Gold Standard: Directors are key to predicting best picture nominations
Golden Globes nominations are out. The critics groups have weighed in. Top 10 lists are multiplying by the hundreds. And now the guilds are beginning to announce their favorites.
It’s a good time to check on the best picture race, along with the potential Oscar slates for original and adapted screenplay. Here’s how they look at the moment.
BEST PICTURE
“La La Land”
“Moonlight”
“Manchester by the Sea”
“Silence”
“Fences”
“Arrival”
“Loving”
“Sully”
“Lion”
“Jackie”
Prime contenders: “Hell or High Water,” “Hacksaw Ridge,” “Hidden Figures,” “20th Century Women”
Analysis: The key question right now is how many movies make the cut this year. We’re in the sixth year of the academy’s fluctuating best picture nominees rule, which requires at least five but no more than 10 movies in the category. The first three years had nine films rewarded; the past two rosters have sported eight entries.
That means the above list is a bit of a cheat. Though it’s possible there could be 10 movies nominated, the academy’s preferential voting math makes that round number unlikely. (Don’t ask me to explain. I’m on a word count limit.)
So let’s start with the movies whose directors are likely to earn nominations. Because in the seven years since the academy expanded the best picture category (the first two had a fixed total of 10 nominees), 34 out of the 35 directors nominated had their films saluted too.
That puts “La La Land” and “Moonlight” in the fold this year, with “Manchester” and “Silence” right behind them. Denzel Washington’s “Fences” is its own thing. Washington might not earn a nomination for his work behind the camera, but the actors branch is certain to go for this movie in a big way. And one of these years — possibly this one, for “Arrival” — Denis Villeneuve will get his due for the somber, serious, consistently rewarding work he delivers.
That’s six titles, which leaves “Loving,” “Sully,” “Lion,” “Jackie” and, probably, “Hell or High Water,” “Hidden Figures” and “Hacksaw Ridge” to fight it out for the remaining two or three slots.
The latter film, Mel Gibson’s savage, intense epic about a World War II pacifist hero, is the most surprising movie on the list. Two months ago, I told an awards consultant that, based on Gibson’s controversial past, the film didn’t have a chance of gaining any awards season traction. But not only has “Hacksaw” hung around, it has won a great many fans who find its story moving and Gibson’s action sequences thrilling. I still have my doubts, but I’ve heard more academy members gushing about Gibson than lauding the merits of Jeff Nichols’ deeply moving “Loving” or Clint Eastwood’s solid, satisfying “Sully.”
I have those two titles, plus Pablo Larrain’s brilliant character study, “Jackie,” among the nominees based largely on the success of Focus Features, Warner Bros. and Fox Searchlight (and their hired consultants) to win nominations. But based on the numbers, someone is going to be disappointed this year on nominations morning.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea”
Damien Chazelle, “La La Land”
Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”
Jeff Nichols, “Loving”
Taylor Sheridan, “Hell or High Water”
Prime contenders: Noah Oppenheim, “Jackie”; Mike Mills, “20th Century Women”; Efthymis Filippou and Yorgos Lanthimos, “The Lobster”; Matt Ross, “Captain Fantastic”; Nicholas Martin, “Florence Foster Jenkins”; Jared Bush and Phil Johnston, “Zootopia”
Analysis: It’s possible all five nominations go to writer-directors — Lonergan, Chazelle, Jenkins, Nichols and Mills. But I believe voters will find a spot for “Hell or High Water,” an outstanding piece of writing that managed to work as a thriller, character study and pointed social commentary. Sheridan also wrote last year’s taut white-knuckler “Sicario,” which likewise squared its violence with a superb sense of the Southwest and the people who inhabit it. That movie picked up a Writers Guild nomination but missed at the Oscars. Writers branch members have a chance to rectify that oversight this year.
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
August Wilson, “Fences”
Eric Heisserer, “Arrival”
Jay Cocks and Martin Scorsese, “Silence”
Luke Davies, “Lion”
Tom Ford, “Nocturnal Animals”
Prime contenders: Patrick Ness, “A Monster Calls”; Whit Stillman, “Love & Friendship”; Theodore Melfi and Allison Schroeder, “Hidden Figures”; Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkkan, “Hacksaw Ridge”; Todd Komarnicki, “Sully”; David Birke, “Elle”
Analysis: Screenplays adapted from plays used to regularly win this Oscar. But the last such screenplay to win was “Driving Miss Daisy” in 1990. (“Dangerous Liaisons,” another play adaptation, won the year before.) That could change this year, given the love and respect people feel for the late August Wilson. And, of course, the poetic storytelling in “Fences” is a force to be reckoned with.
The potent and profound family fantasy film “A Monster Calls” earned much admiration playing at the Toronto and London film festivals. It’s possible that this might be a place where writers honor Ness, who adapted his own novel. It’s a superbly structured fable about the fear of loss that cuts deep. Of all the tear-jerker movies released this year — and there have been a lot — it might be the best.
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Twitter: @glennwhipp
ALSO:
Moonlight’ beats ‘La La Land’ in L.A. Film Critics awards
New York Film Critics Circle gives best picture to ‘La La Land’
Scorsese’s ‘Silence’ got the pope’s blessing; next stop, Oscar?
‘Moonlight,’ ‘Manchester’ and ‘La La Land’ break fast out of the gate
From the Oscars to the Emmys.
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