“Eighth Grade,” “Roma,” “First Reformed,” “Mary Poppins Returns.” Courtesy of A24, Netflix and Disney.
The more movies one sees during a given year, the more maddening one finds the conspicuous omissions during awards season, where voters’ memories fail to extend past the month of December. Therefore, as per annual tradition at Indie Outlook, I am offering my picks for what I would like to see nominated in each major Oscar category, with a few notable additions. There were so many extraordinary performances by young people in 2018 that I split my Best Actor Under 18 category into two, allowing five actors and five actresses to be recognized. What you won’t see here is an equivalent of the Oscars’ currently shelved Best Popular Picture category, a blatant marketing ploy that is an insult to both “popular pictures” (branding them as less-than-prestigious) and Best Pictures (deeming them unpopular).
My favorite film of the year, Bo Burnham’s brilliant portrait of adolescent anxiety, “Eighth Grade,” naturally earned the most nominations—a total of seven—followed closely by Alfonso Cuarón’s deeply personal jaw-dropper, “Roma,” with six. Paul Schrader’s latest masterwork, “First Reformed,” and Rob Marshall’s euphoric labor of love, “Mary Poppins Returns,” garnered five apiece, while female-helmed Best Picture contenders—Debra Granik’s “Leave No Trace” and Jennifer Fox’s “The Tale”—were recognized in four categories including Best Director (a list all-too-often comprised solely of men). Also acquiring four nods each are two of the year’s scariest films, Xavier Legrand’s under-seen French thriller, “Custody,” and Ari Aster’s polarizing triumph, “Hereditary.” No less than thirteen unforgettable achievements existing outside these categories are recognized in the list of special mentions concluding this article, such as Best Ensemble and Best Cameo (who else but Navckid Keyd?).
And the nominees are…
BEST PICTURE
Eighth Grade
First Reformed
Leave No Trace
Life and Nothing More
The Tale
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Capernaum
Custody
The Guilty
Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc
Roma
BEST DOCUMENTARY
The King
Minding the Gap
Muppet Guys Talking
The Sentence
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
BEST ANIMATED FILM
Incredibles 2
Isle of Dogs
Mirai
Ruben Brandt, Collector
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
BEST DIRECTOR
Bo Burnham, “Eighth Grade”
Alfonso Cuarón, “Roma”
Jennifer Fox, “The Tale”
Debra Granik, “Leave No Trace”
Paul Schrader, “First Reformed”
BEST ACTOR
Christian Bale, “Vice”
Steve Coogan, “Stan & Ollie”
Ethan Hawke, “First Reformed”
Josh O’Connor, “God’s Own Country”
John C. Reilly, “Stan & Ollie”
BEST ACTRESS
Alba August, “Becoming Astrid”
Toni Collette, “Hereditary”
Saoirse Ronan, “Mary Queen of Scots”
Amandla Stenberg, “The Hate U Give”
Evan Rachel Wood, “Allure”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Robert Forster, “What They Had”
Jake Gyllenhaal, “Wildlife”
Josh Hamilton, “Eighth Grade”
Michael B. Jordan, “Black Panther”
Sam Neill, “Sweet Country”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jong-seo Jeon, “Burning”
Alia Shawkat, “Blaze”
Julia Sarah Stone, “Allure”
Tilda Swinton, “Suspiria”
Letitia Wright, “Black Panther”
BEST ACTOR UNDER 18
Zain Al Rafeeda, “Capernaum”
Thomas Gioria, “Custody”
Dorian Le Clech, “A Bag of Marbles”
Tomás Mrvík, “Winter Flies”
Evan Rosado, “We the Animals”
BEST ACTRESS UNDER 18
Elsie Fisher, “Eighth Grade”
Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, “Leave No Trace”
Isabelle Nélisse, “The Tale”
Millicent Simmonds, “A Quiet Place”
Ylva Bjørkaas Thedin, “Phoenix”
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Bo Burnham, “Eighth Grade”
Alfonso Cuarón, “Roma”
Jennifer Fox, “The Tale”
Gustav Möller & Emil Nygaard Albertsen, “The Guilty”
Paul Schrader, “First Reformed”
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Bradley Cooper, Will Fetters & Eric Roth, “A Star is Born”
Emmanuel Finkiel, “Memoir of War”
Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini, “Leave No Trace”
Paul Greengrass, “22 July”
Ethan Hawke & Sybil Rosen, “Blaze”
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Manuel Dacosse, “Double Lover”
Alexander Dynan, “First Reformed”
Alfonso Cuarón, “Roma”
Dylan River & Warwick Thornton, “Sweet Country”
Lukasz Zal, “Cold War”
BEST EDITING
Joshua Altman & Bing Liu, “Minding the Gap”
Simon Barker, Alex Bingham, Èlia Gasull Balada & Laura Israel, “The King”
Yorgos Lamprinos, “Custody”
Jennifer Lilly, “Eighth Grade”
Ben Rodriguez Jr., “First Reformed”
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Alexandra Byrne, “Mary Queen of Scots”
Ruth E. Carter, “Black Panther”
Sandy Powell, “How to Talk to Girls at Parties”
Guy Speranza, “Stan & Ollie”
Györgyi Szakács, “Sunset”
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Eugenio Caballero, “Roma”
John Myhre, “Mary Poppins Returns”
Pawel Pogorzelski, “Hereditary”
Jean Rabasse, “Climax”
Gary Williamson, “Paddington 2”
BEST SCORE
Geoff Barrow & Ben Salisbury, “Annihilation”
Nathan Halpern, “Minding the Gap”
Davíð Þór Jónsson, “Woman at War”
Anna Meredith, “Eighth Grade”
Marc Shaiman, “Mary Poppins Returns”
BEST SONG
“Always Remember Us This Way” from “A Star is Born”
“Nowhere to Go But Up” from “Mary Poppins Returns”
“Shallow” from “A Star is Born”
“We Won’t Move” from “The Hate U Give”
“Wrapped Up” from “Vox Lux”
BEST SOUND DESIGN
Blindspotting
Custody
Hereditary
You Were Never Really Here
Zama
BEST MAKEUP
Ghost Stories
Hereditary
The House That Jack Built
Revenge
Suspiria
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Adrift
Annihilation
Mary Poppins Returns
Mission: Impossible—Fallout
Roma
Thirteen Special Mentions
BEST FICTION MINISERIES
“Sharp Objects”
BEST NONFICTION MINISERIES
“America to Me”
BEST PERFORMANCE ON TELEVISION
Peyton Kennedy, “Everything Sucks!”
BEST ENSEMBLE
Clare Cooney, Nina Ganet, Rashaad Hall, Haydée Politoff, Matthew Sherbach, Shane Simmons and Kevin Wehby, “Rendezvous in Chicago”
BEST CAMEO
Dick Van Dyke, “Mary Poppins Returns”
BEST PRE-TITLE SEQUENCE
“Vox Lux”
BEST MUSICAL FINALE
“Bohemian Rhapsody”
BEST FINAL SHOT
“24 Frames”
BEST 4K RESTORATION
“Cold Water”
BEST USE OF 3-D
“They Shall Not Grow Old”
BEST STUNT WORK
Tom Cruise and choreographer Wade Eastwood, “Mission: Impossible—Fallout”
BEST JUNKET PERFORMANCE
Jamie Lee Curtis, “Halloween”
WORST FILM OF THE YEAR
“The Happytime Murders”
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