2018 Golden Globe Predictions: Who Will Win Big This Year?

Life

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS, MOTION PICTURE

Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Hong Chau, Downsizing
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

There’s a neat parallel between this and the comedy-actress category, with the competition essentially coming down to two films and two sets of squabbling cinematic mothers and daughters. And Laurie Metcalf and Allison Janney have even more in common; they’re both veteran TV actresses who have only recently begun to get similar acclaim for their film roles. While we wouldn’t want to ignore Mary J. Blige and the star power she brings here, Janney and Metcalf seem to be the clear front-runners, and critics’ prizes have made it feel like essentially a toss-up between the two of them. When pushed to decide, we’ll give the edge to Janney, who has the flashier role in I, Tonya and the most Golden Globe nominations (six, to Metcalf’s three).

BEST DIRECTOR

Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water
Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Steven Spielberg, The Post
Ridley Scott, All the Money in the World

A bit disappointing to see this category go all-male in this of all years, but that doesn’t subtract from the achievements of each nominee. All five deliver messages of sorts, some more explicitly than others. Whereas Steven Spielberg’s The Post is practically an advertisement for an adversarial press, Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards feels more like a misanthropic graphic novel targeting law enforcement, identity politics, and victims’ rights alike. Both, along with Ridley Scott’s All the Money in the World, are likely to lose out to the subtler arts of del Toro’s The Shape of Water or Nolan’s Dunkirk. An exquisitely crafted homage to love among the marginalized, del Toro’s Cold War fairy tale is apparently more celebrated on the West Coast than the East this season, whereas Nolan’s epic yet concise re-creation of the British military’s desperate stand against advancing Nazis at Dunkirk has a more obvious transatlantic appeal. Which will prevail with the Euro-centric H.F.P.A.? It’s a toss-up, but our guts tell us del Toro’s enfolding warmth will win the day.