Oscar nominations: many good decisions and a few bad ones

The nominations are in for this year’s Oscars, and it’s a pretty progressive lineup, suggesting campaigns like #MeToo and #OscarSoWhite might be at last dragging Academy voters into the 21st century

Article by Jamie Dunn | 23 Jan 2018

If you'd've told us a year ago that the story of a mute woman’s love affair with a fish monster would be leading this year’s Oscar race, we’d have told you that you were crazy. Oscar voters’ ardour for Guillermo Del Toro's low-budget horror-romance The Shape of Water – which racked up a close-to-record-breaking 13 nominations – isn’t the only pleasant surprise in this year’s Academy voting. 

Best Directing nominations are on point

First off, we’ve been doing cartwheels around The Skinny office at the news that Greta Gerwig – long the most vibrant presence on America’s indie scene – has been nominated for Best Director. Outrageously, Gerwig is only the fifth woman to receive a best director nod from the Academy – Lina Wertmuller (Seven Beauties), Jane Campion (The Piano), Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation) and Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) are the other trailblazers. It’s a good job the Academy saw fit to throw a nomination her way: in this #MeToo moment the prospect of her casually brilliant work on Lady Bird going unrecognised – as it did at the Golden Globes and the Baftas – would have been intolerable.

In general, the Best Director award nominations are on point. You might think that Paul Thomas Anderson, Christopher Nolan and Guillermo del Toro – three of the most technically accomplished filmmakers of the modern age – would be swimming in Oscar nominations for their extraordinary directing work over the last two decades, but only PTA has been recognised by the Academy previously (for There Will Be Blood in 2008).

All three are justly awarded this year – for Phantom Thread, Dunkirk and The Shape of Water respectively – along with another first timer in Jordan Peele (only the fifth black director ever to be nominated in this category) for his needle-sharp helming of blistering satirical horror Get Out

The Best Picture race is wide open

All five of the above directors’ films compete in the Best Picture category, which is surprisingly short of the kind of bloated Oscar-bait that Academy voters tend to fall head over heels for at this time of year; soggy British prestige movie Darkest Hour is the only truly unwelcome edition in the nine film line-up that also includes Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; The Post; and Call Me By Your Name.

The Shape of Water leads the Best Picture pack with a baker’s dozen of nominations – only one fewer than the record 14 nods held by Titanic, All About Eve and La La Land. But as Damien Chazelle’s musical discovered last year, a whole mess of nominations does not guarantee you Best Picture.

Three Billboards... is most bookies' favourite and is The Shape of Water’s closest contender in terms of nominations with eight, but in truth this is the most wide open Best Picture race in years. Our heart is with Get Out, the film that most speaks to this crazy moment in time, but who will triumph come 4 March is anyone’s guess.

Hoping for an upset in the acting categories

The acting categories, however, require less hypothesising. With only six weeks to go until Oscar night, the smart money should be on Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour) for Best Actor, Three Billboards... duo Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell for for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, and Allison Janney (I, Tonya) for Best Supporting Actress. All four frontrunners are much-loved and have done great work over the years, but there are more deserving performances to be found in their respective categories.

We’d love to see 22 year-old Timothée Chalamet become the youngest ever Best Actor winner for his breakout performance in coming-of-age romance Call Me By Your Name. For Best Actress we’ll be rooting that third time will be the charm for Irish star Saoirse Ronan for her hilarious and moving turn in Lady Bird, and we’re also crossing our fingers for Laurie Metcalf in the Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Ronan’s character’s mother. Recognition for Willem Dafoe’s world-weary performance in The Florida Project would also delight us, especially as Sean Baker’s heartbreaking film should have made it into Best Picture contention.

#TimesUp for James Franco’s Best Actor hopes

James Franco was notably left out of the Best Actor catagory for his Golden Globe-winning turn as Tommy Wiseau in The Disaster Artist, and the Oscar establishment must be breathing a sigh of relief at the news. Since Franco’s win at the Globes, a handful of women who have worked with the actor-director in the past have come forward with accusations of Franco’s sexually inappropriate behavior. He has since half-heartedly brushed off the accusations several times on late-night shows.

Casey Affleck was in a similar situation last year and still managed to walk away with the Best Actor Oscar, but it appears voters are no longer willing to turn a blind eye to a performer’s private life in favour of the artistic merits of their work.


The 90th Academy Awards take place in LA on 4 Mar; read the full list of nominees here