Film critic shares his 2020 Oscar predictions

The Academy Awards are right around the corner, so we sat down with our film critic Radheyan Simonpillai for his predictions on who is going home with the gold for acting, directing and Best Picture.Check out Rad's predictions below, and be sure to click on the video above for more!

ACTING PREDICTIONS

The acting categories look all sewn up because the same people have been sweeping all the precursor awards: Brad Pitt, Laura Dern, Joaquin Phoenix and Renee Zellweger.

BEST ACTRESS - LEADING ROLE

RENEE ZELLWEGERRenee has made this major comeback, playing a broken down Judy Garland in the final years of her life in Judy.  She gives everything the Academy wants: a spot on impersonation of a real tragic Hollywood figure.

BEST ACTOR - LEADING ROLE

JOAQUIN PHOENIXThis will be only the second time in history that two actors won Oscars for playing the same character. It happened before with Marlon Brando and Robert DeNiro playing Don Corleone in The Godfather movies, and now Phoenix will join Heath Ledger as the two guys who won Oscars for playing the Joker.

BEST ACTRESS - SUPPORTING ROLE

LAURA DERNLaura Dern is a god. She’s slumming it in Marriage Story. She could sleepwalk through her performance as a merciless divorce lawyer.[video_embed id='1895008']Charlize Theron on why she was so humbled by her first Oscar win[/video_embed]

BEST ACTOR - SUPPORTING ROLE

BRAD PITTBrad Pitt has been described as a character actor in a movie star body.  He’s always cool and low key and performing in a way to keep the spotlight on his co-stars - and that’s exactly who he plays in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Pitt plays the stuntman whose job it is to make the movie star look good. But its Pitt who has that movie star aura the whole time. Its like Quentin Tarantino saw Pitt’s aura was and built a whole movie around it, and that’s why he’s got this category all sewn up. However, if there is going to be a surprise in the acting categories, Pitt might be the most vulnerable. That’s only because he’s up against Joe Pesci, who is absolutely incredible in The Irishman.

DIRECTING PREDICTIONS

The nominees are:

• Martin Scorsese, The Irishman
• Todd Phillips, Joker
• Sam Mendes, 1917
• Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood
• Bong Joon Ho, Parasite

The Academy loves to reward directors who put on a show of directing. Oscar voters like to reward the director who shuts down an LA freeway for a musical number, as in La La Land, or the director who only shoots in natural light, as in The Revenant, or the director who shoots his movie like its all happening in one continuous motion, as in Birdman or 1917. When it comes to directing, they like to reward what they can point at and say, “See, that’s directing”.So all that to say, Academy voters are going to reward Sam Mendes for his hacky look-at-me directorial style in 1917.[video_embed id='1894273']What's inside the 2020 Oscars swag bag?[/video_embed]

BEST PICTURE PREDICTION

And the nominees are:

• Ford v Ferrari
• The Irishman
• Jojo Rabbit
• Joker
• Jojo Rabbit
• Marriage Story
• 1917
• Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood
• Parasite

Now here’s the thing - the smart money says 1917 is going to win Best Picture. It’s the likely winner for all the reasons why the Academy wants to reward its director. It’s a showy technical feat attached to a war movie. And its been triumphant at major precursor awards like the PGA and the DGA. So if you want to play it safe, tick off 1917.Going out on a limb and bet on a surprise win would be choosing Parasite. This is a long shot for several reasons but first and foremost, no foreign film has ever won Best Picture. It would be historic for Parasite to win. Everyone who has seen Parasite, either likes it a lot or loves it. If you saw the SAG awards, you would have seen a room full of Hollywood’s elite get up and give Parasite’s cast a standing ovation.[video_embed id='1894645']BEFORE YOU GO: Power couples who dominated the Oscars red carpet[/video_embed]