(UPDATED) EARLY OSCAR NOMINATION PREDICTIONS – ACADEMY AWARDS 2020

Hello, all, and welcome back to The Friendly Film Fan! Back in September, I put out a list of Ridiculously Early Oscar Predictions wherein I attempted to guess which films could receive Oscar nominations in each category at the 92nd Academy Awards, which will be taking place on February 9th, 2020, with the nominations announcement occurring on Monday, January 13th. Since then, most of the major critics’ circles, guilds, the SAGs (Screen Actors Guild, for those unfamiliar), and even the Golden Globes, have put out their own nominations and some have even given awards in many of those same categories to their nominees already. The field has been shaken up quite a bit since September, with Robert De Niro dropping out of the frontrunner lineup for Best Actor after missing out on both the SAG awards and the Golden Globes, The Farewell getting very little love, SAG all-but-ignoring Greta Gerwig’s take on Little Women entirely, and Sam Mendes’ WWI epic 1917 gaining a massive late surge to place it in the frontrunners (in terms of nominations anyhow) for the Best Picture category; plus, Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited mob epic, The Irishman, is now poised as the frontrunner to win the night. Once again, this list is just a series guesses on which films/people will be nominated in which categories, based on Oscar voting/nomination patterns, critical acclaim, Critics’ Choice/SAG/Globes nominations/awards, and just a little bit of this movie fan’s intuition. Without further ado, I present my updated early Oscar nomination predictions for the 2020 Academy Awards! (Short film categories partially marked “TBD” due to not having seen many, and not knowing enough about those categories yet to make an educated guess on many of those spots.)
 
Best Picture:

• 1917
• Ford v Ferrari
• The Irishman
• Jojo Rabbit
• Joker
• Little Women (2019)
• Marriage Story
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
• Parasite

Best Director:

• Noah Baumbach, Marriage Story
• Bong Joon Ho, Parasite
• Sam Mendes, 1917
• Martin Scorsese, The Irishman
• Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Best Actor:

• Christian Bale, Ford v Ferrari
• Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory
• Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
• Adam Driver, Marriage Story
• Joaquin Phoenix, Joker

Best Actress:

• Cynthia Erivo, Harriet
• Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story
• Saoirse Ronan, Little Women (2019)
• Charlize Theron, Bombshell
• Renée Zellweger, Judy

Best Supporting Actor:

• Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
• Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes
• Al Pacino, The Irishman
• Joe Pesci, The Irishman
• Brad Pitt, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Best Supporting Actress:

• Laura Dern, Marriage Story
• Nicole Kidman, Bombshell
• Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers
• Florence Pugh, Little Women (2019)
• Margot Robbie, Bombshell

Best Animated Feature:

• Frozen II
• How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
• I Lost My Body
• Missing Link
• Toy Story 4

Best International Feature Film:

• Atlantics (Senegal)
• The Chambermaid (Mexico)
• Les Misérables (France)
• Pain and Glory (Spain)
• Parasite (South Korea)

Best Documentary Feature:

• American Factory
• Apollo 11
• For Sama
• Honeyland
• One Child Nation

Best Cinematography:

• Roger Deakins, 1917
• Rodrigo Prieto, The Irishman
• Lawrence Sher, Joker
• Robert Richardson, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
• Kyung-pyo Hong, Parasite

Best Film Editing:

• Lee Smith, 1917
• Thelma Schoonmaker, The Irishman
• Andrew Buckland, Michael McCusker, and Dirk Westervelt, Ford v Ferrari
• Fred Raskin, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
• Jinmo Yang, Parasite

Best Production Design:

• Dennis Gassner, 1917
• Bob Shaw, The Irishman
• Mark Friedberg, Joker
• Barbara Ling, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
• Ha-jun Lee, Parasite

Best Costume Design:

• Ruth E. Carter, Dolemite Is My Name
• Julian Day, Rocketman
• Jacqueline Durran, Little Women (2019)
• Arianne Phillips, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
• Anna Robbins, Downton Abbey

Best Makeup & Hairstyling:

• Bombshell
• Joker
• Judy

Best Original Score:

• Thomas Newman, 1917
• Hildur Guðnadóttir, Joker
• Alexandre Desplat, Little Women (2019)     
• Randy Newman, Marriage Story
• John Williams, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Best Original Song:

• “Beautiful Ghosts,” Cats
• “Into the Unknown,” Frozen II
• “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again,” Rocketman
• “Spirit,” The Lion King (2019)
• “Stand Up,” Harriet

Best Adapted Screenplay:

• Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
• Steve Zaillian, The Irishman
• Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit
• Todd Phillips and Scott Silver, Joker
• Greta Gerwig, Little Women (2019)

Best Original Screenplay:

• Lulu Wang, The Farewell
• Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, and Jason Keller, Ford v Ferrari
• Noah Baumbach, Marriage Story
• Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
• Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin Won, Parasite

Best Visual Effects:

• Ad Astra
• The Aeronauts
• Avengers: Endgame
• The Lion King (2019)
• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Best Sound Mixing:

• 1917
• Cats
• Ford v. Ferrari
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Best Sound Editing:

• 1917
• Ad Astra
• Ford v. Ferrari
• Rocketman
• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Best Live-Action Short:

• TBD
• TBD
• TBD
• TBD
• TBD

Best Animated Short:

• Hair Love
• TBD
• TBD
• TBD
• TBD

Best Documentary Short:

• Fire in Paradise
• Ghosts of Sugar Land
• TBD
• TBD
• TBD

 
Are any of your favorites making the cut? Which film is your frontrunner to win? Any you think are being unfairly overlooked? Let me know in the comments section below. Thanks for reading, and keep an eye out for my next two installments of my Rankings Series: Movies of the Decade (2010s), coming very soon!
 
- The Friendly Film Fan