The Hollywood Reporter – 28.02.2018

It’s the tightest race in a long time. Every contender

faces a stat not overcome in years: Dunkirk has no acting

or writing noms, Get Out has fewer than five noms, Lady

Bird lacks craft noms, Shape missed a SAG ensemble nom

and Three Billboards didn’t land a directing nom. Shape

seems the most admired and could benefit from reverse-

coattails of director Guillermo del Toro’s likely win.

WILL WIN: The Shape of Water

Every indicator — Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, BAFTA

and especially DGA, which has predicted this winner

all but seven times in 69 years — suggests that veterans

Paul Thomas Anderson and Christopher Nolan and rising

stars Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele will lose to monster

maven del Toro. It would mark the fourth time in five years

that the prize has gone to a Mexican filmmaker.

WILL WIN: Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water

This prize has been split by two “actors’ actors” all season:

Florida Project’s Willem Dafoe, who swept the major critics

groups, and first-time nominee Sam Rockwell, who swept

the major industry awards. Rockwell’s film is more popular

— Dafoe is his film’s sole nominee — and he should be able

to hold off the other beloved vets, The Shape of Water’s

Richard Jenkins and All the Money’s Christopher Plummer.

WILL WIN: Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards

Janney has won seven Emmys, but until this year

she had never received so much as an Oscar nom. Now, for

her portrayal of the meanest movie mom since Precious

(for which Mo’Nique won), she looks almost certain to take

home gold. Lady Bird’s Laurie Metcalf did well with

critics groups, and Phantom Thread’s Lesley Manville has

her admirers, but Janney swept the industry awards.

WILL WIN: Allison Janney, I, Tonya

It’s a sign of changing times when the best gay-or-

otherwise picture of the year, Call Me by Your Name, is

perhaps seen as too “conventional” by newer Academy

members. It’s also true that the DVDs supplied for

Luca Guadagnino’s superlatively observed and acted film

don’t look so hot; the film clearly deserves to win but plays

far better on the big screen despite its intimate scale.

SHOULD WIN: Call Me by Your Name

A strong case could be made for several of the nominees,

and the films are all auteurish high-wire acts by distinctive

writer-directors. For me, it’s a tossup among Christopher

Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson and Guillermo del Toro.

But Nolan's Dunkirk still sticks in the mind as a genuinely

protean piece of filmmaking, a work that goes well beyond

the norm in terms of both ambition and accomplishment.

SHOULD WIN: Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk

The parts played by Woody Harrelson and Richard

Jenkins aren’t as challenging as the others — and

as effective as Christopher Plummer is as John Paul

Getty, he isn’t award-worthy. Willem Dafoe’s work

in The Florida Project has a low-key grandeur. But Sam

Rockwell smacks his meaty role out of the park.

SHOULD WIN: Sam Rockwell,

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Good as Allison Janney is in I, Tonya, there was

something almost SNL-ish about the performance.

Mary J. Blige and Octavia Spencer were solid

ensemble players. Lesley Manville in Phantom Thread

registered minutely calibrated expressions of a hyper-

alert character. But Metcalf’s vivid portrait of violently

conflicting maternal emotions stands above the rest.

SHOULD WIN: Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird

Fill out your office

pool with your gut or

your heart as THR’s

awards analyst and

chief film critic face

off on their picks

Illustration by Matt Collins

Who Will Win

Who Should Win

Picture

Director

Actor

Supporting

Actress

Actress

Who Will Win

By Scott Feinberg

Who Should Win

By Todd McCarthy

VS.

Supporting

Actor

AGREED!

Margot Robbie and Meryl Streep were both very

good but not on the level of Sally Hawkins, Frances

McDormand and Saoirse Ronan, all exceptional in

films that are unthinkable without them. But with this

performance coming on the heels of her very different

coming-of-age turn in Brooklyn, I can only once again

champion Lady Bird’s ever-revelatory rising star.

SHOULD WIN: Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird

Frances McDormand, who won 21 years ago for Fargo, is

about to join a group of 13 who’ve won this award twice.

Sally Hawkins, Saoirse Ronan and Meryl Streep also anchor

best pic nominees, and Margot Robbie has an Oscar-

friendly narrative (beautiful star morphs into less beautiful

real person), but none has accrued momentum because

McDormand has owned every awards show.

WILL WIN: Frances McDormand, Three Billboards

Once the Oscars are over, will anyone remember that

Denzel Washington was in a film called Roman J.

Israel, Esq.? Daniel Kaluuya’s presence also is something

of a surprise. Gary Oldman delivers a solid impersonation

of Churchill, and it’s hard to deny Daniel Day-Lewis’

greatness. But I’d vote for Call Me by Your Name’s star-

tlingly fine leading man — a true discovery.

SHOULD WIN: Timothee Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name

Don’t totally write off Daniel Day-Lewis for his last

rodeo (Phantom Thread) or Daniel Kaluuya and Timothee

Chalamet for their first (Get Out and Call Me by

Your Name, respectively), as each anchors a best picture

nominee. But so does Oldman, who has both paid his dues

and never won. His transformation into Winston Churchill

is just the sort of thing Academy members eat up.

WILL WIN: Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour