These are the favourites to take home Oscar statuettes.
The awards season will see its denouement with 90th Academy Awards on March 5, and as it always happens, there is intense speculation as to who will and who should take home the gilded statuettes. Oscars can be pretty predictable, and most awards are given to firm favourites. But sometimes, just sometimes, the Academy manages to pull of a surprise. Predicting winners, thus, may be an easy or difficult task depending on the year and the category. In the biggest of categories like Best Picture, there are few surprises.
Oscars, although byword for excellence in cinema, are also pretty inconsistent. The Academy, usually, does not reward films, for example, for entertainment alone. There has to be something innovative in the style of filmmaking, some strong social message, something groundbreaking, and so on. But that is not always the case. Crowd-pleasers too have won Oscar for Best Picture. This unpredictability of Oscar awards makes prediction something of an irony.
Anyway, here are our predictions for Oscars 2018 arranged according to the category.
Best Picture
Call Me by Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Hardly anybody would bat an eye if any film from the above won the Oscar for Best Picture, except perhaps for Darkest Hour. They are all so good. We predict The Shape of Water. The delightful inter-species romance was snubbed at Golden Globes, although Guillermo del Toro did take home the Best Director trophy.
Best Actor
Timothée Chalamet (Call Me by Your Name)
Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread)
Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out)
Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel, Esq)
Gary Oldman should take it, though one would not want to discount Timothée Chalamet either. Oldman, though, has the distinction of making an average film like Darkest Hour actually worthwhile.
Best Actress
Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water)
Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Margot Robbie (I, Tonya)
Saorise Ronan (Lady Bird)
Meryl Streep (The Post)
Even those of us who did not like the character arc of Sam Rockwell’s character in Three Billboards loved Frances McDormand’s performance as the vengeful mother, both pitiful and inspiring, looking for justice for her raped and murdered daughter. McDormand is probably the most likely candidate, but Sally Hawkins may surprise us.
Best Supporting Actor
Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project)
Woody Harrelson (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Richard Jenkins (The Shape of Water)
Christopher Plummer (All the Money in the World)
Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Three Billboards may have two actors in this category, but Willem Dafoe should take this.
Best Supporting Actress
Mary J Blige (Mudbound)
Allison Janney (I, Tonya)
Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread)
Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird)
Octavia Spencer (The Shape of Water)
Mary J Blige was brilliant, but Allison Janney has been a favourite in the awards season. Laurie Metcalf, too, deserves to take this award for her affecting performance in Lady Bird.
Best Animated Film
Boss Baby
The Breadwinner
Coco
Ferdinand
Loving Vincent
Coco won millions of hearts, but it is pitted against Loving Vincent. But Pixar’s movies have fared well at Oscars, and Coco should take this.
Best Cinematography
Roger A Deakins (Blade Runner 2049)
Bruno Delbonnel (Darkest Hour)
Dunkirk (Hoyte van Hoytema)
Mudbound (Rachel Morrison)
The Shape of Water (Dan Laustsen)
This should be a race for the first spot between Blade Runner 2049’s Roger A Deakins and Dunkirk’s Hoyte van Hoytema, both deserving. But this is Deakins’s 14th nomination and this is his best chance.
Best Director
Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk)
Jordan Peele (Get Out)
Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)
Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)
The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)
Dunkirk is probably the best-directed movie among these contenders, and Nolan, who has been snubbed many times before despite critical praise, deserves it just for inventing a distinctive style of filmmaking. However, Guillermo del Toro will likely take it.
Best Original Score
Hans Zimmer (Dunkirk)
Jonny Greenwood (Phantom Thread)
Alexandre Desplat (The Shape of Water)
John Williams (Star Wars: The Last Jedi)
Carter Burwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Tough to choose between Hans Zimmer and Alexandre Desplat, who has been the favourite this awards season, but Jonny Greenwood may emerge as a dark horse in this race.
Best Visual Effects
Blade Runner 2049
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Kong: Skull Island
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
War for the Planet of the Apes
Blade Runner 2049 would probably take this. But it is time Planet of the Apes franchise got its due. The geeks behind the camera, and actors (especially Andy Serkis) have pushed the boundaries of motion-capture and CGI so far that it would be hard for others to catch up in the next half decade.
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