92nd Academy Awards: Who Will Win & Who Should Win

2019 in film brought about an embarrassment of riches. Most of those riches came at the tail-end of the year, which—unlike most years—is great for the Academy Awards.  Where you have an embarrassing amount of good films, though, you tend to have an embarrassing amount of overlooked films. Voters for the 92nd Academy Awards resembled the young children who wake up on Christmas morning and completely blow past the present they asked for — diversity — in favor of the new shiny gift Papa Scorsese laid at their feet that they didn’t know they needed. This oversight caused them to neglect to nominate quite a few deserving movies by non-male filmmakers. While I would gladly remove several of these nominees if given the chance, the result is still a pretty good crop of films.

The push for diversity clearly needs some work, but I’d argue that it’s as good a time as ever to check out some of the best movies of 2019 not directed by men. Pair a list like this with your catch-up of these Oscar nominees and you’ll have a solid picture of 2019 in film (you’ll also discover that quite a few films directed by women are better than a lot of these below directed by men).

The major story of 2019 comes with the South Korean film Parasite. Not only is it the first South Korean movie to ever be nominated for an Academy Award, it gathered six nominations and became only the twelfth non-English language film to be nominated for Best Picture. With this Oscar race coming to an end,

Below, I’ll break down six of the major Oscar categories and predict who will win on Sunday, February 9, and who should win.

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This category is an exercise in speaking into existence what I want to happen. The Vegas odds have 1917 as the slight favorite to win over South Korea’s Parasite with Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood finishing third. A Best Picture win for Parasite would be history-shaking for the Academy. It would be the first time a non-English language film wins Best Picture. While the oddsmakers side with 1917 due to the film winning the Directors Guild and Producers Guild top awards, the case for a Parasite win is quite strong.

Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a bright spot in a solid, but homogenous group of nominees. It’s in Korean, which could be a barrier for some voters, but it’s such a thrilling and provocative film that people who would normally not venture into foreign language film territory are watching and loving it. The movie was a huge box office hit, finishing ahead of at least four other nominees in global box office gross. It is only the fourth ever movie to receive the SAG award for Best Cast without receiving a single individual acting award. The other three movies to do so are The Full Monty, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, and Black Panther. Parasite shares traits with the latter two such as being a global phenomenon and a genre-film that reaches awards status. Return of the King went on to win Best Picture and Black Panther was a serious contender even within an Academy that doesn’t take superhero movies seriously. Lastly, awarding the prize to Parasite would give the Academy the rare opportunity to award their top prize to the movie that won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, allowing the organization to make-up some international clout they have lost over the last several years.

If Parasite doesn’t win, the prize will surely go to 1917.  Sam Mendes’ one-take World War I epic benefits from being one of the least divisive of the nominees due to its impressive filmmaking and complete lack of political motivation. Plus, if this voter is any indication, there’s a contingent of xenophobic Academy members who believe non-English language movies shouldn’t compete for this category.

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One of the weaker categories of this year’s ceremony due to the lack of nominations for incredible performances such as Lupita Nyong’o (Us), Elisabeth Moss (Her Smell), and Awkwafina (The Farewell), the award for Best Actress in a Leading Role has been poised to go to Renée Zellweger since the early fall for her portrayal of Judy Garland in Judy.  That film, while not being successful in every way, does form an interesting portrayal of Garland by also utilizing Zellweger in an interesting time in her career as she seems to have fallen far out of favor with both the public and Hollywood. Despite it being a a lock to win the award, Zellweger’s turn as Garland is not as convincing as some of the others in the category and falls way short when talking about the best performances of 2019.

For my money, the only performance nominated for this award that is worthy of it is Saoirse Ronan as Jo March in Little Women. Ronan, only 25, has now received her fourth nomination. While her performance as Jo is probably only the third best of her Oscar-nominated performances, she instills a maturity and conviction in the character that is unmatched by any of the other nominees in this category.

It would be a play in the Academy’s favor to reward a young actress that is sure to follow in the footsteps of the all-time greats while she is still in the early portion of her career. Before long, folks will be clamoring for Ronan to finally win her long-deserved Oscar much in the same way they do for Joaquin Phoenix. While we can’t rewrite history and give the award to her for her performance in Brooklyn, a performance I think of nearly every day, we can still write some wrongs and give it to the strongest performance out of this bunch of nominees.

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Here’s the deal: Christian Bale has won one Oscar (The Fighter) for a role in which he greatly transformed his body due to weight loss. He’s also been nominated twice (American Hustle, Vice) for roles where he gained a significant amount of weight. Bale is a solid actor and all three of these are good performances underneath the physicality. If Bale can do that, then who’s to say Joaquin Phoenix can’t win an Oscar for a similar reason? I am. I’m here to say that.

You’d think that in 2020 – or even in 2011, for that matter — the Academy would cease to give their top acting honors to performers who most fluctuate their weight while playing a role, especially considering the eating disorders and addiction forced on actors and actresses throughout Hollywood’s history, but you’d be wrong for thinking that. Joaquin Phoenix will surely win. He gives a dedicated performance that truly makes Joker the movie that it is; and when he wins, he’ll give a surefire newsworthy speech. But he shouldn’t win.

Out of these nominees, Leonardo DiCaprio is the only one who truly leverages his star power in interesting ways. He creates 1960s TV actor Rick Dalton in a complicated, myth-busting way. Quentin Tarantino is great at forming characters, but no character in a movie of his has ever overcome his irony and mythology as strongly as Rick Dalton in Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood. DiCaprio portrays him as tragic, laughable, and laudable in what is the best performance of his career. In one of the most tonally complex scenes of the year, Rick, alone in his trailer after a disastrous film shoot, screams at himself in the mirror, causing the audience to laugh until he threatens to kill himself. Only DiCaprio could have pulled this scene off. Only DiCaprio could elevate this character so far above what was written on the page.

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Laura Dern has had a fabulous career resurgence over the past few years, but while I wouldn’t mind her winning an Oscar, her performance as divorce lawyer Nora Fanshaw in Marriage Story should not be the one that receives the award. She – as well as every character in Marriage Story outside of Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson – doesn’t come within a mile of resembling a remotely real human being. While it could be intentional, her performance is so tonally at odds with the core of the movie that it threatens to unravel Marriage Story entirely. Dern is generally as deserving of an Oscar as any other actor up for an award, but not for this performance.

The rest of the race comes down to only two nominees: Florence Pugh as Amy March in Little Women and Scarlett Johansson in Jojo Rabbit. These two performances are supporting performances that prop up their entire film. In the end, my vote would go towards Pugh in Little Women, as Greta Gerwig’s great experiment of adaptation relies entirely on Pugh’s ability to turn a traditionally disliked character into an flawed, yet, understandable character. The whole story may still revolve around her sister, Jo, but without Amy’s redemption arc, this adaptation would do little to distinguish itself.

While I didn’t submit any alternate nominees in other categories, Park So-dam in Parasite stands out as the definitive supporting actress performance of the year. She plays the daughter of the Kim family posing as an art tutor for the wealthy family they are conning.

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How do you even begin talking about a category with five of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood history? Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt, and Anthony Hopkins: these five actors collectively have twenty-two nominations and five Oscars for either Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor. How many of those have come this century? If you exclude this year’s nominations, then exactly three nominations came between 2000-2019, and two of those belong to Pitt. If the Oscars are a little influenced by actors who are overdue, then Pitt is the easiest choice. He’s the only nominee who has never won. If, however, we’re talking solely about the quality of the performance in question, I’m unfortunately looking elsewhere.

Hanks starred in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which I called the best movie of 2019, but it’s Matthew Rhys’ performance in that film that makes it so special. If you forced me to pick a pope, I’m going with Jonathan Pryce over Hopkins. Pacino did Pacino things beautifully in The Irishman, but not even that or Pitt’s perfectly tempered Cliff Booth in Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood are enough to take this category from Joe Pesci in my eyes.

Pesci came out of retirement to play Russell Bufalino in Scorsese’s film. He’s no stranger to playing a gangster, just look at his only Oscar win for Goodfellas. Yet here, he strikes a different chord. He is melancholic, even-keel, and slow-to-anger. Pesci plays his unchanging face with a fiery underbelly, always threatening to be undone. What may be a career best for Pesci comes during the denouement of a career filled with masterful supporting character performances. And in a group of supporting actors whose star power could overtake any movie set, Pesci also stands out as the only lifelong character actor in the bunch. Pesci is to the Supporting Actor category as Denzel Washington is to the Lead Actor category.

In the strongest category of the 92nd Oscars, it’s a shame the prize won’t go to Pesci, but you could do a lot worse than Pitt winning the award during the best year of his career.

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It’s not every year Martin Scorsese bestows an American masterpiece on the filmgoing public. It’s roughly every three years. This time, alongside Netflix, he released The Irishman. His divisive 210 minute hitman masterpiece follows the story of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) and his relationship with mob boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) as well as his friendship with Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). Over the course of the film, Scorsese casts a heavy shadow over the lives of these characters. He also offers more judgment on his characters’ actions in such a way that doesn’t only show them as flawed, but as decidedly empathetic, especially De Niro.

Tonally, The Irishman feels like a curtain slowly dropping, getting heavier and more certain with every foot. While it may not be especially new for Scorsese to drop a masterfully-directed film – he did so only three years ago with Silence – he still manages to reveal new levels to his filmmaking even with his 25th feature film.

While Scorsese should win, it seems as good as certain that Sam Mendes will win for his direction of 1917. The flaw with choosing 1917 as the best directed film of 2019 has less to do with that film and more to do with what it’s up against in this category. While Mendes and crew did a fine job with 1917, to award such an apolitical, message-less war film in one of the major categories will be tantamount to last year’s Green Book win, a film that is watchable but has few interesting things to say. Losing to 1917 will not be all too different than losing to any Marvel movie from last year, which Martin Scorsese referred to as more theme park rides than cinema.

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