2024-25

It's a Wonderful Night for Oscar! Oscar, Oscar! Who Will Win?

Lots of uncertainty in the above-the-line categories this year. Only two of the top prizes are locked: Zoe Saldaña for Best Lead Actress in a Supporting Campaign, and Kieran Culkin in for Best Lead Actor in a Supporting Campaign.

Besides those plus a couple of craft categories, this awards season has been wildly unpredictable, with support being splintered amongst multiple viable contenders, which is always more entertaining to watch than sweepers.

My prediction confidence is as low as it's been in years, and I'm all the more excited for the show because of it! Take these guesses with a big old cube of salt;

BEST PICTURE ✅

Will win: After taking a back seat to Emilia Pérez and The Brutalist at the Golden Globes, Anora announced itself in a big way by winning a tic-tac-toe of Critics Choice+PGA+DGA, all within 24 hours of each other on February 7th & 8th, mere days before the final voting window opened.

Could win: BAFTA and SAG Ensemble winner Conclave, as the "least disliked" contender, could do well on a preferential ballot, but losing PGA and also failing to secure a nomination for director Edward Berger suggests that maybe it doesn't have a critical mass of voters who truly love it. There's also the Emilia in the room... Those thirteen nominations still loom large, indicating that the AMPAS membership at large was less bothered by discourse of the movie's problematic elements than the online junketeers. But the more recently unearthed scandal of Karla Sofia Gascon's horrendous tweets might actually move the needle a bit in turning off would-be voters.

Should win: My preference oscillates by the hour between Nickel Boys -- a landmark achievement of both visual storytelling and the depiction of Black subjectivity in film -- and The Substance -- a gruesomely unique invention of cinema.

Should've been here: Had PGA nominee A Real Pain and Critics Choice nominee Sing Sing managed to make it in, it surely would have come at the expense of Nickel Boys and I'm Still Here, so I have no desire to mess with our current timeline. It's a bit easier to play who shouldn't be here, a designation that easily goes to Emilia Pérez for a litany of reasons. I'd like to trade up Wicked and A Complete Unknown too, although both of them have their moments.

BEST DIRECTOR ✅

Will/Could win: Real tough call this year. While Brady Corbet took the Globe and BAFTA for an achievement that's coded as a more obvious directorial achievement than Anora, Sean Baker's DGA victory is impossible to discount. Best Picture/Best Director splits do happen from time to time, but trying to predict that is a fool's errand. When in doubt, just predict the director of the Best Picture winner, so for now I'm sticking with Sean Baker.

Should win: Coralie Fargeat came to play! Few films this year represent a wholly unadulterated director's vision quite like The Substance.

Should've been here: RaMell Ross' risky first-person POV approach to Nickel Boys manages to transcend mere gimmickry due to the genuine thematic and dramatic intention of his decisions. It is a singular feat of narrative craft.

BEST FEMALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE ✅

Will/Could win: Although Demi Moore's career narrative seems tough to beat, she feels vulnerable. Mikey Madison is the live-wire centre around which presumed Best Picture frontrunner Anora is built -- If the movie she carries on her shoulders is going to win the whole thing, doesn't it make sense that she would join the winners circle herself? Meanwhile I'm Still Here was such a late breaker that Fernanda Torres was unable to secure any other precursor nominations besides the Golden Globe (which she won), making her a dark horse whose viability is impossible to gauge.

Should win: Torres gets my vote for the performance I think is the best (a surprise victory for her masterful slow-boil performance is one upset that might age very well in the long run), but Moore is who I want to win. To see her clutching an Oscar all these decades after being dismissed as a "popcorn actress", and for such a genre-stylized performance no less, would be a very satisfying moment. Madison and Erivo are also fantastic in their headlining roles as well.

Should've been here: Despite pulling off the rare triple crown of New York Film Critics Circle, L.A. Film Critics Association, and National Society of Film Critics honours for her blistering work in Mike Leigh's Hard Truths, Marianne Jean-Baptiste found herself outside-looking-in on an Oscar nomination all season. The only other actress to ever achieve that critical hattrick and still miss with the Academy was Sally Hawkins for Happy-Go-Lucky, also a Mike Leigh joint. Timothy Spall shunned for Mr. Turner, Lesley Manville for Another Year... Hmmm, does the acting branch simply not vibe with Mike Leigh? Seems baffling given how his creative process relies so heavily on collaboration with his stars.

BEST MALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE ✅

Will/Should win: Adrien Brody is on another level The Brutalist. Described in some quarters as a spiritual companion piece to his early-career breakthrough in The Pianist, his towering performance here sees him deliver an even more complex embodiment of hope and disillusionment. He ought to be a lock, however...

Could win: ... musical biopic mimicry is catnip to the Academy, and if the presumed adoration they have for A Complete Unknown is going to manifest anywhere, a win for Timothée Chalamet's take on Bob Dylan feels the most obvious place for it.

Should've been here: Daniel Craig continues to test his range, stylistic registers, and movie star image post-Bond, and it reached a career high point (so far at least) this year in Luca Guadagnino's Queer. Sadly, the film itself was just too 'out there' to gain enough real awards traction.

BEST FEMALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE ✅

Will win: Zoe Saldaña's musical tour-de-force has remained a frontrunner since Cannes.

Could win: Ariana Grande's delightfully entertaining facsimile of Kristen Chenoweth in Wicked would make a tempting alternative to voters whose distaste for Emilia Pérez has metastasized to this category as well (although they really shouldn't penalize Saldaña for Gascon's blunders). There have been whispers of an Isabella Rossellini shocker of late.

Should win: Both Saldaña and Grande are disqualified from 'should win' consideration since they are undeniably the leads of their respective films, which isn't to say they aren't great. But if you put a ballot in my hand I'd check the box of Monica Barbaro, who's working overtime to add dimensionality to a thinly written character. It's also scary how much she sounds like the real Joan Baez without stooping to affect-heavy impersonation!

Should've been here: To think of the rewards that could have been reaped by Nickel Boys' Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor or Hard Truths' Michele Austin -- both of whom radiate so much compassion -- if the Supporting Actress conversation hadn't been monopolized by leading ladies. ☹️

BEST MALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE ✅

Will win: Keiran Culkin has been riding the wave of residual Succession love all the way from the Emmys to the Oscars. He really is a force of nature in A Real Pain, but he also has the unfair advantage of playing the lead role in that film, which perhaps explains why he's cake-walked over the rest of the field this season.

Could win: Sadly, none of the other four have managed to emerge as a challenger.

Should win: Literally any of the other four, by virtue of being all being excellent in legitimate supporting roles. I'd throw my support behind Yura Borisov's understated work as a reluctant hired goon in Anora, but it's a strong slate of performances all around.

Should've been here: I'd swap out Culkin for Denzel Washington's deliciously anachronistic villainy in Gladiator II; He seemed like the only cast member who truly understood (and relished) the inherent absurdity of that misbegotten project. Alternatively, Clarence Maclin's moving self-portrait in Sing Sing, or Adam Pearson's magnanimous charm offensive in A Different Man would also have been very worthy inclusions.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY ✅

Will win: Conclave has felt like a default screenplay-as-its-one-guaranteed-win type of contender all season, and its unencumbered precursor run only fortifies that perception.

Could win: I don't see how any of the other four can win. It would be a shocker the likes of which we haven't seen since Precious snatched it from Up in the Air 15 years ago.

Should win: Nickel Boys is by far the most adventurous feat of adaptation, transfiguring the prose of Colin Whitehead's novel into an immersive, sensory, audiovisual grammar.

Should've been here: I'm Still Here may be fairly conventional in its narrative presentation, but the script packs in a lot of character detail and layers it gracefully with the few-and-far-between plot developments.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY ✅

Will win: Even before its Best Picture frontrunner status came to light, Anora had been perceived as the odds-on favourite for this prize all season. Now that it seems poised to win the top category, it would look foolish not to predict it here as well.

Could win: The Substance has the most inventive concept behind it, which has done the trick for multiple past winners (like Everything Everywhere, Get Out, Her, or Eternal Sunshine).

Should win: While Jesse Eisenberg's A Real Pain is modest in scope, that screenplay is a beautifully self-contained specimen, finding a marvellous balance between the lightness of off-the-cuff banter and the crushing weight of history.

Should've been here: You know I gotta promote my beloved Can-con whenever I can! Megan Park's charming Muskoka-set coming-of-age dramedy My Old Ass packs a surprising wealth of profundity and wisdom into its slightly sci-fi premise.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE ✅

Will/Could win: Feels almost like a repeat of last year, when the guild-sweeping studio spectacle (Across the Spider-Verse) ultimately lost to the highbrow international option (Boy and the Heron) in what we can only speculate was the closest race this category has ever seen. This year, DreamWorks' The Wild Robot faces a feisty feline challenger in the Latvian indie animation Flow, which Gints Zilbalodis pulled off with a very small team. I got burned by predicting the studio production last time, so I'm guessing that the little-engine-that-could narrative behind Flow will push it over the finish line, but for the second year in a row this category is a nailbiter!

Should win: While Flow would be a very "cool" winner, and the Wild Robot would be a very satisfying win for four-time nominee Chris Sanders (the creator of Stitch!), my true preference belongs to Adam Elliot's Memoir of a Snail, continuing in his proud tradition of leavening deeply depressing content with off-kilter humour and claymation caricature.

Should've been here: Abstain.

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE ❌

Will win: With a ridiculous field-leading thirteen(!) nominations including Best Picture, Emilia Pérez is the prohibitive favourite. And yet...

Could/Should win: Brazilian entry I'm Still Here shocked everyone with a Best Picture nomination of it own. We're in unprecedented territory with two Best Picture nominees squaring off in Best International Feature. The detractors of Emilia Pérez have been vocal for months, and now any AMPAS voter who feels the same has a clear candidate to funnel their anti-Pérez votes into. I'm not bold enough to predict it, but for the first time in many years this category is actually going to hold some suspense right up until the envelope is unsealed.

Should've been here: Payal Kapadia's languorous slice of Mumbai life All We Imagine as Light was the season's critical darling, and would have been a surefire nominee if India had chosen to submit it. Talk about a fumble!

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE ❌

Will/Could win: No Other Land is an urgent and harrowing chronicle, whose struggles to get made and distributed have reached the ears of those who haven't even seen it yet. But it's a tough watch, and there is the discomforting notion that some Academy members may flat-out refuse to engage with a film that documents such naked oppression of Palestinian communities. Its loss at BAFTA and its failure to secure a single nomination from the American guilds may be a telling sign. But who's the most likely challenger? Porcelain War would have been our runaway winner if the subject matter of Ukraine hadn't already prevailed here just last year (20 Days in Mariupol), but it still feels like a possibility. Meanwhile Sugarcane and Black Box Diaries also have passionate fan bases, and rightly so.

Should win: All nominees are great, and tell stories deserving of attention. But the one I found myself most absorbed in was Shiori Ito's Black Box Diaries, a raw and relentless critique of Japan’s patriarchal power structures and stigmatized social perceptions on sexual violence, and an intimate exploration of the psychological toll of survival.

Should've been here: Not saying I would necessarily replace any of the nominated five, but Will & Harper was a warm, funny, moving look into one trans woman's distinct experience, and would have been welcome as a comparatively "lighter" option amongst this severely heavy plate of docs.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY ✅

Will win: The Brutalist's earthy VistaVision aesthetic finds arresting imagery both in moments of handheld urgency and those of more classical form. But this category feels like a toss-up with no true frontrunner.

Could/Should win: Ed Lachman's exquisite 16 mm lensing of Maria captures Paris at golden hour like few others. And then there's the cloak of shadow in which Jarin Blaschke envelopes the viewer in Nosferatu. That carriage sequence = Pure movie magic. Even Greig Fraser's vfx-enhanced work on the Dune sequel would make a fantastic winner, despite already being awarded on Part One.

Should've been here: No snub this season rankles me as much as Jomo Fray barely being given the time of day for his mesmerizing POV compositions in Nickel Boys.

BEST EDITING ❌

Will/Should win: This category's giving me a headache. The critic's favourite Challengers was not nominated, and the American Cinema Editors guild won't even announce their winners until after this year's Oscars. The sole precursor we have to go on is BAFTA, which went to Conclave. That would be a savvy choice for AMPAS to cosign; Nick Emerson's shot selection is intelligent and the timing is brisk, making this talking-head movie zip by!

Could win: Still, a single win from BAFTA is hardly enough to make Conclave a confident prediction. The whiz-bang freneticism of Emilia Pérez may be super messy, but sometimes messily edited musical spectacle wins this category. Anora is a stealth contender too, being the Best Picture frontrunner.

Should've been here: Coralie Fargeat's editing of The Substance is peerless. Every single shot in that meticulously storyboarded horror is clipped to exactly the right duration. No notes.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN ✅

Will win: Nathan Crowley has been doing great design work for a long time. While the gargantuan sound stages he dressed up in the trappings of Oz for Wicked may not be my preference, it will be awesome to see this seven-time nominee finally win one.

Could/Should win: One could make the argument that The Brutalist might siphon off some votes since it's somewhat about architecture, but I think the closer runner-up to Wicked is Nosferatu. With a maddening attention to detail, Craig Lathrop built one of the most authentically realized on-screen worlds of 2024. But there's another horror movie whose production design I loved even more...

Should've been here: The Substance's surreal pastiche of retro aesthetics and gaudy materialism is a purposefully nonsensical playground for Fargeat’s nightmare vision of Hollywood. Elizabeth's apartment alone would be enough to win this category in my book.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN ✅

Will win: Wicked has the "most" costumes working in its favour. "Most" both in terms of excessive design and sheer volume of fabric!

Could win: None. This feels like a lock.

Should win: While the creativity and skill Paul Tazewell has on display in Wicked is impressive, it did sort of amount to lot of visual noise in the large ensemble numbers. Much more memorable to me are the thematically informed intricacies of Linda Muir's outfits for Nosferatu, from Lily Rose-Depp's venerable wardrobe of repressive corseted gowns to the Romanian reimagining of Count Orlock.

Should've been here: Maria may have been a snooze, but at least Massimo Cantini Parrini's haute couture made it a fashionably dressed snooze.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE ✅

Will/Should win: Daniel Blumberg's iconic overture in The Brutalist undercuts grandiose swells with dissonant orchestrations, foretelling that all is not quite right with the land of the free. And that's just one track on an album full of inspired compositions.

Could win: Hard to tell, as the majority of prizes this season went to Reznor & Ross for their techno-beats soundtrack to Challengers, which the music branch was not hip enough to nominate. I suppose it could be Conclave?

Should've been here: Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1. Say what you will about that ambitious folly, there's no denying the beauty of John Debney's sweeping themes.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG ✅

Will win: Original musicals that are also Best Picture nominees seldom lose this category, making Emilia Pérez the one to beat. "El Mal" seems to be the consensus pick of its two nominated songs.

Could win: If enough people forget that Elton John won an Oscar for his Rocket Man end credits single just five years ago, general affection for the aging pop star might result in him getting to take a victory lap, this time for Never Too Late. There's also the notion that the Academy at large may finally be tuned into the fact that the music branch is never going to stop nominating Diane Warren until they give her a win, so a surprise for "The Journey" is not out of the question.

Should win: "Like A Bird", the quietly affecting coda to Sing Sing's epilogue, is handily the best option of this otherwise weak playlist. I've often bristled at the suggestion that the Academy do away with this category, but in a year like this one it doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

Should've been here: "Compress/Repress" from Challengers is the most stubborn earworm of the year for me. As an end credits extension of the similarly flavoured score, this would have been a great place to acknowledge the film somewhere.

BEST SOUND ✅

Will/Should win: Dune: Part Two is doing real interesting stuff with its audio even when not during a loud action scene.

Could win: Music-heavy films that are also up for Best Picture usually make stiff competition in this category, but with three such nominees occupying that slot (A Complete Unknown, Wicked, and Emilia Pérez), they may be splitting the music-lovers' vote. Overall love for Wicked could give it an edge over the other two.

Should've been here: As heartening as it is to see two horror movies -- The Substance and Nosferatu -- largely embraced by other Academy branches this year, I'm disappointed that the sound branch couldn't even put them on the shortlist of ten! The sound effects these movies conjured up are still rattling around in my nightmares!

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS ✅

Will/Should win: Dune: Part Two has had this sewn up for years in advance.

Could win: Simply because it's a fellow Best Picture nominee, Wicked can't be counted out entirely. But I doubt I'll ever meet anyone who's seen both films and honestly believes Wicked's effects are better than Dune's.

Should've been here: The CGI in Twisters looks a lot better than the dodgier elements of Wicked. Planting the flag for the worthiest practical effects of the year is The Substance, although I suspect it will get its due in the next category...

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING ✅

Will/Could win: "In this category it's tough to beat a transformative, lead-acting-nominated performance in a Best Picture nominee." I applied that exact logic (word for word) to my prediction for the last two consecutive years, only to pick the wrong transformative lead-acting-nominated performance both times! In 2023 it went to The Whale for fat-suiting Brendan Fraser when I had guessed Elvis for fat-suiting Tom Hanks and Austin Butler. Last year it went to Poor Things for wigging out Emma Stone when I had guessed Maestro's heavy prosthetic work on Bradley Cooper would win by a nose.

Once again I have to flip a coin: Is it The Substance for the insane body horror prosthetics that Demi Moore emotes through, or is it Cynthia Erivo's verdigris in Wicked?

Should win: It should absolutely be The Substance, but in any other year I'd give it to Nosferatu's incredible realization of Count Orlock.

Should've been here: That Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga got absolutely zero shortlist mentions from the Academy's craft branches is kind of insane to me. I know it's not as good as Fury Road, but c'mon!

BEST ANIMATED SHORT ❌

Will win: Yuck! makes the most of a cute premise, and many past winners have taken the gold on the basis of cuteness alone. [WINNER: In the Shadow of the Cypress]

Could/Should win: Wander to Wonder is wonderfully weird and dark and witty and cleverly crafted.

Should've been here: A Crab in the Pool would have made a lovely Can-con addition.

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT ❌

Will win: A Lien is a fifteen-minute anxiety attack the packs an emotional wallop by the end, and its topicality will surely win over politically minded voters who wanna stick it to the current White House administration. [WINNER: I Am Not A Robot]

Could/Should win: The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent is a beautifully conceived and crafted short, and it also represents and "liberal conscientiousness" vote against oppressive governments, albeit with an older and less American context.

Should've been here: The silent, hypnotic Dovecote was a bit too vibe-heavy and not enough of a "story" short to get the nomination, but I kinda dug it.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT ✅

Will/Could win: The shorts branch sure loves their orchestra docs! After The Last Repair Shop triumphed last year, they doubled down with not one, but two feelgood orchestra docs this year with The Only Girl in the Orchestra and Instruments of a Beating Heart. With the other three contenders being heavy meals about gun violence, either one of those musical uplifts would fall in line with recent patterns. I'll predict the former.

Should win: Incident is a major feat of nonfiction media; Possibly the most significant of the year, even more so than any of the feature documentaries. However, the artful objectivity of its editing and the trust it puts in its audience to interpret the events depicted without any guidance from talking heads may be the reasons it can't triumph with a broad voting group like the Academy.

Should've been here: A Swim Lesson

Post-Oscars Analysis

Final score: 18/23

Hands down the best win of the night is the magnificent I'm Still Here toppling the problematic frontrunner Emilia Pérez in Best International Feature. All of Brazil manifested with this win, and I could hear them cheering from here!

No time for a full review on this year's telecast, but a few quick thoughts:

Big takeaway from me is that I don't have many complaints, which is similar to my overall impression of last year's show. This is clearly the result of producers Kapoor and Mullan simply keeping an even keel and not taking foolish attention-seeking risks (like certain other recent Oscarcast producers have tried), and honestly that's the first rule of putting together an enjoyable Oscar show. The formula that's been honed over 90 years works -- Don't mess with what the actual Oscar fans want!

The only deviation from the formula was that they reserved the "Fab Five" presenter format for some of craft categories this year, and that's actually a very welcome shift.

Conan knows how to work a crowd. Even when a joke isn't a home run, his self-effacing charisma often wrings more laughs out of what would have been dead air. He brings to mind the demeanour of Billy Crystal, which made it all the more fitting that Conan introduced Billy for the final award of the night as, "the greatest Oscar host ever." Bring Conan back for next year!