When the category of Best Picture swells to nine, you can be sure that your favorites will be covered. Throughout “the season,” prognosticators haggled –with one another and themselves– over the supremacy of The Shape of Water over Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, Lady Bird over Get Out, Dunkirk over The Darkest Hour. An excellent solution is to award every one of them, and with the lineup announced today, every one of them gets the prize for showing up. But, it is safe to say, as one Academy member has reminded me year after year, this award is like no other. And so, I would like to think there is still mystery afoot for the winner, even though I am pretty sure of which are the real contenders on this awesome list, and which one will get the prize.

Along the way, I am personally pleased that one of my favorites, The Phantom Thread, was nominated, that both Daniels (Day-Lewis and Kaluuya) were too, happy that Sally Hawkins was, for The Shape of Water, and not for her superb work in Maudie, as first reported, which I think, would have hurt her chances for a win; the academy excelled in their picks for supporting actors recognizing Willem Dafoe, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Plummer and Richard Jenkins, as well as Mary J. Blige, Allison Janney, Leslie Manville, Laurie Metcalf and Octavia Spencer for their work in this exceptionally good year.

As to the categories with lots of wiggle room for a surprise win, the documentary list is fine; there were so many strong films this year, but I would have liked to include City of Ghosts and Long Strange Trip. And the foreign film category bursts with its own superb choices: A Fantasy Woman and The Insult are deeply resonant films, although I think the statue will go to The Square. I would have liked to include Foxtrot on the list, a smart, unusually surreal take on the ethos of Israelis. Upon meeting the director recently for an interview, I told Samuel Maoz that his nomination was secure, to which he protested, reminding me of the politics involved. I hate to admit it: he was right and I was wrong.

Regina Weinreich

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