Awards Season / Oscar Predictions Update: Final Voting by the Academy Has Begun!

As of yesterday, voting for the 94th Academy Awards has begun! Yes, in just over a week, the Oscars are going to be held. There, we’ll find out at last who and what are taking home Academy Award statues. Right now, however, we’re in the endgame, wondering and trying to find out what voters are up to. Members of the Academy are making their decisions, including right at this very moment. Exciting, right? Of course, I’ll be attempting to hear from as many Academy members as possible, but that never tells the whole story. Yes, the puzzle is almost clear, but a few puzzles certainly still remain…

With voting now going on, it’s important to note that anything currently happening has a chance to move the needle. So, whatever precursor you see on the docket this weekend, pay close attention. I’m not saying that the Academy Awards are reliant on the Producers Guild of America, for example, but the calendar does give them such extra sway this year. Utilize all the facts with your Oscar predictions, but disregard recency bias at your own risk.

A number of races appear sewn up. Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress are done deals above the line. Below the line, it sure seems like Best Costume Design, Best Documentary Feature, Best International Feature, Best Sound, Best Original Song, and Best Visual Effects have seemingly unstoppable frontrunners. Within my predictions, you can confirm who these individuals and films are, but if you’ve been following the season at all…you know.

One step down, there’s Best Actress. It does appear for all the money like Jessica Chastain will take home the Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye. The movie may not have wowed people, but the performance has charmed voters. The odd nature of the Actress race (as I detailed here) keeps an upset on the table, but we undeniably have an odds on favorite now.

In terms of some of the question mark categories, they mostly reside below the line. That is, except for the Screenplay ones. There, we have Belfast and Licorice Pizza duking it out in Best Original Screenplay, while The Power of the Dog hopes to hold off CODA (with The Lost Daughter looming as a spoiler) in Best Adapted Screenplay. In the technical categories, it appears like Dune and The Power of the Dog are going to divvy up the tech prizes. It’s simply a matter of figuring those out, with precursors like ASC coming to clear the fog.

Now, Best Picture. While The Power of the Dog has literally done nearly everyone to lock up the Academy Award, which would be a first for Netflix, picking CODA for the upset is a trendy recent prediction. For me, I simply can’t see it, even if it might just be my personal preference. While I might pick CODA if I had an Oscar ballot, The Power of the Dog just checks all the right boxes. The one caveat is the Producers Guild Awards. If PGA goes for the latter, as opposed to the former, then all bets are off. Of course, watch…they’ll pick Belfast just to stir the pot.

As always friends, you can see my various predictions here for the awards races still to be decided. In addition to the Academy Awards (here), you can find PGA (here) and WGA (here), our final major outliers. Take a gander and we’ll see how they end up turning out in the coming days. This is damn near the eleventh hour, too. In a matter of days, we’ll have a very good idea where we stand, Oscar wise. Feel free to chime in with your own picks as well!

Once again folks, my just updated Oscar predictions are right here for your viewing pleasure. Look for another update in the next handful of days though astute readers will notice that certain categories get tweaked in between. Sit tight for the rest of the excitement here, since this roller coaster still might have a bump or two along the way to share with us all…

Stay tuned for another update to my predictions very soon!