ORWAV Oscars 2020 – The Results

Not to brag, but we had a pretty great set of nominations for the ORWAV Oscars this year. We took the Academy’s top picks enhanced them with some underappreciated gems, especially of the uncut variety.

So in case tonight’s Oscar winners aren’t quite what you hoped, scroll down for an alternative list of the best in the last year of film, all courtesy of One Room with a View…

Note: the scores are the average vote a film received, so in a category with seven films, 7.0 would be the highest possible score.

Best Screenplay

Courtesy of: Columbia Pictures

1. Greta Gerwig (Little Women) – 5.78
2. Bong Joon-ho and Jin Won-han (Parasite) – 5.00
3. Rian Johnson (Knives Out) – 4.89
4. Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story) – 4.30
5. Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, Katie Silberman (Booksmart) – 4.11
6. Lulu Wang (The Farewell) – 3.33
7. Céline Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) – 3.13

This category is probably going to come down to a straight fight between Greta Gerwig and Taika Waititi in tonight’s Oscars, and without the frontrunner amongst our nominees, Gerwig claims a well-deserved win. Parasite and Knives Out came closest to unseating Gerwig, with two technical blueprints for their scripts, both of which also managed to pack in bundles of character, comedy, and tragedy.

Best Cinematography

Courtesy of: Columbia Pictures

1. Robert Richardson (Once Upon a Time …in Hollywood) – 5.89
2. Claire Mathon (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) – 5.88
3. Jarin Blaschke (The Lighthouse) – 5.88
4. Roger Deakins (1917) – 5.75
5. Jörg Widmer (A Hidden Life) – 5.14
6. Darius Khondji (Uncut Gems) – 4.38
7. Hoyte van Hoytema (Ad Astra) – 3.89
8. Lawrence Sher (Joker) – 2.75

Look, the numbers don’t lie. Technically this is Robert Richardson’s award, but I refuse to deny Mathon and Blaschke over one-hundredth of a point. It feels fairer and more appropriate to reward these three very different films, all of which rely on their cinematography to provide the beauty, nostalgia, and grime that their stories demand.

The less conventionally attractive films amongst our lot have suffered, with Khondji’s sickly colours and Sher’s peroxide Gotham stench not receiving much love. They provided exactly the look their films demanded – what more can you ask for?

Best Director

Saoirse Ronan (L) and Greta Gerwig (R) on the set of Little Women; courtesy of: Columbia Pictures

1. Greta Gerwig (Little Women) – 3.78
2. Martin Scorsese (The Irishman) – 3.44
3. Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) – 3.43
4. Céline Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) – 2.75
5. Josh & Benny Safdie (Uncut Gems) – 2.63

It’s safe to say team ORWAV are not happy about Greta’s Best Director snub. She claims her second win of the ORWAV night, in a category where she couldn’t even get a nomination in real life. What can I say, we have impeccable taste.

Scorsese and director Bong are close on her tail with two of the best films of their illustrious careers, whilst the Safdie brothers trail in last place. We may have loved them enough to make the nominees but in a field this tough there’s no shame in coming last.

Best Actress

Courtesy of: Universal Pictures

1. Lupita Nyong’o (Us) – 6.43
2. Florence Pugh (Little Women) – 5.56
3. Scarlett Johansson (Marriage Story) – 3.90
4. Adèle Haenel (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) – 3.88
5. Jennifer Lopez (Hustlers) – 3.88
6. Ana de Armas (Knives Out) – 3.67
7. Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart) – 3.22

It’s moments like this where I’m proudest of Team ORWAV. This was one of our most interesting set of nominees, full of diversity in race, genre, and style of performance. ‘Serious’ performances like Johansson, Pugh and Haenel’s received their dues, as did more crowd-pleasing work from Lopez and Dever, while de Armas’s work as a vital cog in an ensemble was also rewarded.

But I’m most proud of the winner – Lupita Nyong’o’s incredible performance in Us is the kind of bombastic, fun, scary rarity that would never in a million years be nominated by the Academy, but we recognised its raw brilliance and virtuoso craft. I’m still thinking about it nearly a year on from release, and by ‘thinking about it’ I mean having full-on waking nightmares every time I see a shot from the film.

Best Actor

Courtesy of: Sony Pictures Classics

1. Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory) – 7.43
2. Willem Dafoe (The Lighthouse) – 7.25
3. Adam Driver (Marriage Story) – 7.20
4. Robert De Niro (The Irishman) – 6.56
5. Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood) – 6.11
6. Joe Pesci (The Irishman) – 6.00
7. Song Kang-Ho (Parasite) – 5.86
8. Adam Sandler (Uncut Gems) – 4.88
9. Al Pacino (The Irishman) – 4.78
10. Daniel Craig (Knives Out) – 4.22

This is one of our most competitive categories, and Banderas takes it with his beautiful performance in Pain and Glory. He may lose out to the more in-your-face stylings of one J. Phoenix tonight, but this is a reminder that quiet and sensitive performances are just as valuable as the theatrical ones.

Elsewhere, two un-nominated performances from Willem Dafoe and Robert de Niro get the respect they deserve, ranking 2nd and 4th on our list.

Best Film

Courtesy of: Netflix

1. The Irishman – 4.78
2. Little Women – 4.44
3. Parasite – 4.00
4. Knives Out – 3.56
5. Portrait of a Lady on Fire – 3.00
6. Uncut Gems – 2.63

Old Men vs Little Women and… we have an upset! Gerwig’s glorious adaptation may have won two other categories tonight, but Scorsese’s late-career masterpiece pips it to the big prize. It’s hard to begrudge him the win for such a soulful, sombre, heart-breaking film that encapsulates everything he’s explored throughout his career. It finally, brutally, answers the question he’s toyed with for years – what are the consequences of an immoral life?

We’d be surprised to see any of these films pick up the Best Picture gong tonight. I asked all of our voters who they thought would win (not who they wanted to win) and EVERY single person said 1917. You heard it here first.