This morning, you will no doubt be waking up to the news of who won what at the 97th Academy Awards. It’s always an eventful and extravagant night that honours and celebrates the cinema industry by awarding the best films, actors, directors, cinematographers, etc.
Of course, not everyone will agree with the decisions that the Academy makes and many critics, in the lead up to the event, choose their own winners from the nominees listed. And that’s exactly what we at the Courier have done. We asked our writers to vote for their favourites in the main categories, and these are the results!
Let’s start with the actors categories. This is a stacked category this year, with Ralph Fiennes, Sebastian Stan, Colman Domingo and Adrien Brody all up for their critically-acclaimed roles. While Sebastian Stan’s turn as Donald Trump in The Apprentice was my personal choice, it was a landslide victory for the irresistible Timothee Chalamet, whose performance as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown has proven incredibly popular with critics and fans. The other leading men each got a handful of votes, but with forty-five votes for Chalamet no-one else was winning in this category.
Best Actress was a closer call, with Demi Moore and Mikey Madison going home with the silver and bronze medals for their fantastic performances in The Substance and Anora respectively, but the clear and decisive winner was Cynthia Erivo, winning us all over as Elphaba. But I suppose you could say Glinda was more popular (get it, get it?), as Ariana Grande was our overwhelming winner for Best Supporting Actress, outvoting the rest of the nominees combined. Then again, one person voted for Zoe Saldana in Emilia Perez, which is noteworthy since it’s the only vote for Emilia Perez in any of the categories. That’s pretty notable for a film nominated thirteen separate times.
Kieran Culkin and Edward Norton were locked in a pretty close race for our pick as Best Supporting Actor, but Culkin’s excellent performance in A Real Pain won out in the end with twenty-six votes, compared to twenty for Edward Norton playing Pete Seeger. Fans of Succession can rejoice. Safe to say Culkin has come a long way since being the bed-wetting cousin in Home Alone.
But now for the big ones. Best Animated Film was a no-brainer for us, as not even the most acclaimed releases of last year such as Inside Out 2 and The Wild Robot came close to overtaking Wallace and Gromit’s triumphant return in Vengeance Most Fowl. With forty-nine votes, it’s the most overwhelming winner in any category, though Timothee came damn close.
Best Director and Best Picture were the most hotly-contested categories for us. James Mangold was gaining traction for his direction on A Complete Unknown, and he landed in a really healthy second place, but just edging out as the winner is Coralie Fargeat, who is the director responsible for the visceral, audacious and bonkers The Substance. Thirty-two votes to twenty-seven is still a tight race, but it’s one that Fargeat decidedly won.
And now for the main headline - what’s our pick for Best Picture? If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have seen that the films most popular with us are Wicked, A Complete Unknown and The Substance. A Complete Unknown only got six votes in the Best Picture category, alongside other nominees such as Conclave, Anora and The Brutalist, while Emilia Perez, Nickel Boys and I’m Still Here received no votes whatsoever. Instead, Wicked and The Substance found themselves challenged by Dune: Part Two, which wasn’t nominated nearly as much and therefore saw itself emerging as a dark horse favourite. However, it ultimately found itself in third-place with seventeen votes, Wicked came in second with twenty and, with twenty-two votes, the Courier’s pick for Best Picture is… The Substance.
Well that’s the Oscars over and done with for another year. By the time you’re reading this we’ll know how the Academy voted and who emerged victorious, but for now we’ll sit here thinking we’re right and the Academy’s wrong. That’s good enough for us.