The analysis of the 94th Academy awards scheduled for March 27th 2022
The nominations and predictions of winners in the major categories.
The following written content from David Crow
It was a good morning to work for Netflix. The streaming service which was once kept at arm’s length by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—and which Steven Spielberg once attempted to prevent from getting more Best Picture nominations by going directly to the Academy’s Board of Governors—is now the toast of the Oscars 2022 ball. Indeed, this morning’s Academy Awards nominations showered the streaming service with 20 nominations, 12 of which were for The Power of the Dog, more than any other film.
Jane Campion’s Western scored the most love in at least the Oscar nomination process with nods being picked up for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and four acting nominations, including for Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Kodi-Smit McPhee, and in a surprise, Jesse Plemmons. The competitor with the closest nomination count is Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, which earned 10 nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Shockingly, however, Villeneuve was snubbed in the Best Director category where Ryusuke Hamaguchi surprised by getting the fifth nominating spot for helming the Japanese film, Drive My Car. Critics groups like the New York Film Critics Circle (which awarded Drive My Car Best Picture) are undoubtedly delighted that the foreign language movie also beat the odds and got a Best Picture nomination while some seeming favorites like Being the Ricardos and House of Gucci were left out in the cold in Oscar’s biggest race.
In fact, there were a number of snubs and surprises, the nicest of which, at least from the perspective of this writer, being Kristen Stewart getting a deserved Best Actress nod for Spencer. Once perceived as the frontrunner due to her electric performance—which has been recognized as the Best Actress turn of the year by more than a dozen critics groups—Stewart seemed unlikely to even be nominated by the Academy after being snubbed by the Screen Actors Guild and the BAFTAs. Yet she got in over the more audience-friendly Lady Gaga, who seemingly just missed out in the Best Actress category to Stewart, as well as the welcome nomination for Penelope Cruz in Parallel Mothers.
More surprises include Judi Dench being nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for Belfast while Caitríona Balfe was snubbed and—at least in the halls of comic book movie Twitter—Spider-Man: No Way Home not getting a Best Picture nod (which we predicted long ago). Overall though, many of the nominations fell into place with expectations, including what in another year would be traditional frontrunners like Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast and Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story each scoring seven Oscar nominations.
But is this a traditional Oscar year? Frankly, as indicated by the showered love on The Power of the Dog, it feels like a paradigm is shifting in the industry after two years of pandemic—yes, even on Oscar night. It’s been more than a decade since the Oscar race has felt this wide open with few obvious frontrunners. For that reason, making predictions, especially this early in the season, runs seriously close to throwing egg on your face… which we now proceed to do.
Below are our foolishly early predictions of who will and who should win the Oscars in all the major categories. Who we think SHOULD win will be italicized. Those we think WILL win will be bolded. And when they’re one in the same, they’ll be BOTH.
OSCARS 2022 WINNERS PREDICTIONS
BEST PICTURE
Belfast
CODA
Don’t Look Up
Drive My Car
Dune
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
Fortune favors the bold, right? In the biggest race of the season, I’m eschewing the safe, likely choice of all that The Power of the Dog love being converted into Best Picture and instead predicting Kenneth Branagh’s warm-hearted but humbler Belfast wins the top prize. There are a few reasons for this beyond trying to call a curveball at the top. For starters, The Power of the Dog is going to have a very good Oscar night (more on that below), so Academy members might feel a bit more free to spread the love around on their tiered voting ballot for the final award.
But to put a finer point on it, while the industry seems maybe ready to accept Netflix as worthy of the Best Picture prize after two years of pandemic revealed audiences no longer go to movie theaters for traditional Oscar entertainment, I would argue The Power of the Dog is not traditional Oscar entertainment. It even feels like we were having a similar conversation just three years ago when Alfonso Cuarón’s delicate memory of his youth, and celebration of the woman who really helped raise him, was the critical favorite. Yet the foreign language, Netflix-produced, and challenging Roma lost to the conventional and feel-good Green Book.
Now Belfast is no Green Book (despite what Film Twitter cynics might say). In fact, it bears a lot of superficial similarities to Roma, right down to its black and white photography. However, it approaches childhood reveries from a more sentimental and intentionally rose-tinted perspective, celebrating the human spirit the Academy likes. Hence seven nominations, including Branagh getting a Best Original Screenplay nod. It’s also telling this is the first year since the Academy changed the rules to allow up to 10 nominations for Best Picture (as opposed to exactly 10 nominations). It seems likely the Academy wanted to make sure a few more traditional or crowd friendly movies made the cut. Belfast would fit that mold too.
So would West Side Story, which was a dazzling achievement that we would argue miraculously improved on the 1961 classic. However, West Side Story flopped, and unlike Belfast, it was expected to be a Christmas box office sensation. The Academy rarely backs a perceived failure
BEST DIRECTOR
Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car
Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Steven Spielberg, West Side Story
I suppose I’m beating the West Side Story drum pretty hard at this point, but Steven Spielberg is one of the great cinematic masters of all time. Nevertheless, the filmmaker finally being released on the musical, one of his favorite genres, was still somehow a revelation in West Side Story. The director of Close Encounters and Jaws hasn’t felt this kinetic and excited to be casting his spell in ages.
With that said, Jane Campion did craft one of the most gorgeous looking movies of the year, and one in which nearly every frame is dripping with subtext and innuendo. It’s as visually layered an achievement as you’ll see this year, and given the fact Campion has never won for Best Director—in fact, she lost to Spielberg in 1994—suggests this is her long overdue moment to claim the Best Director prize.
BEST ACTRESS
Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Penelope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
Kristen Stewart, Spencer
At this point, Stewart getting the nomination for Spencer feels like the win. It shouldn’t. Her immense transformation into Diana Spencer turned one of the most famous women of the 20th century into a haunting figure, a heroine of a great psychological horror. Strangely though, there is strong resistance within the industry against recognizing this impressive turn.
For that reason, we expect an Academy favorite like Nicole Kidman to win. To be clear, Kidman is quite good as Lucille Ball despite what Twitter says. The Australian actress unexpectedly captured the real-life rhythms and cadence of the I Love Lucy star in an otherwise by the numbers Hollywood biopic by way of Aaron Sorkin. For the latter point, some will probably hope Olivia Colman will be the returning Oscar winner to pick up her second statuette, but it’s been almost 20 years since Kidman won her first Oscar. Here comes her second.
BEST ACTOR
Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
Andrew Garfield, tick, tick… BOOM!
Will Smith, King Richard
Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth
It is Will Smith’s year. After being previously nominated twice for Best Actor, once for Ali and once for The Pursuit of Happyness, the true blue movie star is poised to receive his greatest recognition from within his industry for King Richard.
Still, I prefer Andrew Garfield’s more raw and frazzled transformation into Jonathan Larson. Not a natural singer, Garfield nonetheless plunged himself into the voice of one of the great tragic minds in Broadway history. It’s magnetic.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter
Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Judi Dench, Belfast
Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog
Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard
Aunjanue Ellis gives a quiet but measured turn every bit the equal to Smith’s showier interpretation of Richard Williams. (Some might even say Ellis’ work is its superior.) And her big speech where she puts the “king” in his place is the stuff Oscar accolades are made of. Read more from DenOfGeek
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