Oscars 2020 predictions: Who will win and who should win

Feb. 4, 2020 4:30 AM PT

No, it wasn’t just your imagination. This actually was the shortest Oscar season ever. The nominations were revealed on Jan. 13, and the awards will be handed out this Sunday.

As final voting closes today, Times critics Kenneth Turan and Justin Chang weigh in with their predictions of who and what will win in 11 key races this year. And, because they’ve put in the work of seeing these films all year long, who and what should win too.

Best picture

The nominees

“Ford v Ferrari”
“The Irishman”
“Jojo Rabbit”
“Joker”
“Little Women”
“Marriage Story”
“1917”
“Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood”
“Parasite”

TURAN SAYS ...

Will win: “1917”

Should win: “Little Women”

Though “1917” is on an awards roll and has to be considered the favorite, my own choice, an admitted passion for “Ford v Ferrari” notwithstanding, would be a victory for “Little Women,” an exceptional film that emphasizes what should be obvious: that stories about woman can involve us as fully and deeply, if not more so, than stories about men.

CHANG SAYS ...

Will win: “Parasite”

Should win: “Parasite”

I know, I know: a foolhardy prediction buoyed by wishful thinking. With awards from numerous precursor groups including the Producers Guild of America (which, like the motion picture academy, uses a preferential ballot), “1917” is clearly the statistical favorite. But the stats have mattered less and less in recent years, and this year, “Parasite,” a movie with no small amount of guild support itself, has become the darkest of horses, the wildest of cards. Far more than last year’s “Roma,” Bong Joon Ho’s movie seems poised to become the first non-English-language film ever to win best picture — and what’s more, it deserves to be.

Director

Sam Mendes, Bong Joon Ho and Martin Scorsese.

The nominees

Bong Joon Ho (“Parasite”)
Sam Mendes (“1917”)
Todd Phillips (“Joker”)
Martin Scorsese (“The Irishman”)
Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood”)

TURAN SAYS ...

Will win: Sam Mendes

Should win: Martin Scorsese

Mendes, like his film, has been winning consistently, but the low-key but dazzling way Scorsese combines his innate skill with a lifetime’s worth of filmmaking experience in “The Irishman” makes this as impeccably directed a movie as I saw all year.

CHANG SAYS ...

Will win: Sam Mendes

Should win: Bong Joon Ho

At the risk of contradicting myself, you can’t throw stats entirely out the window, and the Directors Guild of America, which gave Mendes its top prize, has as solid an Oscar-predictive track record as any organization out there. “1917” also seems likely to benefit from the academy’s penchant for long-take cinematography, as evidenced by recent double wins for Alfonso Cuarón (“Gravity,” “Roma”) and Alejandro G. Iñárritu (“Birdman,” “The Revenant”). Mendes will likely join them in the two-time winners’ circle, though my vote would go to Bong for pulling off the year’s most fluidly virtuosic filmmaking without relying on an overweening formal conceit.

Lead actor

The nominees

Antonio Banderas (“Pain and Glory”)
Leonardo DiCaprio (“Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood”)
Adam Driver (“Marriage Story”)
Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”)
Jonathan Pryce (“The Two Popes”)

TURAN SAYS ...

Will win: Joaquin Phoenix

Should win: Antonio Banderas

Phoenix’s work is the consensus choice of Oscar watchers, but I gravitated toward the performance Banderas gave in Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory,” a departure in tone from much of what he’s done before and a moving depiction of despair and salvation.

CHANG SAYS ...

Will win: Joaquin Phoenix

Should win: Antonio Banderas

“Joker” isn’t the movie I’d give Phoenix an Oscar for, but I can hardly begrudge him his all-but-assured victory: From “The Master” to “You Were Never Really Here,” he’s been doing brilliant, under-recognized, under-the-skin work for years. (You almost want to give him an Oscar just to see another of those eloquently self-effacing speeches he delivered at the SAG and BAFTA ceremonies.) As for the actual best performance in this ridiculously strong category, I’d give Banderas’ exquisite melancholy and sardonic grace in “Pain and Glory” a narrow edge over Driver’s wrenching work in “Marriage Story.”

Lead actress

Oscar-nominated actresses Renee Zellweger, Cynthia Erivo and Scarlett Johansson.

The nominees

Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet”)
Scarlett Johansson (“Marriage Story”)
Saoirse Ronan (“Little Women”)
Charlize Theron (“Bombshell”)
Renée Zellweger (“Judy”)

TURAN SAYS ...

Will win: Renée Zellweger

Should win: Cynthia Erivo

In all honesty, Zellweger was so strong in her depiction of Judy Garland’s travails that I will be fine if she wins, but the way Erivo as Harriet Tubman turned a historical icon into a completely convincing heroic human being was breathtaking.

CHANG SAYS ...

Will win: Renée Zellweger

Should win: Scarlett Johansson

Johansson has the trickiest assignment in “Marriage Story”: Given less screen time than Driver, she has to keep a grip on your sympathies as the partner who has already done her anguished soul-searching before the movie even opens. And she aces that task with cool understatement, pinpoint technique (that monologue) and a quiet vulnerability that keeps poking through the character’s guarded surface. Still, everyone knows this Oscar has long been Zellweger’s to lose, and to her credit, her daringly counterintuitive performance as Garland isn’t your run-of-the-mill celebrity impersonation: She wears the late Hollywood legend with artful, almost deliberate unease, like a mask that keeps slipping.

Supporting actor

The nominees

Tom Hanks (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”)
Anthony Hopkins (“The Two Popes”)
Al Pacino (“The Irishman”)
Joe Pesci (“The Irishman”)
Brad Pitt (“Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood”)

TURAN SAYS ...

Will win: Brad Pitt

Should win: Brad Pitt

It would be hard to find anyone who doesn’t think Pitt’s supremely natural performance as stuntman Cliff Booth doesn’t deserve every honor it’s getting, and I am in complete agreement.

CHANG SAYS ...

Will win: Brad Pitt

Should win: Brad Pitt

To be sure, Pitt is as much a lead as DiCaprio is, maybe even more so. If “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” is Tarantino’s tribute to old-school movie magic, then stuntmen like Cliff Booth may be the greatest of magicians and, as the ending makes clear, the most unsung of heroes. And the actor’s performance is a thing of beauty, of stillness incarnate; from that instantly iconic shot of him stripping off his shirt on a rooftop or the seductive restraint (up to a point, at least) with which he wields the threat of physical violence, few movies have seized upon his movie-star magnetism more brilliantly or intuitively. He’d be winning handily even if he weren’t the only contender in this category without an Oscar for acting.

Supporting actress

The nominees

Kathy Bates (“Richard Jewell”)
Laura Dern (“Marriage Story”)
Scarlett Johansson (“Jojo Rabbit”)
Florence Pugh (“Little Women”)
Margot Robbie (“Bombshell”)

TURAN SAYS ...

Will win: Laura Dern

Should win: Margot Robbie

Nothing against Dern’s magnificently showy performance in “Marriage Story,” but I was much more drawn to the way Robbie in “Bombshell” took the standard role of the naive ingenue and deftly underlined its pathos and vulnerability.

CHANG SAYS ...

Will win: Laura Dern

Should win: Florence Pugh

Like Phoenix, Zellweger and Pitt, Dern has won every significant precursor award, and she may outrank them all in terms of how much sheer industry goodwill she has on her side. She’s also nominated for a terrifically entertaining supporting turn that steals scenes in the grand Hollywood tradition. In the absence of Jennifer Lopez (“Hustlers”), my own pick would be Pugh for her supremely intelligent reclamation of Amy March in “Little Women,” incidentally one of three sterling performances she gave this season (see “Fighting With My Family” and “Midsommar” if you haven’t yet).

Original screenplay

The nominees

“Knives Out”
“Marriage Story”
“1917”
“Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood”
“Parasite”

TURAN SAYS ...

Will win: “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood”

Should win: “Marriage Story”

Tarantino’s Tarantino-esque adventures feels like the favorite, but I want to speak up for the art and sensitivity Noah Baumbach brought to taking on both sides of a relationship falling apart in “Marriage Story.”

CHANG SAYS ...

Will win: “Parasite”

Should win: “Parasite”

Brilliantly constructed by writers Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Won, “Parasite” has emerged as the unexpected favorite here, thanks to its wins with the WGA (where, it should be noted, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” wasn’t eligible) and the BAFTAs (where it was — and lost). While I’m also fond of the blistering, bittersweet comedy of Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” and the airtight whodunit plotting of Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out,” it’s been far too long since Almodóvar’s “Talk to Her” (2002) that a film not in the English language has been recognized for its words. (And speaking of Almodóvar, his “Pain and Glory” would have been quite a boon to this category this year.)

Adapted screenplay

The nominees

“The Irishman”
“Jojo Rabbit”
“Joker”
“Little Women”
“The Two Popes”

TURAN SAYS ...

Will win: “Jojo Rabbit”

Should win: “Little Women”

Sometimes the support for a film with multiple nominations coalesces in one category, and given its WGA victory, it looks this will be that category for “JoJo.” But I’m more impressed with the deft way Greta Gerwig honored the spirit of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel while simultaneously personalizing and modernizing the material.

CHANG SAYS ...

Will win: “Jojo Rabbit”

Should win: “Little Women”

Gerwig’s ebullient and inventive script for “Little Women” is exactly the kind of literary adaptation we should want more of from Hollywood: not reverent but deeply respectful, with a personal signature that dovetails beautifully with long-codified material. That the academy would toss such an impressive accomplishment aside in favor of Taika Waititi’s “Jojo Rabbit,” with its ghastly Hitler-BFF shenanigans and aggressive cutesification of Christine Leunens’ novel “Caging Skies,” is simply unconscionable. And given that Waititi has already won WGA and BAFTA prizes for adapted screenplay, increasingly likely.

Documentary (feature)

The nominees

“American Factory”
“The Cave”
“The Edge of Democracy”
“For Sama”
“Honeyland”

TURAN SAYS ...

Will win: “Honeyland”

Should win: All of the above

Having also secured a nomination in the international feature category makes “Honeyland” the favorite, but the truth is each of the five nominated docs is so strong I have to say they all are equally worthy of the prize. And that doesn’t happen every day.

CHANG SAYS ...

Will win: “American Factory”

Should win: “American Factory”

An award that many were once expecting to go to the transporting “Apollo 11” (which ultimately missed out on a nomination) will instead go to one of five strong films that focused on grim injustices and power struggles around the world. No easy predictions here; I suspect the excellent (and Obamas-produced) “American Factory” has the momentum, though “Honeyland,” which received unprecedented double nominations for documentary feature and foreign-language film, clearly has strong support as well. Neither outcome — in fact, no outcome in this category — would be undeserved.

International feature

The nominees

“Corpus Christi” (Poland)
“Honeyland” (North Macedonia)
“Les Misérables” (France)
“Pain and Glory” (Spain)
“Parasite” (South Korea)

TURAN SAYS ...

Will win: “Parasite”

Should win: “Pain and Glory”

The victory of Bong’s expertly crafted film is one of the evening’s foregone conclusions, but there was something completely magical for me in how the veteran Almodóvar pulled wildly disparate elements together to create a film so unexpectedly and inexpressibly moving.

CHANG SAYS ...

Will win: “Parasite”

Should win: “Parasite”

This is the one “Parasite” victory you can bet the farm on. I almost wish Bong’s movie was not even nominated for this award, which too many voters will treat as a consolation prize. I also wish that the academy’s arcane submission rules (only one title per country can be considered) weren’t in effect so that — with no offense to a strong field of nominees — great movies like Nadav Lapid’s “Synonyms” and Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” could have had at least a shot at getting nominated.

Animated feature

The nominees

“How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World”
“I Lost My Body”
“Klaus”
“Missing Link”
“Toy Story 4”

TURAN SAYS ...

Will win: “Toy Story 4”

Should win: “I Lost My Body”

Betting against Pixar in this category is not recommended, but France’s dark, strange and altogether wonderful “I Lost My Body” has not been the talk of the animation world for nothing.

CHANG SAYS ...

Will win: “Toy Story 4”

Should win: “I Lost My Body”

In a solid if not overwhelmingly inspired field, you have to hand it (ahem) to French director Jérémy Clapin for a moving and suspenseful film about a severed appendage skittering about Paris in search of its owner. I wouldn’t mind seeing it tie with the likely winner, “Toy Story 4,” which would make for a fittingly poetic hand-and-Forky combination.