Which 2019 Oscar Nominations Deserve to Win? Take the Poll!

The 2019 Academy Awards are here, and I’ve already thrown multiple tantrums about how idiotic some of the choices are…but that’s besides the point.

The nominations saw Roma and The Favourite lead the pack with ten nominations a piece along with a surprising amount of love for Cold War. We even have our first ever superhero movie to get nominated for Best Picture! There’s was also a lot of love for the controversial Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book, but those conversations deserve their own think pieces entirely. And no B Coops for Best Director? Maybe Warner Bros. needs to reconfigure their Oscar campaign strategy for future years.

Regardless, it’s time for your voice to be heard. Below are the nominees in each of the 24 Oscar categories. Vote for each film/person/song that you believe is worthy of taking home that lovely golden statue!

Best Supporting Actress

Nick’s Take: Regina King has been cleaning up at all the guild awards and took home the Golden Globe a few weeks ago, so I think this is her category to lose, and she’s my choice as well. But every woman in this category is completely deserving of the Oscar if I’m being completely honest. You can’t go wrong in my book!

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Best Supporting Actor

Nick’s Take: This category was one of the few that didn’t have me looking frantically around for something to break. Good job, Academy! I’m pleasantly surprised to see Adam Driver, Sam Elliot, and Richard E. Grant here. However, all three of them are most likely dark horses. I see it as a two-horse race with Mahershala Ali and Sam Rockwell far out in front of the rest of the pack with Ali very far out in front of Rockwell. It’s Ali’s to lose, but my personal choice would have to go to Richard E. Grant.

Honestly, I kind of just want to hang out with these five people; they all seem like good hangs. Can someone arrange that for me?

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Best Production Design

Nick’s Take: It’s sad to see First Man earned just a few technical awards. Even more unfortunate, it’s not going to win here. My vote goes to Mary Poppins Returns. Regardless of how you feel about the movie itself, its sets are pretty incredible.

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Best Costume Design

Nick’s Take: Umm, where exactly is A Simple Favor? Need I remind you all of how glamorous Blake Lively looked in that movie???? Ugh. I guess I’ll take Black Panther. Whatever.

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Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Nick’s Take: Am I the one that’s still confused as to why this is the only category that gets three nominations? Every year it seems like a major oversight.

Considering that Christian Bale transformed into Dick Cheney for Vice, I think that film will get the win.

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Best Film Editing

Nick’s Take: Personally, Vice felt a little all over the place, so my vote will be going elsewhere…and not to Bohemian Rhapsody, either. I see this as a race between BlacKkKlansman and The Favourite with The Favourite just sneaking out the win.

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Best Sound Editing

Nick’s Take: Since there’s much confusion on the whole sound editing vs. sound mixing thing, here’s two definitions:

Sound Editing: The sound editor is responsible for all of a film’s sound elements, including dialogue, sound effects, automated dialogue replacement and more with regards to their creation.

Sound Mixing: The sound mixer ultimately determines how an audience hears everything in a film. The sound mixer must decide what elements to emphasize and which to tone down.

With that in mind, I hope A Quiet Place takes home the trophy.

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Best Sound Mixing

Nick’s Take: I think Roma might be the sleeper here with how Alfonso Cuarón formed the world within his film, but concert footage in film relies strongly on sound mixing, so the two front runners here are A Star is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody. My vote goes to A Star is Born, and I have a growing sense that this is one of the few awards it can win.

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Best Visual Effects

Nick’s Take: Infinity War was like a splat of effects work with how many characters and action sequences it included. And normally, the most flashy film wins in these technical awards. However, given that the Academy is incredibly stuffy and snobby, they sometimes like to go with the movie with the title that sounds the least silly on a ballot. If you’re going by that logic, the leaders here are First Man and Christopher Robin.

My personal pick goes to First Man simply because you can never tell what is practical and what is CGI. That’s incredibly impressive.

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Best Cinematography

Nick’s Take: It’s a pleasant surprise to see three foreign films in this category. Good for you, Academy! You did something refreshing for a change. Ultimately, I see this category as a race between Cold War and Roma with Roma taking home the award. Deservedly so, I might add, as Roma is one of the better looking films of the last few years.

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Best Original Score

Nick’s Take: No Annihilation? No First Man? Huh? Whaaaaa-? How? Why? Whomst’d’ve???????

Still, If Beale Street Could Talk‘s score by Nicholas Britell is the most moving and lyrical score I heard all year. (It’s a great score to mellow out to if you’re looking for some recs.)

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Best Original Song

Nick’s Take: (clears throat) I’M OFF THE DEEP END, WATCH AS I DIVE IN!!!!!

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Best Animated Short Film

Nick’s Take: Bao‘s the favorite here simply by being the short film that everyone has seen because it played in front of Incredibles 2. Quite honestly, it’s the only one I’ve seen as well. Bao wins by default. Apologies to every other nominee!

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Best Live-Action Short Film

Nick’s Take: (frantically tries to find a slant because I haven’t seen any of these) Uh, uh, uh, uh…Fauve!

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Best Short Subject Documentary

Nick’s Take: Check out my reviews for each documentary short to see where you can watch them. Hooray for availability!

The documentary shorts are always incredible harrowing and depressing, and this year is no different. My bet is on Black Sheep to take home the award, but my personal choice has to be End Game, which made me ugly cry far more than I’d like to admit.

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Best Feature Documentary

Nick’s Take: You’re telling that Won’t You Be My Neighbor? wasn’t good enough to get on this list? Get out of here with that blasphemy!

Oh well, at least Free Solo is the most intense piece of filmmaking you’ll see this year.

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Best Foreign Language Film

Nick’s Take: We all know it’s Roma, right?

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Best Animated Feature Film

Nick’s Take: I can’t wait for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to lose because stiff Academy members feel weird giving the trophy to a movie titled “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” only to then give it to Isle of Dogs because that’s a much more safe and approachable film.

Jeez, my inner cynic is showing HARD right now.

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Best Original Screenplay

Nick’s Take: Shout out to Paul Schrader for First Reformed, but the nomination will most likely be the unfortunate culmination for that particular project. My vote is on either The Favourite or Roma, although I’m fearful that the actual award will be given to Green Book in the end.

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Best Adapted Screenplay

Nick’s Take: I was surprised to see so much love for Netflix’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs throughout the nomination announcements. Good for the Coens! Those struggling artists that have never made anything insightful or interesting before finally have their calling card.

I kid, of course. Good on you Coens, but you’re definitely not going to win the award nor will I choose you for my personal pick. My choice is Barry Jenkins for If Beale Street Could Talk, and I think the Academy will go that way as well. If Beale Street Could Talk is arguably the biggest snub in the Best Picture category, so I think the Academy will reward Barry Jenkins here as an informal apology. After all, the Academy likes to take care of its own (i.e. those that have won awards in the past) so this seems like a logical choice.

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Best Actress

Nick’s Take: It’s looking more and more certain that Glenn Close will win this award, which is…fine. I think she offers more of a standard performance that is elevate by awards talk with pundits saying that “this is her time to win!” My two favorites are Yalitza Aparicio and Melissa McCarthy, and I’m swaying towards McCarthy as my favorite performance of the year, regardless of gender. Her work in Can You Ever Forgive Me? is easily the best of her career, and I really want her to get recognition for it.

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Best Actor

Nick’s Take: We can all agree that Ethan Hawke should be here somewhere, right? Say what you want about First Reformed as a movie but there’s absolutely no denying that Hawke is spectacular in it. Do better, various voting bodies!

Of the nominees, my favorites are Bale as the cantankerous Dick Cheney and Bradley Cooper as a drunk Eddie Vedder. I think I’m more for Bale, but like the presidential race in 2000, this is one is initially too close to call.

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Best Director

Nick’s Take: I’d be okay with any of these nominees winning the Oscar except for maybe Adam McKay. However, I think we all know that Alfonso Cuarón is the clear favorite according to many voting prognosticators. I happen to agree.

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Best Picture

Nick’s Take: I’ll let critic David Erlich take it from here:

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY is possibly the worst thing to ever win a thing. #GoldenGlobes

— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) January 7, 2019

Just no Bohemian Rhapsody or Green Book and we’ll get out of this situation mostly unscathed. Mostly.

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Thank you for reading! What are your thoughts on the 2019 Oscar nominations? Comment down below!

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