SAG Awards 2019: Three things we learnt and what the results mean for the Oscars

Here is what Sunday night's ceremony can teach us for the rest of awards season

The 25th Screen Actors Guild Awards took place on Sunday night in Los Angeles, painting a more precise picture of what might unfold during this year’s Academy Awards.

The SAG Awards, which are attributed by members of the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) are considered to be one of the most reliable predictors of the Oscars race, though a SAG win doesn’t always translate to an Academy win.

On Sunday night, Rami Malek continued on his winning streak, winning the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role award for his part as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.

Malek previously won the Golden Globe for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama thanks to his performance as Mercury.

His SAG Award and Golden Globe wins now make him a favourite in the road to the Oscars, for which he has scored a nomination in the Best Actor category.

The Academy Awards ceremony will be held on 24 February. Glenn Close, who won the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, continues to be a favourite in the Best Actress category.

A Star is Born, meanwhile, is having a lacklustre awards season so far despite scoring several high profile nominations. The film starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga was nominated in four categories on Sunday night, including the prestigious Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, but failed to win a single trophy.

Cooper and Gaga have yet to collect any of the major awards of the season for the movie, but ”Shallow” did earn the Golden Globe for Best Original Song.

Sunday’s losses leave gloomy prospects for A Star is Born at the Academy Awards, though the film has landed eight nominations (include Best Picture, Best Actor for Cooper, Best Actress for Gaga, and Best Supporting Actor for Sam Elliott), meaning it could still receive one or several nods. “Shallow” is also up for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Black Panther, on the contrary, is gaining momentum after a rather slow early awards season. The Marvel film missed out on all three of its Golden Globes nominations earlier this month.

But on Sunday, Ryan Coogler’s movie picked up the top award, its most high profile win yet. It also recently became the first superhero movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and it is now poised to become a favourite in the Oscars race.

Actors make up the largest percentage of the academy, so their preferences can have an especially large impact on the Oscar race. In the last decade the SAG ensemble winner has gone on to win best picture at the Academy Awards half of the time.

The best picture winner at the Academy Awards has always first been nominated for best ensemble by the SAG Awards except in 1996, when Braveheart won Best Picture, and last year, when Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water overcame the SAG omission to win Best Picture. The actors guild instead awarded Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri its top prize.

While the SAG Awards are one of the most reliable bellwethers of the Academy Awards, several of this year’s top Oscar contenders failed to land a best ensemble nomination.

The two leading Oscar nominees — Roma and The Favourite — were bypassed by the actors guild. The Favourite still earned nods for its three lead actresses — Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz — but Roma was shut out entirely.

Additional reporting by agencies.