4) Best Director
Will win: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, The Revenant, or Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
Should win: George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
This year, it seems the director who put up with the most arduous conditions and lived to tell the tale will be the one to take home the Best Director trophy. While Spotlight‘s Tom McCarthy was the frontrunner until only recently, after the Golden Globes it’s looking like Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu – who by all accounts went through hell to get The Revenant made – will be crowned Best Director for the second year running.
If we’re scoring directors on hardship alone, though, George Miller surely outranks Inarritu this year. Just look at Mad Max: Fury Road: it looks like organized chaos. That’s probably in part because, behind the scenes, that’s how it was. Miller spent years working on this film, and remained committed to practical stunts where possible even though CGI would have cut production time down considerably. If a filmmaker had to suffer to win this year, it’s Miller who deserves to be called Best Director.