Hey! It’s that picture from Boyhood that we’ve used a few dozen times since November!
Well, it’s been a long and tortured road since I first started this monthly series of Oscar predictions way back in March. Some contenders have faded. Some have come out of nowhere. And some — like Boyhood and J.K. Simmons in Whiplash — have remained consistently strong for the entire year.
Here are my final 2014 Oscar predictions. The actual Oscar predictions will be announced on Thursday.
(You can check out my predictions of March, April, May, June, July, August, October, November, and December by clicking on the links in this sentence!)
Best Picture
American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Nightcrawler
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash
Best Actor
Bradley Cooper in American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game
Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler
Michael Keaton in Birdman
Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything
(Where’s David Oyelowo? Originally, I did list him but I don’t know. With the guild awards, it seems like Selma is losing momentum and American Sniper is gaining it. I know that a lot of watchers are saying this is due to the Selma screeners being sent out late and that could well be true. Hopefully, I’ll get to see both Selma and American Sniper this weekend but, until then, I can’t offer an opinion on whether either one deserves to be nominated. But it’s hard not to feel as if Selma is not shaping up to be quite the Oscar powerhouse that a lot of us were expecting it to be. We’ll see.)
Best Actress
Jennifer Aniston in Cake
Felicity Jones in The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore in Still Alice
Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon in Wild
Best Supporting Actor
Robert Duvall in The Judge
Ethan Hawke in Boyhood
Edward Norton in Birdman
Mark Ruffalo in Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons in Whiplash
(I still have a hard time believe that Robert Duvall is going to be nominated for The Judge because Duvall was good but not great and the movie kind of sucked. But, honestly, who else are they going to nominate? Josh Brolin deserves the spot for Inherent Vice but the film is probably a little bit too odd for a lot of voters. Maybe if Unbroken‘s Miyavi or Gone Girl‘s Tyler Perry had a little more screen time, they could make a case. But ultimately, that fifth spot does seem to be Duvall’s.)
Best Supporting Actress
Patrica Arquette in Boyhood
Jessica Chastain in A Most Violent Year
Keira Knightley in The Imitation Game
Emma Stone in Birdman
Naomi Watts in St. Vincent
(I’m going to go out on a limb and predict Watts over Meryl Streep. Why not? There always seems to be at least one surprise acting nominee.)
Best Director
Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel
Clint Eastwood for American Sniper
Alejandro G. Inarritu for Birdman
Richard Linklater for Boyhood
Morten Tyldum for The Imitation Game
So there they are! My final “for real” predictions. Tomorrow, I’ll be posting my annual “If Lisa Had All The Power” post, which will be my personal nominations, the films and performances that I would nominate if I had all the power. And then, on Thursday, the Oscar nominations will be announced!
Need to kill some time? Look through all the posts since November and count up how many times this picture has appeared on the site!
Through the Shattered Lens 