Mark Kermode, Observer film critic

Best picture – my shortlist (my favourite first)

• Leave No Trace

• BlacKkKlansman

• Cold War

• If Beale Street Could Talk

• You Were Never Really Here

As always, several of the best films that played here in 2018 (Andrew Kötting’s brilliant oddity Lek and the Dogs, Léonor Serraille’s Jeune Femme) aren’t among the 347 titles eligible at the 91st Oscars. Yet my favourite film is up for consideration, although it may well end up being overlooked – Debra Granik’s quietly overwhelming Leave No Trace, a perfect example of “show don’t tell” film-making.

Best director

• Debra Granik (Leave No Trace)

• Paweł Pawlikowski (Cold War)

• Steve McQueen (Widows)

• Lynne Ramsay (You Were Never Really Here)

• Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman)

The Oscars now allow up to 10 nominees in this category, and if our lists did too I’d have included Widows in my best film selection. Instead, I’ve opted to nominate its director, Steve McQueen, for his vibrant adaptation of Lynda La Plante’s TV series. Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here is similarly poetic, while Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace cements the promise of 2010’s Winter’s Bone.



Best actor

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tomasz Kot with Joanna Kulig in Cold War.

• Tomasz Kot (Cold War)

• Ben Foster (Leave No Trace)

• Stephan James (If Beale Street Could Talk)

• Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody)

• John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman)

Tomasz Kot was Danny Boyle’s choice for the next Bond villain, and it’s easy to see why – his performance in Cold War blends charisma with vulnerability, subtlety and strength. John David Washington gets the balance between humour and horror just right in BlacKkKlansman, while Rami Malek is uncanny as Freddy Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.



Best actress

• Viola Davis (Widows)

• Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie (Leave No Trace)

• Yalitza Aparicio (Roma)

• Olivia Colman (The Favourite)

• KiKi Layne (If Beale Street Could Talk)

An astonishing field this year, from Oscar hopefuls Glenn Close (The Wife) and Lady Gaga (A Star Is Born) to personal favourites such as Jessie Buckley (Beast), Joanna Kulig (Cold War), Keira Knightley (Colette) and Toni Collette (Hereditary). I’d also include Yalitza Aparicio, who makes an amazingly natural debut in Roma, while Viola Davis is the lightning rod at the centre of Widows.



Best supporting actor

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mahershala Ali in a scene from Green Book. Photograph: Universal Pictures/AP

• Mahershala Ali (Green Book)

• Adam Driver (BlacKkKlansman)

• Richard E Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

• Jason Isaacs (The Death of Stalin)

• Tom Waits (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs)

Mahershala Ali, an Oscar-winner for Moonlight, looks set to repeat that victory as pianist Dr Don Shirley in Peter Farrelly’s Green Book. He and Viggo Mortensen make a marvellous double act in a film that rests squarely upon their shoulders. And it’s great to see musician turned underrated actor Tom Waits excelling in the Coen brothers’ western portmanteau.



Best supporting actress

• Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk)

• Salura Andô (Shoplifters)

• Cynthia Erivo (Bad Times at the El Royale)

• Michelle Rodriguez (Widows)

• Millicent Simmonds (A Quiet Place)

2018 was a good year for Cynthia Erivo, who stole Bad Times at the El Royale and co-starred in Widows. Millicent Simmonds was dynamite in A Quiet Place. Honourable mentions to Jennifer Ehle (The Miseducation of Cameron Post), Rachel Weisz (The Favourite) and Claire Foy (First Man), but Regina King is hard to beat in If Beale Street Could Talk.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Regina King in If Beale Street Could Talk. Photograph: AP

Best score

• Nicholas Britell (If Beale Street Could Talk)

• Anna Meredith (Eighth Grade)

• Jóhan Jóhannsson (Mandy)

• Terence Blanchard (BlacKkKlansman)

• Justin Hurwitz (First Man)

I’d like to include Max Richter(Mary Queen of Scots), Jonny Greenwood (You Were Never Really Here) and Ludwig Göransson (Black Panther), all worthy contenders. But Britell once again proves the perfect musical foil for Barry Jenkins’s cinematic vision, with his superbly counterintuitive score for If Beale Street Could Talk.

Wendy Ide, Observer film writer

Best picture – my shortlist (favourite first)

• Roma

• The Favourite

• You Were Never Really Here

• Cold War

• Leave No Trace

With the big flashing neon caveat that the Academy voters almost always conspire to annoy me, I see cause for cautious optimism this year. There’s a decent intersection between awards contenders and films that are rather good. But what thrills me is the very real possibility that the best picture prize might go to Alfonso Cuarón’s masterly Roma, a Spanish-language film from Mexico. What a message that would send: cinema builds bridges, not walls.

Best director

• Lynne Ramsay (You Were Never Really Here)

• Alfonso Cuarón (Roma)

• Debra Granik (Leave No Trace)

• Paweł Pawlikowski (Cold War)

• Chloé Zhao (The Rider)

I was blown away by Chloé Zhao’s direction of The Rider – her deft blend of real-life and fiction excited me anew for the possibilities of hybrid cinema. But I would hand the statuette to Lynne Ramsay for You Were Never Really Here, a film that immerses us so thoroughly in the mind of her troubled protagonist that you almost fear you won’t escape.



Best actor

• Jakob Cedergren (The Guilty)

• Paul Giamatti (Private Life)

• Ben Foster (Leave No Trace)

• Daveed Diggs (Blindspotting)

• Ethan Hawke (First Reformed)

It’s unlikely the Academy will even nominate Jakob Cedergren for Danish thriller The Guilty (although watch this space when Jake Gyllenhaal stars in the English remake). But he’d get my vote because he is the film, which plays out almost entirely in his face. While the voters tend to favour impersonations, Cedergren not only creates his character, he forges our journey through the story.



Best actress

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Olivia Colman, right, with Rachel Weisz in The Favourite. Photograph: AP

• Olivia Colman (The Favourite)

• Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

• Joanna Kulig (Cold War)

• Viola Davis (Widows)

• Julia Roberts (Ben Is Back)

I could have filled this list three times over, such was the quality of female lead performances this year. Joanna Kulig’s magnetic turn in Cold War burns phosphorus bright. Julia Roberts, every fibre tense with hope as the mother of an addict in Ben Is Back, has been curiously overlooked. But Olivia Colman gets the crown this year for The Favourite and a performance effortlessly ranging from riotous comedy to aching pathos.



Best supporting actor

• Daniel Kaluuya (Widows)

• Richard E Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

• Simon Russell Beale (The Death of Stalin)

• Mamoudou Athie (The Front Runner)

• Tom Waits (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs)

The supporting performances are often where we discover the talents of the future – and I would hazard a guess that Mamoudou Athie, so quietly impressive in The Front Runner, is one such name. But I would hand the prize to the always impressive Daniel Kaluuya for a forceful, fearsome performance which chilled me to the core in Widows.



Best supporting actress

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Zoe Kazan as Alice Longabaugh in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Photograph: Netflix

• Zoe Kazan (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs)

• Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)

• Claire Foy (First Man)

• Elizabeth Debicki (Widows)

• Letitia Wright (Black Panther)

I loved Letitia Wright in Black Panther – it was a scene-stealing, irreverent turn full of zest and mischief. And the malevolent charm of Rachel Weisz in The Favourite is hard to resist. But my choice for supporting actress would be Zoe Kazan, who crammed a whole feature’s worth of gauche, cautious dreams into a perfectly crafted short segment in the Coens’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.



Best foreign language film

• Cold War (Poland)

• Roma (Mexico)

• Birds of Passage (Colombia)

• The Guilty (Denmark)

• Burning (South Korea)

Since I have already handed out best picture to Roma in my fantasy film awards, I’ll spread the love and award best foreign language film to another intensely personal period piece shot in black and white. I adored the elegance and economy of Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War – there is not a frame in the film that seems wasted. The exquisite cinematography is a crystalline miracle; the performances superb throughout.

Simran Hans, Observer film writer

Best picture – my shortlist (favourite first)

• A Star Is Born

• Leave No Trace

• First Reformed

• The Rider

• Sorry to Bother You

Either the Academy Awards are cursed, or I am. If I deem a film my secret winner, it will be fated to lose (my previous upsets include Phantom Thread (2017), Selma (2014), The Social Network (2010) and Brokeback Mountain (2005), but I’m hoping A Star Is Born breaks the spell. It’s a big, ballsy, crowd-pleasing melodrama; old-fashioned, serious, designed to provoke an emotional reaction – it’s Oscar bait.



Best director

• Debra Granik (Leave No Trace)

• Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

• Sandi Tan (Shirkers)

• Chloé Zhao (The Rider)

• Lynne Ramsay (You Were Never Really Here)

Judging by the Academy’s track record, we’ll be lucky if even one woman receives a best director nomination. Still, precedent aside, I see no reason why there shouldn’t be an all-female shortlist. All five of the above display fierce assurance, authority and originality of vision, and none more than Granik, whose exquisite mystery-thriller has the rare confidence to show its story rather than tell.

Best actor

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Brady Jandreau in The Rider. Photograph: Allstar/Highwayman Films

• Brady Jandreau (The Rider)

• Stephan James (If Beale Street Could Talk)

• Ethan Hawke (First Reformed)

• Joaquin Phoenix (You Were Never Really Here)

• Lakeith Stanfield (Sorry to Bother You)

A cowboy grapples with his identity following a serious trauma? The story of Chloé Zhao’s innovative real-life/fiction blend could make it an “Oscar” film. Zhao turns non-professional actor Brady Jandreau into a movie star; if she’s the magician, he’s the trick worth applauding. The transformation is subtle but precise; sadly the Academy usually rewards the opposite.

Best actress

• Olivia Colman (The Favourite)

• Lady Gaga (A Star Is Born)

• Regina Hall (Support the Girls)

• Helena Howard (Madeline’s Madeline)

• Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade)

I loved Regina Hall’s fraying optimism as the beleaguered manager of a sports bar; Elsie Fisher’s awkward wannabe YouTuber Kayla in Eighth Grade, Helena Howard’s performance artist with mental health issues in Madeline’s Madeline, that a pop star could make me believe she waited tables in A Star Is Born. Best of all, though, is Olivia Colman’s hilarious turn as a selfish, ribald, grumbling Queen Anne.

Best supporting actor

• Richard E Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

• Adam Driver (BlacKkKlansman)

• Daniel Kaluuya (Widows)

• Alessandro Nivola (Disobedience)

• Steven Yeun (Burning)

Worryingly, I found myself racking my brains to come up with five memorable supporting performances from men this year. Then I remembered Richard E Grant, whose witty turn as the prankish accomplice to writer Lee Israel in Marielle Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? threatens to to steal the show from Melissa McCarthy’s fraudster. Optimistic to hope that the Academy will agree.

Best supporting actress

• Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie (Leave No Trace)

• Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk)

• Cynthia Erivo (Bad Times at the El Royale)

• Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)

• Elizabeth Debicki (Widows)

It seems unfair to put McKenzie in this category – her role in Debra Granik’s two-hander is more like a lead. Granik’s Winter’s Bone was Jennifer Lawrence’s breakout role and she provides similar conditions for the 18-year-old New Zealander to shine. Her performance (inquiring, liquid eyes, soft-spoken intelligence) remain lodged in my brain.

Best original song

• Shallow (A Star Is Born)

• When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs)

• Treasure (Beautiful Boy)

• Girl in the Movies (Dumplin’)

• Suspirium (Suspiria)

There hasn’t been a contender of Shallow’s calibre in this category in decades. The soaring power ballad is a proper pop song – and a proper earworm – written by a proper songwriter, plus at least half of it is sung by a proper pop star. With time I’ve no doubt Gaga’s hallowed warble will become as iconic as the flute that opens Celine Dion’s 1999 winner, My Heart Will Go On.

Guy Lodge, Observer film writer

Best picture – my shortlist (favourite first)

• Zama

• Leave No Trace

• If Beale Street Could Talk

• Vox Lux

• You Were Never Really Here

It looks increasingly likely that history will be made at the Oscars this year, with Alfonso Cuarón’s gorgeous Mexico City memory piece Roma becoming the first non-English-language film ever to win the best picture prize. After 91 years, it’s an embarrassment it hasn’t happened already. So I’ll be cheering if it does, but a different Spanish-language film, Lucrecia Martel’s fevered, ingenious, no-chance-in-hell colonial nightmare Zama, takes my top vote.

Best director

• Lynne Ramsay (You Were Never Really Here)

• Lee Chang-dong (Burning)

• Debra Granik (Leave No Trace)

• Lucrecia Martel (Zama)

• Chloé Zhao (The Rider)

After Greta Gerwig’s Oscar run with Lady Bird, the odds suggest we’re back to the status quo of an all-male best director race – despite a wealth of exciting options from established and up-and-coming female auteurs. Chloé Zhao won best film from the National Society of Film Critics, while Debra Granik took best director from the LA Film Critics Association: there’s no excuse for them to be frozen out.

Best actor

• Yoo Ah-in (Burning)

• Joaquin Phoenix (You Were Never Really Here)

• Zain Al-Rafeea (Capernaum)

• Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born)

• Matthieu Lucci (The Workshop)

Rami Malek’s Freddie Mercury impression undeservedly won the Globe, but I suspect Bradley Cooper’s portrayal of an emotionally ravaged rock star will take the Oscar – on the strength of the performance and as a reward for his achievement in writing, directing and producing A Star Is Born. I’d be happy with that, but Korean star Yoo Ah-in gave the year’s most complex, mystery-riven male performance.

Best actress

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Toni Collette in Hereditary. Photograph: Allstar/Palmstar Media

• Toni Collette (Hereditary)

• Juliette Binoche (Let the Sunshine In)

• Olivia Colman (The Favourite)

• Regina Hall (Support the Girls)

• Ruth Wilson (The Little Stranger)

It may be cold comfort in the face of a woman-free best director lineup, but at least there’s broad agreement that this year’s best actress field is infinitely deeper and richer than its male counterpart. I struggled to pick a winner: Olivia Colman’s astonishing tragicomic Queen Anne has many critics’ vote, but Toni Collette was ferocious and emotionally wrenching in a genre – horror – that Oscar voters rarely touch.

Best supporting actor

• Brian Tyree Henry (If Beale Street Could Talk)

• Daniel Kaluuya (Widows)

• Alex Wolff (Hereditary)

• Michael B Jordan (Black Panther)

• Hugh Grant (Paddington 2)

The Academy will avoid the #OscarsSoWhite trap this year with BlacKkKlansman, Black Panther and If Beale Street Could Talk all in the best picture frame. Mahershala Ali is widely tipped to take this prize again for elevating the civil rights drama Green Book, but it should be Henry’s turn: with stunning work in Beale Street, Widows and TV’s Atlanta, he was one of 2018’s hardest-working actors.

Best supporting actress

• Dolly Wells (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

• Sakura Ando (Shoplifters)

• Nina Arianda (Stan & Ollie)

• Elizabeth Debicki (Widows)

• Jennifer Garner (Love, Simon)

Add Marielle Heller’s wry, lovely literary biopic Can You Ever Forgive Me? to the list of female-directed films that have received less than their due this season – though Melissa McCarthy and Richard E Grant are set to score Oscar nominations for their work (both came close to my ballot).Yet my favourite performance in the film, Dolly Wells’s subtle study in bookish loneliness, has gone entirely uncelebrated.



Best cinematography

• Bradford Young (Where Is Kyra?)

• Rui Pocas (Zama)

• Łukasz Żal (Cold War)

• James Laxton (If Beale Street Could Talk)

• Warwick Thornton (Sweet Country)

If you haven’t heard of Where Is Kyra? don’t blame yourself. Andrew Dosunmu’s striking poverty-line drama, featuring Michelle Pfeiffer’s best performance in aeons, took long enough to reach US screens; it’s still awaiting a UK distributor. Here’s hoping we eventually get to see Bradford Young’s ingenious games of light and shadow on a big screen here.