2021 DYLA Oscars Preview (and Contest!)

See if you can beat Drew and Billy in our Oscars Prediction Contest!

After a two-month COVID-related delay, the Academy Awards are finally here. On Sunday at 8 PM ET on ABC, the movies will be front and center for a 2021 Oscars ceremony that will look very different from any other. We’re excited as always, so DYLA is previewing the ceremony for you with our predictions (and yours!), upsets, and Best Picture nominee rankings. 

On Wednesday, we sent out our 2021 Oscar Nominee Streaming Guide, where you can find out how to watch all of the major nominated films this year. Dive into our Oscar content and get hyped for Sunday night! 

Prediction Time

Check out our predictions below for what we think will happen in each of the eight major categories, as well as who we want to win. But we also want you to get involved as well! Click this link to make your own predictions for the major categories in the Do You Like Apples Oscars Prediction Contest. We’ll announce the winner(s) in next week’s newsletter!

Best Picture

Drew: The Trial of the Chicago 7
Who Should Win: Nomadland

Nomadland is definitely the favorite to take home the top prize (and rightfully so), but I’m going with an upset at the end of the night. The Trial of the Chicago 7 won the Screen Actors Guild award for Best Ensemble earlier this month, so it’s popular with the actors in the Academy, which is the largest branch. Aaron Sorkin’s courtroom drama also feels like the kind of important historical Oscar-y movie that voters will feel good about rewarding. I hope I’m wrong. 

Billy: Nomadland
Who Should Win: Nomadland

There were few movies that became an indie phenomenon in 2020, but Nomadland caught fire towards the end of the year and has supplanted itself as the odds on favorite to win many awards. It is not often that my favorite movie of the year wins Best Picture, but this year I think it might.

Best Director

Drew: Chloe Zhao (Nomadland)
Who Should Win: Chloe Zhao (Nomadland)

Zhao was born and raised in China, proving that sometimes foreign-born filmmakers are the best at exploring the American experience, as she has done with Nomadland and her previous film The Rider. She’s a remarkable talent that possesses a disarming amount of sensitivity and wisdom. Zhao was nominated four times this year for directing, writing, producing, AND editing Nomadland. She will become only the second woman to win this award on Sunday, and it will be richly deserved. 

Billy: Chloe Zhao (Nomadland)
Who Should Win: Chloe Zhao (Nomadland)

Chloe Zhao is a force to be reckoned with behind the camera. Her eye for grandeur within tiny stories is a unique skill that has drawn me in for her movie The Rider and this year's Nomadland. Her future is already bright even if she doesn’t win. She has the Marvel movie Eternals on deck. While I am so excited for her style to be given the blockbuster treatment, I hope she sticks to smaller stories in the future. That is where she has shined so far and her being able to bring grandeur with small stories would be missed if she consistently joins the behemoth of blockbuster filmmaking.

Best Actor

Drew: Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)
Who Should Win: Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal)

If Chadwick Boseman wins this award it will be a wonderfully emotional moment. His performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a powerhouse, all the more impressive that he did so while diagnosed (secretly) with colon cancer. Some are predicting Anthony Hopkins to get another Oscar for his work in The Father, but I think Academy members will take this final chance to reward and remember Boseman. 

Billy: Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)
Who Should Win: Steven Yeun (Minari)

The favorite Chadwick Boseman and underdog winner Steven Yeun could not have given more different performances in 2020. Boseman plays a bombastic trumpet player and is given two beautifully acted monologues that show his desire to be respected as an artist and as a human. Yeun plays a meek Korean-American immigrant who silently puts his head down and works to try and “earn” his place in middle America. Yeun’s performance spoke to me just a little bit more and for that I hope he can be rewarded this Sunday.

Best Actress

Drew: Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman)
Who Should Win: Frances McDormand (Nomadland)

This is about as open of a race as I can remember in any acting category. The only nominee I would be truly shocked to see win is Vanessa Kirby. Everyone else is in play. Viola Davis and Frances McDormand are beloved and respected actresses, but they have already won an Oscar, so I am going with Carey Mulligan, who is in just about every frame of Promising Young Woman and owns it entirely. 

Billy: Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman)
Who Should Win: Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman)

Carey Mulligan and everyone involved with Promising Young Woman were given the tough task to make a dark and emotionally distressing movie palatable. Director Emerald Fennell gave all the tools Carey Mulligan needed to give, for me, the best performance of 2020. Mulligan’s ability to portray an angry, hurt, nearly rehabilitated, and justifiably violent character so flawlessly is magnificent to behold. This would be a slight upset and I am here for it.

Best Supporting Actor

Drew: Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah)
Who Should Win: Paul Raci (Sound of Metal)

Daniel Kaluuya winning this category is one of the true locks of the night. A brilliantly talented performer, Kaluuya’s portrayal of Black Panther Fred Hampton is not one you forget after seeing Judas and the Black Messiah. However, my vote would go to Sound of Metal’s Paul Raci, who gives an incredibly lived-in performance as the leader of a deaf community that welcomes in Riz Ahmed’s Ruben. Raci, a CODA (child of deaf adults) and Vietnam vet, has an amazing real-life story that runs parallel to his character’s. His performance remains one of my favorites of the year. Plus, it’s a true supporting part, unlike Judas co-leads Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield, who were both nominated in this category. 

Billy: Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah)
Who Should Win: Lakeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah)

Daniel is the Messiah, Fred Hampton, and Lakeith is the Judas of this story. While Daniel plays a character that is worthy of deification, Lakeith gives the audience a conflicted view of a character that is the catalyst for all the conflict within the story. While at no point in this story are you necessarily rooting for his character, we are rooting that the system doesn’t bring him down. Apologies for being vague, but Lakeith toeing that line so beautifully was the more impressive feat.  

Best Supporting Actress

Drew: Yuh-Jung Youn (Minari)
Who Should Win: Amanda Seyfried (Mank)

As the prickly and wonderful grandmother in Minari, Yuh-Jung Youn looks poised to win this award, which will be a good way for voters to recognize the lovely Minari. An upset isn’t out of the question, but the problem is a consistent challenger never emerged in this category. Billy and I will be cracking open a big bottle of Mountain Dew when she walks up on stage to collect her award. 

Billy: Yuh-Jung Youn (Minari)
Who Should Win: Amanda Seyfried (Mank)

Yuh-Jung Youn gives the most heartwarming performance of anyone in this category, but Amanda Seyfried, a Hollywood veteran, proved that she has the talent to give a top notch performance. Her recognizable face is used perfectly for a character that needs to be recognizable. While Mank was a slight disappointment I do not want it to leave without any awards, and Seyfriend is the most deserving of the categories the movie is nominated for. 

Best Original Screenplay

Drew: The Trial of the Chicago 7
Who Should Win: Judas and the Black Messiah

It really seems like Original Screenplay is down to either The Trial of the Chicago 7 or Promising Young Woman. Since I picked the former to win Best Picture, I’ll pick it again here, since it’s really hard to win the top trophy without first winning either director or screenplay. Sorkin has already won an Oscar, so I wouldn’t mind seeing Emerald Fennell take it for the bold and provocative Promising Young Woman or Judas and the Black Messiah get awarded for spinning a too-little-known chapter of our nation’s history into an entertaining story. 

Billy: The Trial of the Chicago 7
Who Should Win: Promising Young Woman

I really don’t want to see The Trial of the Chicago 7 win anything tonight. Not because it is not a good movie, it is actually pretty fantastic, but Sorkin plays into his Sorkinisms completely with this one. That has been rightfully rewarded in the past and it is not time for it to happen again. Promising Young Woman plays into some cliché storytelling, but hides it within a revenge tale that is completely unique. I am a sucker for that structure of storytelling and I hope it wins because of that.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Drew: The Father
Who Should Win: Nomadland

With only two Best Picture nominees in this category, it’s most likely between The Father and Nomadland. Academy voters clearly like The Father, because they gave the Anthony Hopkins drama six nominations, so I think it wins here over Nomadland, which hasn’t really been lauded as much for its screenwriting. 

Billy: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan 
Who Should Win: The Father

It is absolutely insane that Borat Subsequent Moviefilm was nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, but here we are. It feels like The Academy wants to honor this movie in some way. This is the most likely category for it to win in my opinion because it seems like they want to honor the whole production and not a specific thing. And where does a big production typically start? With the screenplay. Plus, seeing the presenter say this absurd title would go down in Oscar history.

---

Upset Alert!

Here are three potential upsets that Drew and Billy were too scared to actually predict above. Look out for these dark horses on Oscar night!

Billy:

1. The Trial of the Chicago 7 winning Best Picture

2. Maria Bakalova winning Best Actress in a Supporting Role

3. Andra Day winning Best Actress in a Leading Role

Drew:

1. Minari swooping in at the last second to steal Best Picture (everyone likes Minari!)

2. Glenn Close finally winning her Oscar… for a movie no one likes

3. Wolfwalkers slaying Pixar for the Best Animated Feature Film award

---

DYLA Ranks the Best Picture Nominees

Billy:

1. Nomadland

2. Minari

3. Sound of Metal

4. Promising Young Woman

5. Judas and the Black Messiah

6. Mank

7. The Trial of the Chicago 7

8. The Father (have not seen)

Drew:

1. Nomadland

2. Judas and the Black Messiah

3. Promising Young Woman

4. Sound of Metal

5. Minari

6. Mank

7. The Trial of the Chicago 7

8. The Father (have not seen)

---

Links

• Take a peek inside the mind of an Oscar voter with The Hollywood Reporter’s anonymous “Brutally Honest Oscar Ballot.”

• Who doesn’t love Mads Mikkelsen? Here’s an interview in Vulture with the star of Another Round. 

• The man, the myth, the legend Ted Lasso is back for season 2 on July 23rd!