Oscar Volley: Picture - Does it really come down to just two spots?

TFE’s Oscar volleys wrap up with Lynn Lee, Eurocheese, and Christopher James making predictions for the Big One (Best Picture). Nathaniel’s final Oscar chart predictions will be up tonight to usher in the weekend.

Lynn Lee: Oscar nomination voting closed Tuesday night but before it did do we agree we were approaching a consensus core group? Taking the precursors into account (minus BAFTA which hasn't yet announced as I type this), eight of the ten spots are close to locked up (in alpha order): Belfast, CODA, Don't Look Up, Dune, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, The Power of the Dog and West Side Story. That leaves two nomination spots for maybe a half dozen viable contenders. PGA went with Being the Ricardos and tick, tick...BOOM!, but as Nathaniel’s noted, the Oscar list is rarely an exact copy of the PGA. Could it happen this year? Entirely possible but I suspect at least one of those two is going to drop out and if I had to take a bet, it’s sadly more likely to be BOOM!...

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Producers Guild Awards say 'You can't sit with us!' to the blockbusters

by Nathaniel R

The Producers Guild of America has spoken and even though in past years they've shown a fondness for superheros and blockbusters nominating films like Star Trek, Wonder Woman, and Deadpool, this year they've dashed the Oscar dreams of the 8th Spider-Man movie and the 25th official James Bond movie and selected only Dune to represent big franchise filmmaking. The "surprise" nomination, though it really shouldn't be considered a surprise given that they even nominated Molly's Game, was Aaron Sorkin's Being the Ricardos. Their nominees are as follows...

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Punditry Madness! Team Experience joins in...

So dear readers, I've been having meetings with the team and they all wanted to join in on the Oscar prediction fun. So before the traditional charts on the Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, and Best International Feature Film pages you can see what each participating team member is predicting. It's fascinating to note the variety of opinions despite the fact that we're now late in the season. 

BEST PICTURE / BEST DIRECTOR
Though Power of the Dog is leading with 11/13 #1 placements (and all #1 placements in Best Director), there are still Belfast holdouts. Ben & Chris think Branagh's personal passion project still has some Oscar oomph in it...

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9 Notes on the List of 276 Movies Eligible for the 94th Oscars

by Nathaniel R

Raya and the Last Dragon was the first wide release of the eligibilty period for the 94th Oscar

The Academy has released its official list of all 276 movies that are eligible for Best Picture (and all general categories that apply) at the 94th Oscars, to be held on March 27th. Usually the list is about one-hundred titles longer than this but it was a strange year, especially since it was only 10 months long according to the Academy. Last awards seaon they considered 2020 to be 14 months long (January 2020 through February 2021) due to the Pandemic. After the jump the full list and 9 observations...

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Which movies will squeeze into the last two slots of the Best Picture lineup?

by Nathaniel R

Time for Oscar chart updates. And, the way we see it there are two relatively "open" slots in Best Picture with five films either showing some form of strength at the moment or feeling like they might happen. But which will prevail?

PICTURE
If we were still in a sliding scale Best Picture situation as we were at this time last year we'd only be predicting 8 films for the top honor, and in this order: All locked up -- The Power of the Dog, West Side Story, Belfast, King Richard, Dune, Don't Look Up; The Probablies - CODA and Licorice Pizza. But the Academy has ruled that we're back to a full top ten list like we had (briefly) in 2009 and 2010. So there are two spots open...

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