A few months ago, I took a look at writers and directors in the 2015 Oscar race who have previously been nominated for Academy Awards but yet to take home the gold. It was a fairly speculative piece, but now that the season is beginning to separate the contenders from the pretenders, I wanted to look again at some of the more realistic names in the running for Oscar gold. These are all filmmakers who have been nominated previously but yet to win anything, so if they were to emerge victorious this year, it would be their first times on the big stage.
As a reminder, here are the 11 names (ten picks and one honorable mention) that I cited the last time out. They were Stephen Daldry, Guillermo del Toro, Stephen Frears, Todd Haynes, Nick Hornby, Tom McCarthy, Oren Moverman, Billy Ray, Ridley Scott, David O. Russell, and Paul Weitz. Obviously, some of these folks are still in the thick of it while some are decidedly out, so whittling things down to just five wasn’t particularly hard. The ones I’m narrowing it down to are Todd Haynes, Nick Hornby, Tom McCarthy, Ridley Scott, and David O. Russell, which probably wasn’t much of a surprise. Below I’ll be discussing them a bit more, hoping to see how their chances now stack up for a first Academy Award…
First up is Haynes, who directs Carol and is certainly in the thick of the Oscar race. I have a hunch that Carol will struggle to really make it in Best Director, though it’s hardly a long shot. Director is a field very much up in the air right now, so until it crystalizes, you have to consider Haynes still in it. As for a win though? That might be a long shot. We shall see…
Next we have Hornby, who penned the adaptation of Brooklyn and will almost definitely have another Academy Award nomination under his belt for it. Not only is he likely scoring another nod in Best Adapted Screenplay, I think he has a strong chance to turn that nom into his first win. It depends on how some of his competition does, but Hornby isn’t far from frontrunner status right now.
McCarthy is up now and he’s our most likely winner, by far. The co-writer/director of Spotlight has multiple opportunities to win statues, provided he’s nominated in all of the potential fields. I [...]
↧