My thoughts on the 2018 Oscar nominations

For most movie fans an exciting period in the year has started, as the Oscar nominations have been published. It usually is time in which fans question some of the choices, try to guess who is going to win in which category and of course watch the ceremony to see if they are right. After the Moonlight/La La Land controversy during last year’s event enough measures will probably have been made to prevent something like that happening again. There are still some weeks to go until it is March 4, so let’s take a short look at some of the categories and see if there are surprises or big mistakes.

When looking through the complete list, the thing which stood out the most to me was the animation category. The nominated movies this year are:
“The Boss Baby”
“The Breadwinner”
“Coco”
“Ferdinand”
“Loving Vincent”
It might not have been the most amazing year when it comes to animation, but selecting The Boss Baby (which I thought was horrible) when movies like Captain Underpants and The Lego Batman Movie were also released just baffles me to be honest. If you saw my end of year list, you know who I want to win here.

In the best picture category these were the nominees:
“Call Me by Your Name”
“Darkest Hour”
“Dunkirk”
“Get Out”
“Lady Bird”
“Phantom Thread”
“The Post”
“The Shape of Water”
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Living in a part of the world where not all the movies in the best picture category have been released (only 3 have been available) it is hard to have a well informed opinion about these nominees, although there don’t seem to be big surprises here. Having seen Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri just last week for a second time though, I will have to say this is my personal favorite as I’ve given it a perfect score. I love the acting, the story and the dialogue. It’s good to see that Martin McDonagh got a nomination for his screenplay. Which brings me to best directors:

“Dunkirk” Christopher Nolan
“Get Out” Jordan Peele
“Lady Bird” Greta Gerwig
“Phantom Thread” Paul Thomas Anderson
“The Shape of Water” Guillermo del Toro

This is an amazingly solid selection of directors and although it is a shame McDonagh isn’t part of the list, I do think these are all great nominations. A nice combination of very experienced directors with newcomers like Peele and Gerwig, who both have me solid movies. If I would have to guess who’s going to win I would go for the newcomers, mainly because politics play a big part when voting for the Oscars takes place.

Looking at the best actor category:
Timothée Chalamet, “Call Me by Your Name”
Daniel Day-Lewis, “Phantom Thread”
Daniel Kaluuya, “Get Out”
Gary Oldman, “Darkest Hour”
Denzel Washington, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.”
I’m really surprised that Joaquin Phoenix is missing here as he was amazing in You Were Never Really Here. As I have only seen Get Out from the list I can’t comment on the other nominees.

When we look at the best actresses:
Sally Hawkins, “The Shape of Water”
Frances McDormand, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Margot Robbie, “I, Tonya”
Saoirse Ronan, “Lady Bird”
Meryl Streep, “The Post”
Mery Streep’s subscription to the category comes as no surprise, but it’s nice to see Saoirse Ronan and Frances McDormand in this category. Picking a winner though? Extremely hard.

Supporting actor:
Willem Dafoe, “The Florida Project”
Woody Harrelson, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Richard Jenkins, “The Shape of Water”
Christopher Plummer, “All the Money in the World”
Sam Rockwell, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
My favorite here (logically as I’ve only seen one movie) is Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards. His character is one that you won’t forget anytime soon. And as I haven’t seen any of the movies in the supporting actress category I will skip that one.

Also good to see that the new Bladerunner, despite that the fact that it wasn’t as successful as hoped, got a few nominations.

What were you surprised about looking at all the nominations this year?