Who is the Next AFI Life Achievement Honoree?

Francis Ford Coppola winning the AFI statue
from past winners George Lucas & Steven Spielberg

With the recent passing of Robert Redford, an interesting trivia topic comes up, one we've talked about on occasion on this blog but not in a few years.  Redford, screen luminary, movie star extraordinaire, film festival pioneer, & Oscar-winning director, has always felt like the oddest person to never win the AFI Life Achievement Awards, one of the highest honors for an actor or director, to the point that I have long-wondered if he just didn't want to accept (it's hard to imagine it was never offered to him).  With his death, though, it invites the question of who will be the next person to win the AFI Life Achievement Award, and I thought it'd be fun to make a Top 10 list of the people I think are likeliest to be next.  Before we get to the list, I came up with a list of criteria that usually hint at who will be the next AFI Life Achievement Award winner.

Age: The average age of a winner is roughly 70, though that's definitely an average and we have seen a pretty wide range of ages winning this (i.e. don't count someone out like Francis Ford Coppola, the  most recent winner, who took it at 86 in April).  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).  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 Mike Leigh 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.  92% of the winners were Americans upon the time they won (this includes people who enjoyed dual citizenship like Elizabeth Taylor, Nicole Kidman, 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 Anhtony HOpkins or Sophia Loren (who otherwise would have been shoo-ins) haven't taken the honor yet.  The four foreign-born figures who did win (Sean Connery, David Lean, Julie Andrews, 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 other than a lot of fame.

Oscar History: If you're going to be taking the AFI title, it helps (a lot) if you're an Oscar winner.  78% 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.  78% 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).   I also wouldn't read a lot into the last winner being male...it doesn't feel like a tradeoff situation as a rule (i.e. the next could also be a man).

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.  58% 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), 70% of the AFI Award victors also won the Kennedy Center Honor.  24 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 living 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 is one non-American (Sophia Loren) and one American more commonly known for citizenship in a different country (Anthony Hopkins).  There are figures with major contributions to cinema but who are more known for TV (Dick van Dyke, Lily Tomlin, Rita Moreno, Billy Crystal) and music (Cher, Bette Midler), and then there are a few figures due to health or antipathy to such things might not show up at all (Joanne Woodward, Woody Allen).  There's also the new stain on the Kennedy Center Honors due to the heavy involvement of President Trump that might make it hard for Sylvester Stallone to get this award given he won with that asterisk next to his name.  That actually only leaves five figures who could be considered real contenders that AFI hasn't picked yet, four of which I'll list in my Top 10, and the fifth of which I'll cite in the Honorable Mentions.

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 next year would either be still revered or quite frankly be someone whom you'd expect to be getting top billing on your local marquee still.  This means that names like Ellen Burstyn, Sissy Spacek, Julie Christie, Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow, or Goldie Hawn, names that probably have earned this kind of distinction but aren't really household in the same way as Clooney, Streep, & 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 seven names that come to mind are Anthony Hopkins, Robert Downey, Jr., James Cameron, Ron Howard, Eddie Murphy, Ralph Fiennes, & Jessica Lange.  All of them have debits, ranging from a curmudgeonly persona off-screen that might preclude such an honor to not having a strong enough filmography to not being American, but these are names I wouldn't be shocked get into contention.  I will note that in the past when I've done this prediction list I missed future winners because I didn't know they'd be having a moment (i.e. I had Coppola as someone whose time had likely passed until Metropolis came out and he seemed to make a point of wanting to get these honors on his resumé before he died or to remind people that movie won't be his epitaph), so some of these might be contenders, but I don't see them being immediate threats.

10. Tim Burton

It feels weird not to list a single person primarily known as a director on this list, even though directors rarely win this award, and the concept of the celebrity-director is increasingly passé, but more than Cameron, Howard, or even Quentin Tarantino, it feels like Tim Burton is the kind of guy that gets in with AFI.  Inevitably, he's going to get an Oscar moment at some point, and that will invite conversations about his singular filmography.  In many ways Burton's personality feels at-home here.  He's a California-born director, and similar to someone like Mel Brooks (a past winner) he has made or advanced the careers of a lot of stars (such as Johnny Depp & Winona Ryder) who haven't really had a moment with the AFI, and this would be a way of acknowledging that very successful segment in Hollywood.  Call it a hunch that he could win this.

9. Sally Field

A more conventional choice would be Sally Field, a recent Kennedy Center Honoree, and an actress who has been doing a lot of the "I'm a legend" rounds in recent years (not just taking the Kennedy Center Honor, but also the National Medal of Arts and the SAG Life Achievement Award).  Field is also well-regarded (it helps if you're popular), and has had a diverse career as a two-time Academy Award winner who has gone back-and-forth between populist hits and art-fare.  Also, and most critically, she is one of the rare stars of the 1970's & 80's who still works regularly in major projects and is known to a new generation of moviegoers in a way that, say, Faye Dunaway would not be that hasn't won this yet.  In some ways Jessica Lange makes more sense (she also has had television success in recent years), but for some reason she doesn't seem to be getting these types of awards (and with Trump in office, it's doubtful she'll get help from the Kennedy Center), so I will continue to bet on Field.

8. Viola Davis

You could make a sincere argument that Davis shouldn't be on this list.  In terms of leading work in films, she has  the most recent and arguably most scant filmography of these artists.  But there's a sense that Davis, one of the great talents of her generation, was cheated out of a longer career due to Hollywood's inability to give leading roles to Black women, and one wonders if that contributed in part to her recent Cecil B. DeMille Award (don't look at me like that-name another actor with as short of a filmography as Davis has had as a leading star that has won that award).  Only three Black actors have ever won the AFI Life Achievement Award (Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, & Denzel Washington), and none of them have been a woman.  I think Davis makes sense here, particularly with the recent passing of Cicely Tyson, and it's more a question of if, not when, she'll win.  But she's rated lower as I think they make her wait just a few films more before they give her this statue (but it's coming).

7. Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt's wildly successful F1 (can you believe it made over $600 million?!?) earlier this year confirmed what we all know about him-he's one of the last movie stars of his era, someone who can still actually open a movie without creative IP attached (albeit he had the world's largest sport attached, but that's another story).  Pitt's problem is going to be less about his filmography (given his stature in the industry and his long career, it's hard to begrudge him this statue) and more so that Pitt is a bit of an online pariah right now.  That doesn't matter as much in Hollywood (see how he starred in a massive hit movie earlier this year), but advertisers don't want to touch him in an era of a boycott-heavy electorate, and the thorny allegations in his divorce with Angelina Jolie make me think that they might wait a few years to see if things cool down with him (this could also be the case with Johnny Depp & Ben Affleck, who I didn't list on this countdown, but obviously feel in the wheelhouse of someone who would win this).

6. Matt Damon

Pitt's Ocean's Eleven costar Matt Damon feels far more likely to win.  One wonders if they'd consider doing a pair between Damon and his childhood best friend Ben Affleck, but of the two I think that Damon, with his squeaky clean off-screen persona would be an easier sell.  Damon is actually old enough to win one of these statues now (for those wondering if I'm crazy for putting him on here), just a few years north of potential future contenders like Reese Witherspoon and Leonardo DiCaprio, and I think is a serious threat to take this, though I partially believe that he'll get the DeMille first, mostly because they tend to like younger and they love getting movie stars to show up.

5. Jeff Bridges

Robert Redford for many years was my go to answer for "who is the weirdest living person without an AFI Life Achievement Award."  With his death, that title passes to Jeff Bridges.  Bridges is such an odd exclusion from this list I constantly have to remind myself he's never won-he's a movie star from way back (and further back still if you remember he's a NepoBaby), an Oscar winner, and has a fame that means different things depending on how old you are, which is also the sign of someone with a robust filmography.  Bridges is certainly the type of person who should have an AFI Life Achievement Award (it will be a miss, similar to Redford, if he never wins), and if I was asked to unilaterally give this out to someone next year, he'd be my choice.  But his inability to win even when he could've gotten it 10-15 years ago makes me wonder if he's demurred, or isn't really on their radar.

4. Samuel L. Jackson

Bizarrely, Samuel L. Jackson has never won any of the three major Triple Crown Awards, though he did recently get an Honorary Oscar.  Jackson is a ubiquitous movie star, perhaps not to his credit (it's worth noting that Michael Caine never won any of these three prizes either, mostly because he had so much crap to go with the jewels in his filmography), but Jackson is such a big star it feels wrong that he doesn't win this award.  In many ways, between his forays into countless major franchises (Star Wars, MCU, Jurassic Park, XXX) to his position as a muse for both Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee he is the prototype for how to navigate the IP era, so you have to believe they know they should pick him, particularly given the embarrassingly low number of Black actors who have won this prize.

3. Tom Cruise

The Top 3 are not a question of if, but when, for the victory.  All three are 1990's movie stars who have stayed relevant into the 2020's (sometimes for television, sometimes in the case of #3 for mining his filmography for legacy sequels), but they are all too famous to never win this award.  Cruise is third both because he is about to win an Honorary Oscar (and in my opinion, likely to win a competitive one next year too, which makes the Honorary statue feel like a waste when it could've gone to, say, Catherine Deneuve who needs it more), but Cruise has graduated beyond the tabloid toxicity that once nearly wrecked his career (i.e. another reason they'll likely wait on Brad Pitt), and has become the savior of the movie theater industry.  The ageless screen star probably doesn't like that he's now at the age where you win lifetime achievement awards, but it'd be nice if he won it while some of his earliest costars (like Dustin Hoffman & Jack Nicholson) are still around to give it to him.

2. Julia Roberts

Another ageless movie star that feels like she's too young to win this, but has entered that era is Julia Roberts (our Star of the Month last month!).  There's more urgency around Roberts to win, in part because she's clearly the Queen of the 1990's movie stars (you could see a world where, say, Sandra Bullock or Demi Moore also win this statue at some point, but not before Julia), and also because she seems to be itching to do this again.  In recent years she's been working more regularly, appearing in films that might gain a reputation (even if it's a bad one) like Luca Guadagnino's latest, and clearly wants to cement her place as one of the last great movie stars before IP took over Tinseltown.  Roberts, in a similar fashion to Cruise, also wants to get this statue while all of the actors whom she starred opposite early in her career are still with us (as sad as it may seem Richard Gere is 76, Dustin Hoffman in 88, & it's unlikely most of her older costars in Steel Magnolias stay around much longer)...this would be the time to give it to her.

1. Jodie Foster

But I'm going to put someone who has the DeMille (unlike Julia & Tom) at #1.  Jodie Foster doesn't have as plentiful of a filmography as Roberts & Cruise (and isn't famous in the same way anymore), but her two Oscars and recent successful run on True Detective add a timelessness to her star persona that you can't really rust.  I also think it's noteworthy that she's a feminist icon, and a film director (and would be the first openly queer person to win the award).  As I stated above, no woman has ever won this award primarily for being known for directing, but several have histories with directing, and Foster would add to that list.  She's also 62, so just a few years shy of the prime age that wins this award, and giving it to her early is hardly a moment that will age poorly (no one really focuses on winning too early if it was someone who was always destined to win).  If I had to bet on who wins next, I'd put my money on her.

OVP: Supporting Actress (2023)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2023)

The Nominees Were...

Emiliy Blunt, Oppenheimer

Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple

America Ferrera, Barbie

Jodie Foster, Nyad

Da'Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

My Thoughts: Oscar's taste and mine are, obviously, different.  There are certain things and categories we line up on (Visual Effects, in particular, there's a lot of overlap), but others (like Supporting Actor) I usually assemble an entirely different lineup for myself.  Supporting Actress is generally a category I can count on some overlap with my My Ballot, though.  In 2023, though, that's not the case.  We have done My Ballots from 2000-22 on this blog (that's where I pick the winners/nominees without Oscar's help), and in that entire time, 2023 will become the first field where I picked none of Oscar's Supporting Actress choices for my own list, starting from scratch with my five.  While I was very different from Oscar in general (only three acting nominees total will overlap with my My Ballot), this is bizarre for me, and a sign that either I was on my own or (in my opinion) Oscar was getting lazy in 2023.

Look, for example, at the nomination of Emily Blunt.  Blunt is a fine actor, and one who should've had an Oscar nomination by now (though, as I said here, she wouldn't be someone I would complain about given I only think she deserved one nomination to date).  But she's not very good in Oppenheimer.  This is a doormat role, one that has little invention beyond darted glances and spilled cocktails.  She has one great scene, late in the picture, with Jason Clarke interrogating her, but the rest of the movie she's kind of on autopilot.  She doesn't get as plumb of a role as Robert Downey, Jr. or Cillian Murphy, but let's be real-someone like Benny Safdie is stealing scenes with less to do than her.  I think this is a pretty generic nomination, and reads as a "getting her off the 'to nominate' list" moment that happens when you're in a Best Picture nominee.

Danielle Brooks is another performer that I think is giving way less than she should.  Brooks is a great singer, and gives the best performance in The Color Purple, a misguided & overlong musical that loses a lot of the soul that was part of the original movie.  But it's too surface-level.  We know the audience is going to cheer for her, because she's that kind of character, but the insane over-reaction that this role got on Film Twitter (some proclaiming her a "lock" for a win...and don't think I don't remember who you are who said it), felt hyperbole and like they were just swept up in a good singer doing a decent job.  Comparing this to Oprah Winfrey in the original...you can't, Winfrey's just in another class, and while I judge these in a vacuum, that doesn't apply to remakes-you need to justify your existence if you want to recreate a classic.  This film never does.

I kind of have a role that I don't complain too much about actors getting their first nomination unless they're outright terrible (which neither Brooks nor Blunt are), and so I won't complain too much about America Ferrera getting a nomination.  Ferrera is a trooper, one who I used to watch & love every week on Ugly Betty in my twenties.  But this is a nothing part, more so than even Blunt.  She nails the centerpiece monologue enough that it resonated with audiences, but it's not that good, and even if it was, you need more, and there is nothing near that in this film.  This is the definition of a coattails nomination, one that is the best example of the Academy actually liking Barbie and not just giving it the required citations.

An actor who is giving more than the script demands is Jodie Foster.  This was Foster's first nomination in almost thirty years, and her first in almost 50 years in supporting, and she clearly liked getting back to the Oscars.  That honestly could've been enough (sometimes legends say "me again!" and the Oscars say "sure" even if it's for nothing special-look at Robert Duvall in The Judge), but Foster actually adds something to Nyad.  She has great chemistry with Bening (you buy them as people who have loved each other for decades, including the sort of competition that can only come from friends that used to date), and adds things that aren't necessary to the story.  Look at how deftly she handles Bening's Diana, being able to maneuver around certain arguments while choosing to take others dead-on.  I love that backstory work in a character.

Background work is also on display for Da'Vine Joy Randolph.  Randolph, like Foster, knows what it's like to be on the sides of her own life.  In this film, though, she does a good job of staking what territory in her life is hers versus what she's willing to share, and how much pain that causes when she mixes those two things up in her life.  You get the understanding from Randolph's work that not only does she miss her son, she misses being herself, being happy like she was before her son died with one of the only people she allowed herself to be authentic with.  It's really measured stuff-I honestly cannot wait to see what she does next, and I hope Hollywood has some good ideas.

Other Precursor Contenders: We had another stampede similar to Supporting Actor, so Da'Vine Joy Randolph gets all of the hardware.  For the Globes she beat Blunt, Brooks, Foster, Julianne Moore (May December), and Rosamund Pike (Saltburn), while at the SAG Awards it was over Blunt, Brooks, Foster, & Penelope Cruz (Ferrari).  I thought she might lose the BAFTA to Blunt, but no dice, as she took out Blunt, Brooks, Sandra Huller (The Zone of Interest), Claire Foy (All of Us Strangers), & Rosamund Pike (Saltburn) in the UK.  I actually called this field exactly right (which few people did), and had three names in the sixth place slot: Huller, Moore, & Viola Davis (Air).  I'll be real-any of these still make sense to me, but the one that will get me yelled at the least is Huller, so I'll go with her.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I hate when Oscar gives a performer an Oscar, and then feels like "we're done" while that actor continues to put in great work.  That's particularly true of someone like Julianne Moore, who has spent her post-Oscar years trying a variety of genres (some unsuccessfully), but has never been as good since with her dynamite turn in May December.

Oscar’s Choice: Randolph won by a landslide, probably atop Blunt, who might've been an actual threat for a win if she'd managed to get a single precursor given her narrative as "overdue" (that tactic worked for Christian Bale).

My Choice: Between Randolph & Foster (the two best of this bunch), I will select Randolph, both because I think she has some of the best scenes and (let's be real) she's in the better movie.  Brooks is in third, which leaves yet another Barbenheimer matchup for last.  Part of the fact that we're 4-0 in favor of Barbie (with only one left to face off), almost makes me want to give it to Blunt, but there were moments in her film I thought she was giving a bad performance even if she lands her one big scene, something I never felt with Ferrera, so Barbie continues its shutout.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  I joined the season stampede and gave this win to Da'Vine Joy Randolph...was that the right choice?  I suspect that of the Barbenheimer matchups this is the one the most people will disagree with me on-anyone else favor Ferrera to Blunt?  And was it Davis, Huller, or Moore in sixth place?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2023: Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2023

Past Best Supporting Actress Contests: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)

Film: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)

Stars: Ellen Burstyn, Alfred Lutter, Kris Kristofferson, Harvey Keitel, Diane Ladd, Valerie Curtin, Jodie Foster

Director: Martin Scorsese

Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Actress-Ellen Burstyn*, Supporting Actress-Diane Ladd, Original Screenplay)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Kris Kristofferson: click here to learn more about Mr. Kristofferson (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week we talked a little bit about Kris Kristofferson's very successful early career in music, but during the 1970's you'd be forgiven for thinking of him as a movie star in the same breath as thinking of him as a country music titan.  Kristofferson's career in movies is unusual because two of his biggest films of that era are movies that, while he got top-billing, he was totally overshadowed in terms of press coverage (and eventual recognition) in favor of his female costars.  That's certainly the case for today's movie, which is a pretty major crossover into the Oscar Viewing Project, as I watch my final (to date) Ellen Burstyn Oscar-nominated performance, and the only movie Burstyn ever won an Academy Award for.  The movie also happens to be the first studio movie that Martin Scorsese (who, like Burstyn, is still working) ever made, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is something of a road trip film, at least in the first half, with Alice (Burstyn) a former singer who has recently been widowed by her neglectful husband, taking her son Tommy (Lutter) across the country.  She wants to go to Monterey, her childhood home, where she dreams of picking up her singing career again, but along the way things get messy for her.  First, she meets a younger man named Ben (Keitel), who seems charming, but is actually an abusive married man whom she ends up fleeing town with after he threatens Alice.  At that point, in Tuscon, she gives up (temporarily) on her dream of becoming a singer for the more realistic life of a waitress in Mel's Diner, a local, fast-paced watering hole, where she befriends the outspoken Flo (Ladd), and starts romancing a regular named David (Kristofferson).  But her relationship with David is complicated by her increasingly unruly son, and eventually things come to a head when David physically disciplines Tommy.  The movie ends with them moving past this, and forming an unlikely family, with Alice giving up on her dream of being a singer, but finding a different kind of happiness with David instead.

I'll be totally honest-the ending of the movie doesn't work.  The movie's naturalism is its key asset, and that assists in a lot of the performances, but not in the ending.  The only logical reasons that David & Alice end up together are that it makes a cleaner ending than her pursuing a dream the audience knows won't happen, and that Kris Kristofferson circa 1974 is so hot you kind of look past the obvious, toxic masculinity flaws.  But it's not earned.  It's also hard to totally look at this from a modern lens without realizing that there is something seriously wrong with Tommy, who is a truly spoiled brat, and one who exhibits a lot of the same cruel tendencies that his father also exhibited at the beginning of the picture, which is going to be a problem for Alice in the years that follow (writing children in the 1970's was a nightmare unless you cast Tatum O'Neal or Jodie Foster, the latter of whom has a small role in this).

But the acting is good.  Burstyn brings a naturalism to her Alice, a modern woman who doesn't understand that it's not her gender, but her age, that will hold her back with the dreams she gave up to start a family.  There's an interesting commentary there about how the women's liberation movement came too late for a lot of women who now had the opening to make their dreams come true, but not the time.  Coupled with Ladd, who is superb in a side role as Alice's rival-turned-friend where she continually steals scenes, it's a great pairing and proof that Scorsese is capable of getting strong performances from women when he tries.  Kristofferson doesn't have a lot to do here but look pretty and then bounce off of Burstyn's monologues (this is very much an actress showcase film), but he does that well.

Freaky Friday (1976)

Film: Freaky Friday (1976)

Stars: Jodie Foster, Barbara Harris, John Astin, Sparky Marcus

Director: Gary Nelson

Oscar History: No nominations, though both Foster & Harris (and the Original Song "I'd Like to Be You for a Day") were nominated for Golden Globes, so it was relatively close to inclusion.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Barbara Harris-click here to learn more about Ms. Harris (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As I mentioned last weekend, Barbara Harris had an unusual film career, and it's not entirely clear what caused it.  Harris seemed to take long breaks in her career, sometimes very long ones (we'll talk more about that in two weeks when we get to the conclusion of our month devoted to her), and at least a few of these were voluntary.  Her offbeat persona seemed a bit at a loss in the 1970's, though, in a way it might not have been a decade later when the 1980's were more welcoming to comedic talents & nontraditional beauties (the best comparison I can make to Harris might be Madeline Kahn, who like Harris also enjoyed a long stage career interspersed with memorable film roles) so it's possible she also struggled to find work that suited her.  This series focuses exclusively on movies I'd never seen before, and so we are going to skip what is generally considered to be Harris' best performance, as Albuquerque in Robert Altman's Nashville (one of my all-time favorite films, and a performance I would've definitely nominated Harris for in my personal awards), and move to the height of her movie stardom in 1976, where she won two Golden Globe nominations, including for today's sleeper Disney hit.

(Spoilers Ahead) Freaky Friday is one of the many body-swapping comedies that audiences in the 1970's & 80's became obsessed with, and is about Annabel (Foster), a 13-year-old girl who hates her braces, has a crush on the boy-next-door, and struggles in school (despite an aptitude for learning), who on Friday the 13th swaps bodies with her uptight, perfect housewife mother Ellen (Harris), who cannot make a connection with her daughter.  The two try to make their own lives work, at first assuming the other one has it easy, but eventually gaining an appreciation for the other, attempting to deal with a 30-person meal last minute for an adult Annabel and a young Ellen having to win a field hockey game (with less than happy results).  The two eventually switch back, firmly understanding each other & vowing to have a better relationship going forward.

Freaky Friday was one of a number of Disney films that Lindsay Lohan made her name off of during the successful period of her young career (Lohan also made The Parent Trap and Herbie Fully Loaded, the latter being her last commercial success to date).  Lohan's film was how I was familiar with the Freaky Friday franchise, as I saw this in high school & loved it-Jamie Lee Curtis is superb as the mother, and Lohan & Curtis play well off of each other.  The film also allows more interactions between the two post-swap, helping each other & making it feel like a truly earned relationship build, rather than just something they both do away from each other, which is what Freaky Friday does.  Harris & Foster only have one scene together post-swap, and never interact while they're "in each other's bodies."

This is the wrong choice, and Disney was wise to correct it because the original Freaky Friday is an unmitigated bore.  Even if it's your first body-swapping comedy, you still are going to see every joke coming a mile away, and it's ridiculous how clueless both women are about their counterparts' lives.  I know that in the 1970's the assumption was that parents were less-aware of what was going on in their children's lives, but come on-Ellen in her daughter's body at least has to realize how ludicrous she's going to sound if she doesn't at least tamp down her behavior, and Annabel somehow knows how to properly stuff a turkey, but doesn't know where her mother keeps her checkbook?  It's a stupid movie, and while the lead actresses do their best (Harris is fun, in particular), it doesn't save a slog of a film from collapsing on its premise at least twenty minutes in.

The Mauritanian (2021)

Film: The Mauritanian (2021)

Stars: Jodie Foster, Tahar Rahim, Shailene Woodley, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zachary Levi

Director: Kevin Macdonald

Oscar History: Despite Jodie Foster winning a Golden Globe, the film received no Oscar nominations. This is the first time the Globe winner in this category didn't get in with AMPAS since 1976.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We are one week away from the Oscar nominations FINALLY being announced.  This is a blog that devotes an inordinate amount of time not just to the Oscars, but to the individual films that are nominated at the Oscars (we're less concerned about following the minutia of the actual race as other sites with access to publicists cover that well, hence no Globes article this week, but I will be publishing my final predictions at some point in the next seven days).  Inevitably there will be OVP contenders I haven't seen-I know for a fact that I haven't seen enough International Feature Film nominees to come out of this completely done, and I'm currently predicting some films I haven't seen in at least the Original Song & Makeup categories, but I'm goaling myself to watch at least a couple more films that I think are in contention before Monday, and we'll be profiling them throughout this week as I watch my final 2021 screenings before playing "catchup mode."  One of the last films of the race we have to profile is The Mauritanian, a movie that gained much more prominence after the recent Golden Globes with Jodie Foster's surprise victory.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Mauritanian is based on the true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi (Rahim), a man captured by the US government & held for 14 years in Guantanamo Bay under initially hazy grounds, with us eventually realizing that he is wrongfully imprisoned.  Despite the fact that "things like that don't happen in America" Salahi is kept in jail without due process for over a decade, and the only people who attempt to help him are Nancy Hollander (Foster) and her assistant Teri (Woodley), not because they believe him at first but because they believe in the rule of law.  As the film unfolds, though, they understand that he is not only innocent, but what is happening in Guantanamo Bay defies every convention of the rule-of-law, and bringing that to light becomes the most important aspect of the case.

The film is a fascinating story, but it's proof that a compelling story doesn't always make for a strong movie.  The movie highlights the national shame that is Guantanamo Bay, which I think will someday rank amongst the truly worst atrocities of not just the Bush, but also the Obama & Trump administrations for letting it stay open (Joe Biden-please close this national stain down)...but it rarely gives us a story with a lot of newness you didn't already know.  The reveals don't read as shock so soon after this happened.

Tahar Rahim is kind of acting in another movie, he's so much better than his costars; he finds a rage & personality in his character that you don't usually see from a movie like this (where we expect him to simply play the frustrated victim); anyone who saw him in A Prophet knew he could do this, but this hopefully will open doors up to American audiences with this.  Foster could play this in her sleep but it's not going to rank amongst her best work (and it'd be weird if she got a third Oscar for this), and Woodley is incredibly dull.  Worst of the bunch is Cumberbatch, sporting a terrible Southern accent, who brings none of the depth to his work that Rahim is doing in every corner of the movie.  Cumberbatch, not my favorite but someone whose natural cadence is musical onscreen, should avoid playing Americans in the future as this is clearly not his strong suit.

OVP: A Very Long Engagement (2004)

Film: A Very Long Engagement (2004)
Stars: Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, Dominique Pinon, Chantal Neuwirth, Marion Cotillard, Jodie Foster
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Cinematography, Art Direction)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We're kicking off a slightly short week (Happy Labor Day y'all!) for the blog, but it should be a full one.  I'm hoping by end-of-week that we'll have analysis of our House races, another Saturday installment in our month devoted to Gina Lollobrigida, and the completion of the 2005 OVP (and we'll be kicking right off into the next year on Monday, as I'm already set for our 12th year).  We will also have four reviews for our film theme this week, devoted to my favorite category at the Oscars, Cinematography.  Each film this week was cited in Oscar's most beautiful, and frequently classiest, category, and to kick things off we're going to go across the pond to France, with the star-studded A Very Long Engagement.

(Spoilers Ahead) A Very Long Engagement is about Mathilde (Tautou), a woman in World War I who is searching for her fiancé Manech (Ulliel), who was sent to "No Man's Land" for a self-inflicted wound (essentially a death sentence).  She is convinced that he did not die, and instead will come back to her someday despite all evidence to the contrary.  As she works to discover what happened in the "last seconds" of her beloved's life, she uncovers multiple cruelties that happened to men who could not handle the war, and the callousness of the government in forcing enlisted soldiers to suddenly have bravery beyond-their-years.  As she continues, she finally finds that Manech has not died, but is instead in a hospital with amnesia, and though in the film's final moments it's understood that he does not recognize her, she is still happy to know that he is alive, and he did not leave her.

A Very Long Engagement was the much-anticipated follow-up to Jeunet's beloved Amelie, a film that I have never seen (and a friend of mine who I know will read this article has chastised me for it, as it's his favorite film) and therefore don't have a built-in appreciation for Tautou in her iconic role.  I will get to the film eventually (it was cited for multiple Oscars), but while I appreciate what she's doing here, her character isn't interesting on-the-page for my money, and she doesn't expand it enough.  It's Cotillard, as a strange woman bent on revenge, that pretty much steals the whole movie (this was her pre-Oscar, and thus why you might not know she's in the film in the same way you would Tautou or Foster).  But without a compelling central character, and with a convoluted run-time & script, A Very Long Engagement is the kind of movie you know has a good story, but doesn't know how to ground it cinematically, and thus isn't bad, but isn't good at the same time.

The film won two Academy Award nominations, one for Cinematography and one for Art Direction.  Our theme this week is on cinematography, but it's the lesser of the two citations.  The film relies on "yellow" as a recurring motif-the movie is bathed in a golden lens, and this gives it a distinctive palette, but I find that reliance on lenses almost never completely work.  The lenses separate the film into warm peacetime and cool wartime colors, but it's a bit broad, and it makes it always feel like it's golden outside when it's cloudy.  The vistas, though, look lovely regardless of the marring the production team is doing, but I just wasn't onboard.  Art Direction was better.  The movie only occasionally feels like a set, and frequently it has a lot of great detail (like the library, or the overstuffed houses).  The prisons are a bit barren & feel slightly off (too clean), but all-in-all the art direction is a worthy find for the Academy, who doesn't often nominate foreign-language films in the tech categories.

OVP: Tom Sawyer (1973)

Film: Tom Sawyer (1973)
Stars: Johnny Whitaker, Jodie Foster, Celeste Holm, Warren Oates, Jeff East, Kunu Hank
Director: Don Taylor
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Costume Design, Art Direction, Song Score)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

As we move forward with our five-day tribute to the films of 1973, we're going to move from Oscar winners to mere nominees, and not ones where we have an acting nominee in sight.  The works of Mark Twain have been countlessly told on the big-screen, but it doesn't appear Oscar cared for an installment of his bibliography more than 1973's Tom Sawyer.  The film is a pretty faithful adaptation to the original novel (which is good fun even if literary titans frequently dismiss it on the way to Huckleberry Finn), but with a catch-this is a musical.  Something I didn't know when I started watching it, to be honest-I assumed the Song Score citation was because we were going to get a bunch of 1800's classics played in the background, not because we'd see actually singing onscreen.  But that's what happened, and honestly-it just enhances the "good fun" angle.

(Spoilers Ahead) For those of you who somehow missed this tome in your childhoods, the story of Tom Sawyer goes as follows.  Tom (Whitaker) is a young scalawag, always into mischief, and being raised by his Aunt Polly (Holm) much to her consternation (even though she loves him).  Tom's only true friend is Huck Finn (East), an orphan boy that is even more on the outskirts of town than Tom.  The two boys witness the murder of the town's doctor, and know that the man accused of the murder, Muff Potter (Oates) was really innocent, and it was Joe (played by Hank, and yes in a sign this was written 150 years ago, his name in the movie comes with a racist moniker that I'm not going to repeat, so he'll be referred to simply as "Joe" in this article), a mean local man, who actually killed the doctor.  Tom eventually confesses despite a blood oath between the two, fraying their friendship, but endearing him to local girl Becky (Foster), who is his love interest.  The film ends with Joe getting arrested, Huck setting off on the Mississippi (the film would get a less critically-successful musical sequel about Huck), and Tom maturing into a young man.

The film, as I said, is really devoted to the original text-almost every major scene in the novel, from the whitewashing to Tom's "engagement" to Becky to Huck nearly being adopted are all there.  But they are set to music.  With one exception these are pretty inconsequential, though they're well-staged.  Celeste Holm and her two onscreen children singing "Tom Sawyer" is witty & delicious (who knew Celeste Holm would take so well to a musical?) and the entire "Gratification" number would make Oliver proud.  The best, though, is "River Song," which to me comes across as a classic-it's refrained multiple times, and is performed by country music star Charley Pride.  The score was written by John Williams (yes THAT John Williams) and the Sherman Brothers, and though it never quite makes it to the same level as "River Song," I enjoyed it.

The film's other two nominations were for Costume and Art Direction.  Neither of these is particularly special.  It's fun to see little Jodie Foster armed with light blonde hair (her hair looks so much like my childhood best friend and next door neighbor when I was growing up that I did a spit take when I first saw her onscreen) in random assorted outfits, but this is fitting if not all that interesting period work.  The art direction is the same-the best set designs were the steamship, which wasn't built for this film specifically (and apparently is something you can still tour/ride in Wisconsin), and the rolling hillsides, which, again, is more a location scout than an art director's job.  Still, this is good, wholesome fun.  Nothing groundbreaking, but enjoyable.

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.