Academy Award Nominations: What to Expect Tomorrow

Frontrunner "Boyhood" has a lot of momentum going into nomination day. 

We've heard from the Globes, and we're still awaiting on final decisions from SAG, the DGA, the PGA and the Broadcast Film Critics, but we finally have a consensus, at least.


"Boyhood" has gone from critic's favorite to the frontrunner after winning the Golden Globe a few nights ago. It has managed noms from the main guilds, so it's going in with guns blazing right now.

Hot on its tracks, however, is Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel" which has built some serious steam in the past few months as a serious favorite. It won the other Best Picture Golden Globe over the prestige pick ("Birdman") which is nothing to turn your nose up at. And the fact that Anderson managed a DGA nom is pretty big too. Then you have "The Theory of Everything" which has some pretty serious support as well as enthusiasm for Eddie Redmayne's performance as Stephen Hawking.

Though Birdman lost out on the Globe, it's still a formidable contender with love for leading man Michael Keaton and the film's audacious technical aspects. It's definitely going to clean up in a lot of the below the line categories, which will help bolster its support into the bigger spots.

And then you have "American Sniper", which, I would reckon, be our 5th nominee in a year of 5, but only by a slim margin I believe. Though "The Imitation Game" has done fairly well, the Academy loves loves loves Clint, for whatever reason. Not to mention, it's sparking a shockingly strong box office office performance. Not to mention, it paints our country in a far better light than we'd like to see, so that counts for something. Voters can't get enough of those fictionalized versions of America where we're the heroes and everyone else is just another potential enemy to slay.

So I imagine our Best Picture line up would look like this (complete with awards tallies):

1. "Boyhood"- Globe (Drama), SAG, DGA, PGA, WGA, BAFTA 
2. "The Grand Budapest Hotel"- Globe (Comedy), SAG, DGA, PGA, WGA, BAFTA
3. "Birdman"- SAG, DGA, BAFTA
4. "The Theory of Everything"- SAG, PGA, BAFTA
5. "American Sniper"- NBR, WGA, PGA, DGA

The rest of the Best Picture line up should look something like this: 

     6. "The Imitation Game"- SAG, DGA, PGA, WGA, BAFTA

     7. "Nightcrawler"- PGA, WGA

     8. "Whiplash"- WGA

     9. "Selma"- None

Though it has received no major guild support, I do feel the Academy is the best option for Selma to clean up. I don't feel it's the Best Picture threat it might have been a month ago (for whatever reason, I'll never understand why it's not dominating), but I still feel like it has potential to clean up nomination wise. 

Some threats, I feel like, are "Foxcatcher" and "Gone Girl", both of which managed nominations from the PGA and the WGA. In the case of Foxcatcher, I think the fact that some films were deemed ineligible helped its case. Gone Girl's screenplay has been universally acclaimed, and was always the surest thing in terms of a nomination. That and Pike may boost it to a BP nod, but if "The Girl With the Dragoon Tattoo" couldn't crack a nomination, I'm not sure Gone Girl can either, despite its mega box office hit status. 

I think there's some room for a shock or two in the acting categories. Meryl Streep's omission from BAFTA and the overall lack of support for Jessica Chastain has me thinking if maybe someone like Rene Russo can break through based on the love for Nightcrawler. Crazier things have happened (remember Oprah last year?). Also, Steve Carrell, I feel, will be duking it out with David Oyelowo for that last Best Actor slot, and I think Oyelowo just makes it in. His missing SAG nom is a big hurdle to get over, but Foxcatcher in general has faded so much over the course of the season, and a performance like Oyelowo's is too powerful to ignore. If it is ignored, the Academy will never be able to live it down. 

I don't know who would get Robert Duvall's slot if he's omitted; it just seems silly to me that something like "The Judge" could manage him an Oscar nomination. The overall weakness of that category is really what's letting him remain a mainstay, but I think someone like Chris Pine or Tom Wilkinson still has time to break through in a big way. 

Actress seems pretty sealed up: Julianne Moore, Jennifer Aniston, Rosamund Pike, Felicity Jones and Reese Witherspoon all seem like pretty sure things as they have throughout nominations from the Globes, the BCFA and SAG. The only shocker I think, would be if Marion Cotillard somehow broke through, and if she were to, I think Witherspoon is the most vulnerable (oddly). But that would take a substantial amount of support that just hasn't been there in the way it needs to be. 

Here's a list of my finalized Oscar predictions, complete with awards tallies. See you all on the other side.