The Oscars: betting preview and tips for the 91st Academy Awards

The 91st Academy Awards take place in Hollywood on Sunday with black-and-white Netflix drama Roma the favourite for Best Picture.

The tragicomic story of the feeble-minded Queen Anne in The Favourite is also nominated for ten Oscars, while A Star Is Born has eight.

We run the rule over the principal contenders:

Best Picture

A late clue to the winner of the Best Picture Oscar at Sunday’s Academy Awards came at the Baftas when the black-and-white art-house film Roma beat Britain’s big hope The Favourite.

Given the understandable Bafta bias towards the British film industry, it looked to be the last hurdle Alfonso Cuaron’s semi-autobiographical tale of growing up in Mexico City in the 1970s had to cross to justify its skinny odds.

Roma, the first Netflix-backed film to get an Oscar nomination, had been showing on TV since December but was given only a limited cinema release and has been mopping up awards.

Not everyone is a fan. The slow start is a turn-off for some but bookmakers appear to have few doubts.

It is said that the Academy doesn’t like subtitles – and no foreign-language movie has ever won Best Picture.

Legendary director Steven Spielberg is another doubter, saying: “Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie, qualified for an Emmy, yes; an Oscar, no.”

But if Cuaron rates a certainty for Best Director with some layers how can his creation be beaten?

Second favourite Green Book and A Star Is Born are the most likeable and entertaining movies of the year, but Roma looks set to create history by pulling off the Picture/Foreign Language double.

Four movies, Z, Life Is Beautiful, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Amour have been put up for both in the past but came away with only the Foreign Language prize.

The funny and moving Green Book, about a concert pianist embarking on a tour of the Deep South in the early 1960s with a Bronx bouncer as his driver and bodyguard, would be a worthy winner.

If Roma is turned over then Green Book looks the one to be on but there has to be a strong chance that the favourites, all odds-on, will capture all six main categories as they did last year.

Best Director

With his first film since taking the Oscar for Gravity in 2014, Cuaron looks to have struck gold again with Roma.

Best Actor

American Rami Malek, better known as a TV actor, has been long odds-on for this since he and Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody won Golden Globes. Malek has since won at the Screen Writers Guild and Bafta with his uncanny impersonation of Freddie Mercury.

But the vocals weren’t Malek, they were a mix of Queen tapes with additions from Canadian singer Marc Martel.

The current prices are the shortest Malek has been and his only serious market rival is Christian Bale, fattened up and unrecognisable as George W Bush’s scheming vice-president Dick Cheney in Vice. Bale won Best Supporting Actor for The Fighter in 2010.

Best Actress

Olivia Colman has the role of a lifetime as the potty-mouthed, delirious Queen Anne in The Favourite and plays it for all she is worth in a movie where the acting is far superior to the script. Co-stars Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone are also up for Oscars.

Colman beat Glenn Close to the Bafta but this time the American has home advantage and the seven-time Oscars nominee can turn the tables.

Close’s subtle, self-effacing interpretation of the title role in The Wife was masterly.

At 71, after six Oscar nominations but no statuettes, Close's fine body of work should surely be recognised by the Academy this year.

Close’s past nominations, the first one back in 1982, include the unforgettable Fatal Attraction and the male butler who’s not male at all in Albert Nobbs.

Perhaps the betting should be a bit closer as third-favourite Lady Gaga was sensational in A Star Is Born and reminiscent of a young Barbra Streisand in her first serious role. But Close’s performance is pure class.

Best Supporting Actor

The fat lady has almost sung for Mahershala Ali, who looks sure to bag his second Supporting Actor gong in three years for his towering performance as Don Shirley in Green Book.

Dr Shirley forges an unlikely friendship with his driver Tony Lipp, played by Viggo Mortensen, who is superb but the 100-1 rag in the Best Actor race. Ali won for Moonlight in 2016 and Shirley is a more detailed and sympathetic creation.

This is a hot heat with last year’s winner Sam Rockwell doing a superb impression of President George “Dubya” Bush in Vice and Richard E Grant nominated for the first time at 61 for playing hustler Jack Hock in Can You Ever Forgive Me? A market move for Grant has now subsided, though.

Best Supporting Actress

Regina King looks the most vulnerable of the odds-on favourites for Sharon, the mother in If Beale Street Could Talk.

She’s good but not memorably so. Amy Adams is overdue an award after losing out for American Hustle, Junebug, Doubt, The Fighter and The Master. She’s an actors’ actor, never craving media attention but building up an incredibly impressive book of challenging roles.

This time Adams plays Dick Cheney’s pushy Lady Macbeth-type wife Lynne in Vice.

And it’s not just a two-horse race as late money has come for The Favourite pair Weisz and Stone, the latter with an immaculate English accent. It’s a pity they will most likely split the vote.

Having recommended Adams at 5-2 when the nominations were announced last month, it wasn’t the plan that her odds would double but she still looks the value.

Other markets

The feelgood film A Star Is Born, once Best Picture favourite, now looks like taking home a maximum of two Oscars.

Bradley Cooper has produced, directed, starred in, learned to play guitar for and co-written the songs. He’s virtually guaranteed the Best Original Song Oscar for Shallow, and it’s a toss-up with Bohemian Rhapsody for Best Sound Mixing.

But that dazzling duet with co-writer Lady Gaga might just be Brad’s lot, and the 13-8 for one is probably the way to go rather than the 10-11 for two in the market on how many Oscars A Star Is Born will win.

Recommendations
Amy Adams to win Best Supporting Actress
2pts 5-1 Coral, Ladbrokes
A Star Is Born to win one Oscar
2pts 13-8 Betfair, Paddy Power
Green Book to win Best Picture
1pt 4-1 Betfair, Paddy Power

Main category nominations

Best Picture

Black Panther
BlackkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Roma
A Star is Born
Vice

Best Director

Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
Spike Lee, BlackkKlansman
Pavel Pawlikowski, Cold War
Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite
Adam McKay, Vice

Best Actor

Christian Bale, Vice
Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born
Willem Dafoe, At Eternity’s Gate
Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
Viggo Mortensen, Green Book

Best Actress

Yalitza Aparicio, Roma
Glenn Close, The Wife
Olivia Colman, The Favourite
Lady Gaga, A Star is Born
Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Best Supporting Actor

Mahershala Ali, Green Book
Adam Driver, BlackkKlansman
Sam Elliot, A Star is Born
Richard E Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me
Sam Rockwell, Vice

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, Vice
Marina De Tavira, Roma
Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Emma Stone, The Favourite
Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

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