2020 Awards Season: Oscar Highlight: Best Picture

February 8, 2020

1917

Our annual Oscar Prediction contest closes at noon, Pacific Time, on Sunday, so now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. We finish our shortened schedule with Best Picture, which is basically a two-horse race at this point.

Best Picture

1917
Tomatometer Score: 89% Positive
Total Oscar Nominations: Ten
Golden Globe Nominations: Three
Golden Globe Wins: Two
BAFTA Nominations: Nine
BAFTA Wins: Seven
Guild Nominations: Two
Guild Wins: Two
Notes: 89% positive reviews shouldn’t be enough to be a Best Picture winner. However, this film has an amazing track record of turning nominations into wins, so it could be the big winner on Oscar night, and earn Best Picture as part of a wave.

Ford v Ferrari
Tomatometer Score: 92% Positive
Total Oscar Nominations: Four
Golden Globe Nominations: One
Golden Globe Wins: None
BAFTA Nominations: None
BAFTA Wins: None
Guild Nominations: Three
Guild Wins: None
Notes: This film has excellent reviews and many major Awards Season nominations. However, it hasn’t been able to convert any of those nominations into wins thus far. It could win a technical award, but I would be shocked if it won Best Picture.

The Irishman
Tomatometer Score: 96% Positive
Total Oscar Nominations: Ten
Golden Globe Nominations: Five
Golden Globe Wins: None
BAFTA Nominations: Ten
BAFTA Wins: None
Guild Nominations: Six
Guild Wins: None
Notes: See above, only this film has even better reviews and more nominations, but still no wins.

Jojo Rabbit
Tomatometer Score: 80% Positive
Total Oscar Nominations: Six
Golden Globe Nominations: Two
Golden Globe Wins: None
BAFTA Nominations: Six
BAFTA Wins: One
Guild Nominations: Four
Guild Wins: None
Notes: This film’s reviews are not at the level needed to be a serious Awards Season contender. That said, it has converted at least one of its major Awards Season nominations into a win, so that puts it ahead of some films on this list.

Joker
Tomatometer Score: 68% Positive
Total Oscar Nominations: Eleven
Golden Globe Nominations: Four
Golden Globe Wins: Two
BAFTA Nominations: Eleven
BAFTA Wins: Three
Guild Nominations: Three
Guild Wins: One
Notes: If this film wins the Best Picture Oscar, it will be, in my opinion, the worst Best Picture winner since... well... Green Book.

Little Women
Tomatometer Score: 95% Positive
Total Oscar Nominations: Six
Golden Globe Nominations: Two
Golden Globe Wins: None
BAFTA Nominations: Five
BAFTA Wins: One
Guild Nominations: One
Guild Wins: None
Notes: This film has been ignored by Awards Season voters to a degree that it is shameful. It is better than most of the other films on this list, yet it has fewer nominations and wins than films with Tomatometer Scores more than 10 points lower.

Marriage Story
Tomatometer Score: 97% Positive
Total Oscar Nominations: Six
Golden Globe Nominations: Six
Golden Globe Wins: One
BAFTA Nominations: Five
BAFTA Wins: One
Guild Nominations: Four
Guild Wins: One
Notes: This film has earned a number of major awards this Awards Season; however, all of these went to Laura Dern and it has little hope of winning any Oscar outside of Best Supporting Actress.

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood
Tomatometer Score: 85% Positive
Total Oscar Nominations: Ten
Golden Globe Nominations: Five
Golden Globe Wins: Three
BAFTA Nominations: Ten
BAFTA Wins: One
Guild Nominations: Six
Guild Wins: One
Notes: Another film with reviews that are really good, but not good enough to win the Best Picture Oscar. That said, it has converted more of its major Awards Season nominations into victories than most other films on this list, so that means it has a chance to win here.

Parasite
Tomatometer Score: 99% Positive
Total Oscar Nominations: Six
Golden Globe Nominations: Three
Golden Globe Wins: One
BAFTA Nominations: Four
BAFTA Wins: Two
Guild Nominations: Three
Guild Wins: One
Notes: This film is a foreign-language film and films like that rarely win Oscars outside of the Best International Film. However, this film’s reviews and its success at other major Awards Season ceremonies means it has a real shot at the big prize.

Conclusion: There are several films on this list that I would love to see win the Best Picture Oscar: Jojo Rabbit, Little Women, and Parasite are among them. However, of those three, only the last one has any shot at the top prize of the night. Even then, I think it is a slight underdog to 1917.


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Filed under: Awards Season, The Irishman, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, Jojo Rabbit, Ford v. Ferrari, 1917, Joker, Little Women, Parasite (기생충), Marriage Story, Laura Dern