Which Film Will Secure the Best Picture Award? – Top

The Oscars are almost here, so it’s time for a round-up of the three big categories: Best Animated Feature, Best Picture and Best Directing. The directing category has made history this year, for it is the first time that two women have been nominated for this category. So far, only one woman has ever won in this category, and it was Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker in 2010. For an awards ceremony that began in 1929, it took them over eighty years to recognise a woman for directorial achievement.

It is also the first time that two directors of Asian descent have been nominated in the same category, so we are all on tenterhooks as to whether history will be made a second time, with one of these nominees taking home the big prize. We won’t know until the 2021 Oscars rolls on by on April 26th, but in the meantime, here are my predictions.

 

Animated Feature

Prediction: Soul

Recently, many have reflected that the Disney/Pixar brand may be steering the direction of the animated feature win. Their films are recognised by the wider public, and they’re also accessible, given that both Onward and Soul are on Disney Plus. Over the Moon and Wolfwalkers are also available on streaming platforms, namely Netflix and Apple TV+, but this isn’t a widely known fact. I had to google where I could watch Wolfwalkers, while Soul was being heavily promoted to me during its Christmas release last year.

Marketing and brand recognition have huge advantage when it comes to awards like the Oscars. So, while I think Wolfwalkers should take home the prize, the pragmatist in me knows it will probably go to Soul. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the winners just from the last few years. Last year, Toy Story 4 took home the prize, while in 2017 and 2018, Zootopia and Coco won respectively. The rare exception occurred in 2019 with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Toy Story 4, Coco and Zootopia are beautiful films (especially Coco), and I am not saying they don’t deserve their wins. They do, but brand recognition also helped in making it happen.

 

Best Picture

Prediction: Nomadland

Let’s see, Nomadland won big at the Golden Globes – winner for Best Director and Best Motion Picture for Drama – and the film absolutely killed it at the BAFTAS, taking home Best Film, Best Director, Best Leading Actress and Best Cinematography. Oscar wins are rarely a surprise, and usually, these previous award shows are a good indicator of what’s to come. Even Parasite, last year’s winner, didn’t win in as many categories as Nomadland, so I think my prediction is a pretty good one.

The one film that should give it a run for its money is Mank. Once again, it comes down to brand recognition. People know David Fincher, his movies have been nominated before – films like The Social Network and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Hollywood also has a track record of favouring films about Hollywood, which is Mank in a nutshell.

Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 is an enjoyable film, but it was also rather safe on the filmmaking aspect. The film stood out for its scriptwriting (which is Sorkin’s wheelhouse), but didn’t strive for much visually. The Father is a good film, and I appreciate its ambitious structure and how it aims to capture the experience of dementia, but the fact that it is a quiet, intimate film will count against it.

Judas and the Black Messiah was only released this year, so it hasn’t had a chance to gain as much conversation as the rest, while Promising Young Woman didn’t really stick the film’s ending, so people have been really divided on whether it’s a good film or not. Sound of Metal will kill it in the Sound categories, but Best Picture winner is highly unlikely.

As for Minari, the film didn’t meet the Golden Globes at least 50 percent English criteria to qualify for the Best Motion Picture category (it was entered under the foreign language category instead), and given that for most of the film the characters converse in Korean, this will count against it. Of course, given Parasite’s win last year, this is certainly not set in stone. But the two have very different genres, and Parasite’s mesh of thriller/comedy has more mass appeal. Bong Joon-ho’s films are also pretty well-known – think Memories of Murder or Okja – while Lee Isaac Chung’s filmography has been mostly under the radar since Minari.

What has remained steady through it all is Nomadland, and that’s the film I’m putting my money on to win the biggest award.

 

Directing

Prediction: Chloé Zhao

Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman made some strong visual choices, choosing to go with pastels and pinks, a strong feminine style seen in the costuming as well as the set. The soundscape reflects this as well, which shows a strong cohesive vision. But like I said, the ending is not to everyone’s taste, with the haunting pathos of the moments before diluted because of it.

Mank is astounding on the technical fronts, but lacking when it comes to the human factor. The film mimics too much of Citizen Kane, and has a strange meandering structure, trying to capture the politics of the time and be a biopic of sorts, not really succeeding on both fronts. If David Fincher wins, it will be because he’s well-known. The Social Network is his best film in my opinion, though sometimes, wins are given not because of the end product, but because the individual in question is long overdue. This was the case with Leonardo DiCaprio and The Revenant – hardly his best performance, but it was becoming laughable that he had churned out so many great performances over the years, and the Oscar was never his.

Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round is a good movie, but it never elevates itself to greatness, with most of the film’s detractors feeling that the film plays it too safe with its central premise. What began as an exercise of mild day drinking to increase productivity and allow the individual to loosen up, escalates far too quickly into roaring drunkdom, so in the end, it never gets to truly explore the provocative elements of the subject matter.

Minari, while beautiful and moving, has far too narrow of a focus, and though it attempts to balance its specific elements with more universal themes, it never quite gets there.

Nomadland definitely has its detractors as well, especially when it comes to pacing (frequent gripes are that it’s boring), but the film is ambitious and bold in so many ways. Zhao’s creation is a docudrama, so while there are actors like Frances McDormand, many of the people in the film are non-professional, and are actually real people living nomadically. If you didn’t know this backstory, you would think that these are unfamiliar actors, so this truly speaks to Zhao’s ability to direct.

Also, it’s a rare thing that a film can win Best Picture and not take home the Directing award as well, so if I chose Nomadland for Best Picture, the film’s director should take home the big prize. However, this isn’t always the case as well, since Moonlight won Best Picture but Damien Chazelle took home the Directing award for La La Land, not Barry Jenkins.

Will history be made on the 26th? My fingers are crossed.

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