For the first time in a few years, it looks like the Best Picture race is sewn up before Oscar night.
Granted, that’s just the sort of thing movie characters say just before they get gobbled up by a scientifically enhanced shark or are shot down one day before retirement. Still, this year’s award season seems to be pointing towards a major Best Picture victory for Oppenheimer. After sweeping all the precursor award ceremonies, it appears Christopher Nolan’s latest feature will become death, destroyer of rival movies’ Oscar ambitions. Recent Academy Awards ceremonies hinged on Power of the Dog v. CODA or Roma v. Green Book Best Picture battles. For the 96th edition of the Academy Awards, Oppenheimer looms larger over the Best Picture competition, it’s hard to imagine anyone dethroning this production.
Even with that category seemingly down for the count, that’s not to say every category at the 96th Academy Awards already wields an obvious victor. On the contrary, many categories are rife with uncertainty as well as Oscar-nominated artists that will be denied the awards triumphs they so richly deserve. Ahead, let’s take a peek at each of the Academy Awards categories and predict who will and should win. There’s way more to talk about than just Oppenheimer’s Best Picture frontrunner status this year…
Best Sound
Who will win: Oppenheimer
Who should win: The Zone of Interest
Best Visual Effects
Who will win: The Creator
Who should win: Godzilla Minus One
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Who will win: Maestro
Who should win: Poor Things
Best Costume Design
Who will win: Poor Things
Who should win: Poor Things
Best Production Design
Who will win: Oppenheimer
Who should win: Barbie
Best Documentary Short Film
Who will win: The Last Repair Shop
Who should win: The Last Repair Shop
Best Live-Action Short Film
This is not a very good crop of nominees. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar was probably guaranteed to win out of these nominees simply because it has the most famous director and stars. Thankfully for Wes Anderson and company, it’s also clearly the best short here. Wes Anderson, prepare to win your very first Academy Award.
Who will win: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Who should win: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Best Animated Short Film
As long as it isn’t War Is Over!, anyone can win this award as far as I’m concerned…
Who will win: Ninety-Five Senses
Who should win: Ninety-Five Senses
Best Film Editing
Who will win: Jennifer Lame (Oppenheimer)
Who should win: Yorgos Mavropsaridis (Poor Things)
Best Cinematography
Who will win: Hoyte von Hoytema (Oppenheimer)
Who should win: Robbie Ryan (Poor Things)
Best Original Score
Who will win: Ludwig Göransson (Oppenheimer)
Who should win: Ludwig Göransson (Oppenheimer)
Best Original Song
Wouldn’t it be hilarious if Diane Warren finally won a non-honor Oscar this year for a song for the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos movie? Such an outcome isn’t likely, though. Billie Eilish is about to walk away with a richly deserved second Best Original Song Oscar, there’s no stopping her at this juncture.
Who will win: “What Was I Made For?” (Barbie)
Who should win: “What Was I Made For?” (Barbie)
Best Animated Feature
This right here is one of the big question mark categories going into the 96th Academy Awards. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has won a ton of precursor awards…but The Boy and the Heron has also taken home several impressive Best Animated Feature trophies itself. Most notably, it won the BAFTA for Best Animated Feature. The winners of that category line up with the Best Animated Feature Oscar winner 14 out of the last 17 years. At this point, it looks like the latest Hayao Miyazaki feature has the Oscar in the bag by a hair. If Heron wins, it’ll be only the second hand-drawn animated Best Animated Feature Oscar winner in history. The only other hand-drawn victor? Fellow Miyazaki movie Spirited Away, of course.
Who will win: The Boy and the Heron
Who should win: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Best International Feature Film
Who will win: The Zone of Interest
Who should win: The Teachers’ Lounge
Best Documentary Feature Film
Who will win: 20 Days in Mariupol
Who should win: 20 Days in Mariupol
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Best Picture and screenplay categories are deeply linked together at the Academy Awards. Take home an Original or Adapted Screenplay trophy at this ceremony, you’re teeing yourself up for Best Picture victory. Over the last 16 years, only two Best Picture winners (The Shape of Water and The Artist) won Best Picture without triumphing in a screenplay category. This year, award-season juggernaut Oppenheimer looks poised to become the third recent Best Picture winner to get snubbed in these categories. Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction screenplay looks unstoppable after scoring tons of precursor wins this season. Helping that comedy out is that the more spectacle-driven Oppenheimer might be viewed as better-suited for recognition in technical categories. It wouldn’t be shocking to see Oppenheimer ride its tidal wave of good buzz to a win here. Right now, though, this looks like American Fiction’s Oscar to lose.
Who will win: Cord Jefferson (American Fiction)
Who should win: Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach (Barbie)
Best Original Screenplay
The Holdovers has such a grip on the Oscar acting categories this year. The love there might spill over into Best Original Screenplay. That’s plausible, but the overwhelming acclaim for Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall script tees that film up for an easy win.
Who will win: Justin Triet and Arthur Harari (Anatomy of a Fall)
Who should win: Celine Song (Past Lives)
Best Supporting Actress
There’s no question here, Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s outstanding The Holdovers performance has been dominating award season for months now. After being such a memorable presence in movies like Dolemite Is My Name for years now, Randolph is about to get her well-deserved time in the spotlight.
Who will win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers)
Who should win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers)
Best Supporting Actor
Third time looks to be the charm for Robert Downey Jr. when it comes to this award show. His third Oscar nomination for Oppenheimer seems guaranteed to land him an Academy Award. The days of playing the villain of The Shaggy Dog are truly behind him.
Who will win: Robert Downey Jr. (Oppenheimer)
Who should win: Robert Downey Jr. (Oppenheimer)
Best Actress
There’s a chance Emma Stone rides both her notoriety as a leading lady and wildly distinctive work as Bella Baxter in Poor Things to a second Best Actress Oscar win this year. However, Lily Gladstone’s remarkable performance in Killers of the Flower Moon has been taking home tons of awards this season. The buzz here belongs to Gladstone, who seems poised to give Killers of the Flower Moon its lone Oscar win at the 96th Academy Awards.
Who will win: Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon)
Who should win: Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon)
Best Actor
And now we have the one acting category at the 96th Academy Awards that’s really just a total toss-up. This one’s a showdown between Cillian Murphy (for Oppenheimer) and Paul Giamatti (for The Holdovers). Murphy’s anchoring the Best Picture frontrunner and playing a big historical figure, two key details that would seem to set him up for a big Oscar win.
However, Giamatti’s been killing it in securing lots of Best Actor wins this award season. Plus, the infamous snubbing of him for a Sideways acting nomination two decades ago looms large. A Best Actor win for another Alexander Payne movie could be the Academy’s mea culpa to Giamatti. Right now, the odds seem tipped towards Giamatti…though maybe Bradley Cooper in Maestro becomes a spoiler victor and just sends the whole category into chaos!
Who will win: Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers)
Who should win: Teo Yoo (Past Lives) Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers)
Best Director
15 years ago, Christopher Nolan was infamously snubbed in the Best Director Oscar category for his work helming The Dark Knight. How far we’ve come since then. Nolan already scored two further Best Director nominations after that Batman Begins sequel with Inception and Dunkirk. Now he’s about to score his inaugural victory in this category.
Who will win: Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer)
Who should win: Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon)
Best Picture
Unless The Holdovers pull off a Hail Mary pass like few other Best Picture contenders in history have achieved, Oppenheimer is walking away with Best Picture at the 96th Academy Awards. It’s swept the equivalent category at other major award shows this season. It’s got a slew of shoo-in wins across various other Oscar categories.
Christopher Nolan’s box office phenomenon has this thing in the bag. If Oppenheimer wins, it’ll be the first Best Picture winner since Argo to crack $100 million domestically. Who could’ve imagined we’d have a Best Picture Oscar winner that was also a massive theatrical box office hit so soon after COVID-19 seemingly put theaters in jeopardy forever?
Who will win: Oppenheimer
Who should win: Past Lives
Good luck with your own Oscar ballots, dear readers! Be sure to tune into the Oscars on Sunday, March 10 at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on ABC to see if my predictions turned out to be dreadfully off-base or shockingly accurate!