Joey Magidson
My fine friends, the time draws near. On Sunday night, we will finally know who and what the Academy bestows Oscars upon. As we steamroll towards the weekend, I’m once again going to be teasing out my final predictions, which drop on Friday morning (tomorrow). As an appetizer of sorts, today I’m posting not my picks, but my preferences. Yes, instead of a Who Will Win/Who Should Win combo job, I’m splitting things up. Bright and early tomorrow you’ll see my finalized predictions, but this morning, you’ll see my preferences. Some of these shouldn’t be surprising, considering the results (here, here, and here) of the Fifth Annual Awards Radar Awards. Still, this should be fun, or at least as fun as stalling an extra bit for time can be…
Below are my personal preferences, along with some very short explanations for the major categories. Where do Oscar and I seem to agree? Where do we go in different directions? Friday is the big day for final predictions, so stay tuned. In the meantime, here goes nothing!
Best Picture
It should be no surprise that Anora gets my vote here. After all, it’s my favorite film of 2024. That being said, as always, for those wondering what my order of the nominees on a preferential ballot would be, this is how that would look:
1. Anora
2. Conclave
3. A Complete Unknown
4. The Substance
5. Dune: Part Two
6. The Brutalist
7. Wicked
8. Emilia Pérez
9. I’m Still Here
10. Nickel Boys
Best Director
This is going to be a closer one for the Academy, but it’s a rather easy pick for yours truly. It’s Sean Baker for Anora, plain and simple. One of my favorite filmmakers, no less. He deserves it and he’s quite possibly going to win it. I just happen to agree with the impending Oscar moment.
Best Actor
While I’d have given the award to Glen Powell for Hit Man if he were nominated, much like with Oscar, this comes down for me to Timothée Chalamet for A Complete Unknown Adrien Brody for The Brutalist, or Ralph Fiennes for Conclave. Brody probably is in the lead with voter, but for me? I give the slight edge to Fiennes on my own ballot, with Chalamet next in line.
Best Actress
Mikey Madison gave my favorite performance by a female in 2024 (and favorite overall), so of course I’d vote for her here in Best Actress. What she does in Anora is nothing short of incredible. You’ll see tomorrow whether I have her or Demi Moore for The Substance winning with Oscar, but give me a ballot and Madison is my personal pick.
Best Supporting Actor
Kieran Culkin is about to win the Oscar for A Real Pain, that much is abundantly clear. On my ballot, I’d go with him as well, but a special shout out to Yura Borisov for Anora, who is not favor behind at all, at least in my own personal ranking. Culkin is the easiest call on Sunday night, to be fair, but he’s also the correct one.
Best Supporting Actress
If Margaret Qualley had been nominated for The Substance, she would have easily been my vote. Without her, I do default to Zoe Saldaña in Emilia Pérez, but Monica Barbaro in A Complete Unknown and Isabella Rossellini in Conclave are close behind. The Academy is unlikely to do anything different here, though.
Best Original Screenplay
Oscar and I are very much in alignment here, it seems. Sean Baker and Anora is the frontrunner, as well as my favorite script of the year. No shade at all to the rest of the nominees though, as give or take Brady Corbet and The Brutalist, the other three nominees in A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg), September 5 (Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum, and Alex David), and The Substance (Coralie Fargeat), are absolute bangers.
Best Adapted Screenplay
I’m also 100% with the Academy here, as Peter Straughan and Conclave deserve to win. It’s going to win the Oscar, regardless, but it’s my pick as well, especially as the other Adapted contenders fall a little short, otherwise.
Best Animated Feature
For a good portion of the year, I was on board with Inside Out 2. However, when I finally saw Flow, it stole my heart. So, my ballot would go against the grain of frontrunner The Wild Robot (also great) and once again pick a moving little animated feature with no dialogue (after Robot Dreams last year) for the win.
The rest of the categories are presented without commentary…
Best Production Design – Dune: Part Two
Best Cinematography – Maria
Best Costume Design – Nosferatu
Best Film Editing – Anora
Best Makeup and Hairstyling – The Substance
Best Sound – A Complete Unknown
Best Visual Effects – Dune: Part Two
Best Original Score – Conclave
Best Original Song – Never Too Late (from Elton John: Never Too Late)
Best Documentary Feature – Black Box Diaries
Best International Feature – Flow
Sit tight for my final predictions tomorrow morning!
Having finally caught up with all of the Best Picture nominees, I can confidently say that I’d be a nearly across-the-board voter for The Brutalist. I wouldn’t even think twice about checking the boxes for it in Picture, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Original Score, and Production Design.
Although… I mean, okay, solely judging the merits of the nominated performances and nothing else, I would also vote for Adrien Brody for Lead Actor. But, for sentimental reasons, a big part of me would really like to see Ralph Fiennes finally get that competitive Academy Award he’s been owed for over thirty years.
I think Mikey Madison, Demi Moore, and Fernanda Torres are all terrific Lead Actress nominees and I would be happy with any of them winning. I guess… having to choose one, I’d personally vote for… Torres? Close call. Cynthia Erivo had some great moments in Wicked, too. Really, the only outright bad performance of the five is from the nominee with no shot at winning. If they had swapped her out for Marianne Jean-Baptiste, this would be an all-timer Lead Actress nominee lineup.
I loved Felicity Jones in The Brutalist, but I also really admired Isabella Rossellini conveying so much with such a minor character in Conclave and Monica Barbaro‘s “Blowin’ in the Wind” scene is probably my favorite single moment in all of A Complete Unknown. I just wish they had made room for Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in Supporting Actress…
I’m disappointed that my two favorite supporting male performances of last year – Adam Pearson in A Different Man and Clarence Maclin in Sing Sing – didn’t make the cut in Supporting Actor, but four out of the five who did make it still delivered laudable work in smaller parts. The only unacceptable choice, in my view, is Kieran Culkin committing one of the most indefensible acts of blatant category fraud of the last… twenty-five years at least. Like, right up there with Rooney Mara in Carol and Jamie Foxx in Collateral-levels of shenanigans.
Though I prefer The Brutalist overall as a movie, I think The Substance is the better-directed effort, since Coralie Fargeat‘s full-bore tonal maximalism and clever visual worldbuilding of her off-kilter alternate reality making up for the script’s shortcomings is a more impressive individual achievement than even what Sean Baker and Brady Corbet did for their respective films.
Honestly, though, whichever movie can deny as many Oscars as possible to Emilia Pérez next Sunday is my favored nominee.
Oh, I had no doubt you’d be a fan of The Brutalist once you saw it.