Awards Season / Oscar Predictions Update: Final Predictions as The Academy Decides Whether It Will Be ‘One Battle After Another’ or ‘Sinners’ in Best Picture

Well, here we are. The moment we’ve spent a year preparing for. I mean, of course, my birthday today. Right? Right?? Kidding (it’s actually my birthday, but we have bigger fish to fry), obviously. Sunday night brings the 98th Academy Awards, and with that, today is my annual final Oscar predictions piece. My picks have been up on the site since earlier this week, both within the predictions tab, as well as on the latest episode of the Awards Radar Podcast here. Now, it’s time to explain and make sense of them…

The major question is obviously whether it will be One Battle After Another or Sinners in Best Picture. We’ll get to that in a bit, but up and down the line, the two films are squaring off, with potential early indicators on Sunday of which movie is in the stronger overall position. The latter is possibly more likely to emerge with the most Oscar wins overall, but it’s where those end up that will really matter. The former has a wildly variant amount of outcomes, which is unusual for the film that went into the nominations as the prohibitive frontrunner. Ryan Coogler‘s Sinners has certainly closed the gap. The question is, was there enough enthusiasm and enough time for it to sneak past Paul Thomas Anderson‘s One Battle After Another at the last moment? My verdict is to come below…

I’ll be going over most of the categories, just passing up commentary on the Shorts, since it just wasn’t the type of year where they presented much in the way of narratives. Elsewhere? That’s certainly not the case. There are some slam dunks both above and below the line, though the closest races are in several of the biggest categories, and that’s just plain cool. Admittedly, it makes my job harder, but at the same time, more fun as well.

Below The Line

Below the line, the most competitive category is Best Cinematography, while Best Casting is an X factor due to it being Year One for the category. Cinematography is one of our early One Battle After Another vs Sinners battles, with Train Dreams hoping to sneak up the middle. Ultimately, I think Michael Bauman takes this one for shooting PTA’s flick. As for Casting, it’s anyone’s guess, in actuality, but it does feel like Sinners will be its inaugural winner. Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, and Best Makeup & Hairstyling seem to line up with Frankenstein, giving the Guillermo del Toro movie potentially the third most wins on the night. One Battle After Another is my pick in Best Film Editing, while Sinners will take Best Original Score. Best Sound likely will be F1, Best Visual Effects will be Avatar: Fire and Ash, and Best Original Song will be “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters. So it’s Casting and Cinematography to look out for. Again, the former likely will be Sinners, but anything is possible. As for the latter, One Battle After Another has the right precursor haul to win, though a win for either Sinners or even Train Dreams wouldn’t surprise me.

The Mid-Majors

Best Animated Feature is a slam dunk for KPop Demon Hunters, making it one of the rare titles in this race to be able to claim multiple wins while Best Documentary Feature should be The Perfect Neighbor, though nothing is guaranteed with that category. Then, there’s Best International Feature Film, where Sentimental Value is my pick, though fellow Best Picture nominee The Secret Agent is right there, while recent world events will put an extra spotlight on It Was Just an Accident. It wouldn’t shock me if that actually ended up one of the closest races, vote total-wise. Now, on to the big eight above the line categories…

Above The Line

Let’s start with Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay. These are easy, since Anderson is taking Adapted for One Battle After Another and Coogler is taking Original for Sinners. Anything else would be a shock. So, both auteurs will get their initial Oscar wins out of the way early, making the other duels later on in the night closer races.

Likewise, Best Director appears, give or take an outlier prognosticator, a safe bet. That being said, if Sinners is having an epic night, it could lead to a real upset, as Coogler could beat Anderson head on. I’m not predicting that, since stats have this a very obvious choice, but I won’t pretend that there hasn’t been some internet chatter in the past few days about just such a history making upset.

Best Actress is the easiest above the line field to predict, as there just seems to be no world in which Jessie Buckley does not win for Hamnet. None of the minor fretting about The Bride! (which I think is actually good) being her Norbit holds water, so Buckley fans can rest easy. Unlike other acting frontrunners, she’s going to go wire to wire for her Oscar win.

Now, the tough ones. Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress have become incredibly interesting and tight races. Supporting Actor statistically seems to now favor Sean Penn‘s performance in One Battle After Another rather convincingly. That being said, a third Oscar for Penn may not sit well with enough voters to make this ripe for an upset. Stellan Skarsgård never got the big Sentimental Value win that he needed after the Golden Globes to feel safe, so I’m actually doing a rare gut feeling pick and going for the surprise Delroy Lindo win. This would be a mark of Sinners‘ strength, to be sure, but also would recognize Lindo in a way that seemed highly unlikely barely a month ago. As for Supporting Actress, Amy Madigan went from a long shot nominee for Weapons to a light frontrunner to fighting it out for the win, which I think she ultimately gets here. Wunmi Mosaku would be another sign that Sinners might be winning the big one, while Teyana Taylor would give One Battle After Another some potential breathing room. In my model, Madigan wins and keeps us from having any more Best Picture clues.

Best Actor has gone from a presumed Timothée Chalamet coronation to a situation where it might actually be surprising if he holds on. His work in Marty Supreme certainly was embraced enough and more than good enough to win, but the combination of his lackluster campaigning and an overall feeling that voters have moved on from the movie bumps him out of the top spot. Instead, Michael B. Jordan comes on strong at the end and winds up with an Oscar win almost no one saw coming. It’s probably close, but this just feels like the momentum post SAG Actor Awards has completely changed.

Finally, there’s Best Picture. There are passionate cases to be made and have been made during voting for One Battle After Another and Sinners, so this feels like one of the closer Picture contests in memory. In fact, you can find a brave soul or two whispering about a potential Hamnet upset if the votes split in the right way. I don’t see that happening, but with this biggest of categories, it comes down to whether you think the former’s precursor dominance set it up to win, or if the latter’s passionate support has gone the extra miles. Both appear to be well set up for the preferential ballot, so whichever way you go, it certainly makes some sense. I nearly made the Sinners switch, but in the end, I stuck with One Battle After Another. Am I correct? We’ll find out in two days…

In the end, I have both One Battle After Another and Sinners each winning five Academy Awards, with Frankenstein next in line with three. KPop Demon Hunters would have two, while every other winner just winds up with a sole Oscar win. Whether it’s One Battle After Another or Sinners, we’re going to end up with an incredible Best Picture winner, one that feels both timeless and timely. That’s something any real cinephile can be proud of.

Here are my Oscar predictions in one handy image, also for reference:

So, that’s my two cents. My Oscar predictions are now locked in and I’m going to try to ignore them until cross referencing on Sunday. At this point, the Academy Awards are nearly here, so we should just let the voters have their say. Their minds have already been made up. The envelopes may already be sealed. It’s just a matter of waiting to see them opened this weekend…

My prior prediction piece (found right here) is still available for your perusal, but we’ve now come to the end of the Oscar line. By the conclusion of the weekend, we’ll know how I did, as well as how all of you did. Exciting, right? I know I’m more than ready to find out, and I certainly can’t be the only one. In fact, this extended season does seem to have left people delirious and exhausted, so it’s time to close the book on the season. Regardless of the outcome, it has been another fascinating and unpredictable season, so there will be lessons and memories that live on after the Oscars are over, that’s for sure.

Folks, as always you can see my last and final crack at Oscar predictions, right here at Awards Radar, as they’re the only other thing left to predict, obviously. It’ll all be over in just a few short days. Full steam ahead to the Academy Award telecast. Sit tight for the results on Sunday evening…

Stay tuned to see how my final predictions turn out when the 98th Academy Awards are held on Sunday!