2021 Oscars: Odds For Best Actor, Actress & Film

2021 Oscars: Predictions, Picks and Big Odds On Offer for the Major Awards

Film awards season will culminate with the 93rd Academy Awards on Monday, April 26, and the first indicators are coming in as to who we might expect to win the major prizes on offer.

A full list of nominees for the 2021 Oscars is available via its official website, but the major gongs people tend to be concerned with are Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress. Parasite won the former at last year’s awards and was a general smash hit after taking four awards in total, with many among this year’s assortment hoping they can replicate that success.

Gambling on the Oscars will once again be legal in certain states following recent changes in legislature across the United States, with Betfair providing odds across every single category.

Best Picture Prediction:

Nomadland (-400) & Outside Bet: Promising Young Woman (+1000)

As if Nomadland didn’t already look dead set for the Best Picture prize at this year’s Oscars, the meter has moved in further in favor of Chloé Zhao’s creation after the nominees were announced.

The signs were hugely positive from the beginning that Frances McDormand’s portrayal of a present-day wanderer increasingly detached from society would be a hit. However, the odds were cut that much shorter after Zhao won the Darryl F. Zanuck award for outstanding producer of a motion picture at the recent Producers’ Guild of America awards, following up her Best Motion Picture (Drama) gong at the Golden Globes:

That’s enough to solidify Nomadland as the -400 favorite for the Best Picture Oscar, way ahead of its nearest competition, The Trial of the Chicago 7 at +750.

Promising Young Woman is a late entrant to the contenders’ list considering it was only released in U.S. cinemas in December, although many have been using streaming services to rent their copy. Carey Mulligan plays Cassie Thomas, a (somewhat crazed) former medical student fed up with the patriarchal system and her hopeless role in it, choosing to take her own revenge against the less fair sex.

The black comedy thriller should benefit from being fresher in the memories of judges come voting time, a +1000 outside bet with another classy female lead worth shading.

Best Picture Moneyline Odds

Best Actor Prediction

Chadwick Boseman (-1400) & Outside Bet: Gary Oldman (+2500)

The easiest category of the big three to decide this year will be Best Actor, where Chadwick Boseman is all but certain to win a posthumous award for his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. George C. Wolfe’s drama will walk into this year’s Academy Awards with no fewer than five nomination, being the last film to star Boseman before his death in August 2020, per CNN:

Parasite proved last year that even the underdogs have a chance when betting appears to be moving in one direction, but -1400 favorite Boseman is one frontrunner who doesn’t look likely to cede his place.

And not without good reason. As he did with just about any roles, but particularly those leading up to his death, the South Carolina native brought trumpeter Levee Green to life in committed fashion, so much so that he learnt how to play the instrument and could be heard playing even between takes.

As if it wasn’t easy enough to love Boseman at the height of his career, discovering such tidbits concerning his dedication to his craft, knowing what he was going through at the time, is all the more reason to revere him as an acting icon.

Best Actor Moneyline Odds

Best Actress Prediction:

Carey Mulligan (-163) & Outside Bet: Viola Davis (+1200)

As aforementioned, Promising Young Woman could be a surprise piece at this year’s Oscars following its late arrival into the prize stakes, having received fairly low coverage following its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2020. It was only after the film got its theatrical release at the end of last year that the quality of Emerald Fennell’s comment on the modern female psyche really came to the fore.

Mulligan is the driving force behind this zany-but-centered creation, which is chaos but with a cause at its core. 

The lead actress does a fine job of portraying a woman at the end of her tether, wound tight and packaged in a fantastic, wide-ranging wardrobe—and ultimately the film relies on her, despite other fine performances from Alison Brie, Bo Burnham, Laverne Fox Connie Britton and others. No wonder, then, that Mulligan has moved into the favorite slot at -163 for Best Actress.

Analysing the rest of the field, Viola Davis and Boseman could become the first pair in 24 years to claim Best Actor and Best Actress for their roles in the same film, a feat that’s only happened seven times in Oscars history. Davis plays the titular Ma Rainey with all the glitz and gusto demanded by the LGBT icon, and +1200 odds have big value written all over them.

Best Actress Moneyline Odds