My Final Oscar Predictions: Part 1
Is the ‘Sinners’ wave real? Can anything beat ‘KPop Demon Hunters’? Plus: Timothée Chalamet’s Oscar season can’t end fast enough
I usually have a hard time agreeing with people who think Oscar season goes on too long — my colleagues Christopher Rosen and Richard Rushfield included. It’s great to have more time to watch movies and encourage others to see them, and as exhausting as the endless interviews can be, sometimes they bring us priceless gems, like a Bridesmaids reunion that never would have happened if it weren’t for Oscar season.
And then, sometimes we get Timothée Chalamet accidentally going to war with the ballet and opera communities, and it becomes clear that we really need to stop talking about these people and their movies. Though I haven’t followed every beat of the fine arts discourse that’s been raging online all weekend, I mostly side with what Chalamet said in a conversation with Matthew McConaughey last month: “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera, or, you know, things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore.’ All respect to the ballet and opera people out there.”
No doubt, Chalamet phrased his point clumsily — but keeping movies from becoming an art form as rarefied and expensive as opera and ballet is actually what we should all be fighting for. The fact that this firestorm happened largely after Oscar voting closed — same for the mess about Jessie Buckley and cats (you don’t want to know) — also means it probably won’t matter to anyone in two weeks, aside from maybe the people who snagged a discount on their Seattle Opera House tickets using the promo code TIMOTHEE.
This is all very much the kind of silliness that happens when Oscar season goes on too long, and there’s no new movie to argue about — Project Hail Mary, you cannot get here soon enough! Until then, I’ll be shifting my focus here and on the podcast to finally writing down some predictions about what will happen on Oscar night this Sunday. I’ve got the first half of my predictions below, with the second half coming on Thursday. On Tuesday’s Prestige Junkie podcast, you can also hear me and Chris share our own predictions, and probably argue over a few of them — in fact, get a preview of that in today’s newsletter, where Chris is sharing his own thoughts beneath some of mine.
And for our beloved Prestige Junkie After Party subscribers, we’ll offer our true final Oscar thoughts in a live recording happening on Friday at 9 a.m. PT — you can watch us on Substack or call in and talk to us live! We’ll share the link for that with After Party subscribers later this week, and the link for our Ankler Oscar pool is live for After Party subscribers now as well. If you, too, aren’t quite sick of Oscar season yet, come join us! The water’s fine!
Now for part I of my final Oscar predictions:
Best Animated Short
The nominees:
Butterfly
Forevergreen
The Girl Who Cried Pearls
Retirement Plan
The Three Sisters
Chris and I already went long on all three shorts categories on last week’s podcast, so I’ll keep these quick. The wide range of animation styles in this category, and the absence of one backed by a huge boldface name or a major studio, makes it hard to single out a winner. Lacking any other compelling evidence, I’m simply going with my favorite, Retirement Plan, which is swift and emotional and has Domhnall Gleeson as its narrator, which can’t hurt.
Will Win: Retirement Plan
Should Win: Retirement Plan
Could Win: Forevergreen
Chris’ Thoughts: I, too, think Retirement Plan will win (and, perhaps dangerously, want it to win). Still, I must note the prediction markets have Butterfly — about Olympic swimmer and Holocaust survivor Alfred Nakache — slightly ahead of the field.
Best Documentary Short
The nominees:
All the Empty Rooms
Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud
Children No More: ‘Were and Are Gone’
The Devil Is Busy
Perfectly a Strangeness
Probably the strongest of all the shorts categories, and one of the strongest doc shorts lineups in quite a while. I would love to see Geeta Chandbhir become the first person to ever win both documentary categories on the same night, as the co-director of the short The Devil Is Busy (about women’s healthcare workers at an Atlanta abortion clinic) and the feature doc The Perfect Neighbor (more on that later). But I suspect the combined powers of Netflix, CBS Evening News correspondent Steve Hartman and the boldface names that have hosted screenings for All the Empty Rooms — including Steve Kerr and Julianne Moore — plus the devastating subject matter, about children killed in school shootings, will have the biggest advantage.
Will Win: All the Empty Rooms
Should Win: The Devil Is Busy
Could Win: Children No More: ‘Were and Are Gone’
Chris’ Thoughts: Again, we’re in agreement — and this time with the prediction markets, too!
Best Live-Action Short
The nominees:
Butcher’s Stain
A Friend of Dorothym
Jane Austen’s Period Drama
The Singers
Two People Exchanging Saliva
Often the trickiest category to predict, at least this year’s live-action short race has two obvious heavy-hitters: The Singers, picked up by Netflix and directed by Sam Davis (an Oscar nominee in 2024 for the doc short Nai Nai & Wài Pó) and Two People Exchanging Saliva, with a grabby title and a muscular publicity campaign behind it (the busy Moore is an executive producer on this one!). Based on last year’s winner, I Am Not a Robot, I’m thinking a high-concept, fun title option has the edge. But it’s borderline impossible to predict which way this category will go year after year, so I have no idea how accurate that hunch might be!
Will Win: Two People Exchanging Saliva
Should Win: The Singers
Could Win: A Friend of Dorothy
Chris’ Thoughts: It’s always unclear how many people actually vote for the shorts — this year, doubly so, with the added honor system that “requires” Academy members to state they watched all the nominees before being allowed to vote in a given category. But assuming those who do vote here are more of the hardcore cineaste variety than the typical Oscar voter (a major assumption, I admit), I think Two People Exchanging Saliva has it. The Yorgos Lanthimos vibes push it over the top.
Best Visual Effects
The nominees:
Avatar: Fire and Ash
F1
Jurassic World Rebirth
The Lost Bus
Sinners
This is an easy one, and not just because I’m more in the tank for the Avatar films than nearly anyone else I know. Even if the third film in the franchise underperformed with Oscar nominations, the visual effects remain a stunning achievement, and no other film in this category really seems to be trying to compete. I guess you could imagine a massive Sinners sweep taking this category as well, but its win for “supporting visual effects” at the Visual Effects Society Awards tells you everything — it’s a movie that makes excellent use of the effects, but isn’t all about them the way Avatar is.
Will Win: Avatar: Fire and Ash
Should Win: Avatar: Fire and Ash
Could Win: Sinners
Chris’ Thoughts: This is not a category I’m losing sleep over. Avatar all the way.
Best Sound
The nominees:
F1
Frankenstein
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Sirāt
Weird things can happen in this category, even when there’s an effects-heavy best picture contender or two in the mix. The Zone of Interest won for subtle sound that evoked unmistakable dread, which could be a good sign for Sirāt this year. Top Gun: Maverick won as the populist blockbuster even when All Quiet on the Western Front took home many of the other craft prizes, which is almost certainly a good sign for F1. Many of my fellow pundits are assuming this will go F1’s way, but I can’t help but think of the days when this category was split into sound mixing and sound editing, and musicals often got an edge in sound mixing. Combining action movie sound effects with a blanket of blues and Irish music, Sinners has a very good chance to run up its Oscar score here.
Will Win: Sinners
Should Win: Sirāt
Could Win: F1
Chris’ Thoughts: F1 had won all the major precursors — including beating Sinners at the Cinema Audio Society Awards on Saturday, which honors sound mixing — until coming up empty at the Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards on Sunday. Worse, while snubbing F1, MPSE awarded fellow Oscar nominees Sinners, Frankenstein and Sirāt in its various sound editing categories instead. In theory, F1 should still have the advantage, and that’s my pick: The last four movies to win precursor awards from CAS, BAFTA and the Association of Motion Picture Sound (AMPS) — the hat trick F1 turned — all won the Oscar. But the door is open for an upset for either Sinners or Frankenstein, which won for feature effects editing at the Golden Reel Awards (three of the last five winners in that category went on to win the sound Oscar).
Best Costume Design
The nominees:
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Sinners
Much as I love the unlikely success of Avatar: Fire and Ash making it into this category at all, this award will come down to Sinners and Frankenstein, each of which has been riding waves of renewed praise this season. The Sinners vibe shift has happened more recently, which makes me wonder if designer Ruth E. Carter could snag her third Oscar for yet another remarkable collaboration with Ryan Coogler. But the edge has been with Frankenstein’s Kate Hawley most of the season, and she beat Carter at the Costume Designers Guild Awards last month. I suspect the same will happen on Sunday as well.
Will Win: Frankenstein
Should Win: Sinners
Could Win: Sinners
Chris’ Thoughts: No matter who wins, we win: Every nominee in this category deserves their flowers, but it’s hard to go against the precursors, so I’ll pick Frankenstein, too.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
The nominees:
Frankenstein
Kokuho
Sinners
The Smashing Machine
The Ugly Stepsister
A much easier call for Frankenstein, which has a fairly unbeatable combination of creature effects, period looks, wigs, the works. Credit where it’s due to the red-eye vampire contacts and gallons of artfully applied blood in Sinners, but Jacob Elordi’s creature transformation in Frankenstein is truly one for the ages.
Will Win: Frankenstein
Should Win: Frankenstein
Could Win: Sinners
Chris’ Thoughts: Agreed, it’s Frankenstein.
Best Cinematography
The nominees:
Frankenstein
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Train Dreams
This is an incredibly strong category that’s already fielded a lot of winners — Adolpho Veloso won a Film Independent Spirit Award and the Critics Choice Award for his work on Train Dreams, Michael Bauman won the BAFTA for One Battle After Another and Autumn Durald Arkapaw has a raft of major critics prizes for Sinners (including the New York Film Critics Circle). The fact that Arkapaw would be the first woman to ever win this category gives everything the weight of history, as well as the attention Sinners has already received for its large-format photography. Arkapaw and Veloso have both campaigned harder than we usually see for cinematographers, which gives them another edge. But if One Battle After Another is headed for a best picture win, this might be an early place where we see it triumph. Still, I’m sticking with Arkapaw — maybe just because I’m ready to see history be made.
Will Win: Sinners
Should Win: Sinners
Could Win: One Battle After Another
Chris’ Thoughts: I can’t bet against precedent. With his wins from both the American Society of Cinematographers and British Society of Cinematographers, plus the BAFTA victory, Bauman has the industry vote locked down. If Arkapaw is to win, she’d have to defy history in more ways than one: The last time the Oscars picked a best cinematography winner who was blanked at ASC, BSC and BAFTA was in 2012.
Best Production Design
The nominees:
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
As with costumes, this category has been earmarked by pundits for Frankenstein for months now, even with a lot of other remarkable work also in the mix. I did my part to bang the drum for Marty Supreme and Jack Fisk, a living legend who has somehow never won an Oscar, and as with every other Sinners nomination, I wonder if a wave of enthusiasm for that film could sweep along production designer Hannah Beachler, already an Oscar winner for Black Panther. But absent other evidence, I’m inclined to go with the consensus here.
Will Win: Frankenstein
Should Win: Marty Supreme
Could Win: Sinners
Chris’ Thoughts: If you’re picking against Frankenstein in costumes, hair and makeup and production design, godspeed to you — you’ve got more guts than I do. (But I agree, Jack Fisk should win!)
Best Documentary Feature
The nominees:
The Alabama Solution
Come See Me in the Good Light
Cutting Through Rocks
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
The Perfect Neighbor
Last year, the incisive, infuriating documentary short Incident — recreating the shooting of a civilian by a police officer entirely through security and bodycam footage — missed out on the Oscar in favor of a more feel-good option. I think that oversight will be partly rectified this year with a win for Netflix’s The Perfect Neighbor, which uses found footage that surrounds our everyday lives — traffic cameras, doorbell cameras and police bodycams — to explore a horrifying act of violence in a Florida neighborhood. As mentioned above, director Geeta Chandbhir could win both in this category and in documentary short, and I think she’s almost certainly guaranteed to take home this one.
Will Win: The Perfect Neighbor
Should Win: The Perfect Neighbor
Could Win: Come See Me in the Good Light
Chris’ Thoughts: The Perfect Neighbor is an awfully strange frontrunner. It lost at the Producers Guild Awards and Directors Guild Awards, but to movies not nominated for an Oscar. That’s a pretty lucky break. Less fortunate was losing at BAFTA to Mr. Nobody Against Putin, which is also nominated at the Oscars. BAFTA is hit and miss in this category (last year, they picked Super/Man over eventual Oscar winner No Other Land) — and Netflix is a good bet in best doc, having won three times previously — but I could see an upset here on Sunday.
Best Animated Feature
The nominees:
Arco
Elio
KPop Demon Hunters
Little Amelie or the Character of Rain
Zootopia 2
The original Zootopia may have cruised to victory in this category back in 2016 — even beating out a stone-cold classic like Moana! — but it didn’t have Huntri/x to contend with back then. In a pretty weak year for animated films in general, KPop Demon Hunters stood out not just for its hit songs and cultural omnipresence, but for the inventive mesh of animation styles and cultures that made the first Spider-Verse film an Oscar-winning phenomenon nearly a decade ago. Zootopia 2 may have the box office trophy, but the Demon Hunters will be taking this one.
Will Win: KPop Demon Hunters
Should Win: KPop Demon Hunters
Could Win: Zootopia 2
Chris’ Thoughts: Huntri/x don’t miss.
Best Casting
The nominees:
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
The Secret Agent
Sinners
What a great group of nominees for the inaugural edition of this category, a great mix of grade-A legends in the field — Hamnet’s Nina Gold and Sinners’ Francine Maisler have shepherded generations of actors at this point — and less familiar faces like Marty Supreme’s Jennifer Venditti and The Secret Agent’s Gabriel Domingues, who assembled ensemble casts so wide-ranging and surprising that they couldn’t be denied. Maisler, who discovered Miles Caton and fought for Jack O’Connell to play the vampire Remmick, will win both for Sinners and the incredible career that came before this award existed. But it’s really hard to pick a personal favorite in a category with so many outstanding options.
Will Win: Sinners
Should Win: The Secret Agent
Could Win: One Battle After Another
Chris’ Thoughts: It’s actually possible these nominees haven’t gotten enough credit. I still can’t believe One Battle’s Cassandra Kulukundis found not only a future star in Chase Infiniti, but also a non-actor like James Raterman, the retired Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security Investigations special agent who almost steals the movie as the terrifyingly deadpan interrogator. (“Oh, no more jokes?”) I agree, Maisler will be tough to beat — especially if voters treat this new category as an “ensemble” prize instead of a casting one — but if One Battle pulls it off, I wouldn’t be surprised.