Though it's a little later than usual in the year, it is now that time-on Tuesday we will open our Christmas presents and find out whom Oscar is blessing this year as amongst the very best. It's been a weird year-I've become more involved with awards social media in the last year, and the debates about whether or not you should predict what you like or how you should stand up for a film (i.e. part of the problem with the Oscars becoming too predictable is by insisting that certain people become instant frontrunners). But we are days away, voting is done, and I feel I can give my predictions of who will (not should) win below without contributing anything problematic. Without further adieu, my predictions for Tuesday's Oscar nominations...
1. The Power of the Dog
2. Belfast
3. King Richard
4. West Side Story
5. Dune
6. Licorice Pizza
7. Don't Look Up
8. CODA
9. Being the Ricardos
10. The Tragedy of Macbeth
Alt: House of Gucci, Drive My Car
The Lowdown: I think pretty much the Top 8 are set here, even if you could argue that Slots 6-8 have a various number of debits against them (too small, too critically-dimissed, etc). For the final two slots, I'm going to go with the Best Actress frontrunner & the Coen Brothers movie, both of which were what ultimately happened in the final two slots of 2009, another year with a mandatory Top 10. This means that I am predicting that House of Gucci will ultimately miss despite that SAG nomination and that Drive My Car won't have enough, well, drive to get a non-English language picture into this lineup.
1. Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog)
2. Denis Villeneuve (Dune)
3. Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza)
4. Kenneth Branagh (Belfast)
5. Steven Spielberg (West Side Story)
Alt: Adam McKay (Don't Look Up)
The Lowdown: This is the same lineup as the DGA, which is not something that's happened since 2009, and it would also be the first time since 1950 that all of the contenders are former nominees. But while others are trying to question this as a sign that something crazy is going to happen, I think it's more people fretting about statistics than looking at a race with a clear choice at its center. McKay or Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) have some points in their favor if you want to claim someone has upset potential, but don't be surprised if this is a predictable list.
1. Will Smith (King Richard)
2. Benedict Cumberbatch (The Power of the Dog)
3. Denzel Washington (The Tragedy of Macbeth)
4. Andrew Garfield (Tick Tick Boom)
5. Nicolas Cage (Pig)
Alt: Javier Bardem (Being the Ricardos)
The Lowdown: I'm going to go with the surprise here and pick someone who has not been nominated for the SAG or Globes with this list. I think the Top 4 is relatively set (though I personally don't think Garfield is as safe as the internet thinks he is-if there's a truly shocking miss on Tuesday, don't be stunned if it's him), which only leaves one nomination to get creative. Dinklage's studio ruined his chances (if Cyrano had come out wide in December he'd be nominated), and Bardem's work is so inconsequential to the movie I can't help but feel that Oscar will ultimately opt against him (despite Bardem being a favorite of theirs) similar to Leo for J. Edgar a few years ago. That leaves me with Nic Cage, coming back from the wilderness into Oscar's good graces with Pig as my upset call.
1. Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos)
2. Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter)
3. Lady Gaga (House of Gucci)
4. Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye)
5. Kristen Stewart (Spencer)
Alt: Penelope Cruz (Parallel Mothers), Jennifer Hudson (Respect)
The Lowdown: Like Best Director, this field seems almost too easy, which has gotten people to assume that Gaga, Chastain, or (especially) Stewart are vulnerable. But I think once again we're overthinking it-Gaga's bizarre campaign won't hurt her (the Academy, more than anyone, knows that actors are weird), Chastain is playing a recognizable famous person & hasn't missed once this season, and Stewart is playing a bonkers famous person & will have supporters. If one of them falters, I can't tell whether it'll be a rising critical darling (Cruz) or a "we'll replace a biopic with another biopic" nomination (Hudson). Hence me sticking to the frontrunner five.
1. Troy Kotsur (CODA)
2. Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Power of the Dog)
3. Jared Leto (House of Gucci)
4. Ciaran Hinds (Belfast)
5. Bradley Cooper (Licorice Pizza)
Alt: Ben Affleck (The Tender Bar)
The Lowdown: Good taste & reason would dictate Leto would be nowhere near this, but with a showy role in a movie that's going to get in somewhere (and a year after a near miss), there's no way he doesn't join Kotsur & Smit-McPhee as a lock. Hinds is in a Best Picture frontrunner that will warrant at least one of its fellas a nomination, and I'm guessing that Bradley Cooper's late film cameo is going to do the trick for the fifth slot. There are a lot of ways they could go if Cooper or Hinds misses (Jamie Dornan, Jesse Plemons, & JK Simmons all have their supporters), but my gut says that if we get a new name it might just be the in-plain-sight Ben Affleck who has cleaned up all season & there seems to be a move to get him his first acting nomination.
1. Ariana DeBose (West Side Story)
2. Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog)
3. Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard)
4. Catriona Balfe (Belfast)
5. Marlee Matlin (CODA)
Alt: Ruth Negga (Passing)
The Lowdown: As a general rule, I tend to not get too emotionally-involved with my predictions, as is evidenced by the first four women listed here, all of whom have been frontrunners throughout the season and feel like probable nominees. But I can't help but shake the fact that if CODA is big enough to get a Best Picture & Supporting Actor nomination, it can carry Marlee Matlin to a nod too. A former winner, Oscar loves a comeback story and this would be a great way to welcome her back to the club. Negga, Rita Moreno, Cate Blanchett, or even long-absent Ann Dowd are all names that would also make sense (perhaps more sense), but this is my "no guts, no glory" nomination of this article.
1. Belfast
2. Don't Look Up
3. Licorice Pizza
4. Being the Ricardos
5. King Richard
Alt: A Hero
The Lowdown: I think the first three are sure-things, and it's hard to see the Academy skipping Aaron Sorkin in a field this bereft of clear Oscar-friendly pictures. For the fifth slot, I'm going to go with the other Best Picture nominee because in recent years Oscar has gotten less creative with writing nominations, and it's hard to see them skipping a surefire Best Picture nominee even if in olden days they might've gone with another favorite (like Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch or Pedro Almodovar's Parallel Mothers) or a critical darling like A Hero. Writing might be King Richard's least-successful element, so if it misses for any of those other movies, I'll be delighted to have been wrong here.
1. The Power of the Dog
2. West Side Story
3. CODA
4. Drive My Car
5. The Lost Daughter
Alt: Dune, Tragedy of Macbeth
The Lowdown: The presence of Oscar nominee Tony Kushner (did you realize he hadn't won yet?) should keep West Side Story in this race despite it being a musical (which is usually a challenge for this category). I think CODA's Best Picture nod should help it, and Drive My Car dominated critical awards too much this season for it to not get somewhere other than International Feature Film. I'm going to go with The Lost Daughter which is a way to honor Maggie Gyllenhaal (actors who write frequently show up with nominations), though I wouldn't be surprised if Oscar-beloved Joel Coen or the impressive rewrite of Dune manages a citation in its stead.
1. Encanto
2. Flee
3. Luca
4. Raya and the Last Draogn
5. The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Alt: Belle
The Lowdown: You could make a sincere argument that Encanto is the only safe film in this list: Mitchells came out too early, Raya was too forgettable, Flee is too adult, & Luca came out on streaming exclusively, which I think the Academy will hold against it. If any of these films fall, Belle, from a beloved studio (GKids) is sitting right there & ready, but I don't have enough sense of who is the most vulnerable, so I'm going with the five frontrunners. I won't be surprised if I'm wrong here, and no film missing (other than Encanto) would be a total shock.
1. Drive My Car
2. A Hero
3. The Hand of God
4. The Worst Person in the World
5. Compartment No. 6
Alt: Flee, Great Freedom
The Lowdown: There are five films on this list that have gotten some sort of play domestically, and I've predicted four of them in my first four slots, though I do think that people counting on The Worst Person in the World should do so with caution, as it's not the type of film that Oscar usually goes for. I'm going to skip Flee, though, as this branch might assume it has a shot in Animated Feature and will instead pick Compartment No. 6, which also got rave reviews but as a period romance film feels more at-home with this category's history (you could make a similar argument for Great Freedom, which is about post-War Germany, a favorite subject of AMPAS).
1. Dune
2. The Tragedy of Macbeth
3. The Power of the Dog
4. Belfast
5. West Side Story
Alt: Nightmare Alley
The Lowdown: The top three feel assured (whether Bruno Delbonnel can end his long losing streak is a question for a different day, but I think his sixth nomination is a guarantee), which leaves us with two options. West Side Story missed with the ASC and Belfast isn't remotely the most interesting black-and-white cinematography of the year, but in recent years predictors have been wise to assume that Best Picture nominees will dominate the tech awards rather than movies not in that conversation, so I'm skipping over Cyrano, Passing, and Nightmare Alley in favor of these two films even if they're clearly on shakier ground.
1. Cruella
2. Dune
3. West Side Story
4. Cyrano
5. Nightmare Alley
Alt: House of Gucci, Spencer
The Lowdown: I am buying the hype that Spencer is on a downward slope after it missed with the Costume Designers Guild, though I might do so to my own foolishness as it's easily the kind of film that gets nominated for an Oscar (royalty porn & all that). Without it, I think the biggest questions are whether or not films like Nightmare Alley or Cyrano (neither of which is a box office titan) can get in against the impressive numbers of Gucci. I'm guessing they can-this branch is quite forgiving to box office blunders, and Gucci, despite its fashionable title, is both more modern than Oscar usually goes for, and kind of boring when it could've been campier. Best not to assume Oscar has good taste, but the modern angle I think kills it.
1. Dune
2. The Power of the Dog
3. Don't Look Up
4. West Side Story
5. Belfast
Alt: King Richard, No Time to Die
The Lowdown: One of the biggest question marks for me on Oscar morning is just how much does No Time to Die, which has a had a solid awards season, will be favored by AMPAS, who historically hasn't loved James Bond but might want to over-index with the final Daniel Craig installment. If it's stronger than expected, I'd look for it here, but otherwise it'll be a boring collection of the six biggest Best Picture contenders...I'm picking King Richard to miss because I don't trust that the editing branch will skip a potential Best Picture winner like Belfast even if the tennis work in King Richard gives it showier editing.
1. Dune
2. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
3. House of Gucci
4. Cruella
5. Cyrano
Alt: Coming 2 America, The Suicide Squad
The Lowdown: I'm going with five films that are in other Oscar conversations here, which is possibly a mistake but at least feels right at this point. Cyrano, in particular, might be foolish even if this branch (more than even Costume) doesn't give a crap if a movie made any money. But the Makeup branch loves its little detours & idiosyncrasies, and as a result the two sequels to films that were nominated previously (Coming 2 America and The Suicide Squad) shouldn't be discredited just because they are such nonentities in every other field.
1. Dune
2. West Side Story
3. Nightmare Alley
4. The Tragedy of Macbeth
5. Cyrano
Alt: Cruella, Belfast
The Lowdown: Generally the rule here is to try to find some overlap with Costume (though that isn't as sharp of a rule in recent years since the branches split apart). I'm still going 80% overlap, with Cruella getting beat out for The Tragedy of Macbeth. The minimalist design of the sets on Macbeth are so impressive, but with Makeup & Costume nominations, I wouldn't totally count out Cruella for its mod London aesthetic. It might be foolish to go with Cyrano against a Best Picture nominee like Belfast or an Oscar favorite like Adam Stockhausen for The French Dispatch, but I think it's a smart risk as if they see it, it's totally something they'd nominate (it was nominated for the prize in a previous iteration in 1990).
1. Dune
2. Spider-Man: No Way Home
3. No Time to Die
4. Godzilla vs. Kong
5. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Alt: Free Guy
The Lowdown: I am drinking the Kool-Aid and predicting James Bond for his first nomination in this category since Moonraker, even if it's not the sort of movie that usually gets cited here (they tend to not pick straight-up action-adventure movies that don't have a SciFi or Fantasy element). Spider-Man's box office will demand it's nominated somewhere, and while Godzilla movies rarely get nominated, King Kong movies always do...I think the latter will win out in this situation. For the final slot, while Free Guy feels like an Oscar nominee (it's such naval-gazing for this branch), I can't shake the idea that all four MCU films getting shortlisted means that we'll have at least two here, and while Shang-Chi isn't the best effects of the four, it was a big enough hit that I also think they'll want to put their stamp on it too (ala Spider-Man).
1. Dune
2. The Power of the Dog
3. Don't Look Up
4. The Tragedy of Macbeth
5. The French Dispatch
Alt: Encanto, Parallel Mothers
The Lowdown: As a general rule, it's always best to bet on one person who has never been shortlisted and four former nominees in the lineup. The problem is, with the exception of Germaine Franco's Encanto, there's no really plausible first-timers in my mind, and I don't know if we're still in the era where an animated musical can get nominated for Best Score (the last one to pull it off was Mulan); most of the animated films since then have not had song scores. As a result, I'm going with all five former nominees, in my predictions, a risky game, not least of which because Parallel Mothers makes total sense on paper (they like Iglesias), but I don't have room for him.
1. "No Time to Die"
2. "Be Alive"
3. "Dos Oruguitas"
4. "Down to Joy"
5. "Just Look Up"
Alt: "Here I Am," "Beyond the Shore," "Somehow You Do"
The Lowdown: Disney has to be kicking themselves for not including "We Don't Talk About Bruno" which not only would've given them a nomination & the night's opening number (Disney loves cross-promotion and the Oscars are on ABC), but I think at this point is such a pop cultural phenomenon it would've won Lin-Manuel Miranda his Oscar. "Just Look Up," "Down to Joy," and "Beyond the Shore" are all sort of non-memorable songs from Best Picture nominees, which if last year is any indication, seems to be Oscar's taste in this category. If the Academy is feeling like Jennifer Hudson deserves love somewhere, they could go with "Here I Am" (and don't entirely count out Diane Warren, who could totally make it despite no buzz around her film for "Somehow You Do," as this branch adores her).
1. Dune
2. West Side Story
3. No Time to Die
4. Spider-Man: No Way Home
5. Belfast
Alt: The Power of the Dog, A Quiet Place Part II
The Lowdown: With the first year ever of both a shortlist and a new rule for the bakeoff (a ten-minute clip rather than a reel), I wonder if we might have a surprise or two as a result. It's easy to see something like The Power of the Dog faltering to A Quiet Place or Belfast even if it'd be an easy nominee in a normal year due to it being showier throughout than in long stretches. I'm going to pull a wildcard here & assume that it misses as a result of the bakeoff process. One big question here is whether or not the Academy feels they need to honor Spider-Man and his gargantuan theater-saving box office in a category other than VFX...they didn't do that with The Avengers, but maybe post-pandemic that will feel more important? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Peter Parker gets two tickets to this year's ceremony.
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