An “Alternate” Look at Yesterday’s Oscar nominations and What They Could Have Been

Ladies and gentlemen, after the intensity of waiting for the Academy Award nominations, it’s time for something a little bit fun today. As we wait for the ballots to go out to Academy members and final Oscar voting to get underway (which is still a little ways away at this point), why not play around with a hypothetical situation? Now is the time to do it, after all. This is something I’ve done from time to time in the past, and I enjoy it. What is it, exactly? Well, what I do here is to look at what the Oscar nominations could have looked like if you remove all of the actual nominees. Weird, I know, but hey, it’s fun to do.

Below you will be able to see what these alternate Academy Award nominations could have been. In some categories, it’s easy to speculate, like with Best Picture and how films like First Man, If Beale Street Could Talk, and A Quiet Place were probably next in line. Or, you can look at Best Director and be incredibly confident that Bradley Cooper was next in line for A Star Is Born. In terms of the Acting categories, John David Washington for BlacKkKkansman and Emily Blunt for both Mary Poppins Returns as well as A Quiet Place were near misses, with the same going for Timothee Chalamet too, snubbed for Beautiful Boy. Then, there’s Claire Foy and First Man. These are just my guesses though, so keep that in mind. Now, on to the actual fun…

Here now is an “alternate” look at how the Oscar nominations could have gone:

(Note, these are presented in alphabetical order, not ranked order)

BEST PICTURE

1. First Man
2. If Beale Street Could Talk
3. A Quiet Place
4. Cold War
5. Mary Poppins Returns
6. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
7. Crazy Rich Asians
8. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
9. First Reformed
10. Mary Queen of Scots

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born
2. Peter Farrelly – Green Book
3. Ryan Coogler – Black Panther
4. Damien Chazelle – First Man
5. Barry Jenkins – If Beale Street Could Talk

BEST ACTOR

1. John David Washington – BlacKkKlansman
2. Ethan Hawke – First Reformed
3. Ryan Gosling – First Man
4. Robert Redford – The Old Man and the Gun
5. John C. Reilly – Stan & Ollie

BEST ACTRESS

1. Emily Blunt – Mary Poppins Returns
2. Toni Collette – Hereditary
3. Joanna Kulig – Cold War
4. Elsie Fisher – Eighth Grade
5. Charlize Theron – Tully

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1. Timothee Chalamet – Beautiful Boy
2. Michael B. Jordan – Black Panther
3. Steve Carell – Vice
4. Nicholas Hoult – The Favourite
5. Robert Forster – What They Had

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1. Claire Foy – First Man
2. Emily Blunt – A Quiet Place
3. Margot Robbie – Mary Queen of Scots
4. Linda Cardellini – Green Book
5. Zoe Kazan – The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1. Eighth Grade
2. A Quiet Place
3. Sorry To Bother You
4. Bohemian Rhapsody
5. Cold War

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1. Black Panther
2. First Man
3. Leave No Trace
4. Mary Poppins Returns
5. Crazy Rich Asians

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

1. The Grinch
2. Ruben Brandt, Collector
3. Smallfoot
4. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
5. Early Man

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

1. Bohemian Rhapsody
2. Mary Queen of Scots
3. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
4. BlacKkKlansman
5. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

1. First Man
2. If Beale Street Could Talk
3. Mary Poppins Returns
4. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
5. Bohemian Rhapsody

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

1. Colette
2. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
3. First Man
4. Crazy Rich Asians
5. If Beale Street Could Talk

BEST FILM EDITING

1. A Star Is Born
2. Roma
3. First Man
4. Black Panther
5. A Quiet Place

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING

1. Black Panther
2. Bohemian Rhapsody
3. Stan & Ollie

BEST SOUND MIXING

1. A Quiet Place
2. Avengers: Infinity War
3. Mary Poppins Returns
4. Ready Player One
5. Mission: Impossible – Fallout

BEST SOUND EDITING

1. Roma
2. A Star Is Born
3. Avengers: Infinity War
4. Mary Poppins Returns
5. Ready Player One

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

1. Black Panther
2. Mary Poppins Returns
3. Welcome to Marwen
4. Ant-Man and the Wasp
5. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

1. First Man
2. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
3. A Quiet Place
4. Vice
5. Ready Player One

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

1. Mary Poppins Returns – “Trip A Little Light Fantastic”
2. Boy Erased – “Revelation”
3. Dumplin’ – “Girl in the Movies”
4. Ralph Breaks the Internet – “A Place Called Slaughter Race”
5. Suspiria – “Suspirium”

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
2. Three Identical Strangers
3. Shirkers
4. Crime + Punishment
5. On Her Shoulders

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FEATURE

1. Burning
2. The Guilty
3. Birds of Passage
4. Ayka
5. N/A (only nine shortlisted titles)

Stay tuned for plenty more on the race in the weeks to come, right up until Oscar night!