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Awarding Jordan Peele the Oscar for best director for his debut feature Get Out would be a major step forward for the Academy for a variety of reasons. Peele would be the first Black person to win Best Director, an infuriating fact when considering the stellar filmographies of directors like Spike Lee , Steve McQueen , Barry Jenkins and Ava Duvernay . Get Out is also a horror movie, a genre that requires a deft directorial hand to pull off, one that has been mostly ignored in the directing category. Jonathan Demme won best director for Silence of The Lambs , a film that swept the top five categories at the 1992 Oscars and the last horror to win. However, Silence of The Lambs straddles the line between horror and thriller while eschewing traditional horror tropes for a more realistic setting.
By Marco Cartolano
Best director has turned out to be one of the more exciting races of the Oscar season. Theoretically, any of these nominees could take home the statue – it just depends on what style the Academy wants to reward. The movies nominated are all so different that it's difficult to compare them to one another. How do you judge Greta Gerwig's intimate, emotional directing behind the coming of age drama Lady Bird up against Christopher Nolan's grandscale, time-bending war epic Dunkirk ? I'm not sure you really can, which is why this race is so exciting. Anyone could win, it's just a matter of whether the Academy will favor those directors working on a more "epic" scale, or if they'll prefer a director who did more of a character study.
By Kathryn Mohr
I've only seen one of the five movies in the best actress in a supporting role category, but that movie, Lady Bird , gives me enough reason to believe Laurie Metcalf should win the award. Metcalf plays Marion McPherson in the film,, a coming of age centered on the mother-daughter relationship between Marion and her daughter Christine (aka Lady Bird), played by Saoirse Ronan.
By Elly Rivera
After winning the Golden Globes' and Screen Actors Guild's highest awards for best actress in a leading role, Frances McDormand seems like the most likely candidate for the Oscar, and deservedly so. Her performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri shows such a wide range of emotion and is the foundation for the film's heavy story.
By Jordan Moreau
Sam Rockwell has been the favorite in this category, but his role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri has received backlash for humanizing a racist police officer. While it is not Rockwell’s fault that the Irish director and screenwriter, Martin McDonagh, doesn’t understand American racial politics, the Academy has the chance to award another seasoned character actor for playing a struggling white guy in Trump country without having to court as much controversy.
By Marco Cartolano
Movies are designed to suck viewers in and create an alternate reality, an escape or possibly a reflection of truth that forces them to consider something new about life. Great actors learn how to create those alternate realities with time and practice, honing their skills through experience both in front of the camera and in their real lives. But Timothée Chalamet didn't need that time. Performing in both best picture nominees Lady Bird and Call Me by Your Name as entirely different characters, Chalamet shows breadth and promise as a rising actor. His performance as Elio in Call Me by Your Name
By Lark Breen
After being completely shut out during the Golden Globes, The Big Sick and Get Out managed to snag Oscar nominations for best original screenplay, which they each have a shot at winning. Both films are underdogs compared to Lady Bird , The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri , which each have as many or more nominations as the first two films combined.
By Jordan Moreau
While every nominee for best original screenplay tells a beautifully crafted story filled with original characters and iconic dialogue (see: literally any exchange between Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri ), nearly every script this year can be described as a retread of a genre we know. There's the coming-of-age story in Lady Bird , the classic rom-com of The Big Sick , the small-town drama of Three Billboards , and so on.
By Kathryn Mohr
Anyone who knows me knows that the one true winner in my eyes this year should be Blade Runner 2049 . That film deserves so much more attention than it has gotten and will hopefully take home more than a few trophies on March 4 – even though it’s not nominated for best picture.
By Benjamin Bomier
As the lead guitarist of Radiohead, Jonny Greenwood contributed to several classic albums before he started working as a soundtrack composer. His first collaboration with Phantom Thread director Paul Thomas Anderson was on There Will Be Blood , where his overpowering score charged several scenes with operatic grandeur. While that score was denied an Academy Award nomination based on a technicality, it is still one of the most acclaimed scores of the 21st century. Greenwood has scored all of Anderson’s subsequent films, but his work has never been nominated until 2018. Phantom Thread ’s score was performed by a 60-piece orchestra and sounds as regal as the dresses that Daniel Day-Lewis’ character makes. However, a sense of menace also exists in the luxurious score, particularly on the track “The Hem” that reflects the tension in the film’s central relationship. Of all the nominated scores, Greenwood’s adds the most to his film and should be rewarded for that.
By Marco Cartolano
I've got a confession: I think The Shape of Water is overrated, and it baffles me that it received 13 nominations, the most of any film this year. The story seems like a ripoff of Beauty and the Beast , and the tone shifts dramatically between lighthearted and whimsical to dark and sinister, never truly sticking to one theme. However, it did get 13 nominations (just one under the record), so some people out there must have liked it.
By Jordan Moreau
The last time the Academy nominated two actors from the same film for best supporting actor was 1992, when Harvey Keitel and Ben Kingsley garnered nominations for Bugsy, but lost to Jack Palance. This year, the Academy nominated Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and, in all likelihood, Rockwell will win. I have nothing against either Rockwell or Harrelson. I actually enjoy their acting and am surprised that neither have won an Oscar before. However, neither man should win the award this year. Why should we reward a film that, whether intentionally or unintentionally, seeks to redeem a violently racist cop? Admittedly, I am a little unsure why either actor was nominated for this film, but the fact that Rockwell has a very good chance at winning is baffling to me. Maybe I just do not understand the Academy Awards.
By Elliot Kronsberg
As usual, the Academy Award nominations for best adapted screenplay are stacked with some of the best scripts from the past year. James Ivory, screenwriter for Call Me by Your Name, which he adapted from the novel of the same name by André Aciman, has been nominated three times for best director, but never won. This should be the year that Ivory finally wins that golden statue, now as a screenwriter.
By Elliot Kronsberg