With the Oscars right around the corner, it’s only right to put my hat in the ring and make my predictions for this year and take an absolute shot in the dark to see who will be nominated for 2020’s Best Picture.  For this year’s predictions, I’ll be including up to 3 movies for each category. The first will be who I think will ultimately win the award.  The second is my personal opinion of who I think should win.  For this selection, I will only be picking films that I saw.  The final movie will be the extra nominee selection.  Not a snub per say, but basically if the category had one more spot available, what film would I nominate.  Once again these will only be films that I saw and they had to have had a realistic chance of being nominated in the first place.  Without further ado, here are my official 2019 Oscar predictions.

Best Picture

What Will Win: The Favourite

What Should Win: Roma

Extra Nominee: Eighth Grade

Best Director

Who Will Win: Alfonso Cuaron (Roma)

Who Should Win: Alfonso Cuaron (Roma)

Extra Nominee: Barry Jenkins (If Beale Street Could Talk)

Best Actor

Who Will Win: Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody)

Who Should Win: Christian Bale (Vice)

Extra Nominee: Lucas Hedges (Boy Erased)

Best Actress

Who Will Win: Glenn Close (The Wife)

Who Should Win: Lady Gaga (A Star Is Born)

Extra Nominee: Toni Collette (Hereditary)

Best Supporting Actor

Who Will Win: Mahershala Ali (Green Book)

Who Should Win: Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

Extra Nominee: Russell Hornsby (The Hate U Give)

Best Supporting Actress

Who Will Win: Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)

Who Should Win: Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)

Extra Nominee: Nicole Kidman (Boy Erased)

Best Original Screenplay

Who Will Win: Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara (The Favourite)

Who Should Win: Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara (The Favourite)

Extra Nominee: Bo Burnham (Eighth Grade)

Best Adapted Screenplay

Who Will Win: Spike Lee, David Rabinowitz, Charlie Wachtel, Kevin Willmott (BlacKkKlansman)

Who Should Win: Barry Jenkins (If Beale Street Could Talk)

Extra Nominee: Peter Chiarelli, Adele Lim (Crazy Rich Asians)

Best Animated Feature

Who Will Win: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)

Who Should Win: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)

Extra Nominee: Nick Park (Early Man)

Best Production Design

Who Will Win: Fiona Crombie, Alice Felton (The Favourite)

Who Should Win: Fiona Crombie, Alice Felton (The Favourite)

Extra Nominee: Jess Gonchar, Nancy Haigh (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs)

Best Cinematography

Who Will Win: Alfonso Cuaron (Roma)

Who Should Win: Alfonso Cuaron (Roma)

Extra Nominee: James Laxton (If Beale Street Could Talk)

Best Costume Design

Who Will Win: Sandy Powell (The Favourite)

Who Should Win: Sandy Powell (The Favourite)

Extra Nominee: Mary Vogt (Crazy Rich Asians)

Best Film Editing

Who Will Win: John Ottman (Bohemian Rhapsody)

Who Should Win: Barry Alexander Brown (BlacKkKlansman)

Extra Nominee: Jay Cassidy (A Star Is Born)

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Who Will Win: Jenny Shircore, Marc Pilcher, Jessica Brooks (Mary Queen of Scots)

Who Should Win: Kate Biscoe, Patricia DeHaney, Greg Cannom, Chris Gallaher (Vice)

Extra Nominee: Joel Harlow, Camille Friend, Ken Diaz (Black Panther)

Best Sound Mixing

Who Will Win: John Casali, Paul Massey, Tim, Cavagin (Bohemian Rhapsody)

Who Should Win: Mary H. Ellis, Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montano, Ai-Lee Ling (First Man)

Extra Nominee: Christopher Munro, Mike Prestwood Smith, Gilbert Lake (Mission Impossible: Fallout)

Best Sound Editing

Who Will WIn: John Warhurst (Bohemian Rhapsody)

Who Should WIn: John Warhurst (Bohemian Rhapsody)

Extra Nominee: Alan Robert Murray (A Star Is Born)

Best Visual Effects

Who Will Win: Roger Guyett, Grady Cofer, Matthew Butler, David Shirk (Ready Player One)

Who Should Win: Dan Deleeuw, Kelly Port, Russell Earl, Dan Sudick (Avengers: Infinity War)

Extra Nominee: Geoffrey Baumann, Jesse James Chisholm, Craig Hammack, Dan Sudick (Black Panther)

Best Original Score

Who Will Win: Terence Blanchard (BlacKkKlansman)

Who Should Win: Nicholas Britell (If Beale Street Could Talk)

Extra Nominee: Justin Hurwitz (First Man)

Best Original Song

What Will Win: Shallow (A Star Is Born)

What Should Win: Shallow (A Star Is Born)

Extra Nominee: Revelation (Boy Erased)

Best Documentary Feature

What Will Win: Free Solo

What Should Win: N/A

Extra Nominee: Won’t You Be My Neighbor

Best Foreign Language Film

What Will Win: Roma

What Should Win: Roma

Extra Nominee: N/A

Best Animated Short

What Will Win: Animal Behavior

What Should Win: Bao

Extra Nominee: N/A

Best Documentary Short

What Will Win: End Game

What Should Win: N/A

Extra Nominee: N/A

Best Live Action Short

What Will Win: Marguerite

What Should Win: N/A

Extra Nominee: N/A

Overall Totals (Who Will Win With at Least 2 wins)

The Favourite: 5 wins

Bohemian Rhapsody: 4 wins

Roma: 3 wins

BlacKkKlansman: 2 wins

Overall Totals (Who Should Win With at Least 2 wins)

Roma: 4 wins

The Favourite: 4 wins

Vice: 2 wins

A Star Is Born: 2 wins

If Beale Street Could Talk: 2 wins

Extra Nominations (Minimum 2 Extra)

Boy Erased: 3 nominations

Eighth Grade: 2 nominations

If Beale Street Could Talk: 2 nominations

Crazy Rich Asians: 2 nominations

A Star Is Born: 2 nominations

Black Panther: 2 nominations

So there you have it.  Some of the smaller categories are always a bit of a crapshoot and there’s a very solid chance I am wrong in a lot of these categories, but at the end of the night, I believe The Favourite will walk away with both the most wins, the biggest win of the night, and end up winning 5 of the 10 categories it is nominated for.  If I had my way, Roma would end up the big winner of the night and Boy Erased would be nominated for something, but I have no say so it’s just opinion at this point.  Now for the fun stuff.  How many of next year’s Best Picture nominees can I get right 1 year in advance?  I’ll list my 10 below knowing there will probably only be 8 or 9, but I want to look back at this a year from now and either pat myself on the back for doing a good job or laugh at how wrong I was (probably the latter).  So, here we go. Time to announce my way-too-early 2020 Best Picture Predictions.

The Irishman

The Laundromat

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

The Woman In The Window

Where’d You Go Bernadette

Ad Astra

Ford vs. Ferrari

The Last Thing He Wanted

The Glorias: A Life on the Road

Motherless Brooklyn

And that’s a wrap.  Some of these seem like a pretty safe and other seem to be more on the unknown/stretch side, but hopefully all of them are at least competitive enough where if they don’t get nominated, at least they’ll be in contention.  Only time will tell to see how right these initial predictions will be.