After an awards season that felt longer than usual, the 98th Academy Awards are finally just around the corner. Until very recently, it seemed like we were headed for a very predictable ceremony. One Battle After Another appeared to be the clear frontrunner for Best Picture, and with a hefty 13 nominations it looked like it was going to dominate across several categories. The film had everything going for it: timely subject matter, near-unanimous critical acclaim, and an extremely compelling career narrative for Paul Thomas Anderson. It swept many critics’ awards and took home most of the top prizes at the major precursors.
While many pundits still argue that its path is too strong to then lose Best Picture, Sinners has surged in recent weeks in a way that’s difficult to ignore. The film broke the record for the most Oscar nominations ever with 16, while One Battle After Another capped out at 13. It also scored major wins at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, giving it a strong last-minute boost heading into the Oscars and a realistic shot at taking home at least one acting prize. While One Battle After Another may still be the safe choice, I’m starting to believe that the momentum has shifted and that Sinners may now have even stronger industry enthusiasm behind it. Even if One Battle After Another misses out on Best Picture. Best Director seems locked for Paul Thomas Anderson, who many feel is long overdue for the award. As innovative as Sinners is, and despite how active Ryan Coogler has been on the campaign trail, I still think all signs point toward Anderson finally winning both Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, while Coogler seems well positioned to take home his first Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
The acting categories this year, however, remain largely up in the air. The only one that currently feels locked is Best Actress, which in recent years has often been the most competitive race. This season, Jessie Buckley has completely swept the awards circuit for her raw and powerful performance as a grieving mother, and the wife of William Shakespeare, in Hamnet. It marks her second nomination, and her work over the past decade has firmly established her as one of the defining actresses of her generation.
Every other acting category, though, remains far more difficult to predict. Best Actor initially looked like it might finally be the year for Timothée Chalamet. However, his aggressive campaign tactics, combined with controversial comments dismissing other art forms such as ballet and opera, have somewhat turned him into an awards season villain. Many voters appear put off by how openly he has expressed his desire to win the Oscar, and there’s also the fact that his film Marty Supreme has been losing momentum in recent weeks due to controversies that have resurfaced surround its director, Josh Safdie.
Chalamet did win at both the Critics’ Choice Awards and the Golden Globe Awards, but he unexpectedly lost the BAFTA Awards to Robert Aramayo whose film, I Swear, wasn’t even eligible at the Oscars this year. He also lost the Actor Award to fellow nominee Michael B. Jordan, who has been far more likable and humble on the campaign trail this season. Considering Sinners has been gaining serious momentum lately, and given how moving Jordan’s acceptance speech was at the Actor Awards, it feels it might be his moment. He’s about a decade older than Timothée Chalamet, and after years of establishing himself as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, the timing seems right.
Best Supporting Actor has also been a rollercoaster. Early in the season, Benicio del Toro was on coming on strong, sweeping critics prizes over his One Battle After Another co-star, Sean Penn, who was initially expected to be the frontrunner .Then the Critics’ Choice Awards delivered a curveball by awarding Jacob Elordi for his transformative performance in Frankenstein, which virtually no one saw coming. When Stellan Skarsgård won the Golden Globe Awards for his performance in Sentimental Value, it suddenly felt like he might take it, given how beloved he is as a character actor and how much industry respect he’s built up over the years. However, things seem to have come full circle, as Sean Penn triumphed at both the Actor Awards and the BAFTA’s, which is a combo that is hard to beat. Even though he’s been largely absent from the campaign trail and did not attend the BAFTAs or the Actor Awards, he now seems likely to emerge as the actor representing One Battle After Another . There is a slim chance that Delroy Lindo pulls a huge upset, as he wasn’t nominated anywhere else but has been surging in recent weeks as Sinners has become more likely to take best picture, and did deliver a speech at the Actor Awards when Sinners won Best Ensemble.
Best Supporting Actress is potentially the hardest acting category to predict this year. It currently feels like an evenly split three-horse race with no clear frontrunner. For much of the season, it seemed like Teyana Taylor had the edge for her performance in One Battle After Another . The film was incredibly strong across the board, she won the Golden Globe Awards and delivered one of the most memorable speeches of the night, and then went on to host Saturday Night Live and completely crushed it. However, the race became far more complicated when she lost both the Critics’ Choice Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards to Amy Madigan for Weapons, and then the BAFTA Awards went to Wunmi Mosaku for Sinners.
On paper, Taylor’s performance feels like the most obvious “Oscar-winning” supporting turn. She’s only in the film for about 20 minutes, but she absolutely dominates the opening stretch, and her presence is so powerful that it hangs over the rest of the movie long after she’s gone. While this is her first Oscar nomination, she previously received major acclaim for her performance in A Thousand and One a few years ago. And although many audiences primarily know her as an R&B singer who rose to prominence in the mid-2010s, she has clearly been on the industry’s radar for some time, even if this moment feels like a true breakout.
However, if we’re looking at a combination of narrative and acclaimed performance, Madigan makes the most sense. Amy Madigan was nominated nearly forty years ago for Twice in a Lifetime and has spent decades as one of Hollywood’s most reliable character actresses. Over the years she has appeared alongside countless major stars, and she’s also part of one of the industry’s most enduring celebrity marriages with Ed Harris. She’s widely respected, and while Weapons did not receive any other nominations, it is a very popular film and her performance as Aunt Gladys already feels destined to become an iconic horror character. For those reasons, Madigan is ultimately my pick, even though both Taylor and Mosaku are in films that are stronger overall in the awards conversation.
The craft categories seem much easier to predict this year than the above-the-line races. Best Film Editing should very likely go to One Battle After Another , which has been dominant throughout the season and feels like the clear choice in that category. Frankenstein also appears to have several technical awards essentially locked up. It’s the overwhelming favorite for Best Makeup & Hairstyling and Best Costume Design, and it also leads the race for Best Production Design, though Sinners still has a slim chance of pulling off an upset there. Best Sound will most likely go to F1, a film whose technical spectacle makes it an obvious fit for the category, which historically rewards racecar movies. That said, Sinners also has a realistic shot at winning there if the Academy decides to reward the film more broadly across the crafts. Speaking of Sinners, it seems very likely to take home both Best Casting and Best Original Score. A win for composer Ludwig Göransson would be particularly notable, as it would make him a three-time Oscar winner within a ten-year span, and before the age of 40. Best Original Song appears destined for Golden from K‑Pop Demon Hunters, which also seems locked to win Best Animated Feature.
The most difficult craft category to predict is Best Cinematography. For much of the season, it seemed likely that Autumn Durald Arkapaw would become the first woman ever to win the Oscar in this category for her work on Sinners. However, Michael Bauman for One Battle After Another has won at nearly all the major guild awards and now appears to have taken a significant lead in the race. It’s still a close call. Arkapaw has been very visible on the campaign trail for Sinners, but at this point it feels slightly more likely that One Battle After Another will take the prize.
There’s a bit of a race in Best International Feature this year. The clear frontrunner appears to be Sentimental Value, which won at the BAFTA Awards and earned an impressive nine Oscar nominations. Most notably, it became the first international film ever to receive four acting nominations. The film also landed Best Director and Best Original Screenplay nominations for Joachim Trier, who has become a very beloved filmmaker in the industry and now carries a strong career narrative to finally win an Oscar. If it does take the prize, it would also mark the first time a Norwegian submission has ever won Best International Feature, and it would be a nice moment for the country, who also just dominated at the Winter Olympics this year.
That said, there are a few plausible challengers. The Secret Agent could make a strong case for an upset. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, along with two major above-the-line categories: Best Actor for Wagner Moura and Best Casting. It has been widely acclaimed by critics and already won Best International Feature at both the Golden Globe Awards and the Critics’ Choice Awards, although Sentimental Value was not eligible at the latter. Another contender worth mentioning is It Was Just an Accident. Many people felt the film deserved a Best Picture nomination, and no filmmaker in the category has a more compelling narrative than its director, Jafar Panahi. Given the war between the U.S. and Iran, honoring the film could carry significant symbolic weight and provide Panahi with a powerful moment to speak on the Oscar stage. Still, despite these strong challengers, conventional wisdom points to Sentimental Value ultimately taking home the award.
Best Documentary Feature looks like a two-horse race between The Perfect Neighbor and Mr. Nobody Against Putin. Both are documentaries tackling urgent, real-world issues. The Perfect Neighbor has been the frontrunner all season and is easily the most widely seen film in the category, thanks to its availability on Netflix and its reach among the true-crime audience. However, international voters appear to have rallied behind Mr. Nobody Against Putin, which won at the BAFTA Awards. I still think The Perfect Neighbor will ultimately take the Oscar, but it wouldn’t be shocking if this category produced a surprise. Best Documentary Short, on the other hand, looks much clearer. All the Empty Rooms is very likely to win, especially since it’s also widely accessible on Netflix.
The other two short categories are much harder to predict. Best Animated Short could realistically go in several directions. The Girl Who Cried Pearls is the most elaborate of the nominees and feels like a miniature feature film, but stop-motion hasn’t performed particularly well in this category in recent years. Retirement Plan is short and charming, featuring the voice of Domhnall Gleeson, and carries a slightly existential tone, though the animation itself is quite simple. That leaves Forevergreen and Butterfly. The former is a cute children’s fable from Disney animators, but it is explicitly Christian and ends with a Bible verse. Religious shorts haven’t fared very well with Academy voters recently. Because of that, I’m leaning toward Butterfly, a beautifully painted animated short about a Jewish swimmer on France’s Olympic team during the Holocaust. It is heavy and not in English, but it feels like the kind of emotionally powerful film that can win this category.
Best Live Action Short is also tricky. A Friend of Dorothy is a sweet and charming story about an international friendship, while Two People Exchanging Saliva is a wildly ambitious 40-minute French-language film that has received a lot of acclaim for the vivid world it builds. Still, part of me suspects voters may gravitate toward a middle ground and pick The Singers, a lively short about men in a bar competing in a singing contest that’s simply very enjoyable and well made, and has a huge campaign behind it.
Here are my final predictions in every category:
BEST PICTURE: Sinners
BEST DIRECTOR: Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another
BEST ACTOR: Michael B. Jordan – Sinners
BEST ACTRESS: Jesse Buckley – Hamnet
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Sean Penn – One Battle After Another
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Madigan – Weapons
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Sinners
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: One Battle After Another
BEST CASTING: Sinners
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: K-Pop Demon Hunters
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE: Sentimental Value
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: The Perfect Neighbour
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: One Battle After Another
BEST FILM EDITING: One Battle After Another
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: Frankenstein
BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Frankenstein
BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING: Frankenstein
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: Sinners
BEST ORIGINAL SONG: ‘Golden’ – K-Pop Demon Hunters
BEST SOUND: F1
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Avatar: Fire & Ash
BEST ANIMATED SHORT: Butterfly
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT: The Singers
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: All the Empty Rooms
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