Not Getting My Hopes Up: 2020 Oscars Predictions

A year hasn't been long enough to get rid of the stink of Green Book's win last year—a win that both damaged the Academy's (already shaky) credibility as well as the legacy of the film itself. Green Book—not actually a terrible film!—will now go down with Crash—also not actually a terrible film!—as one of the worst Best Picture winners in recent history. Now, whenever it is mentioned among cinephiles and Oscar enthusiasts, it'll be greeted with teeth-gnashing and derision—when it could have just been remembered as a well-intentioned, if ham-handed, minor box office hit like, I dunno, Little Miss Sunshine or something. And the Academy really shot themselves in the foot by selecting it for the top prize, undoing almost all of the progress and good will that came from the Moonlight over La La Land upset in 2016. If there had been a stronger top challenger than Roma—an outstanding film, but not exactly a cultural touchstone—the Oscars might've been relegated to the same out-of-touch irrelevancy as the Grammys. I don't think there's any danger of that with this year's Best Picture field, but last year's ceremony really underscored just how frustratingly unpredictable the Academy is. It is ever diversifying—growing more multicultural, younger, and female than it has been in the past—but there's still a sizable old (white male) guard that still has the muscle to put a film like Green Book over the top. All of which is to say that I have absolutely no idea how things will play out in the non-acting categories on Sunday. The field is that wide open. The favorites in acting categories all seem to be locked in, although I think there will be one Olivia Colman–esque upset this year. So, let's get to the predictions already, starting as the ceremony itself usually does, with the supporting performances. (Note: I reserve the right to change picks before the ceremony starts!)

Gold = predicted winner

Best Supporting Actress
Kathy Bates – Richard Jewell
Laura Dern – Marriage Story
Scarlett Johansson – Jojo Rabbit
Florence Pugh – Little Women
Margot Robbie – Bombshell

Golden Globe, BAFTA, SAG—Laura Dern has won all the major precursors and seems overwhelmingly likely to break through with her first Oscar win (in three tries). She's typically great in Marriage Story, even if she wouldn't get my vote. Interesting note: Dern is on the Academy Board of Governors, so expect a raucous round of applause when she wins. In the event of a massive upset, keep an eye on first-time nominee Scarlett Johannson, who people seem to like in the mawkish Jojo Rabbit. But Dern and ScarJo and the rest would all be behind Florence Pugh on my ballot. She's sensational in Little Women.

My Non-Existent Vote: Pugh

Best Supporting Actor

Tom Hanks – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Anthony Hopkins – The Two Popes

Al Pacino – The Irishman

Joe Pesci – The Irishman
Brad Pitt – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

We'll very likely have another first-time winner here in Brad Pitt, who plays a handsome man in the film industry in QT's Hollywood fairytale. He gave a better performance in another film (Ad Astra), doesn't give the best performance in his movie (that would be Leo), and at least one other nominee here was better in their film (Pacino), but no one will care about any of those things on Sunday when he takes the podium, statue in hand. (For the record, he'll be a very worthy winner.) This category seems the least likely for an upset, but Pesci is probably the best longshot.

My Non-Existent Vote: Pacino

Best Actress

Cynthia Erivo – Harriet
Scarlett Johansson – Marriage Story

Saoirse Ronan – Little Women
Charlize Theron – Bombshell
Renée Zellweger – Judy

Renée Zellweger is almost certain to win her second Oscar in a lackluster field. Best Actress is almost always stronger than Best Actor, but the opposite is true this year. We've got two impressions of real-world figures (Zellweger and Theron), one rote biopic portrayal of a historical figure (Erivo), and one beloved literary character (Ronan). There's only one original character—Johansson, who's actually quite good. (Compare that to three original characters for the men, and four in this category last year.) That's not to say the other performances aren't good—they're all solid, and Ronan is very good—but the degree of difficulty is lowered when you have to portray someone who really existed or has been portrayed in other films. This category is just behind Supporting Actor as least likely for an upset, but I think it'd be Erivo if anyone.

My Non-Existent Vote: Ronan

Best Actor

Antonio Banderas – Pain and Glory

Leonardo DiCaprio – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Adam Driver – Marriage Story
Joaquin Phoenix – Joker
Jonathan Pryce – The Two Popes

This field was a joke last year, so it's only fitting that, this year, Joaquin Phoenix will be the second man to win an Oscar for playing the Joker. Rather than channeling the legend himself, Heath Ledger (R.I.P., always), he instead channeled Bruce Wayne himself and went full Bale—massive weight loss, fanatical Method-ism. It's not the best performance of the year or even of his career, but it's certainly memorable and I don't really have a problem with him winning. That said, this is the category that has the most upset potential, given the exhausting discourse around Phoenix's film. Banderas or, especially, Driver could pull off the shocker.

My Non-Existent Vote: Banderas

Best Adapted Screenplay

Greta Gerwig – Little Women
Anthony McCarten – The Two Popes
Todd Phillips and Scott Silver – Joker
Taika Waititi – Jojo Rabbit
Steven Zaillian – The Irishman

This is where things start to get interesting, as there's no clear-cut frontrunner like in the acting categories. I don't think it'll be The Two Popes (too minor), The Irishman (too unfocused), or Joker (too divisive), so I think it'll come down to Little Women and Jojo Rabbit. There was a lot of vitriol in the Twittersphere when Gerwig (among others) missed out on a Best Director nomination, which makes me think she has a chance here—and, like Jojo Rabbit, this might be the voters' only chance to award the film. But I suspect that the cutesy-ness and Holocaust connections of Jojo Rabbit will (undeservedly) win it for Taika Waititi. Waititi is incredibly likable, but I don't love his writing for the most part. But if this is the only major award the film wins, I'll consider it a victory.

My Non-Existent Vote: Gerwig

Best Original Screenplay

Noah Baumbach – Marriage Story
Bong Joon-ho – Parasite
Rian Johnson – Knives Out
Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns – 1917
Quentin Tarantino – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

The other writing category is even more wide-open—I could see Baumbach, Bong, or QT winning. (Johnson's win was the nomination, and 1917 barely needed a script—only a slight exaggeration.) OUATIH seems to have a lot of support—Hollywood loves movies about the movies, etc.—but I'm having a hard time seeing it winning anything substantial apart from Supporting Actor. Baumbach was the nominal frontrunner at one point for Marriage Story, but he doesn't seem to have ton of arduous support... unlike Bong Joon-ho, who I think—and hope—wins it here. He won the WGA award, and there seems to be a groundswell of support for Parasite of late. Will it be enough to win the big prize? I have my doubts, but it seems like a fairly safe pick here.

My Non-Existent Vote: Bong

Best Director

Bong Joon-ho – Parasite

Sam Mendes – 1917
Todd Phillips – Joker
Martin Scorsese – The Irishman
Quentin Tarantino – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Like Best Picture very well could, this one should come down to two films—Parasite and 1917. Phillips is in the "nomination was the win" category, Scorsese is nothing more than a sentimental favorite, and QT is a well-regarded also-ran. Although I'd love to see Bong win here, it's hard to make a case for him based on anything other than gut and admiration for his film. Other than something called a "Palme D'or"—which has basically zero predictive value for the Oscars—he hasn't won a single precursor. Meanwhile, Mendes has the big three (Golden Globe, BAFTA, and DGA), and the list of directors who have lost the Oscar after winning those three is minuscule. Plus the optics are clearly in Mendes's favor—Parasite is a foreign-language film and 1917 is a war spectacle. I don't think Bong can overcome these major hurdles, meaning I think Sam Mendes will win him a second Best Director Oscar. An upset definitely can't be counted out, though—especially given Picture/Director splits have become more common of late.

My Non-Existent Vote: Bong

Best Picture

1917
Ford v Ferrari
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
Marriage Story
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite

There seems to be two main contenders here and two dark horses. Off the bat, I think we can wave goodbye to Ford v Ferrari (which I loved but is a bit out of its depth in this race), The Irishman (should've been a miniseries and feels like it), Joker (the Academy isn't ready for a comic book movie to win Best Picture), Little Women (a Very Fine Picture that never had a chance here), and Marriage Story (an actors/writers movie, not a Best Picture winner). The potential spoilers are Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (which seemed like the frontrunner at one point) and Jojo Rabbit (please god no that would be worse than Green Book). UOATIH could benefit from a some kind of strange split at the top and/or some funkiness with the preferential balloting system—its support doesn't seem particularly deep, but it could be very broad. A Jojo Rabbit win would be the opposite—maybe it lands at the top of an unexpected number of ballots? I fervently hope not, but I could maybe see it. But the most likely scenario is a 1917/Parasite showdown, which seems weird. A WWI epic (not exactly the most timely material) and a foreign-language dark comedy/thriller (whose material is incredibly timely). Strange bedfellows, indeed. A 1917 win would largely be a shrug from the Academy—it's a well-made film but has no societal significance, and war epics are a dime a dozen in Oscars history. It wouldn't be backtracking like Green Book was—it'd be more like when The Artist won. Boring and meaningless. But if Parasite were to pull off the upset... man, what a statement. The first foreign-language film to win Best Picture, and a genuine masterpiece to boot. But when it comes down to it, I think enough Academy voters will make the easy choice and mark down 1917 as the winner here. Although Film Twitter might very well melt down, I don't think there will be as much teeth-gnashing in general as when Green Book won last year. I'm hoping for the best, but am preparing for meh. AMPAS has fooled me too many times to get my hopes up—I'm still stinging from the The King's Speech win over The Social Network. But as long as Jojo fucking Rabbit doesn't win, I'll be happy. I hope that's not too much to ask.

My Non-Existent Vote: Parasite

Now for the rest of the categories, lightning-round style.

Best International Feature Film

Parasite (South  Korea) – Bong Joon-ho

I'll just leave the same text as last year: Duh—if you're the only foreign language film to be nominated for Best Picture, you're gonna win this category. One of the easier calls of the night.

My Non-Existent Vote: Parasite

Best Animated Film 

Toy Story 4 – Josh Cooley, Jonas Rivera, and Mark Nielsen

It seems like a bad idea to bet against Pixar and the Toy Story franchise in general, but do note that Klaus won the Annie Award this year.

My Non-Existent Vote: Toy Story 4 (the only one I've seen, but it was great)

Best Documentary Feature

American Factory – Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert and Jeff Reichert

As usual, I haven't seen any of the nominees, so I'm flying blind here. Just not a documentary person. *shrug ASCII* This one seems to be the consensus winner among prognosticators.

My Non-Existent Vote: Abstain (have not seen any of the nominees)

Best Documentary Short

Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl) – Carol Dysinger and Elena Andreicheva

Leaving the text from last year again: Another complete guess. You would have to pay me so much money to sit through not one but five documentaries.

My Non-Existent Vote: Abstain (have not seen any of the nominees)

Best Animated Short

Hair Love – Rosana Sullivan and Kathryn Hendrickson

The two frontunners in an underwhelming field—this and Pixar's Kitbull—are both cutesy, but this one is less so and is also less clichéd. But like I said above, it's usually a bad idea to bet against Pixar.

My Non-Existent Vote: Memorable – Bruno Collet and Jean-François Le Corre

Best Live Action Short

The Neighbors' Window – Marshall Curry

This is a really tough call—all the nominees were varying degrees of good (although this one was my least favorite). Going with the only English-language nominee sounds about right after last year.

My Non-Existent Vote: Brotherhood – Meryam Joobeur and Maria Gracia Turgeon

Best Score

Hildur Guðnadóttir – Joker

This wasn't a strong category, but Guðnadóttir stands out for a number of reasons—she's the only female nominee, the only first-time nominee, and her score is sonically quite different from the rest.

My Non-Existent Vote: Guðnadóttir

Best Original Song

"(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again" – Elton John and Bernie Taupin (from Rocketman)

Not a strong field overall, especially compared to last year. John and Taupin seem like a pretty safe bet, especially after their touching Golden Globes acceptance speech. Harriet is a potential spoiler.

My Non-Existent Vote: "(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again"

Best Cinematography

Roger Deakins – 1917

To paraphrase another film Deakins shot: "Lock it in, dude." One of the easiest calls of the night, and a deserved second statue for Deakins. The Lighthouse and OUATIH were both outstanding, though.

My Non-Existent Vote: Deakins

Best Editing

Andrew Buckland and Michael McCusker – Ford v Ferrari

There's not an obvious winner here, but "action" films sometimes do well here, so I'm going with the racing movie. ACE Eddie Award winners Parasite or Jojo Rabbit are also strong possibilities.

My Non-Existent Vote: Thelma Schoonmaker – The Irishman

Best Production Design

Barbara Ling and Nancy Haigh – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

1917 could easily win, but I have a feeling AMPAS will vote for a nostalgic recreation of their own backyard. There wasn't a movie where the sets were more important last year than Parasite, though.

My Non-Existent Vote: Lee Ha-jun and Cho Won-woo – Parasite

Best Costume Design

Arianne Phillips – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

I almost went with the standard period piece in Little Women, but was there a more indelible costume design last year than Brad Pitt's Hawaiian shirt in OUATIH? Not to mention Leo's Lancer wear.

My Non-Existent Vote: Phillips

Best Makeup And Hairstyling

Kazu Hiro, Anne Morgan, and Vivian Baker – Bombshell

This is apparently the first year five films will be nominated. Expect a win for Bombshell's Fox News haircuts, but Joker or Judy could upset.

My Non-Existent Vote: Nicki Ledermann and Kay Georgiou – Joker

Best Sound Mixing

Mark Taylor and Stuart Wilson – 1917

If there's a Best Picture–nominated war movie, it's almost assuredly going to win. Ford v Ferrari has an extremely slight chance at an upset, but 1917 is a monumental favorite in both categories.

My Non-Existent Vote: Paul Massey, David Giammarco, and Steven A. Morrow – Ford v Ferrari

Best Sound Editing

Oliver Tarney and Rachael Tate – 1917

See above.

My Non-Existent Vote: Donald Sylvester – Ford v Ferrari

Best Visual Effects

Guillaume Rocheron, Greg Butler, and Dominic Tuohy – 1917

1917 is going to win a fuckton of technical categories, including this one. I just hope that Oscar voters will feel the technical awards are enough and go with Parasite for Best Picture.

My Non-Existent Vote: Roger Guyett, Neal Scanlan, Patrick Tubach, and Dominic Tuohy – Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

I did terribly last year—15/24, one of my worst performances ever. I'm feeling much more confident this year—except in the top two categories, Director and Picture. Hoping for Parasite, going with 1917, and praying it isn't Jojo Rabbit. I'd take an Oscar pool win as well, but that almost never happens... maybe twice ever? Looking forward to the ceremony, as ever—I almost wish I knew how to quit it. But I never will. Unless Jojo Rabbit wins.

Decade's Endgame: My 2019 Fake Oscars

When I look back at the films of the final year of the 2010s, I'm not quite sure what I'll think yet—what nascent trends will have become clear in hindsight, what themes will have crystallized, what the endgame of the year actually is. Last year, genre films—specifically, horror films—dominated my thinking and these fake awards. There's no such big-picture takeaway for 2019, at least not yet. Just look at my top-10 above—foreign films by major directors, action blockbusters, several new films from an up-and-coming wave of young(ish) auteurs... oh yeah, and the latest (and perhaps penultimate) Tarantino. It's kind of a grab bag. Time and perspective will eventually reveal what 2019 was really *about*, cinematically speaking. Until then, let's dive into my usual fake awards, starting, as always, with the year's best supporting performances.

Gold = winner
^ = nominated for a real Oscar

Best Supporting Actress
Cho Yeo-jeong – Parasite
Laura Dern – Marriage Story^
Lee Jung-eun – Parasite
Florence Pugh – Little Women^
Cecilia Roth – Pain and Glory

I wasn't overly impressed with the actual Oscar field, especially considering that the Academy ignored the sensational (and SAG-winning!) cast of Parasite. Scarlett Johansson belongs nowhere near any awards ceremony for her work in Jojo Rabbit, and Kathy Bates is as good as she usually is in Richard Jewell, but she really only had one notable scene. Margot Robbie did all she could with the weak material of Bombshell, but her character was too nonsensical to merit a nomination. I did include two Oscar nominees in my field, however, so let's start with the one who is going to (in all likelihood) win her first Oscar on Sunday.

• I'm a big fan of hers (Blue Velvet! Ellie Sattler! Admiral Holdo!), but I only reluctantly included Dern here. It just wasn't a strong year for female supporting performances overall. Don't get me wrong—she was great in Marriage Story, threading the needle between delightfully evil and smugly compassionate—but the role was rather one-note (not her fault, I know). I just don't think we'll look back on her win and see it in the same class as the revelatory work of, say, Regina King last year or Lupita Nyong'o in 2013.
• Of the pair of actual Oscar nominees here, I found Pugh's to be the stronger performance. I had never read nor seen any previous adaptations of Little Women, but her Amy March was one of the true delights of the film. Pugh's portrayal of her transformation from a haughty, naive teenager to a bold, brash young woman is an announcement of the next major star—this Oscar nomination will not be her last.
• My final three nominees are all from non-English films. Let's start with Roth, who plays an actress (of course) and long-time friend to Antonio Banderas's character in Pedro Almodóvar's Pain and Glory. She operates on the fringes of the film for most of its run time, but she takes center stage during the third act as she becomes a caretaker of sorts for Banderas's Almodóvar stand-in. Her scenes in doctor's offices and at Banderas's side is lovely, pained, empathetic work. Both her and the film remind me that I need to see more of Almodóvar's work—starting with All About My Mother.
• That brings us to the two Parasite women (and Park So-dam wasn't far behind them). The film turns around Lee's housekeeper character and what she reveals about halfway through (that's as spoiler-y as I'll get), and the change her performance undergoes in just a matter of minutes is breathtaking. One of Parasite's many themes is what you'll do to get a better life for your family, and Lee's transformation when what little shred of that security is ripped away will stay with you long after the credits roll.
• Finally, we have Cho as the matriarch of the upper-class Park family. She epitomizes the good-intentioned, yet blissfully ignorant worldview of those who have forgotten—or have never known—what it's like to struggle. But her performance is an intrinsically sympathetic one, as her love for her children is communicated in every line, every action—even as her kind of daft insensitivity does harm to those beneath her. She's just marvelous in this.

I thought long and hard about both Parasite women—especially Cho—but in the end, Florence Pugh gets the win here. Hers is the meatiest role, just shy of a lead. She'll be clapping for Dern in the audience on Oscar Sunday, but she almost certainly has a win in her future.

Best Supporting Actor

Willem Dafoe – The Lighthouse

Asier Exteandia – Pain and Glory

Al Pacino – The Irishman^

Brad Pitt – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood^

Song Kang-ho – Parasite

The only real issue I had with the actual Oscar field is Hopkins over Song. Hopkins is... fine as one pope, but there's nothing remotely awards-worthy about his work. His nomination was just a perfunctory tip of the cap to a respected veteran. I feel similarly about Hanks's nomination, although his performance was closer to awards-worthy (I just typically don't go for performances playing real-life figures). Of the two Irishmen to get the AMPAS nod, I preferred Pacino's bombast to Pesci's more subtle work. The latter was quite good, but just missed the cut here. So let's start my nominees with his costar.

• Pacino doesn't show up until nearly an hour into The Irishman, but once he does he completely takes over the film. He gives a vintage Pacino performance, part John Milton and part Tony D'Amato (for my money the last truly great Pacino performance until now). His Jimmy Hoffa is ticking time bomb of ego, altruism, weariness, and a little evil. It's outstanding work, and it'll be good to have him a part of the Oscar festivities for the first time in 27(!) years.
• It hasn't been nearly as long for Pitt, who has three nominations and one win as a producer (for 12 Years a Slave) in recent years, but he hasn't been nominated as an actor since 2012 (for Moneyball) and he's never won. But he's on track to break through for his performance as Cliff Booth, a "kinda pretty" stuntman and Rick Dalton's right-hand man. The part perfectly plays off Pitt's good looks and charisma (that shirtless scene though), and he has several of the movies best moments (the movie ranch scene and the acid trip finale). Pacino would get my vote over him, but Pitt's statue will be well deserved.
• Dafoe is another guy with several nominations to his name (four) but zero statues. He didn't make the actual Oscar field for his totally berserk, committed work in The Lighthouse, but I couldn't leave him out of my field here in spite of not being sure if I "got" the movie or not. (It probably needs a repeat viewing.) I haven't been able to shake the image of a scraggly bearded, wild-eyed, pipe-chewing Dafoe singing and dancing and farting up a storm in stark black and white. The best performances are works of pure creation, and Dafoe channeled this raving mad wickman from the depths of his soul.
• If I was somewhat familiar with Cecilia Roth from previous Almodóvar films, I had not heard of Spanish actor Exteandia until I saw Pain and Glory. His very first scene is one of the most nonchalant depictions of heroin use I can remember seeing, and Exteandia gives his tortured artist character far more heart than the role usually has. One of the highlights of the film is his one-man show monologue of material written by Banderas's character—a performance that Banderas had previously given him notes on. Like much of the film, it's slyly—and effectively—meta. I hope to see more of him in future Almodóvar films.
• That leaves us with the man whose Oscar nomination Hopkins so egregiously stole—Song, one of South Korea's finest actors and long a staple of Bong Joon-ho's stable. I think I first saw him in The Host, and he's also impressed in films like Memories of Murder, The Good, the Bad, the Weird, Thirst, Snowpiercer, etc. If you've seen a Korean movie in the past 20-odd years, you've probably seen him. Parasite is one of his finest performances and his coming-out party to Western audiences. His earnest, warm, tortured, funny, deeply believable performance as the Kim family patriarch is one of the pillars that holds up the (spoilers) best film of the year. It takes an actor of incredible skill and compassion to make the final, fatal act of the film work, and Song pulls it off sublimely.

This came down to Pacino and Song (with Pitt not terribly far behind). As much as I loved Pacino and his ice cream sundaes, Song Kang-ho as the would-be conscience of Parasite was just undeniable. That scene in the gym/shelter... just wow. The Academy missed an incredible chance to elevate world cinema when they failed to nominate him.

Best Actress

Aisling Franciosi – The Nightingale

Elisabeth Moss – Her Smell

Lupita Nyong'o – Us
Florence Pugh – Midsommar

Charlize Theron – Long Shot

The Best Actress field in the real Oscars is about as predictable as it gets. Well-liked star playing a beloved legend? Up-and-comer playing a civil rights icon? Zellwegger and Erivo practically had their nominations in the bag when they signed the contract. Ditto Saoirse Ronan for playing one of the Little Women (note: she was fantastic and was the sixth name in my field) and ScarJo in the Holocaust-adjacent movie. Strange that Theron hadn't been nominated since 2006 (for something called North Country?) but a nomination for her Megyn Kelly impression was about as expected as they come. (She's good, but, again, real-world figure and the screenplay is a mess as well.) I much prefer her work in an entirely different movie, so let's start my field there.

• Rom-coms aren't usually my jam, especially the more clichéd examples of the genre, but when you cast one of the best actresses in the world and give her a role that allows her to be powerful yet vulnerable, lets her display her considerable comedic chops, and makes the audience believe someone so preternaturally beautiful would fall for Seth Rogen, then I'm on board. Such was the case for Theron in Long Shot, one of the most pleasant surprises of the year for me. I caught it well after it came out in the dollar theater and was wholly won over by its charm and wit (although its handling of politics caused a bit of eye rolling). Theron's Secretary of State character should enter the pantheon of great romantic comedy leads, up there with the Ryans, Roberts, and Hunters of the world.
• The rest of my field are all much more serious roles, including a couple from horror films. Let's move onto the one who was probably closest to a real-life nomination, Nyong'o in Jordan Peele's Us. Her film wasn't able to overcome an early release date and the horror genre to snag her a nomination, but it's the Academy's loss, as her (kind of spoiler-y, but the movie has been out for almost a year) dual performance as a young mother and something... else is one of the best of the year. It's both physically impressive (using two entirely different sets of mannerisms, tics, and movements) and emotionally expressive, running the gamut from utter terror to unrepentant savagery. Nyong'o doesn't seem to work much, but I'm eagerly anticipating whatever she does next.
• The other performance from a horror film in my field is a familiar name: Pugh in Ari Aster's Hereditary follow-up, Midsommar. She does more and better acting in the first 10 minutes of her film than most actresses do in entire movies. The entire opening sequence of Midsommar is a series of emails, text messages, and phone calls, but Pugh imbues everything with an almost unbearable sense of (at first) dread and (then) soul-destroying pain. Her character skirts close to the final girl stereotype for much of the middle of the film, but it turns into something decidedly different by the end, and Pugh knows just when—and how—to flip the switch from horrified to complicit. She's every bit as good in this as Little Women.
• Franciosi's film is also a follow-up to a highly-regarded recent horror film, Jennifer Kent's The Babadook. The Nightengale, a revenge thriller set on Tasmania in the early 19th century, isn't a horror movie, but it's so dark and brutal that it's at least horror-adjacent. The first 15-20 minutes of this are even harder to watch than the opening of Midsommar—it's also very much a "read the Wikipedia summary" kind of movie for the squeamish. But being squeamish would mean missing Franciosi's performance, which balances a remarkable fierceness with a kind of resigned composure in the face of unimaginable pain and misery. She's so good that it makes one wonder how the creators of Game of Thrones couldn't have found a meatier role for her than the rather minor (in terms of screen time) character of Lyanna Stark.
• Finally, we have Moss, whom I've absolutely loved in things like Top of the Lake but have somehow never managed to see her two most well-known roles (Mad Men and The Handmaid's Tale). But if she's anywhere near as good—as captivating, as frenetic, as genius—as she is in Her Smell, I need to rectify that fast. I firmly believe (as mentioned above) that the best acting means creating a character and living for a while in their skin, and Moss's Becky Something—a drug-addled punk singer and troubled child and mother both—exemplifies both aspects. In the first of the five vignettes that make up the film, Moss erects the familiar archetype, then spends the next four tearing it down. By the end of the film, you're not only surprised to realize you forgot you were watching an actress act, but are somehow sure that you used to have a Becky Something CD in college. Moss is just revelatory in this.

All of which is to say that, in a loaded category, Elisabeth Moss is my pick for Best Actress of the year. (Nyong'o and Pugh, in that order, were somewhat close behind.) I'm mystified that she didn't garner more awards consideration—just an Independent Spirit Award nomination. There is no such miscarriage of justice here.

Best Actor

Antonio Banderas – Pain and Glory^
Leonardo DiCaprio – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood^

Adam Driver – Marriage Story^
Brad Pitt – Ad Astra

Adam Sandler – Uncut Gems

Unlike last year, I don't have a ton of complaints about the Oscar Best Actor field. As you can see, my list had three nominees in common, and presumptive winner Joaquin Phoenix was the sixth name on my list (it came down to him and Driver). I also would up liking Jonathan Pryce's performance as one pope a lot more than I thought I would (and a lot more than Hopkins). So a pretty solid field overall, which hasn't been the case in recent years in this category. (I blame Eddie Redmayne.) Let's start my slightly different field with the two new names.

• Pitt, of course, isn't a "new" name in the overall field, as he appeared in the Best Supporting Actor category above (matching Florence Pugh's dual nominations). His performance in the pensive and sometimes ponderous Ad Astra is less reliant on his innate handsomeness and easy charm and more on his prototypical masculinity. The film's uses space travel as a metaphor for the difficulty of reaching emotionally distant men—wives to husbands, sons to fathers—and you can't get a much better specimen of the archetypal man than Pitt. (Tommy Lee Jones as his father is also damn good casting.) Pitt spends 90% of the film tightly suppressing his emotions (even his heart rate), but his inner turmoil roils constantly behind his eyes. It's a spare performance, but it perfectly belies the somewhat unsubtle material of the script.
• Everyone knows Sandler can be a good actor when he chooses to be (Punch-Drunk Love, The Meyerowitz Stories, Spanglish—my personal favorite), but he might have turned in the best performance of his career in Uncut Gems as compulsive gambler and adulterer Howard Ratner. Ratner is a man who doesn't know when—or how—to stop, and the role perfectly channels Sandler's aptitude for extremes. He operates on a high emotional register at all times—say, about a 7/10—but it's punctuated by scene after scene where he hits 9 or 10. But the emotions are always different—exasperation, lust, rage, anguish, elation. And Sandler nails every scene. If he keeps taking roles like this every now and then between his paycheck movies, it's a matter of when, not if, he gets his first Oscar nomination.
• Of the three real Oscar nominees, I was somewhat displeased with seeing Driver wind up as one of my top five performances of the year. I've never been a huge fan and am sort of exhausted by the conversation that tends to surround him. But he was indisputably great in Marriage Story, eloquently expressing the subtle sadnesses and stark incredulities of divorce between the "big" scenes of Twitter meme fame. He's equally adept at dealing with soon-to-be ex-in-laws and divorce attorneys as he is punching holes in walls and cutting his hand open. And the scene of him breaking down while reading the letter at the end is among the very best of the year. I'm slowly coming around to Adam Driver, dramatic actor, although I've liked him best in comedic roles so far for the most part (Logan Lucky, The Dead Don't Die.) Adam Driver, sex symbol, still might be a bridge too far, though...
• Banderas's bona fides as a sex symbol, however, are unimpeachable. But, at least in the US, he's never exactly been known as a stellar dramatic actor—his Oscar nomination for Pain and Glory is his first. But it's richly deserved and hopefully is the beginning of a late-career resurgence. Speaking plainly, however, it's unlikely he'll ever top the work he did as Almodóvar stand-in Salvador Mallo. It's a melancholy, wistful performance, as his director character pines for lost loves and his recently deceased mother, struggles with substance abuse and writer's block, and, of course, faces his own mortality. It's a juicy role, but Banderas wisely avoids pyrotechnics in favor of an intense internality, unshowy but highly refined. He won't win the Oscar this weekend, but he'd be a very worthy winner.
• DiCaprio is the only nominee both here and in the real field with an Oscar already in hand (for The Revenant, which might not even be one of his five best performances). He's a megastar and a mega-talent, but in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he plays an actor who is neither—Rick Dalton, a one-time TV star whose film career has floundered. He's an alcoholic sad sack who has been reduced to playing guest star "heavies" to boost the careers of a new generation of Rick Daltons while his own star fades. It's a great part for Leo, even if there are long stretches of the film where he's not given a ton to do. But his scenes on the set of Lancer are some of the best work of the year—his meltdown in his trailer and, especially, his two scenes opposite the wonderful Julia Butters. His in-character villainous monologue—and the resulting comedown from an acting high—is perhaps my favorite scene of the year and as good as anything Leo has ever done.

There were two main contenders above the rest here—Banderas and Sandler. And their performances are about as different as can be. I almost gave the nod to Sandler, whose film I liked just a hair more, but Antonio Banderas was just a bit better in his film. He takes the fake statue in a tough field.

Best Score

Tyler Bates and Joel J. Richard – John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders – Ford v Ferrari
Daniel Lopatin – Uncut Gems
Max Richter and Lorne Balfe – Ad Astra
Marcelo Zarvos – Dark Waters

The actual Oscar field is kind of boring this year, after a strong field the previous year (other than the Mary Poppins sequel). I quite enjoyed both Little Women and 1917, but I don't remember a thing about the music in either one. (Sprightly orchestral arrangements and a mix of quiet and bombast, respectively, if I had to guess.) I do remember the music in Marriage Story, but I found it to be more cloying than anything. And John Williams could fart into a didgeridoo and get a nomination. I did like the Joker score, however—it made my shortlist. But it's rather samey and kind of overbearing—it's not something that really stands alone as its own piece of music, which is one of my main qualifications in this category. My nominees all do work well outside of the context of their movies, though.

• This is now the third year I've included Best Score in my fake Oscars, and this is the second time I've nominated a score by Beltrami—he was also nominated in 2017 for his Logan score (also a James Mangold film). His score with sometimes-collaborator Sanders is more like a prog rock record than a film score at times—wailing guitars, heavy keys, relentless drums. It's a perfect fit for the film—driving when it needs to be (often), subdued when it should be, and epic at times. Beltrami works a ton, but my interest is piqued whenever I see his name attached to a movie.
• Lopatin is another repeat nominee—he also made that 2017 field for his Good Time score under his Oneohtrix Point Never recording moniker. His second Safdies score is a much more leisurely and ambient affair, despite Uncut Gems being even *more* of a cinematic heart attack than even the jittery Good Times. It's spacey tones and robotic rhythms help the film establish its surprisingly astronomical scope, and it's just urgent enough to never let the audience or characters truly relax. Can't wait to see what he and the Safdies have in store next.
• I've always liked Bates's work on movies for directors like Zack Snyder (especially 300 and Watchmen), Neil Marshall, Rob Zombie, and James Gunn. But his work with Richard on the John Wick movies is some of his best work. Scores in action movies like these have to keep up the atmosphere between fights and accentuate them once they start, and Bates's and Richard's moody, industrial-tinged pieces work just as well whether Keanu is kicking ass or just on his way to kick ass—or if you're grading papers or writing blog posts, as I have found.
• I hadn't heard of Zarvos before Dark Waters, and looking at his Wikipedia page, it's not hard to see why—his filmography is mostly little-seen indie films and random vehicles for mid-tier stars. But his foreboding, minimalist work on Todd Haynes's legal drama was perfectly suited to the material, and even more perfectly suited to write to. It's palpable but unobtrusive, all forlorn piano and skittering rhythms.  I hope Zarvos gets some more prominent work in the future.
• Ad Astra had major contributions from two composers: Richter and Balfe (with a single composition from Nils Frahm). Richter's and Balfe's elegant, atmospheric compositions instill each scene with the necessary sense of loneliness, longing, dread, tranquility, or grandeur, as needed. It also, strangely, reminds me at times of a personal favorite score—Vince DiCola's Transformers: The Movie score from the animated 1986 movie. (It's seriously a banger.) The highlight is the spare, sprawling "Tuesday (Voiceless)" from Richter that almost sounds like a stretched-out Philip Glass piece—it feels like you're floating on a cosmic current. It's beautiful.

This was a tough category to pick—I've listened to all of these a ton while writing much of this blog post (as well as grading). The two best, I think, are the Ford v Ferrari and Ad Astra scores. Of those two, the one that had the biggest impact on me in the theater was the one by Max Richter and Lorne Balfe, so they earn the win here.

Best Screenplay

Pedro Almodóvar – Pain and Glory

Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won – Parasite^

Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie, and Benny Safdie – Uncut Gems

Rian Johnson – Knives Out^

Quentin Tarantino – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood^

I've done separate categories for Original and Adapted screenplays in the past, but this year the options for Adapted were so weak that I opted to skip it and just do one screenplay category. Greta Gerwig's Little Women screenplay was probably the best, and I'll be rooting for it on Oscar night. Steven Zaillian's The Irishman script was certainly the longest. It had some great sequences and an enviable structure, but I found it too unfocused overall. The Two Popes was certainly a script AMPAS would nominate—not a ton else to say other than that. And the less said about the Joker and Jojo Rabbit scripts, the better (for now—I'll talk about them in my usual Oscar predictions). Of the two Original Screenplay nominees that missed the boat here, Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story just missed the cut (phenomenal dialogue doesn't really say much new) and 1917 barely needed a script, so... Let's start with the real Oscar nominees, as I have mostly been doing for each category.

• Johnson came close to an Oscar nomination for Looper and The Last Jedi, and was probably deserving both times. He finally broke through this year with Knives Out, which is maybe just a note too clever at times, but has some of the year's best zingers and creates a multitude of memorable characters—especially Benoit Blanc, whom it sounds like we'll be seeing more of. Johnson was the fifth nominee over a host of other worthy contenders, including Midsommar, Under the Silver Lake, and Booksmart.
• Speaking of memorable characters, Tarantino has created a slew of them in his day, and OUATIH gave us fading TV star Rick Dalton and his stuntman (and possible wife murderer) Cliff Booth, who are among his best yet. His Dalton scenes are rife with multilayered dialogue, his Booth scenes are alternately hilarious and intense, and their few scenes together have a warm familiarity that's as much due to the writing as the performances. And people are still deconstructing the darkly comic, nightmarish ending to his Hollywood fairytale—a surefire sign of a great ending. He probably won't win on Sunday (and he wouldn't get my vote, as we'll see below), but he's pulled off upsets in this category before (see: Django Unchained).
• The script I'll be rooting for most on Sunday is Bong and Han's for Parasite, one of the smartest, funniest, most vital movies from any country in several years. It's just an absolute masterwork—everything from the sets to the cinematography to the performances to the direction—but it all starts with the script. It's just so... metaphorical. (ZING!) But seriously, the subject matter couldn't be timelier, the central conceit about semi/hidden basements is genius, the pacing is *perfect*, and even the title is a masterstroke—who/what does "parasite" refer to? But my favorite part about the Parasite script might be how it has sympathy for both the Kim and Park families—which makes the ending all that much more of an emotional gut-punch. It'll have to overcome both Baumbach/Tarantino and the language barrier to win this award, but it's more than deserving.
• That brings us to the two "new" nominees, both of which were touted as possible nominees—although Almodóvar was probably closer than the Safdies. That 1917 was nominated over his heartfelt, nostalgic, surprisingly complex work is one of the Academy's biggest gaffes this year. (1917 is fine, but its script isn't exactly a strong point.) It's even more surprising because Pain and Glory is very much an "insider" movie—Banderas plays a writer/director trying to come to terms with his life and career. If it was in English, it'd be a surefire nominee in all the major categories. It's also got the most note-perfect ending of the year, tying together the various thematic/plot threads in the loveliest of bows. I adored this movie.
• "Adore" isn't a word I'd use to describe Uncut Gems, but I liked it every bit as much as Pain and Glory—and a lot better than the Safdies' previous movie, Good Times. (And I liked Good Times quite a bit.) But Uncut Gems was a major leap forward for the brotherly duo. Good Times operated on a much smaller scale, both plot- and theme-wise. Uncut Gems goes way bigger on both—the plot involves an African gem, crime bosses, NBA players, and six-way parlays, while the themes have cosmic ambitions. Seriously—destiny, free will, the uncaring universe. Some Malick shit. It's incredible.

Although the Safdies and QT had scripts that would have won this category most years, they were no match for Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won and Parasite. It just tapped into what's going on in the world as we enter the 2020s in such a smart, accessible way. A remarkable achievement.

Best Director

Pedro Almodóvar – Pain and Glory
Bong Joon-ho – Parasite^

James Gray – Ad Astra

Josh and Bennie Safdie – Uncut Gems
Quentin Tarantino – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood^

I don't have a ton of issues with the Oscar field on the whole, perhaps surprisingly. Martin Scorsese getting a nomination for a contemplative late-career epic gets no protest from me, even if I thought The Irishman would have been better as a miniseries. It's easy to see why Sam Mendes was nominated for 1917—it's perhaps the most obviously "directed" movie in the field. I liked it quite a bit, although I think Roger Deakins deserves as much credit as Mendes (or even more). Todd Phillips is more of a surprise, but I suspect voters were swayed by the rather artful filmmaking on display in Joker—surprising coming from a guy mostly known for mainstream comedies (even though he's almost entirely aping Scorsese). I wouldn't have nominated him (duh, as he's not in the list above), but I get it. Let's get on with my list, starting with the two holdovers.

• Like The Irishman, Tarantino's OUATIH is a film that only a veteran (and male, it must be said) director could make: slow-starting, meandering at times, overlong. But it's clear that QT wanted his film to be that way, the slowness a form of directorial confidence, cockiness—a lot of it is just characters shooting the shit, watching movies/TV, driving and listening to music. The effect is wonderfully calming, like all is right in the world—and, indeed, all was right in this version of 1969 Hollywood, which makes the ending (in which Dalton and Booth violently kill Sharon Tate's would-be murderers) all the more effective. In this alternate history, the Manson family never killed Tate or the hippie culture, allowing both to (presumably) flourish in the '70s. It's QT's most hopeful movie yet, and a powerful counterpoint to the rank misanthropy of The Hateful Eight (a movie that improved a lot on subsequent viewings).
• Bong is one of the most versatile directors in the world, capable of handling a crime drama (Memories of Murder), creature feature (The Host), dystopian action movie (Snowpiercer), and an adventure movie with a CGI superpig (Okja) all with equal aplomb. So it should be no surprise that Parasite—his most accomplished film yet—blends so many tones/genres so well: dark comedy, satire, domestic drama, thriller, all of it suffused with social commentary like the rest of his films. It's one of the rare films that both keeps the audience guessing in every scene—consummately dancing around expectations—and provides absolutely no clue, no roadmap to where it's going. It's an utterly singular work, and I look forward to seeing him try to top it.
• In Uncut Gems, the Safdies do half of what Parasite does—keeps the audience guessing in every scene—but it does it so well that it doesn't even matter that the way the film ends is the only possible way for it to end. Like Santiago Nasar, Howard Ratner's eventual fate is a certainty, but the Safdies manage to covertly construct an elaborate cinematic ruse around him, culminating in a masterful climactic set piece that takes place during, of all things, the 2012 NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals. Audience and character both lose sight of what must eventually happen—and when it does happen, it lands like a fucking haymaker. I'm not sure if I've even recovered yet, all these weeks later.
• A confession: I've seen every Almodóvar film since Bad Education except Julieta (which I somehow missed in 2016)... but I haven't seen anything before that. No Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. No All About My Mother. No Talk to Her. So when I say that Pain and Glory is the best Almodóvar film I've seen, just know that I haven't seen some of his most renowned works. But for a director who has sometimes been celebrated for his excesses (and sometimes derided—although I actually liked I'm So Excited), this is lovingly restrained work, a sober and honest reflection on his own life, achievements, and shortcomings, filtered through a barely hidden fictionalization. Not having seen some of his previous peaks makes this hard to say for sure, but this sure seems like the pinnacle of his career from my vantage point.
• I've seen all of Tarantino's films, a good chunk of Bong's, most of Almodóvar's recent work, but (like the Safdies), I've only see one of Gray's previous films—2013's The Immigrant. Some critics lauded it as a masterpiece, but I was mostly left cold. There was a lot to admire in the performances, the costumes/set designs, and the cinematography, but it was all a bit... austere, sterile to me. The Lost City of Z has been on my list for a while, but I've just never found the right time to put it on. All of which is to say I didn't really have any firm expectations for Ad Astra, his Pitt-starring space epic. But I was spellbound from the opening, which featured a serene Pitt literally falling from orbit. The film mostly stays in a ruminative tenor despite the appearance of things that could be silly but very much aren't, including moon pirates and a space baboon. The moon pirate scene especially is dazzling. Although I didn't love the heavy-handedness of the ending (mostly, but not all, a script problem), Ad Astra nonetheless has nudged some of Gray's previous films a bit higher in my queue.

I think Bong Joon-ho has a decent chance to win on Sunday, but there is no such equivocating here: he's easily the winner in this strong field. In five years of these fake awards I have yet to split Best Director and Best Picture (although I might if I went back and redid 2017—The Handmaiden vs. Moonlight is such a tough call in both categories). I'm not going to start now in a year with such a clear-cut Best Picture winner.

Best Picture

9) Us

8) John Wick 3

7) Midsommar

6) Ad Astra

5) Pain and Glory

4) Uncut Gems

3) Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

2) Avengers: Endgame

1) Parasite

I've already said a ton about most of these films, so I'll end my fake awards ramble with a few words about the one film that didn't appear in any of the above categories: Avengers: Endgame. It was the #1 box office movie of the year, and an Oscar nominee for Best Visual Effects—and also my #2 movie of the year, despite no representation in the eight categories above. ScarJo was on my longlist for Best Supporting Actress (she actually does a damn good job and was so much better than she was in Jojo Rabbit), and it'd probably have gotten a nomination if I had an Adapted Screenplay category. None of the other performances was particularly impressive (although Downey and Evans were solid), and the direction was the typical generic Marvel house style. So how did it wind up at #2 on my list, sandwiched between two Oscar contenders?

Well, I've always embraced "trash" and "art" on this blog, and I've genuinely liked—and sometimes loved—most of the MCU movies over the years. Hell, the first Avengers movie was my #3 movie of 2012. (I didn't love Age of Ultron or Infinity War, but there was a lot to like in both on rewatches.) I've spent a lot of time with this franchise, having seen every movie in theaters and doing a complete rewatch at home between Infinity War and Endgame. I wouldn't say I had high expectations for it—I was just hoping for a satisfying ending, to be honest. But Endgame mostly nailed it. It's a near-perfect popcorn movie. Of course, it doesn't really work as a standalone movie, and its impactfulness is entirely contingent upon the viewer having any kind of familiarity with and investment in the MCU franchise a whole... so I get it if you didn't like it as much as I did. But I did—enough to make it my second-favorite movie of the year. I wouldn't have batted an eye if it got an actual Best Picture nomination (it's definitely better than the comic book movie that did not nominated). I have no idea where the MCU will go from here—I mean, I'll follow it, but I don't see how they top Endgame.

That wraps up another fake Oscars. If you want to go down the rabbit hole, you can check out my complete ranked list of all the 2019 movies I saw on Letterboxd. There are also micro-reviews for each. Now, time to make my actual Oscar predictions. Hoping to have it up tomorrow, but it'll likely be Sunday afternoon. As always, thanks for reading!