Early Oscar Favorites: Best Picture - REVISED

The 88th Annual Academy Awards are not until Sunday, February 28th, but the awards season leading up to it is already in full swing. Many critics groups and other organizations have already bestowed their awards or announced their nominations, with the Oscar nominations announced on Thursday, January 14th.

Here is my very early list of Oscar predictions in some of the main categories. I will provide updated predictions as we get closer to the time of the nominations on the 14th. One site I rely on for help is http://www.goldderby.com/, which summarizes predictions and odds from numerous industry experts and critics. Keep in mind, this is less about my personal opinions of the films and what I think will be nominated.

Here are my revised Best Picture predictions. For other categories see my earlier blog posts. I will post my final predictions for this and other categories very soon.

Best Picture

2014 had 8 nominees for Best Picture, the fewest number of films in this category since expanding the category in 2009. I believe there will be more nominees this year, at least 9 or 10.

At this point, it's  primarily a race between three films at this point: "Spotlight," "The Revenant" and "The Martian," though anything could happen between now and then.

"The Big Short" has gained considerable momentum in recent weeks, as well as "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" though that changed with the recent announcement of the Producers Guild Awards, a strong predictor for Best Picture; the PGA included "Ex Machina," "Sicario" and "Straight Outta Compton," the latter of which has also been surging in recent weeks; this list however also excluded favorites "Carol" and "Room," which hurts their chances. The Academy is usually good for a surprise or two, on that note I still expect "Carol" to be included here. Here is my revised list as of January 6, 2016.

"Spotlight"
"The Revenant"
"The Martian"
"Carol"
"Mad Max: Fury Road"
"Brooklyn"
"The Big Short"
"Bridge of Spies"
"Straight Outta Compton"

Don't count out:

"Room"
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens"
"Ex Machina" (received PGA nomination)
"Inside Out"
"Steve Jobs"
"The Danish Girl"
"Sicario" (received PGA nomination)

Personally, I think "Mad Max" is a good but vastly overrated film and doesn't belong here; many critics went crazy over it (but not me) and it's directed by the great George Miller, an Oscar winner for Best Animated film in 2006 for "Happy Feet." Likewise, the same for "Bridge of Spies," a solid film but not worthy to be included here but directed by Spielberg, an Academy darling in recent years.