After the longest awards season in living memory, we will soon finally know who takes home the big one for 2020. When the Academy announced this year’s ceremony would be delayed until late April and the eligibility period would be extended to the end of February, many assumed we might be in for a manic awards season where the frontrunner for Best Picture changed at least four or five times. In an odd turn of events, the precise opposite has occurred and one film has remained the steadfast leader since its debut at the Venice Film Festival in September.
After winning the Golden Lion at Venice, Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland steamrolled through the critics portion of awards season with over 30 Best Picture wins. From there, it won the top prize at the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Awards, the BAFTAs, PGA, the Gotham Awards, and the Film Independent Spirit Awards plus wins for Zhao’s direction at these awards (bar Gotham, which does not have a Best Director category) and DGA. Its win at PGA proved the film could win through a preferential voting system and there really is very little standing in the way of a Best Picture victory for Zhao’s unassuming masterwork.
But let’s just pause for a moment. We saw a similar sweep just last year for 1917. Sam Mendes’ war epic also won at the Globes, the BAFTAs, PGA, and DGA. As did Damien Chazelle’s La La Land in 2016. And we know neither of those films ultimately won Best Picture. Does that suggest Nomadland is heading for a similar fate? Anything is possible, but the key difference in those years is they both featured an alternative nominee to the frontrunner with tremendous passion behind it. Last year, there was clearly huge love for Parasite. In 2016, that passion was with Moonlight. Is there really a film this year you could compare to Parasite or Moonlight in either acclaim or adoration?
One could perhaps make that claim about Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, particularly after its win for Outstanding Performance by a Cast at the SAG Awards, which was also the only major precursor prize Parasite collected last year besides its numerous foreign-language film victories. The film appears to be locked in at #2 in this race and has a strong chance of performing well in preferential voting. Yet, while the historical courtroom drama certainly has its fans (particularly with older members of the Academy), you wouldn’t call the love for the film as universal to what we saw in 2019 for Parasite or 2016 for Moonlight.
But the biggest issue with its campaign is the fact it’s not heavily favoured to take any other categories. And we haven’t seen a film win Best Picture and nothing else since Grand Hotel in 1932. In saying that, if The Trial of the Chicago 7 wins Best Film Editing over Sound of Metal, its chances at Best Picture improve marginally. However, if Sorkin defeats Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman for Best Original Screenplay, strap yourselves in for a potential upset at the end of the night. It would echo the Best Picture win of Spotlight in 2015, which only won Best Original Screenplay on its road to victory.
Is there a case to be made for Fennell’s firecracker of a film? With its five nominations for Best Picture, Director, Actress, Film Editing, and Original Screenplay, Promising Young Woman certainly ticked all the necessary boxes for nods in categories you need to be a player in the Best Picture race. And it’s had enormous buzz in the latter stages of the season. However, as much as it pains me to admit, the film is likely too divisive to win in a preferential runoff, particularly given we have to accept there will be certain Academy members who score it in the bottom half of their ballot.
If there is a spoiler waiting in the wings, it could be Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari. It’s a film beloved by many and will likely feature high on the majority of members’ ballots including a swag of #1 votes. Could it elicit enough #2 and #3 votes to push past both Nomadland and The Trial of the Chicago 7 in a preferential runoff? Statistically, sure. Anything is possible. However, Minari doesn’t have nominations in key tech categories like film editing or cinematography. Nor is it expected to win anything besides Best Supporting Actress for Yuh-jung Youn. And the fact the film couldn’t win the ensemble prize at SAG was quite telling in its popularity with the acting branch.
Nomadland feels unstoppable at this point, but we certainly said the same of 1917 last year and look how that turned out. Strong frontrunners have lost Best Picture in the past, so you truly never know what might happen after such an extended (and exhausting) season. There certainly could be voter fatigue from Nomadland winning everything so far, but it’s hard to make a solid case for any other nominee and the adoration for the film has barely wavered all season. With more confidence than previous years’ predictions, it feels relatively safe to declare Nomadland is winning Best Picture.
BEST PICTURE FINAL PREDICTION:
1. Nomadland (Searchlight Pictures)
Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey and Chloé Zhao, Producers
2. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix)
Marc Platt and Stuart Besser, Producers
3. Minari (A24)
Christina Oh, Producer4. Promising Young Woman (Focus Features)
Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, Emerald Fennell and Josey McNamara, Producers
5. Sound of Metal (Amazon Studios)
Bert Hamelinck and Sacha Ben Harroche, Producers
6. The Father (Sony Pictures Classics)
David Parfitt, Jean-Louis Livi and Philippe Carcassonne, Producers
7. Mank (Netflix)
Ceán Chaffin, Eric Roth and Douglas Urbanski, Producers
8. Judas and the Black Messiah (Warner Bros.)
Shaka King, Charles D. King and Ryan Coogler, Producers
Will win: Nomadland
Should win: Minari
Possible shocker: Promising Young Woman
Totally agree