Oscar nominations will be announced a week from today (Thur 1/14), and while the final number in the Best Picture slate is based on how the math tabulates among the preferential ballots, the final total is likely to end up in the 8-10 range.
The following titles are considered the most likely to be in that final slate, based on how the award circuit and guild voting has gone so far this year. Regardless of who you personally hope gets in, which films do you think are MOST LIKELY to be among the final nominees? Please limit your response to 10 selections.
I’ve been thinking that since they nominate ten movies now, The Force Awakens might get a courtesy Best Picture nomination based on cinematography, effects, costume, make-up, and such. But with no acting, directing, or screenwriting nods.
My “Other”: The Force Awakens. No way it doesn’t get a nomination - every movie that has broken the non-adjusted box office record has been nominated, and many of them have won B. Picture:
1939: Gone With the Wind (won)
1965: Sound of Music (won)
1972: The Godfather (won)
1975: Jaws (nominated)
1977: Star Wars (nominated)
1982: ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (nominated)
1997: Titanic (won)
2009: Avatar (nominated)
(I may have forgotten one or three, but the point remains.)
I also think it’s in contention for Best Picture. It has made a lot of voters a lot of money, everybody loves a happy ending, Disney is a power, it’s a pretty good movie in and of itself, it largely lived up to impossible expectations… yeah, it’s not the most artistic or the most penetrating of the human condition or whatever, but it is Star Wars and if the series is ever going to win B. Picture, this is the movie.
… Unless the finale is completely stunning, but why take that chance. TFA for 2015!
My reason for not including SW:TFA is simple. The Producers Guild of America has become one of the most reliable forecasters for the Oscar Best Picture nomination slate. They are also prone to embracing more popular films, too. In the past, they nominated The Dark Knight, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Skyfall, The Incredibles, Shrek, Bridesmaids the first Harry Potter film and even the JJ Abrams Star Trek, and even though none of these went on to Best Picture nods, the suggestion is that they all came close.
But even with 10 slots at their disposal this year, they didn’t have room for the new Star Wars (which has otherwise gotten no serious award traction anywhere else). Here are their choices. Essentially, consider it the year’s Jurassic Park–brand new all-time moneymaking blockbuster (missing from JohnT’s list) that only gets a handful of craft/technical nods.
I didn’t vote for Trumbo, but quickly realized it’s perfect Oscar bait. Hollywood does love their masturbatory self-aggrandizing movies, moreso if they’re actually good!
That makes sense. I just looked at IMDB to see how many other nominations that Force Awakens has gotten so far, and it’s just 10 nominations. Compared to Mad Max: Fury Road, another big budget blockbuster type movie, which has gotten 110 nominations so far for various things.
Something weird could happen, and Star Wars could get a Best Picture nomination, but I would be surprised.
The Academy is made up of thousand of individuals, in a myriad of occupations, from all around the world. It’s not like there’s a small committee of mad studio heads hunched over a war room table in an underground Hollywood lair, deciding these things. Trumbo will not be a Best Picture nominee, though Cranston might get a well-deserved nomination from his fellow actors. It will be based on the performance though, not the fact that it’s a “Hollywood” movie.
I’m pretty sure Star Wars will not be one of the BP nominees. I dearly love it too, and would like to be surprised by its inclusion, but it won’t be there.
My prediction? Beasts of No Nation will be shut out. The theaters are annoyed that it was released to Netflix at the same time it was released to theaters and I think the studios are nervous about Netflix.
I think the issue with SW is how late it was released. A late release with few screeners means it wasn’t really in the debate for the earlier awards. Tricky problem for those who nominate.
Revenant and Hateful Eight have always been in the Oscar discussions, despite their later releases than SW. And they’ve both gotten lots of nominations for awards so far, with 101 for Revenant and 61 for Hateful Eight. Selma had a late release last year and that made it not get a PGA nomination, but it still got nominated for Best Picture.
Late releases do make things trickier, but not by a huge amount. And screeners are essential for those smaller movies that are at fewer theaters, but I’d guess that a significant portion of the nominating bloc of Academy Award members have gone out to see SW in a theater, since a significant portion of the human population has done so.
