2020 Oscar Predictions

Best Picture
Who I Want to Win: Little Women
Who I Think Will Win: 1917
Little Women was by far my favorite film of the year, for reasons I don't have the space to go into right now. I fully believe it is deserving of the Oscar for Best Picture. However, without a nomination for Best Director or any preceding awards backing it up, Little Women is going in with very little shot at a win. I believe the main contest is between 1917 and Parasite, both great movies that I did enjoy. Parasite is coming in with unbelievable momentum: history-making SAG and WGA wins and an unprecedented positive reception for a foreign language film. It is by far the more unique and special film of the two. However, 1917 snagged wins at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs, and is a technical masterpiece in a genre that the Academy is known to reward.


Best Actor
Who I Want to Win: Adam Driver
Who I Think Will Win: Joaquin Phoenix
This year's acting categories are profoundly uninteresting. The same four actors have won nearly every award heading into the Oscars, and there is little room for creativity. Joaquin Phoenix's performance as the Joker is clearly an example of "most acting," which the Academy is known to reward. However, I believe that the award belongs to Adam Driver's emotional turn in Marriage Story. He cries and yells, but he also experiences genuine joy, love, and confusion. This fuller range of acting on display allows for every emotion to feel far more earned than anything in Joker. Because Joker has no rhyme or reason for the way he feels, when he acts it is more discomforting than anything real or logically brought on that the audience can relate to.

Best Actress
Who I Want to Win: Saoirse Ronan
Who I Think Will Win: Renee Zellweger
I haven't seen Judy, so I can't really talk, but I have seen Little Women, and Saoirse Ronan's Jo March is an incredible performance that brings new life into an age old tale. Recently, I was watching a comparison of four different adaptations of Little Women's proposal scene and, even though by the time I got to the 2019 version I had been through three versions of the same lines, it felt profoundly real. This is brought on not only by Ronan's incredible acting chops, but her ability to work with other actors and genuinely bring out the best of their performances.

Best Supporting Actor
Who I Want to Win: Joe Pesci
Who I Think Will Win: Brad Pitt
I really can't think of any reason Brad Pitt should win except for momentum. Sure, he did exactly what was needed of him in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, but that wasn't asking for much. He said the lines, stood with presence, and then cashed in for the day. Joe Pesci in The Irishman brought emotional vulnerability to the type of character that would usually not provoke that.


Best Supporting Actress
Who I Want to Win: Florence Pugh
Who I Think Will Win: Laura Dern
I'd like just one of the acting categories to not be completely predetermined, so I am calling on the gods to bestow this one on Florence Pugh. I do appreciate that both hers and Laura Dern's performances were more than just the snot-filled, sobbing performances usually asked of women, but I do believe that Florence brought it home with her calm and collected speech about a woman's ability to determine her own life, though it is such an emotionally charged scene. I also appreciate Laura's energetic and entirely dislikable divorce lawyer performance, and I'd be happy to see either of them win.


Best Director
Who I Want to Win: Sam Mendes
Who I Think Will Win: Sam Mendes
Trick question because Greta Gerwig was not nominated! However, given specific confines of the nomination field, I feel like Sam Mendes is deserving, and the Academy recognizes this, because of the pure feat of control required to pull of 1917's single-shot approach. Everything has to come together to work at exactly the right time and exactly the right way, and to be able to pull that off so effectively is the work of a seasoned director.

Best Original Screenplay
Who I Want to Win: Marriage Story
Who I Think Will Win: Parasite
I actually think Parasite is deserving of best original screenplay for its magnificent handling of all the twists and turns and its flawless story structure, but I only put Marriage Story here because I think if Noah Baumbach wins original screenplay and Greta Gerwig wins adapted, it will be the ultimate power couple move.


Best Adapted Screenplay
Who I Want to Win: Little Women
Who I Think Will Win: Little Women
Greta Gerwig breathed life into a 100+ year old story by incorporating parts of Louisa May Alcott's life and finding the real emotion behind the characters. She redeemed the character of Amy March and reconstructed the ending in a new and wonderful way, and is fully deserving of this award.

Best Cinematography
Who I Want to Win: 1917
Who I Think Will Win: 1917
My point:


Best Animated Movie
Who I Want to Win: I Lost My Body
Who I Think Will Win: Toy Story 4

Best Costume Design
Who I Want to Win: Little Women
Who I Think Will Win: Little Women


Best Documentary Feature
Who I Want to Win: American Factory
Who I Think Will Win: American Factory

Best Documentary Short
Who I Think Will Win: Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl)
I can't honestly say who I think should win because I have not seen any of the nominees, but this short has everything on its side going in: momentum from other award shows, a gripping title, and a female production team, which could definitely be a boost in the Oscars attempt to avoid accusations of sexism.

Best Editing
Who I Want to Win: Parasite
Who I Think Will Win: Parasite
I am almost inclined to put Irishman for who I want to win, because it feels impossible that this movie be allowed to slip by without a single win. An incredible ensemble effort by all of the greats of Scorsese's gangster era, the role of the editor is no different, occupied by four-time Oscar winner Thelma Schoonmaker. However, there really is nothing that sets the editing of the Irishman apart, meaning that this award must be bestowed upon Yang Jinmo for Parasite, whose editing elevates the tension of the film to incredible degrees.

Best International Film
Who I Want to Win: Parasite
Who I Think Will Win: Parasite
This one isn't even a contest. For a film that is nominated for Best Picture and expected to win in many categories, the award for international film is a throwaway. Similar to Roma last year but with even more momentum, we may as well save time by just leading Bong Joon-Ho onto the stage now.

Makeup & Hairstyling
Who I Think Will Win: Bombshell

Original Score
Who I Want to Win: Marriage Story
Who I Think Will Win: Joker


Original Song
Who I Want to Win: Rocketman
Who I Think Will Win: Rocketman

One of my absolute favorite films of the year (second only to Little Women), I was significantly disappointed that this was the only nomination that Rocketman got. I think it easily deserved nods for actor, costume design, and picture, and perhaps a handful of technical nominations as well. However, I feel that it really is a shoo-in for a win for (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again, by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, performed by Taron Egerton and Elton John. A certified bop that clearly, joyfully, and heartbreakingly illustrates the final message of the film, as well as the relationship that Elton John himself had to this film in the symbolism of singing that he's going to love himself with someone playing a version of him, I predict that Elton will take home another trophy.


Production Design
Who I Want to Win: Parasite
Who I Think Will Win: Parasite
I actually didn't realize how much of Parasite's sets were built. I assumed that much of it was shot on location, because it's so authentic-looking. And that is the demonstrative of fantastic production design, when you're doing your job so well no one even realizes that you're doing it. Cliche as this may be, the house really is a character in Parasite, but in a subtle and fantastic way. I am hoping, and expecting, that this usually unsung art gets the recognition it so richly deserves.

Animated Short
Who I Think Will Win: Hair Love

Live Action Short
Who I Think Will Win: Brotherhood

Sound Editing
Who I Think Will Win: 1917


Sound Mixing
Who I Think Will Win: Ford v. Ferrari

Visual Effects
Who I Think Will Win: 1917