Oscar Nominations 2025: There's a New King in Town, and That New King Sure Hopes You Enjoy Vampire Musicals

You know what? I'll take it. Sure, there are problems, and sure I still don't like Frankenstein and Hamnet, and sure, I still think F1 as a best picture nominee is one of the dumber things to happen on this very dumb continent, and sure, I will be summoning all the Academy voters' children, Weapons-style, as punishment for snubbing it (almost) across the board, but hey. It's not easy to put together a strong set of Oscar nominees, and this year the Academy (mostly) figured it out.

Obviously, the main story of the morning is Sinners absolutely destroying the previous all-time record for nominations, getting 16 to All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land's measly 14. It was nominated in every single category for which it was eligible, a feat only equalled by Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1966 (at least according to the internet). I'm generally of the opinion that no movie, however good, is the best of the year at absolutely everything, but I can't point to any Sinners nominations that particularly upset me, and I do think it's pretty groovy that the new all-time Oscar champion is a vampire horror musical/historical drama with an almost all-POC cast and crew. Someone resurrect Ernest Borgnine, tell him his vision for the Academy is dead, and then send him back to the grave after pooping in his hair or something. Though the big Sinners morning is fun, its massive haul helps underline a significant problem with the way that the Academy has been conducting itself for the past 10-ish years. Simply put, voters just aren't watching as many movies as they used to. The ten best picture nominees all enjoyed significant nomination counts, and then nothing outside of that crowd could garner more than two. All told, there are 35 movies nominated for Oscars this year (not counting shorts). If you remove the movies nominated only in animated film, international film, and documentary (categories that normally see--and are designed for--multiple nominees that won't be recognized anywhere else), that number shrinks to 27. Of those 27, only 15 movies got nominated more than once. As for categories, every single category this year (other than animated film and documentary feature, which, as mentioned above, are designed for lone nominees) has at least one best picture nominee in it--every single one. Of those, only four categories (actress, visual effects, makeup, and original song) have more than one nominee that isn't also nominated for best picture.

In short: if you're not included in the top 10 of the year, it's getting near impossible to be nominated for an Oscar. Each year for the past few years, the top 10 have dominated, and everything else has to fight for scraps. That's not great, and I've absolutely no idea what the solution is, but something eventually has to give, right? 

Well, luckily for us, the ten movies that dominated the nominations this year are a pretty eclectic and exciting bunch. I'm not convinced that they need to get 78 of the 95 possible nominations (not counting animated, international, and documentary categories) between them, but that's what happened, so all we can do is unpack them and cast a worried glance at next year.

But enough of that--let's look at the nominations! I'll put an asterisk next to the nominations I predicted correctly.

Best Picture
Bugonia*
F1
Frankenstein*
Hamnet*
Marty Supreme*
One Battle After Another*
The Secret Agent*
Sentimental Value*
Sinners*
Train Dreams*

Despite the fact that I'm a big fan of Hamnet, Frankenstein, and F1 (spoiler alert for my best of the year awards: I just don't know what people see in Hamnet, sorry), and that I'm just gutted that Weapons didn't make it, this still strikes me as the kind of top 10 list the Oscars should be putting together: a wide variety in genre, tone, and background, pleasantly international, and (largely) made up of good movies. It's a tough target to hit, but I think they've mostly hit it. This is the third year in a row (and third year in Academy history) that two non-English language movies have been up for the big prize, which suggests that the trend is here to stay--and good for it! Even with Weapons gone, we still see three horror or horror-adjacent movies, which is definitely a first. Hell, only six horror movies have ever been nominated for best picture before now (The Exorcist, Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense, Black Swan, Get Out, and The Substance) (some people count Jaws, but they are wrong). Going from that to one third of the nominees in one year is a massive leap. The obvious question here is how far Sinners can go, and to what extent its record will affect its chances. Does its huge nomination count mean it's going to sweep come Oscar night, or is it going to pull a La La Land (...this being the only time those two movies will be directly compared to each other) and have its record tally ignite a backlash that tanks its chances? I still think One Battle After Another has this in the bag, but I'm open to new ideas.

Early winner prediction: One Battle After Another

Director
Paul Thomas Anderson-One Battle After Another*
Ryan Coogler-Sinners*
Josh Safdie-Marty Supreme*
Joachim Trier-Sentimental Value
Chloe Zhao-Hamnet*

Well, the cool kids international slot holds in this category still (another welcome trend that's probably here to stay), with Trier edging out the likes of Kleber Mendonca Filho/The Secret Agent, Jafar Panahi/It Was Just an Accident, and Oliver Laxe/Sirat (...which, like, looking at that list, it's hard not to feel a little bummed that he's the one who prevailed, but here we are). Not a bad lineup, my against the grain feelings about Chloe Zhao and some of her baffling choices notwithstanding. Still, she becomes only the second woman to receive a second nomination for best director, which is cool, even if I wouldn't necessarily have done it for this film in particular. Really, we're spoiled here: either Paul Thomas Anderson or Ryan Coogler is going to walk away with an Oscar in six weeks, and how cool a sentence is that?

Early winner prediction: Paul Thomas Anderson-One Battle After Another

Actress
Jessie Buckley-Hamnet*
Rose Byrne-If I Had Legs I'd Kick You*
Kate Hudson-Song Sung Blue
Renate Reinsve-Sentimental Value*
Emma Stone-Bugonia*

All hail the eldritch tyranny of Kate Hudson! Yesterday, I predicted that hers would be the kind of failed nomination that we all pretended was never going to happen the second it didn't. Well, she sure showed me, and now I have to put the effort in to go see Song Sung Blue, so I guess it's Hugh Jackman who really wins in the end. Still, unseen Hudson aside, this is a pretty phenomenal category in which I'd be happy to see anyone win (but obviously it should be Rose Byrne, because Rose Byrne should have won every prize available on the planet at least six times by now.) 
(Meaningless sidebar: every time something happens to someone with a last name of Hudson, I automatically start singing Katherine Ryan's song about Mayor Peter Hudson with their name filled in and it's ruining my life.)

Early winner prediction: Jessie Buckley-Hamnet

Actor
Timothée Chalamet-Marty Supreme*
Leonardo Dicaprio-One Battle After Another*
Ethan Hawke-Blue Moon*
Michael B. Jordan-Sinners*
Wagner Moura-The Secret Agent*

Haven't seen Blue Moon, but otherwise this category feels just fine. Especially thrilled for Michael B. Jordan, who's been turning in stellar work for ages but always escaping Oscar's attention, and Wagner Moura, whom I will forever follow into hell (among other places) in gratitude for Futuro Beach. Fun fact: if Timmy wins this, he'll be the second youngest best actor winner of all time, older only than Adrien Brody when he won in 2002 for The Pianist.

Early winner prediction: Timothée Chalamet-Marty Supreme

Supporting Actress
Elle Fanning-Sentimental Value
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas-Sentimental Value*
Amy Madigan-Weapons*
Wunmi Mosaku-Sinners*
Teyana Taylor-One Battle After Another*

Overjoyed for Weapons' one little nomination, but one a nomination--arguably my favorite performance of the year? I also don't hate seeing Elle Fanning finally getting the Oscar attention she's been dancing around since Super 8 all these years ago. You go, Elle Fanning! Lilleaas, Mosaku, and Taylor (hell yes Teyana Taylor, go get it) are also great choices. Is this the strongest category of the morning? It might be.

Early winner prediction: Teyana Taylor-One Battle After Another

Supporting Actor
Benicio Del Toro-One Battle After Another*
Jacob Elordi-Frankenstein*
Delroy Lindo-Sinners
Sean Penn-One Battle After Another*
Stellan Skarsgard-Sentimental Value*

Aaaaaghaghaghaggh FINALLY Delroy Lindo! One of the most overlooked actors out there (at least with Oscar), and one of the best of his generation, probably, so it is about goddamn time the Academy finally throws some love his way. Otherwise a strong lineup, too. I don't love Frankenstein, but Jacob Elordi is far and away the best part of it (in fact, he might be the only one on the entire cast not giving a terrible performance), and I'm always here for beautiful haunted scarecrows doing weird shit for Oscar's benefit. For a category that's almost invariably the dullest acting category each year (and let's be honest, this year is no exception), it's a good group.

Early winner prediction: Stellan Skarsgard-Sentimental Value

Original Screenplay
Blue Moon
It Was Just an Accident*
Marty Supreme*
Sentimental Value*
Sinners*

Again let me sound my sad little Weapons horn and dream about what could have been, but I haven't seen Blue Moon--the movie that presumably beat it to the finish line--so I suppose I can't gripe too much. Otherwise, a strong (if expected) crop of nominees. Thank goodness It Was Just an Accident wound up with something after it missed in picture and director. Still, given Sinners' supremacy this year, it's hard to imagine anything else winning.

Early winner prediction: Sinners

Adapted Screenplay
Bugonia*
Frankenstein*
Hamnet*
One Battle After Another*
Train Dreams*

Remember when I mentioned earlier that either Paul Thomas Anderson or Ryan Coogler would win an Oscar this year, and how neat that would be? Well, the writers clearly agree, as both of them are going to walk away with a screenplay Oscar before they even get the chance to slap each other around in the best director race. Which is the only saving grace I see here, as this category is bleak. I honestly think that Frankenstein and Hamnet are some of the worst screenplays of the year, all of my One Battle reservations (of which I have considerably more than the average moviegoer, it seems) come from its screenplay, and Train Dreams is fine at best. At least we've got Bugonia's hilarious and horrifying weaponization of corporate inspirational jargon to cling to. Still, this is--by some margin--the worst category of the morning.

Early winner prediction: One Battle After Another

Production Design
Frankenstein*
Hamnet*
Marty Supreme*
One Battle After Another*
Sinners*

Kind of a shock to see Wicked miss here (maybe they figured they'd rewarded it last year?), and it's a fun mix of nominees, despite Hamnet's inclusion for its morose porridge walls and, like, trees, I guess. One Battle is a neat inclusion, even if it might have gotten in more through its strength as a best picture contender than for its sets alone, and I love Marty Supreme getting some love, but this will be a cage match between Frankenstein and Sinners.

Early winner prediction: Frankenstein

Costume Design
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Frankenstein*
Hamnet*
Marty Supreme*
Sinners*

I'm sorry WHAT. Friends, the second they announced that Avatar nomination, my brain started melting and has been unable to reconstitute itself. Seriously, I have not thought of anything but this nomination since it happened and I imagine I won't think about anything else for the rest of my life. How did this happen? What does this mean? Who are we, really? I can only assume that the voters here, like many people, found that Varang, fire villainess extraordinaire, awoke some new and strange feelings inside them, and they explained them away by assuming that it surely was her assortment of CGI beads that they found so intriguing. Seriously though, this does set a strange precedent, as it's the first time in Academy history (that I can recall) that this category has seen a nominee whose costumes were entirely computer-generated. (I'm not counting Edie Falco's military fatigues, but who is, really?) It begs the question: when will we start seeing animated films in the other craft categories? If movies like Avatar, a 'live-action' movie in name only, can make it here (or in production design and cinematography, for that matter), what's to stop the next Disney movie from doing so? 

Early winner prediction: Frankenstein

Visual Effects
Avatar: Fire and Ash*
F1*
Jurassic World: Rebirth*
The Lost Bus*
Sinners

Ah yes, the Academy's eternal quest to force me to engage with Matthew McConaughey, whatever the cost. Here I come, The Lost Bus! I hope you're dumb as shit! Fun fact: this is the first Oscar nomination for the Jurassic Park franchise since 1997...despite the fact that five of them have come out since then. Still, dinosaurs, Jonathan Bailey's glasses, etc. We can spend the morning in thanks. As shocking as it sounds, this category feels primed to see Avatar lose. Movies that aren't nominated for best picture almost never beat movies that are in this category, and Avatar's going against the newly minted king of the Oscar world. Pulling out a win wouldn't be impossible, but it's looking less likely than it did 24 hours ago.

Early winner prediction: Sinners

Makeup and Hairstyling
Frankenstein*
Kokuho
The Smashing Machine*
Sinners
The Ugly Stepsister*

Pleaseantly weird and gory category this year, even if it does mean that I now have to watch The Smashing Machine, which makes me want to become the smashing machine. I've been burying a juicy lede for a while now, only to whip it out when the time is right, and I guess the right time is when we're all thinking about Wicked's nightmarish yassified scarecrow makeup: Wicked got entirely shut out this morning. From 10 nominations last year and two wins to nothing whatsoever. I'd have thought, at a minimum, it was safe in costume design, but no such luck. Maybe the Academy didn't feel like rewarding the same crew twice for (largely) similar work, maybe the film's poor critical response and middling box office hurt it, maybe everyone is sick of two-parters that are blatant cash grabs. Either way, from 10 nominations to nothing: truly the Icarus tale of our times.

Early winner prediction: Frankenstein

Film Editing
F1*
Marty Supreme*
One Battle After Another*
Sentimental Value
Sinners*

As usual, the category that follows the best picture race most closely--year in and year out, a total snooze-fest. Being nominated for this category is pretty closely entwined with best picture, so have a good look at the nominees: your eventual best picture winner is almost definitely coming from this list. I suppose that means that Hamnet's best picture chances are mostly dead (as if its slightly fumbled nomination tally this morning hadn'd already suggested that), but I can't say I'm disappointed.

Early winner prediction: One Battle After Another

Cinematography
Frankenstein*
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another*
Sinners*
Train Dreams*

I should have made the smart move and picked Marty Supreme's retro lensing for this slot, but no, I had to continue my personal beef with Edward Berger. Well color me relieved, because now I don't ever have to watch any of his movies ever again (until next year at the Oscars, I assume). This is a fine, if largely uninspired category. I'll never understand how people are looking at Frankenstein's cinematography and thinking 'oh yeah, that's the height of the craft,' but that's the world we live in, I guess? Train Dreams is essentially Kidz Bop Terrence Malick, but it's pretty enough for being that, and the other nominees are great choices. Also fun: this remains the only category that has yet to be won by a woman, but solid Sinners frontrunner Autumn Durald Arkapaw is probably set to end that.

Early winner prediction: Sinners

Original Score
Bugonia
Frankenstein*
Hamnet*
One Battle After Another*
Sinners*

Sure, throw in Jerskin Fendrix's Bugonia wailing in there, for the kids. Every year I'm reminded that the Academy and I have wildly different tastes in music and that I just have to make my peace with that, but this is fine, I guess (or, more specifically, One Battle and Sinners are fantastic and the others are somewhere on a spectrum from 'nice' to 'wait, this had original music?' to 'why has this happened to me, a humble citizen of the world'). Exceptionally dumb that Marty Supreme's movie-elevating score didn't make it, or 28 Years Later's crazy and original work, though only one of those ever really had a chance.

Early winner prediction: Sinners

Sound
F1*
Frankenstein*
One Battle After Another*
Sinners*
Sirat*

Preemptively thrilled for Sirat: I haven't seen it, but it seems like the kind of bonkers extravaganza that I'd pick for this category, another one in which my taste and the Academy's tend to diverge (we get it Oscar, you like loud cars and singing, dare to dream). I suppose the rest of the list is fine (hooray for loud cars and Oscar Isaac shrieking into the CG abyss), if a little bland. I will take a second, however, to laud for the Academy for not choosing violence against me, specifically, this year and foregoing the Mission: Impossible nomination in this category. Given I haven't particularly enjoyed the entries in the franchise that everyone else is pretty quick to label as some of the best movies of the decade, I was absolutely dreading this almost three-hour action slog whose most effusive fans had described as 'not great.' Thanks, Academy, for sparing me that grisly fate!

Early winner prediction: Sinners

Original Song
"Dear Me"-Diane Warren: Relentless*
"Golden"-KPop Demon Hunters*
"I Lied to You"-Sinners*
"Sweet Dreams"-Viva Verdi!
"Train Dreams"-Train Dreams

Yesterday, I made a joke about the kinds of nominees in this category that shift everyone's perception of reality before saying that our reality couldn't handle a Viva Verdi! nomination, and so I guess this is my fault, now the timeline is irreparably broken, my bad. A day may come when the courage of the Academy fails and Diane Warren slinks into the shadows, an hour in which I no longer have to mention Diane Warren's gruesome blood pact with Moloch the Deceiver and the end of days she invites to feed her Oscar hunger, but it is not this day. This day, I roll my eyes, make a joke about how what's really relentless is the Academy's Diane Warren obsession, and look forward to seeing Return of the King this weekend. But seriously, this is her tenth Oscar nomination in a row. Her tenth! That's an entire decade of having to watch weepy little movies just to hear the power ballad over end credits. Who will save us from this madness?

Early winner prediction: "Golden"-KPop Demon Hunters

Casting
Hamnet*
Marty Supreme*
One Battle After Another*
The Secret Agent
Sinners*

Gaze on the first ever Oscar nominees for best casting and sigh quietly to yourself about the precedent they set! I worried yesterday about how casting could be come like editing, a category that exists mostly to rubber-stamp best picture nominees, and they didn't exactly prove me wrong here. Still, The Secret Agent is a very fun, deserving, and somewhat left-field choice here. At least we avoided Frankenstein, a movie that almost shot the moon for poor casting choices (its only coup was to ask which currently famous actor has made his name on being spooky and beautiful and wouldn't need lifts to portray a 7' monster, and then picked the one person in Hollywood who matched that description). Also, parroting a take I saw on bluesky: it does raise some questions about how this award functions and what its values are when Sentimental Value misses here, despite literally its entire principal cast getting acting nominations. (...not saying I wanted to see it here, but it is a little strange, right?)

Early winner prediction: Sinners

Animated Film
Arco*
Elio
KPop Demon Hunters*
Little Amelie or the Character of Rain*
Zootopia 2*

Can't comment too much here, as I've only seen two of the nominees (and found both of them perfectly nice but not exceptionally noteworthy), but it's worth pointing out that my (probably foolhardy) guess that Pixar would miss out came to nothing. Time to trot out to theaters (by which I mean 'press play on my laptop') to the movie whose claim to fame is, as far as I can tell, de-queering itself to make more money!

Early winner prediction: KPop Demon Hunters

International Film
It Was Just an Accident-France*
The Secret Agent-Brazil*
Sentimental Value-Norway*
Sirat-Spain*
The Voice of Hind Rajab-Tunisia

Gutted for Park Chan-wook/No Other Choice, which came up empty-handed this morning, but pleased at an otherwise strong lineup (I haven't seen Sirat or The Voice of Hind Rajab, but have only heard good things). Somewhat telling and a bit of a bummer that only five of the fifteen movies shortlisted in this category came from Europe, but three of those five ended up on the final list. Still, it's probably hard to argue with what's here. Shed a tear for poor France, though. Although they hold the record for most nominations in this category, they haven't won in over 20 years and keep trying to end that drought. Now, they can look forward to a second consecutive year of their buzzy Cannes winner losing to a 70s-era political thriller from Brazil (and not unjustifiably).

Early winner prediction: Sentimental Value-Norway (just kidding, France will have to lose to Brazil again some other time)

Documentary Feature
The Alabam Solution*
Cutting Through Rocks*
Come See Me in the Good Light*
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
The Perfect Neighbor

As usual, I don't have much to say here; I haven't seen any of these movies, nor have I seen any of the movies that were snubbed. It is a somewhat atypical year, in that the perceived frontrunner actually made the lineup this year, meaning the desperate scramble for a new winning narrative has been cancelled. Kind of a shame! It's always fun to have to pick a new winner in the last six weeks of the campaign. 

Early winner prediction: The Perfect Neighbor

Of the non-specialized categories (i.e. not animated, international, or documentary), I've seen most of the nominees already, only missing Blue Moon, Song Sung Blue, The Lost Bus, The Smashing Machine, Kokuho, Diane Warren: Relentless, and Viva Verdi!. Most of those should be readily available to watch before the Oscars, but I--like every Oscar completionist out there--will now have to panic-search for a way to see Kokuho and Viva Verdi!, the latter joining a long and proud list of movies that no one dared to release in any way until the best original song category forced their hand. As for the specialized categories, both animated film and documentary feature could present significant hurdles for seeing everything before the Oscars. I'll give it my best shot, but I'll make myself no promises.

Predictions-wise, I did surprisingly well, only missing more than one nominee in makeup, original song, and documentary feature, and totally nailing actor, adapted screenplay, production design, and sound. Not too bad, considering how silly some of my choices were.

For those counting at home, here's a list of the most nominated movies:

1. Sinners-16 (still can't get over that tally)
2. One Battle After Another-13
3. Sentimental Value-9
4. Marty Supreme-9
5. Frankenstein-9
6. Hamnet-8
7. Bugonia-4
8. The Secret Agent-4
9. Train Dreams-4
10. F1-4

And here's a few movies that weren't nominated for anything: Wicked: For Good, No Other Choice, Sorry, Baby, Jay Kelly, The Testament of Ann Lee, Wake Up Dead Man, A House of Dynamite, Is This Thing On? Sprinsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, Rental Family, Roofman, Nuremberg, The Kiss of the Spider Woman, After the Hunt, Die My Love, The Phoenician Scheme, Hedda, Superman, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Thunderbolts, 28 Years Later, The History of Sound, Caught by the Tides, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, The Long Walk, Final Destination 6: Bloodlines, One of them Days, Griffin in Summer, My Father's Shadow, Predator: Badlands, Twinless, Friendship

You win some, you lose some.

And there we have it! How to you feel? I'm in a surprisingly good place, but you might not be (any Jay Kelly die-hards in the house?). What makes you thrilled? Furious? As always, no matter how the nominations shake out, I love the Oscars and all the silly things they entail, and always treat nominations day like it's Christmas morning. It's silly and stupid, but some things ought to be.

Oscar Predictions 2025: The Oscars Want You to Feel Fear, or: The Sun Will Soon Explode, A Children's Primer

"The pictures you've been using for your Oscar stuff lately have been deranged"--a close family member

Is everything fundamentally broken and is the world a hollow shell of what it once was? Yes, but consider: what if also no?

Maybe I should start from the beginning, or barring that (as I am unwilling, and possibly unable, to transcribe the history of history, the written word, visual media, and California-based awards bodies in the amount of time it will take me to finish listening to the Marty Supreme soundtrack), I'll start about a year back. In my Oscar prediction post from last year, I mentioned how the narrative of the Oscars tends to map onto the narrative of the year at large--or at least it lets me shamelessly project it there whilst clasping my tinfoil hat and dreaming of a better tomorrow. If 2025 was a morass of uncertainty and disappointment in a world spinning off its axis, the movie year followed suit (and was, arguably, the more serious issue). Prestige releases floundered, guaranteed box-office hits collapsed underneath their own weight--just imagine, the new Avatar has only made about $300 million in profit so far, are these the end times?--and people looked for escape by getting as weird with it as they could. To paraphrase the 2018 version of Susy Bannion, that wisest of all the dancing sages: the world's a mess. Why are people so ready to believe that the worst is already over?

I'm deploying this exceptionally cheerful and not at all overblown framing device to account for the fact that our potential crop of Oscar nominees this year is a strange and unruly bunch that mirrors the world around it--how else to explain that a full seven of the twelve most likely best picture nominees are horror movies or political thrillers? (And then, to the side, Brad Pitt is driving his little race car, because newly-50-something Gen Xers also need to be loved and validated.) Hell, even the biggest, baitiest prestige hits involve a prominently featured child corpse, Geza Röhrig getting honey licked off his hirsute torso inside a concentration camp, and an immigrant getting thrown to his death for no reason, just for fun. It's a strange mix of movies--implausible even--that can partly be attributed to a seeming dearth of quality prestige fare and partly to a fast-growing and more adventurous body of voters in the Academy, but has to, at least in part, reflect how the Academy, like liquids and cats, changes shape to fit the shape of its container. 

All of this is to say that it's time to buckle up, because either things are going to get weird or the failed prestige films are going to do their best impression of Hamlet's dad and come crawling back early in the morning after dying at a nice banquet thrown to try and bolster their popularity and scream at us about how Bradley Cooper will die before he releases a movie that your mother wouldn't be willing to call 'nice.' Guillermo Del Toro's superhero update of Frankenstein hitting double-digit nominations? Why not? That sleeper horror hit about missing kids muscling past James goddamn Cameron and his nightmare cadre of blue enforcers to get into best picture? Bring it on! A gory vampire musical and a perma-stoned paranoid satire/thriller/family drama/action movie/showcase of Benicio Del Toro's stellar white pants both tying or breaking the record for most nominated movie of all time in the most implausible battle to the death since my sister and I bought a gallon bucket of dessert that just turned out to be whipped cream piled on a half inch of limpid sponge cake? Anything is possible! I have dusted off very special insanity socks and am prepared for madness.

Oscar nominations come out tomorrow morning, just in time for me to send a link of this post to my dissertation advisor as an explanation for why I deserve not two, but ten PhDs, one for each field pertaining to one of the best picture nominees (because what is less worthless than on humanities PhD than ten humanities PhDs?), and all of my speculation will become meaningless, but that's part of the fun, isn't it? Oscar predictions flow like water, and it's always a joy to pretend to swim before Diane Warren drowns you in her annual Oscar paddle pool, thus fulfilling the blood sacrifice with Lord Upuhaut, the mighty wolf of darkness that (presumably) controls the Academy's music branch. Do note that I tend to let my sillier impulses take over (he says, not 20 words after invoking Diane Warren's blood ritual), which means that I'm not always aiming for sheer accuracy. There are plenty of websites to help you nail every category, but I'm here to make you consider what would happen if the Academy wanted to demonstrate their eldritch power by making you watch The Electric State and The Ballad of a Small Player in a fit of horrible completism. Worse things could happen, and probably will tomorrow morning, so let's get to it!

(note: all predictions are listed in order of likelihood, so the first movie listed is the most likely, the second is the next most likely, etc.)

Best Picture
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Frankenstein
Sentimental Value
Train Dreams
The Secret Agent
Weapons
Bugonia
Alternate: It Was Just an Accident

The through-line of the next eighteen categories is going to be asking, again and again, how many nominations One Battle After Another and Sinners can rack up. I mentioned that both could tie or break the nomination record (currently 14), and that wasn't a joke--most predictions I've seen have at least one hitting that threshold. I, however, am laboring under the delusion that most movies that threaten to hit that number find a way of fumbling it at the finish line (think The Shape of Water coming up empty in both Visual Effects and Makeup, Barbie falling flat on its face, etc.). So every category from here on out will be a rationalization of why I think each of those will get exactly 13 nominations (...spoiler alert). Elsewhere, this category feels like it ought to be volatile, but for the total lack of compelling challengers to oust any of these movies out of the top 10. I'd say anything Train Dreams and after doesn't feel totally safe, but what's going to replace them? It Was Just an Accident could, but then we'd have a full third of the nominees being in a language other than English, which feels implausible (there only having been two years so far in Academy history with two non-English language best picture nominees). F1, Wicked: For Good, and Avatar: Fire and Ash are all holding the line for blockbusters with middling to poor reviews that are nevertheless trying to fail up in the most spectacular fashion, and I wouldn't be shocked to see F1 make it (that is, shocked from a prognosticating standpoint--I remain eternally baffled as to what people see in this dumb little car movie). Beyond that, it's more international movies (like No Other Choice and Sirat) that don't have the juice to muscle past the other, bigger international contenders, indies like Blue Moon, The Testament of Ann Lee, and Sorry, Baby, none of which never took off like they needed to, and fallen Oscar bait like Jay Kelly and Is This Thing On?, which, come on, seriously. (Watch, now Bradley Cooper will ride triumphantly into the Dolby again on a horse made out of Golden Globes and I will be forced to eat my special insanity socks.) As I said in the intro, chaos reigns, which means that Oscar voters are going to have to make time for Aunt Gladys's murder tree and Jesse Plemons bludgeoning people while covered in bees.

Director
Paul Thomas Anderson-One Battle After Another
Ryan Coogler-Sinners
Chloe Zhao-Hamnet
Josh Safdie-Marty Supreme
Kleber Mendonca Filho-The Secret Agent
Alternate: Jafar Panahi-It Was Just An Accident

Bucking the conventional wisdom here, which suggests that Panahi or Joachim Trier/Sentimental Value will take the perennial cool international spot, but The Secret Agent's topical as hell, its popularity has been surging, and Filho's star is on the rise. Plus, as last year showed us, the Academy can go absolutely feral for 70s-set Brazilian political dramas when given the opportunity. I'm doing my level best to manifest Frankenstein's failure wherever possible (I've collaged a dream board that consists of nothing but Dr. Frankenstein becoming a successful mid-level pediatrician while his monster works in a cubicle, wondering what might have been), but don't be surprised to see Guillermo Del Toro slide in here, despite my best efforts.

Actress
Jessie Buckley-Hamnet
Rose Byrne-If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
Emma Stone-Bugonia
Renate Reinsve-Sentimental Value
Jennifer Lawrence-Die My Love
Alternate: Chase Infiniti-One Battle After Another

That's right, kids--I'm kicking off my 'One Battle/Sinners in the dreaded 6th place' promotional campaign by assuming that the Academy still loves Jennifer Lawrence enough to welcome her back into the fold, despite the odds (anyone remember her nomination for Joy, because I sure do). Obviously Infiniti is the likelier choice, or Amanda Seyfried's righteous warbles in The Testament of Ann Lee, but I'm going to assume that the Academy cohort that gave Lawrence four nominations in five years is just happy to see her out and about again. I've seen plenty of arguments for Kate Hudson sneaking in with late-stage mom hit Song Sung Blue, but that feels like the Last Showgirl-esque kind of narrative that feels wildly plausible before the nominations which everyone pretends they never believed the second nominations are announced.

Actor
Timothée Chalamet-Marty Supreme
Leonardo Dicaprio-One Battle After Another
Ethan Hawke-Blue Moon
Michael B. Jordan-Sinners
Wagner Moura-The Secret Agent
Alternate: Joel Edgerton-Train Dreams

These five seem somewhat inevitable to me--the first four look like a done deal, and I can hardly argue for a Wagner Moura snub when I've got a surprise Secret Agent best director nomination. I'll admit that I've had the terrible suspicion that Michael B. Jordan will be ignored--once again--for stellar work in genre fare, but haven't been brave or sad enough to actually predict it. If that happens, or if I'm wrong about The Secret Agent's popularity, my heart would like to believe that Plemons gets in for his latest (and maybe career-best) DPwaVed (deranged person with a vision) performance (see, it sounded like depraved, I accept venmo). But my brain tells me that the shuffling twilight beast made up of four terrible prestige limbs (Joel Edgerton/Train Dreams, Dwayne Johnson/The Smashing Machine, Jeremy Allen White/Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, Oscar Isaac/Frankenstein) takes it instead. Tremble, mortals. (Sidebar: once, while struggling to name my favorite actors for a cinephile friend, I said "I dunno, Joel Edgerton, I guess?" and my friend said "are you serious?" and then we had to change the subject so he could continue to respect me. Poor Joel. He doesn't deserve to be a leg of the shuffling prestige beast, but here we are.)

Supporting Actress
Teyana Taylor-One Battle After Another
Amy Madigan-Weapons
Wunmi Mosaku-Sinners
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas-Sentimental Value
Ariana Grande-Wicked: For Good
Alternate: Odessa A'zion-Marty Supreme

Wildly volatile category here, in that I wouldn't be shocked by any of the above women failing to get the nomination. A'zion could easily slip in, as could Elle Fanning in Sentimental Value. Is Taylor's role too small, especially in the face of the Academy's love of rewarding lead performances here? Is a horror villain really going to get in, even if she gives one of the best performances of the year? Are Mosaku and Lilleaas not well-known enough, is Wicked's critical belly flop going to take her out of the running? Should we expect something totally bananas, like a Regina Hall/One Battle After Another surprise or Nina goddamn Hoss finally getting a nomination for Hedda? Really interesting, potentially surprising category, which usually means that the most obvious answer is the right one, so there you have it.

Supporting Actor
Benicio Del Toro-One Battle After Another
Sean Penn-One Battle After Another
Stellan Skarsgard-Sentimental Value
Jacob Elordi-Frankenstein
Paul Mescal-Hamnet
Alternate: Delroy Lindo-Sinners

Really the victim of my own rules here. Every molecule in my dumb little body says that Sinners will score a nod here, either for Lindo or Miles Caton, but that'd push it to 14 nominations, and for whatever reason I don't believe that can happen, so we're all stuck with Paul Mescal glumly to be or not to be-ing directly into the camera. Strangely stunted category, though--is there anyone other than those seven men who has even a chance?

Original Screenplay
Sinners
Marty Supreme
Sentimental Value
It Was Just An Accident
Weapons
Alternate: The Secret Agent

Another really interesting category here, one primed for some upsets. Despite its sudden an inexplicable loss of momentum, I anticipate It Was Just an Accident scoring here over other, buzzier potential best picture nominees, and I have to believe that Weapons is clever and memorable enough to overcome the horror bias (my god you guys, my dumb heart yearns so desperately for a big morning for Weapons). Is it silly not to include The Secret Agent in the top five after being so giddy about its chances everywhere else? Probably! Are Sorry, Baby and Blue Moon the more obvious and writerly options? It's possible! Anything goes, which means that my dumb heart is gonna go for what it wants.

Adapted Screenplay
One Battle After Another
Hamnet
Train Dreams
Bugonia
Frankenstein
Alternate: No Other Choice

A severely unpopulated field this year--after these six, it's like, Wake Up Dead Man and then Nuremberg, heaven help us. I'd like to imagine that Park Chan-wook finally gets the Oscar success that's been eluding his career for decades now, but somehow, against all odds, a Frankenstein adaptation that has a character turn to the camera and say "you're the real monster, Frankenstein!" is going to be lauded for its writing prowess. The mind reels.

Production Design
Frankenstein
Sinners
Wicked: For Good
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Alternate: Hamnet

Sure it might seem strange to you, a filthy casual, for me to burn up one of my precious One Battle nominations on production design, since I'm only allowing it 13 nominations. But let's look at its competition, assuming the first four are safe (which is maybe a big if; am I too bullish on Marty Supreme? Is Wicked going to tank?). I can't shake the feeling that Hamnet is going to stumble a little on nominations morning, and here's a good place to do it, as the film mostly takes place outside and/or in a series of gray rooms. I'm going out on a limb and predicting that Avatar: Fire and Ash will be almost entirely shut out (sorry, James, guess you forgot to put an awards setting on your submersible), The Fantastic Four: First Steps would be a great nominee here, but Marvel movies almost never get nominated for anything but visual effects unless they're Black Panther, and things like The Phoenician Scheme and Hedda feel like long shots anyway. No, I think One Battle's sweep carries it into this category, contemporary setting be damned.

Costume Design
Frankenstein
Sinners
Wicked: For Good
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Alternate: Hedda

I'm weirdly confident about these five. Most people are opting for a lone nominee here, Hedda or Kiss of the Spider Woman or The Testament of Ann Lee, but we live in an Oscar ecosystem that eats lone nominees for breakfast, so look to the prestige period dramas to carry the day. I almost jumped for a international bolt from the blue--The Ugly Stepsister or Kokuho, for example--but lost my nerve at the last second. Still, if that happens, remember that you heard it here first and that I totally predicted it in my (and your) heart.

Visual Effects
Avatar: Fire and Ash
F1
Superman
The Lost Bus
Jurassic World: Rebirth
Alternate: The Electric State

In this, the most vexing of categories, I have elected to split a particular gordian knot. Surely there has been some hand-wringing about whether Avatar would lose this award to a best picture nominee--F1, Sinners, or Frankenstein, say--given that non-best picture nominees almost never win this category over best picture nominees. Well, friends, I have solved this particular conundrum by assuming that there won't be any best picture nominees here. Sinners has the kind of supporting effects that critics' awards love that the Oscars don't, and Frankenstein was almost totally iced out (heh) by the Visual Effects Society awards, so we'll toss those two out. That makes it an unholy slap-fest between movies that made no one smile: Jurassic World, The Electric State, and Tron: Ares. I choose to walk in the light of the lord, which is to say I assume that voters will remember Jonathan Bailey's slutty little glasses fondly and give them their day in the sun.

Makeup and Hairstyling
Frankenstein
Wicked: For Good
The Smashing Machine
Nuremberg
The Ugly Stepsister
Alternate: Marty Supreme

Another volatile category--isn't it refreshing to have an actual-ass competition this year? I could see any potential nominee but Frankenstein missing, and any potential nominee in the previously announced shortlist getting in. Still, if I'm predicting that Sinners and One Battle After Another won't break any records, then they have to miss here--which makes sense to me, as horror effects almost never get in and a One Battle nom would be indicative of a groupthink-y sweep in the one category that most frequently resists nominating best picture contenders just because they're best picture contenders. It's tempting to assume that Timothée's horrible little mustache will be immortalized in the annals of Oscar history, but I'm going for the things this branch more commonly loves--fat suits and showy prosthetics--to win the day.

Film Editing
One Battle After Another
Marty Supreme
Sinners
F1
Hamnet
Alternate: Frankenstein

I tried again and again to make room for something more fun, something with slightly neater editing, like No Other Choice, Weapons, or The Secret Agent, but again and again came up against the seemingly invincible adage that this category will always just grab best picture contenders out of a lineup and skip off with a song in its heart--the most boring lineup is usually the correct one. And, I suppose, F1 is already occupying the showy editing slot (you can tell it's got the best editing because the cars go fast).

Cinematography
Sinners
One Battle After Another
Train Dreams
Frankenstein
The Ballad of A Small Player
Alternate: Hamnet

Today I choose chaos, and chaos today foresees a world in which the Oscars continue to force me to engage with Edward Berger movies, The Ballad of a Small Player coming out of nowhere to personally antagonize me. The smarter money is obviously a big best picture player like Hamnet or Marty Supreme, or maybe a littler best picture player like F1 or Bugonia, but nope, I'm going with the future in which the Academy punishes me, specifically. (Will I also be punished for not picking Nouvelle Vague, given this branch's predilection for black and white? It's not impossible, but I will persevere.)

Original Score
Sinners
One Battle After Another
Frankenstein
Marty Supreme
Hamnet
Alternate: F1

Marty Supreme's wacky 80s synths might be too wacky and 80s for this branch, one which has never really warmed up to the simple joys of a middle-aged divorcée beating the shit out of a row of buttons, but the heart wants what it wants. It would probably be wise to consider branch favorites Hans Zimmer (F1) or Nicholas Britell (Jay Kelly), or wacky upstarts like Sirat or Bugonia, but I'm sticking with the weepy buttons, and no one on this earth can stop me.

Sound
Sinners
F1
One Battle After Another
Frankenstein
Sirat
Alternate: Avatar: Fire and Ash

Another category that finds me absurdly confident, despite Avatar and Wicked being much more traditional nominees and Mission: Impossible and Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere offering the general kinds of action/music hijinks that usually succeed here. But this category has (tragically) been trending toward big contenders lately, which gives Frankenstein an edge, and Sirat was too successful throughout awards season and on the Academy shortlists to think that it won't appear anywhere, so here it is! (Y'all, what even is Sirat? No one is willing to give an answer other than 'it's weird and upsetting, you'll love it' and I am so hyped.)

Original Song
"Golden"-KPop Demon Hunters
"I Lied to You"-Sinners
"Dear Me"-Diane Warren: Relentless
"Dying to Live"-Billy Idol Should Be Dead
"Our Love"-The Ballad of Wallis Island
Alternate: "Last Time (I Seen the Sun)-Sinners

Divinely ridiculous of me to shun the other Sinners song and both new Wicked tracks in favor of some lesser-known contenders, but I am, if nothing else, divinely ridiculous, and this is my party. Besides, this category has shown us time and time again that a) any older music superstar that pens something for a movie during the year is likely to get recognized, b) this category has no problem sweeping bigger contenders out of the way for nominees that make you go "I'm sorry, what?" (forever remembering that brisk winter morning in January of 2010 when our perceptions of reality all had to collectively shift to accommodate Paris 36 springing suddenly and fully formed into being, just in time to make us all wonder what a "Loin de Paname" was). ...So like, given that logic, I should be predicting a Viva Verdi! nomination, but I don't want to fly too close to the sun.

Casting
Sinners
One Battle After Another
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Frankenstein
Alternate: Weapons

It's a new category! That's right, for the first time in my Oscar prediction career, and only the second time in my lifetime, there's a new category to consider, and I'm going to commemorate this momentous occasion by making the most boring predictions possible. There's been lots of discussion about whether this branch is going to go their own way or just rubber stamp the biggest best picture contenders. While I would like to imagine that they'll be weird like the makeup and visual effects branch and will get a Weapons/Wicked/Sirat/Secret Agent/Sinners lineup or something equally delightful, I'm going to assume they'll make the duller choice until they prove me wrong. Prove me wrong, casting directors! You can make the world a stranger, more beautiful place! Choose courage and don't nominate Frankenstein! (Honestly though, if Frankenstein gets in I will simply choose death.)

Animated Film
Kpop Demon Hunters
Zootopia 2
Arco
Little Amelie or the Character of Rain
Endless Cookie
Alternate: Elio

Speaking of flying too close to the sun, I'm predicting that Pixar misses out here (which has only happened to six of the twenty-eight eligible movies it has released since this category's inception) in favor of a weird little Canadian movie that no one is talking about. But hey, this category's really been going its own way lately. Sure, if I'm replacing Pixar, it'd make more sense to pick a buzzier indie title like Scarlet or A Magnificent Life, a buzzier mainstream movie like In Your Dreams or The Bad Guys 2, or even Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Infinity Castle, the improbable anime box-office smash whose title would surely go down as one of the longest in Oscar nominee history, but nope, I'm sticking with the animated Canadian documentary. We really can all be giants if we choose to be.

International Film
Sentimental Value-Norway
The Secret Agent-Brazil
It Was Just an Accident-France
No Other Choice-South Korea
Sirat-Spain
Alternate: The Voice of Hind Rajib-Tunisia

The same five movies have garnered the nominations in this category from basically every awards-giving body, and sure, I know all the cool kids are predicting a high-profile snub in favor of something smaller like Hind Rajib, Left-Handed Girl, Sound of Falling, Palestine 36, Belen, or whatever, but I am going to be the even cooler kid by predicting that the biggest surprise in this category is that there are no big surprises.

Documentary Feature
2000 Meters to Andriivka
The Alabama Solution
Come See Me in the Good Light
My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 -- Last Air in Moscow
Cutting Through Rocks
Alternate: The Perfect Neighbor

Screw it: every year, this category sets us up with an obvious nominee/winner, and every year, this category yanks that obvious nominee out from under us like a particularly documentary-enthused Lucy to our hapless Charlie Brown. It's clear that critics and audiences just don't mesh with this branch's very specific tastes, so I'm leaving undeniable frontrunner The Perfect Neighbor out of the running. In favor of what? Haha like I'd know, I haven't seen any of these movies. As I said last year (and, I assume, will say every year from now on): Behold! The darts I have thrown.

And there you have it! For those of you playing along at home, here are the movies I'm predicting will get the most nominations:

Sinners-13
One Battle After Another-13
Frankenstein-10
Hamnet-9
Marty Supreme-9

I'm not sure how confident I feel about any of these, but how confident do I feel about anything other than the fact that one day the sun will explode? Confidence is overrated--I'm here to encourage the Oscars to be a little dumb about it all.

As always, I know it's silly to spend this many words on Oscar nominations without having talked about my own picks, and those are surely on the way (assuming, of course, that I survive/and or finish my dissertation revisions in a timely fashion, which is maybe the biggest if in a universe of massive, floating ifs, like if the opening crawl from Star Wars were just a celestial cloud of uncertainty). For now, I'll say that if I could guarantee any outcome, it'd be for Weapons to have a big morning (if only for the novelty, but also because it deserves it), and if I could prevent any nomination, I'd opt for an Adapted Screenplay apocalypse in which Frankenstein and Hamnet--arguably two of the worst screenplays of the year--are consigned to the hell they belong. Hey, throw in Train Dreams and One Battle After Another. Complete Adapted Screenplay overhaul! Make that category unrecognizable!

And that's it for now! In about 13 hours, all thes epredictions will mean nothing, which is just how I like it. I'll be back in the morning to unpack the fresh horrors that await, but until then, feel free to share your hopes and dreams, so that they can join mine in the Academy garbage chute tomorrow morning!

Final Oscar Predictions 2024: Could Someone Please Politely Ask the Hounds We Released to Shave Timothée Chalamet's Mustache, And Other Important Tragedies

 

Why yes, I do make all of my pictures in microsoft powerpoint, why do you ask

If this Oscar year is anything, it might be the year of the impossible. Now, I'm not referring to seemingly impossible Oscar propositions like reuniting the cast of Mighty Ducks to sing "We Are the Champion" while Marguerite Moreau pirouettes on stage while the nation of Iceland sinks into the sea in the background (for budgetary reasons), or even the Academy inviting Shakira to sing an unintelligible medley of songs from all my favorite movie music moments of the early 2000s (ever wondered what Shakira would do with the song Cliff writes for Torrance in Bring it On immediately followed by her performing both sides of Moulin Rouge's "Elephant Love Medley?" Join my letter writing campaign!). No, the (unfortunately fun, if just as exciting) impossible proposition this year is that everything that might win an Oscar seems kind of preposterous. What wins best picture? Who knows, probably none of them! Will we all have to start saying two-time Oscar winner Adrien Brody or will Timothée Chalamet's horrible mustache crawl onto the stage like something fell of the Thing from The Thing? Which insipidly made short film with a powerful story behind it will win best live action short? 

In summary: who greenlit these Oscars? What were they thinking? Maybe this wild and scattered year is indicative of a Hollywood that doesn't itself know what it is anymore, or what it wants to greenlight, or maybe it's indicative of a largest ever Academy membership (over 10,000 members), all of whom are currently literally wrestling each other to determine the Academy's new identity (word on the street is that Harrison Ford and Lupita Nyong'o punching much over their metaphorical weight, but every person in France is banding together to stomp on every other member's toes). Maybe I'm just responding like this because I've had a largely off-consensus year and am struggling to muster too much enthusiasm for much of the assumed winners, but I can't help but wonder how we got such an amorphous and atraditional (or very traditional? hard to say) year, especially coming right on the heels of such determined and lockstep years that saw Everything Everywhere All at Once and Oppenheimer vying to establish a New Brand (TM) for the Academy. And I can't help but wonder if this year's dubious flailing is a sign of something else.

But, as Shakespeare famously said: Ours is not to question why, our is but to offer some misguided predictions and die. And I am definitely going to do both of those things within the next three hours! And whatever the Oscars do, I'll always be there, staring melodramatically into the middle distance. The Oscars have been part of my life for actual decades now (and predicting them has been too--where has the time gone, other than to the curséd urn that the producers of Crash keep buried somewhere under the 405 in order to continue leeching our lives away from us), and it's hard to imagine a year that doesn't end (or begin) with them as a joyous summary and caesura. I do love it here, no matter how hard the Academy tries to convince us all that we shouldn't love it, and will continue to do so until either the Oscars or I are wrestled from our mortal coil and then have to go do the Oscars in hell where we belong (I think those are just the Razzies, but what do I know). 

So let's get to it! I've got the Challengers soundtrack blaring (again) (will I ever be free of these dance beats) and I'm excited to confront all the chaos face-on, if not necessarily make sense of it. Do remember that I tend to make predictions more for fun than for accuracy. There are plenty of websites out there willing to grind some statistics to help you win your Oscar pool, but I'll always use this space to encourage the Academy to release the hounds. As chance would have it, I've seen every nominee in every single category this year, including the shorts--only the third time I've managed that feat in my time as a haggard Oscar professional. So I'll be able to provide informed category in every category and then giddily toss that information into the sea--who wants to be informed when you can predict something silly?

Best Picture
Anora
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Perez
I'm Still Here
Nickel Boys
The Substance
Wicked

I might be overestimating the potential calamities in store here, as Anora has won enough precursor wins and general momentum to carry it across the finish line here. But--just for fun--what if the polarizing movie about sex work from a previously unembraced director weren't an automatic win for the same film prize previously won by Driving Miss Daisy and Coda? Anora is the obvious answer, but it also feels impossible; then again, so does its nearest competition. Everyone on Earth other than awards voters, seemingly, hates Emilia Perez--it's controversial, it's poorly reviewed, it kind of stars a white supremacist. But it's the most nominated movie and continues to sweep up prizes across the world, so it has to be considered. The Brutalist seems like a traditional choice--until that second half happens, anyway. It's big, it's bold, it's respected, but its polarizing second half makes it feel impossible too. Conclave is another easy traditional pick, and a movie that's hard to dislike, but where has its momentum been? It stumbled pretty significantly with the nominations and is relying on a BAFTA win to fill its sails--it feels both highly likely and totally inert. I've been tempted to call for a CODA-esque shock victory for I'm Still Here, but surely we'd have felt some trace of that these past months? And don't get me started on Dune, Wicked, Nickel Boys, or The Substance--all strong movies with insurmountable hurdles. So if literally everything feels impossible, I guess the only (boring) solution is to pick the impossible movie with the most obvious argument.

Will Win: Anora
Could Win: Conclave
Should Win: Wicked
Should Have Been Here: Challengers

Director
Jacques Audiard-Emilia Perez
Sean Baker-Anora
Brady Corbet-The Brutalist
Coralie Fargeat-The Substance
James Mangold-A Complete Unknown

Much simpler to narrow this down--either Baker or Corbet will walk away with the trophy. Baker's argument is probably more compelling: he's directing the best picture frontrunner, he won the DGA award which has gone to about 80% of past Oscar winners in this category in the last 20 years, and he's in the kind of place in his career where major recognition might feel due. That said, Brady Corbet's The Brutalist is arguably larger, flashier, and more difficult--the kind of movie that routinely wins this kind of prize, even if it can't gain traction much of anywhere else. It'd be silly to count Corbet out, even if Anora has the advantage. Otherwise, it's difficult to imagine anyone else in this category scraping together enough win equity to slide past the top two.

Will Win: Brady Corbet-The Brutalist
Could Win: Sean Baker-Anora
Should Win: Coralie Fargeta-The Substance
Should Have Been Here: Luca Guadagnino-Challengers

Actress
Cynthia Erivo-Wicked
Karla Sofia Gascon-Emilia Perez
Mikey Madison-Anora
Demi Moore-The Substance
Fernanda Torres-I'm Still Here

One of the tightest categories of the year--a breathless three-way race that could fall in any direction. Mikey Madison might seem like a safe choice--she helms the best picture frontrunner, her character gets to do love, comedy, heartbreak, drugs, etc., aka the kinds of showy things that Oscar loves, and she's fairly early in her career and feels like a discovery, which is exactly where the Academy likes a person in this category to be. That said, the momentum is very much against her: after Demi Moore's moving and personal speech at the Golden Globes, Moore has won every single major film prize other than the BAFTA (which, to be fair, is one of the last prizes given and could suggest a late shift back to Madison...though, to be fair again, Moore won the SAG award, which was the very last prize given, so maybe it signifies nothing). All that said, consider Fernanda Torres. She wasn't considered a lock for a nomination, and probably wouldn't be in this conversation if it weren't for I'm Still Here getting a surprise best picture nomination. Suddenly, tons of people are watching her movie who wouldn't have previously, and plenty of them will probably be changing their vote in this category upon doing so, as her performance is something special--and it'll feel fresh, given most people will have seen that movie for the first time within the last six weeks. And on top of that, Torres wasn't nominated for any of the major awards that have been given in the past two months, which means that she's never had to directly compete with Madison and Moore. So, to recap: Madison could get through on early momentum and late-breaking momentum, Moore could take it with industry love and a robust precursor performance but might be hurt by performing in a horror movie (a genre that rarely succeeds at the Oscars), and Torres could sneak through by being the best and newest thing that everyone has seen recently. Madness! I wouldn't be surprised by any of those scenarios. 

Will Win: Demi Moore-The Substance
Could Win: Fernanda Torres-I'm Still Here
Should Win: Fernanda Torres-I'm Still Here (but I will be *thrilled* to see Demi Moore with that Oscar)
Should Have Been Here: Katy O'Brian-Love Lies Bleeding

Actor
Adrien Brody-The Brutalist
Timothée Chalamet-A Complete Unknown
Colman Domingo-Sing Sing
Ralph Fiennes-Conclave
Sebastian Stan-The Apprentice

Extremely tight sprint to the finish between Brody and Chalamet here. What wins? Brody's got the early momentum, and has won most of the prizes, but The Brutalist is flagging in almost every category and people might question whether Brody is the kind of actor who should have two statues (not that this kind of number-crushing generally affects the Academy much). Chalamet's playing a real person (and it's actually surprisingly uncommon for the acting Oscars to go entirely to people playing original characters), he sings, and he sportscasts (not in the movie) (I think), but he's also very young to win here. If he won, he'd become the youngest person to ever win this category. (And fun fact: the current holder of that title is Adrien Brody, who won his first Oscar 22 years ago for The Pianist). It's a toss-up: veteran actor with an emotional performance in a struggling best picture nominee vs. a historically young opponent playing a real person in a late-breaking best picture nominee. Flip a coin and pray this doesn't all go to Timmy's head.

Will Win: Timothée Chalamet-A Complete Unknown
Could Win: Adrien Brody-The Brutalist
Should Win: Colman Domingo-Sing Sing
Should Have Been Here: Sebastian Stan-A Different Man

Supporting Actress
Monica Barbaro-A Complete Unknown
Ariana Grande-Wicked
Felicity Jones-The Brutalist
Isabella Rossellini-Conclave
Zoe Saldaña-Emilia Perez

After all the intrigue of the lead categories, the supporting categories are going to give us a much-needed break. Despite Emilia Perez's constant controversies, this category is one that it has consistently won, and it's tough to think of a narrative compelling enough to dethrone Saldaña's 'I have been covered in paint and pixels for fifteen years and am ready for someone to actually goddamn see me' storyline. People loved Grande's Glinda and were impressed that she could actually act, but her win potential gets undermined by the fact that Wicked 2 will come out this year--but watch for her next year. It'd be neat to see Rossellini's respect in the industry and veteran status come through for a win here, but it's more or less inconceivable to imagine that happening for a performance that is largely wordless and only seven minutes long--especially when her biggest competition is in almost every scene of a 150-minute movie.

Will Win: Zoe Saldaña-Emilia Perez
Could Win: Ariana Grande-Wicked
Should Win: Ariana Grande-Wicked
Should Have Been Here: Anna Baryshnikov-Love Lies Bleeding

Supporting Actor
Yura Borisov-Anora
Kieran Culkin-A Real Pain
Edward Norton-A Complete Unknown
Guy Pearce-The Brutalist
Jeremy Strong-The Apprentice

Here's one of the easiest categories this year: Culkin's every major prize this year and is still riding high on Succession love, as well as providing an easy place for Real Pain fans to congregate after the movie stumbled at the nominations. No one else in this category has the acclaim, the narrative, or the momentum--he's in for sure.

Will Win: Kieran Culkin-A Real Pain
Could Win: Edward Norton-A Complete Unknown
Should Win: Edward Norton-A Complete Unknown
Should Have Been Here: Clarence Maclin-Sing Sing

Original Screenplay
Anora
The Brutalist
A Real Pain
The Substance
September 5

Am I making this more complicated than it needs to be? Like, Anora's has the most best picture steam in this category, it's got a memorable premise, and feels 'writerly' in its improvised-ish feel. So why am I questioning my pick here? If The Brutalist isn't as dead in the water as people think, it could show here. The Real Pain fans that I just mentioned could easily congregate here to reward Jesse Eisenberg for writing, directing, producing, and acting in the movie, and it's got the snappy dialogue and freestanding monologues that the Academy loves to reward here. Even The Substance, with a premise that no one is going to actively forget, could triumph here--hell, it won the screenplay award at Cannes and is clearly getting votes in other categories, so why not here? In short, this category is probably easy, but I am wringing my hands over it like someone who just got their hands stuck in a wringer.

Will Win: Anora
Could Win: A Real Pain
Should Win: A Real Pain
Should Have Been Here: Challengers

Adapted Screenplay
Conclave
A Complete Unknown
Emilia Perez
Nickel Boys
Sing Sing

Much less hand-wringing here (which is good, because the owner of the previous wringer is very upset with me and all the fingers I left behind). Conclave's the only one of this group that's got any best picture stream and isn't also a widely derided musical (only one musical has ever won a screenplay Oscar, which suggests that being widely derided is enough to count a certain cartel leader/beneficent saint out of the running). 

Will Win: Conclave
Could Win: Nickel Boys
Should Win: Nickel Boys
Should Have Been Here: Laapataa Ladies

Production Design
The Brutalist
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Nosferatu
Wicked

Oh look, it's another category that I'm over-complicating! Wicked is the obvious frontrunner, but I can't help but pay attention to all the juicy narratives floating around it. The first Dune won six Oscars--is it ridiculous to assume its fans will show up to these Oscars again, at least in some capacity? Nosferatu surely has to be considered a stealth contender in every category it's in: people love it, they love the look of it, and are surely feral at the thought of rewarding all those monochrome settings. And The Brutalist is a big prestige pic (arguably prestige-r than Wicked) whose plot relies on--and calls attention to--the film's design. Surely one of those is capable of muscling past Wicked's big, pretty sets, especially since Wicked's Oscar hopes have collapsed in almost every other category.

Will Win: The Brutalist
Could Win: Wicked
Should Win: The Brutalist
Should Have Been Here: Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In

Costume Design
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Gladiator II
Nosferatu
Wicked

At last, a chance for me to catch my breath. It's groovy to have a year in which so many categories are up in the air (or at least vaguely competitive, which is more than we can say for most years), but it's way more effort to wrack my brain over the possible scenarios than it is to point at something and shriek a little. So here I am, pointing and shrieking at Wicked in the one category that it can't possibly lose.

Will Win: Wicked
Could Win: Nosferatu
Should Win: Nosferatu
Should Have Been Here: Laapataa Ladies

Visual Effects
Alien: Romulus
Better Man
Dune: Part Two
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Wicked

Oh look, another category primed to be shrieked at! It's possible that a legion of Wicked fans frog-marches into categories like these and nabs the statues from other, more plausible victors, but I'm just going to assume that the Academy, like me, is super enthused by all the worm stuff and will just check Dune's name and move on.

Will Win: Dune: Part Two
Could Win: Wicked
Should Win: Dune: Part Two
Should Have Been Here: I Saw the TV Glow

Makeup
A Different Man
Emilia Perez
Nosferatu
The Substance
Wicked

Very similar to the previous category, in that the theoretical Wicked legions are the biggest obstacle to the presumptive frontrunner's success. In this case, that's The Substance, which has a slightly more uphill battle than Dune's in the previous category: this award has very rarely gone to horror, body horror, gore, etc., which might be enough for Wicked's more family-friendly fare (or Nosferatu's rotten prosthetic penis, I guess?) to triumph. Still, I have to imagine that if it's gotten this far, The Substance is winning--who isn't talking about that movie's makeup as they walk out the door and directly to their therapist's office?

Will Win: The Substance
Could Win: Wicked
Should Win: The Substance
Should Have Been Here: Alien: Romulus

Film Editing
Anora
The Brutalist
Conclave
Emilia Perez
Wicked

Kind of a bizarre category this year in that none of the potential arguments really rely on the movies themselves. Film Editing's always been pretty tied to the best picture category, but has gotten egregiously so in the past ten years; I don't know that anyone would argue that the above movies are the actual best representations of quality editing this year, but they certainly were the top five best picture hopefuls around when the nominations came out. So it feels like you can just order this category as you did best picture, and you'll have the same amount of success in both categories. That said, Conclave arguably has the most artistry (or attempt at that) of the nominees, so it might win just by virtue of being structured like a thriller. In short: whichever movie wins this Oscar will probably win best picture, unless it's Conclave, in which case nothing means anything and we should all go home.

Will Win: Anora
Could Win: Conclave
Should Win: Conclave
Should Have Been Here: Challengers

Cinematography
The Brutalist
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Perez
Maria
Nosferatu

Another refreshingly competitive category--isn't this fun, after two years of juggernaut best picture winners and mini-juggernauts next to them? The Brutalist feels like the default frontrunner for all the same reasons that it's competitive in best picture: it's big, it's bold, it's flashy, it flips the statue of liberty on its head and then makes you consider Adrien Brody's pubes, etc. Still, it's not set in concrete: I still believe that Dune's previous fans might show up somewhere, and this seems as likely as anywhere else, especially with popular DP Greig Frasier at the wheel. Nosferatu has also been widely embraced, it's won a number of cinematography prizes, and offers a painterly alternative to The Brutalist's more lived in landscapes. Heck, even Maria picked up a major prize. And maybe we've got an impending Emilia Perez sweep, followed shortly thereafter by the sun being blotted out by 10,000 flying scorpions! Anything is possible!

Will Win: Nosferatu
Could Win: The Brutalist
Should Win: Nosferatu
Should Have Been Here: All We Imagine as Light

Original Score
The Brutalist
Conclave
Emilia Perez
Wicked
The Wild Robot

Oh look, it's my favorite category--ones with obvious frontrunners that I have nevertheless convinced myself are impossible to predict! Why do I do this to myself! The Brutalist is the obvious answer--the score is bold, memorable, and love for this movie will have to manifest somewhere. However. Despite how much we all hate Emilia Perez, it is the most nominated movie, one that has won tons of other prizes, and is a wholly original musical...that is nominated in a music category. Surely that has to be an option. And on that front, what stops Wicked from piggybacking on the same argument? Are we really assuming that the average voter can tell the composition that were written for the stage show from the ones that were written for the movie--doesn't its presence in this category suggest that they can't? And if so, why wouldn't it win the 'sure, it's a musical, give it to that, it's got music right there in the title' award? And Conclave and The Wild Robot have both received plenty of love for their music and for plenty of other things besides. So call The Brutalist the frontrunner if you want (...if only because it clearly is), but I feel like this category's ripe for anarchy.

Will Win: Wicked
Could Win: The Brutalist
Should Win: Conclave
Should Have Been Here: Challengers

Sound
A Complete Unknown
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Perez
Wicked
The Wild Robot

Dune is definitely bolstered by the fact that its three main competitors are so similar: three best picture hopefuls that are musicals or music-related. As such, it's easy to assume that those three movies split the votes and allow Dune to sail through.

Will Win: Dune: Part Two
Could Win: A Complete Unknown
Should Win: Dune: Part Two
Should Have Been Here: The Substance

Original Song
"The Journey"-The Six Triple Eight
"Like a Bird"-Sing Sing
"Mi Camino"-Emilia Perez
"El Mal"-Emilia Perez
"Never Too Late"-Elton John: Never Too Late

As we gaze into this, surely one of the deepest and darkest abysses to ever open up beneath this category's feet, we have to ask ourselves one question: what can I, a citizen, do to stop Emilia Perez's inevitable march to a win here? Unfortunately, not too much. Look, I want to see an Oscar in the hands of Diane Warren, She Who Blacks Out the Sky With Her Hands And Plucks The Stars From The Night In Order To Write Little Ballads About Them, Consort of Moloch and Mother Of Tiny Golden Dragons, as much as the next person, but I just don't know if she's getting there for a forgettable song in a movie no one saw. And it's true that Elton John has only ever lost an Oscar to himself, but that stat sounds more impressive if you don't know he's only been nominated in two separate years. Still, we can dream.

Will Win: "El Mal"-Emilia Perez
Could Win: "The Journey"-The Six Triple Eight
Should Win: "The Journey"-The Six Triple Eight
Should Have Been Here: "Starburned and Unkissed"-I Saw the TV Glow

Animated Film
Flow
Inside Out 2
Memoir of a Snail
Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
The Wild Robot

Finally, a rest for my poor reeling mind: The Wild Robot wins this in a nonchalant mosey into the woods.

Will Win: The Wild Robot
Could Win: Flow
Should Win: Flow
Should Have Been Here: The Missing

International Film
Emilia Perez-France
Flow-Latvia
The Girl with the Needle-Denmark
I'm Still Here-Brazil
The Seed of the Sacred Fig-Germany

Your pick in this category depends on how much you believe in Emilia Perez's fall from grace. Are Academy voters sick of the controversy? Did the backlash finally take hold? If so, go for I'm Still Here. Do we believe in the Perez backlash primarily because we hate it and not because it's been reflected by the voters or by the industry? Go for Emilia Perez. Either way, no movie that's ever been nominated for both best picture and this category has ever lost in this category, so it's got to be one of the two.

Will Win: Emilia Perez
Could Win: I'm Still Here
Should Win: Flow
Should Have Been Here: Kneecap

Documentary Feature
Black Box Diaries
No Other Land
Porcelain War
Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
Sugarcane

The main--unpleasant--question to ask here is to what extent the Academy supports the genocide in Palestine. The reaction to Johnathan Glazer's acceptance speech last year, wherein he decried Israel's actions, certainly suggest that there are plenty of people in the Academy who aren't looking to reward a Palestinian documentary about Israeli incursions onto Palestinian land. That doc (No Other Land) is certainly the frontrunner, but we have to at least consider realities in which the Academy looks elsewhere for political reasons. If so, Porcelain War is the easy answer--a doc about the Ukrainian war won last year, and Ukraine could be a, uh, welcome refuge from controversy. I could see Black Box Diaries also benefitting from people looking for a place to land: it's emotionally resonant and sticks out from the others (it's the only one of the nominees not at least tangentially about genocide). I think No Other Land will carry the day--no other doc is as buzzy and relevant this year--but who knows? Stranger things have happened than a powerful institution deciding it wasn't interested in what was happening.

Will Win: No Other Land
Could Win: Porcelain War
Should Win: No Other Land
Should Have Been Here: Dahomey

And that's that! Currently, I don't have any movie being particularly dominant, with Anora and The Brutalist each taking three wins. I have to admit that I'm not feeling confident about a number of my calls this year--am I being riskier, are things tougher to predict, or am I just an idiot? (It's probably all three, so like don't base your Oscar pools on what I'm picking, because I am gonna get buried this year.)

Well, whatever happens, and we all get to enjoy watching it happen in slow motion. But we can embrace whatever happens as well as embracing the joy that comes with not knowing--just imagine all of us coming back here in three days to try and re-live the halcyon days in which we didn't know Emilia Perez would go on an unprecedented winning streak. 

Best of 24, Part Three: Craft Categories

If ever you find yourself in the LA area (and who doesn't, from time to time?), you'd be cheating yourself if you didn't take an afternoon to explore the Academy Museum. It's a four-floor exploration of the history of cinema, the Oscars, and all the people that helped to make both what they are. (There's also an incredible theater where I went to see Master and Commander accompanied by commentary from its sound designer Richard King which was arguably one of the best things that ever happened to me, but that's another story.) Do you know what overwhelmingly dominates the halls and exhibits through which you wander? I'll give you a hint--it's not actors, it's not directors, it's not even writers (though all of those people are represented). What you'll most see are props, costumes, effects demos, breakdowns of a scene's edit, interviews with cinematographers, music, and sound. The history of film is written by what hides in or controls the frame. Directors are great, actors are fun, but let me talk to the person who came up with the sound effects in The Wild Robot and the person who found or designed all the knitwear in Laapataa Ladies before I ever have to go talk to like Christian Bale or whatever (who is fine, obviously, but show me the knitwear he's designed and then we'll have something). 

Point is, none of the movies you love could have been made without all the people behind the scenes pouring their passion in to them, and I want to take the time to pour some love right back their way. I also just love these categories, and everything they represent. At the Academy museum, they've got a hall of Oscars with different winners' Oscars from across the years displayed, and they're all amazing, but the only one that got me excited enough to take a picture was Eiko Ishioka's (if you don't know who she is, do a quick google image search and then bow down in praise like the rest of us). So I'm here to geek out and give these movie elements their day in the sun, and I'm gonna enjoy it even if it means that antagonistically name-dropping Christian Bale earlier will surely result in a miniature horde of Christian Bale fans besieging this blog and/or my home. This is the bit that I like best, and I'm gonna make a whole-ass meal of it. So let's dive in!

(Note: all pictures should enlarge if you click on them.)

Production Design

5. The End

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Postapocalyptic bunkers! Way too much art (unless you are the last family alive)! Little models of the world you destroyed! Barren salt mines for all your dancing needs!

4. The Fall Guy

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A series of increasingly opulent apartments for people to try to kill you in! Confounding fake sci-fi! Probably the worst nightclub you've been this year, but make it fashion and/or neon!

3. Wicked

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Huge and actually constructed palaces and universities! So much pink and green that each ticket comes equipped with a sentient color wheel ready to console you afterward! Have you considered how spinning around in a gyroscope library might improve your life?

2. The Brutalist

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The most beautiful library you've ever seen in your meaningless life! The most austere community center since pilgrim times! Plenty of upsetting things in between!

1. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In

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A massive and (largely) accurate reconstruction of Kowloon Walled City! Little personal flourishes in every frame! Enough space for a fistfight with someone who wields spirit powers, but not enough room to feel comfortable in your own skin!

Honorable mention: Dune: Part Two

Costume Design

5. Irish Wish

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Clothes that look like someone threw a grenade into the factory that makes plaid clothing for rich dogs! An assault of power clashing so magnificent you may find yourself at the hospital! Impossible to tell if we're meant to be laughing with or at these clothes (or neither!), so fifth place, I guess!

4. Dune: Part Two

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Enough dramatic headwear to start a holy war! Svelte desert attire and worm-riding goggles! The kind of battle armor you can imagine stabbing your cousin in!

3. Laapataa Ladies

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Wedding attire worth getting lost on a train for! Distinctive and memorable looks for a diverse spectrum of characters! Knitwear and scarves that belong in the Louvre!

2. Wicked

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How many birds can inspire costumes? Turns out, it's all of them, and it works! Predatory peacocks, exploding flamingoes, feasts for crows! Also like a regal blue onesie for Fiyero, just for fun!

1. Nosferatu

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Architectural gowns with conveniently open (or closed) necks! A muted color palette like the kind the Easter Bunny would vomit! What I have to assume is the worst-smelling coat in the history of coats!

Honorable mention: The End

Visual Effects

5. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

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Impeccably rendered apes for all your Roman empire allusion needs! Now the apes can swim! Water happens to them, and it looks great!

4. Hundreds of Beavers

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Deeply absurd imagery on a shoestring budget! What if Looney Tunes were live action (ish) and were went to the same school of brutalist design as Adrien Brody in The Brutalist?

3. I Saw the TV Glow

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Gorgeous and subtle background effects that only occupy the space they need! The insides of a CRT TV regurgitated and come to live across an infinite black!

2. Better Man

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Another impeccably rendered ape, but this one's better (man)! An unbelievably hi-fi creation that neither gets lost nor feels out of place amongst the human characters! A digital performance so soulful and compelling that I was briefly like 'geez, am I gonna have to figure out who to nominate for best actor for this performance?'

1. Dune: Part Two

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Worms! Worms from space! Worms in dust storms! Worms easting little digital men! Worms as successful transportation infrastructure! Small worms you're supposed to milk! Plenty of other non-worm-related achievements!

Honorable mention: Alien: Romulus

Makeup and Hairstyling

5. Dune: Part Two

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Have you ever wanted to look like a spooky lizard boy? Did you ever dream of writing your favorite book on your face in its entirety and then going to church like that? You missed your chance! This movie was it, and now you can never do that again! Curse the heavens!

4. Wicked

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Lived-in and battle-ready green skin! The kinds of glorious hairdos that will make you dig your hair curlers out of storage just so you can scream at them! Surely someone on this earth deserves a trophy for making Jonathan Bailey look like that!

3. Lisa Frankenstein

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Hairstyles so big they need to put little blinking lights in them so as to warn oncoming planes! Splashy, vaguely overdone makeup that both suits the characters and looks like something a teenager would choose for herself! Hair so dramatic it made me rue my receding hairline!

2. Alien: Romulus

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An all-practical newborn monster/fitness enthusiast and largely practical aliens! The kind of queasy practical gore effects that make you want to high five the makeup artists and ask them who hurt them at the same time!

1. The Substance

(spoilers ahead, so scroll past the next two pictures if you don't want to see them!)

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Speaking of gore that makes you wonder about the wellbeing of your fellow citizens! A bacchanalia of blood, goop, sagging skin, and forlorn missing parts skittering into your heart! 

Honorable mention: The Apprentice

Film Editing
(note: for the first time ever, I'm gonna try to add clips that illustrate what I like about each movie in this category.)

5. Carry-On

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjFdEcZLDlY (some spoilers)

4. Trap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mqcoV-s57I

3. Kneecap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXii2FYSb2k

2. Nickel Boys

(there is apparently not a single scene of this movie on Youtube)

1. Challengers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvjURzTbRXc(already used this scene in the best scenes of the year list, but I can't think of a better way to demonstrate the editing--big spoilers in this clip)

Honorable mention: Conclave

Plenty of riches to celebrate this year, in an off the beaten path sort of way. Thrilled by Carry-On and Trap's wildly oppositional approaches to tension, Carry-On never letting up for a second, moving faster with each second as giddily pushes yet another screw into the audience's eyes, where Trap elects to find tension in stillness and slowness, turning its glacial glaze at each element in turn and letting the audience put together for themselves how nervous they should be. Points to Kneecap's juggling of multiple characters and timelines without losing its coherence, even dropping into the occasional music video without breaking its own propulsive rhythm. Nickel Boys brings definition to a series of half-remembered dreams and longings, carving a careful narrative out of the time and space that exists between 'bigger moments,' but I've got to go with Challengers for the win here. An achievement in maximalism and all its benefits when done well: every moment cut to the beat of a heart attack, every split second of the film slashed to ribbons and re-stitched using its own newfound important as a suture.

Cinematography

5. The Brutalist

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Desaturated grays, brown, and greens that come alive in moments of (literal) sparks! People crawling like ants around the bases of their own monumental creations! Dappled light that belies what's going to happen underneath it!

4. I Saw the TV Glow

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The dull glow of TV status weaponized to cast the world in a nothing-light! The vaguely rotten hues of cheap 90s genre TV turned into nightmares! Fluorescent fuchsia fantasies as a brief reprieve from the herculean effort of being yourself!

3. Nosferatu

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Pallid monochrome compositions, as if the camera were rotting from the inside! An ethereal carriage ride through some sepia-toned shade of hell! Just the right amount of illumination to make Count Orlok's wrinkly sagging nethers glow in the pale moonlight!

2. Challengers

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Ever wondered what it would like to be a tennis ball during a match? Wonder no more! Ever wonder what that tennis match would like like from every possible angle while people sweat onto the lens? Stop wondering again! And then throw in a neon tornado for good measure!

1. All We Imagine as Light

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Like looking at your hands through a wedding veil! A world of perpetual twilight illuminated only by fireworks, party lights, and the grainy textures of unfulfilled desires! A gorgeous movie and a shocking dearth of images or gifs on the internet that fully convey its appeal!

Honorable mention: Nickel Boys

Original Score

5. Kill-the spaghetti western/Bollywood mashup of your dreams (or nightmares), ready to provide an aggressive backdrop to all the carnage and mayhem you could ever hope to unsee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-dgnKo_vUs

4. All We Imagine as Light-a modest collection of music boxes powered by perseverance and whimsy as the softly ticking heart of a giant city.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iygK_mfQiU8&list=PLCYk24R62hphHMbiRTlOaQ6BstEfxKP4G&index=4

3. Evil Does Not Exist-music that telegraphs nothing beyond its own existence and what a shame it is to be alive in the world right now. A dirge and a eulogy and a horror score to rival Bernard Hermann, all without even once having to raise its voice beyond a stifled shriek.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9lT6cQBfvI&list=PLBCYJDQ1g88ChP6jwOVu7NyQAlV2biZQL&index=7

2. The Brutalist-Soundwaves like screaming machinery that only intermittently give way to the pure anthemic joys of getting to create something when and how you want to create it. Troughs and crescendos that never quite even out--a score composed entirely of alls and nothings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKU3Cq5uY4o&list=PLRW80bBvVD3UhFmrLilDHcJ8PjjStGbhJ&index=3

1. Challengers-Ok, how many times have I mentioned this score throughout this year's posts? Surely not a surprise to anyone that Challengers' lurid dance beats, melodramatic backing chords, and occasional yeah yeah yeahs will forever hold the key to my heart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63k6AfvLsso&list=PLRW80bBvVD3V5exsDBVoe_3hFh7gP8SqK&index=14

Honorable mention: Nickel Boys

Sound Mixing

5. Blitz-the voice of an entire city being swallowed both from above and below, malevolent and stentorian angels shaking the ground and everything trying to hide inside it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1XLZl_VBmQ (the audio on this clip is terrible, which is a bummer, but it's the only clip I've got, so)

4. Challengers-I'm sure you're growing tired of reading Challengers superlatives, and I'm certainly running out of new ways to write them, so let's all just agree to love the way Challengers mixes the heightened and aggravated sounds of people who think there's nothing more important on earth than what they're doing right now, the bored sounds of the world around them, and the tempest of the score, all squished onto a tennis court.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffui1q5GTX0 (more spoilers in this clip)

3. Dune: Part Two-The soundscape of the desert, alien and uncomfortable in the first, become familiar and weaponized against the enemy in the second part, silence now more inviting than technology, the howl of the wind (or the worm) something to burrow inside and make your own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL2k3EkyNxY (spoilers in this clip)

2. Love Lies Bleeding-exactly what it sounds like to be lonely and heartsick in New Mexico, and also (I assume) exactly what it sounds like to have steroid-induced hallucinations in front of a crowd. Writhing, hideous work. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeiyI6pJXfU

1. The Substance-A sound mix intent on destabilizing the viewer's hold on reality as much as the characters'--peaks, valleys, music and sound effects fighting to occupy the empty open spaces in which the characters rattle around like ping pong balls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk3u4_IH0cY (not many clips on Youtube that really communicate what this movie's doing, sound-wise, but I'll do my best)

Honorable mention: Gladiator II

Sound Editing

5. Love Lies Bleeding-malevolent ambient noise, surprisingly chunky violence, and the nice meaty squelch of when your steroids make your body mutate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8kpuJ3YzGg

4. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire-look, I can here you from here, you're yelling "but you've nominated every movie with Godzilla in its name in this category since you started writing these awards in 2008! You just want to listen to giant monsters yell at each other!" And like yeah, that is obviously the case, but I dare you to watch the clip below and then tell me that its sound effects aren't worth celebrating more than Emilia goddamn Perez.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSNoJk5nt3c

3. The Wild Robot-robot mayhem, animal mayhem, natural disaster mayhem--all of my favorite mayhems are here (or most of them, anyway--furious bisexual mayhem isn't represented, Challengers is letting us down), and each is given a distinctive and memorable voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEyU218zToc

2. The Substance-the sounds of ordinary life (or, like, ordinary if you frequently do an at-home spinal tap on your clone) ramped up as high as they can go combined with the inhuman squeals of people losing their marbles to turn what is largely a movie about people sitting alone in their rooms into an unhinged cacophony. And on top of that you get probably the most fun any foley artists have had making splatter sounds in some time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9nfzMT05ck

1. Dune: Part Two-possibly at the top spot just for the guttural, synth-y worm sounds, but I can't downplay the chirpy missiles and explosions, the roars of the desert, and the final dual like it's being fought with and on top of shattered glass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL2k3EkyNxY (forgive me, but I'm going to be lazy and link to the same clip as I did for sound mixing--generally I don't have quite as much overlap between the categories, but here we are.)

Honorable mention: Furiosa

Original Song

5. "Winter Coat"-Blitz-in a fairly miserable for this category, I'll admit that I've had to grasp the nearest available straws. Not sure the extent this song is an earth-shattering example of songcraft, but the scene in the movie is lovely enough, so here comes straw number one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A07lXBSqLC8

4. "Forbidden Road"-Better Man-Straw number two comes in the form of this totally passable and nice ballad at the end of everyone's favorite singing ape biopic. At the very least, this song is a very nice way to dry your stupid tears in the theater before staggering back out into the real world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLCD4ktiZ9g

3. "Sick in the Head"-Kneecap-the first song on this list that isn't a straw to grasp (if, maybe a little straw adjacent). Always fun to see/hear Kneecap do their thing, and this little ditty about mental health is no exception.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDdnqCBPvFQ

2. "Claw Machine"-I Saw the TV Glow-thank god for I Saw the TV Glow coming along with its otherworldly song score to save us from ourselves and Emilia Perez. "Claw Machine" offers a needed down-tempo retreat, soft piano and lilting piano giving us all a chance to breathe before the movie plunges into something more stressful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLqJLw8tXH0

1. "Starburned and Unkissed"-I Saw the TV Glow-I'm sorry, did someone say 'retro alt-rock song about fitting in that falls suddenly into a huge synth chorus?" because that's what I heard and am now falling down several flights of stairs (out of joy, obviously). A special song in a special scene in a special movie--exactly what this category's meant for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmdKkUfpRew

Honorable mention: "Ain't in Kansas Anymore"-Twisters

And that's it for this year's lists! And thank goodness, because much as I enjoy doing them, seven of my fingers have fallen off, and it would be nice to take a minute to sew them back on. But I have enjoyed it, and, as always, I am thrilled and grateful that y'all have come along on this ridiculous journey with me. I'll be back next week with final Oscar predictions, but until then, I'm going to spend some quality time with my fingers and a sewing needle. 

For those playing along at home, these were the movies that showed up the most on my lists:

Challengers-7

Dune: Part Two-7

Wicked-5

All We Imagine as Light-4

Nickel Boys-4

Kneecap-4

As for wins, Challengers dominated, taking Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Film Editing, and Original Score, with only Dune: Part Two and The Substance able to take home more than one award (Visual Effects and Sound Editing and Makeup and Sound Mixing, respectively).

And that's it! As always, thanks much for reading!