The holidays may be coming to a close, but awards season is just getting started. Over the past few months, a slew of moving, marvellous, and — most importantly for this conversation — critically acclaimed movies came out. You can practically see them flexing for the Academy, as if to say: "Pick me!"
Right now, the approximately 6,000 voting members of the Academy are screening films, pondering artistic merit, and ultimately filling out Oscars ballots with their top five choices in a particular category. On January 23, the ballot numbers will be crunched and the Academy Award nominees will be announced. That's when your real homework of watching every Oscar-nominated movie will begin. You'll have until March 4, the day of the Oscars, to catch up.
For now, you can just get ahead. Here are our predictions for what movies will appear on the Oscars ballot, come January 23. We'll be updating our predictions as the season goes on.
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Best Picture
Frontrunners
* Dunkirk
Call Me By Your Name
The Shape of Water
Lady Bird
The Post
Get Out
The Phantom Thread
Darkest Hour
Contenders
Good Time
The Florida Project
Mudbound
The Big Sick
Best Actress
Frontrunners
Meryl Streep ( The Post)
Saoirse Ronan ( Lady Bird)
Sally Hawkins ( The Shape of Water)
*Frances McDormand ( Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri)
Margot Robbie ( I, Tonya)
Contenders
Salma Hayek ( Beatriz at Dinner)
Daniela Vega ( A Fantastic Woman)
Jessica Chastain ( Molly's Game)
Michelle Williams ( All the Money in the World)
Annette Bening (Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool)
Emma Stone ( The Battle of the Sexes)
Best Actor
Frontrunners
* Gary Oldman ( The Darkest Hour)
Daniel Day-Lewis ( The Phantom Thread)
Timotheé Chalamet ( Call Me By Your Name)
Daniel Kaluuya ( Get Out)
Tom Hanks ( The Post)
Contenders
James Franco ( The Disaster Artist)
Denzel Washington ( Roman J. Israel, Esq.)
Jake Gyllenhaal ( Stronger)
Best Director
Frontrunners
Guillermo Del Toro ( The Shape of Water)
Steven Spielberg ( The Post)
*Christopher Nolan ( Dunkirk)
Luca Guadagnino ( Call Me By Your Name)
Greta Gerwig ( Lady Bird)
Contenders
Martin McDonagh ( Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri)
Jordan Peele ( Get Out)
Dee Rees ( Mudbound)
Paul Thomas Anderson ( Phantom Thread)
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