BEST PICTURE
While I am quite optimistic and confident about the 8 first contenders, I am not so sure about the #9 and #10 seats. Neon is having an amazing year with Sentimental Value, It Was Just an Accident and The Secret Agent doing great with the awards bodies, but so it's No Other Choice. Can the distributor get 4 (!!!!) films in the final Best Picture nominees shortlist? If not, I consider No Other Choice as the most fragile of the bunch in the awards conversation. The final spot: I always bet on a blockbuster, but this year's reception of blockbuster has been kinda... lackluster actually. I had Wicked: For Good, but the second part is considerably less acclaimed than the first movie and even audiences recognize the songs are not as epic and the narrative is not as interesting... Can it get enough #1 votes? My guess is "not". Then I considered Avatar: Fire and Ash, which was received with underwhelming reviews, but it is still way too early to get the audience consensus about this one - but it is destined to be a box-office hit nonetheless. So, I am going for Brad Pitt starring vehicle F1 - it grossed more than $630M at the box-office, it did great with Oscar shortlists (it made it for Cinematography, Score, Song, Sound and Visual Effects, which shows a strong support from different AMPAS branches) and it keeps going solid in the awards run even making it to National Board of Review Top 10 Films of the year. Netflix's unexpected player Train Dreams could also sneak the last spot considering the passion around this beautiful study of loneliness and melancholy. Bugonia seems to be losing traction to Hamnet (the biggest contender from Focus Features) and Searchlight seems to be having troubling campaigning The Testament of Ann Lee (since it was considered a favorite from multiple categories but it ended-up missing the Oscar shortlists for Score, Song and Sound, its strongest craft elements).
BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
The Actor Awards (AKA former SAG Awards) will dictate the Oscar lineup: if Amanda Seyfried (The Testament of Ann Lee) misses it, then Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue) or Emma Stone (Bugonia) can sneak a spot in the Oscar lineup since The Testament of Ann Lee seems to be getting far behind in the Oscar race (I know Searchlight is a marathon runner and not a sprintter when it comes to campaigning, but seeing Testament missing every Oscar shortlist cannot be ignored). Buckley, Reinsve and Infiniti benefit from strong and buzzy Best Picture contenders while Rose Byrne delivers the performance of her career (and she's sweeping the critics prizes) and she is overdue for a nom. Thompson and Lawrence are great with amazing dramatic vehicles, but this year's race is a bloodbath and having a weaker distributor pays them no favor. Liu feels like wishful thinking to me.
BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Could Paul Mescal be damaged by his own category fraud and be a victim of vote splitting between Best Actor in a Leading Role and Best Actor in a Supporting Role and lose his spot for his Hamnet child co-star Jacobi Jupe? It seems to be a lot of passion around Jupe's performance and while he has been nominated for Best Young Performance / Breakthrough Performance / Child Performance prizes, I can see him pulling a BAFTA or SAG Award nomination boosting his Oscar chances. In a year without One Battle After Another, I could see room for both Mescal and Jupe, but Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro have already reserved the "two nominees from the same movie" seats.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
BEST DIRECTOR
PTA, Zhao and Coogler remain the frontrunners here, Panaih rises and Safdie delivers the promise and keeps the #5, but since it's his first directorial effort alone, could the AMPAS make room for another international director instead? Park Chan-wook, the Koren master, is overdue for a Best Director nomination and No Other Choice is one of his strongest films to date, while Kléber Mendonça Filho has a lot of passion for The Secret Agent (and he won the Cannes prize for Best Director)... or maybe Sentimental Value's Joachim Trier as he perfectly gives voice to making art in order to cope with real life situations in his latest film (which might ressonate with many members of the directors branch). One of the most rich Best Director races in years!
BEST CASTING
BEST CINEMTOGRAPHY
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
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