Picture
Call Me By Your Name
Coco
The Florida Project
God's Own Country
Lady Bird
Winner: This is an easy call. Call Me by Your Name has been my favorite movie in years, a wonderful, simple love story that I'll probably watch for a third time this weekend-without a doubt the movie I'm rooting for on Sunday even if it has no shot of winning.
Runner-Up: I would have to give this one to the smart, confident Lady Bird which unfolds so breathtakingly and is so assured, it would have been a likely Best Picture contender for myself in a different year.
Director
Sean Baker, The Florida Project
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Luca Guadagnino, Call Me by Your Name
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Lee Unkrich, Coco
Winner: I'm not a huge fan of the Picture/Director split, and really I don't think a film is stronger than CMBYN, so I'd go with Guadagnino again here.
Runner-Up: I'd probably pick Nolan, whose Dunkirk ages magnificently in the memory and is a visual & technical masterwork.
Actor
Timothee Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name
Harris Dickinson, Beach Rats
Armie Hammer, Call Me by Your Name
Josh O'Connor, God's Own Country
Alec Secarneau, God's Own Country
Winner: What a great year for gay cinema, honestly. I do wish at least one of these actors was truly gay (I actually don't know the sexual proclivities of the GOC guys, but haven't seen either mention a boyfriend in interviews), but hand's down the winner here is Chalamet, easily the best performance I saw all year.
Runner-Up: It's weird to pick this, because it's probably Hammer though his performance wouldn't work without Chalamet's. It might honestly be O'Connor for the final ten minutes of GOC, which wouldn't work if he hadn't invested so much into that performance the previous two hours.
Actress
Brooklynn Prince, The Florida Project
Florence Pugh, Lady Macbeth
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Kristen Stewart, Personal Shopper
Kate Winslet, Wonder Wheel
Winner: Ronan is doing something entirely different here than we're familiar with here (Lady Bird is such a diverse creation compared with Briony or Eilis), and is just terrific. I heard someone describe this as "her Annie Hall" a month ago and I haven't been able to shake that that's a completely accurate description.
Runner-Up: It's a small sacrifice considering the progress we've made in the #MeToo movement this past year, but in literally any other year Kate Winslet would be looking at a second Oscar for her spellbinding work in Wonder Wheel. Considering how good Ronan is, it says something that I spent most of awards season still thinking Winslet might deserve to beat her.
Supporting Actor
Timothee Chalamet, Lady Bird
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Ian Hart, God's Own Country
Lucas Hedges, Lady Bird
Michael Stuhlbarg, Call Me by Your Name
Winner: With Hammer up in lead (I'll buy both arguments on that, but feel like if you look at it genuinely it's a double lead film with one lead being better than the other), it's an easy call for Stuhlbarg, whose final speech is so good you forget he was excellent the whole time.
Runner-Up: The most disappointing thing about this Oscar season has been the way that Willem Dafoe, longtime character actor and brilliant performer, is completely missing the track on his deserved Oscar for yet another breathtaking piece-of-work (perhaps his best?!?) in The Florida Project, particularly when it's easier to see Rockwell coming back to the Dolby than the much older Dafoe.
Supporting Actress
Holly Hunter, The Big Sick
Gemma Jones, God's Own Country
Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water
Winner: Metcalf. There's a lot of great work in this lineup, but Metcalf is on another level in her performance, grounding her Marion with so many brilliant touches she both becomes a specific character and literally every person in the audience's surrogate mother.
Runner-Up: It is a true joy that Manville finally got the Oscar nomination she deserved seven years ago for Another Year. The cherry-on-the-top of this is she deserved this nomination too, as she brings so much unspoken tension to her work in Phantom Thread.
Original Screenplay
The Big Sick
Coco
The Florida Project
God's Own Country
Lady Bird
Winner: Gerwig's tale of her (fictional) adolescence is such a strong debut you sort of fear for her follow-up. How could anyone make a film so confident, full of terrific characters & dialogue, again?
Runner-Up: Sean Baker's Florida Project is that rare combination of great acting & great directing making a fine picture, but it wouldn't function without a strong scripted foundation guiding us to those harrowing final moments of Moonie's childhood.
Adapted Screenplay
Call Me by Your Name
Lady Macbeth
The Lost City of Z
Wonder
Wonderstruck
Winner: In a weak year for this category, CMBYN stands out in an even bigger way. James Ivory's movie is filled with quotable dialogue and great plotting, never staying too long on any moment in a whirlwind romance.
Runner-Up: I'm torn between Lady Macbeth and Wonder, but I'm going with the former as its ending is better. Really, everything about Lady Macbeth is about juxtaposing the curt, specific dialogue uttered by Florence Pugh with the desolate world around her.
Original Score
Coco
Darkest Hour
Jane
Phantom Thread
Wonderstruck
Winner: I'm aware that it occasionally overpowers the picture itself, but Philip Glass's dominant score in Jane is just magnificent, and it gives a life/personality to a documentary in a way I can't remember music doing in the past.
Runner-Up: Thank the lord that the Academy finally acknowledged that Jonny Greenwood has been doing just fabulous work with Paul Thomas Anderson the past decade. Phantom Thread may be his showiest bid yet, and glides across the film like a lace ribbon.
Original Song
"Mystery of Love," Call Me By Your Name
"Never Enough," The Greatest Showman
"Un Poco Loco," Coco
"Remember Me," Coco
"Visions of Gideon," Call Me By Your Name
Winner: Movie songs should always aid the film, so it's not enough to just be a good song, you also have to become entwined & aid your picture. This is why it flummoxes me that anyone could see CMBYN and not want to give credit to those final moments of Elio with "Visions of Gideon."
Runner-Up: I really want to pick something other than CMBYN, but "Mystery of Love" is equally moving, if not quite as well-positioned in the picture and deserves the silver over "Remember Me" (great year for this category).
Animated Feature
Coco
The Lego Batman Movie
Loving Vincent
Winner: It seems so prosaic to pick Pixar for this as it's such a default answer, and if it makes you feel any better I don't always, but I can't deny that one of my favorite moments of the year was watching Coco come to life.
Runner-Up: A genuinely tough call. I probably should pick Lego Batman Movie as it's a better film, though it's hard not to acknowledge the vast technical achievements of Loving Vincent. The Oscars should go back to picking just three nominees in this category...and also these were hand's down the three best animated films of 2017.
Cinematography
Beach Rats
Blade Runner 2049
Call Me By Your Name
Dunkirk
Wonder Wheel
Winner: It's never entirely clear why Wonder Wheel is so breathtaking (even by Woody Allen's standards this is something else), but there are actual scenes where you're gasping simply because the lighting is so spectacular. A film that grows on you, in part because of a sunset-dappled Kate Winslet.
Runner-Up: The first loss I'm giving CMBYN isn't by much. I love the way that they filmed the scenes at night, sometimes like we're peering in on Elio-and-Oliver, and the lustful way that Armie Hammer is shot first from below, and then at eye level once we realize who he is.
Costume
The Beguiled
The Lost City of Z
Phantom Thread
Victoria & Abdul
Wonderstruck
Winner: It feels like a slight cop-out because it's SO central to the plot, but come on-how can you not pick the gorgeous, breathtaking work of Phantom Thread here?
Runner-Up: I found the work in Wonderstruck to be particularly divine, so full of flavor, character, and considering how slim the costume budget was, prudence.
Film Editing
Baby Driver
Beach Rats
Call Me By Your Name
Dunkirk
The Florida Project
Winner: The best films make you want more, but know you don't need it (and shouldn't need it). There are no spare seconds in Call Me By Your Name, everything feels exactly as it should be with little excess. A bit of a miracle for a film that does clock in at just over two hours.
Runner-Up: It had to have been an odious task for Lee Smith to try and piece together those battle shots, with so much of Dunkirk reliant on you feeling like you're within the fight. He succeeded, and man do I hope he finally gets his Oscar on Sunday.
Makeup & Hairstyling
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
I, Tonya
Wonder
Wonder Woman
Winner: I am leaning a bit more on hairstyling than makeup here, but honestly no movie relied more on this department than I, Tonya to create the characters we see before us. Double cheers for the exact way they recreate Tonya's makeup, excessive but trying for a glamour she's not allowed to reach.
Runner-Up: The battle makeup is pretty standard, but the hairstyling in early scenes is so terrific it's hard to fault Wonder Woman here. There's a reason you wanted to recreate that Amazon look for Halloween.
Production Design
Blade Runner 2049
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
Wonderstruck
Winner: I have never wanted to go to a museum more than after I saw Wonderstruck. Brimming with detail & period consistency, it fills every scene with magic & makes you feel like you've fallen into a classic children's novel (which, admittedly, you have).
Runner-Up: Occasionally limiting yourself accentuates what you've put out even more, and that's the case with Blade Runner 2049, who uses minimalism effectively to highlight the mechanical, lost aura of this world all the better.
Visual Effects
Blade Runner 2049
Dunkirk
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
War for the Planet of the Apes
Winner: In a year that really had no "YOU MUST AWARD THIS!" types of films (Avatar, Gravity, etc), perhaps it's best to give this to Blade Runner 2049, surely the most stylish and sophisticated film when it comes to its effects.
Runner-Up: I was torn about giving it to Dunkirk instead, whose use of practical effects is worthy of praise. Those aerial flights alone astound months after catching them in the theater.
Sound Mixing
Baby Driver
Call Me By Your Name
Coco
Dunkirk
Get Out
Winner: One if by land, two if by sea, and three if by air...I don't really know the point of trotting that phrase out, but it seems appropriate when discussing the bravura sound work of Dunkirk, which jolts you in with those opening sequences and keeps you present with every eerie silence or cascade of bullets atop the water.
Runner-Up: I love the rustling trees, easily-incorporated music, and the whispered conversations that make CMBYN so smooth.
Sound Editing
Baby Driver
Blade Runner 2049
Coco
Dunkirk
The Lost City of Z
Winner: Again, how do you listen to Dunkirk and not acknowledge it deserves this trophy? The film's realism is astonishing, and Nolan makes every pop and shot count in this picture.
Runner-Up: The vroom vroom of Baby Driver's car chases recall in many ways The French Connection and Drive, perhaps the highest of compliments.
There you have it. If I was giving out Oscars this year Call Me by Your Name would claim six, with the only other multiple-winners being Lady Bird and Dunkirk. What are your favorites, and which of my nominees are you head-scratching about? Share your thought below in the comments!
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