2018 Academy Award for Best Picture Final Predictions

There are four potential winners this year.  Nothing has a clear claim to awards season, everything is pretty well spread out.  A Star is Born is the easy pick, inoffensive, polished and engineered for Oscar gold.  Green Book is a standard important issue film, but it needs voters to really love it which not everybody does.  BlacKkKlansman was an early release that's stayed in the race with a desire for this to finally be Spike Lee's year.  Then there is Roma, a black and white foreign language streaming feature.  All of which will work against it, but the film is beloved enough that it might not matter.

Even past those four there is still a slim chance of an upset from The Favourite or even Vice, which both could sweep across several categories.  Not to say anything of Black Panther, which has probably the most public support for a win.  And who can say anything about Bohemian Rhapsody at this point?  It won at the Globes against all common sense, if it takes SAG Ensemble and PGA it could come out ahead here too.

The Oscars were wise to get rid of the proposed Best Popular Film category, because popular films are the ones defining this year: A Star is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody, Black Panther, A Quiet Place, Crazy Rich Asians, Mary Poppins Returns and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse are all contenders that can be classified as popular film.  Even the smaller contenders like Green Book, BlacKkKlansman, The Favourite and Vice have all made $20-$50 million domestically (and I'm sure Netflix has claimed Roma met some weird metric).

A lot of the race breaks down to who the studio is pushing.  Warner Bros. has A Star is Born over Crazy Rich Asians, Universal has Green Book over First Man, Netflix has Roma over Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Annapurna has Vice over If Beale Street Could Talk, Disney has Black Panther over Mary Poppins Returns, Fox has Bohemian Rhapsody over The Favourite (and Widows if we're being honest).  Leaving Focus clear to push BlacKkKlansman and Paramount clear to push A Quiet Place.

As usual I'm predicting nine films being nominated, but that is never a sure thing with the preferential voting system.  This could be a year where eight films are nominated but here's my predictions:

Top Predicted Five
A Star is Born	Green Book	BlacKkKlansman	Roma	Bohemian Rhapsody
People really fell for this movie and its received huge box office and consistent awards attention.  This is a movie people like and feel strongly about, it’s had the kind of emotional connection needed for Best Picture. With secured directing and acting nominations this is the one to beat.  It hasn’t weakened throughout the entire awards season.	Late entry to the race that came in strong and has had some ups and downs.  Minor controversies and uneven critical attention hasn’t slowed it down, seems to be a given for a nomination.  May be too slight to dominate, there are films people feel stronger about.  But this is a classic awards movie that makes people feel good.  And with its strong supportive and real life narrative it could take the night.	Early release, doesn’t have the momentum to win but it is locked for a nomination.  This is Spike’s career nomination and it is a powerful, topical film.  There’s still some negativity and controversy involved, it lacks clear wins for acting and writing which would help.  But it’s Spike’s year to get invited and his film has outlasted many weaker awards contenders.	A definite chance that this one takes the lead, but it has many obstacles.  It is black and white in a foreign language, many may just vote for it there.  It is also from Netflix, no streaming movie has even been nominated in Best Picture before.  But there is a definite emotional connection that could put this movie in the lead.  It has a stronger chance of winning writing and directing which its competitors don’t.	The Globes win was a huge shock, so was the important SAG ensemble nomination.  This film has a solid awards presence which I did not expect based on controversies and bad reviews.  It seems that people really wanted a Freddy Mercury biopic and they got a great performance for him.  Fox is smart to sell the film around the members of Queen.  Voters seem to be acknowledging the band and artist more than the film.  Still, how far can a film go where they can’t mention the director?  There is plenty to attack in slam campaigns.  It is going to take a lot of support for Malek to carry the entire film.
Next Predicted Four				Runner-Up
The Favourite	Vice	Black Panther	A Quiet Place	Crazy Rich Asians
Not the favorite, but close enough to be a lock.  Quirky costume piece with strong performances that is doing good box office.  There is no way this film misses, it just never got the support for a win.	There is potential backlash, this wasn’t a universally well received film.  Still the precursor support is there and it has potential in directing, acting and writing.  Expect this to get in.	There has been pressure all year to reward this film in Best Picture and its outlasted a lot of contenders.  It has had a presence in top ten lists and important precursors like the SAG ensemble nomination.  It does not have the momentum to win, but there isn’t much left to oppose it.  Still there will be some bias towards it being a superhero blockbuster, but it will end up as number one on enough ballots to get in.	This very well could be a year with eight nominees, but that doesn’t happen often.  With the weird voting system we don’t know how many films will be nominated, so it is always better to predict 9.  And as weird as it may seem, A Quiet Place seems most likely for that final slot.  It got on the PGA, AFI and NBR top ten lists.  With Get Out last year, horror is respectable again and this has some potential for Supporting Actress and Screenplay.	There won’t be 10 nominees ever again, but if I had to predict one it would be this with its important PGA and SAG ensemble nominations.  Its been a long time since romantic comedies have been considered award worthy, but the Oscars are trending towards more popular films this year (making it a smart choice to abandon the Best Popular Film category).  Still an outside chance, but it right on the cusp on getting in.
Long Shots
If Beale Street Could Talk	Mary Poppins Returns	Can You Ever Forgive Me?	First Man	Eighth Grade
This one never took off as an awards contender, which is odd since Moonlight was a big surprise win two years ago.  Still has Best Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay to keep it in the conversation, but a Picture nod would be a surprise.	Had some buzz, but didn’t get people talking awards.  Losing to Green Book at the Globes isn’t good.  Support for Emily Blunt could help it, but Disney will be campaigning Black Panther over this.	Made a few top ten lists and is a lock for Actress, Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay so not completely out of the race.  But it never quite got there for Picture and Director.	Was a sure thing until the movie flopped and the uneven critical reviews didn’t give it enough life.  Still an Oscar movie, but this one just didn’t take off.	Small films can surprise.  This could sneak in for director, actress and/or screenplay but we should have seen more precursor notices by now.
Way Outside Chances
Cold War	First Reformed	Ballad of Buster Scruggs	Leave No Trace	Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
This is secured a foreign language nomination, but Roma will overshadow it.  Too many American films for it to stand out.	Critics liked it and then it was forgotten.  Needs a sudden swell of support for Hawke and maybe screenplay to get in here.	Many people will say to always beat on the Coens.  Looking at their awards history says otherwise.  Netflix has Roma instead.	Was doing great in critic awards but then the precursors shut it out entirely.	A lot of love for this movie, but not enough for picture.  Pixar only got nominated when 10 nominees were required.