Oscar Grouch: Did ‘The Revenant’ Lock Up The Best Oscar Race?

In the Oscar predicting game, there is definitely such a thing as historical blinders. A lot of us experienced it in the lead-up to the nominations. No film like Mad Max: Fury Road had ever been nominated for Best Picture before. History was on the side of those who thought Academy voters would prove too fuddy-duddy to appreciate Immortan Joe and his War Boys. That notion go proved wrong to the tune of ten nominations including Best Picture and Best Director.

Now, not a month later, we’re basically back in the same position with The Revenant. Except this time it’s not the type of movie that The Revenant is that’s making us think it can’t win Best Picture. Half of the film industry was built on one-man-versus-the-world takes of revenge and beards. No, it’s just historical precedent that’s standing in that film’s way. The Oscar for Best Picture has never gone to the same auteur’s films two years in a row. Ever. Those are the kinds of long odds facing Alejandro G. Iñarritu.

Part of it is that most directors don’t even make films in consecutive years. Only some of them can even work at that pace. And the Oscars tend to like to spread the wealth. In any other year, you’d expect them to want to give someone else’s film a shot in the spotlight (hey, maybe even Spotlight).

Best Director is only a little bit more hospitable. There have been two occasions where someone has won Best Director twice in a row: John Ford in 1940/41 and Joseph L. Mankiewicz in 1949/50. But in the 65+ years since then, only one director has even been nominated the year after winning Best Director. Woody Allen followed up his 1977 win for Annie Hall with a nomination for directing Interiors. He didn’t win again.

So you can understand why people might be reluctant to pick Iñarritu to go back-to-back, especially since there seems to have been a good bit of backlash against him after last year’s Birdman win and the divisiveness of The Revenant this time around. Of course, backlash is often in the eye of the beholder, and it’s entirely probable that we are more likely to perceive backlash in the Twitter/social media age than we would have been before. Which is to say: Hollywood probably isn’t mad at a guy who’s raking in $150 million domestic for an art film that’s halfway silent.

We’ve all been looking for reasons to think other films had a better chance to take Best Picture. The Big Short won the PGA, which has matched the Oscar winner for each of the last eight years (and didn’t match the Oscar winner four of the six years before that). Spotlight won the SAG Ensemble, which matches with Best Picture pretty much as often as it doesn’t. Then there’s the DGA, which has matched the eventual Best Director winner 16 of the last 20 years and the eventual Best Picture winner 15 of the last 20 years. It went to Iñarritu. Or the BAFTA, essentially the British Oscars, which has matched the Academy’s Best Picture six out of the last seven years. This weekend, they went with The Revenant.

Why have we been saying the two top awards of Oscar night are going to anything else but The Revenant? This is happening people. Just crawl inside your horse carcasses and accept it.

That said, here are Decider’s current predictions for who we think will win all six major categories — not who we think deserves to be — plus the most likely “dark horse.” Enter “The Oscar Grouch“:

BEST PICTURE

Current Pick: The Revenant
Possible Dark Horse: The Big Short or Spotlight
What’s The Buzz? With its BAFTA win, The Revenant squeaks past the competition and into first place. It might be the most polarizing film in the Best Picture race, but the film has worn Hollywood down.

BEST DIRECTOR

Current Pick: Alejandro G. Iñarritu (The Revenant)
Possible Dark Horse: George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road)
What’s The Buzz?: At this point, Iñarritu is poised to win back-to-back Best Director Oscars. The one man who stands in his way? The eccentric auteur behind one of the most surprising blockbuster reboots of all time.

BEST ACTOR

Current Pick: Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant)
Possible Dark Horse: The Bear
What’s The Buzz? Okay, okay, okay…The bear is not going to win the Oscar. First of all, it’s bear. Second of all, it’s a CGI bear. Lastly, it’s not even nominated. Still, if Leo doesn’t thank the bear in his acceptance speech (or thank you crawl), Decider will riot.

BEST ACTRESS

Current Pick: Brie Larson (Room)
Possible Dark Horse: Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn)
What’s The Buzz? Let’s face it: This is Brie Larson’s Oscar. The actress has been slaving away in relative anonymity for years and will finally be Hollywood’s golden girl. Not only has she nabbed pretty much every major award this season, but she has also pulled off a pitch perfect charm offensive.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Current Pick: Sylvester Stallone (Creed)
Possible Dark Horse: Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight)
What’s The Buzz? Best Supporting Actor has been a tumultuous race all season, but now it looks like Rocky Balboa is going to knock out the rest of the competition. Nostalgia is tough to root against.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Current Pick: Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs)
Possible Dark Horse: Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl)
What’s The Buzz?: While it’s tempting to bet that Alicia Vikander will run away with the Best Supporting Actress Oscar — heck, we’ve been rallying around her for months — it looks now like Kate Winslet might edge the ingenue out. Winslet took home the BAFTA and the Golden Globe, and while that might not mean a lot in most races, she’s definitely the safe choice for Academy voters unfamiliar with Vikander’s work. We are giving the edge to Winslet this week, but Vikander may still pull through!

Of course, the Oscars are nothing if not a political game. Every week, new films are released, reviewed, and hyped by the Hollywood machine. And that means that every week, new frontrunners might emerge. The Oscar Grouch will be back every Monday to keep you updated on this year’s Oscar race.

Where To Stream The 2016 Oscar Contenders:

[Watch Beasts of No Nation on Netflix]
[Where To Stream Bridge of Spies]
[Where to Stream Mad Max: Fury Road]
[Where to Stream The Martian]
[Where to Stream Spotlight]
[Where to Stream Steve Jobs]

[Photos: Open Road Films, 20th Century Fox, Everett Collection]