What Will Win Best Picture - September

I'm going with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It'll be between that and Marriage Story, but as much as that movie seems well liked among critics and audiences, it's hard for me to imagine a film about divorce winning BP... it feels too small whereas OUATIH is about the industry, it's bigger and more stylish, plus I feel like Tarantino makes a lot of sense as a Best Director winner. He's never won director, so they might feel like this is the time to give it to him if he's serious about retiring from filmmaking soon. This also seems like exactly the type of film that would win PGA.

It's time for me to jinx another film, lol.

Right now unless The Irishman or 1917 become big enough, I'm going to go with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I think it has a good shot of winning at least 3 Oscars, Picture, Director, and Supporting Actor which would fit in with the low Oscar win tally of the Best Picture wins lately.

One thing that is missing is that I don't know if it can be seen as "important" enough, but maybe it could be seen that way because of the nostalgia factor and how many in the industry, at least on social media, seem to really relate to it because of their own memories of that time. Plus it would keep the trend of the previous two winners about the past and how things should have been more like they were in those movies instead of how they are/were in real life.

Marriage Story has a lot of things going for it, but I'm still not sure because it's Netflix, and I don't know if divorce is going to be "important" enough. Although the way that the story sounds, it does sound like it does make it a universal issue, but I can already imagine the discourse about it being too white and middle/upper class.

I think it's more about Netflix though still. The Irishman I think could overcome that, but Marriage Story is going to seem so small even with the star power of the actors in it compared to an original film starring two of the biggest stars in the world that has done so well at the box office. I've already read jokes about how Netflix already has the press release prepared for Marriage Story and how ___ million people watched it and set a new record, , so unfortunately until Netflix releases their actual numbers which won't ever happen, I think that's going to be an issue for the next few years.

Eventually I think that the timing will be right, and they'll finally win that category, but I don't know if it's going to be this year. I think The Irishman has the scale and talent to overcome a Netflix bias, but there's also a lot of question marks right now.

Marriage Story seems like the hot ticket item right now and the smart choice but I still have a hunch about Beautiful Day so I'm sticking with that. I agree with Cake that I can't quite see a movie about divorce winning BP (even though it's happened in the past lol...), the small-scale nature might work against it, plus there's the Netflix factor that people still care about I guess so that's always an unknown ... obviously it's only getting the limited theatrical treatment so it'll have to do great numbers on the platform for it to lock down on BP potential, and I'm not sure it's the type of thing that a lot of people are gonna click on... As I've said before I think Beautiful Day has some serious box office success for a biopic, it'll play really well with audiences à la Green Book which should give it a serious awards surge. Yes, TIFF awards results would seem to suggest that Marriage Story is even more of an "audience favorite" than Beautiful Day, but, let's face it, audiences at film festivals aren't a good sample size of audiences in general ... people will be much more likely to watch a heartwarming Mr. Rogers movie than a realist take on divorce, and as we saw last year, the Academy likes the feel-good fare. Now, they could very well go with something darker this year to contrast last year's result ... I dunno ... but there's no tangible reason yet to believe that that's the case, so for now, Mr. Rogers it is. 

Kramer vs Kramer was 40 years ago. If you look at winners within the last decade, they tend to have more of an "importance" factor or are about the industry in a substantive way. I haven't seen MS yet, so I can't say to what extent that angle plays into the film, but it still feels too small-scale to feel like a winner to me.

Beautiful Day using Rogers as a supporting character gives me pause, as those kinds of movies (that use the draw as a support for a poorly written audience stand-in) tend to be quite bad. But nothing else stands out right now. Joker is too divisive, MS is Noah Baumbach and thus I refuse to support it in any situation, Once Upon doesn't seem to inspire enough love, The Irishman looks duuuuull, The Report looks slightly less dull, Little Women is Greta Gerwig and thus I refuse to support it in any situation, The Farewell petered out, Jojo Rabbit looks awful in every way.

I mean, what am I supposed to get behind?

Until Sep 27 gets here (at least) and we get good or bad news .........it's, you know, yet again, the only film with the scale and scope of something special and historic, with 4 Oscar winners, an Oscar winning writer and director.

If it's a misfire then the divorce movie with none of the above

I'm super hyped for Cats too.

But some of those winners benefited from the preferential balloting. I can see Marriage Story getting lots of higher rankings. It is not a polarizing film.  It will likely get the most acting nods. And it has established names in front and behind the camera and will do well at the box office.

Netflix. Not that I think Box Office matters as much as people think it does.

No idea at all. I'd fucking kill for OUATIH to accomplish this but these days a BP winner has to have this kind of mellow universal appreciation and we all know that QT's films will always have a chunk of detractors.

Marriage Story certainly seems like the one to beat at the moment because of its universal acclaim but another trend that all recent BP winners share is their woke message and this doesn't really seem like it's got one. Although being an emotional story set within the industry with widespread acclaim is an advantage for sure. It being a Netflix release is a disadvantage though...but the month-long theatrical release may help smooth things out.

Jojo Rabbit may be the one because of the heartstring-tugging of it all. It's a movie with some semblance of a vision which will already help it stand out, it'll certainly be warmly received by most of the voters, it's got the message all right...Despite the critical reception, I think it may be the one.

But yeah, watch out for The Two Poops or some lame stuff like that.

I'm thinking Jojo Rabbit will be my favourite film of the year, so on that basis it won't win Best Picture, as I haven't matched it since Amadeus. So I'll vote for Marriage Story, as the Netflix thing has to go away sooner or later.