February Poll: What Will Win Best Picture?

That's a side-effect of the gender disparity in Hollywood when it comes to quality films allowing for a female protagonist, something that younger voters (and not a few of the older ones) would be more than aware of and perfectly willing to correct. And Frances McDormand is a woman of a certain age, out there anchoring a film like this almost entirely on her own. That's going to garner a lot of respect among her contemporaries and peers.

Nomadland fits a lot of the hallmarks for the post-expansion archetype of a winner. It's got an auteur's style, it's got a strong (if not polemic) message that has a lot of broad appeal, it crosses all sorts of demographics in its portrayal of those affected by the recession, and while there is an elegiac tone to it, it's has a positive and hopeful message to it.

I'm not discounting the relevance of Trial at all, but it's far from the only relevant and timely film in competition. Hell, Judas and the Black Messiah takes place at the exact same time with very similar subject matter featuring some of the same characters, and it's squarely in competition with Trial in many of the key categories. And then there's One Night in Miami, which also deals with that very same era, and both ensembles have a more diverse perspective than Sorkin's film does, and already they are engendering a lot more positive discourse and passion from those who have seen them. Trial very much fits the pattern of a film that scores a lot of nominations because of the type of movie it is, but every single category it's in contention for, I think there's another film (if not several) that I feel the guilds would respond more strongly toward, and I think that's where the passion vote is going to work against it.

All this is speculation at this point.  Obviously if people don't like Chicago 7, every argument would be brought up as to why it won't win.  My point is that it's a serious contender at this point.  It has hit all the industry pre cursors.   Let's see what happens with the Guilds.  Because we all know the Critics favorite often does not translate into the Oscar winner.

We'll know in 2 mos - or likely less than that - with the Guild results.  At this point, what has changed with the Feb poll - is that with what we've seen from the industry so far, Chicago 7 it is a huge threat to win.  More so than most of the films on this poll.  Some won't even be nominated.

Pedestrian how???? Imo the strongest part of the film is how competently made and written it is. Just because the cinematography isn't flashy doesn't make it pedestrian. Also the cast itself is uniformly great, no one embarrasses themselves in it. 

As much as the expanding diversity within the Academy should be acknowledged, I think the “esoteric” nature of recent winners is somewhat overstated. Parasite may have been the first foreign-language film to win BP, but it was still extremely popular with audiences, and is ultimately a very crowdpleasing movie in spite of how unusual it might seem as a winner on the surface. Similarly, The Shape of Water seems like a “weird” winner at first glance, but it’s fundamentally a very formulaic movie and as a result was the least divisive film among the BP contenders. Moonlight had the benefit of the “importance” factor more than anything else, and while its win was a shock at the time, it’s easy to imagine why it did better on the preferential ballot than La La Land, which obviously had its fair share of detractors. The winner is always the “least disliked” film of the nominees, so usually it’s either a film that’s a crowdpleaser in some way or a film whose “importance” is undeniable in a way that overwhelms everything else (12 Years a Slave, Spotlight, Moonlight, etc.), or some combination of both.


So while some of the recent winners seem unusual in terms of genre or surface-level features, they always make sense as winners relative to the other nominees because they’re all pretty accessible at their core. This is why I’m still not convinced that Nomadland will be our winner (despite the film festival audience awards it has won – not the same kind of audience as the Academy). As others have said, it feels very Roma-esque to me.

This is all very fair to bring up (and when I say "esoteric," I'm talking comparatively to what the Academy is used to recognizing; I'm not talking about something like Inland Empire), but Nomadland isn't exactly that out there in comparison to those films. It's a straightforward, simple film to follow. And I don't see people disliking it to the extent that people would be putting it at the bottom of their preferential ballot.

Maybe it is Roma 2.0. But people were saying Parasite would get pigeonholed (and indeed that exact same label was thrown out last awards season, despite the films not being similar in any way), and look what happened. The Academy is a fickle beast, and this is a weird-ass year regardless. Nomadland has weathered the entire season without any backlash. That's impressive.

The film may be straightforward and simple to follow, but I don’t think that always translates to accessibility. You could argue that the film is almost too simple in the sense that it’s not very plot-driven, and I’ve seen a lot of people describe the film as “aimless,” which just doesn’t really scream Best Picture winner imo. Accessibility to me also suggests something with more of a clear structure to the storytelling that pulls the viewer in, which all the recent BP winners have (Birdman might actually be the weirdest winner of this past decade in that respect, but it beat out Boyhood, which is even looser in its structure). Even in a strange year, Nomadland still doesn’t feel right to me.

And I can respect this (and shout-out to Birdman as our weirdest winner, because the strangeness of that film is often overlooked because of the Hollywood factor). And there is something to be said for structure being essential for Best Picture winners because, for the most part, they are screenplay-driven. Nomadland would buck that trend. But I feel like this would be the year, and with the competition it's got, where that would happen.

Judas is a huge unknown at this point. It did not make the BAFTA short list for Picture or Director.

I'm leaning toward The Trial of the Chicago 7.