We have a pretty stellar line up of Oscar nominations, this year, with the ceremony airing live on March 15 at 7:00 p.m. on Hulu and ABC. The question is, who will win? And of course, who should win?
Movies I feared would be snubbed like “Blue Moon” managed to break into multiple categories. The few pictures I was bummed didn’t make it like “Avatar: Fire and Ash” in Best Picture and “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” in Best Adapted Screenplay weren’t egregious omissions. Many smaller, equally great movies took their place. Here are my predictions of who will win some of the major Oscars, and who I believe deserves to win in these categories.
Actor in a Supporting Role
Prediction & My Pick: Benicio Del Toro in “One Battle After Another”
Del Toro has picked up multiple critics’ choice awards for this performance already. His gentle, inviting, and warm performance as “Sensei” is what grounds the epic and goofy “One Battle After Another” in the rich sincerity that has everyone fawning over it. If this movie is the Oscar juggernaut it seems to be, it’s because of Benicio as much as it is for its director, Paul Thomas Anderson.
Actress in a Supporting Role
Prediction: Teyana Taylor in “One Battle After Another”
Teyana Taylor owns the first half hour of “One Battle After Another,” so it’s she’ll win in this category. She leaves such an impression that despite not being in most of the film, she was what people left the theater talking about. Having already collected the golden globe, this appears to be a surefire win for Taylor. I’ll stake my career on it!
My Pick: Elle Fanning
What Fanning is asked to be in “Sentimental Value” is truly an impossible task. She needs to play a movie star who is placed in a role she is incredibly wrong for and bad in. Playing a bad actress is not easy because the audience could very easily assume the actress playing it is simply a bad actress. Elle manages to thread the needle of giving the story everything it needs but not leaving the audience in the dark on what she is accomplishing.
Original Screenplay
Prediction & My Pick: “Sinners”
Original blockbuster entertainment seemed to be a thing of the past until “Sinners” brought it back with force last April, because of its screenplay, which features rich characters in Smoke, Stack, Sammie, and more who feel lived-in before any of the action begins. My mark of a good screenplay is its structure, and this one’s perfect.
Adapted Screenplay
Prediction & My Pick: “One Battle After Another”
Paul Thomas Anderson has always had a knack for great dialogue. He could and has turned extras into interesting characters. But “One Battle After Another” is his magnum opus. He didn’t let the enormous budget and scale of the film take away any of the idiosyncratic touches that make his movies gloriously specific. The moment of Bob and Lockjaw at the grocery store is seared into my head, and that is because of how well-defined these characters are on the page. The actors could feast in the roles.
Original Score
Prediction & My Pick: “Sinners”
Making a movie defined by music is tough because the music really must deliver. Ludwig Göransson delivers fully with his score for “Sinners.” I don’t care that he has multiple Academy Awards already, he needs another one!
Directing
Prediction: Paul Thomas Anderson for “One Battle After Another”
Anderson is one of the great modern auteurs. He is the reason so many people want to join the film business, and his movies immediately go into an actor’s “most known for” category on the IMDB database, because these roles let an actor flourish. Like Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson in the past, the Academy has ignored Anderson for too long. With all the precursors he’s collected, I believe it is finally time for the king to claim his crown.
My Pick: Ryan Coogler, for “Sinners”
I’ve seen “Sinners” five times in theaters and every time I get goosebumps when the spirits of the past appear in Club Juke as Sammie belts out his tune. That directing choice will define a generation of film lovers. It is a brilliant use of this medium. Without mentioning his great integration of the IMAX aspect ratio shift and smart edits from his screenplay, which you can read here, and is surprisingly different from the final film, he is absolutely who I would give the award to.
Film Editing
Prediction & Pick: “One Battle After Another”
Pacing is the thing that makes or breaks a movie more than anything. I have seen a billion 90-minute movies that feel longer than “The Irishman,” and the fact that “One Battle After Another” flies by is why I think it will win and should win.
Production Design
Prediction: “Frankenstein”
Sometimes the winner of best production design is the winner of most production design, and that is what I will suspect be the case at this year’s Academy Awards. The sets in Frankenstein are big and intricate, so it’s a little undeniable.
My Pick: “Marty Supreme”
Star Wars’ production design was revolutionary because it was science fiction that wasn’t clean and crisp, but rather filthy, and lived in. “Marty Supreme” manages to feel like that in how remarkable its 1950s era feels. Setting a story in the past always requires a ton of work from the production designer, but Mary Supreme’s team took it to another level.
Sound
Prediction: “Sinners.”
Sound is a confusing category for most academy voters, so it leads to two paths in the nominations: music movies and vehicle movies. In years past music biopics have had plentiful nominations and wins, and so I believe the award will go to “Sinners” in following that tradition.
My Pick: “F1”
I mentioned vehicle movies, and yeah, that’s what this movie is. The cars go vroom, and it sounded delectable. Give it the gold!
Visual Effects
Prediction & My Pick: “Avatar: Fire and Ash”
Pandora shouldn’t work. It just shouldn’t. Neither should the Na’vi yet I have seen 9 hours of story with them and am completely invested like they are people. That is because of the script, the actors, but most importantly the visual effects. If everything felt true outside of the computer-generated images, the movie would fail but there is never a doubt because the artists behind these impeccable effects are better at their jobs than maybe anyone on the planet.
Costume Design
Prediction & My Pick: “Sinners”
Like Ludwig Göransson, I don’t care how many Oscars Ruth E. Carter already has, she needs another one. Smoke and Stacks’ looks keep them so distinct that once their hats are removed, it feels like it’s a special effect when you can still tell them apart. The evolution of both the twins’ looks are so spectacular and that’s not even acknowledging the Halloween-winning work Carter did with Mary’s champagne dress that was covered with blood. The cherry on top is the post credits scene with Stack’s sweater, sunglasses, and knuckles. Just outstanding work.
Make-up & Hairstyling
Prediction: “Frankenstein”
While I personally feel that Frankenstein’s monster in this film looks like an engineer from “Prometheus” mixed with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s knack for putting too many seamlines on costumes, the design is the movie’s centerpiece. It’s the only movie where the makeup is what the movie is built around, and I believe that will earn it the Oscar.
My Pick: “Sinners”
Did you see the teeth on the vampires? All the blood? The bullet wounds? The bite marks? The carnage on Jack O’Connell when (spoiler alert) he is finally consumed by the sun? Come on, that’s the good stuff.
International feature film
Prediction: “The Secret Agent”
“The Secret Agent” has taken awards season by storm with its Oscar-nominated and golden globe winning performance by lead actor, Wagner Maura, who plays a man on the run from ruthless killers sent by a dictator. When a movie like this escapes the international feature label to become a front runner in other major categories, as this one has, it is safe to assume this award is a gimme.
My Pick: “It Was Just An Accident”
I went into this movie knowing nothing about it and was treated to a knotty and surprisingly funny text about trauma and the just response to it. Jafar Panahi took his torture at the hands of the Iranian regime and made a movie about how we need to be better than the people who try to turn us into animals. He is a braver man than I could ever wish to be, and this movie is outstanding.
Lead Actor
Prediction: Timothée Chalamet
Timmy made a 1950’s period piece about a ping pong player into a blockbuster. No genre elements, no great hooky pitch, just him and, of course, a great script, great direction, great music, yada yada yada. Maybe the Oscars don’t typically award movie stars for being movie stars, but they do award actors for giving knotty complex performances, which is exactly what Chalamet delivers here. That Timmy has you pitying him during his “victory” is incredible and he makes you actually feel for him when he breaks down, in the end. The gamut of emotion put into this performance will earn him the Oscar like it did the golden globe. He also missed out to Adrian Brody in “The Brutalist” for his performance as Bob Dylan in 2024’s “Complete Unknown” and is commonly-viewed as next in line for this award.
My Pick: Michael B. Jordan
I mentioned Smoke and Stack taking their hats off feeling like a special effect, and that’s not just because of Ruth Carter’s costumes, but because of how different Jordan makes these twins seem onscreen. Their voices, posture, and gait are so unique. The energy they give out is so different. Michael B. Jordan did the best work of his career in this movie, twice.
Lead Actress
Prediction: Jessie Buckley in “Hamnet”
I adore Jessie Buckley, but I honestly was much more gripped by her in “Wicked Little Letters, where she gets to have more fun. When she grabs Hamlet’s hand in the third act, it’s a powerful moment and I guess I wouldn’t be upset if she won this award, like she has at all the precursors.
My Pick: Renate Reinsve in “Sentimental Value”
Reinsve’s performance uses every distraction available to her to avoid her father and her role in his film. When she matures and accepts her place in the picture, it is incredibly satisfying. She makes what we know is coming feel like a surprise and I’d like to see her win an Oscar for the performance.
Best Picture
Prediction: “One Battle After Another”
This film has dominated award season in the best directing and best picture categories, and for great reason. The film doesn’t shy away from the terribleness that consumes the world but still manages to entertain and give you hope for the future. It probably has Leonardo DiCaprio’s best performance, one of the best car chases ever put to screen, and my favorite use of cellphones in a movie. This is a propulsive movie that came out of the oven feeling like a classic. It will have its title in large letters at the Dolby theater.
My Pick: “Sinners”
I’m an obsessive re-watcher. Every time I revisit this movie, I find great new meaning in it. I find myself just thinking about this world and these characters, which is why it would be my best picture pick.
