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In 2011, after 2 years (2009, 2010) of a flat 10 nominees, the system changed from a flexible 5-10. But what if it had stayed at 10? What would fill those spots?
A reminder of how many films got nominated each year since the change
84th (2011 films): 9 films
85th (2012 films): 9 films
86th (2013 films): 9 films
87th (2014 films): 8 films
88th (2015 films): 8 films
89th (2016 films): 9 films
90th (2017 films): 9 films
91st (2018 films): 8 films
These aren’t many more slots that need to be filled, but what would be in those gaps? What films would get the Academy support?
ReplyFor Your Consideration:
Best Picture: Wolfwalkers
Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers
I’ll post my answers and justification
2011: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Screenplay and Actor noms)
2o12: The Master (Actor, Supporting Actor, Actress)
2013: Blue Jasmine (Actress [WIN], Supporting Actress, Screenplay)
2014: Foxcatcher (Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Screenplay, Makeup), Interstellar (Visual Effects [WIN], Score, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Production Design)
2015: Carol (Actress, Supporting Actress, Screenplay, Score, Cinematography, Costumes)
2016: Jackie (Costumes, Score, Actress)
2017: I, Tonya (Supporting Actress [WIN], Actress, Editing)
2018: Cold War (Director, Foreign Language, Cinematography), If Beale Street Could Talk (Supporting Actress [WIN], Adapted Screenplay, Score)
ReplyCopy URLFor Your Consideration:
Best Picture: Wolfwalkers
Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers
You missed a spot in 2015. My guess is that spot would have gone to Inside Out, which won Best Animated Feature and was nominated for Original Screenplay
ReplyCopy URLJohn's Best of 2020
Best Picture: Soul
Best Director: George Clooney-The Midnight Sky
Best Actor: Chadwick Boseman-Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Best Actress: Viola Davis-Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Best Supporting Actor: Delroy Lindo-Da Five Bloods
Best Supporting Actress: Amanda Seyfried-Mank
Best Original Screenplay: Soul
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Midnight Sky2012: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
2013: The Master
2014: Blue Jasmine
2015: Foxcatcher & Still Alice
2016: Carol & Inside Out
2017: Jackie
2018: I, Tonya
2019: If Beale Street Could Talk & Can You Ever Forgive Me
2020: Knives Out (I would have said The Two Popes but I don’t think they would have nominated three Netflix movies)
ReplyCopy URLI’m going to blind redo my answers, see what differences arise
2011: I think The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has a good case – Actress nomination and an Editing win mean that it has support from both acting and technical branches, which is a good sign. It also got a PGA nomination.
2012: The question is whether I go for The Master, which was a big success in acting nominees, or Skyfall which had a great slate of technical nominations and did gangbusters at the BAFTAs. I might go for Skyfall as a surprise blockbuster BP nominee. It also got a PGA nomination.
2013: This year is like 2020 in that it had a very concentrated list of nominees around its Best Picture nominees, so it’s a little hard to guess what would’ve penetrated the Best Picture. While Frozen and Inside Llewyn Davis could have a path, I think Blue Jasmine having an Actress win, and a couple other high-level nominations helps its case. It also got a PGA nomination.
2014: This year has two slots to fill! For the first, I choose Foxcatcher, which may be an obvious pick but nonetheless having a Director nomination and other top level nominations makes it undeniable that it was 9th place.
Now for 10th it’s a little more complicated. Interstellar had a … stellar suite of craft nominations, as did Mr. Turner. Into The Woods’ Meryl nomination was a sign of support, as was Wild’s dual acting nominations and Gone Girl’s nominations. I think Interstellar might be the 11th, since there’s no big blockbuster VFX films in the Best Picture lineup, thus giving it a niche that would’ve had a voter base. However, I think Gone Girl with the PGA award nom and Rosamund Pike’s nominations would’ve gotten a narrow 10th slot. Foxcatcher got a PGA award nom.
2015: Another two-slot. For the first, Carol is obvious – BAFTA Best Picture and Globes Drama nominations, screenplay and lead/supporting actress nominations. It may have gotten a backlash from voters, but I don’t think that would be enough to stop it from getting a slot in a 10 slot. For the second – I’m going to do a shock prediction.
While Star Wars Episode VII:The Force Awakens was a massive hit with technical nominations, The Danish Girl got Alicia Vikander an Oscar and Inside Out was probably the closest any animated film came to a Best Picture nominee post-Toy Story 3, I think Ex Machina would’ve gotten a Best Picture nomination out of nowhere. Except – not really nowhere. It got an impressive early career screenplay nomination and a punching above its weight Best Visual Effects win, did really well in BAFTAs nominations, and was a propelling factor to Alicia’s win. Of the two, Ex Machina was the one to receive a PGA nomination.
2016: Unlike the previous ones, I don’t think the PGAs nor the BAFTAs can help, as Deadpool and I, Daniel Blake would’ve both been solo Best Picture nominees – something that has never happened before and might never happen due to the nature of Oscars campaigning. In this hyper-concentrated year, Jackie might be tempting for the prominent Natalie Portman nomination, but that movie was weird and alienating to voters. Nocturnal Animals’ BAFTA strength and nomination would help, but again, that is an alienating movie.
Against all reason, I’m going to say Zootopia because that film was comfort food, got a Best Animated Feature win, and had an allegorical message of racial unity that aged badly in a lot of aspects*, but it’s not like Academy voters would care – Green Book exists.
2017: I think it’s tempting to characterise Blade Runner 2049’s tech success and Coco’s animation success as Best Picture adjacent, but I, Tonya receiving PGA, Editing, and Acting nominations make a stronger cross-branch case for it. I do think Blade Runner 2049’s BAFTA director nomination and being a cinematography win help its case as 11th place though.
2018: In this 8-slot year, there’s some good competition. I think Cold War‘s Director nomination (also in the BAFTAs) gives it a comfortable slot. The last slot is between First Man and If Beale Street Could Talk, but I choose the latter as it received a more significant win and First Man missed presumed slam dunk nominations in Actor (Willem Dafoe got in for a much less campaigned movie over Ryan Gosling), which might be indicative of a lack of support.
2019: This is the most recent, so it’s fresh in my mind. The Two Popes may have gotten the splashy overperformance in acting categories, Knives Out may have gotten the screenplay Oscar nomination, Bombshell may have been a performance nominations success, but I am not sure if any of those would’ve gotten the slot. I am tempted to say Pain and Glory for getting that Best Actor and foreign language slot comfortably, arguably second place in foreign language. I am still undecided
*A racial allegory in which one race is genetically more violent is a fundamentally flawed one that argues there is a rational reason for people to be racist, which there isn’t.
ReplyCopy URLFor Your Consideration:
Best Picture: Wolfwalkers
Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers
*A racial allegory in which one race is genetically more violent is a fundamentally flawed one that argues there is a rational reason for people to be racist, which there isn’t.
Omg, thank you. I thought I was the only one.
Answering thread title:
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2011: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (PGA + surprise editing win)
2012: Moonrise Kingdom (PGA + screenplay nom)
2013: Blue Jasmine (PGA + acting win)
2014: Foxcatcher (PGA + surprise directing nom); Nightcrawler (PGA + screenplay nom)
2015: Straight Outta Compton (PGA + screenplay nom); Ex Machina (PGA + surprise visual effects win)
2016: Fuck knows. 20th Century Women? The Lobster?
2017: I, Tonya (PGA + editing nom (and ACE win))
2018: If Beale Street Could Talk (acting win + screenplay nom); Cold War (directing nom + BAFTA screenplay nom)
2019: Knives Out (PGA + screenplay nom). Also The Two Popes was from Netflix which had a very full slate, while Lionsgate’s only other major film was Bombshell.Actually, given how many nominations it got, including the picture essential editing, I think the last spot was The Force Awakens.
That would be a good guess too, since The Force Awakens also got a Best Picture nomination at the Critic’s Choice awards (albeit in a very controversial way). However, I don’t think the academy has been super crazy about Star Wars since the first one. If they were, they would have nominated Empure Strikes Back for Best Picture and not just tech categories. All of the other Star Ara films have been nominated only below-the-line, so I think Force Awakens would have been the same.
Meanwhile 2 Pixar films had just been nominated for Picture on a 10 nominee ballot, and Inside Out had equal acclaim to Up and Toy Story 3, with a box office performance higher than Up. It may have had few nominations, but so did The Blind Side, Extemely Liyd and Incredibly Close, and Selma. And unlike The Force Awakens, Inside Out won an Oscar and got nominated in an above-the-line category.
ReplyCopy URLJohn's Best of 2020
Best Picture: Soul
Best Director: George Clooney-The Midnight Sky
Best Actor: Chadwick Boseman-Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Best Actress: Viola Davis-Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Best Supporting Actor: Delroy Lindo-Da Five Bloods
Best Supporting Actress: Amanda Seyfried-Mank
Best Original Screenplay: Soul
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Midnight SkyI also think Knives Out would have been the 10th Best Picture nominee. The Two Popes was super inconsistent in the precursors and only did so well at the Globes because Netflix spent so much money on campaigning it there. Knives Out barely campaigned and still over performed to an insane degree, getting nominated for Screenplay everywhere plus Picture at the PGA’s (which predicted 9/10 of the Oscar nominees) and winning several year-end critic awards. I also don’t think Netflix was ever going to get 3 Best Picture nominees considering the resentment many academy members had for them (though this year they probably will due to a weak field).
ReplyCopy URLJohn's Best of 2020
Best Picture: Soul
Best Director: George Clooney-The Midnight Sky
Best Actor: Chadwick Boseman-Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Best Actress: Viola Davis-Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Best Supporting Actor: Delroy Lindo-Da Five Bloods
Best Supporting Actress: Amanda Seyfried-Mank
Best Original Screenplay: Soul
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Midnight SkyAt the end of the day, though, we now have hindsight, and hindsight showed that the Academy seemed to prefer The Two Popes, precursors be darned.
Not really. The Two Popes had two acting nominations because the whole film was centered around those two veteran actors. While everyone loved the cast of Knives Out, no one performance stood out especially from the others. Neither film was ever getting below-the-line noms so the former film’s three noms against the latter’s one isn’t especially significant.
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