With a week to go before the Academy Awards, it’s time once again to go over all the other major ceremonies of Awards Season. This will give us our best indicators of how the big night might shake out. All the major guilds have had their say, as well as the BAFTAs and Independent Spirit Awards. And to give an even more complete picture, I’ll throw in this year’s Critics’ Choice Awards winners, as they’ve eclipsed the Golden Globes as a Hollywood priority, at least this time around.
So without further ado, let’s get into the results and see where that potentially leads us for Oscar Night!
27th Critics’ Choice Awards
Best Picture – The Power of the Dog
Best Director – Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
Best Actor – Will Smith – King Richard
Best Actress – Jessica Chastain – The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Best Supporting Actor – Troy Kotsur – CODA
Best Supporting Actress – Ariana DeBose – West Side Story
Best Young Actor/Actress – Jude Hill – Belfast
Best Acting Ensemble – Belfast
Original Screenplay – Kenneth Branagh – Belfast
Adapted Screenplay – Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
Cinematography – The Power of the Dog
Editing – West Side Story
Costume Design – Cruella
Production Design – Dune
Score – Dune
Song – “No Time to Die”
Hair and Makeup – The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Visual Effects – Dune
Animated Feature – The Mitchells vs. The Machines
Best Comedy – Licorice Pizza
Foreign Language – Drive My Car
28th Screen Actors Guild Awards
Best Actor – Will Smith – King Richard
Best Actress – Jessica Chastain – The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Supporting Actor – Troy Kotsur – CODA
Supporting Actress – Ariana DeBose – West Side Story
Best Ensemble – CODA
Stunt Ensemble – No Time to Die
74th Directors Guild of America Awards
Feature Film Director – Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
Documentary Director – Stanley Nelson – Attica
First-Time Feature Director – Maggie Gyllenhaal – The Lost Daughter
37th Independent Spirit Awards
Best Feature – The Lost Daughter
Best Director – Maggie Gyllenhaal – The Lost Daughter
Male Lead – Simon Rex – Red Rocket
Female Lead – Taylour Paige – Zola
Supporting Male – Troy Kotsur – CODA
Supporting Female – Ruth Negga – Passing
Screenplay – Maggie Gyllenhaal – The Lost Daughter
First Screenplay – Michael Sarnoski and Vanessa Block – Pig
First Feature – 7 Days
Documentary Feature – Summer of Soul
Cinematography – Passing
Editing – Zola
International Film – Drive My Car
John Cassavetes Award – Shiva Baby
Robert Altman Award – Mass
Producers Award – Lizzie Shapiro
Someone to Watch Award – Alex Camilleri – Luzzu
Truer Than Fiction Award – Jessica Beshir – Faya Dayi
33rd Producers Guild of America Awards
Theatrical Motion Picture – CODA
Animated Motion Picture – Encanto
Documentary Motion Picture – Summer of Soul
74th Writers Guild of America Awards
Original Screenplay – Adam McKay – Don’t Look Up
Adapted Screenplay – Siân Heder – CODA
Documentary Screenplay – Marc Shaffer – Exposing Muybridge
75th BAFTA Awards
Best Film – The Power of the Dog
Best Director – Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
Best Actor – Will Smith – King Richard
Best Actress – Joanna Scanlan – After Love
Supporting Actor – Troy Kotsur – CODA
Supporting Actress – Ariana DeBose – West Side Story
Original Screenplay – Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza
Adapted Screenplay – Siân Heder – CODA
Animated Film – Encanto
Documentary – Summer of Soul
Film Not in the English Language – Drive My Car
Casting – West Side Story
Cinematography – Dune
Costume Design – Cruella
Editing – No Time to Die
Makeup & Hair – The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Original Score – Dune
Production Design – Dune
Sound – Dune
Visual Effects – Dune
Outstanding British Film – Belfast
Outstanding British Debut – The Harder They Fall
Best Short Animation – Do Not Feed the Pigeons
Best Short Film – The Black Cop
Rising Star Award – Lashana Lynch
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So with all this information, what conclusions can we draw for the Oscars? Well, funnily enough, it means that Disney and the Academy’s decision to cut a full third of the awards is even dumber than originally thought. The “Above the Line” categories that they prioritize so much are largely already decided. There is no dissent on Best Picture (save for the PGA and SAG), Best Director, and all four acting categories. The only real intrigue is on the writing side, with different winners for Original Screenplay in all applicable ceremonies, and narrowing Adapted Screenplay to CODA and The Power of the Dog. It will probably come down to whether the Academy voters on the whole prefer to give Jane Campion a clean sweep or to give Siân Heder a consolation prize. In addition, Animated Feature is down to two (Mitchells also won the Annie Award, so it’s basically an even split with Encanto at this point), while Documentary Feature and International Feature are locks.
Even the few “Below the Line” fields that survived Disney’s cut are largely done and dusted. Cruella is going to win for Costume Design, “No Time to Die” is inexplicably going to win Original Song, and Dune‘s had Visual Effects sewn up before it even got finished. The only one that’s undecided at this point is Cinematography, and even that’s down to the two front-runners, Dune and The Power of the Dog.
All the intrigue is in the eight categories that got cut, with only Makeup and Hairstyling seemingly in the bag for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, so much so that Jessica Chastain has already made a public declaration that she will skip Red Carpet bullshit so she can be in the Dolby Theatre, in her seat, when the HMU team wins their Oscar. I’d argue that Dune has the advantage for Production Design, but apart from that, the other six are still very much up in the air. We can’t definitively call any of the Short categories (though Affairs of the Art losing the Animated Short BAFTA doesn’t bode well for its chances on Oscar Night), and Editing, Sound, and Original Score either have multiple winners and/or a limited sample size to go off of.
Basically, no one needs to watch the Oscars based on this handling. Nearly all the prioritized races are already over, and the cut categories will have their winners tweeted out before the ceremony properly begins. So what’s the point? For you, there isn’t one, unless you’re truly dedicated to watching every moment unfold. I’d honestly suggest that you skip the broadcast if you’re not fully on board, if nothing else than to make the ratings tank further in protest. At this point, I’m still going to watch and live-blog because I’ve committed to doing so, but once the screenplays are out of the way, I essentially have no interest remaining in anything that happens.
Gotta love how those “best laid plans” tend to work out, huh?
Join the conversation in the comments below! Do any of these results surprise you? Which guild do you pay the most attention to? How boring is it to have so many ceremonies that there’s almost no suspense to the actual Oscars anymore? Let me know!
I Actually Paid To See This 