December Poll: What Will Win Best Picture?

Switching to West Side Story.

In a field of what seems to be mostly lightweight contenders, West Side Story certainly looks like it's got this in the bag now. The reviews are beyond stellar, with both critics and audiences very much taking to it. We'll see how it fairs box office-wise, looks to be underperforming at the moment, but it could end up having very good legs with Spider-Man as its only real roadblock these next few weeks, and that will likely be attracting a different demographic altogether.

Genuinely asking, what's its main competition for BP at this point? Nightmare Alley and Don't Look Up seem to be disappointments. Power of the Dog has a chance maybe, but that hasn't made much of a splash and the Netflix release may hurt its chances (see Roma andThe Irishman). Licorice Pizza is too niche and the Academy seems resistant to give PTA the big prize. Belfast is the big "Oscar bait" title and will probably be its toughest competitor, but it's not like it got an incredible reception or anything.

Seems like a no-brainer to me. Another BP winner for Spielberg, and likely another Best Director as well.

Nope. Audience reception is irrelevant when only 230 people per theater are seeing it. Some are reporting walkouts too.

Movie Awards fails yet again at predicting the Best Picture winner for the 9th time

I think it's between West Side Story and Belfast. WSS is interesting, but actually more viscerally traumatic than joyous/emotionally expansive; not a value judgment, but I can see that impacting voting. The movie felt to me like more of a gut punch than Schindler's List, which sounds crazy, but isn't. Belfast might be too light, but on the whole it feels like the most balanced contender from what I've seen. King Richard and Power of the Dog have zero chance of winning; KR is the definition of basic, and PoTD is an elliptical mess that audiences are not into at all despite all of this talk about it doing "well" on Netflix (I guarantee it'll have the most negative audience reviews of every Netflix release in contention this season). I don't know what to say about Licorice Pizza; it certainly has raves, but I find it hard to believe PTA made an actually crowd-pleasing film, as he certainly hasn't since Boogie Nights, and all of the talk about meandering has me suspicious that the RT/MC/Letterboxd fanfare may come to an end real quick once it expands per usual with him.

Oh no!!! Why do I have the feeling it’s really going to happen. I’m not even searching for Don’t Look Up reactions, but I can’t help but see mostly see blue check marks especially within the Industry acting like it’s actually solved the Climate Crisis. So now I’ve switched back to predicting DLU to win BP. 

Sure there’s some criticism I’ve seen, but the Industry people really seem to love it and not in just this was a great movie way, but in a “this important movie must be seen by all.”

Belfast has the “movies are important” thing going on as well, but I don’t think any other contender can compete with Don’t Look Up as far as feeling the most important and that might be all it needs this year. I thought the poor reviews for it would stop it from winning Best Picture, but unfortunately I think those might actually help in the end because some of those that really love it have made it seem like an underdog movie that elitist critics who are like the clueless characters in the film.

I really thought its BP chances were done, but I guess I should have waited before jumping off the bandwagon. It’s drawing a lot of eyes to it unlike most other films that will be nominated for Best Picture. I know Green Book won not so long ago, so it’s definitely possible something like Belfast that feels like something that would have won before 2010, at least to me, wins this year, but I think Don’t Look Up is going to be the cool choice and won’t have as many minuses as Roma did.

Plus I think it’s winning Editing and probably Original Screenplay now, while The Power of the Dog wins Director and Adapted Screenplay.