Unbroken has made nearly every list of presumptive 2015 Oscar contenders that I've so far come across, boosted no doubt by the impressive sneak peek timed for the Winter Olympics. But even before a single still from the film was released, it was already circling high on the pundits' radar on the strength of Louie Zamperini's remarkable story, Laura Hillenbrand's bestselling book, and especially the impressive behind-the-scenes talent led by Oscar favorites the Coen brothers and Roger Deakins.
The beautifully shot and emotionally stirring preview which NBC aired during its Sochi Olympics telecast not only validated Unbroken's status as a contender, but further cemented its position as a frontrunner. If it turns out to be at least as good as the preview suggests, it will almost certainly be among the 5 to 10 films vying for Best Picture. The race for Best Director is tighter if only because there are fewer slots available and its harder for a relative neophyte to join the club. But Angelina's popularity has surged in the last year or so and I am certain her warm and gracious manner towards Sidney Poitier earned her a few new fans among the mostly older Academy directors' branch members. So at this point I think odds are great that Unbroken will have at least Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography and Soundtrack nods.
-- Fussy
HollywoodElsewhere
Jeff Wells
Nobody knows anything and I’m obviously just guessing at this stage, but here are the films I’m presuming will be among the final picks: 1. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s comedic Birdman (seen in a rough version by a friend last July and described as AGI’s “best, most humanistic work!”); 2. J.C. Chandor‘s A Very Violent Year (’80s-set, Sidney Lumet-ish Manhattan crime drama); 3. Ridley Scott‘s Exodus (Ridley Scott/Kingdom of Heaven treatment given to Biblical tale of Moses, Egyptians and Hebrew slaves); 4. Angelina Jolie‘s Unbroken (World War II survival saga, All Is Lost/Life of Pi + Japanese prison camp); 5. Jean Marc Vallee‘s Wild (makeup-free Reese Witherspoon discovering herself and the American character on a long-distance hike); 6. Saul Dibbs‘ Suite Francaise (married rural-residing French woman has affair with German solder during World War II); 7. Michel Hazanavicius‘ The Search (remake of Fred Zinneman‘s same-titled 1948 film, relationship between a woman and a young boy in war-torn Chechnya, Berenice Bejo and Annette Bening costarring); 8. Jason Reitman‘s Men, Women & Chidren (ensemble social-sexual dramedy with Adam Sandler, Jennifer Garner, Judy Greer, et. al.), and 9. Sarah Gavron‘s Suffragette (British-set, turn-of-the-century drama about female voting-rights struggle, script by The Queen‘s Abi Morgan, costarring Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter and Meryl Streep).
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@ThePlaylist's great look for Oscar contenders 2014 My top three UNBROKEN, FOXCATCHER, INTERSTELLAR. More to come http://t.co/4KOGPjxC7Btheplaylist
— Michael Eisner (@Michael_Eisner) March 7, 2014
Premature Oscar Predictions: The 2015 Best Picture Contenders
Features byMarch 5, 2014 1:19 PM
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And that generally means one thing: the 2014/2015 awards season is getting underway. Like it or not, campaigns are being planned for the months to come, and distributors are ready to start the whole damn thing again. We'll be doing our best to ignore it for as long as possible, but to put a cap on our awards coverage until the end of the summer, and as we've done the last few years, we're going to pick out some of the films that look likely to dominate proceedings over the next 51 weeks.
Our track record isn't too bad — if you exclude "Foxcatcher" and "Monuments Men," whose release dates were delayed into this year, we called five of the nine Best Picture nominees correctly last February, and all five of the best Director nominees, which isn't too shabby. Will we have the same luck this time? You can take a look at our Top 10 Best Picture picks and 5 That Could Surprise below, in rough order of likelihood, and stay tuned for our look at the acting categories next week. As ever, have your own say in the comments section below.
Our Top 10 Picks
A little under ten months from release, and this true-life tale already looks like a potential heavyweight (even a frontrunner) on paper, and Universal have already started selling it as such, debuting the first-look at footage, which lays out the story, during the Winter Olympics. So why is this one already high in the mix? For one, the film is directed by Oscar darling Angelina Jolie — two awards, including her humanitarian prize this year — it's written by a team equally familiar with the Academy Awards stage (Richard LaGravenese, nominated for "The Fisher King"; William Nicholson, nominated for "Shadowlands" and "Gladiator"; and the Coen Bros, who have four Oscars and fourteen nominations between them), and it's based on the book by Laura Hillebrand, who also provided the source material for Best Picture nominee "Seabiscuit." For another, it tells the true story of Olympian Louis Zamperini, an athlete who fought in World War II, survived a plane crash and 47 days at sea, before being held for three years in a POW camp. So, yeah, it has Oscar written all over it (and it's shot by Roger Deakins too). It might be lacking in traditional star power, as it has relative newcomer Jack O'Connell in the lead, with Domhnall Gleeson, Garret Hedlund and Jai Courtney among the supporting cast. And while Jolie's first film "In The Land Of Blood And Honey" failed to get much traction. But that film was tougher (and in a foreign language), whereas this seems tailor-made for awards success as long as it's even halfway decent.
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awardscircuit
Awards Profile: Unbroken
Why it Could Succeed: One of the biggest female movie stars in the world, Angelina Jolie can disappear from the movie scene for a long period of time and come back with as much salivating support from fans as when she left. I’d even venture to guess that Jolie’s grand return to film will be one of the biggest selling points of Unbroken, despite not starring in it. You see, folks, for only the second time in her career, Jolie is taking off the makeup and strapping on her work boots — she’ll be directing this passion project of hers with the assistance of an extremely laudable group of screenwriters (Coens, anyone?), a cast filled with some of the most promising up-and-comers, and a cinematographer of legendary proportions, Mr. Roger “Oscar-less” Deakins.
Unlike the War in Iraq/Afghanistan, WWII seems to dominate the box office like no other period of worldly conflict, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for Jolie’s film to find success, especially given the fact that distributing studio Universal has had a consistent outpour of hits since 2012′s Les Misérables. Their hot streak is nowhere near over. Jolie’s close ties to the subject at the center of this WWII drama, POW survivor and former Olympic athlete Louis Zamperini (who is still alive at age 97!), adds an emotional reinforcement to the film that will no doubt play a major part in the upcoming awards campaign. Given her dedication to getting this incredible hero’s story just right, you can pretty much assume Jolie will go for both the jugular and heart in equal measure. In other words, you better run to Costco and start loading up on Kleenex before it’s too late.
It also doesn’t hurt matters that Unbroken is adapted from a biography written by non-fiction author Laura Hillenbrand, who if you remember penned Seabiscuit, the book that was adapted into an Oscar-nominated movie which competed for the “Best Picture” prize in 2004. HIllenbrand’s work is no stranger to the Academy Awards, so don’t be surprised if her second novel also becomes an Oscar fixation. All these ingredients that make up Unbroken, who’ve individually gone over well with AMPAS in the past, are bound to swoon voters once more. Also, don’t for a second think Angelina Jolie’s Honorary Oscar is going to stop the Academy from heaping more accolades on this very deserving thespian/humanitarian.
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Awards Speculation: It’s no doubt crossed people’s minds that if Angelina Jolie were to win Best Director and Best Picture for Unbroken, she’d be the second female ever to do so…and once again with a war film. There’s a bittersweet feeling that emerges upon this realization. On the one hand, I would love to see Jolie win if her work was stellar and fully deserving of cinema’s highest prize. On the other, it doesn’t for one minute escape the sad realization that this would be the second time a woman wins “Best Picture” for a film belonging to a male-centric genre, with male characters leading the narrative charge (see: Kathryn Bigalow’s The Hurt Locker). For the record, I in no way disapprove of the direction Jolie took on her second directorial effort, but I do believe that working in a genre beloved by the old, white male majority that dominates AMPAS’ current membership is extremely advantageous. If Jolie, let’s say, were to direct a romantic comedy or female-driven drama, her stepping stones to the Oscar ceremony would be wider apart than they currently are with Unbroken.
Let’s be clear: Kathryn Bigalow’s historical win in 2010 for The Hurt Locker increases the chance that Jolie will have the same level of success on Oscar Sunday, 2015. The Coen Bros., recently snubbed for their work on Inside Llewyn Davis, will likely be given the “Oops…we’re sorry!” treatment for their Unbroken screenplay, and many are already claiming 2015 as the year that Roger Deakins will finally win his first Oscar. There’s too many awards baity factors in this project to simply shrug off, and if it’s as viscerally and emotionally captivating as we’re being led to believe, Unbroken could very well be next recipient of the “Best Picture” prize. Furthermore, loud, action-heavy war films — especially if they’re on Oscar’s radar — do pretty well in below-the-line categories.
The biggest question mark will be for the acting nods, since we all know that without a SAG nomination, your “Best Picture” prospects are pretty much dead in the water. Jack O’Connell could easily deliver one of the many “great breakthrough performances by a young male performer under 25″ that ends up not being recognized by the Academy. Yet, these Hurt Locker comparisons are eating away at me and I can’t help but feel O’Connell could pull a Jeremy Renner and find himself in the “Best Actor” lineup. Winning? Now that’s crazy talk at this point in time. If AMPAS wants to show it appreciates Asian performances more than history states it does (little to none, by the way), perhaps Japanese rock singer-turned-actor Miyavi might be a “Supporting Actor” contender for his work as the abusive Sergeant Mutsuhiro “The Bird” Watanabe, who ran the interment camp Zamperini was imprisoned in. Also, let’s not forget Garrett Hedlund in that same category, who’s been subtly and slowly rising through the ranks among the current crop of “great” next-gen actors. All in all, I’d say the incomparable Angelina Jolie has quite the Oscar contender on her hands if we’re simply looking at current face value. Let’s hope the final product is the worth the pre-season buzz.
Oscar Potential:
Best Picture
Best Director — Angelina Jolie
Best Actor — Jack O’Connell
Best Supporting Actor — Miyavi, Garrett Hedlund, Jai Courtney, Domhnall Gleeson
Best Adapted Screenplay — The Coens, Richard LaGravenese, and William Nicholson
Best Film Editing
Best Cinematography
Best Original Score
Best Production Design
Best Costume Design
Best Hairstyling and Makeup
Best Visual Effects
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing
I have more comments on my Zack Snyder article than I do on my awards profile of Angelina Jolie's huge Oscar contender. Weird.
— Joseph Braverman (@JBAwardsCircuit) March 8, 2014
Collider
Oscar Beat: 10 Films That Could End Up in the 2015 Awards Race
by Adam Chitwood Posted 10 minutes ago
Release Date: December 25th
Possible Nominations: Picture, Director, Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography
True story? Check. Based on an inspiring, beloved book? Check. Well-respected director? Check. Oscar-winning screenwriters? Check. Unbroken has the makings of one of the biggest Oscar contenders of the year, and for good reason. Plenty of filmmakers were vying for the opportunity to tell the true story of Olympian Louis Zamperini, who survived a plane crash in WWII only to find himself in a Japanese POW camp, but it was Angelina Jolie who landed the job. She nabbed Joel and Ethan Coen to rewrite the screenplay and enlisted probably the best cinematographer working today, Roger Deakins, to shoot the picture, so it’s with very high expectations that we await the release of Unbroken. The film’s Olympics-themed first trailer was incredibly promising and Zamperini’s story is one of heartbreak and triumph, so this one has the makings of a potential Oscar juggernaut.
theatlantic
The Oscars in 2015: Very, Very Early Predictions for Next Year's Awards
It's never too early to semi-blindly predict the rest of the year's critical darlings.
Unbroken
Release Date: December 25
The buzz on Unbroken is already deafening, and surprisingly, the words “Angelina Jolie” only play a small role in generating it. Jolie is directing the flick, the real-life story of Italian-American Olympian Louis Zamperini, who became a prisoner of war during World War II. The script is based on the acclaimed book by Laura Hillenbrand. Oh yeah, and it was written by the Coen Brothers. Combine the Coens' record of brilliance with the surprisingly refined directing chops Jolie showed off with 2011’s In the Land of Blood and Honey, and Unbroken could be a major contender in multiple categories.
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awardsdaily
Most Anticipated of 2014, or What We Talk About when we Talk About Oscar Predictions
Posted On 08 Mar 2014
Top Tier
Fury (November 14) – starring Brad Pitt, written and directed by David Ayer, “A crew of Americans in Nazi Germany toward the end of World War II embark on a brave mission.”
Second Tier Wild Cards
Unbroken (December 25) – directed by Angelina Jolie, lensed by Roger Deakins, co-written by the Coen brothers. It’s going to have to really suck to not figure in somewhere.
Other Projects of Note
Maleficent (May 30) – Angelina Jolie as the iconic villain
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