We predict EMILIA PÉREZ is about to make Oscar history.
With the Oscar nominations mere hours away, it's time to present the Team Experience's final predictions. Like last time, you get each writer's individual guesses, followed by an aggregate collective prediction. Tallying everything up, the Team Experience believes Emilia Pérez will be the nomination leader with eleven mentions, which would make it the most nominated non-English-language film of all time. The musical is closely followed by The Brutalist and Conclave, which have nine each. We also see Wicked scoring eight categories, while Dune: Part Two settles for seven. In the 2023/4 season, we averaged 70% correct predictions, with Nathaniel and I leading the pack with 73% accuracy. Time will tell what pundit claims victory this year…
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This is the same group of ten we predicted pre-Globes, but there's been a lot of moving around within those predictions. Emilia Pérez, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, and The Substance all rose, while all others fell a spot or two, or four in Anora's case. Such movements result from the Globes shaking the race up with some stirring speeches and a bunch of notorious omissions. There are also the guilds to contend with, skewing the season's overall narrative away from Sean Baker's Palme d'Or winner and toward other titles. It's worth noting that this is the PGA lineup with Sing Sing swapped in to replace September 5.
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In Best Director, the Nickel Boys' poor guild performance knocked RaMell Ross off the predicted five. In contrast, The Substance's consistent popularity brought Coralie Fargeat to the forefront, even though she missed DGA. Curiously, after Sean Baker topped the pre-Globes chart, Corbet and Audiard jumped ahead for this final round. Will the Oscar race come down to those two?
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Best Actress is one of the most volatile categories, with four apparently safe contenders and a single slot fought over by a plethora of potential nominees. Between the nine TFE writers, it seems Cynthia Erivo is the most vulnerable of the frontrunner quartet, a potential victim to the Academy's ranked preferential ballots. Will she get enough #1 votes to secure her spot? Conversely, will the real passion behind such campaigns as Torres and Jean-Baptiste's materialize a nod? Statistically, the Brazillian star of I'm Still Here is likelier to get in, as only two Best Actress – Drama Golden Globe winners have ever missed the Oscar nomination. They were Shirley MacLaine in 1988 for Madame Sousatzka and Kate Winslet in 2008 for Revolutionary Road. Then again, MacLaine won in a three-way tie, and Winslet was Oscar-nominated for The Reader that same season. If Torres misses, it'll be unprecedented.
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Best Actor is much less exciting – business as usual if you ask me – with only the last spot being up for grabs. And even then, it seems like a two-way race between Daniel Craig in Queer and Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice. The former suffers from his film being generally ignored this season, only ever scoring nods for him. The latter may split votes with himself for A Different Man. And yet, I wonder if Jesse Eisenberg might surprise us all. I'm not brave enough to predict such an upset, however.
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Who knows what'll happen in Best Supporting Actress? Somehow, this race is even more chaotic than its leading counterpart, with only Saldaña and Grande feeling 100% locked. Anything could happen with the three remaining slots, though we're collectively predicting Monica Barbaro with a nepo baby duo in tow.
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The only Best Supporting Actor contenders predicted by everyone are Kieran Culkin and Edward Norton. Yura Borisov and Guy Pearce are next in line in terms of likelihood, but Nathaniel and I have doubts about each man, respectively. If Denzel Washington is nominated, as three pundits are predicting, it'll be the first time he scores at the Oscars without a matching SAG nod.
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A Real Pain and Anora are Original Screenplay locks. Anything goes with those three other slots, with most writers predicting Hard Truths, though The Brutalist scores higher in our point system. The group is generally skeptical about September 5, but a few pundits still feel it'll make a splash with AMPAS.
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In Adapted Screenplay, only Conclave and Sing Sing score mentions from all writers. Emilia Pérez got close, if not for Eurocheese's hunch that it'll get snubbed. Speaking of idiosyncratic hunches, Nathaniel and Nick remain convinced that The Room Next Door will get some Academy love. One thing's for sure – you should never bet against Sony Pictures Classics, who know how to campaign like few others in Tinsel Town.
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This category often feels like a collection of Best Picture frontrunners with the occasional action movie thrown in. I guess Dune: Part Two fits the bill, being action-adjacent. I'm still convinced September 5 makes it here, if nowhere else, even though I'm not especially fond of its cutting.
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Could Nickel Boys' first-person lensing score it a Best Cinematography nomination? Like its directors' counterpart, the cinematographers' branch is known to have a taste for adventure and slightly more arthouse-inclined titles. Yet, will that benefit Nickel Boys or something like The Girl with the Needle? It feels odd that no one predicted A Complete Unknown since Phedon Papamichael is a beloved nominee from past years – not beloved by me, mind you.
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Wicked is a lock and the frontrunner, according to everyone but Eric Blume. Everyone is also in agreement that Dune and The Brutalist are likely Best Production Design nominees. Then, it's a three-way tussle over the remaining two slots, with Conclave and Nosferatu pulling ahead. Then again, last year, the branch nominated Napoleon after everyone had decided it was done as far as awards were concerned. Could history repeat itself with Ridley Scott's newest historical epic?
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Best Costume Design is trickier, still, with Wicked an absolute lock followed by a bunch of vulnerable contenders. The quintet in the collective predictions are all former nominees, with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice's Colleen Atwood and Gladiator II's Janty Yates being previous winners. Curiously, Yates won the Oscar for the first Gladiator. In the annals of the Academy's history, only once has a Costume Design winner been nominated for their work in the picture's direct sequel. It was Ruth E. Carter for the Black Panther movies. Moreover, she won, a feat I don't think Yates is at risk of repeating.
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Is it odd that no one predicted Dune? In any case, only The Substance feels locked for this notoriously unpredictable race. It's also our frontrunner, managing to transcend AMPAS' anti-horror bias on its way to gold. At least, that's what Team Experience is predicting at the moment.
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I shudder at the thought of Mufasa: The Lion King becoming an Oscar nominee, as Eric and Abe have predicted. Then again, the first "live-action" Lion King got this nomination, ultimately losing to 1917 in a surprise upset that, in retrospect, shouldn't have been as surprising as all that.
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To me, the Best Original Score race feels a tad volatile, but you wouldn't guess it based on these results. Everyone has precited The Brutalist, Conclave, Challengers, and The Wild Robot, but only Abe, Ben, and Nathaniel doubt Emilia Pérez will make it. I wonder if one of the other shortlisted scores could pose a threat, something none of us is predicting.
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Nick is the resident Diane Warren non-believer since everyone else has grown resigned over her permanent spot in the Best Original Song race. Still, Emilia Pérez remains the frontrunner, with "El Mal" edging ahead of "Mi Camino" after its Golden Globe victory. It helps that it might be the film's only memorable song. At least, I can remember its basic melody, which isn't true of any of its other tunes.
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I really want to believe that Blitz can get a Best Sound nomination, as it is the best of the shortlisted achievements. Fingers crossed that Eric and Chris are right for predicting it, even though I believe Gladiator II will score the nod instead. Will Emilia Pérez become the first AI-assisted musical to get a nomination here? Heaven knows the sound branch loves music-centered narratives.
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Best Animated Feature is the only race where everyone predicted the same five. That alone makes me want to change my prediction, and go back to my pre-Globes guess that Moana 2's massive box office pulls it ahead of Adam Elliot's Memoir of a Snail.
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Beyond Sugarcane and No Other Land, nobody's safe in the Best Documentary feature race. Indeed, even those two might be more vulnerable than expected, as this branch is known to surprise pundits. I only hope the Palestinian documentary doesn't become the year's big snub. In other news, if these five make it, the lineup will be dominated by anti-colonialist sentiment, with only Daughters differing in theme.
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In Best International Feature, France's Emilia Pérez, Brazil's I'm Still Here, and Germany's The Seed of the Sacred Fig are locked and loaded. From there, it's a tricky category where anything can happen. Even so, I'm surprised I was the only one to predict Flow. I get that double-dipping in these specialty feature categories is rare, but the cat flick seems poised to do it.
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There's not much to say about the shorts' categories, where even the best pundits struggle to succeed. Indeed, some of the team members chose to sit these ones out. It would be funny if AMPAs managed to nominate some of the only four shortlisted titles we all kept out of our Animated Short predictions.
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Best Documentary Short, at least, has one movie everybody agrees will show up. Once Upon a Time in Ukraine is as close as it gets to a lock and, even then, nobody would be too shocked if AMPAS ignored it altogether.
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Finally, Anuja and The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent seem poised for Best Live-Action Short nominations, in part because they've been campaigning well. The former certainly fills this category's storied predilection for tales of suffering children. Looking back, I probably should have placed it higher on my predictions.
What about you, dear reader? Please share your predictions in the comments.