2019 Oscars at a Glance: Gotham Award 2018 Nominations

Last week, the 28th Gotham Independent Film Award nominations were announced, and as the earliest awards show in the season, it turns out every year to be one that hits and misses when it comes to predicting further award shows. Last year, only two of the five Best Feature nominees were Best Picture nominees as well, Get Out and Call Me by your Name, and the latter won. The year before that saw Moonlight take Best Feature while Manchester by the Sea was the only other future Best Picture nominee at the ceremony. Of course, this award show is compatible to the Indie Spirit Awards as far as what kind of films are eligible here. Still, let’s look at the compatible nominees here and where (or if) they have a shot at further awards shows, including, and especially, the Oscars.

 

Best Screenplay

And the nominees are Paul Schrader for First Reformed, Tamara Jenkins for Private Life, Andrew Bujalski for Support the Girls, Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara for The Favourite, and Cory Finley for Thoroughbreds. Take note that like the Golden Globes, and a few other award ceremonies, all the screenplays are thrown together here, not separated into original versus adapted. So of the nominees here, only The Favourite is in my list to be nominated at the Oscars, and at the moment I have it winning. After its strong showing here, First Reformed may have just picked up a much-needed boost into the warm-up period before the critics groups start handing out their prizes. That is where I thought First Reformed would ride or die for its Oscar chances, but it might be a bigger fighter than we thought if it’s racking up attention this early. While it’s great to see films like Support the Girls and Private Life recognized here as well, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher for me not to see Bo Burnham among the nominees for his work on Eighth Grade, or Barry Jenkins for If Beale Street Could Talk, or the four writers on BlacKkKlansman. They probably will not need the boost later on to get nominated, but at this stage, they seemed likelier bets than the others.

 

Best Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etwjMcdvxx8

The nominees here are Bisbee ‘17, Hale County this Morning, this Evening, Minding the Gap, Shirkers, and Won’t You be my Neighbor. All the talk this year has been on the Fred Rogers doc to take home all the prizes, and at this rate, Gotham may fall in line. The rest of the field, up to this point, is not about “what can take down Neighbor”, it’s “what’s gonna get in with Neighbor”. To be honest, at this stage it’ll be easier to predict this category once we have a better idea of what other docs get noticed alongside Neighbor, but for now a couple of easy bets, based on word-of-mouth, are Free Solo and Three Identical Strangers.

 

Best Actress

The five nominees at Gotham are Glenn Close for The Wife, Toni Collette for Hereditary, Kathryn Hahn for Private Life, Regina Hall for Support the Girls, and Michelle Pfeiffer for Where is Kyra. First off, we have to note that there is no supporting categories here at Gotham, so all the potential Oscar nominees here that are playing in supporting elsewhere get lumped in. An interesting list, and none of whom are in my predictions right now for Best Actress at the Oscars. Again, there is a question of which films and performances were eligible, and for now I’m thinking that Melissa McCarthy for Can You Ever Forgive Me, Kiki Layne or Regina King for If Beale Street Could Talk, Elsie Fisher for Eighth Grade, Carey Mulligan for Wildlife, and Charlize Theron for Tully were just overlooked here. Again, great to see some performances that we weren’t thinking were going to make the cut for the Oscars get a nod here. Also note that there is a special jury prize for an outstanding ensemble, so the three lead performances from The Favourite were acknowledged there.

 

Best Actor

For the men, the five are Adam Driver for BlacKkKlansman, Ben Foster for Leave No Trace, Richard E. Grant for Can You Ever Forgive Me, Ethan Hawke for First Reformed, and Lakeith Stanfield for Sorry to Bother You. Again, let’s talk about some much-needed help here for Foster, Hawke, and Stanfield, who were not exactly on my radar as of late. Driver for BlacKkKlansman would have to be for Supporting Actor later on, and I’m not so sure if that film will land any acting nominations yet. Grant also helps cement an early status in the Supporting Actor race with his nod here, so if you weren’t betting on him yet, you should probably throw him in. For some possible overlooked performances here, I would have prefered John David Washington to be nominated over Driver for BlacKkKlansman. We don’t know if Green Book qualified or not, but either Viggo Mortensen or Mahershala Ali would be good nominees, Willem Dafoe could have used some help for At Eternity’s Gate, and Stephan James, who is now going lead for If Beale Street Could Talk, could have really used a hand here if he’s gonna have any shot of a nomination.

 

Best Feature

The five films selected as Best Features nominees this year are First Reformed, If Beale Street Could Talk, Madeline’s Madeline, The Favourite, and The Rider. A very interesting list when you see that in the other major categories, three of these films had no other nominations to show for. Sure, Kiki Layne and Helena Howard were recognized in the Breakthrough Actor category, but that’s all the other support. The laundry list of other possible nominees includes Eighth Grade, BlacKkKlansman, Can You Ever Forgive Me, Leave No Trace, Private Life, Support the Girls, and Hereditary, the first three being higher up on the list of possible Oscar nominees, and the last four being films that received multiple nominations here at Gotham without a Best Feature nomination. Also notice that up to this point there hasn’t been one mention of Roma, which leads the pack right now on most odds sites for the Best Picture winner (that probably will change over time). It was nominated for Breakthrough Actor for Yalitza Aparicio, but that’s the sole nomination.

Gotham really does like to march to the beat of its own drum, and often ends up being a non-factor for some Oscar predictions, but it’s still fun to see some performers and films nominated here, even if they likely won’t see too much more attention for the rest of the awards season. The real big news out of these nominees is that First Reformed has a lot of fans, The Favourite is a favorite (har-har) to be admired, and the acting races do have some indie alternates to keep in mind. The winners will be announced on November 26th.