Updated 2015 Oscar Predictions: Best Picture is Still Very Much Up for Grabs

Last year it was relatively easy to predict a Best Picture front-runner following the Telluride, Venice and Toronto film festivals, the 12 Years a Slave vs. Gravity narrative was pretty much set in stone, which ultimate made for a rather dull awards season. This year there is no such front-runner. In fact, the film that sits atop my Best Picture predictions is the same film I predicted way back in March and I see no reason to change now. Actually, it seems like a more obvious prediction now than it did then.

I know some critics and prognosticators will try and suggest Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s Birdman (Fox Searchlight) is the out-of-the-gates one to beat of those that have been seen, but that seems like a movie more likely to find recognition in acting and craft categories rather than the big prize. Of course, I’m speaking with a limited perspective based only on what I’ve read having not seen the film yet, but I feel confident in saying it will be around for the majority of the awards season as a top contender, though remaining a film highly lauded by critics, yet a little too much of an art film for the Academy to hand it Best Picture.

Continuing on, in this latest update I’ve bounced Foxcatcher (Sony Classics) out of my list of predicted nominees. It’s very good, but just too dark, somber, slow and morose for the Academy. By the end of the year it might squeak in at the bottom of the pack, but it won’t be competing for the top prize.

There are two films I can’t quite figure out what to do with in Boyhood (IFC) and Whiplash (Sony Classics), two of the best films of the year so far, both critically acclaimed, but do they stand a chance at the Oscars? Of the films that have been seen this year, I would say Boyhood is the most talked about movie of the year, at least of those that will be competing at the Oscars (sorry Guardians of the Galaxy), but we’re left to wonder what kind of campaign IFC can mount. Then you have Whiplash, one of many films in the Sony Classics stable, will it be able to find its way into the Best Picture race and other deserving categories (Supporting Actor, Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography, Directing) or will it be relegated to only a couple nominations and nothing more?

Other than Birdman, the two films to make a splash during the fall festival circuit so far are The Imitation Game (Weinstein) and The Theory of Everything (Focus), both will be nominated for Best Picture as well as play heavy roles elsewhere in the race, but I can’t quite feel either one of them earning the overwhelming support to nab a Best Picture win.

Then we come to the New York Film Festival, which is on the horizon and will bring us a first look at David Fincher‘s Gone Girl (Fox) and Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Inherent Vice (Warner Bros.). I’ve heard a smattering of buzz for Gone Girl, but could it be too dark for Academy sensibilities? And Inherent Vice seems too quirky a dark comedy to get enough support.

Then we come to Unbroken (Universal) and Christopher Nolan‘s Interstellar (Paramount) as this race is likely to remain up for grabs throughout the entire season unless Angelina Jolie‘s Unbroken ends up being the complete biopic of which both Theory of Everything and Imitation Game are not. This is to wonder if Unbroken can be both superbly acted and emotionally staggering, something both Theory and Imitation possess when combined, but not entirely on their own.

There are also films still to see such as the only musical contender in Into the Woods (Disney), J.C. Chandor‘s A Most Violent Year (A24), Ava DuVernary‘s Martin Luther King feature Selma (Paramount), Tim Burton‘s Big Eyes (Weinstein), Clint Eastwood‘s American Sniper (Warner Bros.), David Ayer‘s Fury (Sony) and Rupert Wyatt‘s The Gambler (Paramount). Considering how locked up the race seemed to be last year by this time, the fact we have this many possible contenders still to see feels almost unprecedented.