The National Board of Review has officially ushered in Oscar Season as they unveil their 2009 Awards.  For the next few months, we’ll be treated to a flurry of Critics, Guild and Industry Awards that will hope to demystify which films and performances will be selected to the increasingly long Oscar shortlists.

Before the floodgates open, it’s best to start with a barometer, a slate of potential nominees unencumbered by the thoughts of people who write reviews.  With that, here is the inaugural 2009 Oscar Power Rankings.

As always, contenders are listed in order of likelihood of their being nominated, and not based on the probability of their ultimately winning. And, as a bonus, with Best Picture expanding to ten nominees this year, we’ll bring you the top fifteen contenders for the biggest prize in filmdom.

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For weeks now we have been giving your reports on which Oscar nominees most deserved to have their name called at the Kodak Theater on Sunday night.  Today, we put our money where our mouths are as we predict every winner in the Big Six categories.

So here its.  Our predictive journey that we started nearly three months ago has come to an end.  The final Oscar Power rankings are… Continue Reading

Oscar season officially kicked off on December 4th of last year when the National Board named Slumdog Millionaire the Best Picture of the year. Amazingly, that film has remained the front-runner for the top prize ever since, and now with a week left in the Oscar race, the only question remaining is not if it will win, but does it deserve to win?

That answer to that very question is what this column is seeking. For the last few months, we’ve been all about stone-cold analysis of the Oscar race completely devoid of opinion at Oscar Power Rankings Centra. Now that the race is at an end, it’s time to take a respite from predictions and rank the nominees with regards to quality in advance of Thursday’s final Oscar predictions which (spoiler alert) Slumdog is set to top in several categories.

So now, without further ado, the first-ever Who Should Win Oscar Power Rankings:

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The actors got their night in the spotlight (as opposed to every other night of the year) on Sunday with the 15th annual SAG Awards. Since actors make up the largest portion of the Academy, this is always an important precursor and a great way to check the temperature of the race. So what did we learn last night? Nothing.

No, the SAGs created more confusion than anything else. It didn’t help that Kate Winslet won in the wrong category with respect to her Oscar nomination and that Oscar darling Meryl Streep benefited. This also, of course, did little to clear up the Supporting Actress race as none of the Academy Award nominees in that category could win. Plus, Sean Penn swapped another award (SAG for Golden Globe) with Mickey Rourke, putting the two in a virtual tie. So those races are all up in the air.

Three things are certain however. Everybody loves Slumdog Millionaire, Heath Ledger and Danny Boyle, something the SAGs only continued to hammer home. So with all that in mind and this being the day the Academy mails out the final ballots, it’s time for a fresh Oscar Power Rankings.

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Well, that was an exciting Oscar morning!

Upsets and surprises ruled the early morning at the Samuel Goldwyn theater as The Dark Knight got shut out, The Reader became apparently the best movie of all time and Kate Winslet got a nomination in a category in which her performance wasn’t supposed to be competing.

Of course, this calls for a whole new set of power rankings. Contenders below are now listed in order of their likelihood to win. Remember, no previous voting or buzz matters anymore. The race begins anew today, so let’s see who’s in contention…

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******* Update: Complete official list of oscar nominations 2009 ***********

We’re less than 24 hours from the most gripping five minutes in filmdom: Oscar morning. After months of speculation we’ll finally know who’s in the running for the Academy Awards.

All Oscar season, we’ve tracked the contenders in these power rankings, and today is no exception. Below is the final list of power rankings which are, as always, listed in order of likelihood of a nomination. It’s no longer time to check where they’ve been on the list before, all that matters is where they’ve ended up.

This is it. So here’s who we think is in, who is out, and why:

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All the big dominoes have fallen. The Golden Globe Awards have been handed out, the Directors Guild (actually the best predictor of the Best Picture nominees) and Writers Guild have named their nominees, and just about every critics society has voted.

What have we learned from these big awards groups? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. This has been the least exciting Oscar race in history. Track back to week one of these power rankings. The top five in Best Picture have never changed. In fact, if we’d done a ranking before an award was given out (something for next year) this would have been the top five as well.

Normally, there’s some major shakeup somewhere along the road. Some surefire contender that falls off, but that just has never happened this year. There is no logical reason to presume that any of the top five in Best Picture won’t get nominated.

So without further ado, here are the picks. . .

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The holidays meant a week off for the Oscar Power Rankings as only the mighty Oklahoma Film Critics Association handed out awards during the last week of the year. Luckily, heavy hitters like the Producers Guild of America and The National Society of Film Critics wet our precursor appetite this week.

Big stuff on the horizon for next week too as the Directors Guild and Writers Guild had out nominations while the Golden Globes and Broadcast Film Critics Association give out awards in the coming week.

Until then, here are the updated rankings featuring some substantial shakeups in the acting categories. Enjoy… Continue Reading

Not a whole lot of movement at the top this week, as the number one seeds all hold their ground in a tizzy of precursor awards.

The real movers and shakers are coming at the bottoms of the lists, as new competitors are starting to earn some big time buzz. With many Guild Awards on the way in the coming weeks, look for some top fivers to start falling at the feet of the newbies.

Check out the lists below… Continue Reading