By Ryan C. Showers ​​​

Happy August, Next Best Picture readers. And it is a happy time because we have yet to enter phase one of award season this year. Before the festivals begin and the films that go on to become big dogs in the awards conversation are actually screened for critics and audiences, everything is speculation. We’re all speculating right now. While some find this process annoying, others find it invigorating. Anything can happen at this point. And despite however the individual facts and trends develop once we really get started, sometimes you can sense larger trends in the structure of the season based on the information available at this point. There’s one grim trend about which that we all deserve a forewarning.

By Will Mavity 

​After the initial Twitter reactions to “The Lion King” dropped, there were many online saying “this has the Best Visual Effects Oscar in the bag” and “all other VFX contenders can go home now.”

And then the actual reviews dropped. And reactions were much much more divided. Some people blamed all of their problems with the film as a whole on the film’s effects. Terms like “uncanny valley” kept getting thrown around, along with comparisons to the Peter Cushing CGI work in “Rogue One.” And then people started thinking…maybe we’ve been looking at the wrong giant cat movie in this category. Maybe we should start looking at “Cats.” Surely, it will look bet-- Oh my god, kill it with fire!

So…obviously, the “Cats” VFX work is incomplete, and it could be dramatically improved by December - who knows. But right now, it seems like it might be too creepy looking to win the category as well. So who does that leave as viable contenders?

As far as I can tell, aside from “Cats” and “The Lion King,” neither of which are sure things, there are only 9 other films that feel as though they end up in the hunt to win the Visual Effects Oscar…and they all have detractors as well.

By Ryan C. Showers ​​

​I’m about to suggest something a few weeks ago I was dismissing right and left: Lupita Nyong’o could earn a Best Actress nomination for “Us.” As a disclaimer, I’m writing this piece before seeing “Us,” as to not bias myself and instincts based on an objective case that can be made for Nyong’o’s Best Actress chances. I’m writing this purely because I see potential in a possible staying power with this performance.

​By Daniel Howat 

The 91st Academy Awards are behind us now and "Green Book" claimed victory in a wildly contentious season. Oh, you thought that meant a break from awards season? Never! Awards season 2019 has only just begun! You've heard about some of the films which premiered earlier this year at Sundance and along with those, this is our official 2019 easy Oscar contenders preview!

​Let’s take a look at the films to keep an eye on this year that could make big plays at the 92nd Academy Awards.

By Liam Heffernan​ 

In the 91 year history of the Academy Awards, only three films have succeeded in winning Best Picture in isolation, without any additional Oscars to its name. To find them you need to look a long way back in the archives. Could the same thing happen tomorrow night? In the age of the preferential ballot and with this particular awards season being as unpredictable as ever, perhaps it is time that we should expect the unexpected.

By Matt Neglia 

​After looking at the acting categories and the categories I personally deem to be locks for the 91st Academy Awards, we now come to the final remaining categories. These are the categories which have been giving me sleepless nights these past few days, especially when the guilds decided to truly go their own way this year and many of the precursors we rely on to tell us about these categories rewarded films which didn't end up receiving Oscar nominations in the end anyway. For these articles, I typically tend to rely on stats with a hint of gut instinct thrown in there. Today, I'm going to mostly be relying on my gut because for these categories, stats have truly failed us this year....or have they?

​You may have heard me deliver my final Oscar predictions on Episode 130 of the podcast but after some thoughtful reflection and going through these one more time, I can honestly say that after this post goes up, these will be my final locked in Oscar predictions for the 91st Academy Awards.

​By Matt Neglia 

​I know. I know. Is anything truly a lock on Oscar night? Shockers happen all the time. Contenders sweep the entire season, winning every award possible, like Jason Reitman's "Up In The Air" for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2009, and then out of the blue "Precious" wins on Oscar night. Since these posts are more rooted in stats than gut feeling (though, that sometimes plays a role as well), I think it's very fair to call certain categories locked and loaded for Oscar night on February 24th. There's not many but they do exist this year and while we wait for some of the final guilds to chime in for those categories, let's take a look at these.

Click below to see my in-depth analysis on the categories I deem to be locks for the 91st Academy Awards and be sure to check out my previous article on the acting categories.

By Matt Neglia 

We have heard from the Critics Choice Awards, the Golden Globes, the Screen Actor's Guild Awards and most recently, the BAFTAs. Now, all that's left are the Academy Awards. As I've done the past couple of years, I will be doing a deep dive into each category to analyze who I think might win the Academy Award on February 24th using a combination of stats from the creation of the SAG Awards in 1994 to today along with gut instinct and intuition (which this year certainly requires). First up are the acting categories which have thrown us a few curveballs this season. Let's take a look.

Click below to see my in-depth analysis on each of the four acting categories.

By Liam Heffernan​ 

​If the Academy commits to presenting some categories during commercials, the shorts will certainly be three of them. They suffer from a lack of exposure and by proxy, a lack of interest from audiences. After all, if you haven’t seen the nominees how do you know what to root for, or who to care about?

Well, here’s a badly kept secret – most of us have never see the short films before the Oscars either. Predicting them is often a complete guess based on hype and previous award tallies.

However, short films shine a spotlight on some of the biggest new filmmakers around the world. These categories celebrate diversity, technical bravery, and innovative storytelling, from those who will one day redefine what good looks like for a new generation of moviegoers. In 2006, Martin McDonagh won the Oscar for his live-action short "Six Shooter." He has since received three Oscar nominations for "In Bruges" and "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri." Previous winners also include Andrea Arnold ("American Honey") and Taika Waititi ("Thor: Ragnarok").

Luckily, whether you genuinely want to take an interest in the shorts or you just want to sound like you know anything, we have you covered this year.

​Here is a rundown of the live action short film nominees.

By Daniel Howat ​

The morning is finally here! After months and months of deliberation, campaigning, and plenty of arguing, the nominations for the 91st Academy Awards are here. As per usual, they came with plenty of surprises, more than a few snubs, and plenty to talk about.

Let’s dive into our initial reactions to the nominations!

By Daniel Howat 

​“Black Panther” was the highest grossing film in America in 2018, and received overwhelming critical acclaim. Culturally, the film made a huge, lasting impact for representation on screen. Because of all of these elements, “Black Panther” has received a legendary awards push from Disney and Marvel. That push has poised “Black Panther” to break new ground not only for Marvel but superhero films as a whole. Let’s look back at the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s history at the Academy Awards, category-by-category.

By Beatrice Loayza 

Two fascinating categories (and two that also sadly have a shot at being left off of the live ceremony this year due to the Academy's stubborn move to keep the Oscar ceremony to under three hours long) are Best Costume Design and Production Design. With Oscar nominations a day away, I wanted to take one final look at both categories and highlight some hopefuls and some favorites to give these proper artists and films their due.

By Matt Neglia 

Tomorrow is the big day. Everything we've talked about for the past 10 months culminates tomorrow.

Starting at 8:20am EST, the nominations for the 91st Academy Awards will be announced. We have discussed on Episode 126 at great length, the reasoning behind our predictions, and now we have them all listed below for you to see.

A reminder though, that for as many happy moments which will occur tomorrow for your favorite films or performances, there will be just as many snubs as well. Hearts WILL be broken. I guarantee you that. I think with the way this season has gone so far, it's important to remember to be respectful to each other. This season has gotten ugly on more than a few occssions and if someone likes a partciular film or performance you don't and they're happy that it got nominated, I ask that you don't take their happiness away from them.

With that said, let's all take a deep breath, dive right in and hope that we can come up from the bottom for air on the other side.

By Cody Dericks 

​With Oscar nominations fast approaching, everybody is working and stressing to solidify their predictions. But this year is a weird one. So many races are still up in the air, least of all the performance categories. The general consensus for these races is that all of the categories have a solid four nominees that are seemingly a sure thing, with the fifth slot (in other words, your predicted nominee that stands the smallest chance of actually getting nominated) less easy to pin down. Let’s go through all four of these categories and try to determine the fifth slots using both cold hard statistics and general awards trajectory. ​

By Cody Dericks 

​As I mentioned several times in my article analyzing their nominees, the Critics' Choice Awards are seemingly most preoccupied with being reliable predictors of the Oscars, so they should be cautiously referenced when making your own Oscar predictions. However, they can be used as a semi-decent bellwether in terms of seeing where the various races are generally heading, and they are inevitably looked at by actual Oscar voters, even if they aren't voted on by any of them. Last night's awards brought us a decent mix of predictable winners and honest-to-God shockers. Let's take a look at some of them and see what they mean for the state of the race!