Calling the Oscar Nominations

While far from an exact science, I cannot stop myself from theorising about how the Academy will award the films of 2014, so I'm mainly doing this for my own purposes. I will of course revisit and revise this list up until the day of the Academy Awards, but now, after months of listening to podcasts, following blogs and Twitter accounts, and hours before the announcements, here are my picks for the Academy Award nominations:

Best Picture

American Sniper

Boyhood

Birdman

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Nightcrawler

Selma

The Theory of Everything

Here, I expect Boyhood to be rewarded. Birdman will give it a close run but I think the others are also-rans. Good chance Whiplash may sneak into this list too which would be great. The pool of voters expands and diversifies every year, which has been great news for independent film companies. By far the largest division of the 6000-odd voters is the Actors Branch who often reward actor-friendly directors and actor-turned-directors, which explains why Clint Eastwood is highly likely to feature here.

Best Director

Richard Linklater - 'Boyhood'

Alejandro Gonzalez Innarritu - 'Birdman'

Wes Anderson ' 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'

Morten Tyldum - 'The Imitation Game'

Ava Duverney - ' Selma'

Very close call. It’s hard to leave out Clint Eastwood, who, even when he's just being OK gets waves of adulation from the actors in the branch thinking this might be the last chance they can show their respect. I'm picking Innaritu to take this one. Birdman is audacious and stylish and you canNOT avoid that style wherever you look. Selma was looking much stronger in November, but support for it has tailed off over the last few weeks. Though few agree, I (cynically perhaps) feel the chance to award an African American female director who has made a widely-applauded film, is too good a chance to pass up.

Best Actor
Michael Keaton - 'Birdman'
Benedict Cumberbatch - 'The Imitation Game'
Jake Gyllenhaal - 'Nightcrawler'
David Oyelowo - 'Selma'
Eddie Redmayne - 'The Theory of Everything'

This is an incredibly tight race, with a good four or five other actors who could sneak in – it would be brilliant to see Tom Hardy make an appearance for 'Locke' or, more likely, Steve Carrell for 'Foxcatcher' or Ralph Fiennes for 'Grand Budapest Hotel'. Last year Tom Hanks was meant to be a shoo-in for 'Captain Phillips' and many thought Robert Redford would make it for single-handedly starring in 'All Is Lost'. Despite it not being remotely his 'time', this is Michael Keaton's to lose. Bradley Cooper may knock out Gyllenhaal or Oyelowo for his lead role in American Sniper, he's certainly incredibly popular amongst the Academy. Redmayne is his closest competition. Again, I'd love to see Gyllenhaal surprise everyone, 'Nightcrawler' is certainly his strongest role yet and the Academy would certainly be able to relate to characters such as the one he portrays.

Best Actress
Amy Adams – ‘Big Eyes’

Felicity Jones – ‘The Theory of Everything’

Julianne Moore – ‘Still Alice’

Rosemund Pike – ‘Gone Girl’

Reese Witherspoon – ‘Wild’

Many are saying Jennifer Anniston will win a nomination with her ‘look Academy, no makeup!’ turn in ‘Cake’, which barely anyone has seen and still fewer are rating as any good, and there’s a good chance she will. Though the Globes and other awarding bodies will want the glamour and clicks that giving her a (quite possibly worthy) nomination, I’m going with Amy Adams. Marianne Cotillard could sneak in for 'Two Days One Night', which no one would begrudge her. Rosemund Pike got huge attention for 'Gone Girl', Witherspoon (the only one likely to challenge) also loses the makeup for 'Wild', which is apparently great (even better is her role as a producer for both 'Gone Girl' and 'Wild'), and Felicity Jones is the magnificent true star of 'The Theory of Everything', but Julianne Moore has this one in the bag. She’s adored far and wide, she’s paid her dues several times over, and she has the 2014 trifecta of starring in the box office-storming 'Hunger Games', the Cannes-winning 'Maps to The Stars', and this incredibly tough role as an Alzheimer’s patient. The Oscar has been considered hers since it was previewed early last year. 

Best Supporting Actor

Edward Norton – ‘Birdman’
Ethan Hawke – ‘Boyhood’
Mark Ruffalo – ‘Foxcatcher’
Robert Duvall – ‘The Judge’
JK Simmons – ‘Whiplash’

If JK Simmons doesn’t take this home there’ll be an outcry. Likely to be the only Oscar given to 'Whiplash', his titanic, divisive role is undoubtedly worthy of the win. Yet another acclaimed Ruffalo performance will likely go unrewarded, Hawke’s commitment to Linklater's project is outstanding and Norton and Duvall show how little effort they need to expend to get results. 

Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette – ‘Boyhood’

Emma Stone – ‘Birdman’

Keira Knightley – ‘The Imitation Game’

Meryl Streep – ‘Into the Woods’

Rene Russo – ‘Nightcrawler’

A good chance that Laura Dern could knock out Rene Russo for her role in ‘Wild’ but either way this is likely to go to Arquette, who carries so much of the emotional heft of 'Boyhood'. Knightley makes the most of her part and she is embracing challenging roles in a way few would have expected a decade ago - she may be performing a nominated song come Oscar night too. Russo is an absolutely casting coup in 'Nightcrawler', and Streep...well, yeah. What did you expect?

Best Adapted Screenplay

American Sniper

Gone Girl

The Imitation Game

The Theory of Everything

Whiplash

Many say ‘Wild’ could also get in the mix here, which could be a good sign of the Academy’s (very) gradual gender balancing – especially if it came at the expense of 'American Sniper', which many critics have found ethically problematic, and just a bit rubbish. My money is on The Imitation Game, as it is an amazing story, if not particularly brilliantly told.


Best Original Screenplay
Boyhood

Birdman

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Nightcrawler

Selma

A tough call, I’m picking 'Boyhood', though 'Grand Budapest Hotel' could claim a win here, and 'Birdman' could easily take it given how much critics have warmed to it. 'Nightcrawler' is a masterwork in documenting the capitalistic headrush of Los Angelean sociopathy, but its unrelenting bleakness is perhaps not seen to be as artfully assembled as the open-sourced approach of Linklater and his actors.

Best Cinematography
Emmanuel Lubezki – ‘Birdman’

Dick Pope – ‘Mr Turner’

Robert Yeoman – ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’

Roger Deakins – ‘Unbroken’

Oscar Faura - The Imitation Game

Not much of a contest here. Lubezki is very likely to take this, though Deakins has been long, long overdue and Angelina Jolie’s ‘Unbroken’ – widely cited as an Oscar frontrunner for much of last year could see some well-deserved love here. 'Mr Turner', which was widely thought to have been a vehicle for Timothy Spall has divided audiences, though no one has a bad word to say about how beautifully JMW Turner's world is portrayed, wisely choosing not to echo Turner’s style. 

Best Editing

Boyhood

Birdman

The Imitation Game

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Whiplash

An errant category at the best of times, Best Editing has seen some odd films rewarded over the last decade and it is far from a category used to pad out the award numbers of the Best Picture winner. The seamless edits of 'Birdman', the formal precision of 'Grand Budapest' (or 'Gone Girl' even), the decade straddling weaving of 'Boyhood' or the ricocheting cross-cutting of 'Whiplash' are all frontrunners. For me, 'Boyhood' gets it by a nose. 

Best Costume
Belle

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Into the Woods

Maleficent

Selma

This is a tricky one, but I think 'Maleficent' will sneak over the line. The Academy rarely rewards faithful adaptations of eras or times, preferring their winners to stick in the memory. The colours and designs are so strong and true to the hyper-real nature of the story I think either this or 'Into the Woods' will take it, though no one would begrudge the brilliantly detailed and controlled 'Grand Budapest' taking this too. 

Best Hair and Makeup
Foxcatcher

Guardians of the Galaxy

The Grand Budapest Hotel

'Maleficent' and 'Into the Woods' could easily turn up here too, but obvious transformations regularly trump subtle work when the Academy rack their collective brain for what strikes them as striking work. Steve Carrell certainly fits this bill for his work in 'Foxcatcher', and this is likely to be as close as he gets to his first Oscar. 

Best Original Score
The Theory of Everything

Interstellar

The Imitation Game

Gone Girl

Unbroken

This category is a very tough call. Would be wonderful to see Mica Levi's score for 'Under the Skin' make a surprise appearance, but previous winners tend to dominate this field. Don’t be surprised to see Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score for 'Gone Girl', Hans Zimmer’s notably (and appropriately) unsubtle work on 'Interstellar', Alexandre Desplat’s 'Unbroken' score (one of the few widely-commended aspects to the film), and the Golden Globe winning 'Theory of Everything' score by Icelandic minimalist Jóhann Jóhannsson. He’s the favourite, just ahead of Desplat, and I’m picking him too. It is a beautiful score.

Best Original Song
Glory – ‘Selma’

Everything is Awesome – ‘The Lego Movie’

Yellow Flicker Beat – ‘The Hunger Games Part I Mockingjay’

Split the Difference – ‘Boyhood’

Lost Stars – ‘Begin Again’

The smart money is on Glory, which won the Golden Globe, though how anyone can get Everything is Awesome out of their head long enough to consider anything else is beyond me. Opportunity from 'Annie' is also a strong chance for making this, as is the title track to ‘Big Eyes’.

Best Production Design
The Grand Budapest Hotel

Into the Woods

Birdman

The Imitation Game

Interstellar

If there’s one thing you remember about 'Grand Budapest Hotel' it’s the look and the intricate work done with mise en scene. If it’s rewarded anywhere it will be here. 'Into the Woods' has a strong chance, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see 'Maleficent' turn up here too, probably at the expense of 'Interstellar'.

Best Sound Mixing

American Sniper

Interstellar

Into the Woods

Fury

Unbroken

Musicals are often rewarded here because gee it's hard to mix music and speaking together. Therefore, despite the hue and cry of 'Interstellar', the distant and intense explosions of 'Fury', the echoes of gunfire and the panicky static of 'American Sniper', 'Into the Woods', like 'Les Miserables' is most likely to be rewarded here.

Best Sound Editing
Interstellar

Whiplash

American Sniper

Guardians of the Galaxy

Unbroken

Big showy efforts and blockbusters tend to be rewarded here, so this is likely to be a showdown between 'Interstellar' and 'Guardians of the Galaxy'. 'Whiplash' has been generating a lot of love over the final few weeks, and it is a peerless job, though the canvas may be too small to earn the nomination. 'The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies' and 'Fury' could both show up here strongly too.

Best Visual Effects
Interstellar

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Guardians of the Galaxy

The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies

Godzilla

Could be that the 'Transformers' and 'X Men' efforts make it in here too. 'Planet of the Apes' was a brilliant and widely-lauded achievement and ran very well at the box office, which may get it over the line. It would be surprising for The Hobbit not to take home anything in its final installment, but the effects weren’t notably better than The Lord of the Rings’ ten years ago. 'Interstellar' is a narrow favourite, which is surprising given the underwhelming critical response to a film that couldn't help but be compared to '2001'. Still, there is much love for Christopher Nolan in the Academy and this may be their best chance to give him a nod. 

Best Animated Film
How to Train Your Dragon 2

The LEGO Movie

Boxtrolls

Big Hero 6

The Tale of Princess Kaguya

Anyone who saw 'The Tale of Princess Kaguya' has been left struggling to explain the beauty of what the hand-drawn film and its wild mixture of nostalgia and ground-breaking intricacy, but then very few people have actually seen it. Far more likely is the blockbustering 'LEGO Movie' or the much-loved and widely-seen 'How To Train Your Dragon 2', which took the Golden Globe. Likely to be out of these two, I’m picking 'The LEGO Movie' as this did very well outside of the US too, where an increasing proportion of the Academy hail.

Best Documentary Feature

Citizenfour

Finding Vivian Maier

Life Itself

Last Days in Vietnam

Keep On Keeping On

‘The most thrilling movie of the year’ was, by many accounts, the documentary about Edward Snowden, 'Citizenfour'. That the producers are currently being sued and having accusations of assisting Edward Snowden hasn’t tarnished its chances and it has been a real surprise. There’s a very good chance of ‘The Case Against 8’ turning up here and the universally-acclaimed ‘Virunga’, I see the biggest competition coming from the Roger Ebert documentary 'Life Itself', which was interestingly assembled, as if addressing accusations of playing to the Academy before it was even made.

Best Foreign Film
Ida

Force Majeure

Leviathan

Wild Tales

Timbuktu

Despite ‘Force Majeure’ being one of my (and many other’s) Top 10 films of 2014, the slow, elegant and surprisingly short ‘Ida’ is a clear favourite amongst prognosticators here. 'Leviathan' was a surprise winner at the Globes, especially as it is a ‘slow Russian film’, which has never been the easiest proposition to sell to a time-starved Academy member deciding which of the dozens of screeners they’ve been plied with is most worthy of their attention. My money is still on 'Force Majeure' as it is such a strong story and with one of the most memorable scenes of recent years.