Oscars 2013: Nominee Predictions

The Academy Award nominations will be announced tomorrow, Thursday, January 10 at 5:30 AM MT by Seth McFarlane and Emma Stone (the former will also host the actual awards show), so I thought it’s high time I offer my prediction of how it’s all going to go down.

Best Picture

1. Argo
2. Beasts of the Southern Wild
3. Django Unchained
4. Les Misérables
5. Life of Pi
6. Lincoln
7. Moonrise Kingdom
8. Silver Linings Playbook
9. Zero Dark Thirty

Just because the Academy can nominate 10 films, doesn’t mean it will (as we discovered last year), and so I’m stopping at 9. If there is a tenth nominee, it’ll probably be Skyfall. There’s the ever-slim chance that The Master could be thrown in there just for show, but it’s not looking likely (and for that, I am grateful).

Best Director

1. Ben Affleck, Argo
2. Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
3. Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
4. Ang Lee, Life of Pi
5. Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained

The top three are absolute guarantees, and the fourth probably is too. As for the fifth slot, well, that could go any number of ways. I choose to believe the Academy has good taste and will give it to QT — then again, I frequently give them more credit than they deserve. Tom Hooper received a DGA nomination for Les Misérables, so there’s a very good chance it’ll go to him instead (God help us all). But hey, maybe there’ll be a fun spoiler — Michael Haneke (Amour) or David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook) — though it’s not likely.

Best Actor

1. Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
2. Denzel Washington, Flight
3. Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables
4. John Hawkes, The Sessions
5. Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook

The first three are done deals. The fourth is more than likely. The fifth? There’s still a sliver of a chance that Joaquin Phoenix will eek out a nom for The Master, but… probably not. I would also like to note that it’s a sad day when Jackman (and I would say Bradley, too) get the nom over Richard Gere who was excellent in Arbitrage. (God, I would love that spoiler.)

Best Actress

1. Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
2. Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
3. Emannuelle Riva, Amour
4. Naomi Watts, The Impossible
5. Helen Mirren, Hitchcock

Let’s be honest it’s a two-women race here: Jessica vs. Jennifer. The others have no shot, but if there’s to be a spoiler, it’ll be young Quvenzhane Wallis for her beautifully honest performance in Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Best Supporting Actor

1. Alan Arkin, Argo
2. Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
3. Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
4. Robert DeNiro, Silver Linings Playbook
5. Cristoph Waltz, Django Unchained

I’m not quite sure why Arkin is such a guarantee (does anyone really remember that performance?), but ok, he’s in. So are TLJ and PSH, and it’s lookin’ good for DeNiro, too. The fifth slot is a bit tricky, and I may be off the mark here, because Django Unchained boasts three terrific supporting performances: Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio. Waltz is the most obvious, but Jackson is the most shocking, and Leo’s probably out of the game, but even so — that’ll split the votes, leaving this spot open for either that dreamy rebel Eddie Redmayne (Les Misérables) or creepy Javiar Bardem (Skyfall). Personally, I’d give it to John Goodman for Flight, and some crackheads still insist Matthew McConaughey will pull through for Magic Mike. Hahahahahaha. Yeah, right.

Best Supporting Actress

1. Sally Field, Lincoln
2. Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
3. Amy Adams, The Master
4. Helen Hunt, The Sessions
5. Maggie Smith, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Potential Spoilers: Nicole Kidman (The Paperboy) or Ann Dowd (Compliance) may knock out Maggie. Edge to Kidman.

Best Original Screenplay

1. Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master
   
2. Rian Johnson, Looper
   
3. Michael Haneke, Amour
4. Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom
5. Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty

Potential Spoiler: Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained

Best Adapted Screenplay

1. Tony Kushner, Lincoln
2. Chris Terrio, Argo
3. David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
4. Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar, Beasts of the Southern Wild
5. David Magee, Life of Pi

Potential spoiler: Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Best Animated Feature

1. Brave
2. Frankenweenie
3. Wreck-It-Ralph
4. ParaNorman
5. Rise of the Guardians

Best Foreign Language Film

1. Amour (Austria)
2. The Intouchables (France)
3. A Royal Affair (Denmark)
4. No (Chile)
5. Beyond the Hills (Romania)

Potential Spoilers: Kon-Tiki (Norway), The Deep (Iceland)

Best Documented Feature

1. Searching for Sugarman
2. How to Survive a Plague
3. The Gatekeepers
4. The Invisible War
5. Mea Maxima Culpa

Potential spoiler: Any of the other shortlist contenders. This category is incredibly difficult to predict this year.

Best Film Editing

1. Argo
2. Lincoln
3. Zero Dark Thirty
4. Life of Pi
5. Skyfall 

Best Cinematography

1. Skyfall
2. The Master
3. Life of Pi
4. Lincoln
5. Zero Dark Thirty

Best Art Direction

1. Anna Karenina
2. Lincoln
3. The Master
4. Django Unchained
5. Les Misérables

Potential spoiler: Argo

Best Costume Design

1. Anna Karenina
2. Les Misérables
3. Lincoln
4. Django Unchained
5. Mirror Mirror

Potential Spoilers: The Master, The Hobbit

Best Original Score

1. Argo
2. Beasts of the Southern Wild
3. Life of Pi
4. Lincoln
5. Anna Karenina

Best Original Song

1. “Suddenly,” Les Misérables
2. “Skyfall,” Skyfall
3. “Ancora Qui,” Django Unchained
4. “Learn Me Right,” Brave
5. “Who Did That to You?,” Django Unchained

Sound Mixing

1. Django Unchained
2. Zero Dark Thirty
3. Skyfall
4. Les Misérables
5. Lincoln

Potential spoilers: Life of Pi, The Dark Knight Rises

Best Sound Editing

1. Skyfall
2. The Avengers
3. The Dark Knight Rises
4. Life of Pi
5. Django Unchained

Potential spoiler: Les Misérables

Best Visual Effects

1. Life of Pi
2. Prometheus
3. Cloud Atlas
4. The Hobbit
5. The Avengers

Potential spoiler: Skyfall, The Dark Knight Rises

Best Makeup

1. The Hobbit
2. Lincoln
3. Les Misérables

I can’t even begin to guess about the shorts. We’ll have to wait and see!

Happy Nominations Day!

About these ads