The top Oscars front-runners and dark horses of 2018 so far
TORONTO, ON – SEPTEMBER 09: Director Damien Chazelle of “First Man” attends The IMDb Studio presented By Land Rover At The 2018 Toronto International Film Festival at Bisha Hotel & Residences on September 9, 2018 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Rich Polk/Getty Images for IMDb)
Best Director
Damien Chazelle has a lot to live up to. He won the Oscar in 2017 for directing La La Land, and he became the youngest person ever to win that award at age 32. This year, he’s getting buzz for a much different type of movie. Gone are the extravagant musical numbers and catchy songs, replaced with an American hero and an important moment in American history.
Chazelle’s film about Neil Armstrong and the mission that made him the first man to walk on the moon in 1969, First Man, is being hailed as moving and fascinating. He’s reunited with Ryan Gosling, who starred in La La Land of course, and co-star Claire Foy is already in the running for Best Supporting Actress.
As we’ve said a few times already, the Academy loves an American story, almost as much as they love an industry story — and we saw how that worked out for Chazelle’s La La Land, which earned six trophies in 2017. So a film about American hero Neil Armstrong could push him ahead of the crowd.
Dark Horse: Alfonso Cuarón already has two Oscars to his name, both for Gravity in 2013, which made him the first Hispanic and Mexican to win the Best Director award. So he also has a lot to live up to like Chazelle. This year, his buzzworthy project is Roma, a black-and-white film that follows the daily lives of a working-class family in Mexico City in the 1970s. The film is loosely based on Cuarón’s own upbringing, but it may play against him.
The director does have some Academy bragging rights, but the film is not only a foreign film, and not only is it in black-and-white, it’s also a Netflix original. Those things could all play against it. The film has already debuted at film festivals in Toronto and Venice, and reviews are looking good. It even took home the Golden Lion in Venice.