped (John Carter and The Lone Ranger). Had Disney been able to absorb these losses better with more low-risk, lower-budget films like The Muppets (which made a profit of $100 million), there would be far less talk about their live-action division being in trouble.

Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson in the upcoming Saving Mr. Banks

In the future though, it seems like Disney is coming to similar conclusions. In December of this year they'll be releasing Saving Mr. Banks, about the production of Mary Poppins and starring Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, and come 2014 they will also have a Muppets sequel, an adaptation of the children's book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, and a production of the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods alongside the aforementioned Maleficient and Tomorrowland. There are also various projects in development (such as Million Dollar Arm, based on the first Indian athletes to play baseball in the United States), which could indicate that Disney is seeking a return to the more varied productions of the last two decades. Of course, now that Disney has acquired the Star Wars franchise and is planning three new films for the second half of the 2010's, the small profits of its lower-budget films may not be necessary after all (on the other hand, given the likely budgets for them, they may be needed more than ever).

The Franchise vs. The Movie Star

Movie stars and Hollywood studios have had an uneasy marriage with each other since before the sound era in film begun, and so far this summer a number of films have served to answer (in varying ways) the question of whether an actor's name can sell a movie at all these days.

Over the past few years, we've increasingly seen a movement away from big-budget "star-driven" vehicles, with studios (Marvel, Pixar, etc.), or source material (Twilight, comic book movies, Transformers, etc.) seen as the industry's real stars. The presence of a veteran name above the title on the movie's poster is not enough to consistently post strong opening numbers, at least not without attaching the star to a strong enough franchise.

As I talked about in an earlier post, 2013's total box office numbers have continued to lag behind 2012, thanks largely to two enormous franchise films (The Hunger Games and The Avengers), that the current year thus far has had no hope of matching. While these lower grosses (2013 currently lags about 7% behind last year) are not indicative of a trend and will continue to improve as the year goes on, they nonetheless are bringing about lots of talk regarding increased tensions between traditional star vehicles and the seemingly guaranteed success of ensemble-cast, effects-driven franchises. Why bother paying Johnny Depp or Julia Roberts $20 million for a movie that you don't know will sell when you can make a Fast and Furious movie that pays the entire cast the same amount and will guarantee you $200 million in North America alone? Even looking at the case of Tom Cruise, probably the most consistent star of the last two decades when it comes to box office success, it seems that the franchise is more important than the star. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol grossed over $200 million in December of 2011, while Jack Reacher in December 2012 and Oblivion in April of this year only managed $80 and $90 million domestic, respectively. That doesn't make them financial disasters, but it's also not going to lead to any sequels.

Two recent summer movies have served rekindle this debate with their drastically opposite receptions. After Will Smith's sci-fi flick After Earth, which he produced and co-starred in with his teenage son Jaden, flopped badly a few weeks ago (looking to gross less than $60 million total in North America), discussion again turned to the nature of the film's marketing and whether stars such as Smith had lost their clout in Hollywood. After Earth's marketing focused almost entirely on Smith and his son, barely mentioning director M. Night Shyamalan (which may have been for the best, given how far Shyamalan's stock has fallen since The Sixth Sense), or offering much about the plot beyond the setup of a father and son stranded on a hostile, abandoned Earth in the far future. And a similar, if not perhaps as drastic, a fate was expected to befall Brad Pitt's World War Z this past weekend, which like After Earth had been produced by its star, and about which there had already been rumblings about on-set troubles and multiple reshoots driving the film's total cost close to the $200 million mark.

However, World War Z proved to defy almost all expectations, taking in an opening of $67 million (compared to After Earth's $27 million), and holding well in the days that followed. While World War Z is not a wholly original screenplay like After Earth was, the book it was based on (written by Max Brooks, son of Mel), was not a huge seller or established franchise like Harry Potter or The Hunger Games were, and it was marketed to the audience at large as a Pitt vehicle. However, it managed to avoid After Earth's fate, and in the process make the case that while the traditional movie star-driven vehicle may not be dead, it just has to be the right star vehicle. This includes the actual quality of the film (while World War Z didn't light the critic's world on fire, it was a solid summer flick whereas After Earth was panned as being on of the worst movies of the year so far), but also the more challenging task of reading the pop-culture environment and scheduling the movie right. World War Z was a zombie flick (a genre that, much like its source, seems to show no sign of dying out soon despite expectations to the contrary) and had the same sense of present-day apocalyptic mayhem that has been successful over the past few years in films like Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. The kind of far-in-the-future science fiction that After Earth took place in, however, is much more hit-and-miss. Even a moderately successful film like Prometheus can struggle to take in much more than $130 million or so domestically, while an outright flop like John Carter can end up nearly bankrupting the studio.

Of course, even in the case of a disaster, there is always one other saving grace that will ensure that the power of the individual movie star in Hollywood will remain strong. The foreign box office has show that international audiences will still turn out in large numbers to see a big star, turning mediocre performers like Cruise's Oblivion ($90 million domestic, $196 million international) into profitable releases, and big flops like After Earth ($58 million domestic, $130 million international) into something that at least breaks even.