I'd Like to Help the Academy

The movies that should be nominated for an Oscar — but probably won't be

Back in the before times, I wrote an LA Weekly column called We’d Like to Help the Academy in which I made a case for actors and filmmakers who had no realistic chance of nabbing an Oscar nomination — but would if we lived in a just world (by which I mean one dictated by my own flights of fancy, natch). With the recent unveiling of the Producers Guild of America nominations suggesting that a truly dire list of Best Picture contenders is about to be loosed upon the world — Being the Ricardos and Don’t Look Up are truly among the worst nominees in recent memory, and I’m old enough to remember when Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close was nominated — I thought I’d offer up my own dream ballot.

I reckon that perhaps two-fifths of my choices have any shot of being nominated in their respective categories tomorrow, which should provide ample opportunity to curse the eventual selections for being inferior to my own — which, as we all know, is the only gratifying part of this whole silly process.

Best Picture

Benedetta

Candyman

The Card Counter

Dune

The Killing of Two Lovers

Memoria

Parallel Mothers

Passing

The Power of the Dog

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

Best Director

Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog

Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

Rebecca Hall, Passing

Denis Villeneuve, Dune

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Memoria

Best Actor

Nicolas Cage, Pig

Clayne Crawford, The Killing of Two Lovers

Oscar Isaac, The Card Counter

Hidetoshi Nishijima, Drive My Car

Dev Patel, The Green Knight

Best Actress

Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter

Jodi Comer, The Last Duel

Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers

Renate Reinsve, The Worst Person in the World

Kristen Stewart, Spencer

Best Supporting Actor

Ben Affleck, The Tender Bar

Colman Domingo, Candyman

Mike Faist, West Side Story

Anders Danielson Lie, The Worst Person in the World

Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog

Best Supporting Actress

Tiffany Haddish, The Card Counter

Kathryn Hunter, The Tragedy of Macbeth

Ruth Negga, Passing

Park Yoo-rim, Drive My Car

Alicia Vikander, Blue Bayou

Best Original Screenplay

Paul Schrader, The Card Counter

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Memoria

Pedro Almodóvar, Parallel Mothers

Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt, The Worst Person in the World

Best Adapted Screenplay

Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld, and Nia DaCosta, Candyman

Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, Drive My Car

Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter

Rebecca Hall, Passing

Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog