Ralph Fiennes in Conclave
The very first article I contributed to the River Cities' Reader, waaaaaay back in February of 1995, was on the 67th-annual Oscars ceremony, a piece in which I forecast the winners of Best Picture, Directing, and the four acting categories. I wound up successfully predicting six-for-six … as, to be fair, did most people. As I recall, that article was an easy one to write, and I hardly dreaded the assignment.
Thirty years later, I've found myself delaying predictions for the 97th-annual Oscars for as long as possible, and almost not wanting to make them at all … at least not publicly. Not because I'm afraid of being wrong – that's happened a lot over the decades – but because, this year, I simply can't decide.
Anora should be the Best Picture front-runner, right? Wins from the producers, directors, and writers guilds, after all, just like Everything Everywhere All at Once. Then why did it blank with the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and, to a large degree, the British Academy of Film & Television Awards (BAFTA)? So that means it's Conclave instead, yes? A Best Picture win from BAFTA and a Best Ensemble win from SAG, plus the nearly done deal of an Adapted Screenplay Oscars victory. So why did the Globes not go for this one, either, just like the producing and directing guilds didn't, and why did Edward Berger not get into the Academy's Best Directing lineup?
If Adrien Brody, who won every televised prize prior to this past Sunday, were such a done deal for The Brutalist, why did A Complete Unknown's Timothée Chalamet win the SAG Award? If Demi Moore, for The Substance, were the lock everyone has been presuming, why did she lose the BAFTA prize to Anora's Mikey Madison, who also won the Independent Spirit Award (ISA) over Moore? Why does Jesse Eisenberg keep winning screenplay prizes – over the likes of Anora, The Brutalist, and The Substance, no less – when A Real Pain didn't land a Best Picture nomination? Why did the lauded photography for 10-time Oscar nominee The Brutalist lose to one-time nominee Maria with the cinematographers' guild? Why did Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes triumph over Dune: Part Two for the visual-effects guild's highest honor? Why why why?
In short, if it weren't already apparent: This is an insane year for the Oscars. I'm consequently going to go a bit insane myself in my annual predictions. Knowing full well, a year after scoring a personal best in my prognostication, that I might do worse in my guesses than ever before, I'm gonna go with a lot of wants versus a lot of presumed wills, hoping those wants are similar to those of voters. Go ahead and use my predictions for your company's annual Oscars pool if you wanna. But you've been warned.
The red-carpet fun for this year's ceremony begins at 5:30 p.m. CT on Sunday, March 2, and the show itself starts at 6 p.m., with the ceremony viewable on ABC, Hulu, and a number of additional streaming services.
BEST PICTURE
Anora
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
I'm Still Here
Nickel Boys
The Substance
Wicked
Despite its high nomination count and Globe victory, I don't see The Brutalist as much of a factor in this category anymore; his BAFTA and Globes wins were significant, but Corbet losing the Directors Guild of America (DGA) award to Anora's Sean Baker felt a bit like a coffin nail. The option of Wicked evaporated when it went zero-for-five with SAG, tying the all-time loss count for movies. Due to its controversies involving star Karla Sofia Gascón's offensive tweets from several years ago, to say nothing of the additional controversies surrounding Emilia Pérez, that 13-time nominee is dead in the water, if only in this category. A Complete Unknown was never a serious option. Nor are Dune: Part Two, I'm Still Here, Nickel Boys, and The Substance.
That leaves Anora and Conclave, and I'm going with the latter – despite Berger's absence in the directing race – because the Oscars employ a preferential-balloting system that gives number-two and -three choices a significant amount of weight. Yes, the Producers Guild of America (PGA) uses the same system, and Anora emerged victorious. But Conclave won BAFTA's Best Picture and SAG's Best Ensemble, both organizations having significant overlap with Oscars voters. Beyond which, everyone I know who's seen it loves (or at least likes) Conclave, and a few people I know have problems with Anora, suggesting that while the latter will likely get loads of number-one votes, the former will gets lots of number-ones votes, and number-two votes, and number-three votes … . That's how a movie wins Best Picture these days.
BEST DIRECTING
Sean Baker, Anora
Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
James Mangold, A Complete Unknown
Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez
Coralie Fargeat, The Substance
Whatever happens with Best Picture, I think this prize goes to DGA victor and longtime indie stalwart Baker, despite the considerable threat of Corbet. In truth, I'm currently imagining a scenario in which, as happened with Jane Campion and The Power of the Dog a mere three years ago, Anora only gets Best Directing, and the whole Oscars race is up in the air 'til the final envelope is opened.
BEST ACTRESS
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez
Mikey Madison, Anora
Demi Moore, The Substance
Fernanda Torres, I'm Still Here
Moore is an iconic yet underappreciated actor, her televised acceptances have been heartfelt and moving, and if not for Torres (whose nomination is its own reward), she would've given my favorite female-lead performance of the year. Yet I'm also sensing Glenn-Close-in-The-Wife vibes in this category – the sort suggesting that even though a movie veteran is winning everything and giving amazing speeches, the film she's in may not appeal to everyone. For maybe enough voters, BAFTA and ISA winner Madison might be the preferred alternative: the heroine of a Best Picture front-runner who, unlike Moore, doesn't spend nearly half her film unconscious, and who doesn't spend her last 20 minutes as part of a monstrous backside before literally melting onto the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I'm sticking with Moore. If Madison wins instead, my Best Picture prediction for Conclave is officially null and void.
BEST ACTOR
Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice
Chalamet's SAG win makes me nervous. His Dylan mimicry in the film is excellent, but his acceptance speech was beyond obnoxious. I dread hearing another one. Let's cross fingers that Academy voters have less overtly populist tastes, and that they'll prefer Brody's full-throttle character immersion to Chalamet's stated, humblebrag goal to be the next Marlon Brando or Viola Davis.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown
Ariana Grande, Wicked
Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez
The Emilia Pérez controversies haven't hurt Saldaña one iota. And even though I'm completely flummoxed by the raves she's received for this role – her exquisite physicality and that iconic red suit notwithstanding – I have to concede that this win is undeniable, even if I would prefer that the Oscar went to literally any alternate choice. Except Felicity Jones. A boy has his standards.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Yura Borisov, Anora
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice
The done-est done deal of the year. Maybe the only truly done deal. Don't be a hero by predicting otherwise.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Anora, Sean Baker
The Brutalist, Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold
A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg
September 5, Moritz Binder, Alex Davis, Tim Fehlbaum
The Substance, Coralie Fargeat
No film has nabbed a screenplay win without a corresponding Best Picture nomination in 20 years, when Charlie Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind triumphed – and that was well before the Academy expanded the Best Picture field to 10 (or up-to-10) inclusions. But Eisenberg won for his script at the ISA (where Anora wasn't nominated) and with BAFTA (where it was); paired Oscars for Culkin and Eisenberg make both narrative and emotional sense; and, again going with the wants over the wills, it's my favorite option of 2024 in either writing category. A win for Baker's Anora would be great and absolutely wouldn't surprise me; even though I'm no great fan of the film, Fargeat scoring for The Substance would delight me. But dammit, I want that post-ceremony photo of Eisenberg and Culkin holding their Real Pain Oscars together at the Governor's Ball.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
A Complete Unknown, Jay Cocks, James Mangold
Conclave, Peter Straughan
Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Nicolas Livecchi, Léa Mysius
Nickel Boys, Joslyn Barnes, RaMell Ross
Sing Sing, Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin, John Whitfield
Nickel Boys won the Writers Guild of America (WGA) award, but that may have been solely because Conclave wasn't eligible. Otherwise, Straughan's script has won this prize everywhere under the sun – even at the Golden Globes, whose screenplay category doesn't differentiate between original and adapted scripts, and where the options included Anora, A Real Pain, and The Substance. There are precious few locks for this year's Oscars. If you're playing along at home (or in some kind of pool with monetary stakes), make this one of them.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Flow
Inside Out 2
Memoir of a Snail
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
The Wild Robot
When Vengeance Most Fowl won the BAFTA trophy, it made sense; nothing is more British than Wallace and Gromit. But the victory also suggested that the true non-winner wasn't the universally acclaimed Flow, but rather the universally acclaimed The Wild Robot, which lost to Flow at the Globes. My hunch is that voters will consider The Wild Robot, like Inside Out 2, to have been adequately rewarded by its huge box-office intake – and also by the announcement that there are at least two more Wild Robot movies forthcoming. On a personal note, no 2024 movie has inspired quite so many friends and acquaintances ask “Have you seen ...?" as Flow has, because they'd just watched it and loved it. I did, too. So give it the Oscar – I can't imagine Flow 2 happening any time soon.
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Elton John: Never Too Late, “Never Too Late”
Emilia Pérez, “El Mal”
Emilia Pérez, “Mi Camino”
Sing Sing, “Like a Bird”
The Six Triple Eight, “The Journey”
I can easily see Golden Globes and CCA victor “El Mal” taking this prize, and it likely will. But given the Emilia Pérez controversies (and, in this category, potential vote-splitting) and the fact that every Academy voter must know that “The Journey” marks composer Dianne Warren's 16th nomination without a previous win for her efforts, isn't this the perfect way to stop the madness and give her the freaking trophy already?!
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
Emilia Pérez, France
Flow, Latvia
The Girl with the Needle, Denmark
I'm Still Here, Brazil
The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Germany
Another potentially counter-intuitive guess given the apparent (and, to me, nonsensical) industry love – and CCA and BAFTA wins – for Emilia Pérez. Yet taking the controversies out of the picture, shouldn't we be taking that Best Picture nomination for I'm Still Here as some kind of sign? Remember that, before the expansion of the Picture lineup from five to 10, 2006's five-time-nominated Amélie lost to the one-time-nominated No Man's Land. In 2007, the six-time-nominated Pan's Labyrinth – which won three other Oscars – lost to The Lives of Others. Passion counts for a lot in this category … and I'm currently thinking the passion lies with the Brazilians.
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM
Black Box Diaries
No Other Land
Porcelain War
Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
Sugarcane
Even though I rarely see all five nominees in advance of the Oscars, it's been a while since I entered Best Documentary completely blind. With the other three still big-screen-only opportunities, Black Box Diaries is streaming on Paramount+, which I don't have, and Sugarcane is on Hulu, which I do have, but ya know … there were all those What We Do in the Shadows episodes still to watch … . In other words, I deserve to get this category wrong. Endeavoring to do better next year, let's predict No Other Land, which has amassed 20 prizes (including one from the ISA) compared to next-highest-contender Sugarcane's seven. Knowing that No Other Land's laurels include the critics'-group trifecta of victories from the New York, Los Angeles, and National Society of Film Critics makes me slightly more confident about this pick. I'm still deeply ashamed.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Brutalist
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
Maria
Nosferatu
Unless Nosferatu or the cinematographers-guild choice Maria pulls off an upset, I can't see anyone other than The Brutalist's Lol Crawley emerging victorious here. He made a nearly four-hour epic (!) budgeted at under $10 million (!!) look like it cost $100 million (!!!). Imagine what this guy might do with an actual $100-million budget.
BEST FILM EDITING
Anora
The Brutalist
Conclave
Emilia Pérez
Wicked
If my previous guesses for Picture and Original Screenplay are wrong, and if Sean Baker wins for Anora's editing, that would make him the second person in history to receive four Oscars on the same night ,,, and the only other one to achieve that landmark was Walt Disney. (The man, not the studio.) Regardless, let's instead go with Conclave's BAFTA winner Nick Emerson, whose victory, along with screenwriter Peter Straughan's, will keep us guessing about the ultimate Anora v Conclave showdown.
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
The Brutalist
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Nosferatu
Wicked
Sure, Oz and Munchkinland are eye-popping and all. But is anyone else hoping that the “Dancing Through Life” set, with its enormous spinning hamster wheels, turns into a Universal Studios theme-park attraction stat?
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Gladiator II
Nosferatu
Wicked
This might've been a closer call had Dune: Part Two or the weirdly ignored-everywhere Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga been in the mix. But they weren't. This one's a gimme. (Insert “Defying Gravity” battle cry.)
BEST SOUND
A Complete Unknown
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
Wicked
The Wild Robot
If Chalamet's Oscar win doesn't happen, this will be A Complete Unknown's only viable threat for a win. Don't count out BAFTA winner Dune: Part Two, or, if things start looking weird awfully early, even Wicked. Yet musicals, or movies about musicians, have tended to do well here in the past. And despite voters' routine fondness for loud-louder-loudest in this category, the subtlety of The Zone of Interest triumphed over Oscars hog Oppenheimer just last year.
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
The Brutalist
Conclave
Emilia Pérez
Wicked
The Wild Robot
As I see only two options having any real chance, it's easy to imagine voters going with Conclave's Volker Bertelmann, who won this Oscar just two years ago for (I say this as a fan) his equally oppressive score to All Quiet on the Western Front … which, not coincidentally, was also directed by Conclave's Edward Berger. Yet one of the first title cards we see in The Brutalist reads “Overture,” and if the subsequent theme music failed to impress us there, BAFTA winner Daniel Blumberg's score would be dead in the water. It wasn't. I was crying before the film started. (Though let's pour one out for Trent Reznor and Atticus for their un-nominated yet Globe-winning Challengers compositions. You won't get the gold, but that music is staying in my head forever.)
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Alien: Romulus
Better Man
Dune: Part Two
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Wicked
A Dune has triumphed in this category before. So have the Alien series' xenomorphs. So have CGI monkeys. So that takes care of “most original” as an option. Let's go with Dune Deux based not only on its BAFTA win, but also on the facts that (a) Best Picture nominees tend to do incredibly well here (and no one is really talking about Wicked's visuals), and (b) Denis Villenueve's recognition for his second of three installments seems oddly equivalent to the reception that greeted Peter Jackson's second Lord of the Rings entry The Two Towers, which only won Best Visual Effects and Best Sound Editing. And that latter category doesn't exist anymore.
BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
A Different Man
Emilia Pérez
Nosferatu
The Substance
Wicked
Post-Exorcist, horror movies have had a rough time gaining Academy favor. Except in this category, where winners have included An American Werewolf in London (the first-ever victor), David Cronenberg's The Fly, The Wolf Man, and last year's horror-adjacent Bride of Frankenstein saga Poor Things. If possible, it always helps for champs to also have a Best Picture and/or Best Actress nominee in their pocket, and The Substance has both. (The 21st-centuty winners of both Best Actress and Best Hairstyling/Makeup include La vie en Rose, The Iron Lady, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and Poor Things.) So … hoorah for Monstro ElisaSue! And hurrah to the continued end of Best Makeup & Hairstyling equaling Best Fat Suit!
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM
Death by Numbers
I Am Ready, Warden
Incident
Instruments of a Beating Heart
The Only Girl in the Orchestra
Without benefit of having seen all the nominees, I suppose the outcome here will be based on whether Academy members are feeling collectively hopeful or conflicted. The Only Girl in the Orchestra is an optimistic tale about the first woman named a permanent member of the New York Philharmonic. I Am Ready, Warden concerns the fatal stabbing of a convenience-store worker and her son's mixed feelings about the killer's potential execution. In 2025, at least in Hollywood, I'm thinking conflicted might prevail.
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM
Anuja
I'm Not a Robot
The Last Ranger
A Lien
The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent
I have seen every contender in the other two short-film categories, and with Live-Action, I can honestly see a way forward for all five nominees – except maybe I'm Not a Robot, which is the most traditionally entertaining entry of the bunch. (It's also, more or less, a shrink-wrapped version of the much-better recent feature Companion.) Fearing the winner might be the overly sentimentalized Anuja or The Last Ranger, and aware that the victory might go to the all-intensity-all-the-time A Lien, I'm instead choosing The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent, an almost perfect example of the form that would be ruined if it were one minute longer or shorter.
BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Beautiful Men
In the Shadow of the Cypress
Magic Candies
Wander to Wonder
Yuck!
Here, I think it's a decision between two stop-motion shorts: the beautifully melancholic Beautiful Men, or the delightfully batshit Wander to Wonder, which won this prize at BAFTA. I'm going with the Brits on this one. Either way: huge victory for animated flaccid penises.
