Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

The nine nominees for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, winner to be announced February 9, 2020. Which would get your vote?



Ford v Ferrari
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
Marriage Story
1917
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has the edge over 1917. Tarantino has yet to win an Oscar for Best Picture and Director. He'll take Best Picture but will lose Director to Mendes.

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

I saw 6 nominees in theater for 2016 and 2017 movies and 4 in 2018. None so far this year. I've only seen the Netflix films so far. So I won't vote yet

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I've only seen Joker and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood so far. I intend to watch Marriage Story and I'd like to see Jojo Rabbit and Parasite but doubt I'll get to them before the awards.

Obviously of the two I have seen, I prefer Joker.

@Holden Pike when are you putting up the rest of the categories?

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

When he's finished his trademark write-ups, of course.

As for the nominees, I still have to get around to Little Women and Marriage Story but of the ones I've seen I'd give it to Parasite (though ...Hollywood and Irishman come very close, especially the former).

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

I've seen half of these. Need to get the others under my belt before I can comment properly.

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I've only seen two, but I should be able to cram three or four in this week.

Slowly today. But they are coming.

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I noticed the ceremony is earlier this year too. No way I'll get to a whole lot this year.

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Yeah, they basically cut the time between nominations and awards in half this year. Pretty rough for those of us trying to do stuff around it, to say the least.

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I've seen five of them: The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Marriage Story, and Joker.

I'm watching 1917 tomorrow.

I'll get to Ford V Ferrari, Parasite, and Little Women by Oscar time.

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

I’ve seen six, and of those, I vote for Parasite.

Nice to see Jojo getting some love, after the misplaced criticism from people who couldn't comprehend satire.

Apart from it, I have only watched Irishman, Marriage Story, OUATIH, Joker and Ford vs Ferrari, and my vote goes to Ford vs Ferrari. Just loved it.

Also, I intend to watch Parasite this week.

1917 received major love at the Globes and I'm pretty sure it will duplicate at Oscar time though if it were up to me, Best Picture and Director would go to Joker...Best Actor too.

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I could see Joker winning too, which would be cool. Haven't seen it yet though.

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1917 all the way.

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My favorites ranked from what I've seen:
Parasite
The Irishman
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Joker
Marriage Story (not worse than Joker by any means, I just like it less)
Ford v Ferrari

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

I will vote for this on the weekend. Planning to watch 1917. Parasite is the best film of year. But i think they will give the foreign language film award to it and then its a toss up. I would just stick out for Marriage Story. But after Parasite, its fair game.

Seen all except 1917. 4 of these were in my top ten: Jo Jo, Marriage Story, OUATIH, and Joker. Jo Jo was my favorite of the bunch, so that's where my vote goes. Little Women is probably my #11. I think Parasite is worthy, I just didn't fall in love like so many others have.

I comprehended how bad the satire was.

Joker is amazing...try to see it before the Oscars if you can

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Sad to see The Lighthouse and The Farewell getting no love, oh well.

Out of these I'd probably want Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to win, haven't seen Ford, little women, or parasite yet.

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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will win, I'd say. With Tarantino possibly retiring soon (in a recent interview he said that it feels like his last movie), they'll want to give him best picture not just for this but for his entire body of work as well.

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

Then that's a different matter altogether-and dependent on your likes and dislikes.

My point was about people who were aghast with the mere idea of showcasing Hitler and Nazis in a funny manner, cause they were concerned that it would make him and his group likeable.

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I quite like it. Loved it in fact. It was my fav till i saw Marriage Story.

Pah... that is just marketing! So when his next sells more tickets.

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Too many people putting too much faith in Joker. Be realistic. Joker is not winning Best Picture, although it is easily my favorite movie of the year. The Academy rarely ever awards the highest grossing film of the year with the top prize, except for maybe Titanic and that Lord of the Rings thing.

This is clearly a battle between 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (which I voted for and believe will win), and Parasite (I believe winning the International Film award should be sufficient).

Joker was the seventh highest grossing movie of the year at the worldwide box office behind Avengers: Endgame, The Lion King, Frozen II, Spider-Man: Far from Home, Captain Marvel, and Toy Story 4.

But yes, it is the highest grossing of the nine Best Picture nominees. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the second-biggest money maker among the nine, and it had the 23rd highest draw of the year worldwide. Ford v Ferrari (#36) and Parasite (#50) were the only other two in the top fifty worldwide. Joker was ninth at the domestic box office, OUATIH was eighteenth. Parasite just cracked the top hundred domestically at #97. 1917 was released at the end of 2019 and didn't go wide until this past weekend so it's numbers are still coming in but thus far it is up to $43-million domestically and $67-million total internationally.

I think the least of Joker's stumbling blocks to winning Best Picture is how much money it made.

I thought this one is Joker's until I saw 1917.

I love Joker, but this must be 1917.

Now I have seen all of them in theatre and have only 2 Netflix ones to go!

Watched another nominee yesterday...JoJo Rabbit...great film, but I still want to see Joker take this prize.

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

A current ranking:
1. Parasite (4.5/5)
2. Marriage Story (4/5)
3. The Irishman (4/5)
4. Little Women (4/5)
5. OUATIH (3/5)
6. Joker (2/5)

Why such a low rating for Joker?

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This is after many years I am on top of the nominations list well in advance. For past few years, I was like in a mad rush to finish everything. But I only have 1917 left and two foreign film nominations. The documentaries I can finish later. Oscars is early this year too!

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

Here’s a link to my main review-
https://boxd.it/WLjWf

Idk, I understand why people like it and hope I’m not offending anyone by hating on it, but to me it seemed really pretentious and shallow, when I would have much rather preferred something like Avengers: Endgame in terms of the comic book genre, which wasn’t great but was better made than Joker.

Also, soul-less rip-off of Scorsese!

Wow, pretty harsh review...OK...you're entitled to your opinion I guess.

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The way I see it, the movie just revolves around the lead characters portrayal of his slow descent into madness. Take it out and there is not much else to talk about. But the movie is great, easily the top 5. Just that there were others which did a nice job too. And this year being so good for movies, it's really clutching at straws when trying to put any of nominees down.


For me, the weakest is once upon a time in Hollywood. It's a typical mashed potato Tarantino film.

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I think either 1917 or Parasite should win, but I voted for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood because I think it will win.

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I was disappointed by OUATIH but didn’t hate it.
I’ll be getting to the other 3 soon as I can, prob Jojo Rabbit next.

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

I’ve only seen Joker, which I enjoyed but wasn’t great and possibly a victim of overhype, and The Irishman, which was great to me.
Plan on seeing 1027 this weekend depending on how bad the winter storm we’re due for is.

When you are done with the list, probably QT's movie might drop even lower! :)

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Has anyone been able to see Les Misarbles, the french nominee? I just cant find it anywhere.

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Ford v Ferrari has this one in the bag with all its other nominations right?

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Other than sound mixing, I cant really say it has a chance to win anything else unfortunately as good as the movie is.

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Still surprised that got nominated...

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Finished 1917. Give the Oscars now! The Brits just do it so well. It is this Vs Parasite for me. But since this mostly goes to Hollywood, I would say 1917.

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It is winning all the technical awards too for sure. I just don't remember the Joker's background score, other than it being very good. But this one was amazing.

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Just found this:

https://youtu.be/LjhoSv4Ood0

I've now seen six of the nine nominated films and Joker is still my favorite for Best Picture.

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Which one's are left?

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Which ones have you not seen?

I still haven't seen Parasite, 1917, and Little Women

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Parasite and Little Women are both excellent, hope you enjoy!

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The first two might topple Joker for you! Do give the them try before the Oscars.

1917 just won the Producers Guild of America's Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures. Its momentum towards Oscar glory continues.

The PGA began handing out their annual awards in 1990, starting with Driving Miss Daisy. Since then the PGA winner and the Academy choice for Best Picture have matched 21 out of 30 times. There was a period at the beginning of the 21st century when they mismatched four out of six years including three in a row (The Aviator/Million Dollar Baby, Brokeback Mountain/Crash, Little Miss Sunshine/The Departed). It then had a streak of eight matches until the back-to-back misses of The Big Short/Spotlight and La La Land/Moonlight. The last two seasons matched with The Shape of Water and Green Book.

The last two war movies to win the PGA were The Hurt Locker and Saving Private Ryan. The Hurt Locker went on to win Best Picture but Ryan was infamously beaten by Shakespeare in Love. We'll see what Oscar has in store but this win definitely gives 1917 the edge.

Well, we officially have a front runner.

As Holden Pike mentioned above, since the preferential ballot era of both PGA and The Academy Awards started, the two have matched 8/10 times. Only PGA winners The Big Short and La La Land (and Gravity, the year it tied with 12 Years a Slave) went on to lose Best Picture at the Oscars. So, the only other film I see winning by this point is probably Parasite, since it's been nominated for every guild and has a pretty passionate support base that something like Roma didn't have last year. Depends which film ends up winning director, though. And you can never count out an original screenplay win for either Parasite or Hollywood.

This whole thing really disappoints me, too. I haven't even seen it yet and already the hype is starting to overwhelm me. Like, is it really that good? Better than The Irishman, Parasite, or Tarantino? Are they trying to make some statement on war because the whole kerfuffle with Iran at the moment? Sam Mendes has already won an Oscar and you have Tarantino and Bong Joon-ho right there, two filmmakers who made two of the best films of the year, not even mentioning the fact that Tarantino has never won for director or picture (Joon-ho hasn't even been recognized by The Academy until now).

The only thing hindering its chances by this point is the fact that it's the first film to win the PGA with no SAG nominations, and the first since Slumdog Millionaire to do it without any Oscar noms for acting. Then again, both The Shape of Water and Green Book ended up winning best picture with no ensemble nomination. Who's to say that 1917 can't pull it off without any SAG or Oscar nominations for acting? It got nominated for original screenplay despite consensus that it wouldn't. Not to mention that I think by this point, PGA is probably the better indicator since it's top prize has been more accurate than the SAG ensemble has been this decade. But is an SAG shut-out really that irrelevant? Unless Parasite or Once Upon A Time In Hollywood wins something major like ensemble or DGA, then expect the answer to be "yes", and expect 1917 to be your Best Picture Winner.

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

The SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast (which will be announced tonight) is NOT a corollary for Best Picture. They have been handing out that award since 1996 and its winner and Best Picture have only matched 11 out of 26 times. Out of the nine times this decade it has only matched four (The King's Speech, Argo, Birdman, and Spotlight). Less than 50% as an awards predictor is pretty useless. Black Panther won the SAG Cast award last year and if they ever crack open the numbers for the Oscars I would be shocked if Black Panther even finished in the top five for Best Picture. Same thing for Hidden Figures, The Help, and Inglourious Basterds and going back further SAG winners Gosford Park, The Full Monty, and The Birdcage. This SAG category usually has at least one and sometimes several nominees that aren't even on the Oscar ballot for Picture. This year it is Bombshell and the last several SAGs have seen Crazy Rich Asians, Mudbound, The Big Sick, Captain Fantastic, Beasts of No Nation, Straight Outta Compton, and Trumbo named. Best Ensemble was never really supposed to mimic Best Picture but it lazily gets thrown in there by the "Access Hollywood"s of the world. Don't buy into it.

Obviously the individual acting prizes are natural corollaries (Best Actor has matched at both awards 13 of the last 14 years, for example) but Cast does not equal Picture.

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The Help might have run close, but the rest, I don't think so. I loved Beasts of No Nation, can't remember what other nominees were that year at the Oscars, but it wouldn't have been a bad choice. And considering it was this decade, which is on average poor, it should have made the cut.

An ensemble nomination, not a win, but a nomination can actually bode very well for any Best Picture winner, even if it doesn't win. I'm not sure that a single film this decade has gone on to win best picture without at least getting one SAG or Oscar nomination for acting.

And athough an ensemble win would definitely help, it depends on the landscape. 1917 isn't nominated for a single acting award in SAG or Oscar, but it's nominated for original screenplay (not a single Best Picture winner has not been nominated for screenplay since Titanic in 1997). I think what stranger is that 1917 has not gotten a single acting nomination at any major award show.

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

I finally watched Parasite. Highly overrated. The movie had a solid first half, or even two-thirds, but then it got weird and messy. The ending left me unsatisfied and disappointed.

I don't see it winning Best Picture at all. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or 1917 for sure.

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Interesting, Parasite was easily my favorite of the year. I liked the messiness and twists at the end.

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Update: Watched Jojo Rabbit and loved it!
1. Parasite
2. Marriage Story
3. Irishman
4. Little Women
5. Jojo Rabbit
6. OUATIH
7. Joker

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

To date there have been eleven Best Picture winners that had no acting nominations, three of which came way back in the initial years of the Academy Awards, four in the 1950s, and two in the 21st century: Wings (1927), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Grand Hotel (1932), An American in Paris (1951), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Gigi (1958), The Last Emperor (1987), Braveheart (1995), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), and Slumdog Millionaire (2008).

Not common, but it happens. 1917 may well join that list.

There have been seven Best Picture winners that didn't get a screenplay nod. Again, a bunch were at the inception of the awards before the categories and number of nominees standardized but none since the 1998 ceremony: Wings (1927), The Broadway Melody (1928), Grand Hotel (1932), Cavalcade (1933), Hamlet (1948), The Sound of Music (1965), and Titanic (1997).

And then there's the ten that won Best Picture without winning either Best Director or for their screenplays: Wings (1927), The Broadway Melody (1928), Grand Hotel (1932), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Rebecca (1940), Hamlet (1948), All the King's Men (1949), Gladiator (2000), and Chicago (2002).

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1917 had hype for it long before it even came out. I’ve tried to watch it once already and it completely sold out. I haven’t had that happened to me in a very long time. Not with Star Wats films, nor and of the Marvel films. Even on opening weekends.
Every word of mouth so far has been about how great it is. If it does win Best Picture, it’ll be because it deserves it.

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I had the the darn luck of watching it sitting beside an over-enthusiastic guy. Cheering every scene and saying "Wow... Man .. Holy cow" and all that at every twist and turn. But it didn't ruin the experience for me at least.

But the ending is where the subtlety lies. The class system is still maintained, the guy trying to keep someone in is now locked in the same place and a few other mellifluous tid-bits.

I loved JoJo Rabbbit too.

Watched Little Women on Thursday night. I just have to watch Parasite and 1917 nd I'll have watched all the Best Picture nominees.

Directors Roundtable: Todd Phillips, Martin Scorsese, Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iLtjMwkOlg

Got a few more 2019 pictures in this weekend, one of which was up for Best Picture.

Parasite was excellent, and goes right up at or near the top of my list for the year. That said, I still haven't seen 1917, Little Women, Ford V Ferrari, or Marriage Story. With the difficulty of getting to the theater these days due to the wee lass being around, I would think I will only be able to see Marriage Story before the awards hit. I guess I might like that more than Parasite, but I doubt it! ;) I liked the new Scorsese picture, as well as the new Tarantino flick, but I think Parasite was bit fresher, so I was a bit more entertained.

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

I've seen all of the nominees.

I would rank them based on how much I enjoyed them the following way:

1. Joker
2. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
3. 1917
4. The Irishman
5. Jojo Rabbit
6. Ford V Ferrari
7. Parasite
8. Marriage Story
9. Little Women

It would be cool if Joker is awarded Best Picture, but that's very unlikely.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood deserves it, but I believe 1917 will take it.

I don't mind messiness and twists, but the way the film unraveled in the final act just didn't click with me. It didn't satisfy me as a viewer.

I get the message of the movie. A commentary on social status, which was on point.

If I were to score the film based on the first two thirds of it, I would have given it a little less than 5 stars. It was solid. But the way the film ended, it got a much lesser score from me: 3 stars. Good film overall, but fell short.

First you can generally eliminate the Best Picture nominees that don't have a corresponding Best Director nomination. Winning without the director even being nominated is exceedingly rare. That means Ford v Ferrari, Jojo Rabbit, Little Women, and Marriage Story have very remote chances of winning. But remote is not impossible and it HAS happened. Five times. In ninety-one years. A 6% chance, historically. Two of those happened during the first few years of the awards (Wings and Grand Hotel), before the categories had standardized. So really were talking about only three times in the modern history of the Oscars. BUT...two of them were in this decade. 1989's Driving Miss Daisy is the first, 2012's Argo the second, and last year's Green Book was the third. So clearly it can happen.

But those three films also won other prestigious awards leading up to the Academy Awards. Driving Miss Daisy had won the PGA Award and the Golden Globe for Comedy, Argo had won the PGA and the Golden Globe for Drama while Affleck was Best Director at the Globes and the DGA, Green Book had won the PGA, the Globe for Comedy, and at least Farrelly was nominated by the DGA. So their Best Picture wins weren't complete shocks, just frickin' weird and rare that their director's didn't manage Oscar nominations.

For the record Marriage Story, Ford v Ferrari, Little Women nor Jojo Rabbit won the PGA nor Golden Globe awards. Meaning they would forge totally new ground if they were to win. Possible, obviously, as they are on the ballot. But beyond unlikely. It would be my favorite Oscar win of all time if Jojo Rabbit were to be named Best Picture, but as much as I want it to happen it ain't gonna.



Fans of Joker really, really want it to win, too. The same way (and probably some of the same fans) who really, really wanted Mad Max: Fury Road to win. And they want it so much they have convinced themselves it is going to happen. It isn't. I mean if you want to cling to some glimmer of hope until Oscar night go ahead, but it isn't going to happen. That it won Venice and got some rave reviews and the most Oscar nominations is all fine and good, but Best Picture is a different kettle of fish. Speaking of fish The Shape of Water did win a couple years ago, but remember its darkness and slimy weirdness were undercut by an old fashioned fairy tale love story. Joker...is not.



The Irishman is the ninth Best Picture nominee helmed by Martin Scorsese: Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, GoodFellas, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Hugo, The Wolf of Wall Street, and The Irishman. The Departed is the only one to win and that won't change this year. The slow paced gangster epic is a welcome return for the master of the genre, but in addition to its buzz cresting too soon (all the way back in November...ages ago, in awards season terms) it was financed by Netflix, meaning this one won't win. At some point Netflix or Amazon or another streaming service is going to produce something they just can't ignore, but until then the business is going to favor productions that come from more traditional studios.

If The Irishman were to get Best Picture, even at 210 minutes it would not be the longest winner. It would be fourth behind Gone with the Wind (238 minutes), Lawrence of Arabia (228 minutes), and Ben-Hur (212 minutes) and just ahead of The Godfather Part II (202 minutes) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (200 minutes).

I hope Marty lives to be a hundred (he is seventy-seven) and makes at least ten more movies.



Parasite is the twelfth foreign language film nominated for Best Picture. Renoir's Grand Illusion was the first, Haneke's Amour, and Cuarón's Roma were the most recent. None has ever won. Is this the year it's going to happen? You figure it's gotta happen SOMEDAY, right? But will it be this dark, subversive, funny, weird flick with that ending? I doubt it.

That the last two Oscars had foreign language titles that are legitimately in the conversation as possible winners is a step in the right direction. The Academy Awards are never going to look like The Cannes Film Festival, nor should they. But having more of a truly international flavor is a good thing.



Once Upon a Time in Hollywood may be Tarantino's most accessible movie in some ways, especially to more conservative Oscar voters. Not that it doesn't have a few moments of ultra violence, but compared to the all out carnage of Kill Bill, Django Unchained, Inglourious Basterds, or even Pulp Fiction it is relatively calm. It is told linearly. It stars two of the most attractive movie stars of their era. It is lovingly set in a Hollywood of yesteryear. It respectfully portrays several real life industry figures including Sharon Tate. But even given all of that, at the end of the day is it still simply too Tarantino-y to sway enough of the voters?



1917 is old fashioned and familiar in some respects. It hits just about every major combat movie trope there is. From All Quiet on the Western Front and Paths of Glory to Platoon and Saving Private Ryan and a dozen others, most of the incident in this World War I tale of two soldiers trying to deliver a message up to the front lines has been seen before. But it hasn't been done quite this way before, simulating real time and one continuous shot. Sam Mendes and company have designed and made this all exceedingly well. Not a unique narrative but it is a unique cinematic experience.

1917 has already won the PGA Award and it won the Golden Globe for Best Drama. The last time a movie won both of those awards but lost Best Picture was Brokeback Mountain, which lost the Oscar to Crash. So it isn't unprescedented. But Brokeback was a boundary pushing film, it would have been the first Best Picture overtly about a homosexual relationship (which wouldn't happen until Moonlight three years ago). So they went for the safe choice instead. But 1917 is already the safe choice. What kind of buyer's remorse would shift over to Parasite or even Once Upon a Time in Hollywood this late in the game?

This is in the bag for 1917. No gasp-inducing waves of oh my goodness when the envelope is opened (assuming they hand them the correct envelope).

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Marty is a winner and it's 94 minutes unless I read it wrong

What's 94 minutes?

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

The movie Marty. And Annie Hall is under 100 too.

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Ha! You're absolutely right. I ready that as "Marty (Scorsese) is a winner and..." I was double confused. :D

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Yeah. It would be debacle if it didn't win. It or Parasite either one are good. Although logically parasite would take the foreign film award and 1917 the main one.

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Just saw FvF and liked it I guess. It places 7th in my ranking behind OUATIH and ahead of Joker.

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/an-ano...lems-overblown


This one popped up in my Firefox suggestions!

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Now that was a classic. People go crazy about Mr. Bean. But Black Adder was his best work!

Well, I saw 1917 today and as much as I loved Joker, I'm pretty sure this film is going to win Best Picture and Director. Still have one more nominee to watch (Parasite).

Yeah, it sure looks like 1917 will win the top 2 prizes. However, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or Joker winning Best Picture would be a pleasant surprise.

A more pleasant surprise would be Tarantino winning director. The guy has never won a directing Oscar.

Oh, I would be over the moon if Tarantino wins Director.
Since he has one more movie to go, I think the Academy will give him the award for that movie to make up for the times he didn't win.

I have now seen all nine Best Picture nominees and my feelings about this award have not really changed,,,as much as I'd love to see Joker win, I still think it's going to 1917.

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BAFTA for Best Picture (one of 7 it won)

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

Checked Ford vs. Ferrari off my list over the weekend. Liked this one quite a bit more than I thought I would. I don't think it has much of a chance of winning Best Picture, but it is one of my favorites of the bunch that I have seen so far.

The BAFTAs are not the best predictor for Oscar gold, although it looks like a match this year.

Going way back to when the British Academy of Film and Television Arts began giving out their annual awards in 1947 they had either fewer nominees for Best Film than the Oscars or many, many more. For a bunch of years in the 1950s they named up to EIGHTEEN films as nominees. In more recent years the BAFTAs have stuck with the format of only five nominees for Best Film that they have used since 1999 (from 1966 - 1998 they had four nominees) and not expanded to a max of ten like the Oscar's Best Picture did in 2009. There have also been release date issues over the decades, especially pre-1990s, as sometimes a big American release wouldn't reach British cinemas for eligibility until the next calendar year.

Even with all of that there were plenty of years when the BAFTA and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences matched: Best Years of Our Lives, Hamlet, All About Eve, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Ben-Hur, The Apartment, Lawrence of Arabia, Tom Jones, My Fair Lady, Midnight Cowboy, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Annie Hall, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, The Last Emperor, Schindler's List, The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, and American Beauty all in the 20th Century. But that left many, many years when the BAFTAs went with something that the Oscars didn't even nominate, much less reward, such as Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves, Max Ophüls' La Ronde, David Lean's The Sound Barrier, René Clément's Forbidden Games and Gervaise, Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear, Grigori Chukhrai's Ballad of a Soldier, John Schlesinger's Sunday Bloody Sunday, François Truffaut's Day for Night, Louis Malle's Lacombe Lucien, Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Lewis Gilbert's Educating Rita, Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, Claude Berri's Jean de Florette, and Alan Parker's The Commitments.

The BAFTAs have also done some alternative choices to Oscar like Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb instead of The Sound of Music, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? over A Man for All Seasons, The Graduate instead of Oliver!, The Elephant Man in place of Ordinary People, A Room with a View rather than Platoon, Dead Poets Society not Driving Miss Daisy, GoodFellas rather than Dances with Wolves, Four Weddings and a Funeral instead of Forrest Gump, Sense & Sensibility in place of Braveheart, and The Full Monty over Titanic.

But even that is compounded by the fact that the BAFTAs also give an award for Best British Film. Sometimes they are the same, their Best Film and Best British Film, as they are this year for 1917 and going back to titles like The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia.


Looking at the past two decades, the 21st Century has seen the Oscar and the BAFTA match only eight times thus far: Gladiator, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Slumdog Millionaire, The Hurt Locker, The King's Speech, The Artist, Argo, and 12 Years a Slave, with the last six of those all coming in a row but no matches since the 2014 ceremonies. More often this century the BAFTAs have been that alternative pick: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring over A Beautiful Mind, The Pianist instead of Chicago, The Aviator and not Million Dollar Baby, Brokeback Mountain instead of Crash, The Queen rather than The Departed, Atonement in favor of No Country for Old Men, Boyhood instead of Birdman, The Revenant not Spotlight, La La Land in favor of Moonlight (no envelope confusion there), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri instead of The Shape of Water, and last year they went with Roma over Green Book.


This year it does look like the two bodies are lining up again for Mendes' immersive WWI piece, which will make the BAFTAs 9 for 20 in accuracy this century. But maybe this will start another run like 2008 - 2014?

BTW the five nominees for the BAFTA were 1917, The Irishman, Joker, Once Upon a Time on Hollywood, and Parasite which matches the Oscar Best Picture nominees who have corresponding Best Director nominations and excludes the superfluous Oscar nods for Ford v Ferrari, Jojo Rabbit, Little Women, and Marriage Story.


Tomorrow is the due date for Oscar ballots. The Oscar ceremony is this coming Sunday, February 9th.

Saw Parasite yesterday, which means I have seen all the Best Picture nominees.

It was good, but I don't get the Best picture nomination

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

Finally finished watching them, as I saw 1917 yesterday.
My official ranking:
1. Parasite (9/10)
2. Marriage Story (8/10)
3. The Irishman (8/10)
4. Little Women (8/10)
5. 1917 (8/10)
6. Jojo Rabbit (8/10)
7. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (6/10)
8. Ford v Ferrari (6/10)
9. Joker (4/10)

Any of the top six I’d be happy with winning.

Not seen 1917, tough choice between Joker and The Irishman. Those scenes in the cafe between Pesci / De Niro and between other legendary actors were too much of a treat not to vote for.

Everyone is already well aware of the issues that have been justifyably levelled at the Academy Awards, and this year's BAFTAs likewise drew deserved criticis. So naturally neither are infallable, and not all bodies are going to view films in the same manner. Both have made the wrong choices over the years for whatever reason and that goes for any film award, be it institutional. critics choices, populist or jury votes, or any other measure, and that is even before taking into consideration the level of competition in any given year.

The politics of the Award season may have changed over the years, whether we are talking about blacklists or the old studio system playing favourites, or in more recent times, social changes or Weinstein & Miramax essentially creating strategies solely dedicated to winning Oscars in the 90's, which leads us to where it is today. There are so many films we can all look back on and wonder, how the hell did that beat something more deserving or has stood the test of time infinitely better, etc.

The point being there are any number of factors that can influence and provide context as to why a certain film may do better with any given awards competition

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

Joaquin Phoenix addressed the lack of diversity issue in his BAFTAs acceptance speech last night...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAh0FSfc4Ls

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

Now that I've seen all the nominees, this is my personal ranking...

1. Parasite
2. Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood
3. The Irishman
4. Marriage Story
5. Little Women
6. Ford v Ferrari
7. 1917
8. Joker
9. Jojo Rabbit

Despite that, I'm not about to argue with the prediction that 1917 will actually win it.

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

Nice to see someone else who disliked Joker, cheers.

Re: Oscar's Best Picture 2020
 

If I'm right in my prediction that Parasite will be a big upset and be the first foreign language film to win, I'll do a little dance and hold it over Holden....FOREVER!!!

They always seem to "apologize" the following year with noms or wins, no? Green Book over Roma? Maybe this time they switch it around.