Netflix arguably had a very big night at the SAG Awards, both in the film and TV categories, taking half of the last eight categories in three shows ( The Queen’s Gambit, Ozark, The Crown), and three of the five major categories of films, including both Black Bottom by Ma Rainey star Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman in the main acting slots and by Featured Cast The Chicago Trial 7 winning the grand prize of the night, which is the SAG’s equivalent to the Oscar for Best Picture. Last year’s victory in the last category probably started a late increase to Parasite taking his final sweep on Oscar night. Netflix have hope that, after some disappointing displays at recent precursor guild awards, show WGA and PGA that this could be a turning point at the moment and put Chicago 7 back to the game in style. A loss would be devastating to your Oscar chances, especially since this was an actor-driven film, but this SAG victory it could reenergize the chances of Aaron Sorkin’s exciting and timely film to stop the likely favorite Nomadland. That scenario has certainly happened in the past and the Netflix team was thrilled tonight with these results.
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To get more incentive, Netflix just needs to look at the 2005 race where, just like Nomadland made until now, heavy favorite Brokeback mountain won the PGA, WGA, Golden Globe Drama, Broadcast Critics Award (now Critics Choice), as well as the DGA and BAFTA Awards for Best Picture, the last duo also hoped to go next weekend for the film Searchlight about modern nomads roaming the country in their vans. Still upstart Beat was able to dive in and grab the Oscar for Best Picture, while taking Edit and Original Screenplay, a result on April 25 that you could definitely imagine happening also for Chicago 7. The plot gets complicated. Nomadland he had entered the SAG contest tonight with a single nomination for star Frances McDormand, but returned home empty. The lack of a nominee for the cast may have been due to the fact that it was composed mainly of non-actors in important supporting roles.
In addition, the late Boseman was expected to win in the lead actor category and arrive at night with a record four nominations in total for his work in Ma Rainey’s and Da 5 Bloods. Davis’ lead actress victory was seen as more of a question mark, her genuine cry of excitement proving even Is it over there I had no idea if her name would be on the envelope. This further confuses the prospects for the super competitive category for Best Oscar Actress. Here’s why. So far, on the top three television award shows, Andra Day won the Globe, Carey Mulligan won on the Critics Choice, and now Davis has taken that from his colleagues at SAG (perhaps the most reliable indicator). So, who wins the BAFTA next Sunday, at the last stop before the Oscar vote starts and ends? Well, in this very strange year None of them are indicated there, and in fact only McDormand and Piece Of Woman Vanessa Kirby is even at BAFTA running in a category that strongly favors native British talents, which means that the Oscar race, as it is for women in Apoiar, has become balanced more competitive and can be anyone’s ball game.
And speaking of Support, Korean veteran actress Yuh-Jung Youn’s popular victory for Minari at SAG certainly increases your already considerable chances of Oscar in a very competitive and dignified field that is also open and has also been divided among the precursor programs (Jodie Foster, not nominated for an Oscar, won at Globes and Maria Bakalova at Critics Choice) . With the Glenn Close vs. Olivia Colman factor still in there, the race became more intriguing with this victory for Minari’s irresistible and feisty grandma who accidentally joined last year Parasite cast as the only Korean actors to win SAG awards.
Male acting categories, on the other hand, now defined favorites with Boseman and Judas and the Black Messiah Daniel Kaluuya continues his unbeaten run this season at Globes, Critics Choice and now at SAG. Certainly this was a great night for diversity with a clean sweep of individual categories of acting in films, all going to people of color.
On the TV side, SAG was more predictable for previous winners and nominees with The crown and Schitt’s Creek respectively receiving Cast ensemble awards, and Mark Ruffalo completing their triple crown of Globe, Critics Choice and SAG for I know this is true. The crown and Ozark they were also known winners for their stars in the Drama races. However, new blood appeared with the victory of Jason Sudeikis’ Comedy Actor for Ted Lasso, and Anya Taylor-Joy by The Queen’s Gambit as a lead actress in a limited series or film, a good omen for her future Emmy chances.
Finally, congratulations to the Screen Actors Guild for keeping it all a secret since we recorded all these categories via zoom last week. As far as I can see from all the attempts to leak the winners’ names before tonight’s big reveal, none of them were correct and, although fully pre-recorded, the cheerful show arrived in just an hour. Nice.