Tomorrow morning at 5:30 AM PST the Academy will announce the 2013 Oscar nominations and if you’ve been with me over the course of the last five months or so, you know I’ve been tracking Oscar predictions the entire time and it’s finally time to come to a final decision on the following 21 categories.
I have included a few thoughts on several of the categories as well as links to where you can find my full field of presumed contenders and how I’ve ranked them. You can also click here to visit my Oscar predictions homepage for a snapshot of all 21 categories in one place.
I have ranked each of the categories to where the nominee on the #1 line is my current presumed winner. Once the nominations are announced I will be adjusting all the categories accordingly and we will continue on toward Sunday, February 24 when the 2013 Oscars will be held.
For a complete look at the upcoming Awards Schedule you can click here as you’ll want to be here with us tomorrow night as we live blog the Critics Choice Awards and this Sunday for our live blog of the 2013 Golden Globe Awards.
However, for now, let’s have a look at my predictions for tomorrow’s 2013 Oscar nominees and please weigh in with your thoughts in the comments below.
Best Picture
I considered taking both Beasts of the Southern Wild and Moonrise Kingdom out. I considered moving both Amour and Skyfall in. I couldn’t figure out if The Master had fallen as hard as it seemed and now I’m seeing a couple of Oscar pundits giving The Intouchables a chance at a Best Picture nod.
So what did I change? Nothing.
I’m starting to feel this year’s Best Picture race could just as easily end up with six nominations, with Django and Pi battling for that last slot, or ten, with some combination of my last two in and those other films mentioned above filling out slots 8-10. So I’m sticking with what feels best and hoping for just that.
- Lincoln
- Argo
- Les Miserables
- Zero Dark Thirty
- Silver Linings Playbook
- Django Unchained
- Life of Pi
- Beasts of the Southern Wild
- Moonrise Kingdom
You can browse my complete chart of Best Picture contenders and their rankings right here.
Best Actor
We all know Daniel Day-Lewis is going to win Best Actor. If you don’t proclaim to “know” it, you’re at the very least “pretty sure”. Below him it seems a safe bet Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables), Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook) and Denzel Washington (Flight) have nominations wrapped up. But what about John Hawkes (The Sessions)?
So little has been said about The Sessions after it premiered at Sundance, though everyone seems to recognize Hawkes’ performance as one of the year’s best. Then there’s Joaquin Phoenix (The Master) who told Interview magazine he believed the Oscar race was “total, utter bullshit”. Little has been heard from Phoenix since and the film itself has faded just as quickly.
As for now, I’m going with Hawkes, but a Phoenix nom wouldn’t surprise me.
- Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
- Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables)
- Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)
- Denzel Washington (Flight)
- John Hawkes (The Sessions)
You can browse my complete chart of Best Actor contenders and their rankings right here.
Best Actress
When it comes to locks you have Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) and Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty). There there’s Naomi Watts (The Impossible) who has come on strong lately with Golden Globe, SAG and Critics Choice nominations. Watts seems like a sure thing… is she?
Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone) and Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) have seemed like the best bets for the final two slots for the longest time, but with Watts moving in that moves Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) out and Helen Mirren (Hitchcock) is looking to play spoiler with her Golden Globe and SAG nominations.
What is to be done?
As hard a decision it was to make, I had to move Wallis out of the top five. Beasts of the Southern Wild was ineligible for a SAG nomination and it went home without a Golden Globe nomination and I think Wallis is going to lose out as a result.
- Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
- Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)
- Naomi Watts (The Impossible)
- Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone)
- Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)
You can browse my complete chart of Best Actress contenders and their rankings right here.
Best Supporting Actor
Your confidence in Skyfall‘s approval with the Academy would seem to be a big factor in whether you go with Javier Bardem for that fifth slot or with Leonardo DiCaprio (Django Unchained), but the competition among the Django cast members — DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson — doesn’t bode well for all three. As such, I can’t help but go with Bardem in the end.
- Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)
- Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook)
- Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)
- Alan Arkin (Argo)
- Javier Bardem (Skyfall)
You can browse my complete chart of Best Supporting Actor contenders and their rankings right here.
Best Supporting Actress
Picking the fifth and final slot is a crap shoot and, if you look around the Internet, you’ll see many others don’t have much faith in Amy Adams (The Master) securing a nomination either.
I’m sticking with Adams even though The Master has clearly lost favor along the way and while I don’t consider the BAFTA awards to be something that help predict the Oscars all that well, the absence of Maggie Smith (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) from their confidence of the readers at the same time.
Yet, Ann Dowd (Compliance), Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook) and Judi Dench (Skyfall) serve as very possible substitutes.
- Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)
- Sally Field (Lincoln)
- Helen Hunt (The Sessions)
- Amy Adams (The Master)
- Nicole Kidman (The Paperboy)
You can browse my complete chart of Best Supporting Actress contenders and their rankings right here.
