15 Early Predictions For 2019 Oscars

13. The Irishman Is Netflix's First Best Picture Nominee

Though Martin Scorsese's highly-anticipated straight-to-Netflix mob drama The Irishman is currently slated for a 2019 release, there have been murmurs that the Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci-starring film will in fact be brought forward to the tail-end of 2018, while also getting a small theatrical release in order to make it eligible for Oscar consideration.

The film, which wrapped shooting at the beginning of March, will require extensive post-production in order to digitally de-age the actors for flashback sequences, but it's still totally plausible that the film will be ready for release 9 months from now.

More to the point, if it does indeed happen, there's an incredibly strong possibility it'll be the first ever Netflix Original film to score a Best Picture nomination. This year, Mudbound was the first Netflix film to land "serious" Oscar nods, and next year, Scorsese's movie will cement that the streaming platform's accomplishments can't be ignored by the Academy.