Who will win big at the 2021 Oscars, and who should win? The Hollywood Reporter's
awards expert Scott Feinberg is weighing in on the likely winners, while chief film
critic David Rooney reveals who he thinks is the most deserving ahead of Sunday's show.
In the best actress category, Feinberg says Frances McDormand will win for Nomadland...
but Rooney believes Carey Mulligan should win for Promising Young Woman.
According to Rooney, "After watching Mulligan build a screen persona primarily out of
restrained characterizations in period pieces, it was a thrill to watch her tear down that
facade playing a fiercely contemporary woman, an avenging angel driven as much by pain as rage." For best actor, Feinberg and Rooney both believe
Chadwick Boseman will and should win for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
Feinberg says, "This Oscar night will belong to Chadwick Boseman, who died in August,
leaving a legacy of great performances, and this one last master class still in the can."
In the best director category,
the pair are also in agreement that Chloé Zhao will and should win for Nomadland.
And finally... when it comes to best picture, Feinberg believes Nomadland will win,
but Rooney thinks Minari should win.
According to Rooney, "Lee Isaac Chung’s intensely personal account of a young
Korean immigrant family grasping for their modest piece of the American Dream
is both a return to the domestic heartland dramas that were once a studio staple
and a reclamation of those stories as a cross-cultural experience,
imbued with delicacy, grit and affecting warmth by an unimpeachable cast."
For more on this story, go to THR.com. For The Hollywood Reporter News, I'm Tiffany Taylor.