Skip to main content

Oscars 2017: Who Will Win?

2017 Oscar Predictions


This year there is no mystery as to which movie is going to be the big winner on Oscar night, as La La Land is sure to dominate. That movie earned a record tying 14 nominations and will undoubtedly win Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress. The question now becomes just how many of those nominations will turn into wins. I do not think it's going to break the record for most wins (which is currently at 11 held by Ben-Hur, Titanic, and The Return of the King). Tying the record is certainly possible, but I think 10 wins sounds about right. To see a complete list of nominees, click here.

Here are my predictions with analysis on some of the major categories:

Best Picture: La La Land

There's nothing to analyze here - La La Land is going to win. 

Best Actor: Denzel Washington, Fences 

This is probably the toughest category to predict and it's down to either Denzel Washington or Casey Affleck for Manchester by the Sea. Affleck was the presumed frontrunner for most of award season until Washington beat him for the SAG Award. It's been 13 years since the SAG winner did not repeat at the Oscars, which is why I am predicting him for now. 

Best Actress: Emma Stone, La La Land

I'm pretty confident it's going to be Stone. Her biggest competition is Isabelle Huppert, but performances in foreign language films very rarely win. Still Best Picture and Best Actress have not gone to the same movie since Million Dollar Baby and no Best Actress has won for a musical since Liza Minnelli in Cabaret

Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali, Moonlight

Although he surprisingly lost the Golden Globe, Ali has won pretty much every award in existence for Moonlight. No reason to think he won't win the Oscar, especially since the Globe winner, Aaron Taylor Johnson, was not nominated by the Academy. 

Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis, Fences

Another easy category to call. Everybody is talking about how it's time for Viola Davis to finally win an Oscar, even if her placement in the Supporting Actress category has been called into question by some. 

Best Original Screenplay: Manchester by the Sea 

If La La Land is going to to tie the record for most wins, it'll do so by winning this category. It's possible, but I just cannot fathom a world where Manchester by the Sea doesn't win a single Oscar. 
Best Director: Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Best Adapted Screenplay: Moonlight
Best Original Score: La La Land
Best Original Song: "City of Stars," La La Land
Best Sound Mixing: La La Land
Best Sound Editing: Hacksaw Ridge
Best Cinematography: La La Land
Best Costume Design: La La Land
Best Production Design: La La Land
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Star Trek Beyond
Best Film Editing: La La Land
Best Visual Effects: The Jungle Book
Best Animated Film: Zootopia
Best Documentary Feature: OJ: Made in America
Best Foreign Film: Toni Edrmann
Best Animated Short: Piper
Best Documentary Short: The White Helmets
Best Live Action Short: Ennemis Interieurs 

The Oscars air February 26 on ABC. Let me know who you are predicting to win in the comments below!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Muppets Bring Humor and Heart to the Hollywood Bowl in "The Muppets Take the Bowl": Review

The Muppets are in  a bit of weird situation. Six years ago they made their big comeback with a smash hit movie, but since then they have had another flop movie and a short-lived television show. The franchise is still figuring out what iteration of itself works best for a 21st-century audience, and if it's not movies and it's not TV, what is it? It seems like they are trying to answer that question by putting on a rare live performance, happening September 8-10th at the Hollywood Bowl. Like the good Muppet fan I am, I was on hand opening night in eager anticipation of finding out what a live Muppet show looks like. It looked like, well, what you might expect it to look like. Puppeteers dressed in all black performing their characters right before our very eyes. That is when there wasn't a platform or podium they could hide behind, which there occasionally was during the course of the two-and-a-half hour show. While it certainly isn't how we are used to experienc

"My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore": Why Taylor Swift's "Gold Rush" Is a Song About Songwriting

"My mind turns your life into folklore." That line, from the song "Gold Rush," is the only time the word "folklore" is spoken on either of Taylor Swift's 2020 records, Folklore and Evermore , the latter of which is where the song appears. The presence of the line indicates that "Gold Rush" is a pivotal song not only in Swift's lockdown duology, but in her maturation as a songwriter.  Swift's early albums often drew heavily from her own experiences, with fans and the media scouring her lyrics for clues as to which ex-boyfriend her numerous breakup songs referred. Her tumultuous dating life made as many headlines as her music, in part because it informed so much of the music. The discourse was often ridiculous and reductive, and thankfully, that period of her career is over (Swift has been in a relationship with the actor Joe Alwyn since 2016).  Both of her 2020 albums have their fair share of autobiographical songs, but they also see

Every Julie London Album Ranked

Last month, for school I had to write a long research paper about 17th century Flemish flower paintings, which was a bit outside my comfort zone. So, I needed writing music and a lot of it. After listening a bit to Amazon Music's playlist "Big Band Christmas", I came across the song "Warm in December" by Julie London. It was a name I'd heard before, but I knew next to nothing about her. But the song was good enough to send me to Wikipedia, where I learned that London released 30 albums in the 14 years between 1955 and 1969. Most of the material she recorded was standards, the kind I spent most of 2020 listening to, so I decided that listening to London's entire discography (in order) would be perfect for writing my paper. Now, the paper's done ( I got an A), and I'm left with many, many thoughts about Julie London.  A film actress before releasing her first album, Julie is Her Name , in 1955, London had a mega-hit single with "Cry Me a River