By: Christopher James
Happy Oscar Morning! The Academy handed out their nominations, giving plenty to Oppenheimer (13 nominations), Poor Things (11 nominations), Killers of the Flower Moon (10 nominations) and many others. If you stuck with the same Best Picture nominees throughout the ballot, you likely did pretty all right. After sifting through all of the Oscar nominations, one turns their attention to their predictions. How many did I get right?
The Film Experience team published a chart of their predictions yesterday. Overall, the team did a strong job predicting the Oscar nominees, getting an average of 70% correct. So who wins the ultimate bragging rights? Also, what were the biggest surprises and snubs of the morning, based on The Film Experience team’s predictions?
Cláudio Alves (88/120 = 73%)
Nathaniel Rogers (87/120 = 73%)
Eurocheese (84/120 = 70%)
(TIED) Abe Friedtanzer and Chris James (83/120 = 69%)
Eric Blume (82/120 = 68%)
Ben Miller (81/120 = 68%)
Nick Taylor (74/105 = 70%)*
Baby Clyde (37/45 = 83%)**
Congratulations Cláudio Alves on an outstanding job predicting the Oscars this year. Cláudio was neck and neck with Nathaniel through the entire ballot, pulling ahead of Nathaniel only in the shorts categories.
When it came to the above-the-line categories, Nathaniel and Ben Miller tied with 38/45 nominations predicted correctly (84% success rate). Nathaniel and Cláudio then tied on the below-the-line categories with 44/60 predicted correctly (73% success rate). Cláudio may have pulled ahead of Nathaniel during the shorts portion, but Eurocheese was the victor of the shorts categories, correctly predicting 8/15 nominees (53%).
*Nick Taylor did not predict the Shorts categories
**Baby Clyde predicted the above the line categories only
Among the nine writers at The Film Experience, these movies and performances appeared on none of our predicted ballots:
Best Actress: Annette Bening - Nyad
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Zone of Interest
Best International Feature: Io Capitano
Best Cinematography: El Conde
Best Original Score: American Fiction
Best Production Design: Napoleon
Best Visual Effects: Napoleon
Best Documentary Short: Island in Between
Obviously, the biggest story is Annette Bening’s inclusion for Nyad over Margot Robbie for Barbie. This once again reinforces that we should never count out biopics in the acting categories.
The most consistent surprise was the inclusion of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon epic. Though some had predicted it in Costume Design, none of the writers predicted it in Production Design or Visual Effects.
One of the more interesting surprises is The Zone of Interest in Best Adapted Screenplay. Though the film did not factor into the craft categories as much as many of us predicted, this does further reinforce the support this film has across multiple large branches.
Every Film Experience writer had these movies as part of their predictions, only to have them snubbed come Oscar morning:
Best Actress: Margot Robbie - Barbie
It’s fitting the morning’s biggest surprise is the omission of Margot Robbie for Barbie. Her and Greta Gerwig’s snubs are likely the biggest headlines of Oscar morning. Still, Barbie was able to earn eight nominations, including Best Picture and two acting nominations, so it is still very much in the Oscar race.
These writers should buy a lottery ticket. They went out on a limb and were the sole people to predict these nominees:
Nick Taylor was the only writer to predict Robot Dreams in Best Animated Feature
Nathaniel Rogers was the only writer to predict Bobi Wine: The People's President in Best Documentary Feature
Ben Miller was the only writer to predict The Creator in Best Sound
Nathaniel Rogers was the only writer to predict Our Uniform in Best Animated Short
Eurocheese was the only writer to predict Red, White and Blue in Best Live Action Short
Nathaniel Rogers was the only writer to predict Knight of Fortune in Best Live Action Short
Oscars coverage will continue at The Film Experience. Check back for more details and analysis. The Oscars will air on Sunday, March 10th at 5:00 p.m. PST / 8:00 p.m. EST.
Who do you think will win at the Oscars? Let us know in the comments below.