Oscars 2017 Predictions: Emma Stone, La La Land, Casey Affleck tipped to win Academy Awards

David Stratton, Philippa Hawker and Stephen Romei nominate their personal Oscars 2017 picks and preferences — and who the Academy is likely to go for.

Mel Gibson with Andrew Garfield on the shoot for Hacksaw Ridge.

OSCARS 2017 PREDICTIONS: David Stratton, Philippa Hawker and Stephen Romei nominate their personal picks and preferences - as well as the likely winners - ahead of the awards.

Some Oscar winners are more predictable than others. Last year, for instance, two years after he was nominated for The Wolf of Wall Street, nine years after Blood Diamond and 11 years after The Aviator, Leonardo DiCaprio won best actor for The Revenant, just as many thought he would.

In 2009, it would have been impossible to imagine the best supporting actor award going to anyone but Heath Ledger, courtesy of Th e Dark Knight.

In 2015, it would have been brave to bet against Birdman’s chances in the race for best film, director and screenplay. Or against Schindler’s List winning best film in 1993. (Then again, the competition that year included In the Name of the Father, The Piano and The Remains of the Day.)

Of course, the Academy Awards have sprung up some well-known anomalies over the years: Citizen Kane didn’t win best picture in 1941, Francis Ford Coppola didn’t win best director for The Godfather in 1973, Rocky was judged a better film in 1977 than All the President’s Men, Network and Taxi Driver, just as Crash beat Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Good Night, and Good Luck for best film in 2006.

This year, for all its detractors, La La Land is still the one to beat. Damien Chazelle’s musical has already won plenty of love, including top honours at the Baftas and Golden Globes, and it goes into the awards with a record-equalling 14 nominations.

There’s also been plenty of hype around films such as Moonlight, Manchester By the Sea and Fences — all of which boast strong contenders across multiple categories. Australia is nominated in a record 14 categories, led by Lion and Hacksaw Ridge — both films have six nominations each, including best film, and both have the potential to quietly slip past the field on the day.

Oscar nominees 2017

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The 89th Academy Awards take place in Los Angeles on Sunday night (Monday Australian time). Who will win? Who should win?

As always, it’s hard to say, but The Australian’s leading film connoisseurs — David Stratton, Stephen Romei and Philippa Hawker — have valiantly agreed to share their forecasts ahead of the big day. Even if Stratton sent his contribution with a caveat: “I’m hopeless at predictions.”

BEST FILM
Nominees and how The Australian reviews the film: Arrival, Fences, Hacksaw Ridge, Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, La La Land, Lion, Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight.

David Stratton: There are nine nominations whereas in most other categories there are five. We can probably eliminate the four best-film nominations that don’t also have best-director nominations (Fences, Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, Lion). We’re left with super-intelligent sci-fi (Arrival), World War II heroism (Hacksaw Ridge), melancholy musical (La La Land), and two moving explorations of “ordinary” lives. I’m a big fan of La La Land, but I think Manchester by the Sea is the best film. Nevertheless I suspect that African-American coming-of-age drama Moonlight, also extremely good, might win this year, partly, if not entirely, to pay penance for the absence of racial minorities in past Oscar races.

Stephen Romei: I watched the nine nominated films in quick succession and it was an unsettling experience. They are all so dark, with the exception of La La Land. Perhaps that’s one reason the Ryan Gosling-Emma Stone song, dance and romance-athon is favourite to win: people need cheering up. Though on that basis Kenneth Lonergan’s brilliant, draining Manchester by the Seawould be banned. While La La Land is no masterpiece, I dislike the small but vocal hatred of it. Funnily enough, there’s a preparatory response in the film. Stone’s Mia is worried about her one-woman stage show. “It feels too nostalgic to me. Are people going to like it?” Gosling’s Sebastian responds, “F..k ’em.” Because I like lists, I’m going to rank the films in order. I think Barry Jenkins’s unconventional, unpredictable, at times unknowable examination of urban black life, Moonlight, is the best and should win the Oscar. Then comes Manchester by the Sea, Fences, La La Land, Hell or High Water, Hacksaw Ridge, Lion, Hidden Figures and the sci-fi drama Arrival (I know not liking it makes me an alien).

Philippa Hawker: Academy voters tend to gravitate towards the middle — more often than not, an average movie takes out best picture. So it would be heartening, for once, if Moonlight were to be the voters’ choice: it’s a heartbreaking, imaginatively conceived and beautifully realised film. But La La Land is still the pundits’ favourite, and I expect it to win.

What do you think? Vote below

BEST DIRECTOR
Nominations: Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, La La Land, Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight

Stratton: A difficult choice. I doubt Mel Gibson will be awarded — still too much baggage. Denis Villeneuve (Arrival) may have to wait another year when his remake of Blade Runner will probably be among the nominees. It’s hard to decide between Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) and Kenneth Lonergan ( Manchester by the Sea), both very talented directors who wrote their own material and whose troubled characters come vividly to life. I have a feeling my choice in this category, Damien Chazelle, might win the award because La La Land is so dazzlingly staged and conceived and, by today’s standards, is so stimulatingly original.

Romei: If the Oscar genie granted me one wish, I’d ask that Gibson, who won for Braveheart in 1996, double up with the World War II drama Hacksaw Ridge, just because it would annoy people. Yet while I think the gruesome battle scenes are so real as to be hard to watch, other parts of the film are a bit stilted. Deep down I think Jenkins deserves the Oscar for Moonlight, but my money is on ... Gibson. I hope he recites bits of Braveheart in his acceptance speech, something like “your commander must cross that field, present himself before this army, put his head between his legs, and kiss his own arse’’.

Hawker: La La Land’s Chazelle is considered the front-runner here as well, although if Academy members were to consider splitting the vote between Moonlight and La La Land, perhaps this is where Moonlight’s Jenkins could win. Lonergan might have an outside chance for his portrait of grief and the texture of daily life in Manchester by the Sea. It’s a pity Kelly Reichardt’s subtle, quietly devastating ensemble film, Certain Women, has been overlooked in this and other categories.

Casey Affleck is favourite to win Best Actor at Oscars 2017.

BEST ACTOR
Nominations: Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea; Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge; Ryan Gosling, La La Land; Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic; Denzel Washington, Fences.

Stratton: I think Casey Affleck will win this. The character he plays in Manchester by the Sea is a deeply flawed man whose life, not to mention the lives of others close to him, has been ruined by his own stupidity and thoughtlessness. His opportunity of redemption is portrayed with rare intelligence and humanity. That said, Andrew Garfield is terrific as the young conscientious objector in Hacksaw Ridge, Denzel Washington is boldly theatrical in Fences, Viggo Mortensen inhabits his neo-hippy character in Captain Fantastic and Ryan Gosling is utterly charming in La La Land.

Romei: I don’t think he’ll win, but I do hope Mortensen’s nomination clip from Captain Fantasticis the scene where he stands naked in the door of his bus-cum-home and tells a passing elderly couple, “It’s just a penis. Every man has one.” Well, not every man has an Oscar but Washington is a shot for three thanks to Fences (adding to the ones for Glory and Training Day). I think the Oscar should go to Affleck for Manchester by the Sea. It’s a performance for the ages: he shows us a man in emotional remission due to almost unimaginable loss. Gosling is charming in La La Land but I think his character is still too close to being, well, Ryan Gosling. Garfield from Hacksaw Ridge is one to keep in mind. Not this year, but sooner rather than later. And personally? I’d hand the award to the three actors who play Chiron as boy, lad and man in Moonlight.

Hawker: Affleck’s performance in Manchester by the Sea is powerful and affecting, and he has been an awards favourite since the film’s release. Voters do not seem to have been affected by revelations of sexual harassment suits brought against him in 2010. His only serious contender is Washington as the flawed patriarch of Fences.

BEST ACTRESS
Nominations: Isabelle Huppert, Elle; Ruth Negga, Loving; Natalie Portman, Jackie; Emma Stone, La La Land; Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins.

Stratton: Meryl Streep has won umpteen times and she’s splendid as the singer who can’t sing in Florence Foster Jenkins, but I doubt she’ll win this year. Emma Stone is delightful in La La Land, and there are moving performances from Natalie Portman as Jackie (Kennedy) and Ruth Negga as the African-American woman bold enough to marry to a white man in the Deep South in 1958 in Loving. I’d like to see Isabelle Huppert win for her astonishing performance in the confronting French drama, Elle — but probably too few people saw it. Stone will probably win.

Romei: Streep already has three Oscars (from a record 20 nominations) and I doubt that number will change due to Florence Foster Jenkins. Negga is convincing — vulnerable and brave — in the 1950s miscegenation drama Loving but the role is not one that takes over a film. The three actresses who do that are Portman as the grieving, angry Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie, Huppert in the French thriller Elle and Stone in La La Land. Each is terrific. Huppert knocked out Portman at the Golden Globes (both were nominated in drama) but I think another winner that night, Stone (in musical or comedy) will take the Oscar. I don’t think the passion between the two leads is well explained in La La Land, but every time Stone is on the screen we come up close to the ordinariness and extraordinariness of being alive.

Hawker: Portman’s expertly calibrated depiction of Jackie Kennedy in Jackie was initially considered a frontrunner, but seems to have faded from contention. Stone in La La Land, looks to have a lock on this one. Yet Academy voters sometimes reward careers or atone for previous omissions, so perhaps Huppert — nominated for the first time — has a chance. Her performance in Elle is extraordinary, and defines the film. She has been ubiquitous on red carpets, at awards and festivals, so Oscar voters ve had plenty of reminders of the opportunity to vote for her. It’s a shame that Annette Bening wasn’t nominated for her performance as a freewheeling yet inscrutable 1970s mother in Mike Mills’s 20th Century Women.

OSCARS LIVE 2017: We will have have live updates, winners, speeches, analysis and all the news from the red carpet on Monday morning, with Stephen Romei and fashion editor Glynis Traill-Nash.