2018 Oscar Nominations: Our Final Predictions

2018 Oscar Nominations: Our Final Predictions

By mid-January, awards season has typically settled into a predictable groove. The front-runners hav..

By mid-January, awards season has typically settled into a predictable groove. The front-runners have been anointed; their accolades have been accumulating since December; and everyone is prepared to see them march all the way to the finish line at the Oscars. This year, however, things don’t seem quite so set in stone. Could a glut of worthy contenders lead to a best-picture category bursting with 10 nominees? Will best director follow the controversial precedent set by the Golden Globes, leaving a pair of young upstarts out to dry? And just how good areThe Greatest Showman’s chances, really? (We kid. Sort of.)

All will be revealed on January 23, when the Academy Award nominees are finally announced. Until then, check below to see who Vanity Fair predicts will be nominated in 21 Oscar categories—everything but the shorts.

Best Picture

Call Me by Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
The Florida Project
Get Out
I, Tonya
Lady Bird
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

There hasn’t been a 10-movie field of best-picture nominees since 2011, but this feels like a year when it could happen. Once you get past the list of sure things (we think?)—Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards—it’s easy to imagine any of the remaining selections dropping off or being replaced by, say, Mudbound, or The Big Sick, or Wonder Woman. So join us as we attempt to relieve 2018’s chronic prediction-related stress by repeating our new Oscar-season mantra: “uncertainty is good! Not knowing the answers in advance is fun!” Convinced yet? Yeah, us neither.

Best Actress

Sally Hawkins,The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand,Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie,I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan,Lady Bird
Meryl Streep,The Post

Frances McDormand is the current favorite to win this category, thanks to her fierce turn as the Dirty Harry of grieving mothers, and Meryl Streep probably cinched her nomination with that pivotal moment in The Post where Kay Graham discovers and deploys her power to decide. Sally Hawkins and Saoirse Ronan, meanwhile, both deliver central, first-rate performances in beloved best-picture favorites. The only thing to argue about, then, is whether Margot Robbie or Molly’s Game’s Jessica Chastain will land that fifth spot. It’s close, but our money is on Robbie, who ventures way outside her comfort zone to embody red-state underdog and outlaw Olympian Tonya Harding.

Best Actor

Timothée Chalamet,Call Me by Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis,Phantom Thread
James Franco,The Disaster Artist
Daniel Kaluuya,Get Out
Gary Oldman,Darkest Hour

Gary Oldman has been the presumed front-runner in this category from the moment his role as Winston Churchill was announced, and despite being blanked by most critics’ awards, he is still in prime position—though recent rumblings about his biography may make the road to a win a bit tougher. James Franco had a much less likely road to a nomination for his gonzo role in The Disaster Artist, but a Golden Globe win seemed to seal it . . . until the Los Angeles Times published a story in which several of his former acting students accused him of sexual harassment. The question is whether that story, published during the last few days of Oscar voting, reached enough people in time to halt Franco’s nomination—and we’re going to bet it didn’t, resulting in a highly awkward best-actor race to come. Thank goodness, then, that the remaining field will be filled out by almost universally beloved picks—22-year-old breakout Timothée Chalamet, craft-defining veteran Daniel Day-Lewis, and in our big swing, Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya, who earned both the Golden Globe and SAG nominations that suggest he’s really in the race. That would mean he edges out Tom Hanks, indisputably the most-liked man in Hollywood—but Hanks hasn’t gotten a best-actor nomination since 2000, and with The Post’s awards fortunes seeming to fade, this no longer feels like the year to break that streak.

Best Supporting Actress

Mary J. Blige,Mudbound
Holly Hunter,The Big Sick
Allison Janney,I, Tonya
Laurie Metcalf,Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer,The Shape of Water

This category remains the battle of the TV titans, with Allison Janney (a Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe winner) facing her primary competition in Laurie Metcalf (the general critical favorite)—they have 10 Emmys between them, and all the industry goodwill a person could need. And they’ve taken up so much awards-season heat it’s difficult to predict who will join them in this category. We’re going with Mary J. Blige, who has become a standout in her first awards season as a representative of her daring film Mudbound; Octavia Spencer, a former winner who is both well-liked and part of a film industry voters seem to love; and Holly Hunter, perhaps the biggest underdog in this category, but a four-time nominee who proved with her surprise nomination for Thirteen in 2004 that, when Oscar voters are given the chance to notice her, they’ll take it.

Best Supporting Actor

Willem Dafoe,The Florida Project
Armie Hammer,Call Me by Your Name
Richard Jenkins,The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer,All the Money in the World
Sam Rockwell,Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Rockwell and Dafoe are probably locks, and seem neck and neck as front-runners. After that, things get a bit messy. Jenkins has been steady on the campaign, so we’ll assume he’s going to get a nod. Hammer has been flashier on the press tour than his also-lauded cast mate Michael Stuhlbarg, who could slip in if not enough voters care about the feat of Plummer’s last-minute fill-in for disgraced Kevin Spacey. But there’s also Rockwell’s co-star Woody Harrelson lurking in the wings. This is the five we’re going with now, though. We’ll probably change our minds in a few hours.

Best Director

Guillermo del Toro,The Shape of Water
Greta Gerwig,Lady Bird
Martin McDonagh,Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Christopher Nolan,Dunkirk
Jordan Peele,Get Out

Like so many categories this year, this is a really tricky one to call. It’s just so competitive! For evidence of that fact, just look at who’s left out in the above scenario: Luca Guadagnino, whose Call Me by Your Name was one of the best-reviewed films of the year, and Steven freaking Spielberg. The thing is, though, either of them could easily push someone else off the list—really only del Toro feels like an absolute sure-thing for a nomination. We’re going with this five because we think the Academy will seek to be a little more diverse in its nominations than the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was with its Peele- and Gerwig-less Golden Globes shortlist.

Best Original Screenplay

Get Out
Lady Bird
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

It’s tempting to politicize the Oscars, and few categories this year offer such an unvarnished invitation to politicization as this one. If Get Out loses, is that a setback for #OscarsSoWhite? If Lady Bird loses, whither #MeToo? If Three Billboards wins, is the Academy blind to problematic racial dynamics? If The Post loses, does Donald Trump thump the Fake News Media? If Shape of Water loses, is forbidden love off the menu? If The Big Sick doesn’t even make the cut, is Obamacare finally repealed? Hard to say, but these are our picks—may the best script win!

Best Adapted Screenplay

Call Me by Your Name
The Disaster Artist
Molly’s Game
Mudbound
Wonder

James Ivory feels like a shoo-in to finally win his first Oscar at age 89—which could very feasibly be Call Me by Your Name’s only award of the night. He’ll likely face some mild competition from Mudbound’s hefty adaptation of a hefty novel, and from The Disaster Artist’s funny and rambling script. Aaron Sorkin will get something of a courtesy nod for his verbose, fast-paced adaptation of Molly Bloom’s story. The real outlier here is Wonder, adapted from the same-titled children’s novel. Sure, something like the respected and way more brooding Logan could swoop in and take its spot. But Wonder has quietly made $230 million worldwide (more than 10 times its budget), an impressive performance that the Academy may want to recognize somehow. This and best makeup are where it could do it.

Best Film Editing

Baby Driver
Dunkirk
Get Out
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Clever editing is a key component of any successful heist or horror movie, and both the summer hit Baby Driver and the haunting Get Out are exemplars of their respective genres. That’s why we’re guessing that each will get a nod here—even if the editing category is traditionally seen as a best-picture predictor, but neither of those films is a lock for the Oscars’ biggest category. (Especially Baby Driver, which could easily lose its slot to Blade Runner 2049, depending on how bullish the Academy is on that sci-fi fable more broadly.) The other three picks are safer bets, and even more likely to be nominated for best picture as well.

Best Production Design

Beauty and the Beast
Blade Runner 2049
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water

This is one of the technical categories where Shape of Water ought to shine. It will probably have some mild competition from Dunkirk, in this and other technicals. Darkest Hour’s stately wartime halls of power will likely get a respectful nod, while Beauty and the Beast and Blade Runner—one a huge hit, one decidedly not—will fill out the list for all their opulence.

Best Costume Design

Beauty and the Beast
The Greatest Showman
Murder on the Orient Express
Phantom Thread
The Shape of Water

Period dramas and fantastical epics are the traditional winners in this category, which should put The Shape of Water—which is both!—in a good position. Its most likely competitors run the gamut from big-budget Disney spectacles to big-budget Hugh Jackman spectacles to Murder on the Orient Express, a film not nearly as satisfying as its note-perfect, exquisitely tailored outerwear—but the film to beat, of course, is Phantom Thread, a movie actively about fashion.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Darkest Hour
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Wonder

Just as Nicole Kidman’s transformation into Virginia Woolf might not have been deemed Oscar-worthy without a certain prosthetic nose, Gary Oldman’s Winston Churchill wouldn’t work without the prosthetic work of makeup artist Kazuhiro Tsuji, the one to beat in this category. Similarly, Wonder wouldn’t be nearly as magical without the prosthetics used to transform adorable star Jacob Tremblay into still-adorable but facially deformed Auggie Pullman. So, who gets the final slot? Well, while I, Tonya has a scrappy underdog story and impressive results despite its tiny budget, Guardians simply has so much more hair and makeup—which makes it the most likely third.

Best Cinematography

Blade Runner 2049
Call Me by Your Name
Dunkirk
Mudbound
The Shape of Water

The cinematography category has two major chances to make history this year, first in the nomination stage. Rachel Morrison, the cinematographer for Mudbound, would be the first woman ever nominated in this category, and would have accomplished it by filming an exquisitely beautiful movie on a $10 million budget, then having that beauty come across even when the vast majority of the film’s viewers saw it on Netflix. The second bit of history would come at the ceremony, if Roger Deakins—the cinematographer of Blade Runner 2049 and also many of this century’s most beautiful films—finally wins an Oscar on his 14th nomination. Hopefully those narratives will be powerful enough to earn nominations for both Blade Runner 2049 and Mudbound, neither of them likely best-picture nominees, alongside three beautifully filmed best-picture hopefuls—Call Me by Your Name,The Shape of Water, and Dunkirk.

Best Visual Effects

Blade Runner 2049
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
War for the Planet of the Apes

Narrowed down to a field of 10, the visual-effects category often makes room for some of the year’s biggest blockbusters. But there’s more prestige in this mix than usual. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a shoo-in on legacy alone—Revenge of the Sith is the only Star Wars film to have ever missed a nomination here—and the current Apes franchise has reliably earned nominations for its incredibly crafted apes. From there, we predict a spot for The Shape of Water and its remarkable sea-creature leading man, plus the futuristic wonder of Blade Runner 2049—and then a little bit of room for the practical effects and achingly realistic military might of Dunkirk.

Best Documentary Feature

City of Ghosts
Faces Places
Icarus
Jane
Last Men in Aleppo

The always-topical documentary category is likely to keep its crown as the newsiest bracket at the Oscars by nominating not one, but two features about Syria—festival favorite City of Ghosts, acquired by Amazon in a $2 million deal, and Last Men in Aleppo, winner of a Sundance Grand Jury Prize—as well as Icarus, an investigation into Russia’s shady doping program (which should get a boost from the news that Russia has been banned from the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics), and Jane, a lyrical look at pioneering primatologist Jane Goodall, who spent years battling a scientific community that refused to take her seriously. The outlier is Faces Places, a French Cannes favorite that our own Richard Lawson named the second-best film of 2017—calling it a “a really thoughtful gift from two curious beings deeply engaged with the world.”

Best Original Song

“Evermore,” Beauty and the Beast
“Mystery of Love,” Call Me by Your Name
“Remember Me,” Coco
“This Is Me,” The Greatest Showman
“The Star,” The Star

There are some heavy hitters in the competition this year, many of them, as usual, coming from Disney and Pixar—Tim Rice and Alan Menken, the team behind “Evermore,” also brought us “A Whole New World,” and the Coco team of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez wrote the earworm of the century with “Let It Go.” There’s also Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, writers of last year’s winner, “City of Stars,” who should propel The Greatest Showman into the lineup. And then we have two incredibly different pop-star wild cards: Sufjan Stevens, whose heartfelt “Mystery of Love” is heavily showcased in Call Me by Your Name, and Mariah Carey with “The Star.” Not a single person on Gold Derby is predicting “The Star,” but hear me out: the mailer to promote the film, in which the song automatically plays when you open it, has proven what an incredible earworm the song is. If Academy voters got it too—and it seems safe to assume they did—they won’t be able to stop humming the song long enough to avoid nominating it.

Best Original Score

Coco
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Phantom Thread
The Shape of Water

If 85-year-old John Williams gets a nod for Star Wars: The Last Jedi or The Post—or even both; reach for the stars, John!—he’ll have more nominations than any other living person, beating a record previously set by . . . John Williams. That outcome seems unlikely, however, given the strong competition he faces in this category: Michael Giacchino’s exuberant Coco,Dario Marianelli’s dramatic, piano-driven Darkest Hour,Hans Zimmer’s tense Dunkirk,Alexandre Desplat’s moving Shape of Water, and Jonny Greenwood’sPhantom Thread, as lavish as a gown by Reynolds Woodcock. All of these men have won Oscars before, save Greenwood, who hasn’t even been nominated (!)—which should make for an interesting race.

Best Animated Feature

The Boss Baby
The Breadwinner
Coco
Loving Vincent
The Lego Batman Movie

Practically since its inception in 2001, this category has been an odd hodgepodge of family fare and more serious films that just happen to be drawn—and this year looks to be no exception. Expect Pixar’s jubilant toe-tapper Coco to compete against the Angelina Jolie-produced, Afghanistan-set drama The Breadwinner, the animated Vincent van Gogh biopic Loving Vincent, a movie about a boss who is also a baby, and a movie about a Batman who is also a Lego. (That last spot could very well go instead to Ferdinand, a surprise hit also nominated for a Golden Globe.)

Best Sound Editing

Baby Driver
Blade Runner 2049
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi

The ticking clocks and booming blasts and crashing waves of Dunkirk make Christopher Nolan’s World War II drama a no-brainer front-runner, accompanied by a mix of nouveau genre films that are as concerned with lush aural world-building as they are with telling isolated stories. (If it comes to pass, we will consider a citation for The Last Jedi in this category as a specific shout-out to the film’s disapproving fish nuns.) Will the clanging Wonder Woman sneak in over, say, Baby Driver? Perhaps, if the Academy ends up showering the superhero saga with nominations. But for now, these five options seem the safest bets.

Best Sound Mixing

Baby Driver
Dunkirk
The Greatest Showman
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Several of these predicted nominees have a sound mix—which determines not what you hear (that’s sound editing), but how you hear it—that really draws attention to itself, from the famous moment of silence in The Last Jedi, to the tricky balance of revving engines and pop songs in Baby Driver, to the buzzing dread of Dunkirk. The professionals who vote in these categories know far more about what makes that work exceptional, but action and war movies tend to find a home in this category regardless, so clearly there’s quality we laymen can hear too. For the rest of the category, we’ve gone with The Shape of Water, on the hunch that it will snap up every nomination available to it, as well as The Greatest Showman, based on the strong history that musicals have in this category—and the fact that everybody likes a surprise on Oscar nomination morning.

Best Foreign Language Film

A Fantastic Woman
Foxtrot
In the Fade
Loveless
The Square

The films in this category tend to be artier than their English-language counterparts, and considerably darker. This year is no exception. In Chile’s A Fantastic Woman, a trans woman fights for respect and acceptance after the death of her lover. In Foxtrot, an Israeli couple grapples with the sudden death of their soldier son. In Germany’s In the Fade, a mother (played by Diane Kruger) grapples with the sudden death of her husband and child. And in Russia’s Loveless, an estranged couple reunites after their son goes missing. Maybe that gives a slight, sunny edge to Sweden’s The Square, in which a curator enters a downward spiral after a relatively benign setback: the loss of his phone.

Get Vanity Fair’s HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Full ScreenPhotos:Saoirse Ronan’s 2017-2018 Awards-Season StyleKatey RichKatey Rich is the deputy editor of VanityFair.com.Mike HoganMike Hogan is Vanity Fair’s digital director, overseeing VF.com, social media, video, and digital editions.Hillary BusisHillary Busis is the Hollywood editor at VanityFair.com. Previously, she was an editor at Mashable and at Entertainment Weekly. She lives in Brooklyn, just like everyone else.Richard LawsonRichard Lawson is a columnist for Vanity Fair's Hollywood, reviewing film and television and covering entertainment news and gossip. He lives in New York City.

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