You know what?
With a vast majority of contenders screened (If Beale Street Could Talk and Widows being two of the last major unseen ones), let's predict the Best Picture nominations.
I'll be generous and say that we'll assume 10 films would be nominated.
- A Star Is Born
- Roma
- First Man
- If Beale Street Could Talk
- The Favourite
- BlackKklansman
- Widows
- Can You Ever Forgive Me?
- Boy Erased
- Green Book
The first 5 I feel are solid locks, and 6-8 I feel are pretty likely.
For the last two, I played it real safe. Boy Erased seems like a good enough "issue movie" that will get in out of straight people feeling guilty, as well as good performances.
Green Book I don't think looks that good. But this kind of safe, middle-of-the-road, crowd-pleasing film does well in the Oscars. It deals with race in a way that isn't confronting or impactful at all. I can slot this movie very neatly into a canon of Oscar bait - Driving Miss Daisy being the most obvious thematic comparison. But in recent years, The Blind Side, The Help, and Hidden Figures have proven there's a niche for this kind of movie in the Oscars.
The two question marks that didn't make my top 10 are Black Panther and Vice. Vice isn't here because it hasn't been screened yet, and Black Panther because I don't think superhero movies are going to make the Oscars quite yet, especially with how dicey the Best Popular Picture situation was.