Awards Season 2021: The 93rd Academy Awards

In a list of "things you'd expect to see at an Oscars ceremony", I very much doubt that "Frances McDormand howling like a wolf" and "Glenn Close twerking" would make it on the list. But these are strange times and both of those things came to pass at a slightly (read, very) surreal night.

Starting off with a very Ocean's Eleven style tracking shot following first presenter Regina King as she walked through Los Angeles' Union Station to the hall where the Oscars were being presented, it was immediately clear that this wasn't going to be the usual awards ceremony. 

For those who were unable to travel to Los Angeles to attend the ceremony in person, the Academy set up hubs around the world- including Paris, Oslo, Prague, Sydney, Berlin, Stockholm, Seoul, Rome, Kilkenny, and a major one at the BFI in London- where nominees could go and still be able to be featured in the broadcast. Broadcast and lag issues seemed to be at a minimum, which was a positive. 

For the most part, I liked how the evening was divided up, with categories paired up where possible. I also liked that unnecessary frippery was avoided, and- even when the world does go back to whatever will pass for normalcy post COVID- the Academy would do well to consider keeping the ceremony stripped back. 

Some personal highlights for me: Emerald Fennell's gloriously British acceptance speech, Thomas Vinterberg's emotional dedication to his late daughter when accepting the Best International Film award, the passionate acceptance speech given by the hair and make-up team from Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Youn Yuh-jung's acceptance speech, and Harrison Ford introducing the Best Film Editing award by reading out some of the edit notes given for Blade Runner. Whether they were real or not, who knows, but the joke landed really well.

On to the awards themselves.

Four out of six in my predictions. Interestingly, they shook things up a little by announcing Best Director relatively early in the telecast (it was the seventh award handed out) and Chloé Zhao's acceptance speech was particularly dignified. It is crazy to think that she's only the second female to win Best Director, and it took 93 years for the Academy to get round to nominating two women directors in the same year. They also announced Best Picture before Best Actress and Best Actor which felt a little strange (and also meant the ceremony finished on a bit of an anti-climax when Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor and the Oscar was accepted by the Academy on his behalf).

I'll be honest, of the four Best Actress performances I saw (I ran out of time to see The United States Vs Billie Holiday), Frances McDormand's was the one that I was least taken with. It's by no means a bad performance, or unworthy, but I didn't have the same emotional connection to it that I did with Viola Davis and Carey Mulligan. Purely a matter of taste, I think. 

However, whilst Anthony Hopkins' Best Actor win was a bit of a surprise- like many, I fully expected Chadwick Boseman's powerhouse performance in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom to seal the deal- his performance in The Father is, for me, a career high point. He gives an absolutely devastating performance as a man in the worsening grip of dementia, which left me feeling like I'd been put through the wringer. I would put The Father on a list of films that's excellent but I would never watch again.  

I was really pleased with The Father and Promising Young Woman's Screenplay nods, as well as Sound Of Metal's Sound award. 

Nomadland was the big winner of the night with three Oscars. However, in a strange kind of mirroring of the nominations, six films have the second-most awards, with Judas And The Black Messiah, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Sound Of Metal, Soul, Mank, and The Father all taking home two apiece. 

Despite multiple nominations, The Trial Of The Chicago 7, News Of The World, and One Night In Miami all went home empty-handed.

Below is the full list of winners at the 93rd Academy Awards:

Best Motion Picture of the Year: Nomadland

Best Actor: Anthony Hopkins (The Father)

Best Actress: Frances McDormand (Nomadland)

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya (Judas And The Black Messiah)

Best Supporting Actress: Yuh-jung Youn (Minari)

Best Director: Chloé Zhao (Nomadland)

Best Original Screenplay: Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller (The Father)

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year: Soul

Best International Feature Film of the Year: Another Round

Best Cinematography: Mank

Best Film Editing: Sound Of Metal

Best Production Design: Mank

Best Costume Design: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Best Original Score: Soul

Best Original Song: 'Fight For You' (Judas And The Black Messiah)

Best Sound: Sound Of Metal

Best Visual Effects: Tenet

Best Documentary (Feature): My Octopus Teacher

Best Documentary (Short Subject): Colette

Best Animated Short Film: If Anything Happens I Love You

Best Live Action Short Film: Two Distant Strangers

Congratulations to all winners!

Right, it's nearly 5:30am here in the UK and I should really get some sleep. Time to put awards season away for another year. Thank you for your indulgence with this indulgence. Normal service will resume shortly.

Awards Season 2021: Tez's Official Oscar Predictions

Tonight, the great and good of Hollywood will convene to celebrate the best of film-making in 2020 at the 93rd Academy Awards. 

Delayed from February due to the COVID pandemic, the event- produced by Jesse Collins, Stacey Sher, and Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh- will take place at the Dolby Theatre as well as Los Angeles' Union Station, with several international hubs (including at the BFI in London) for those unable to travel to the US. 

There'll be no main host (for the third year running) but an "ensemble cast" of 15 presenters- including Angela Bassett, Bong Joon Ho, Laura Dern, Regina King, Marlee Matlin, Joaquin Phoenix, Brad Pitt, Renée Zellweger, and Zendaya- will be on hand to give out the awards.  

It has become a tradition for me to predict the nominations and the winners in the main six categories (the four acting categories, Best Director and Best Picture).  I've done this since 2003 with varying degrees of success. Last year, I got 4 out of 6 (not predicting Parasite's history-making Best Picture win, nor Bong Joon Ho's Best Director win).

So, without further ado, here are my predictions for who will win.

Best Supporting Actress: Youn Yuh-Jung (Minari)

Several of the major awards bodies (including SAG, BAFTA, and the Independent Spirit Awards) have gone for Youn's performance as unconventional grandmother Soonja in Lee Isaac Chung's semi-autobiographical drama as their Best Supporting Actress, so I do think the Academy will do the same. It's a strong performance which adds some levity and a certain comic relief to the sometimes heavy family drama. 

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya (Judas And The Black Messiah)

Kaluuya has won the vast majority of Supporting Actor awards for his soulful and intense performance as Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton in Shaka King's powerful biographical drama, so I fully expect to see him named as Best Supporting Actor tonight. 

Best Actress: Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman)

The Best Actress category has been wide open this year, with four of the five Oscar nominees winning at least one other major award. However, for me, Carey Mulligan deserves to win the Oscar for her fearless, ferocious performance as avenging angel Cassie in Emerald Fennell's black comedy-drama. It's a performance (and a film) that has stayed with me long after I first watched it, which isn't really something I can say about any of the others that I've seen.

Best Actor: Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom)

Despite the BAFTA going to Anthony Hopkins, I still say that the late Chadwick Boseman will win the Best Actor award. His performance as Levee in the August Wilson adaptation is an absolute powerhouse, made all the more poignant for the fact it was his last on-screen performance. Boseman was so much more than a comic-book character actor, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom demonstrates that perfectly. 

Best Director: Chloé Zhao (Nomadland)

Best Picture: Nomadland

Zhao has been the outstanding winner of the Best Director awards all throughout this awards, so it'll be a surprise of epic proportions if any other name than hers will be read out tonight. If Zhao does win, she will only be the second female director to win the top prize. 

Similarly, Nomadland has swept the Best Picture categories, so its success seems fairly sewn up. A slow-moving contemplative drama about the life of older people who travel around America working seasonal jobs, it's the kind of film that wins Best Picture. Whilst I liked it for the most part, there are other films that nominated for Best Picture which were better films in my opinion.

These aren't official predictions, but I'd really love to see Promising Young Woman win Best Original Screenplay, Nomadland to win Best Cinematography, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom to win Best Costume Design, and Sound Of Metal to win the newly-combined Best Sound award. 

I'll be watching the Oscars broadcast tonight (well, early hours of Monday morning) and will update with my thoughts on the ceremony and all the winners as soon as I can once it finishes. 

Awards Season 2021: Academy Award Nominations

As announced earlier today, here is a selection of the nominations for the 93rd Academy Awards:

BEST PICTURE

The Father

Judas And The Black Messiah

Mank

Minari

Nomadland

Promising Young Woman

Sound Of Metal

The Trial Of The Chicago 7

BEST DIRECTOR

Lee Isaac Chung (Minari)

Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman)

David Fincher (Mank)

Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round)

Chloé Zhao (Nomadland)

BEST ACTOR

Riz Ahmed (Sound Of Metal)

Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom)

Anthony Hopkins (The Father)

Gary Oldman (Mank)

Steven Yeun (Minari)

BEST ACTRESS

Viola Davis (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom)

Andra Day (The United States Vs. Billie Holiday)

Vanessa Kirby (Pieces Of A Woman)

Frances McDormand (Nomadland)

Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Sacha Baron Cohen (The Trial Of The Chicago 7)

Daniel Kaluuya (Judas And The Black Messiah)

Leslie Odom Jr. (One Night In Miami)

Paul Raci (Sound Of Metal)

LaKeith Stanfield (Judas And The Black Messiah)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm)

Glenn Close (Hillbilly Elegy)

Olivia Colman (The Father)

Amanda Seyfried (Mank)

Youn Yuh-jung (Minari)

A full list of nominees can be found here.

By my reckoning, I got 29/33 (88%). Turns out I should have been a bit more confident in my acting predictions, as it's only LaKeith Stanfield that I didn't get. I didn't get either Judas And The Black Messiah or Sound Of Metal in Best Picture, nor Thomas Vinterberg for Best Director. All said though, I'm quite happy with my predictions. And yes, it does mean Glenn Close has been nominated for an Oscar and a Razzie for the same performance... Just goes to show there's no accounting for taste.

Mank leads the nominations with an impressive 10 nods, whilst The Father, Judas And The Black Messiah, Minari, Nomadland, Sound Of Metal, and The Trial Of The Chicago 7 all have six each.

Congratulations to all nominees!

The 93rd Academy Awards will be held on Sunday 25th April 2021, with the ceremony being held in Los Angeles' Union Station and its usual venue, the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center.

It's been a busy week for awards stuff, so those of you who aren't fans of this kind of frippery will be pleased to know there's a bit of a break from it. The next awards update will be Sunday (21st March) when the Writers Guild Awards are handed out. 

Awards Season 2021: Tez's Official Academy Award Nomination Predictions

 ...pation.

Tomorrow morning, the nominations for the 93rd Academy Awards will be announced. This year, they will be announced by husband-and-wife duo Priyanka Chopra Jonas (Krrish, The White Tiger, Baywatch) and Nick Jonas (Jumanji: The Next Level, Midway, Camp Rock).

As has been my practice for the last few years (well, since 2003), I like to try and predict who will be nominated (this is done for Best Picture, Best Director and the four acting awards). Below is my list of who I think will be named tomorrow.

NB. Since the 2010 ceremony, the Academy rules state that there could be anywhere between five and ten Best Picture nominees. I have selected ten films. If the total number of films nominated is less than ten, but one of the movies selected is named in my list of ten, I will count it as a successful prediction.

This will be the last year in which this will happen, as the Academy have committed to having ten Best Picture nominees from 2022.

BEST PICTURE

Da 5 Bloods

The Father

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Mank

Minari

Nomadland

One Night In Miami

Promising Young Woman

Soul

The Trial Of The Chicago 7

BEST DIRECTOR

Lee Isaac Chung (Minari)

Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman)

David Fincher (Mank)

Aaron Sorkin (The Trial Of The Chicago 7)

Chloé Zhao (Nomadland)

BEST ACTOR

Riz Ahmed (Sound Of Metal)

Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom)

Anthony Hopkins (The Father)

Gary Oldman (Mank)

Steven Yeun (Minari)

BEST ACTRESS

Viola Davis (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom)

Andra Day (The United States Vs. Billie Holiday)

Vanessa Kirby (Pieces Of A Woman)

Frances McDormand (Nomadland)

Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Chadwick Boseman (Da 5 Bloods)

Sacha Baron Cohen (The Trial Of The Chicago 7)

Daniel Kaluuya (Judas And The Black Messiah)

Leslie Odom Jr. (One Night In Miami)

Paul Raci (Sound Of Metal)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm)

Glenn Close (Hillbilly Elegy)

Olivia Colman (The Father)

Amanda Seyfried (Mank)

Youn Yuh-jung (Minari)

Usually a score of 15 is adequate, but given the fact that there could be anywhere between 5 and 10 Best Picture awards, I’ll be happy with a prediction of 18 or higher. Last year, I got 30/34.

With Best Picture, I'm fairly secure with 7 (maybe 8) of the predictions. There's always the chance of a surprise nod for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Sound Of Metal, or News Of The World. Similarly with Best Director, I'd say I'm confident on 3. It wouldn't be out of the realms of possibility for Regina King to score a nomination for One Night In Miami... (which might see Fincher or potentially Fennell shunted out?) 

Were I to be totally honest, I'm less confident with the acting awards than I have been in previous years. For each category I'd say I'm only sure of three in each. There's a lot of variables. 

Best Actor could see a surprise nod for Mads Mikkelsen (Another Round), Tom Hanks (News Of The World), Tahar Rahim (The Mauritanian) or Delroy Lindo (Da 5 Bloods) [most likely in place of Steven Yeun or Gary Oldman] whilst Amy Adams could get a nod for Hillbilly Elegy and Sidney Flanigan could be a major upset with a nod for Never Rarely Sometimes Always. I went with Andra Day on the strength of the Golden Globes win, but you can't be sure until the names are read out. 

In the Supporting Actor category, Boseman and Raci could be replaced by David Strathairn (Nomadland), Bill Murray (On The Rocks), Jared Leto (The Little Things) or even Alan Kim (Minari). The Best Supporting Actress race is still pretty wide open: there could potentially be nominations for Ellen Burstyn (Pieces Of A Woman), Dominique Fishback (Judas And The Black Messiah), Jodie Foster (The Mauritanian), and/or Helena Zengel (News Of The World) in place of any of Seyfried and/or Colman. 

The nominations will be announced tomorrow afternoon (around 1:20pm GMT) - there'll be a post up as soon as I can afterwards with the official nominations.

For Your Consideration: Possible Contenders For Awards Season 2021

Yes- with all the sinking inevitability of a scheduled dentist's appointment (and no doubt, for some of you, just as painful)- it's time to turn our attention to awards season. 

What's this? I hear (some of) you cry. Awards season? Really? Given everything that's going on in the world? You didn't think that they'd let a little thing like a worldwide pandemic stop this annual festival of self-congratulation, did you? 

In June of last year, the Academy decided on an eight-week postponement of the 93rd Academy Awards from February to April, and the majority of awards bodies amended their schedules accordingly.  

Despite cinemas worldwide closing, films being delayed or moved to streaming, and various other issues, films have still been released, festivals have still gone on, so there's still some merit (if that's the right word) of my annual prognostication on the films you'll be hearing a lot about over the next few months. 

Winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, as well as the prestigious People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, Nomadland seems to be one of the frontrunners for this year's awards season. Directed by Chloé Zhao (The Rider, Eternals), the film stars Frances McDormand as a woman who embarks on a journey through the American West as a modern-day nomad after losing everything in the Great Recession of 2011. McDormand will almost certainly get nominated for her lead role and David Strathairn might get a look in for his supporting role as a fellow nomad, while Zhao is also a shoo-in for Best Director. 

Aaron Sorkin's The Trial Of The Chicago 7 is in a strong position for some awards love, being a biographical/historical drama about American history full to the brim with strong performances. Based on the infamous trial that followed the violent altercations at the 1968 Democratic Party Convention, the film feels very timely (given recent events). Whilst Best Picture and Screenplay nods are pretty secure, the issue comes with deciding on any acting awards, as the Netflix For Your Consideration page names all ten main actors in the Best Supporting Actor category! Most likely to receive a nod should be Sacha Baron Cohen, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Mark Rylance.

British actress Vanessa Kirby won the Best Actress prize at the Venice Film Festival for her lead role as Martha in Pieces Of A Woman, Kornél Mundruczó's heart-wrenching drama about a woman whose home birth ends in unbearable tragedy. Whilst the subject may be a bit raw and intense for some, expect to see Kirby's name mentioned a lot. Also in a strong position for nomination is Ellen Burstyn, whose supporting role as Martha's overbearing mother Elizabeth has also been getting a lot of praise. Fun fact: if Burstyn does get an Oscar nod for her performance, she'll become the oldest actor to be nominated for a competitive acting award (as she is a couple of months older than Christopher Plummer, who currently holds that honour). 

The big screen adaptation of August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is bound to see some awards love, especially for the late Chadwick Boseman in Best Actor categories and Viola Davis in the Best Actress races. There's a chance that Glynn Turman could get a surprise nod in the Best Supporting Actor category and I'd say it's got a good chance of featuring heavily in certain technical categories (most notably Costume, Hair & Make-Up, and Production Design). Best Picture nods wouldn't be out of the question either, neither would an Adapted Screenplay nod for Ruben Santiago-Hudson's script. 

Boseman might make Oscar history if he also gets a Supporting Actor nod for his role in Spike Lee's war drama Da 5 Bloods (he'd be the first actor to receive two posthumous acting Oscar nominations in one year). He appears in flashbacks as the squad's leader (Stormin' Norman), whilst the main story follows the four Vietnam vets on their return to the country to search for his remains. Again, Best Picture and Best Director nods can be expected, whilst it is Boseman and Delroy Lindo who are garnering a lot of the critical appreciation for their performances.  

Hollywood loves films about films, so David Fincher's Mank (despite it's fairly awful title) is bound to get some awards love. Telling the story of screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he completes the screenplay for Citizen Kane, you can expect to see Gary Oldman mentioned for his lead performance as the alcoholic screenwriter, with Best Picture and Director nods highly likely too. You may also see Amanda Seyfried getting her first Oscar nod for her supporting role as silent movie actress Marion Davies.

Oscar-winning actress Regina King might be getting a second Oscar nod this year, but it will be for Best Director. She helms One Night In Miami..., a drama which imagines the meeting between four icons. The night in question is February 25th, 1964, when Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston to become Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World. Clay spent the evening with three of his friends: Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown. One Night In Miami... won the People's Choice Award (First Runner-Up) at the Toronto International Film Festival, and the performances of the four leads- Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, and Leslie Odom Jr.- have all been praised. 

Now, some of you might be wondering if I've lost the plot somewhat by saying that Borat Subsequent Moviefilm has a shot at awards season. Well, first of all, the original 2006 film- Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan- was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar at the 2007 Oscars (losing out to The Departed). Secondly, there's been a lot of praise for the performance of Maria Bakalova who plays Borat's daughter Tutar, so a surprise Best Supporting Actress nod for her might not be out of the question. 

Over the last couple of years, several foreign language films (such as Roma and Parasite) have also been nominated for Best Picture. So it's entirely possible that Minari, Korean-American director Lee Isaac Chung's semi-autobiographical drama about a Korean family making a new life in for themselves in 1980s Arkansas, could do the same. Praise has been given both to Chung's direction and script, as well as the performances by Steven Yeun as patriarch Jacob and Youn Yuh-Jung as grandmother Soonja. 

There are a couple of LGBTQ+ films which might get some awards attention. Firstly, Ammonite (written and directed by Francis Lee, who wrote and directed God's Own Country) which has Kate Winslet playing nineteenth-century fossil hunter Mary Anning and Saoirse Ronan as Charlotte Murchison, a young woman who Anning meets at the seaside and forms an intense relationship with. Secondly, there is Supernova, written and directed by Harry Macqueen. It features Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci as Sam and Tusker, partners of 20 years, who travel across England in an RV to visit places and people from their past, as Tusker has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia.

Below are several films that have performances that might get nods somewhere along the line:

Promising Young Woman: Carey Mulligan (An Education) plays Cassie, an avenging angel in this timely and fascinating revenge drama, written and directed by Emerald Fennell.

Hillbilly Elegy: Ron Howard directs this adaptation of J.D. Vance's best-selling but controversial memoir about the author's life growing up in an Ohio town; you may see Amy Adams and Glenn Close mentioned for their performances as J.D.'s drug-addict mother and his foul-mouthed grandmother respectively. 

The Life Ahead: Sophia Loren's performance in this drama, directed by her son Edoardo Ponti, has been getting rave reviews; she plays a Holocaust survivor who takes in a street-kid who has robbed her. Fun fact: if Loren does receive an Oscar nomination for this performance, she will become the person with the longest gap between Oscar nominations (as this would come a full 56 years after her last nod, for Marriage Italian Style in 1965)

(Finding) The Way Back: Ben Affleck has been getting rave reviews for his performance in Gavin O'Connor's sports drama, as a former basketball wunderkind (who has struggled with alcoholism) who reluctantly accepts a job coaching the team at his old school. 

Judas And The Black Messiah: Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) and LaKeith Stanfield (Knives Out) could both get some awards love for their performances as Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton and William O'Neal, the undercover FBI agent who betrayed him, in this biographical drama directed by Shaka King.  

News Of The World: Tom Hanks might get a nod for his performance as an American Civil War veteran who has to return a 10 year old girl to her family in this Western adventure drama directed by Paul Greengrass.

Malcolm & Marie: Zendaya (Spider-Man: Homecoming) and John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman) could both be up for awards for their performances in this neat little two-hander written and directed by Sam Levinson. Shot in June and July 2020, the production followed strict COVID-19 safety protocols to ensure the cast and crew worked in a safe environment. 

Sound Of Metal: Riz Ahmed could get nominated for his performance in this musical drama directed by Darius Marder, as a heavy metal drummer who begins to lose his hearing. Olivia Cooke could see some Supporting Actress nominations for her role as Ruben's singer girlfriend Lou, whilst Paul Raci could get a nod or two as the founder of a commune for the Deaf.

The Father: French playwright Florian Zeller directs this adaptation of his own play, with Anthony Hopkins in the title role as a man struggling with dementia, and Olivia Colman as his daughter.  

 

So what about the two big blockbusters that did get released last year: Tenet and Wonder Woman 1984? Does awards glory await for them? Almost certainly in the technical fields (Visual Effects, Sound and suchlike). Of the two, Tenet has a better chance at major nominations (Best Picture and Director) but lukewarm reviews of both might not do either any good. But in a year where a lot of big budget stuff didn't see the screen, who knows?

The timetable for the major awards in 2021 is as follows:

Film Independent Spirit Awards
Nominations announced: 26th January 2021
Awards ceremony: 22nd April 2021

Golden Globes
Nominations announced: 3rd February 2021 
Awards ceremony: 28th February 2021

Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards
Nominations announced: 4th February 2021
Awards ceremony: 14th March 2021

Critics' Choice Awards
Nominations announced: 7th February 2021
Awards ceremony: 7th March 2021

Writers' Guild Of America (WGA) Award
Nominations announced: 16th February 2021
Awards ceremony: 21st March 2021

Directors' Guild Of America (DGA) Award
Nominations announced: 9th March 2021
Awards ceremony: 10th April 2021

BAFTA Film Awards
Nominations announced: 9th March 2021
Awards ceremony: 11th April 2021

Producers' Guild Of America (PGA) Award
Nominations announced: 12th March 2021
Awards ceremony: 24th March 2021

Golden Raspberry Awards (Razzies)
Nominations announced: 14th March 2021
Awards ceremony: 24th April 2021

Academy Awards (Oscars)
Nominations announced: 15th March 2021
Awards ceremony: 25th April 2021

So spreadsheets at the ready, my friends... because...

Awards Season 2021

I'm fairly certain I felt some of your blood run cold at the mention of "awards season".

What? You may be crying. Awards season stuff already? But it's only June! This festival of self-congratulation doesn't kick off til November, surely! What's going on?

Well... in these uncertain times we find ourselves in, the usual structures and strictures have been overturned and "mere anarchy is loosed upon the world". This news came out late last night here in the UK so I couldn't include it yesterday's State Of Play article. Probably for the best as there was a LOT of info in that!

Anyway, to my point (and I do have one)... 

Yesterday (June 15th), the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Scientists (AMPAS) voted on a new date for the 93rd Academy Awards. It will now take place on Sunday April 25th 2021, eight weeks from its original date of Sunday February 28th. 

The Oscar nominations will be announced on Monday March 15th 2021.

In a statement from the Academy, AMPAS president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson noted the following: 

"For over a century, movies have played an important role in comforting, inspiring, and entertaining us during the darkest of times. They certainly have this year. Our hope, in extending the eligibility period and our Awards date, is to provide the flexibility filmmakers need to finish and release their films without being penalized for something beyond anyone’s control."

This isn't the first time that the Oscars have moved their broadcast date: in response to major events - such as severe flooding in Los Angeles in 1938, the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, and the attempted assassination of US President Ronald Reagan in 1981- the Academy made the decision to postpone the events in those respective years. So it was going to be a no-brainer for them to do it again due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In light of this, the Academy have also changed their qualifying release deadline. Usually, the deadline is 31st December, but for the 93rd Academy Awards it will be extended to Sunday 28th February 2021. So, any film that has had a qualifying run in that time (which currently means a film has to be shown in a commercial motion picture theater in Los Angeles County for a theatrical qualifying run of at least seven consecutive days, during which period screenings must occur at least three times daily) can be eligible for Best Picture. 

The Academy have also expanded their definition of "qualifying theaters" to include venues in other cities, including New York City, Chicago, Miami, and Atlanta. They're also waiving the demand that documentaries have both an L.A. and a New York run in order to be considered. 

They'd previously announced a big change in relation to films that would have had a theatrical release but can't due to cinemas being closed. Usually films that only appear on streaming services are ineligible for consideration, but- until further notice- streaming-only films can be eligible but "must be made available on the secure Academy Screening Room member-only streaming site within 60 days of the film’s streaming or VOD release". 

Other rmajor awards bodies, such as the Golden Globes, Directors Guild of America, Producers Guild of America, and BAFTA have all already adopted new guidelines which relax their rules regarding commercial streaming/VOD releases, so it makes sense. 

Speaking of BAFTA, this morning (16th June), the announcement was made that the 2021 BAFTA Film Awards will also move; they will now take place on Sunday April 11th 2021 (keeping with recent tradition that the BAFTAs predate the Oscars by two weeks). They're the first of the major awards bodies to announce a shift in date in light of the change in the Oscars, so expect the others to follow suit. 

Decisions have also been made to cancel the 2020 Governors Award gala in November (where the Academy Honorary Awards, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award are handed out), and postpone the 2020 Scientific and Technical Awards presentation (which was due to take place on Saturday June 20th). The flagshop Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will now open to the public on April 30th 2021 instead of December 14th this year. 

In other news, from 2021, the Academy will be merging its Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing awards to one award: Best Achievement in Sound. It's also going to be the last Oscars where physical DVD screeners and other hard-copy materials will be distributed, instead pressing for digital materials instead. 

As for how this will effect the Oscars going forwards? Who know? (And a lot of people might say: who cares?) 

The 94th Academy Awards were previously announced to take place on February 22nd 2022, but the Academy has opened the door for a new date. There's also been an announcement that- from 2022- the Academy will commit to 10 Best Picture nominees a year, rather than basing the number of nominees on the members' preferential voting. 

The 2010 and 2011 awards both had a fixed 10 Best Picture nominations (changed from the fixed five due, it is generally believed, to The Dark Knight's exclusion from the top prize in 2009), but from 2012- since the rules changed to allow anywhere between five and ten Best Pictures- it's fluctuated between eight and nine Best Picture nods a year. 

It's a brave new world, my friends, and we must adapt to survive. I'll leave you with this quote from an anonymous awards consultant which I think sums it up nicely: 

“Who knows what awards season is going to look like?” 

Who indeed.