Joker, a comic book film about the Batman villain, was the big success story when the Oscars 2020 nominations were announced, but just how many awards can it actually win? Joker led all contenders with 11 Oscar nominations in total, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix), Best Director (Todd Phillips), and a host of technical awards. It’s a stunning achievement for a movie that polarized critics and was the subject of major controversy since its release.
With its 11 nods, Joker became the most nominated comic book movie in the history of the Oscars. Other films in the genre have had varying degrees of success – Heath Ledger won the Best Supporting Actor award in 2009 for playing the same character in The Dark Knight – but this is an unprecedented level of success.
So just how likely is the DC Comics flick to take home the hardware? Here’s a breakdown of all 11 of its Academy Award nominations, as well as its chances of winning in each category.
Best Picture
Joker is one of nine films to be nominated for the Oscars’ top prize, the second straight year a comic book film got the nod (Black Panther was nominated in 2019). It’s up against a number of heavyweights, including Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, Sam Mendes’ 1917 and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Recency bias tells us Tarantino’s film is the favorite here, considering it won both the Critics’ Choice Award and Golden Globe for Best Picture (the Comedy award at the Globes; 1917 won Best Picture – Drama). But the films to get nominations in all four major categories tend to be favorites, and it’s one of just three films to do so, the other two being major heavyweights (Irishman and Hollywood).
Prediction: Loss. It’d be too bold of a choice for this category. A less bold choice? A movie about Hollywood. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood wins Best Picture.
Best Actor
The whole of Joker is about Joaquin Phoenix’s character. The Joker has always been a character susceptible to a great acting performance, with Heath Ledger setting the standard with The Dark Knight in 2008. It would have once been blasphemous to even consider another Joker in Ledger’s league, but that’s exactly what Phoenix made us do. Joker was always going to be a risk for the studio due to its content, and it was anyone’s guess as to whether such a dark character piece would be a success. But Joaquin Phoenix delivering a strong performance was never in doubt. His competition is strong – Leonardo DiCaprio (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood), Adam Driver (Marriage Story), Jonathan Pryce (The Two Popes), and Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory) – but Phoenix has swept all of the major acting awards thus far.
Prediction: Win. With three previous nominations, the fourth time will be the charm for Phoenix. This is his award to lose.
Best Director
Joker’s Best Director nod was a bit of a surprise. The other four nominees – Tarantino, Scorsese, Mendes and Bong Joon Ho (Parasite) – were all expected, but the fifth slot in this category was a wild card. Some thought Greta Gerwig was more deserving for her work in Little Women, but Phillips got the nod, and there will likely be some backlash as the Academy shut out women directors once again. At the end of the day, Phillips is the guy the voters picked, but the field is crowded. Tarantino and Scorsese are as heavyweight of a duo as can be, and Mendes shot a film that looks like one long continuous take (which won Birdman a Best Director Oscar). Phillips has a tough draw.
Prediction: Loss. The Academy loves a big name, and Tarantino seems like a favorite. Hollywood loves voting for movies about Hollywood, and if not him, others are still ahead of Phillips.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Closing out the major categories in which Joker scored a nomination is Best Adapted Screenplay. Phillips and Scott Silver’s script goes up against Steven Zaillian (The Irishman), Greta Gerwig (Little Women), Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit), and Anthony McCarten (The Two Popes). The screenwriting heavyweights are in the other category: Tarantino, Bong Joon Ho (Parasite) and Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story) are all nominated for Best Original Screenplay, and this one could go a few different ways. But it seems a little unlikely that a comic book adaptation will come out victorious. Joker’s script has a shot, but the other nominees all have strong cases.
Prediction: Loss. This might be the Academy’s make up call for leaving Greta Gerwig out of the director field. Her adaptation of Little Women wins it.
Best Cinematography
Best Cinematography usually goes to a big-budget film, so we can assume Joker has a decent shot here, despite the fact that this is cinematographer Lawrence Sher’s first nomination (he has mostly worked on comedies, including The Dictator, I Love You Man, and the Hangover trilogy). Even with Joker’s divided reviews, most critics agreed that it was a technically beautiful film. The biggest impediment here is definitely 1917, which, again, was shot to look like one extended take. The last major film to pull that trick was Birdman, which also won this award. And 1917’s cinematographer Roger Deakins has a long and storied career in the industry, with 15 nominations in the category – most recently winning in 2018 for Blade Runner 2049.
Prediction: Loss. Deakins gets his second win in three years for a movie that was designed for this award.
Best Original Score
Icelandic musician Hildur Guðnadóttir scores her first Academy Award nomination at 37 years old, having previously worked on Sicario: Day of the Soldado and the HBO series Chernobyl. Joker’s score is haunting, unique and beautiful – another aspect of the film that few critics would debate. There are some major heavyweights in this category – John Williams for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Randy Newman for Marriage Story, and Alexandre Desplat for Little Women – and Guðnadóttir might look overmatched to the untrained eye. But she has already taken home both the Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Award in this category, so she has to be considered an overwhelming favorite.
Prediction: Win. Considering Guðnadóttir’s success on the award circuit so far, it’d be surprise if Joker didn’t take this award home.
Best Film Editing
Jeff Groth scores his first Oscar nomination. This category is a mix of films that got some but not a ton of respect from the Oscars: The Irishman joins Joker, but so do Jojo Rabbit, Parasite and Ford v Ferrari. At the Critics’ Choice Awards, Joker wasn’t even nominated in this category, even though there were six nominees instead of five. But the winner at that ceremony was 1917, which somehow isn’t even nominated at the Oscars despite the whole film being edited to look like one take. Which leaves this category as a total wildcard.
Prediction: Loss. This might be a close one, but Thelma Schoonmaker already has three wins under her belt, and editing the 3.5-hour Irishman seems like a good way to land a fourth.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
This is the first time that the Oscars chose five nominees for this category, making it a tougher award to win than usual. It shares the nomination with Judy, Bombshell, 1917 and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. Typically, period pieces win this award, so the favorite would ostensibly be Judy, but it lost at the Critics’ Choice Awards to Bombshell. And Suicide Squad won this award three years ago despite being critically reviled. Joker is another DC movie, and has a chance at landing the same fate.
Prediction: Win. This is a toss-up, and Bombshell also has a good shot. But with five nominees, voters could be torn and just vote for Joker, which centers on a character iconic for its makeup.
Best Costume Design
Another category where Joker didn’t receive a nomination at the Critics’ Choice Awards – and another one where the Critics’ Choice Award winner isn’t nominated at the Oscars. Dolemite is My Name took this award there, but was completely shut out of the Oscars, leaving another category up for grabs. History has been split on what typically wins this category; it’s almost always either a period piece (Phantom Thread, The Great Gatsby) or a blockbuster (Black Panther, Mad Max: Fury Road). Which would leave Joker and Little Women as the most likely winners.
Prediction: Loss. The costumes in Joker weren’t out of this world besides that of titular character, and the lack of a Critics’ Choice nomination gives the edge to Little Women.
Best Sound Editing/Sound Mixing
A two for one here, a win in one category often precludes the other – four of the last six Best Sound Editing winners also won Best Sound Mixing. That’s not to say Joker won’t buck the trend, although four of the five films nominated for editing were also nominated for mixing. These awards often go to war epics or movies about music, so judging by history, 1917 would be a prohibitive favorite. Ford v Ferrari also has fantastic sound throughout. But Joker has a shot here.
Prediction: Split. Joker gets one of these awards, and the other goes to 1917. Call it a hunch, but a film with 11 nominations is bound to pick up a random technical award.
Next: Oscars 2020 Best Picture Nominees, Ranked
