Final 2014 Oscar Nomination Predictions

Tomorrow morning, Thursday, January 16, Chris Hemsworth and Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs will announce the nominations for the 2014 Oscar Awards at 5:30 a.m. PT and I will be here with the list of nominees and commentary just as I am every year. However, before we get to the actual nominees, let’s take a look at each of the categories and offer up some predictions and explore the scenarios that may play out tomorrow morning.

As for the nomination totals, should things work out exactly as I’ve listed them below (and they won’t) here’s how the nomination tally would break down for the top seven:

12 Years a Slave – 11 nominations
Gravity – 9 nominations
American Hustle – 8 nominations
Captain Phillips – 7 nominations
Her – 6 nominations
Dallas Buyers Club – 6 nominations
Nebraska – 5 nominations

Let’s see how I got those numbers and please feel free to agree, disagree and offer up your own predictions in the comments below and return tomorrow morning for bragging rights.

Best Picture

The Best Picture category can have anywhere from 5-10 nominees depending on the voting. This year it feels like it may end up falling to eight as immense passion for a lot of these films seems low, but I’m sticking with the two year tradition and predicting nine.

As for the nine listed below, I feel quite confident in the order, though a little saddened that Inside Llewyn Davis is likely to miss the cut as the Coen brothers’ film doesn’t seem to be resonating with most as much as it did for me. In a year with ten concrete nominees I think it would have made it in. Two other alternates that may be able to slide in and take one of the final spots include Philomena and August: Osage County.

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Best Director

As far as I can tell, the Best Director category is a dead heat between Steve McQueen and Alfonso Cuaron for front-runner. I also think it’s safe to predict David O. Russell will get a nomination, but the next two spots aren’t so easy.

It seems safe predicting Paul Greengrass and the “smart” prediction for the fifth slot is Martin Scorsese, but I’m going with Spike Jonze in hope this year’s list isn’t entirely predictable. Then again, maybe even Alexander Payne might worm his way into the mix or possibly the Coens, should my feeling the Academy didn’t dig Inside Llewyn Davis is a little off.

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Best Actor

If you look around the Internet for predictions I bet you’ll see Robert Redford (All is Lost) and Christian Bale (American Hustle) on a lot of people’s lists and they’ll probably replace Leonardo DiCaprio and maybe Bruce Dern, but I for one can’t see both Dern and Redford getting a nomination and I don’t see Bale replacing DiCaprio as I don’t think Wolf will be entirely ignored.

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Best Actress

Cate Blanchett has this in the bag, but it is clearly not an easy category to predict as one presumed nominee is sure to be missing come Thursday morning, but will it be Amy Adams, Meryl Streep, Judi Dench, Sandra Bullock or Emma Thompson.

Personally I don’t see Bullock missing out and with the continued rise of American Hustle it seems Adams is in, which leaves me to decide between two Weinstein Co. contenders in Dench (strong in Philomena in just the right demographic) and Streep (you know, Meryl Streep) and Thompson, whose Mr. Banks landed with more-or-less a thud and has hardly been talked about all season. For these reasons I had to drop Thompson.

If you’re wondering what the smartest prediction would be, it would probably be to drop Dench, but I think there are too many things going for that performance for her to miss the cut and it would seem, based on my recent reader poll, many of you think it will be Streep that won’t hear her name called.

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Best Supporting Actor

Jared Leto, Michael Fassbender and Barkhad Abdi seem to be your locks here. Daniel Bruhl has found himself nominated far more than I ever expected, which shows Rush did manage to resonate with some folks and for that fifth slot I’m going with a more sentimental prediction in James Gandolfini. I imagine a lot of folks will be struggling with predictions for Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street) and perhaps Bradley Cooper (American Hustle) and I wouldn’t be surprised to see either make it, but I’m going with the gut here as I can’t quite make a strong enough argument for any of the alternates.

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Best Supporting Actress

As much as I like Jennifer Lawrence if she ends up taking this award from Lupita Nyong’o it would be a damn shame. Suffice to say, both can be assured of a nomination and I also think both Oprah Winfrey and June Squibb will be nominated, but Julia Roberts is a little tougher. However, with the Weinstein Co. likely missing out on a Best Picture nomination (which I’m sure Harvey isn’t happy about) he’s likely going to be pushing hard elsewhere.

The big spoiler to look out for here, however, is Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine) who’d I argue actually stole a lot of Blue Jasmine from Blanchett and there is also previous Oscar winner Octavia Spencer (Fruitvale Station) to consider, but the fact she didn’t receive a SAG nom doesn’t inspire much confidence.