First Round Oscar Predictions Nearly Complete!

by Nathaniel R

Dear reader, I had planned a big article on each Oscar category as we completed this first round. Scratch that. It's best to finally get all the charts up and then dive further week by week, so we have somewhere to start from. Over at the Prediction Index you'll see that every category we guess well ahead of time is up now with more "tier 2" and "other possibilities" business on the individual category charts. Well all charts but International Feature (which we're working on) and both Actress charts. We can't throw the latter up without detailing it; It's not in our natures to give actresses short shrift!

So investigate the early predictions at your leisure. Well, don't wait too long. Things will change very soon. Calendar shifts are normal this time of year but it's likely to be even more volatile this season given the WGA/SAG strike and AMTMP's refusal to pay them anything like what they used to get paid for their work before streaming changed the entertainment landscape. Supporting Actress Chart tomorrow! 

Emmy Analysis: Comedy Supporting Categories

By Abe Friedtanzer

Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Ayo Edebiri in FX's The Bear

With only fourteen nominees, the comedy supporting categories still have nearly double the shows represented by the drama supporting categories’ sixteen recognized individuals. Both supporting actor and supporting actress contain two sets of double nominees, but it’s hardly the overwhelming domination that exists on the drama side. There are also five past winners and a handful of fresh faces that make these two races well worth watching...

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Best Lead Actor - First Round Predictions

by Nathaniel R

Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer) and Colman Domingo (Rustin) are both working the classic 'biopic' angle

As with the first round of Best Supporting Actor predictions, we're opting to pretend that the strike will be resolved in time for most of the movies that are scheduled for awards season to continue with their current plans. We use the word "pretend" because it feels increasingly likely that this awards season will be an unprecented combo of fewer than usual releases and zero celebrity campaigning. We hope the studio powers-that-be will wake from their incessant greed and learn to share the wealth with the people without whom they can't make money (actors/writers) but we're not going to hold out breath lest we asphyxiate.

On to Best Actor. This category is often heavy on biographical 'great men' roles and there's little reason to expect this year will be any different. Cillian Murphy, Colman Domingo, Bradley Cooper, Joaquin Phoenix, and Adam Driver will all potentially benefit from that tried and true awards-appeal genre...

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Best Supporting Actor - First Predictions!

by Nathaniel R

Willem Dafoe in "Poor Things" from Searchlight Pictures

Will Robert Downey Jr's scenery chewing in Oppenheimer, John Magaro's stealth beautiful support in Past Lives, and Ryan Gosling's giddy winking joy be "Kenough" several months from now when the Oscar nominations are announced? That's the pressing question at the moment when it comes to the Best Supporting Actor race. They're surely the top violable contenders from the first seven months of the year, give a pair from Air. But can you choose between the foul mouth charisma of Chris Messina and the hesitant gamber cool of Ben Affleck? 

We frame the Best Supporting Actor race this way because who knows what the rest of year might hold in terms of releases...

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Emmy Analysis: Drama Guest Categories

By Abe Friedtanzer

Hiam Abbass

Best Guest Actor in a Drama Series and Best Guest Actress in a Drama Series are two of the races where only two HBO series are represented, and they also happen to contain nominees from the exact same two shows: The Last of Us and Succession. Before we get to the people recognized and the work they did (spoiler alerts for both series), let’s take a look at the history of these categories and whether this has happened in the past...

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