My Final Oscar Predictions

All right, we are just days away from the end of Oscar season.  I will admit at this point that I am not looking forward to the Oscars on Sunday.  The Academy has sucked almost all of the life out of the ceremony, shamefully cutting eight categories from the show, making it almost impossible for me to properly enjoy it (if you don't think those eight categories won't leak in advance, you're an idiot, and thus you either have to stay off social media or just accept that a third of the categories will be spoiled), and picking a presenter list that looks more like the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards than the Academy Awards.  I considered not watching, quite frankly, out of protest, but I had already had plans to watch it with my family & that was more important to me this year, so I'll be watching & seething as the artists in those eight categories don't get the respect that they deserve.

That being said, we're going to do a (weirdly rare for this site) final Oscar predictions article today.  Several categories have been up-in-the-air for me, but it's time to put my money where my mouth is.  I'm not going to retype all of the nominees here, just quickly share the winners (I'm aware that we're a bit behind in any new articles this week, but I'm having a tough week personally & I'm allowing myself a chance to breathe that in rather than put up pretenses-being more authentic with my feelings being something I'm trying to do in 2022), though if you want context all of the nominees are housed here.  Enough introduction-here are my predictions for Oscar night.

Picture: There's a lot of hemming-and-hawing on Film Twitter about this race, and how Coda has come through late in the game to win the PGA/WGA/SAG triumvirate after Power of the Dog took the Globes/BAFTA/CCA.  Coda has a lot going against it-it's not cited for directing or editing, it only got three nominations to Power's twelve...but Coda is a warm & friendly film to Power's cooler one (even if it's not technically on the same level). I have seen a lot of people use stats to deny that Coda is going to be the victor, but this season has been a lot about gut instinct, and I think the stretched season will cost Power its (deserved) win.  Coda therefore gets my tentative guess for the win.

Director: A much easier contest.  With Coda out, there's really no stopping Jane Campion, though I think Steven Spielberg's clear reverence will help him later this year when The Fabelmans comes out (potentially getting him his long-awaited third Best Director trophy).

Actor: Will Smith has dominated the entire season.  Oscar loves nothing more than honoring a movie star with a lead trophy, and King Richard is decidedly Smith's True Grit.

Actress: What once was one of the most up-in-the-air races of the season (remember when Lady Gaga looked like she might win & then wasn't even nominated?) has turned into seemingly another coronation.  Unless Penelope Cruz pulls a The Father, Jessica Chastain is about to get her Oscar.

Supporting Actor: If Coda is going to take Best Picture, there's no way in hell it's not going to take Troy Kotsur with it.  His biggest competition (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is too young for Oscar, and the second Kotsur took the SAG this became an easy victory lap for him.

Supporting Actress: If I had more faith in The Power of the Dog I might consider an upset for Kirsten Dunst here.  Only two Best Picture winners have gotten 4+ acting nominations and not won an acting prize (Tom Jones and Rocky), and Dunst is the kind of actor who two decades ago would've gotten in here.  But with it waning in Best Picture, it's not going to carry Dunst past juggernaut Ariana DeBose.

Adapted Screenplay: Another contest between Power and Coda, but here I'm finding it easier.  Campion has an easy win for directing, and even if she prevails in Best Picture I think the logic will be that Coda will deserve some love elsewhere, so Sian Heder is getting a statue regardless of the top prize.

Original Screenplay: Yes, the WGA went with Don't Look Up and yes, BAFTA went with Licorice Pizza, either of which could spoil here.  But I have felt all season that Kenneth Branagh would finally get a trophy in this category if Belfast showed up well with AMPAS, and in terms of sheer nominations, it did.  As a result, I'm sticking to my guns that it wins even if this is at-this-point an underdog's tail.

Animated Feature Film: In a world where the Academy wanted to send Disney a message about its political choices (or ABC a message about how much they hate that they cut the categories), a great way of doing so would be to best Encanto here with Flee...but Oscar has rarely been able to pull off such coordination, so I think the Mouse House safely gets another trophy.

Documentary Feature Film: I saw only one of these (Flee), and as a result am just going to go with the consensus pick of Summer of Soul because that's what everyone else is doing (sometimes it's best to just disregard your feelings when going with Oscar & feeling where the buzz is at).

International Feature Film: Three of these films show up in other categories, which would normally make this harder than it is, but Drive My Car's Best Picture citation makes this something of a gimme.

Animated Short Film: In a year where most of the nominees were quite shocking and R-rated, pundits are going with the cute (if overly long) Robin Robin, which plays in some ways like a feature film.  But cutesy only works if it's Disney (or seems like it's Disney, which Robin Robin is not), and so I'm going with the one pretty much everyone who sees it says is their favorite, the provocative Bestia.

Live Action Short Film: A race between the movie star (Riz Ahmed's The Long Goodbye) and the upstart Please Hold...this category oscillates quite often between movies with major stars winning & movies where that's a distraction...I'm going to guess that this is a big star year and pick The Long Goodbye even if it's supposedly more narratively challenging than Please Hold.

Documentary Short Film: I didn't watch these (last category I'm playing that card, I swear), but Queen of Basketball has dominated all season & who am I to disrupt the paradigm?

Original Score: Despite decades in the film industry, Hans Zimmer only has one Oscar for The Lion King, and though you could make a serious argument that it's time to give a trophy to Jonny Greenwood (Power of the Dog, like Mank last year, is in first place one place & my second in a lot, so I don't think it'll pull a Giant even if that's what I'm predicting as Mank also ended up with two statues), I think that Dune gets him his long-awaited second statue.

Original Song: I am generally not one of those people who are like "let's do a few 'no guts, no glory' predictions" because I generally think picking safer selections bodes well (this is also why I do well with March Madness brackets, because usually leaning into the chaos bodes poorly for your chances).  But I'm doing it here.  All season Billie Eilish's "No Time to Die" has been the clear frontrunner, but Bond won the last two Oscars, Eilish is so young (and not in-step with the older Academy), and Lin-Manuel Miranda is such an obvious eventual EGOT that I think the Academy will want to make it official.  Therefore I'm predicting the upset of "Dos Oruguitas" winning (but really, this is for "Bruno").

Sound: One of the bigger questions around Dune is how many trophies it can win without being cited for Best Director-usually tech sweepers (Titanic, The Fellowship of the Ring, Titanic), get a Best Director citation.  But even against something like West Side Story (this is probably its best shot at a second trophy) I don't foresee a scenario where the space epic loses here.

Cinematography: I do, however, see a scenario where it might lose here.  This race is between Dune and Power of the Dog, and logic points toward a Dune victory.  If Netflix had any sense with their campaign, they'd have been able to point out that Power winning would've been the first time a woman won this category, and probably could've won based on that strength (and the film being the worthiest).  But they didn't, and so I've officially talked myself out of a Power victory-Dune takes it.

Costume Design: I am not predicting Dune here again.  Frequently "most = winner" in this category, but thankfully for us it also equals "best" in this case-Cruella was a magnificent costuming showcase, and I think it's a slam-dunk for its sole trophy here.

Film Editing: Like Cinematography, this one feels super tight, with Dune the tentative frontrunner, but King Richard and Don't Look Up both potential options with the former's showy tennis scenes and the latter's...lack of an ability to win somewhere else without it being embarrassing.  I've got at least one more Dune left to predict, so since I shifted on Cinematography I'm going to give this one to King Richard, as I kind of buy this being a way to double-down on their love of the movie without it costing any (deserved) movie its sole trophy.

Makeup & Hairstyling: It wouldn't have been my guess on nominations morning, but you need to go with the campaign, and The Eyes of Tammy Faye has emerged as a frontrunner in both Best Actress & here-the two wins are so intertwined I don't see a way that they don't both get statues.

Production Design: Dune could certainly takes this one (as could West Side Story), but Nightmare Alley's surprisingly strong showing in other categories makes me think that it will take at least one trophy, and this is the easiest answer to that (the Oscars are much more "spread the wealth" in the 21st Century than they were in the late 20th Century).

Visual Effects: I feel like the random smear campaign of scenes from Spider-Man: No Way Home's overuse of CGI in the past few weeks on social media have been overkill and a bit unkind (I agree it's too much, but also there are scenes that work quite well in the movie that they're ignoring), but it underlines why even a gigantic box office is not going to be able to take down Dune in the night's easiest win.