As the precursor awards continue unabated until Oscar night, I’m going to be providing a weekly update highlighting the films that have won and lost momentum through the precursor awards (and in some cases other outside influences).

While there isn’t much going on this next week, last week was a pretty significant week. The Oscar nominations were announced. So, while I would like to talk about how Blade Runner 2049 picked up the Art Directors Guild award alongside The Shape of Water making them both frontrunners, or how the Cinema Editors threw Baby Driver under the bus and pretty much assured us that Dunkirk would win the Oscar, I’m going to focus on the nominations and who the big winners and losers were. I’ve added a section below to discuss the films that both won big and also lost big.

But, before we get into this week’s winners and losers, let’s take a look at what’s coming up this week:

Week 11

Sat. 03 – Annie Awards (Awards) (Official)
Sat. 03 – Directors Guild (Awards) (Official)
Mon. 05 – Nominees Lunch (Oscars) (Official)

Big Winners

The Shape of Water came into the season as a heavy favorite to compete on the tech side along with reasonable certainty it could be a Best Picture player; However, as the season played on, it became clear that Guillermo del Toro’s period fantasy could go on to take the whole enchilada. While my personal predictions had the film as picking up a record-tying 14 nominations, it came in one short by missing the weakest of its categories: Best Visual Effects. While it’s true times have changed and the top nominee doesn’t frequently win Best Picture anymore, but this film has a lot going for it and considering how well it did this year, it would have to be considered the biggest winner.
Phantom Thread entered the race late, failing to screen for many critics before they weighed in on the year-end awards. Consequently, the film was shut out of the Screen Actors Guild, was largely ignored by Globes voters and had a mediocre run through the early guild nominations. As a result, many had written the film off as a major player. However, never count out Paul Thomas Anderson who came from behind with The Master as well. It came out of the day with an impressive tally, including Best Picture and Best Actor, which many of us thought it would get, as well as citations for Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Original Score, none of which were sure things and in the case of the first three categories, were thought of as long shot possibilities.
Get Out performed right about where it was expected, giving Jordan Peele a crowning achievement, becoming only the third person in Oscar history to earn Picture, Director, and Screenplay nominations for their debut feature (after Warren Beatty and James L. Brooks). He is the first black director to achieve that feat. While the film didn’t pick up an expected Film Editing nomination, it got all the citations that it needed plus an acting mention for Daniel Kaluuya. While four doesn’t seem like enough to win Best Picture, it didn’t perform poorly enough to shut it out of the race altogether.
Lady Bird also managed to pick up a raft of expected nominations including Best Director for Greta Gerwig. The film didn’t get a Film Editing nomination, so like Get Out, it has some liabilities, but it earned two acting nominations, a Best Picture nod, and one for Best Original Screenplay. That’s an impressive haul for a film that wasn’t likely to get credited anywhere else.
Mudbound didn’t make the Best Picture slate, but considering Netflix’s Beast of No Nation was entirely shut out last year, this is a solid development for the Oscar-struggling streaming service. Mary J. Blige leads the list in Best Supporting Actress and the film also managed an Original Song and Adapted Screenplay citation, the latter being its weakest chance. However, the biggest news here is that it made the Cinematography race, a fact that ultimately resulted in a historical achievement: Rachel Morrison becomes the first woman to earn a nomination in the category, ending a decades-long absence in the category.
Logan only earned a single nomination, but it did so becoming the first superhero movie to earn a writing nomination ever. The genre film took comic book movies in a new direction, opening up whole other avenues of exploration outside the normal blockbuster route favored at Disney and Warner Bros. One nomination might not seem like a big win, but it was a genre ceiling that had yet to be broken and might just mean new opportunities for the future.

Big Winners and/or Losers

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was ostensibly a big winner this year. The reason it’s falling into this category of my rundown is a single category that it missed against expectations: Best Director. The film was playing along well through Oscar season picking up major citations from the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild. While it stumbled at the Producers Guild, every indication suggested the film would pull out several nominations, all of them crucial to a Best Picture run, but the category that it most needed it failed to get. Only four films in Oscar history have won Best Picture without a corresponding Best Director nomination. Three Billboards could still follow an Argo route to Best Picture and its acting, writing, and editing nominations will bolster its chances, but there’s a reason Best Director is so often a reliable predictor and those four films are the reason.
Call Me by Your Name earned most of what it was expected to get, but there was one category where its absence was uniquely felt: Best Supporting Actor. All season, both Armie Hammer and Michael Stuhlbarg were talked up about being nominees. Yet, when the nominations were announced, not only did they not pull of a potential double nomination, they were shut out entirely. Still, the film is a Best Picture nominee. It was nominated for Best Actor and Best Original Song and will very likely win for Adapted Screenplay, but without the supporting nominations, it’s clear the Academy isn’t as in love with the film as it should have been.
Blade Runner 2049 didn’t make the Best Picture slate and none of us were very surprised by that, though the Best Director nomination from BAFTA certianly gave us hope. Yet, in the end, while it picked up five nominations below the line, it was notably absent from Original Score and Film Editing, two categories it was thought to have a better-than-average shot of being included in. While the film is probably going to win Best Visual Effects and is a strong favorite to win Best Cinematography, there are other factors, namely Rachel Morrison, that could inhibit the film’s chance of finally bringing Roger Deakins his first Oscar.
I, Tonya was showing up in every guild imaginable, so it was thought to be a late-breaking candidate for a Best Picture berth. Yet, when it was skipped over in Original Screenplay, those hopes were dashed. It failed to earn the nomination. However, getting nominated for two acting awards as well as a surprise Film Editing nomination, the film did better than the early season suggested it might, but not by much.
Darkest Hour earned a ton of nominations and that would be considered a win in most circumstances, but it still came up short. While it did make the Best Picture slate, director Joe Wright wasn’t in the running for and failed to get anomination for Best Director. It was also surprisingly left off the Original Score slate. While it picked up almost every other nomination it was expected to get, with the exception of Cinematography, it was still not a huge winner.
Dunkirk had all the potential to earn double-digit nominations when it was released earlier this year. Critics adored the film and although Christopher Nolan had been shunned by the Academy on at least two different occasions, everyone was certain that he’d be cited this year. And he was. Yet, the film came up short of double-digits. There were no writing or acting citations. It didn’t show up in Visual Effects as expected. It also missed out on Costume Design, though its chances there were always mediocre. It was still a success in its eight nominations, but it didn’t impress enough to move into frontrunner status for Best Picture.

Big Losers

The Post was announced and it looked like a surefire major Oscar contender. While the early reviews were solid, they weren’t spectacular, but then the National Board of Review went all-in crowning it Best Picture and giving awards to Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks both, setting it up as a major Oscar player. Then the rest of the critics got involved and the film seemed suddenly less sure. Once the Globe nominations came out and the film started underperforming at the guilds, it became clear the film was in trouble. It still pulled off a Best Picture nomination, but the film only managed one other nod: Streep in Best Actress. There was nothing for Hanks. Nothing in Original Screenplay. Nothing in Original Score. Nothing in the craft categories. It was ultimately a failure even with a Best Picture nomination.
The Lego Batman Movie was performing well in the precursors, picking up plenty of nominations, but everyone was wondering whether the fact that The Lego Movie was snubbed would negatively impact the film’s chances. Further, the change in voting rules for nominations gave equal amounts hope and trepidation on what might be nominated. In the end, it’s become clear that Lego-branded movies just aren’t up the Academy’s alley.
The Disaster Artist was a major hit with critics and throughout Oscar season, it was regularly recognized for both Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film even picked up some steam as a potential Best Picture nomination. However, the film was never quite an Academy-friendly kind of film and then revelations came out that James Franco had engaged in improper behavior with women, which sank his and his film’s chances. The film did manage a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination, but that was the only sure thing goin in anyway.
Cradle and In a Heartbeat were wonderful animated short films. I don’t normally talk about the big losers of the shorts or documentary fields, but these two shorts were stunning in terms of message and execution. Yet, the Academy’s voters didn’t care for them, which is a disappointment and is really their loss, not these films’ losses.
Jane was dominating the precursors winning awards left and right. However, the Academy’s documentary voters have failed on numerous occasions to recognize critically acclaimed documentaries leading to numerous changes in rules over the years, yet it keeps happening. This time with the year’s most acclaimed documentary. Will this lead to more changes? Possibly, but I doubt it. These voters clearly don’t want to recognize films that critics recognize as the best.
Wonder was beloved by audiences and well reviewed, but it never seemed to click with voters during Precursor season. The film eventually seemed certain to receive only two nominations, Adapted Screenplay and Makeup and Hairstyling. Even those didn’t all pan out with the film pickin gup a single Makeup citation. For a film as popular as this one, that would be a major loss.