It’s Hollywood’s biggest night, the 91st Academy Awards is finally upon us. Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers, who is also host of ABC’s “Popcorn with Peter Travers,” has spent the last year watching all of the movies, big and small. Here, he offers his predictions for who will win and who could be the spoiler.
MAHERSHALA ALI, Green Book
ADAM DRIVER, BlacKkKlansman
SAM ELLIOTT, A Star is Born
RICHARD E. GRANT, Can You Ever Forgive Me
“Mahershala Ali’s performance puts him in line to win his second Oscar,” Travers said in a special edition of "Popcorn." “Remember how he won a few years back for “Moonlight”? It’s a great subtle performance."
“If there’s going to be a spoiler, I would say that spoiler is Richard E. Grant in 'Can You Ever Forgive Me.' This is the kind of performance that seemed to come out of nowhere,” Travers said. “His co-star Melissa McCarthy is also nominated. But Richard E. Grant, as her friend who helps her in these forgeries, is both funny and heartbreaking at the same time. He’s never been nominated for an Academy Award. There’s just something about that performance that stays with you.”
AMY ADAMS, Vice
REGINA KING, If Beale Street Could Talk
MARINA DE TAVIRA, Roma
EMMA STONE, The Favourite
RACHEL WEISZ, The Favourite
Travers said, “If anybody deserves to win an Oscar this year, it’s Regina King. In 'If Beale Street Could Talk,' she’s playing a mother basically fighting for her future son-in-law’s life. But it’s what she does in a scene, I think cements her chances to win this. [She] goes to Puerto Rico to find the woman who falsely accused her son-in-law-to-be and confronts her mother to mother. This scene is so heartbreaking that it belongs in an Academy time capsule.”
CHRISTIAN BALE, Vice
BRADLEY COOPER, A Star is Born
WILLEM DAFOE, At Eternity’s Gate
RAMI MALEK, Bohemian Rhapsody
VIGGO MORTENSEN, Green Book
Travers said of "Bohemian Rhapsody": “This one that wasn’t supposed to make any money at all because its director was fired during production has now made close to a billion dollars at the worldwide box office. And why? It’s the performance of Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury. It just explodes off the screen. It’s put him as the guy who maybe would get nominated to the guy that’s probably going to win.”
“Here he is playing Dick Cheney,” Travers said. “It’s a clever performance, a funny performance but a deeply felt performance.”
YALITZA APARICIO, Roma
GLENN CLOSE, The Wife
OLIVIA COLMAN, The Favourite
LADY GAGA, A Star is Born
MELISSA MCCARTHY, Can You Ever Forgive Me
“I have to say that Glenn Close is the favorite. She’s been nominated seven times. She’s never won. And she’s giving her career-best kind of performance in this movie,” Travers said.
“You don’t see this movie and not fall in love with what Lady Gaga does in her first starring role on screen. It’s a terrific performance in every way, not just the singing, but the acting. This is the closest race of the night.”
BLACK PANTHER
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
THE FAVOURITE
GREEN BOOK
ROMA
A STAR IS BORN
VICE
“In this ‘anything can happen’ world, the favorite would have to be 'Roma.' But Alfonso Cuaron’s movie is a Netflix movie and that caused a lot of controversy out there, where people were saying isn’t Netflix for TV,” said Travers.“ “Also a foreign language movie has never won the Best Picture prize. So it’s got that going against it.”
Travers said these three films could shake things up, and that any of the them could walk away with the Best Picture award.
Watch Peter Travers’s full Oscars predictions breakdown in the video above.