Oscars 2021 predictions: Who will take home top honours at 93rd Academy Awards?
Will Chole Zaho's Nomadland continue its dominance on awards season success, or find its charming voyage cut short? Here is the final list of predictions for all 23 categories.
The New York Times expert has been closely tracking the various awards races all this season. Here are the movies and stars he expects to win at the Academy Awards on Sunday night.
(Also read on Firstpost: Oscars 2021: All you need to know about the reinvented awards ceremony)
BEST PICTURE
Nomadland has won nearly every major award this season, including top honours from the Producers Guild, the Directors Guild and the Golden Globes. By all accounts, this Frances McDormand road drama should be able to steamroll its way to the Oscars for the best picture. Then again, 1917 took the same prizes last year and still lost at the Oscars to Parasite. Could Nomadland find its charming voyage cut short, too?
Let’s look at the would-be insurgents. For many voters, Promising Young Woman is playing much like Parasite — it’s fresh and contemporary, tackles an important issue with a dark sense of humour, and ends in a way that demands conversation. There’s also Minari, which showed across-the-board strength similar to Nomadland and Promising Young Woman: In addition to nominations for best picture and directing, each of those three movies got nods for its screenplay, editing, and at least one member of its cast.
The Trial of the Chicago 7 won the top prize at the Screen Actors Guild, but I’m still iffy on its best-picture chances: Aaron Sorkin couldn’t land a directing nomination, and the film isn’t assured of a win in any other category. (Only three films have ever won best picture without picking up another Oscar first, and the last one was 1935’s Mutiny on the Bounty.)
If any contender can sneak past Nomadland, I think it would be Promising Young Woman. But the field is so diffuse that ultimately, I think the front-runner will hold.
Chloé Zhao and Frances McDormand on sets of Nomadland. Image from AP
BEST DIRECTOR
Lee Isaac Chung, Minari
Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman
David Fincher, Mank
✓Chloé Zhao, Nomadland
Thomas Vinterberg, Another Round
No matter what happens in the best-picture category, I still expect Nomadland director Zhao to win this Oscar after collecting every major directing prize this season, including the bellwether Directors Guild Award. It also helps that Zhao has a giant Marvel movie, Eternals, coming out in several months: That’s the sort of meteoric rise to A-list director that Oscar voters want to feel they helped facilitate. Zhao would become only the second woman to win the best director Oscar, after Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), and the first woman of colour to ever take this trophy.
BEST ACTOR
Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal
✓Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Anthony Hopkins, The Father
Gary Oldman, Mank
Steven Yeun, Minari
The dementia drama The Father is peaking at the right time, and the 83-year-old Hopkins delivers a titanic performance that could win votes at the last minute. Still, Hopkins already has an Oscar, and it’s hard to imagine voters won’t seize their only opportunity to give one to Boseman for a flashy role that showcased the late actor’s immense range.
Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
BEST ACTRESS
✓Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holiday
Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman
Frances McDormand, Nomadland
Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman
Of the four acting categories, this is almost certainly the closest race. McDormand leads the season’s strongest contender, but she has already won two best-actress Oscars and voters may not feel compelled to dole out a third so soon. Mulligan has never won an Oscar but is considered one of the greatest actresses of her generation, and her film is the category’s most talked-about entry. And then there’s Davis, the Screen Actors Guild winner, who won a supporting-actress Oscar four years ago for Fences. Of these three actresses, Davis has the most physically transformative role, and that sort of thing is catnip for voters. I’m projecting her to win in a squeaker.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Sacha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7
✓Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah
Leslie Odom Jr., One Night in Miami
Paul Raci, Sound of Metal
Lakeith Stanfield, Judas and the Black Messiah
The Golden Globe, SAG and BAFTA victor Kaluuya will win this Oscar in a walk for his fiery, charismatic performance as Black Panther activist Fred Hampton. Yes, there’s the possibility he’ll split a few votes with his co-star Stanfield, and yes, it’s utterly illogical that voters deemed them both to be supporting actors, but there’s ultimately no denying what Kaluuya has accomplished here. (And we can consider it a make-good for his should-have-been-nominated performance in Widows!)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy
Olivia Colman, The Father
Amanda Seyfried, Mank
✓Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari
Just a few weeks ago, this felt like anybody’s race, but after Youn won the SAG Award for playing the feisty grandma in Minari — and especially after she made a charming BAFTA acceptance speech that lightly tweaked the British voters for being “very snobbish people” — she’s assumed the pole position. The downside of what could be one of the night’s warmest wins is that her competitor Close is about to face her eighth acting loss, tying the record. Is it time to give the 74-year-old actress an honorary Oscar?
Yuh-Jung Youn and Alan S Kim in a still from Minari
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Judas and the Black Messiah
Minari
✓Promising Young Woman
Sound of Metal
The Trial of the Chicago 7
This category is filled with first-time nominees and then there’s Aaron Sorkin, who’s been nominated four times for his screenplays and won once, for The Social Network. That’s a hard competitor to knock off, but Emerald Fennell just managed it: At the Writers Guild Awards, her screenplay for Promising Young Woman beat out Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7. Voters appreciate nerve in the original screenplay category and Fennell’s story has undoubtedly got that, so while this race will be close, I project her to triumph in the end.
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
✓The Father
Nomadland
One Night in Miami
The best-picture winner almost always wins a screenplay award first, so the safe bet here would be Nomadland. Still, I think the late surge for The Father will ultimately pay off in this category: The wily way The Father scripts its story to keep you off balance registers as a writing achievement in a way that the semi-improvised Nomadland can’t quite manage.
Imogen Poots, Olivia Colman and Anthony Hopkins in The Father
ANIMATED FEATURE
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon
✓Soul
The plucky Wolfwalkers has plenty of support in the industry, but Soul managed additional Oscar nominations for its score and sound, and was also close to nabbing an original screenplay slot. A nominated Pixar film rarely falters in this category, so a happy afterlife for Soul is virtually guaranteed.
PRODUCTION DESIGN
The Father
✓Mank
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Films set in the modern-day or the future very rarely take this award, a strike against the clever staging of The Father and the day-after-tomorrow sci-fi of Tenet. Among the other three contenders, Mank is the only best-picture nominee — another key advantage — and the film’s recreation of golden-age Hollywood is maximal and expensive-looking in the way Oscar voters like to reward.
COSTUME DESIGN
Emma
✓Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Mank
Mulan
Pinocchio
The costume-design winner is usually the period movie with the most frocks, which ought to favour Emma and its eye-catching collection of macaron-coloured dresses. But the movie hasn’t picked up many prizes this season. Instead, all the momentum is with Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which outfits Davis and Boseman with such memorable panache. Should it triumph, the 89-year-old costume designer Ann Roth will become the oldest woman to ever win an Oscar.
A still from Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Sean Bobbitt, Judas and the Black Messiah
Erik Messerschmidt, Mank
Dariusz Wolski, News of the World
✓Joshua James Richards, Nomadland
Phedon Papamichael, The Trial of the Chicago 7
Mank is Erik Messerschmidt’s first feature-film credit, and it’s a dazzling debut made in very showy black and white. But over the past five decades, only two black-and-white films have scored victories in this category: Schindler’s List, which won the best picture, and Roma, which came awfully close. Since Mank now feels like a best-picture also-ran, I expect this award will go to the front-runner, Nomadland, with its expressive collection of cool dawns and warm sunsets in the American West.
EDITING
The Father
Nomadland
Promising Young Woman
✓Sound of Metal
The Trial of the Chicago 7
Sound of Metal took this award at BAFTA, which surprised me, given how subtle and unflashy its editing is: Did Riz Ahmed’s heavy-metal drummer remind voters of Whiplash, a much more vigorously cut Oscar winner? If that’s the case, Sound of Metal could sneak away with the Oscar, too, though the constant crosscutting of The Trial of the Chicago 7 calls so much attention to itself that it can’t be counted out.
Riz Ahmed in a still from Sound of Metal. Image via Facebook/soundofmetaluk
MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Emma
Hillbilly Elegy
✓Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Mank
Pinocchio
In other tech categories, more is better, but not here: To win the makeup and hairstyling Oscar, you can get away with just a single character makeover that resonates. (Think of when The Grand Budapest Hotel, which put Tilda Swinton in old-age makeup, won over the vast and plentiful alien looks of Guardians of the Galaxy.) Hillbilly Elegy does a good job of weathering Glenn Close, but the film is too derided to win. The front-runner here is Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which gives you a Viola Davis you’ve never seen before: Sweaty and swaggering, with her eyes encased in dark makeup, her skin and gold teeth both glistening.
SOUND
Mank
News of the World
Soul
✓Sound of Metal
This is perhaps the night’s most slam-dunk winner. Sound of Metal is all about the main character’s relationship to sound, from the aural assault of the heavy metal he plays to the more subtle sonic vibrations picked up as his hearing begins to fade. That puts the movie a significant cut above its meticulously assembled competition.
Still from Mank
VISUAL EFFECTS
Love and Monsters
Mulan
✓Tenet
Since most of the effects-heavy blockbusters were pushed back a year because of the pandemic, this category was filled out with lower-profile films like Love and Monsters and The One and Only Ivan. That clears the field for Tenet: Yes, Christopher Nolan’s action sequences were a bit confusing, but you can’t quibble with the incredible craft required to bring them to life.
SCORE
Da 5 Bloods
Mank
Minari
News of the World
✓Soul
Composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are double-nominated in this category: Though they worked on the nomination leader Mank, their best shot at winning is the jazz-inflected Soul, which they scored with Jon Batiste. The fact that the film is about a musician will give Soul the edge.
Jamie Foxx voices Joe Gardener in Pixar's Soul | YouTube
SONG
'Husavik' (Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga)
'Fight for You' (Judas and the Black Messiah)
'Io Sì (Seen)' (The Life Ahead)
✓'Speak Now' (One Night in Miami)
'Hear My Voice' (The Trial of the Chicago 7)
Look, it’s not a sterling year for the best-song category. There’s no megastar here on the level of the past two winners, Elton John and Lady Gaga, nor is there even a radio hit or an inescapable Disney banger. Four of these nominees don’t even play until the end credits — and in the streaming era, are people really staying put through the end credits? That could give the edge to Husavik', which is actually performed during its movie ... but that movie is a Will Ferrell comedy called Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, a title that doesn’t exactly scream prestige. So I’ll go with the safe bet: 'Speak Now' from One Night in Miami, performed by supporting-actor nominee Leslie Odom Jr.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Collective
A man, his octopus and an Oscar? The unlikely duo at the heart of My Octopus Teacher may find their bond consecrated with an Academy Award, as both BAFTA and PGA voters went big for this nature documentary, vaulting it over more acclaimed films like Time and Crip Camp.
INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
✓Another Round, Denmark
Better Days, Hong Kong
Collective, Romania
The Man Who Sold His Skin, Tunisia
Quo Vadis, Aida? Bosnia and Herzegovina
The shattering war film Quo Vadis, Aida? deserved more awards attention, like some best-actress recognition for its powerful lead, Jasna Duricic. But the well-liked Danish dramedy Another Round, with a recognizable star in Mads Mikkelsen and a directing nomination for Thomas Vinterberg, will be hard to beat in this category.
Mads Mikkelsen in Another Round
ANIMATED SHORT
Burrow
Genius Loci
✓If Anything Happens I Love You
Opera
Yes People
In a field that’s mostly dominated by wordless, whimsical shorts, If Anything Happens I Love You stands out by virtue of its thematic heft: It’s about two parents grieving the daughter who perished in a school shooting. It also doesn’t hurt that the film is available on Netflix and lists the Oscar winner Laura Dern as an executive producer.
DOCUMENTARY SHORT
✓Colette
A Concerto Is a Conversation
Do Not Split
Hunger Ward
A Love Song for Latasha
Some pundits favour A Concerto Is a Conversation, a warm story about the composer Kris Bowers and his grandfather (the film premiered on the New York Times site as part of Op-Docs), or A Love Song for Latasha, about a Black teenager killed the year before the Los Angeles riots. Hunger Ward, about starving children in Yemen, may be too harrowing for voters, while Do Not Split, with its you-are-there footage of recent protests in Hong Kong, has got to be the most galvanising. Still, I predict the winner will be Colette, a tear-jerker about an elderly woman visiting the World War II concentration camp where her brother died: Historically, you don’t want to bet against an Oscar nominee that involves the Holocaust and Nazi Germany.
LIVE-ACTION SHORT
Feeling Through
The Letter Room
The Present
White Eye
It’s still outrageous that the year’s best short film, Pedro Almodóvar’s fabulous Tilda Swinton psychodrama The Human Voice, wasn’t even nominated in this category. Among the shorts that did make it through, The Letter Room boasts star power in lead Oscar Isaac (it’s directed by his wife, Elvira Lind), but the front-runner here is Two Distant Strangers, about a Black man trapped in a Groundhog Day scenario where he is killed over and over by a white cop. Though the movie has kicked up a small backlash online — a Los Angeles Times article called it “Black trauma porn” — voters often gravitate toward blunt shorts about big issues.
Kyle Buchanan c.2021 The New York Times Company
Oscars 2021 will air in India on 26 April at 5:30 AM on Star World and Star Movies.
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