No Globe? No SAG? No Problem!....or Perhaps There IS a Problem?

For over ten years, one of the most consistent traditions we have had on this blog has been looking at a weird trend in Oscar predictions.  While the Oscars have in the past 15 years become almost annoyingly predictable in who their nominees are (I don't like it-I want mystery, and especially with the winners it's become ridiculous how you basically just need to watch one awards show to get a read on who will win), since 2006 we had had at least one of the twenty acting nominees who was nominated at neither the Golden Globes or the SAG Awards.  Here they are for the past ten years:

2024: No contenders

2023: America Ferrera

2022: Brian Tyree Henry, Andrea Riseborough, Judd Hirsch, & Paul Mescal

2021: Penelope Cruz, Jesse Plemons, JK Simmons, Judi Dench, & Jessie Buckley

2020: Paul Raci & LaKeith Stanfield

2019: Florence Pugh

2018: Marina de Tavira & Yalitza Aparicio

2017: Lesley Manville

2016: Michael Shannon

2015: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Hardy, & Mark Ruffalo

That trend, though, unfortunately ended in 2024.  While there were contenders (Stanley Tucci in Conclave and Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths were my top guesses), no one ended up getting in without a previous citation.  Unlike 2006 (where it largely happened because of bizarrely uniform female categories and a BONKERS Best Supporting Actor season where spread-the-wealth got too many names in), this was led be a trend that we'll see in 2025, and why I'm a little scared there IS a problem for actors (hence the cheeky spin on the title) who can't compete earlier in the year: the Globes moving to six-wide nominations for all of their categories took out a lot of the "also-ran" names that sometimes pop with Oscar; someone like Brian Tyree Henry or Florence Pugh now would have earlier hardware to support them.  It's also part of an increasing trend of each awards house losing its own flavor.  The Globes used to be crazy (nominating movies solely due to movie stars they liked, quality be damned) while SAG would embrace milquetoast stuff like Helen Mirren in Woman in Gold, and then Oscar would come in late with a classy alternative like Lesley Manville or Charlotte Rampling.  This year, with the Globes still six-wide, and the bizarre shutout of Sentimental Value at SAG (which won't happen with Oscar but now means a lot more names don't qualify for this list), we have a LOT of names.

Hope springs eternal, though, and I will continue to pray we see some new names as it's far more fun to be wrong with Oscar predictions than to be right.  Below, ranked from least to most likely, we have a list of the ten contenders I think are most plausible to get into the race even without a nomination.  A quick reminder with this list before we dissect.  First, the nominees that fit this article's descriptor tend to fall into one of two camps.  They are either movie stars who worked their asses off all season and are getting in based on name recognition alone (Penelope Cruz being the best example of this from the above nominees), or they are someone who is getting a coattails nomination.  The thing about awards bodies is that if they like a film, they REALLY like it (look at Sinners clearing the deck this morning), and so most of the nominees that hit this criteria in recent years have been for films that voters are already choosing for Best Picture or a different acting prize, and they also include these names because they can't stop doting on their favorite movie.  There is technically a third group (people like Paul Mescal and Andrea Riseborough) who sort of just make it all season on vibes and then get in at the exact right moment...but they're harder to guess and I honestly don't really have one of those listed below (though I have a few listed in Honorable Mention)...would be cool though!  Always rooting for another Andrea Riseborough style nomination, mostly because it'll never happen again and it is one of my all-time favorite Oscar morning moments solely based on how unusual it was.

With that said, here is my list!

Honorable Mention: This list is honestly already a bit sparce, and the contenders I think that are real are ranked.  I haven't seen Marty Supreme, so I'm guessing the reason Fran Drescher has no traction is because she's barely in the movie, but she does fit the bill (longtime trouper who knows everybody) that sometimes sneaks in.  If there's a Mescal/Riseborough nominee, you'd probably look to Rebecca Ferguson (A House of Dynamite), Daniel Day-Lewis (Anemone) or Lucy Liu (Rosemead), all of whom got the kinds of reviews that would get you a nomination (well two did and one of them is Daniel Day-Lewis), even if they haven't shown up at enough of the precursors to be considered.  There's also recent nominee Jeremy Strong (Springsteen) or former nominee Hailee Steinfeld (Sinners) if the Oscars really like their films, but that feels like a stretch given the former's film has lost all heat and the latter has better options in the movie.  Also, I would be foolish not to mention Jacobi Jupe (Hamnet), though Oscar has stopped loving child performances the way he used to, and even when he did, it was usually in the female categories where child actors showed up.

10. Jennifer Lopez (Kiss of the Spider Woman)

For Her: Steinfeld definitely makes more sense here & probably should be number ten, but if we're going to get crazy, let's get loud (pun intended), and boy has Jennifer Lopez in recent years been loud about her lack of a nomination in her career.  Don't pretend you haven't seen the clip of her listening to the Oscars and tearfully realizing she wasn't getting in for Hustlers.  I'm not usually one to say someone is "due" but given her career...she should have a nod by now, and I suspect the Academy knows it.

Against Her: The film doesn't look like a contender in any other category, and it flopped pretty spectacularly earlier this year.  Lopez also has a reputation for being challenging to work with (Luis Guzman can't be the only Academy member who doesn't like her, even if he's one of the few on record), and people like to vote for people they enjoy working with...this nomination made a lot of sense a few months ago, but now not as much.

9. Hugh Jackman (Song Sung Blue)

For Him: Jackman, unlike Lopez, has an Oscar nomination to rely upon, but he's been in contention a few times since then and could feel like a comeback nomination is worthy of him (also, unlike Lopez, he has a more affable professional reputation).  Also unlike Lopez, he has a costar (Kate Hudson) who seems destined to get a nomination this year, and so Academy voters are likelier to be playing their screener for him.  There's not a lot of feel-good in this year's race, and this would be a good spot for it.

Against Him: Hudson outacts him, and the Academy has really moved away from this middle-of-the-ground crowd-pleaser (15 years ago he'd be a much better shot) in favor of more serious critical fare.  Truth be told, I would've assumed he was more of a "wild SAG nominee" than an Oscar nominee at this point.  Both of the lead acting races are crazy tough this year, as a lot of the nominees feel "locked" because they come with a probable Best Picture nominee (bizarrely, Jackman is the only lead contender I have on this list).

8. Emily Watson (Hamnet)

For Her: At one point in the 1990's, Watson felt like she might fall into default nominee status, but fell out of fashion for some reason and never really rebounded.  But Oscar loves a comeback, and they also love British character actresses.  Watson doesn't have a huge role, but it is a powerful one, and if they like Hamnet, it's possible she's the surprise this year.

Against Her: Here's the deal, and why category fraud truly SUCKS.  Paul Mescal is also campaigning for supporting for the same film, and if you told me he was in at least an hour more of this movie than Watson, I'd believe you.  Having Mescal (very good in this movie but completely a lead) campaigning here makes it feel like Watson isn't doing enough to warrant her citation...even though she is an ACTUAL supporting part.  It's likely costing her nominations, in addition to there just being a lot of contenders for Supporting Actress.

7. Regina Hall (One Battle After Another)

For Her: Hall is exactly the sort of person who sneaks into a last-minute nomination.  She's a well-loved character actor, one who has never been nominated despite Oscar connections (she's a former host), and she's appearing in a key, scene-stealing role in the likely Best Picture winner.  She's also been in the conversation before (Support the Girls), and has elevated movies (like Scary Movie) that pretty much everyone knows would not have had the cultural staying power were it not for her (not to mention the box office receipts).

Against Her: There are too many actors trying for nominations in One Battle After Another.  That's honestly the biggest issue-the film is already trying to get five acting nominations (which it got for SAG, so this is real), but adding a sixth nomination, as we discussed here, has never happened before, and she's likely going to end up just shy.

6. Tania Maria (The Secret Agent)

For Her: Her role as the scene-stealing landlady is the kind of role that frequently gets you an Oscar nomination, and despite SAG dropping the ball, Oscar is much friendlier to subtitled movies than any of the precursor awards.  She has several key moments in the film with likely nominee Wagner Moura, and if you've seen the movie, she'll stand out.

Against Her: Here's the thing-I'm confident Oscar voters are going to see the movie, and I'm confident that they're going to like her, but will they bother to learn her name?  Honestly, this is a legitimate question as, say, the cast of Parasite found out.  But I can't help but think about Roma a few years ago and how they ended up with a few nominations that came out of nowhere, especially in upended categories (which Supporting Actress is).

5. Glenn Close (Wake Up Dead Man)

For Her: She's Glenn freaking Close.  And not just is she an eight-time Oscar-nominated legend that pretty much everyone agrees is the greatest living actor without an Oscar, she's kind of having a moment right now between this and the wildly successful (but critically-maligned) All's Fair.  She's the standout in the film, and honestly in a year as unusual as this for Supporting Actress, if she got nominated I'd bet she'd win, which is why Netflix really should get behind her...

Against Her: ...but they aren't.  Rian Johnson's move to Netflix resulted in two very strong Knives Out sequels (in my opinion, both better than the original), but the last film had two totally worthy performances to cite for Janelle Monae & Kate Hudson (I personally nominated both of them), and yet neither got in, and I think Netflix took the lesson away from that that these films aren't worth giving attention.  Which is a pity, because I mean it-I think this might be Close's Oscar win if she could've gotten in, and there's room for her.

4. William H. Macy (Train Dreams)

For Him: On the flip side, we have a movie that Netflix IS getting behind, and a character actor who is likely due for another nomination (similar to Paul Giamatti a couple of years back getting a follow-up citation for The Holdovers).  I have not seen this film, but from what I can tell Macy has a plum part, and with both the film and Joel Edgerton in the conversation, I wouldn't be surprised if he snuck in (it certainly feels like the type of role that would).

Against Him: I can't quite tell where we're falling on the Train Dreams momentum train (pun not intended...also not sure if it's a pun).  Did its pair of Golden Globe nominations signal that we should be watching for it coming in the future, or was that the best it's going to do and other, flashier films get in its way for an Oscar nomination?  Edgerton is fighting for his life in the most crowded of the races, and I don't see Macy making it without him.

3. Andrew Scott (Blue Moon)

For Him: In 2023, Andrew Scott gave what (in my opinion) was the best cinematic performance of the decade to date, and got absolutely nothing from Oscar.  I suspect, though, that people are aware of this fact (i.e. more people saw All of Us Strangers in the interim), and Scott is on the precipice of movie stardom, regularly getting key roles in major films like Blue Moon.  This is a very subtle turn, and one that (if people are watching the movie) he should stand out for as it's critically important in making what Hawke does work.

Against Him: The top four are really where I think (if we have one) we're going to get our surprise nomination.  But the question hanging over all of them is "why didn't they get nominated at the Globes or SAG...and why would Oscar be different?"  With Scott this is particularly important because he's the only one not in a Best Picture contender, so the acting is really the only thing that he has going for him, and so there's more eyebrows as to where he has been all season (the other three, if Oscar loves the films more than the Globe or SAG, is how they sneak in).  Is this role just not clicking with voters?

2. Delroy Lindo (Sinners)

For Him: Lindo has been on the verge of an Oscar nomination for years.  He should've gotten in a few years back for Da 5 Bloods (again, I nominated him), but he's been in movies regularly for decades, everything from some of Spike Lee's best pictures (like Crooklyn) to box office sludge (like Gone in 60 Seconds & Ransom) to films Oscar DID go for but he wasn't nominated (specifically The Cider House Rules).  In another major Best Picture contender like Cider House...Lindo gives off the vibes of an actor Oscar wants to put his name on, so at 73, this is the time.

Against Him: Everyone else in this cast is getting nominated instead.  Seriously-we saw three cast members (Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caton, & Wunmi Mosaku) all get nominated this morning, so why wasn't his name there?  It's hard not to think that, like Emily Watson, Caton (who is in 25 more minutes of the film and definitely the co-lead of the picture) is hurting him by dwarfing a true supporting performance.

1. Gwyneth Paltrow (Marty Supreme)

For Her: In order to be #1 on this list, you gotta bring it.  Key part of a major Best Picture contender?  Check.  Coattail nominee when there's other actors in your film locked in already?  Check.  Former Winner/Nominee who is making a comeback of sorts with Oscar?  Double check.  And with Gwyneth, it's hard not to also notice that she's actively trying for this-she's hit every press junket she can think of, even interviews she wouldn't normally do (like Amy Poehler's Good Hang podcast), and clearly is hoping to finally get her second Oscar nomination.  That same sort of "please, I want this" plea from a major movie star worked for Annette Bening in Nyad a few years ago.

Against Her: Paltrow's public celebrity is (like Lopez's) polarizing, and she also has internal competition from Odessa A'zion (a fellow NepoBaby).  I haven't seen the movie, so I also do wonder if part of this is me judging a performance that's just not in Oscar's wheelhouse...but critics don't seem to indicate this is a throwaway part.  I've said it a few times this article, but I cannot stress enough-Oscar LOVES a comeback...

Mary Reilly (1996)

Film: Mary Reilly (1996)

Stars: Julia Roberts, John Malkovich, Michael Sheen, George Cole, Glenn Close, Michael Gambon

Director: Stephen Frears

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 (and now 2025) Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Julia Roberts: click here to learn more about Ms. Roberts (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week we talked about The Pelican Brief, which capped off an incredible run of near-constant hits for Julia Roberts following Pretty Woman.  But by 1994, the public was losing some of its initial infatuation with Roberts.  Part of this was due to the public feeling like her romantic life was too flighty (this was not a new criticism when it started to be levied at another global superstar, Taylor Swift, in recent years), with her reportedly jilting Kiefer Sutherland days before their wedding (something Roberts has claimed was not the case, and that their relationship was done long before the scheduled nuptials), and a short-lived marriage with country singer Lyle Lovett, ten years her senior (and not conventionally attractive in the way that Roberts is, something I only point out because it was a source of fascination at the time in the way that Arthur Miller & Marilyn Monroe was during their courtship).  Roberts was a mainstay on the front pages of supermarket tabloids, and everyone in America had an opinion on the actress in the way that Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor had endured decades earlier.

But celebrity always invites scrutiny of your love life, and studios would've been fine with this had Roberts been able to deliver cinematic hits during this era, but that didn't happen.  Her headlining work in Something to Talk About, Michael Collins, & I Love Trouble were all greeted with yawns by the public (there's a famous clip that recirculates every few years of Roberts talking to David Letterman where she discusses an anonymous leading man who has a tirade against a director, threatening to run him over with a car, that pretty much everyone agrees is Nick Nolte in I Love Trouble...a film whose legendary production where the two leads were at each other's throats is far more discussed than the actual movie itself which is weirdly the first Julia Roberts movie I think I saw in theaters).  Even all-star pictures like Pret-a-Porter and Everyone Says I Love You (directed by Woody Allen, who was practically getting his actresses Oscar nominations annually at this point) didn't make a peep with the public or awards bodies.  None felt more like a five-alarm fire more so, though, for Roberts than today's film Mary Reilly.  A notorious flop, perhaps the biggest of her career (it'd win her her second of three Razzie Award nominations to date, and the only one for an outright box office loser, likely only being spared a "win" because this was the year of Demi Moore in Striptease), it had people questioning her as a bankable leading woman, particularly as actresses like Meg Ryan & Sandra Bullock were rising to be far more consistent box office champs.  Today, before she gets her comeback, we have to talk about Mary Reilly.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Mary Reilly (Roberts), the young maid of Dr. Henry Jekyll (Malkovich), a kindly-but-enigmatic doctor who runs a quiet household staff and largely keeps to himself.  Dr. Jekyll takes an interest in Mary, particularly her scars which we learn later are a symbol of the sexual and physical abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of her father (Gambon).  Dr. Jekyll has taken on an "assistant" and because she is in his confidence, Mary starts to run errands for him, frequently to a brothel owned by Mrs. Faraday (Close), which shocks but also arouses young Mary.  We soon learn that his assistant Edward Hyde (also Malkovich) is causing murder-and-mayhem all over London, eventually killing Mrs. Faraday when she attempts to blackmail him, but because of a curiosity (and lust) toward Mary, he has spared her, and she witnesses first-hand his destructive nature, and eventually learns the truth that both men are one-and-the-same, a science experiment gone horribly wrong (in a really weird CGI scene where a baby is seen crawling underneath Malkovich's skin).  The film ends with Mary, after confronting her father and realizing she can be freed of her own accursed childhood, leaving behind these two men, both dead at their own hands, possibly inspired by Mary's goodness, and going out keeping their horrible secret.

For those who are familiar with the classic novella by Robert Louis Stevenson (one of my favorites), you'll notice only a few similarities with the source material.  There are a few characters from that that stay here (not just the title characters, but also the stern butler Mr. Poole and Sir Danvers Carew, here played by future Oscar nominee Ciarin Hinds), but this is instead a direct adaptation of Valerie Martin's bestseller of the same name (in Stevenson's original tale, the maid character isn't even named, though in both film & novella she knows the true nature of Danvers Carew's murder).  This disappointment will be evident if you're hoping for something ghastly like that, as this movie is rarely scary, though it is grotesque.  It functions more as a melodrama in parts, with Mary never feeling particularly in danger, and more a pawn in a boring game of chess between dual melodramatic performances from Malkovich.

Roberts is badly miscast here, though one could argue not the worst performance in the film (that would be given by 8-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close, in a role so horrible you would be forgiven for thinking she was being blackmailed into undertaking it).  Roberts' Irish accent here sits alongside Cameron Diaz in Gangs of New York, Tom Cruise in Far and Away, and Chris O'Donnell in Circle of Friends as one of the worst in cinematic history (that she did another Irish film in 1996, Michael Collins, proves her agent deserved to be fired).  She is dour, one of those dramatic actors who think that playing an introverted character means that you lose all charisma & grace, and plays Mary as if she's on novocaine.  It's a really bad performance, one I suspect Roberts undertook because she wanted Hollywood to take her more seriously as an actress and stop forcing her to do rom-com's, but as a result of doing this part, she basically would have to go back to playing the types of comedic roles that made her a star...but in a nice twist, this would work, and finally win Roberts the respect she felt the industry had denied her.  While other actresses that rose to fame alongside her like Demi Moore & Andie MacDowell couldn't seem to get their careers together in the wake of a mid-1990's slowdown, Julia Roberts was about to have one of the most impressive career comebacks in Hollywood history.

OVP: Supporting Actress (2020)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2020)

The Nominees Were...

Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy

Olivia Colman, The Father

Amanda Seyfried, Mank

Youn Yuh-Jung, Minari

My Thoughts: On Friday, we profiled the Best Supporting Actor race (all links to past 2020 contests at the bottom of this page), and I made a statement that in 2020, there were no Supporting Actor races that I loved.  The same cannot be said for Supporting Actress.  Not only were the supporting women of 2020 considerably better than the supporting men, but Oscar noticed them.  Though, at least in the case of our first nominee, it's not like he needed to have it pointed out considering how superb she's been recently.

Few actresses have capitalized on their Oscar wins quite in the same way as Olivia Colman.  The star of The Favourite has scored two Oscar nominations in the three years since, as well as headlined a major series for Netflix (and supported in the crowdpleasing Heartstopper).  The best part is-this isn't overkill, she's just consistently wonderful.  Her work in The Father is so tricky.  She plays a woman in middle age, struggling with her own battles (notice how we can't quite tell what's been going on with her life, but it's been bumpy), but having to deal with a father who clearly was not her favorite (and she not his favorite child).  Colman trickily navigates love, family obligation, and the subtlest of impatience about wanting to live her own life as her father consumes hers-it's riveting stuff, with the Oscar winner putting all of her emotions right on her face, even when the character doesn't want her to.

The last time that Colman was nominated she wasn't expected to win, of course.  Instead, the victory was assumed to be Glenn Close's, but Close in a big surprise lost the statue.  Here, though I think there was at one point some assumption she'd get in, she wasn't nearly as much of a frontrunner, and part of that was because her movie was utter rubbish (honestly, for Close's sake, it's best she didn't win & have to be on tape thanking future-Senator JD Vance in a speech).  She's the best part of this film, but that doesn't say much-it's hard to judge great acting when you're against a cast that's cartoonishly-written and two-dimensionally portrayed.  Close is too expressive of an actor to totally whiff here, but this was an afterglow nomination that I could've done without (it's definitely the nomination from her career most people will forget).

Close & Colman both lost to Youn Yuh-Jung in her first major role.  A longtime television star in her native Korea, Youn adapts perhaps the best of any of the actors to the naturalism that director Lee Isaac Chung is going for, finding a lot of personality behind her work.  I will say that I wasn't as taken with this performance as most of my online film friends.  I think it's because it always feels like it's surface-level, never really giving us a lot of the connections I'd want between characters.  There's something lacking in this progression...it's not necessarily bad for the film (I think it works well with the movie's naturalism), but it also makes it hard to rave about a particular performance since they all work best as a collective.

This is not the case for Amanda Seyfried, who steals Mank every scene she's in.  Seyfried, who gained fame as a teenager in Mean Girls, gets her big Oscar moment playing Marion Davies, the forgotten leading lady (and lover of William Randolph Hearst) who inspires the character of Susan in Citizen Kane.  Seyfried's not afraid to coast on sheer magnetism in some of the bigger moments of Mank, like when she's in the car after leaving MGM.  But there's also some great side moments...her expressive eyes betray her worry.  She's a woman in a precarious position (she's Hearst's lover, not his wife), and Seyfried knows how to play that perfectly, always finding a way to be not just the center-of-attention in a room, but in control.

Our final nominee is one of the weirdest citations in the history of the Academy Awards.  If you can name another situation where an unknown actress gets included for an improvisational comedy sequel, I'm all ears.  Obviously to get in for something like this, Bakalova has to be special, and she does match Sacha Baron Cohen's manic energy & impeccable timing.  But it's also not really a performance-it's all instinct, but not necessarily building anything.  Any scenes where she's not trying to control the situation but instead foraging an actual character feels like it's too cartoonish, too many big swings.  I'm curious what she does next, but this nomination I can't support.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes truly went their own direction, choosing to give this statue to Jodie Foster (The Mauritanian) atop Close, Seyfried, Colman, & Helena Zengel (News of the World), making this the first time since Katharine Ross in 1976 (for Voyage of the Damned) that the Globe winner did not get nominated at the Oscars.  SAG was a bit more attuned with Oscar's choices, picking Youn as their winner while Close, Colman, Zengel, & Bakalova were nominated, while BAFTA also favored Youn against Bakalova, Ashley Madekwe (County Lines), Dominique Fishback (Judas and the Black Messiah), Kosar Ali (Rocks), & Niamh Algar (Calm with Horses).  In terms of sixth place, I honestly think Foster was a fluke with the Globes, and that it was Zengel that was in sixth (probably over Seyfried, who was fading at the time).

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Comedy is ignored by Oscar too often, so I can't really complain in a year where they swung for the fences with Bakalova.  However, Miranda Hart is so marvelous in Emma (after being a scene-stealer in the classic Spy) & I think should've gotten in for making ridiculous feel so moving.

Oscar’s Choice: Had Close or Seyfried pulled off the Globe, I think they could've stampeded to the Oscar.  Both would go with different Oscar favorite tropes (Close the living legend playing a nurturing mother figure, Seyfried the sexy thirtysomething actress playing a real-life figure), but it would've latched on.  Foster's win, though, allowed for Oscar to get creative and Youn sealed the deal the second she won the SAG.

My Choice: I'm going to very slightly go with Seyfried over Colman.  I'm aware that Colman is giving the more intricate performance, but Seyfried has to take the bigger swings with her role, and honestly takes the credit for the best parts of Mank...it's tight though.  Youn is in third, followed by Close & then Bakalova.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Will anyone join me with Seyfried, or am I standing alone, particularly with Youn & Colman as options?  Is Glenn Close ever getting a statue...and honestly, is this really how her storied career with Oscar ends after eight nominations?  And why do you think Foster was such a hit with HFPA but not AMPAS?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2020: Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2020

Past Best Supporting Actress Contests: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019

OVP: Actress (2018)

OVP: Best Actress (2018)

The Nominees Were...

Yalitza Aparicio, Roma

Glenn Close, The Wife

Olivia Colman, The Favourite

Lady Gaga, A Star is Born

Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

My Thoughts: We talked on Monday about how Best Actor was possibly the worst lineup in Academy history.  Best Actress, thankfully, gives us a solid grouping of women, albeit ones in completely different stages of their careers.  We have here two women making a splash in their first lead roles albeit one as an aspiring preschool teacher who had never acted before, the other as a Golden-Globe winning superstar who had been a household name for the better part of a decade.  You also had a character actress getting her first major chance at a breakout part (that would graduate her to proper headliner), the most important comedic actress of the past decade who was trying her hand at a dramatic part, and the one, indisputable classic movie star of the bunch, in the hunt for an Oscar on her seventh nomination.

We rarely start with AMPAS's choice, so let's mix it up & begin with Olivia Colman, the surprise victor on Oscar night.  Colman's work here is fascinating, because it's surely the most engaged of the three leading ladies in The Favourite, if that makes sense.  She has to play Queen Anne as a slightly ridiculous person, someone that has been so coddled her whole life (born the niece of the king, she had never known a day of financial hardship but was horribly broken up about her inability to have a child survive to adulthood), but someone that we can at once sympathize with & who can sneak up on us.  Notice how deliciously Colman sinks into the rare moments where Anne wields her power, but always knows that it's there, ready for her to command if she so chooses...and the heartbreak in Anne being aware that her power will never truly bring her companionships & love, the things she most desires.  It's a great balancing act from an actress who knew her time had come, and got the job done.

Yalitza Aparicio, like Colman, is the lead in a major Best Picture contender.  Aparicio, though, doesn't have the decades of stage & screen experience Colman brings to her big moment, and it shows.  Aparicio is good for what this part is-she's solid in the way that she can convey a studied meditation for director Cuaron to bring to the screen, but I left thinking that this wasn't all raw nerve in her performance.  First-time performers frequently suffer from not building a strong enough base inward for us to attach to their characters (they're too surface-level), but Aparicio if anything is the opposite-she's too measured, too controlled in what she's doing, and it makes it difficult for the audience to see her as more than her character-I left not knowing who Cleo really was, and as she's the central focus, that's a problem.

Lady Gaga is the opposite problem-it's all surface-level work, and her newness as an actress shows in this part.  Gaga is better in the first half than the second, but that second half is a cliff for me.  She plays Ally like an empty vessel, not able to convey the bigger moments & faltering badly when A Star is Born stumbles into cliche when other (more experienced) actresses might have been able to keep the cliche fresh.  Think of the wooden approach she takes to "it's a disease" when discussing Cooper's alcoholism, or the way she doesn't moderate her emotions to be believable as a character.  The singing is great (she's a good singer, this is not up-for-debate), but unlike someone like Jennifer Hudson, who also got an Oscar nomination for her first major role, who suffers to elevate her star persona when she's acting but brings it hard when she's singing, Gaga can't do either in A Star is Born-other than "Shallow," I felt like this was a rough, one-dimensional portrayal.

The movie The Wife got a lot of flack in 2018 for being Oscar-bait, a way for Glenn Close to finally get an Oscar in a movie that very few people had seen.  This wasn't fair (at least the last part-The Wife making $20 million hardly puts it in "lowest-grossing Best Actress nominee" territory), but the film itself isn't great, which is perhaps the reason Close lost.  This is a pity because this is one of Glenn Close's best performances, in my opinion, and a respectable nominee for Best Actress.  She doesn't give in to some of her more famous ticks (there's no grand scenery-ensaring moment from Close, a theater actress through-and-through), and she plays her character so well without us ever having to scrutinize what she's thinking (unless that's what she wants).  Colman's win will age well, but anyone who thinks Close's wouldn't have didn't see this movie-she's excellent.

Melissa McCarthy is a great actress-I would've given her the Oscar in 2011, and she just misses my Best Actress cut in 2015.  That said, it's beyond fun to see her in a stretch like Lee Israel.  She doesn't get some of her warm-hearted tenderness that has made her a star, nor does she get to engage in a lot of physical comedy, her calling card.  Instead, she plays Lee Israel as someone who is lonely, unapologetically lonely, but also as someone who is desperate to understand the next step in her life (when the world essentially doesn't want her anymore).  It's a tough movie, a bitter one, but she doesn't sentimentalize, which is tricky, especially in the late courtroom scene where she has to admit to opening herself up without losing her specific character traits.  A really classy choice by the Academy not to skip McCarthy for such an atypical, sometimes unlikable leading role.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards.  The Drama category went with Glenn Close (in something of a surprise considering Lady Gaga would've been more HFPA's style), besting not just Gaga but also McCarthy, Nicole Kidman (Destroyer), & Rosamund Pike (A Private War), while Comedy/Musical went for Colman over Emily Blunt (Mary Poppins Returns), Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade), Charlize Theron (Tully), & Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians).  SAG went with Close as well, over Blunt, Colman, Gaga, & McCarthy, while BAFTA favored Colman against Close, Gaga, McCarthy, & Viola Davis (Widows).  In terms of sixth place, I predicted Emily Blunt for the Top 5 at the time & still think she was close.  She had the one-two punch of A Quiet Place and Mary Poppins, had dominated the precursors (she won supporting for A Quiet Place in a true hindsight shock), & at this point was overdue for some time with Oscar.  I'm not sure what the holdup was here, honestly-at some point you have to assume AMPAS just doesn't like someone.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Next week we're going to get into my final list so I'll resist again the need to provide some hints, but I will say that I understand most of Oscar's impulses here, and in particular while it's not forgivable, it's understandable in such a field why they put Stone & Weisz in supporting even though they should've had room here.

Oscar’s Choice: The precursors do point to a closer race than what we assumed at the time, but Olivia Colman pulled off the upset and took what might've been Glenn Close's best chance at an Oscar, though unlike what we thought at the time, it was not her last chance at a trophy.

My Choice: I decide these things in a vacuum, and in a vacuum, I'd give this to Olivia Colman, who gives the best performance of these five women.  McCarthy follows, with Close, Aparicio, & Gaga behind.  I will say, as a result, that this was one of the opportunities I had to give the trophy to Close (but I'm skipping it) as she's very good (she'd be in my Top 10 that year), and since I still have screenings left in 1987/88, I deny her this trophy (again, in a vacuum as that is the OVP's wont) not knowing if I might be in a similar camp to Oscar in never giving her a trophy as a result.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are with both Oscar & myself in falling head-over-heels for Olivia Colman?  Will Glenn Close ever get an Oscar?  And what's the deal with Emily Blunt's strange Oscar drought?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2018: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018

Past Best Actress Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Hillbilly Elegy (2020)

Film: Hillbilly Elegy (2020)

Stars: Amy Adams, Glenn Close, Gabriel Basso, Owen Asztalos, Freida Pinto

Director: Ron Howard

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Supporting Actress-Glenn Close, Makeup & Hairstyling)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

I like reading, but I don't do it as often as I should or like, and shouldn't get credit for being a devoted reader if you're a bibliophile (I put away maybe 15-20 books a year-consider that a "frequent reader" or a "casual one" on your terms).  So it's not often that I get to see a movie based on a book from the past ten years and say "I read the book," but Hillbilly Elegy is weirdly a movie I can claim that about.  I was in a book club briefly that was focused on more modern literature, and one of the titles that was chosen was JD Vance's memoir, and so I went into it with little knowledge of what it was about (I didn't read it), and came away...truly hating the book.  The book is part a story of Vance's rough childhood, with a drug-addicted mother & a hard scrabble existence in rural Kentucky & Middletown, Ohio, but it's also a disgusting, oftentimes prejudiced look at race, economics, education, & the government.  It is not a film that I would normally pay money to watch, but considering both Adams & Close are in the Oscar conversation (and that it was free on Netflix), I did catch it, and while it's an improvement on the book...well, you saw the star rating, right?

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie alternates between 1997 and 2011, and focuses on JD (Basso as an adult, Asztalos as a child), whose childhood is spent in near constant states of disarray due to his mother Bev's (Adams) issues with drug addiction, while as an adult he feels out-of-place with his Ivy League colleagues as he tries to get an internship as a second year at Yale Law.  JD is forced to take a trip back to see Bev, risking his interview, because she's become addicted to heroin, and has hidden his girlfriend Usha (Pinto) from them because (without saying so, but it's the clear implication) she's not white & he's not sure how his mother will handle that.  As the movie goes along, we see JD's relationship with his grandmother Mamaw (Close), which greatly influenced his life as she was a stabilizing factor in him not ending up like his mother, and in the end he gets the internship (abandoning his mother at a hotel after giving a speech about "family coming first" without even a hint of understanding the irony of that action), and as we see over the credits, his mother becomes sober & he marries Usha.

Ron Howard does a decent job of repurposing really problematic source material, even if he isn't always successful-I want to give the film that before we start because it could've been considerably worse.  Howard, unlike Vance, is a Democrat, and therefore doesn't share all of Vance's beliefs, and cuts out a lot of Vance's libertarian views on welfare (which are hypocritical in the books as he ignores the moments in the story when his family does take government money or charity), as well as Vance's problematic views on race.  Howard tries as hard as he can to simply make this a sentimental story about family & hard times, something that he has done before, and with great success.

But JD Vance is not Jim Lovell or James Braddock...he's no hero, and he's certainly not compelling.  Howard likely couldn't get the rights of the book & totally sideline JD's narrative in favor of the more interesting one between the two principle female characters, and as a result we are left with a rather ordinary child whom everyone keeps saying "has promise."  The reality is, though, that he doesn't-JD as written in the movie doesn't appear to be that smart.  In a truly uncomfortable scene, one that is meant to show the "otherism" of the intellectual, moneyed counterparts of his at Yale, he attacks them for thinking ill of his mother, but before that talks about his family as if he's ten, attacks their own experiences, and he does appear to have a severe lack of maturity & worldview that makes JD the character insufferable throughout (this was one of the many problems with the book).  JD is unlikable, and while obviously he rose above tough surroundings to make it to Yale (one has to assume that he has a modicum of intelligence, or at least ambition, in real life to get to that level), the character in the movie is hopeless.

You of course don't buy a ticket to this movie to talk about JD, even though it's his story; you buy it because Amy Adams & Glenn Close are starring in the movie.  I'm sorry to say that if you're here for them to finally win their overdue Oscars, they're either not getting them or they're getting them for the wrong performances.  Adams has no grounding in this woman, playing each scene to the hilt & creating no consistency in her; the script does her zilch favors (as does the entire quandary around JD being a black hole for charisma), but this is the worst performance I've seen from Adams.  It's a mess from a brilliant actress.  Close is better, and the only thing remotely worth saving in this movie (she plays her part much more subdued than Adams), but it's still dismissible, and she cannot ground the childlike idolization of Mamaw with her being a real woman.  It's a part that'd be easy to root for if you liked the movie...but I cannot fathom why someone would like this movie.

Who Will Win the 2020 AFI Life Achievement Award?

A few weeks ago, we did a look at who might be the next American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and since I had a lot of fun creating the list, I thought it might be enjoyable to take a look at a different upcoming major career recognition honor, the AFI Life Achievement Award.  This past summer, Denzel Washington was the recipient of the distinction, arguably the highest career honor in American cinema, but the organization actually doesn't wait long to announce its next winner, and if history teaches us anything, the victor will be proclaimed in early October, so we're only a few weeks away from learning the winner of the 2020 trophy.  As a result, I thought it'd be fun to take a look at a Top 10 list of who might be selected as the next honoree.

Before we get to the list, it's worth name-checking a few things that previous winners have had in common, so as to deduce who might be most likely to win this year.  47 film luminaries, ranging from John Ford in 1973 to Washington last year, have taken the trophy, so we have a bit of data to mine for clues as to whom next year's honoree might be.

Age: The average age of a winner is 69, though that's definitely an average (Steve Martin is the only winner to have actually been 69 when he won).  19 of the winners have been in their 70's, which is by far the most common age group to have won in, and no victor has been older than 90 (top in age was Lillian Gish) or under 46 (Tom Hanks was the youngest, and that win was criticized enough that I doubt they go for someone that young again).  So this probably means someone like Olivia de Havilland is out, as is someone like Leonardo DiCaprio.  As a result, bonus points to anyone somewhere between about 65 and 79, though obviously they could and have leaned outside that age range.

Occupation: The award is open to anyone in the film industry, but like most honors, it's more geared toward movie stars.  70% of the winners have been principally known for acting, and all but one of the remaining victors have been film directors (the sole person who was neither was John Williams, and there's really no living behind-the-scenes person who could rival Williams in terms of public perception, so it's going to be a movie star or a director).  The film directors who did make it are extremely well-known, just as famous to the public in recent years as a movie star (think George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg), so don't count on aging directing superstars like Norman Jewison or Ridley Scott, as they likely aren't famous enough.  They're also not American which brings us to...

Geography: This is the American Film Institute Award, and while that title doesn't preclude anyone, it sure helps if you're American.  94% of the winners were Americans upon the time they won (this includes people who enjoyed dual citizenship like Elizabeth Taylor and Sidney Poitier), which is potentially why foreign-born icons like Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, & Laurence Olivier never won, and likely why figures such as Julie Andrews or Sophia Loren (who otherwise would have been shoo-ins) haven't taken the honor yet.  The three foreign-born figures who did win (Sean Connery, David Lean, and Alfred Hitchcock) don't really have a lot in common, so it's hard to find some commonality to one person getting in if they aren't American.

Oscar History: If you're going to be taking the AFI title, it helps (a lot) if you're an Oscar winner.  77% of all of the honorees were at the time of their victory winners of at least one competitive Academy Award, and another ten were nominees (two of which, Henry Fonda & Martin Scorsese, would win competitive Oscars post their AFI ceremony).  The only person to have never been nominated for an Oscar and still win the AFI is Steve Martin, someone you'd be hard-pressed to find an obvious corollary to today.  This pattern has gotten even stronger in recent years-85% of the past twenty recipients were Oscar winners (excluding Martin, George Lucas, & Harrison Ford).  So it's likely that the next person to take the AFI will have won a competitive Oscar.

Gender: The ceremony seems to be trying to correct this in recent years, but it's still very much a boy's club at the AFI.  81% of all winners have been men, and the ceremony has never honored a woman who was solely or principally known as a behind-the-scenes figure (women like Shirley MacLaine, Barbra Streisand, and Diane Keaton have all directed films and won the AFI, but all three made their names in movies as actors).  The last two winners have been male, but history has shown that doesn't necessarily mandate that we'll be seeing a woman here in 2020.

DeMille/Kennedy: There are at least two other awards (other than Oscar) that are a strong indicator of whether or not someone will take the AFI trophy-the Cecil B. DeMille Award and the Kennedy Center Honor.  62% of all winners of the AFI were also DeMille winners and of those who were alive to receive it (the Kennedy Center Honors started last of the three honors, in 1978, so John Ford was dead by the time they rolled around despite having already won the AFI), 69% of the AFI Award victors also won the Kennedy Center Honor.  23 people have pulled off all three.  While the AFI has occasionally led the field (ie someone won it there before they picked up other honors, like Steven Spielberg or Elizabeth Taylor), it's a pretty strong indication if you're primarily known for film and you win one of these trophies that you're going to win one (or both) of the others.  One could make a sincere argument that the list of people who have taken the DeMille or Kennedy Center Honor without also having an AFI is particularly short right now, so AFI may be forced to add a new name to the roster next year.  Of the 16 DeMille and/or Kennedy Center victors (without an AFI) who have meaningful cinematic contributions, almost all of them have something stopping them from taking this leg of the Cinematic Life Achievement Triple Crown (I started calling it that years ago...and it has not caught on).  There are several non-Americans (Sophia Loren, Julie Andrews) or Americans more commonly known for citizenship in a different country (Anthony Hopkins, Angela Lansbury).  There are figures with major contributions to cinema but who are more known for TV (Cicely Tyson, Lily Tomlin, Rita Moreno), music (Cher), or the stage (James Earl Jones, Lansbury again), and then there are a few figures due to health or antipathy to such things might not show up at all (Joanne Woodward, Gene Hackman, Woody Allen).  That actually only leaves four figures who could be considered real contenders that AFI hasn't picked yet, and all four will be listed below so I won't spoil the fun just yet.

Fame: This is a hard one to quantify, but all of the winners have to be famous, and tend to still be extremely well-known when they won.  This has become even more pertinent in recent years.  Arguably the last time someone who wouldn't have been a household name still the year they won was Robert Wise in 1998, and in the past few years we've seen actors who are very active in modern filmmaking like Diane Keaton, George Clooney, and Denzel Washington take the trophy, so I suspect that the winner this year would either be still revered or quite frankly be someone whom you'd expect to be getting top billing on your local marquee.  This means that names like Ellen Burstyn, Sissy Spacek, Gena Rowlands, Julie Christie, Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow, or Francis Ford Coppola, names that probably have earned this kind of distinction but aren't really household in the same way as Clooney, Keaton, & Washington, are going to struggle to get a citation without some sort of revival.  This ceremony is funded by advertising revenue, and as a result they need a bigger name for ratings.

With all of that said, here are my guesses as to who the Top 10 contenders for the trophy are.  Sound off in the comments if you have predictions as well!

Honorable Mentions: Lots of options here, but Goldie Hawn, Robert Duvall, Spike Lee, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, Julie Andrews, and Michael Caine are all people that wouldn't surprise me, but all have at least some debits that would preclude them (age, geography, and fame being factors to at least some degree depending on the artist).  However, they're close enough to being real threats that I figured I needed to at least CYA myself by mentioning their names.

10. Ron Howard

Age: 65
Geography: American (born in Oklahoma)
Oscar History: 4 nods/2 wins
DeMille or Kennedy?: Not yet
Why Him: Howard is the rare American director who hasn't won this award that has the sort of name recognition (thanks to his previous years as an actor) and populist films (Cocoon, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind) that might win him a citation someday.  He's also well-liked by other directors who would have some influence in the selection such as George Lucas & Steven Spielberg (not to mention his movie star daughter could push for him & would make a glamorous, sentimental host for the evening), and he's nearly the right age for the win.
Why Not Him: Howard, though he does have a pair of Oscars, isn't really in the same pioneering league as the other directors from a critical perspective.  His closest corollary among the winning directors would be Lucas, and he's never made anything remotely as important to Hollywood as the Star Wars franchise (even though, ironically, he has made a film in the Star Wars franchise).  Howard makes a lot of sense in theory, but I wonder if they'd pull the trigger for him or wait for a director like Quentin Tarantino to be old enough before they pick another behind-the-scenes figure.

9. Glenn Close

Age: 72
Geography: American (born in Connecticut)
Oscar History: 7 nominations
DeMille or Kennedy?: Not yet
Why Her: Close recently had a bout of incredible press, first from her finally making a play for her Oscar trophy, and then a round of public sympathy for not actually winning an Oscar most assumed was in the bag.  She's well-known to audiences (everyone's heard of her) but still has critical hosannas in her corner to make this feel like a classy choice, and would be near the average age for a winner.  Could she be chosen as a way of the industry saying "yes, you're a legend" after she was denied that claim a few months ago?
Why Not Her: I mean, if she couldn't win the Oscar, it's hard to imagine that she'd take this trophy (like I said-it's very hard to win this if you aren't an Oscar winner).  Close seems a better fit for the Kennedy Center Honors considering she's nearly as well-known for television and stage as she is for film, and it's not like she has a lot of massive hits under her belt in the way that Denzel Washington or Tom Hanks does.

8. Jessica Lange

Age: 70
Geography: American (born in Minnesota)
Oscar History: 6 nods/2 wins
DeMille or Kennedy?: Not yet
Why Her: Lange has been having one of those great, late career renaissances that occasionally gets you to sweep awards like this.  In many ways it recalls Morgan Freeman, who wasn't particularly famous until much later in his career, and then suddenly he was greeted with an onslaught of awards. American Horror Story and Feud have earned her a new generation of fans, and if Keaton & Streep are going to win this trophy, it feels like Lange should join them as an 80's movie queen who stayed a household name decades later.
Why Not Her: Lange had a robust cinematic career, but other than Tootsie there aren't a lot of widely-remembered classics on the list.  More importantly, Lange's late-career renaissance has been for television, not for the movies in the way that Freeman's was.  She would get them ratings, and in some ways this might be what finally got Jane Fonda her trophy, but Fonda is way more iconic than Lange is in terms of her cinematic pedigree (even though they have matching Oscar counts), and Lange would be a harder sell for AFI without another great movie role.

7. Samuel L. Jackson

Age: 70
Geography: American (born in DC)
Oscar History: 1 nomination
DeMille or Kennedy?: Not yet
Why Him: Jackson is the highest-grossing actor in terms of Box Office draw ever.  He's worked with literally everyone (I wouldn't be stunned if even I've made a film with him at this point) and has been both a critical muse (Scorsese, Spielberg, Tarantino, & Paul Thomas Anderson have all worked with him), as well as the star of major franchises like Jurassic Park, Avengers, Star Wars, and The Incredibles.  He's almost exactly the average age for the honor, and few figures in the past thirty years have been in as much American film as Jackson.
Why Not Him: The problem is that Jackson's made a lot of tripe along with all of those major paychecks.  Notice that Michael Caine has also never won this trophy, and almost certainly Johnny Depp is going to struggle to take it as well.  This is because Jackson's ubiquity hasn't necessarily translated to quality.  Every AFI winner has made a couple of stinkers, but Jackson's name isn't necessarily synonymous with quality, but rather quantity.  That's a problem if you're going to get the highest honor in American cinema.  Plus, even with all of those movies he's still never won an Oscar.

6. Tom Cruise

Age: 57
Geography: American (born in New York)
Oscar History: 3 nominations
DeMille or Kennedy?: Not yet
Why Him: Cruise is a bit young for the award, but few actors can boast his consistent movie star appeal.  Nearly 40 years after he became a headliner, he's still a leading man in major blockbuster movies, and has made a lot of the people who regularly sit in the AFI audience rich beyond their wildest dreams.  He's had quality films (those three Oscar nominations), and has enough movie moments through Jerry Maguire, Mission Impossible, and Top Gun to guarantee a built-in audience for the awards show.  All-in-all, this is a pretty solid bet for someone the AFI will want to claim...one of the few undisputed modern movie stars who can always land a picture.
Why Not Him: Cruise is a bit on the young side, and hasn't won an Oscar (or the DeMille yet, and I think that would come first for him considering the Globes love of celebrity).  More importantly, Cruise's public behavior since his 90's heyday makes this award come with some controversy.  Forgetting the Scientology aspect for a second (and that's a big thing to disregard), he's been erratic as a public figure & his films have taken a serious detour in quality since the early-aughts.  At this point he's more Sly Stallone & Liam Neeson than he is Tom Hanks or Denzel Washington, and Stallone/Neeson aren't anywhere near an AFI Life Achievement Award.

5. Sally Field

Age: 72
Geography: American (born in California)
Oscar History: 3 nods/2 wins
DeMille or Kennedy?: Field will receive the Kennedy Center Honor later this year
Why Her: Field's recent Kennedy Center Honor is a big deal, as it elevates her to the same echelons of people like Lauren Bacall, Joanne Woodward, and Myrna Loy (three other actresses who got the Kennedy Center Honor but never AFI) rather than any number of 70-something actresses who were once headliners but now frequently come in as supporting players or in TV cameos.  The list of true film stars who get the Kennedy Center Honor and not the AFI is small, and Field comes with two Academy Awards, as well as a number of still iconic hits (Smokey and the Bandit, Steel Magnolias, Forrest Gump) and recent success (My Name is Doris, the Spider-Man movies) that could make this an easy sell from a fame perspective.
Why Not Her: Field probably wouldn't be a great choice in 2020, since she just won the Kennedy Center Honor (it's uncommon, though not unprecedented, for someone to get two such awards so close together).  One would think they'd wait a year or two before picking her.  That said, we're likely due for another female victor, and unlike the next two women, she's much closer to the age of the average recipient so I wouldn't discount her; Field represents a jump from "good guess, and maybe someday" to "I could truly see it happening in 2020."

4. Julia Roberts

Age: 51
Geography: American (born in Georgia)
Oscar History: 4 nods/1 win
DeMille or Kennedy?: Not yet
Why Her: Roberts is going to win this award at some point, as long as she lives long enough.  She's exactly the sort of figure who scores the AFI-popular, enduring, beautiful, a leading woman even when her star started to dim, and someone who scored an Oscar at the peak of her fame, so there's critical cache to go with the many, many hits.  Honestly, so confident am I that Roberts will win this, and win it soon, that I didn't even list Sandra Bullock on this list, despite me also thinking she could take this at some point as well (since Roberts will get this before Bullock, in the same way Meryl Streep was always going to win here before Diane Keaton).  It's not "if" but "when" for Julia Roberts.
Why Not Her: Roberts is the youngest person on this list, and while she wouldn't be the youngest victor ever (Hanks may have that record forever, unless the AFI goes for Leo DiCaprio in the next year or two), she'd be the third youngest after Hanks & Spielberg if she took it.  She regularly makes movies, and there's no rush.  Why not give it to her when she's approaching Clooney's age (he was 57)?  I think that will be the thought process for the AFI, at least.

3. Jodie Foster

Age: 56
Geography: American (born in California)
Oscar History: 4 nods/2 wins
DeMille or Kennedy?: Foster memorably took the DeMille at the 2012 ceremony
Why Her: Unlike Clooney, Foster is approaching Clooney's age (she'd be exactly his age if she was the 2020 victor), and she's one of only two people on this list who has taken the DeMille/Kennedy distinction AND has enough distance to that award that it wouldn't llok like they were copying the Globes.  Foster is an iconic star, iconic enough that even without a lot of recent film hits she could still feel like a relevant winner, and she's probably going to win this eventually.  The past two years have shown a propensity for picking actors that were a little young for the award, but were certainly going to take the trophy at some point-could that continue with Jodie?
Why Not Her: Aside from the age aspect, there's the lack of a lot of recent roles, and her tendency to be more political & press-shy than your average winner.  They have strayed in a way the Kennedy Center Honors have not (look at how Jane Fonda has the AFI but not the government-sanctioned Kennedy Center award), but her filmic resume in the past two decades is pretty thin for someone who would be winning a trophy that oftentimes comes at the tail-end of your cinematic career, not when it's largely been dormant for a decade.

2. Jeff Bridges

Age: 69
Geography: American (born in California)
Oscar History: 7 nods/1 win
DeMille or Kennedy?: Bridges took the DeMille earlier this year.
Why Him: He's exactly the right age for this, and like some other recent winners, he's been a constant movie presence for decades, but certainly a constant force in the last decade.  Bridges won his Oscar less than ten years ago, and has scored two citations since then, as well as a lot of renewed affection for being one of the best actors of his generation.  Everyone seems to love him (he'd have great speeches), and this has probably graduated to the "inevitable" at this point for AFI to pick him.  I can't really think of a better time to appreciate him with such a major honor, can you?
Why Not Him: The only thing holding me back from picking him is that he just won the DeMille.  Unlike the Kennedy Center Honors, the DeMille winner has to give a speech, so the AFI could risk all of their best material having gone to that Globes' speech that could still be in their memory rather than Bridges giving a fresher one at the AFI.  That's about the only reason I can think of not to pick him-he was my dark horse guess for this next year until he won the DeMille, and I suspect I'll be predicting him in 2021 if he doesn't take it next year.

1. Robert Redford

Age: 83
Geography: American (born in California)
Oscar History: 4 nods/1 win (as well as an Honorary Oscar)
DeMille or Kennedy?: DeMile in 1993 and Kennedy Center Honors in 2005
Why Him: One of the great mysteries of awards show nerddom, to the point where I always have to double check that I'm not wrong, is how Robert Redford hasn't won the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award.  He's a film icon with a number of classic movies under his belt (he's worked with everyone from Marlon Brando to Paul Newman to Jane Fonda to Meryl Streep), he's an actor-director (Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, & Orson Welles can all attest that's a good way to win this), and he's also well-known for his celebration of smaller American film through his work with the Sundance Film Festival.  Should he not win, he'd be one of the biggest names to never take the honor, and one of the more regrettable.
Why Not Him: I genuinely don't know.  He's considerably older than the average winner, and it's hard to imagine that someone hasn't pitched this idea before.  Is he refusing to accept (this doesn't seem like Redford-he showed up for the Honorary Oscar and the Kennedy Centers relatively recently so why refuse the AFI specifically)?  I've never gotten the impression he's a jerk off-screen (and it's not like that's stopped them before-I mean, Dustin Hoffman has won this award).  Honestly, I can't think of a real reason that he hasn't won, and will be perplexed by him not winning until he dies or finally gets the trophy-his recent retirement surely makes a strong case for giving him this, right?  As a result, I'm going with the obvious answer here even though I've predicted Redford before for this honor.