Joey Magidson
Welcome to Phase Two, ladies and gentlemen. We’re now over a week removed from the Oscar nominations, which marked the end of Phase One. With over a month to go until the Academy Awards, a lot can and still will happen. However, the lead up to the Oscars will be filled with important information for prognosticators like myself. Today? We’re still in the afterglow, which is a relaxing place to be, after the sprint that let us to last Thursday morning. Predictions have now been updated, so let us dive in to the nominations, what they told us, and where we go from here…
The big takeaway from the nominations was the record setting haul by Sinners, as well as how strong One Battle After Another performed. The former broke the record for most Oscar nominations, while the latter fell one shy of tying the record. If either had done it in a year without the other, they’d feel like unstoppable forces. This year? Sinners has closed the gap on One Battle After Another, setting up a very interesting showdown in the top category.
Below the line, Sinners should do very well, with other categories well set up for Frankenstein wins. An interesting question to ponder is how well does One Battle After Another do in the technical categories? If it can string together some wins in the tech fields, that bodes well for the biggest award of the night. If it struggles? That could be an opening for Sinners.
The Acting categories appear to have firm frontrunners in Best Actor and Best Actress, while Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress could be photo finishes. Timothée Chalamet has paced the field in Actor for his turn in Marty Supreme, while Jessie Buckley has been near unstoppable in Actress for Hamnet. At this point, barring SAG surprises, either losing would be a bit of a shock. As for Supporting Actor, Stellan Skarsgård feels like a soft leader of the pack for Sentimental Value, though Frankenstein‘s Jacob Elordi and/or One Battle After Another‘s Benicio del Toro are not far behind. In Supporting Actress, it feels like a pick em between Amy Madigan for Weapons and Teyana Taylor for One Battle After Another.
Best Director and both Screenplay fields appear set, more or less. Director seems to be Paul Thomas Anderson‘s to lose, which also applies to Best Adapted Screenplay. If PTA wins Adapted Screenplay and Director, that’s going to be very helpful for One Battle After Another. Original Screenplay seems poised to go to Ryan Coogler for Sinners, so if Coogler can pull an upset over Anderson in Director? Watch out.
As for Best Picture, barring a Hamnet upset, this now feels like a two horse race between One Battle After Another and Sinners. Like I mentioned above, this comes down to, at least for the moment, how much you’re factoring the latter’s record-breaking nomination haul. If that’s such a clear sign of Sinners support to you, it makes a lot of sense to think it could pull off the win in Picture. However, if you think this more foretells a strong below the line showing, as opposed to above the line, then One Battle After Another should remain in the pole position. PGA and SAG should help clear this up a bit, for now, we have a close race!
My prior predictions article (found here) is available for your perusal, which was my final picks during Phase One. Now, we know the nominations and we’re into Phase Two, so strap in for the Guilds to hopefully give us some more information soon!
Folks, as always you can see my newest crack at Oscar predictions right here at Awards Radar, the first one after the nominations, now including the Short categories. Plus, I’ll have potentially a first attempt at Spirit Award predictions finally up soon (I promise, I’ll get to them eventually). I also have predictions for The Actors (here), DGA (here), PGA (here), and WGA (here) available to check out. It’s exciting times as the nominations are now in the rearview mirror. So, sit tight for much more as the season continues on, potentially with some surprises still to come…
Stay tuned for another update to these Oscar predictions soon!
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