Film critics Carrie and Chad on who will – and who should – win the 97th Academy Awards
The 97th Academy Awards air tomorrow, Sunday, March 2nd, on ABC and Hulu at 4:00 pm PST. As always, your faithful Spinning Platters film critics Carrie Kahn and Chad Liffmann share their predictions and hopes for the major categories. You can follow along and print your own ballot here. Good luck to nominees and Oscar pool participants alike!
BEST PICTURE:
Nominees: Anora / The Brutalist / A Complete Unknown / Conclave / Dune: Part Two / Emilia Pérez / I’m Still Here / Nickel Boys / The Substance / Wicked
Carrie: Will Win: Anora; Should Win: A Complete Unknown. Conclave won the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) award, but Anora took the Producers Guild award. Both have been reliable predictors for the Best Picture Oscar, so the contest is a toss up. My instinct says Anora will win out, although my heart is with A Complete Unknown.
Chad: Will Win: Anora; Should Win: Dune: Part Two. Dune: Part Two isn’t going to win, so Anora is the next best option, a bracing, hilarious, heartfelt, and heartbreaking romantic escapade that we’ll still be talking about twenty years from now.
ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING:
Nominees: Sean Baker, Anora / Brady Corbet, The Brutalist / James Mangold, A Complete Unknown / Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez / Coralie Fargeat, The Substance
Carrie: Will Win: Baker, Anora; Should Win: Fargeat, The Substance. With the Directors Guild award under his belt, Baker is the favorite, but Farageat made the more daring picture.
Chad: Will Win: Baker, Anora; Should Win: Corbet, The Brutalist. Sean Baker’s work is truly commendable, and it’s no easy task to balance tonalities like he can, but Corbet’s efficient epic-scale filmmaking on display in The Brutalist is the more “deserving” accomplishment.
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE:
Nominees: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist / Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown / Colman Domingo, Sing Sing / Ralph Fiennes, Conclave / Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice
Carrie: Will Win: Timothée Chalamet; Should Win: Timothée Chalamet. Like Best Picture, this category is another that’s too close to call. Brody and Stan could be spoilers, but my money’s on Chalamet, who rightfully earned the love of his peers at the SAG awards for his transformative portrayal of the legendary Bob Dylan.
Chad: Will Win: Timothée Chalamet; Should Win: Adrien Brody. Chalamet is good in A Complete Unknown. Very good, in fact. His SAG award portends this Oscar, but Brody’s performance in The Brutalist, though similar to his winning performance in The Pianist, is a tour de force.
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE:
Nominees: Cynthia Erivo, Wicked / Karla Sofia Gascón, Emilia Pérez / Mikey Madison, Anora / Demi Moore, The Substance / Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here
Carrie: Will Win: Demi Moore; Should Win: Demi Moore. After 45 years in the industry, Moore has paid her dues, and already has been honored with the Golden Globe and SAG awards. The Oscar will complete her major award trifecta, and make for a terrific Hollywood redemption story for the former ‘8os Brat Packer. That her performance in The Substance actually deserves the accolade is just icing on the cake.
Chad: Will Win: Demi Moore; Should Win: Mikey Madison. Demi Moore deserves this –a “lifetime achievement” Oscar bestowed for a gutsy and astoundingly vulnerable performance, but Mikey Madison’s start-to-finish headlining performance in Anora (especially if the film wins Best Picture) is the correct performance to reward here.
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:
Nominees: Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown / Ariana Grande, Wicked / Felicity Jones / The Brutalist / Isabella Rossellini, Conclave / Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez
Carrie: Will Win: Zoe Saldaña; Should Win: Zoe Saldaña. Despite earning the most nominations of any film this year, Emilia Pérez is likely to only nab this award, given the film’s myriad of recent controversies. Saldaña is bound to complete her awards circuit sweep here, and actually is the best in a particularly weak category this year.
Chad: Will Win: Zoe Saldaña; Should Win: Monica Barbaro. This award, along with Best Song, is where the Academy is gonna throw a bit of reluctant love at Emilia Pérez, which is a shame, because Barbaro’s pitch-perfect portrayal of Joan Baez is the best, and most impressive, part of A Complete Unknown.
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:
Nominees: Yura Borisov, Anora / Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain / Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown / Guy Pearce, The Brutalist / Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice
Carrie: Will Win: Kieran Culkin; Should Win: Jeremy Strong. Culkin is the hands-down favorite, having already scooped up almost every other award so far, but his role wasn’t too different from his Succession character. Culkin’s Succession co-star Strong, however, creates something totally distinct with his extraordinary portrayal of Roy Cohn in The Apprentice. Strong is the Succession actor who deserves the win.
Chad: Will Win: Kieran Culkin; Should Win: Guy Pearce. Too similar to Roman Roy? Perhaps, but Culkin is magnificent in A Real Pain. That being said, Pearce is off-the-charts charmingly insecure, capturing a country-defining wealthy persona in The Brutalist.
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM:
Nominees: The Wild Robot / Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl / Inside Out 2 / Memoir of a Snail / Flow
Carrie: Will Win: Flow; Should Win: Flow. A Wild Robot and Flow are the frontrunners, but since Flow will lose Best International Film, Academy voters will no doubt reward the indie critical darling underdog in this category instead.
Chad: Will Win: The Wild Robot; Should Win: Flow. The Wild Robot is a fantastic film, and deserves the Oscar just as much as the stunning, risk-taking Latvian film, Flow, which has a not-so-negligible chance of an upset in another category (see below).
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE:
Nominees: Black Box Diaries / No Other Land / Porcelain War / Sugarcane / Soundtrack to a Coupe d’Etat
Carrie: Will Win: No Other Land; Should Win: No Other Land. Another tough call, but the highly relevant and timely No Other Land picked up the Gotham Award, the Independent Spirit Award, and the International Documentary Association Award.
Chad: Will Win: No Other Land; Should Win: No Other Land. To be honest, I haven’t seen all of these films, but No Other Land has the power of relevancy and surprisingly hopeful messaging as it shows the diaristic devastation created by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Nominees: Lol Crawley, The Brutalist / Greig Fraser, Dune: Part Two / Paul Guilhaume, Emilia Pérez / Ed Lachman, Maria / Jarin Blaschke, Nosferatu
Carrie: Will Win: Crawley, The Brutalist; Should Win: Crawley, The Brutalist. British cinematographer Lol Crawley should take home his first trophy for his stunning work in this sprawling epic about the cracks in the American dream.
Chad: Will Win: Crawley, The Brutalist; Should Win: Fraser, Dune: Part Two. The Brutalist may steal a few technical awards from the more-deserving sci-fi epic, Dune: Part Two, but if life was fair, Greig Fraser would once again (he won for Dune: Part One) take this award home, if only for the mesmerizing sequence on Geidi Prime.
INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM:
Nominees: I’m Still Here / The Girl with the Needle / Emilia Pérez / The Seed of the Sacred Fig / Flow
Carrie: Will Win: I’m Still Here; Should Win: I’m Still Here. The best of the bunch, this historical yet eerily prescient Brazilian political drama will easily win out.
Chad: Will Win: I’m Still Here; Should Win: Flow. I‘m Still Here is going to win. It’s a heart-wrenching true story that has amazing performances (see Best Actress and Best Picture nominations), but what if, just what if, Flow sneaks in here. I wouldn’t be upset about it.
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
Nominees: RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes, Nickel Boys / James Mangold and Jay Cocks / A Complete Unknown / Peter Straughan, Conclave / Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin, John “Divine G” Whitfield, Sing Sing / Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Léa Mysius, and Nicolas Livecchi, Emilia Pérez
Carrie: Will Win: Straughan, Conclave; Should Win: Mangold and Cocks, A Complete Unknown. Since it won’t win Picture, the plot-focused Conclave will triumph in this category, although A Complete Unknown is more deserving for its complex character study.
Chad: Will Win: Straughan, Conclave; Should Win: Straughan, Conclave. After a SAG ensemble win, it’ll be interesting if Conclave has more Oscar power than this one award, but, if not, this is the best way to throw some praise its way, by awarding the sharp, thrilling script that made it one of the most exciting crowd-pleasers of the year.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
Nominees:Sean Baker, Anora / Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain / Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold, The Brutalist / Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum, and Alex David, September 5 / Coralie Fargeat, The Substance
Carrie: Will Win: Baker, Anora; Should Win: Binder, Fehlbaum, and David, September 5. Anora and A Real Pain are vying for the top spots, with each having won multiple awards already. My gut says Anora will prevail. All the contenders are excellent, but if I were voting, I’d go with September 5, a film that should have received more attention for its outstanding cinema vérité retelling of a moment of deep crisis.
Chad: Will Win: Eisenberg, A Real Pain; Should Win: Eisenberg, A Real Pain. Not much to say except that A Real Pain is beautifully written, and giving Jesse Eisenberg an Oscar is too wonderful an opportunity to pass up.
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And if you’ve missed any of the Best Picture nominees, as always, Honest Trailers has you covered with their satirical (but often dead on) take on the nominees:
