2014 Oscar Predictions: Post SAG and Globe Nominations Update

The 2014 Golden Globe nominations (find them here) are in, which means it’s time to once again take a look at our top categories at this year’s Oscars.

Next week the Critics’ Choice Awards nominees will be announced on Monday and on Friday, December 27th, Oscar nomination voting begins, which is to say everything you’re seeing right now will have an effect on the race. What kind of an effect is yet to be determined, but patterns are definitely beginning to appear.

In the last couple days 12 Years a Slave has earned its position as front-runner, but American Hustle seems to have climbed into a solid second place. At the same time Saving Mr. Banks has softened a bit after being mostly overlooked at the Globes and Tom Hanks missing out on a nomination from the Screen Actors Guild.

I’ll take a look at all of that and more directly below as I have updated all the top categories in my 2014 Oscar predictions. Have a look below.

Best Picture

After the SAG and Golden Globe nominations I’d say the three biggest boosts for titles that were already among my predicted nominees belong to 12 Years a Slave, American Hustle and Nebraska. Meanwhile, August: Osage County saw plenty of love from both orgs as the Weinsteins may have more than one player in this game and Lee Daniels’ The Butler may have missed out on any Globe nominations, but the love it was shown by the Screen Actors Guild is important to note. I still have it just outside the nominees, but that’s only because I still can’t bring myself to move Captain Phillips out.

12 Years a Slave
American Hustle
Saving Mr. Banks
Nebraska
Gravity
The Wolf of Wall Street
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis

Find the complete list of 20 ranked contenders right here.

Best Director

Not a lot to change here as the Globes don’t really tell us much, though their clear dislike of Saving Mr. Banks outside of Emma Thompson’s performance is worthy of note.

Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave)
Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity)
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (Inside Llewyn Davis)
John Lee Hancock (Saving Mr. Banks)
Martin Scorsese (The Wolf of Wall Street)

Find the complete list of 22 ranked contenders right here.

Best Actor

The nomination for Idris Elba (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom) is interesting until you realize it’s largely because they considered Nebraska a comedy and nominated Bruce Dern there. Had that not been the case who would have been bumped? Dern? Redford? Hanks? Elba?

This is still a tough category to pick as the Screen Actors Guild decided to go with Forest Whitaker (Lee Daniels’ The Butler) over Robert Redford (All is Lost).

Where I’m currently at a loss is to wonder, if Whitaker gets in, who drops out? Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips) continues to garner nominations and while Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street) didn’t receive a nomination from the Screen Actors Guild, that’s largely due to the film not being screened in time. As of now, it seems we have a log jam for those final two slots.

Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave)
Bruce Dern (Nebraska)
Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)
Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips)
Robert Redford (All is Lost)

Find the complete list of 19 ranked contenders right here.

Best Actress

For a while there I thought this might be a category where the final slot may be a tough one to get, but now it seems like the nominations are pretty much locked up. The only question remaining is who will eventually win as this is now a race between Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine) and Emma Thompson (Saving Mr. Banks).

Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)
Emma Thompson (Saving Mr. Banks)
Judi Dench (Philomena)
Sandra Bullock (Gravity)
Meryl Streep (August: Osage County)

Find the complete list of 13 ranked contenders right here.

Best Supporting Actor

Wow, what to do? When looking at the SAG and Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor you find four consistent names — Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave), Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club), Daniel Bruhl (Rush) and Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips). That’s significant. The two differences are Bradley Cooper (American Hustle) and James Gandolfini (Enough Said).

Missing from this lot are Tom Hanks (Saving Mr. Banks), Will Forte (Nebraska) and Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street). This means we effectively have nine actors competing for five spots. Four people on the bubble line is a lot.

Hanks is clearly on slippery ground, but I can’t take him out of the nominations just yet. I’m happy to see the love for Abdi and Bruhl, but I don’t think both can make it in. Then it seems like a three-way battle between Gandolfini, Hill and Forte with Cooper a distant long shot.

However, amid all this chaos at the bottom of the pile I think this is looking more and more like a win for Leto.

Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)
Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave)
Tom Hanks (Saving Mr. Banks)
Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips)
James Gandolfini (Enough Said)

Find the complete list of 20 ranked contenders right here.

Best Supporting Actress

The absence of Oprah Winfrey (Lee Daniels’ The Butler) from the Golden Globe nominations is as significant as is the love for the film overall from the Screen Actors Guild, which is to say I think the two cancel each other out. Winfrey is getting an Oscar nomination, you can count on that, but I think the recent nominations further my expectation Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave) is going to win this race.

The most significant note to take away from the SAG and Globe noms, however, is the fact Octavia Spencer (Fruitvale Station) didn’t receive a single nomination from either organization as it’s quite clear August: Osage County is getting more love at the moment than any other Weinstein title out there right now.