Awards

2019 Oscar Predictions: Best Picture

Best Picture this year is as unpredictable as ever with four frontrunners and the possibility of a barrier-breaking superhero movie winning.

Best Picture is an odd category at the 2019 . What is making this year more unpredictable is almost the opposite of last year. Instead of there being multiple films with valid chances of winning, this year it's hard to find a movie that doesn't have something working against it. 

Even though we're less than a month away from the , Best Picture is still an undecided category — it's easily the wild card of the night. While there are three clear top contenders, you can make an argument for any of the eight nominees.

The BAFTA Awards might shed some light on what film is the frontrunner, but based on the other precursors, they might just confuse us even more.

Here are my current rankings:

  1. Roma — Critics Choice, DGA
  2. BlacKkKlansman
  3. Green Book — Globe, PGA
  4. Black Panther — SAG
  5. The Favourite
  6. A Star is Born
  7. Vice
  8. Bohemian Rhapsody — Globe

Check out all our 2019 Oscar Predictions: Best Picture | Best Actor | Best ActressBest Supporting Actor | Best Supporting Actress

It's rare for a movie to win without at least a nomination in one of these three categories — Film Editing, Directing, and at least one acting category. Only three movies this year got all three — BlacKkKlansman, The Favourite, and Vice. If you throw in the SAG Award Best Ensemble stat — only twice has a movie won without a nomination there — then you narrow down to just BlacKkKlansman.

Despite being snubbed for Best Director, Bradley Cooper hopes to win Best Picture for A STAR IS BORN

It would make sense as a winner. — despite being the legend that he is — has never won a competitive Oscar — he's won a lifetime achievement award. It's also a social issues movie that tends to do well at the Oscars — and unlike its competitors, it's an uncontroversial one. Most importantly, BlacKkKlansman hit every precursor award it's needed.

However, it needs to log a precursor win — WGA is its last shot.

Even though Roma surprisingly missed a Film Editing nod, it is BlacKkKlansman's biggest competition. Not only did it run the gamut of critics awards, but director Alfonso Cuarón has also swept the director awards and it stunned with a surprise Best Supporting Actress nomination for Marina de Tavira.

Contrary to popular belief, I think Roma is going to do better on the preferential ballot — I explain how Best Picture voting works here — than people think. First of all, the people that love the movie LOVE the movie. Second, I think people that didn't connect with it still respect the craft, which will land it a lot of 3rd, 4th, and 5th place votes. Its biggest baggage is that it's a movie. If it wins, it would be the first movie released on a streaming platform to ever win Best Picture.

BLACK PANTHER could become the first superhero movie to win Best Picture at the Oscars.

Green Book and Black Panther round out the competitors with the best shot to win. Green Book swept the and shockingly won the Producers Guild of America Award for Best Picture. This is notable because it's the only precursor to also use a preferential ballot. But producers only make up a small part of the Academy and it's been marred by tons of controversy. Still, it's the type of light social justice movie that the Oscars tend to go for — think Crash or Driving Miss Daisy.

If Black Panther wins, it'll break a lot of records. The first superhero movie to win Best Picture, one of the few movies to win without a Film Editing or Director nod, one of the few movies to not be nominated by the DGA to win. The list goes on and on. But I think it has a strong shot at doing well on the preferential ballot. I think the industry admires the movie and it has a strong underdog narrative. It could upset.

Karl Delossantos

Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.

Leave a Comment
Published by
Karl Delossantos
Tags: Oscars

Recent Posts

No Other Land is the most important documentary of our time | movie review

No Other Land follows a Palestinian activist as he documents the destruction of his community… Read More

1 month ago

Surreal dramedy The Life of Chuck ponders life and death | TIFF 2024

TIFF 2024 | The Life of Chuck follows an enigmatic man starting as a surrealist… Read More

2 months ago

Diabolically fun horror Heretic will make you believe | TIFF 2024

A pair of young Mormon missionaries find themselves at the center of a sinister plot… Read More

2 months ago

Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield charm and fall in love in We Live In Time | TIFF 2024

Moving back and forth in their history, We Live In Time follows a couple through… Read More

2 months ago

Strange Darling, a thriller to die for | movie review

While it begins as a cat-and-mouse thriller, Strange Darling evolves (and genre-bends) into a psychological… Read More

2 months ago

Dìdi is a love letter to an Asian-American childhood | movie review

Dìdi is an autobiographical romp through the life of a shy 13-year-old Taiwanese-American as he… Read More

3 months ago