The dust has settled from the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and it’s time to do a little shuffling of the deck when it comes to my 2014 Oscar predictions and we’ll begin with Best Picture because… why not?
Now I know what a lot of you that were tracking the Cannes Festival results may be thinking… What about Blue is the Warmest Color? It won the Palme d’Or? Well, I don’t think a controversial, three hour lesbian drama with a ten minute, graphic sex scene has much of a shot at Best Picture. If I’m wrong, so be it, but I don’t think I am. However, there were four films that played at the fest that have very strong chances at Best Picture, two of which I didn’t even have among my contenders before today.
The two new contenders are Asghar Farhadi‘s The Past (read my review here), which saw a Best Actress win for Berenice Bejo in Cannes, and J.C. Chandor‘s All is Lost (read my review here). I really enjoyed both films, particularly All is Lost, which has now eked its way into my top nine.
I’ve also got a new film at #1, as I’ve dipped George Clooney‘s Monuments Men down to #4 (based on some things I’ve heard about Clooney’s tonal approach to the film), behind Martin Scorsese‘s The Wolf of Wall Street, David O. Russell‘s American Hustle and Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis (read my review here). Those four films along with the high-climbing Before Midnight now make up my top five.
After seeing and loving Inside Llewyn Davis in Cannes it jumped from #31 on my chart to #3 and Before Midnight made a similar giant leap, moving from #21 to #5.
The biggest drop on my chart of 40 films belongs to Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, which I saw some footage from in Cannes (read about that here) and wasn’t particularly impressed. The same goes for the Weinstein’s Grace of Monaco starring Nicole Kidman, which will likely remain a strong Best Actress contender, but I don’t see its Best Picture prospects being all that high.
So, for now, here’s my top nine and the films I currently believe have the best chance of being nominated for Best Picture (see the full field of 40 right here):
- The Wolf of Wall Street
- American Hustle
- Inside Llewyn Davis *
- Monuments Men
- Before Midnight *
- Captain Phillips
- Foxcatcher
- Saving Mr. Banks
- All is Lost *
Of course, I’ve only seen three of those films (marked with an *) and the other six are all still a matter of great speculation, but that’s what this is all about.
Just outside my top nine I actually have three other films I’ve seen, all three in Cannes, with those being Ryan Coogler‘s Fruitvale Station (read my review here), The Past and Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska (read my review here), the latter of which I think may appeal to the older members of the Academy more than it did critics in Cannes and the muted, yet respectable, response from Cannes critics may give it a better shot once it’s seen by the critical base at large later this year.
Of course, like I said, I have 40 contenders ranked, all of which you can see right here, though you will need to be registered with RopeofSilicon.com and logged in to see the full field.
I will also be updating all the other categories, including Best Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor and Actres, Director and the Screenplay categories over the coming days so stay tuned. It may only be the beginning of June, but the Oscar race is underway and festivals such as Telluride, Venice and Toronto aren’t all that far off.
