Oscar Chart Updates in All Categories!

We're just 90 days away from our Christmas (Oscar Nomination Morning) and 123 days away from Hollywood's High Holy Night now (our New Year's Eve, the Oscar Ceremony) and we can definitely see the excitement building. All charts have been updated to reflect current buzz mixed with crystal ball hunches.

The biggest mover on the chart is Lion moving up in multiple categories for 6 predicted nominations. It won the Audience Award at Middleburg Film Festival this weekend (beating La La Land which beat it for the same prize in Toronto). With each festival outing it proves itself a true crowd pleaser and with its smartly positioned November release (away from one of the biggest Christmas gluts we've ever seen) it will have built up considerable momentum by the time precursors are hitting.

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SUPPORTING ACTRESS | SUPPORTING ACTOR | SCREENPLAYS
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FOREIGN FILMS 

Supporting Actor (and Lead Actor) Chart Updates

tfw you always think of Best Supporting Actor as the dullest and weakest of Oscar's annual acting races but then remember it's only because of how they pick 'em because there are already more than enough stellar candidates for a truly exciting and deserving lineup and even more worthy players to come with movies left to see so this list could double in size and it's going to be so painful to say goodbye to any of these men when you have to narrow it down to a measly five at year's end and how are you going to do that exactly and why do you put yourself through this to "list"?  [WHEW. Run on sentence intentional. Sometimes you have to spill and all the feelings want to come out at once.]

Twelve favorite supporting actors to date for 2016 in no particular order are pictured below. Films left to see that could affect this race include: Hell or High Water, Sully, Bleed For This, Hacksaw Ridge, Fences, and Silence... and probably a few I'm forgetting.

 

Of course Oscar views these things differently and Best Picture heat and level of fame helps more than it should in the acting categories. Let there be Chart Updates!

Best Actor Chart
Best Supporting Actor Chart 
Best Actress Chart
Best Supporting Actress Chart 

Viola Davis to Break Records if She Crashes the Best Supporting Actress Party

Over the weekend Viola Davis's camp confirmed they were officially aiming for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Fences. This disappoints us since she won the Lead Tony on Broadway for the role and now it seems like we're going to remain ages and ages away from another WOC winning Best Actress. It's been a long time since Halle Berry. Viola will of course become the most nominated black actress at the Oscars ever if she's nominated for Fences (which will be her 3rd nomination) making her the immediate frontrunner. 

Can Viola & Denzel repeat their Tony winning dominance at the Oscars for Fences?

Updated Best Actress Chart
Updated Best Supporting Actress Chart 

But let's discuss a less cited but even more impressive (though frustrating) record Viola may break. If Viola is nominated for Fences she becomes not just the most nominated black actress but the most nominated black woman of all time in any category. Viola is currently tied with five other women with two nominations each: most famously Oprah Winfrey (Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress... she also has the non-competitive Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award), Whoopi Goldberg (both for acting), and Ruth E Carter (both times for costume design) who rose up in the 1980s and 1990s. Since the turn of the century three more black women have joined them: Viola, plus Sharen Davis (both times for Costume Design) and Siedah Garrett (both times for Original Song). The only way Viola doesn't keep this record for her own is if Sharen Davis joins her in a tie for most nominated in January. Sharen designed the costumes for Fences and could also be in the mix this year for a third time. Of those six women, only Whoopi has won a competitive Oscar. 

Costume Designer Sharen Davis (Fences) could break the record WITH Viola!

Updated: Removed commentary about a possible posthumous nomination for Wilson to do more research on the topic.

Middleburg Finale: "Loving" & "La La Land"

Lynn Lee here stepping in for Nathaniel, on his way back to NYC, for the final day of the Middleburg Film Festival which was Sunday. As a D.C. area resident, I’ve been observing the rising profile of this local-ish film festival over the past few years with great interest.  Festival founder Sheila Johnson seems bent on making Middleburg a lower-altitude Telluride of the East, and she certainly has the Hollywood heavy-hitter connections to do it!  This year’s lineup was easily the most impressive so far in the festival’s short history; it’s as if the program was constructed specifically to highlight likely Oscar contenders.

The Lovings in the beloved Virginia.

In both that ambition and its picturesque Virginia setting, there was no more fitting film to cap the festival than Loving...

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The Gotham Nominations

Chris here. In case you missed it, the season's first precursor nominations were announced on Thursday: the Gothams! Somewhat like the New York City community's answer to the Indie Spirit Awards, the Gothams never fail to highlight some spunkier names thanks to each category being voted on by separate committees. Spotlight may have taken their big prize as well as Oscar last year, but it's the rare Gotham's win to continue on to Oscar.

The year's biggest nominee is Manchester By The Sea (which Nathaniel just reviewed) with four nominations. However, the biggest celebration is likely being had by A24: the New York-based distributor scored nominations for seven of their films, including lesser seen worthy titles like Krisha and Morris From America. This year's ceremony will also feature tributes to Amy Adams, Ethan Hawke, Arnon Milchan, and Oliver Stone.

BEST FEATURE

• Certain Women
• Everybody Wants Some!!
• Manchester By The Sea
• Moonlight
• Paterson

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