Oscar Punditry: Who Will Be Our Surprise Acting Nominee and Who Could Still Be Snubbed?
Thursday, January 13, 2022 at 10:00PM
Christopher James in Critics Choice, Golden Globes, Oscar Punditry, Punditry, SAG

By: Christopher James

Kristen Stewart looking for where her SAG nomination went.The SAG Nominations sure threw a lot of people’s Oscar predictions upside down. One can always expect SAG to throw in a major curveball or two (call it the Sarah Silverman in I Smile Back effect). However, few could’ve predicted that former frontrunner Kristen Stewart would be snubbed for her role as Princess Diana in Spencer. It was almost as surprising to see Aunjanue Ellis miss for King Richard, especially when the movie made it into Outstanding Cast!

As surprising as it all was, we now have a lot of answers (rather than guesswork) as to who the major players are in Oscar's acting races since the Globes have already announced their winners, the Critics Choice nominations have long been out, and we've also seen the BAFTA longlist. We can use math and past Oscar patterns with these precursors to determine who the acting nominees might be this year...

What Is The Distribution of Oscar Nominated Performances?

There are two ways to look at this using just historical signals from SAG, Golden Globes (GG) and Critics Choice (CC) nominations.

The first way would be to look at the 360 Oscar nominated performances from 2003 - 2020 (when all three precursors nominated at least 5 nominees). How many precursors did each nominee earn?

This above breakdown is roughly consistent year over year. Last year, there was only a slight variation, as all fourteen performances that earned all three precursors also received Oscar nominations. Only one performance with one precursor (Paul Raci - Sound of Metal) and one performance with zero precursors (Lakeith Stanfield - Judas and the Black Messiah) were nominated for an Oscar.

The second way one can figure out the potential distribution of nominated performances would be to look at the success rate from 2003 - 2020. For example, 265 performances showed up at all three major precursors. Of those 265 performances, 242 earned Oscar nominations. This means there is an 89% success rate for actors who did not miss at any precursor.

Looking at how this method affects the nominee distribution, it looks nearly identical to the first method. This predicts there will be one major snub from those 13 performances that showed up at SAG, Golden Globes and Critics Choice. So who will that be?

Who Could Be The Shocking Snub?

Here are the 23 people who earned SAG, Golden Globe and Critics Choice nominations, but then failed to receive an Oscar nomination:

This year, 13 people have earned nominations from all three major awards bodies to date:

 

Since Supporting Actor only has two performances that have made a clean sweep of the precursors, it’s safe to bet that Kodi Smit-McPhee and Troy Kotsur will receive Oscar nominations. They also star in likely Best Picture nominees, which helps.

Occasionally, a Best Picture nominee will miss on a key “lock” of an acting nomination. However, for the purposes of this exercise, let’s assume that it will come from a movie that will either not show up at the Oscars or only show up in a few categories. This means the following performances are shakiest in terms of guaranteed Oscar play:

After earning three SAG nominations, House of Gucci and Lady Gaga feel even safer than they did. If Denzel Washington can earn a nomination for the little seen Roman J. Israel Esq. then he seems primed to rack up a tenth nomination for The Tragedy of Macbeth. Finally, Olivia Colman is on a hot streak with the Oscars. Never bet against a hot streak. This means, if there is a big snub on Oscar morning, it would be Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye.

Who Could Earn a Surprise Nomination?

Since 2003, there have been 19 performances that have earned an Oscar nomination without any precursor nominations from SAG, Golden Globes or the Critics Choice.

Yes, anomalies happen, but they are few and far between. Other than Michael Shannon, they also all came from previous Oscar nominees or winners. The best way to predict a surprise nominee is to look at the Best Picture contenders. Specifically, we should look at the supporting cast. Of the 14 coattails nominees, only three were in lead acting categories. More often than not, a big leading performance will get precursors and they will take a key supporting player with them (Reese Witherspoon takes Laura Dern in for Wild, Leonardo DiCaprio takes Jonah Hill in for The Wolf of Wall Street).

This year, here are some supporting performances that have not earned precursor nominations from SAG, Golden Globes or the Critics Choice. These are all from potential Best Picture nominees.

Let’s winnow this down a bit further. Which of these performances will also have a likely lead acting frontrunner? This leaves Plemons, Bernthal, Sidney, de Jesus, Buckley and Arianda. All of these could be potential out-of-nowhere surprises. So how do you pick? Trust your gut and look at the category landscape. Best Supporting Actor appears to be the least firmed up of all the acting categories. So it’s likely the surprise can come here. This is good news for Plemons, Bernthal and de Jesus. From here, ask yourself which movie has the most buzz. From those three, The Power of the Dog stands out. This leads me to believe that Jesse Plemons could be a surprise nominee this year.


My Predictions

How did the SAG Awards affect your predictions? Let us know in the comments below.

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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