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This year, the Oscars slowly got closer to normal. Festivals happened at their regularly scheduled times, the precursors did their precursory things — give or take one Golden Globes telecast — and a few Best Picture contenders were even released into actual movie theaters!
But much is still in disarray. Not just the ceremony, which is in the middle of one of its perennial self-inflicted controversies, but also the races themselves. Many categories, including Best Picture, seem like genuine fifty-fifty calls. (Best Actress might be 20-20-20-20-20.) I’m coming off a good score on my 2021 predictions, but my confidence that I’ll be able to repeat the feat is pretty low. Nevertheless, here are my final predictions in every category. You’ll be pleased I decided not to imitate the Academy and spoil a third of the winners on Twitter ahead of time.
Best Picture
Belfast
CODA
Don’t Look Up
Drive My Car
Dune
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
For much of the season, Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog stood tall as other contenders faltered. Belfast was too small, West Side Story a flop, Don’t Look Up too polarizing. Then CODA, which barely made a splash when it hit AppleTV+ in August, began its late surge. Sian Heder’s film took Best Cast honors at SAG then scored an even more impressive victory at the PGA Awards, which use a similar preferential ballot as the Oscars. But Dog can boast of its own victories at DGA and BAFTA. Now we’re in for a classic arthouse-versus-mainstream showdown (with the very 2022 twist that both films come from streaming services). Is CODA our Little Miss Sunshine, the heartwarming Sundance dramedy that nearly pulls off an underdog victory only to lose to an A-list director finally getting their due? Or is it our Green Book, the accessible, unflashy contender that beats out an austere auteur project bankrolled by Netflix’s riches?
The stats suggest CODA should take it since in recent years the PGA’s pick has overlapped with the Oscars more than BAFTA or the DGA. But could a film with only three nominations really win Best Picture? I’m more open to that argument than I was a few weeks ago. Just as Moonlight surely benefitted from an end-of-season momentum boost, it’s plausible that CODA only really took off after nomination voting had ended.
When trying to outline reasons why Dog would still pull through — the Academy is more international than the precursors, more attuned to prestige — I realized who I sounded like: me from three years ago, when I hope-dicted that Roma would win Best Picture. In a race this close, it helps to look at the Zeitgeist, and I predict that, in this dark and dispiriting moment, voters will gravitate toward the fuzzy blanket of CODA. Maybe it’s not Little Miss Sunshine or Green Book but The Shape of Water: a comforting compromise pick whose warm humanism unites all factions.
Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car
Steven Spielberg, West Side Story
The whole Internet loves Jane Campion, the Kiwi auteur whose cheeky remarks about American celebrities always go vira– oh, no. Nevertheless, I don’t think a few days of bad press are enough to derail a campaign that’s been rolling along since Telluride. Campion has not been meaningfully challenged this season, and she should finally win the Best Director trophy that eluded her for The Piano, whether her subversive western winds up winning the big prize or not.
Best Actor
Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
Andrew Garfield, Tick, Tick … Boom!
Will Smith, King Richard
Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth
Like Campion, Smith was pegged as the early Best Actor front-runner and never relinquished the title. He delivers a towering movie-star performance in a role that allows him to show off some rougher edges than the saintly figures he played in failed bids like Collateral Beauty. (The film still suggests his Richard Williams was basically right about everything, but that’s par for the course as far as Oscar vehicles go.) Plus, after two previous nominations, it might just be Smith’s time. There was a sense mid-season that his overexposure might let Cumberbatch or Garfield steal it, but Smith’s barnstorming speeches at the precursors have put that thought out of mind. The Brits will have to wait their turn.
Best Actress
Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
Kristen Stewart, Spencer
This is the second year in a row where we’ve got an Actress race it feels like truly anyone could win. Chastain, a SAG and Critics Choice winner, looks to be leading by a nose eyelash, which puts her on the brink of a miracle: winning an Oscar for a performance that neither critics nor the general public seem that jazzed about. How did she do it? The transformation always helps, but Kidman and Stewart did those for their own biopics, too. I think it’s best to chalk this up to, let’s say … extratextual reasons. Taking a page from Vaclav Havel’s book, Chastain has simply been conducting herself as if she already was the front-runner, and in doing so, became it.
Best Supporting Actor
Ciarán Hinds, Belfast
Troy Kotsur, CODA
Jesse Plemons, The Power of the Dog
J.K. Simmons, Being the Ricardos
Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog
For much of the season, this category appeared to belong to Smit-McPhee, whose enigmatic performance takes center stage in Dog’s final act. But he’s been usurped by Kotsur, whose fisherman father embodies CODA’s earthy heart and who gets his own moments to assume his movie’s POV. The second Deaf actor ever to be nominated for an Oscar, Kotsur has become the unofficial face of the film’s campaign. If CODA does bring home Best Picture, the former bit player seizing his moment will be a big reason why.
Best Supporting Actress
Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter
Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Judi Dench, Belfast
Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog
Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard
Spielberg’s West Side Story won’t match the Oscar success of its predecessor, which won 10 of the 11 categories it was nominated for, including Best Picture. But one place it should repeat is in Supporting Actress, where triple-threat Ariana DeBose has been storming through the precursors. Nailing her film’s standout musical number and also its trickiest emotional turns, DeBose will join Rita Moreno’s in the winner’s circle … thus catapulting the part of Rita into Oscars history alongside Vito Corleone and the Joker as the only characters to earn acting trophies for two different performers.
Best Adapted Screenplay
CODA
Drive My Car
Dune
The Lost Daughter
The Power of the Dog
The road to Best Picture runs through Director or Screenplay, so this category should be an early look at which way voters are leaning. Simply put: If Dog notches the win here, it’s nearly guaranteed to also triumph in the big race. If CODA does, it promptly becomes the new favorite. And if we get a shocker like The Lost Daughter, then we’re probably back to Dog again in Picture, but the door will have opened for something truly wild to happen at the end of the night. (Best Picture Belfast, anyone?) My Best Picture choice compels me to pick CODA, which won the equivalent prizes from BAFTA and the WGA — the former over Dog, the latter on a night where Campion was ineligible
Best Original Screenplay
Belfast
Don’t Look Up
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
The Worst Person in the World
Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar chances may have dwindled since Belfast won over festival crowds in early September, but they haven’t gone away, you know. Belfast is the most dialogue-driven of the Best Picture nominees, wringing every ounce of charm out of that Northern Irish banter, so this is the most likely place for it to nab a trophy — though to do so it’ll have to win a three-way race against BAFTA winner Licorice Pizza and WGA winner Don’t Look Up. Since Branagh’s script was ineligible at the latter, we’ll never know how it might have performed, but the inability of the others to pull off the brace means I’ll stick with the wee blond fella.
Best International Feature
Drive My Car, Japan
Flee, Denmark
The Hand of God, Italy
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, Bhutan
The Worst Person in the World, Norway
It’s funny — if you were polling reporters on the plane home from Cannes on which Competition title would eventually receive Picture, Director, Screenplay, and International Feature nominations, Drive My Car probably would have placed behind Titane, A Hero, and Worst Person in the World. (Which, to be fair, did get its own Original Screenplay nom.) Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s film was not the flashy Corvette that wows you in the shop window. Instead, this three-hour meditation on grief was akin to its hero’s dependable Saab, rewarding viewers’ focus and commitment. Getting it four nominations was the major victory for the Academy’s cinephile wing; an International Feature trophy is just the victory lap.
Best Documentary Feature
Ascension
Attica
Flee
Summer of Soul (… or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Writing With Fire
The real world is depressing enough, and the world of Oscar-nominated documentaries is perhaps even more so. So when a film offers a heaping spoonful of joy, as Summer of Soul does, voters lap it up gladly. But this isn’t another Octopus Teacher situation. Like 2013 winner 20 Feet From Stardom, Questlove’s doc is also a vital corrective to the historical record: These concerts existed, and they mattered.
Best Animated Feature
Encanto
Flee
Luca
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Raya and the Last Dragon
Ever since Into the Spider-Verse beat Incredibles 2, critics have held out hope that their favorite Davids will be able to triumph against the Goliaths of Disney and Pixar. History hasn’t repeated; our past two winners were Toy Story 4 and Soul. That’s bad news for the dazzling, inventive Mitchells vs. the Machines and the triple-nominated Flee, both of which will probably be crushed under the wheels of the Encanto juggernaut.
Best Film Editing
Don’t Look Up
Dune
King Richard
The Power of the Dog
Tick, Tick … Boom!
King Richard was a surprise winner of the ACE Eddie Award for drama, while comedy winner Tick, Tick… Boom! juggles its multiple timelines with aplomb. However, since this category usually walks hand in hand with Sound and has a tradition of going to the most action-packed Best Picture nominee, we’ve got two good reasons to award it to Dune.
Best Original Song
“Be Alive,” King Richard
“Dos Oruguitas,” Encanto
“Down to Joy,” Belfast
“No Time to Die,” No Time to Die
“Somehow You Do,” Four Good Days
How are you going to explain to your children why “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” wasn’t nominated? Sit them down and gently break the news that studios had to decide their Oscars submissions by November 1, months before “Bruno” became a pop-culture sensation. So even though they loved that song very much, ultimately Disney decided to go with the safer choice, the ballad that soundtracks Encanto’s moment of intergenerational catharsis. While the James Bond franchise is on a hot streak in this category, an Encanto song is not losing in the year of our Lin 2022. Pop the EGOT button: “Dos Oruguitas” it is.
Best Original Score
Don’t Look Up
Dune
Encanto
Parallel Mothers
The Power of the Dog
Another Dune-Dog face-off. While Jonny Greenwood’s horror-inflected arpeggios add to the unbearable tension on that ranch, the epic scope of Hans Zimmer’s Dune score should carry the day. When was the last time you heard bagpipes and Tuvan throat singing on the same soundtrack?
Best Cinematography
Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story
Whether or not it wins Picture, there’s no way our nomination leader The Power of the Dog is walking away with zero craft trophies, right? That has me taking a risk on Dog’s Ari Wegner, whose wide-screen vistas are crucial in turning the film’s New Zealand locations into an evocative vision of the West. It would also be a history-making win: Wegner would be the first woman to ever take home the Cinematography trophy. If you want to play it safe in your pool, though, go with Dune, whose imperial domination of the craft categories is expected to continue here.
Best Costume Design
Cruella
Cyrano
Dune
Nightmare Alley
West Side Story
If your movie is about fashion, you have a leg up in this category. Cruella, the story of an orphan in 1970s London inventing flash mobs, is not quite the second coming of Phantom Thread, but outfits like the garbage dress aren’t just eye-catching looks, they also play a pivotal role in the plot. Amid this by-numbers origin story, the boldness of Jenny Beavan’s ensembles stands out even more.
Best Makeup & Hairstyling
Coming 2 America
Cruella
Dune
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
House of Gucci
These days, the Suicide Squad Memorial Oscar regularly goes to the makeup artists who make a recognizable face unrecognizable, turning biopic stars into famous people they look nothing like. Gucci and Tammy Faye both tried it, and since Tammy Faye got an acting nomination while Gucci didn’t, I suspect the Academy thinks one transformation was more successful than the other. Tammy Faye also gets a bonus from the Cruella factor — this is a movie that is at least 10 percent about makeup.
Best Production Design
Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story
If voters want to ensure that every Best Picture nominee goes home with a trophy, this could be the place to reward Nightmare Alley, whose gleaming recreations of Dust Bowl carnivals and high-society Buffalo are impossible to overlook. (Whether that works to the film’s benefit is another story.) But I’m going with Dune for creating a futuristic world that feels wholly its own thing — grounded in reality but with a dose of the unexpected.
Best Sound
Belfast
Dune
No Time to Die
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
From the majestic roar of the sandworm to the otherworldly chanting of the Sardaukar priest to the whirring hummingbird death dart, no other movie last year sounded like Dune.
Best Visual Effects
Dune
Free Guy
No Time to Die
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Academy voters don’t turn up their noses at nominating studio tentpoles in this category, but on the final ballot, they still prefer to vote for a Best Picture player if possible. Thus, Dune. Anyone can make a giant sand monster look like a vagina; only the most Oscar-worthy effects artists can make one look like an anus.
Best Live-Action Short
Ala Kachuu — Take and Run
The Dress
The Long Goodbye
On My Mind
Please Hold
Shorts are always tricky to predict, and this race in particular could go a few different ways. The Long Goodbye, produced by and starring Riz Ahmed, has the benefit of a familiar face. The Dress, about a Polish maid with dwarfism, has the short-story-style ending the Academy tends to appreciate. But nothing in the Shorts categories gets Oscar voters excited like punchy takes on pressing social issues, so I’ll go with Please Hold, which plays like a Black Mirror episode about mass incarceration in a way that’s reminiscent of last year’s winner, Two Distant Strangers.
Best Animated Short
Affairs of the Art
Bestia
Boxballet
Robin Robin
The Windshield Wiper
I already thought Robin Robin, an Aardman Christmas special about a bird that’s raised as a mouse, was too adorable for words. Then the animals started singing! Cuteness can carry the day in this category, especially in a year when all the other nominees lean more adult. (Which is to say that one of them has a girl-on-top sex scene with cartoon nudity, while another features graphic bestiality.)
Best Documentary Short
Audible
Lead Me Home
The Queen of Basketball
Three Songs for Benazir
When We Were Bullies
A trick to figuring out Documentary Short: Whichever nominee you can most easily imagine as an NPR human-interest feature usually wins it. That leads me toward Audible, a glossy Netflix doc about a Deaf high-school football team, which features plenty of action, inclusive themes, and characters who pop in their short time onscreen.
More on the 2022 Oscars
- A Timeline of Will and Jada’s ‘Bad Marriage for Life’
- Cheese: An Annotated History of the Oscar Class Photo
- Baz Luhrmann Is the Stanley Kubrick of Confetti
