Team Experience Predictions: FINAL RESULTS!

by Cláudio Alves

Looking back, it's notable that, of the four acting winners, Michael B. Jordan was the only one some predicted would be snubbed of a nomination altogether. Eric and Nathaniel had him out of their final five in our first round of predictions. Look at him now!

The Oscars are over, and the next week of posts here, at The Film Experience, shall be dedicated to saying goodbye to the season that was before looking forward to the cinematic year that’s still just starting. One of the first matters to resolve is that of the team's predictions. Every year, we compete to see who’s most accurate out of the lot, both at the nominations and winners’ stages. Last year, Eric was the most accurate pundit at guessing the nominations, but Lynn Lee beat him in predicting the right victors. This year, Baby Clyde was the best of us all at sussing out who AMPAS would nominate. However, wins-wise, a new champion has been crowned. Or maybe two. Let me explain…

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98th Academy Awards: FINAL PREDICTIONS!

by Cláudio Alves

Ryan Coogler's SINNERS is the most Oscar-nominated film ever! But will it win the most awards at the 98th Academy Awards? ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is tough competition.

The 98th Academy Awards are almost upon us, so, on this last day before the festivities, let’s put our pundit hats on and try to suss out whom AMPAS has picked. Nine Team Experience writers, including Nathaniel(!), have provided their best guesses, evidencing some interesting trends, some even more interesting conflicts. One of the big questions is who’ll reign supreme between the two Warner Bros. Best Picture frontrunners. Will it be the all-time nomination leader or the critical darling whose director has been due for ages already? Nat is betting on Sinners getting the biggest haul of the night, including Best Picture, while others, like Eric Blum and Juan Carlos Ojano, don’t even think the vampire flick will beat Frankenstein in sheer number of victories. Presently, I’m the only one predicting Sinners getting the most wins with One Battle After Another still taking Picture. Only time will tell who’s rightest among us. 

Without further ado, please venture, after the jump, to see the full prediction charts, plus some added commentary from the team…

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Oscar Volley: Is "Best Actress" tied up with a bow for Jessie Buckley?

The Oscar Volleys continue. Today, LYNN LEE and NICK TAYLOR discuss the surprisingly stable Oscar race for Best Actress.

Jessie Buckley in HAMNET | © Focus Features

LYNN: At the risk of stating the obvious, Nick, Best Actress has been the most predictable stable of the four acting races by far. Is there a world in which Jessie Buckley doesn’t take this? And are we basically fine with that?

NICK: I mean, where else is there to start? Buckley’s the surest winner of the acting categories, and among a handful of artists (PTA, Ludwig Göransson) who have to know they’re winning the Oscar. I’m not complaining. Buckley’s been delivering ambitious, awards-worthy turns since she debuted with Beast in 2017, and her turn as Agnes is such an ideal use of her screen persona. The practical intelligence, the precise-yet-walloping emotions, the way her characters are so irreducibly themselves that their odd edges and peculiar beliefs doom them to black sheep status even when things are looking their way. She’s incredible, and just because the grieving mother is an easy type for awards groups to notice shouldn’t diminish how powerful her work is in Hamnet...

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Oscar Volley: Will “Best Cinematography” make history?

The Oscar Volleys continue. Today, ERIC BLUME and CLÁUDIO ALVES discuss the potentially historic race for Best Cinematography.

With SINNERS, Autumn Durald Arkapaw might become the first woman to win the Best Cinematography Oscar. | © Warner Bros.

ERIC: Hi Cláudio, I'm the lucky man who gets to talk to you about one of Oscar's most exciting categories, Best Cinematography.  Except, for me, it is not a very exciting category this year.  Usually, this branch has at least one or two truly inspired nominations that feel exclusive to their expertise.  This year, much like the Production Design category I just discussed with Ben, I feel like we broke more into the "default" films that popped up in every category. 

What's your initial impression of the five nominees:  Frankenstein, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sinners, and Train Dreams?

CLÁUDIO: My initial reaction is that the cinematographers branch should collectively see an optometrist, while the Academy at large needs to watch more movies than the twelve or so titles left contending for a Best Picture nod at the end of December. Alas, that is not the world we live in…

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Oscar Volley: "Best Supporting Actress" is a fun, fantastically chaotic Free-For-All!

The Oscar Volleys continue. NICK TAYLOR and ERIC BLUME discuss the ever volatile race for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

Amy Madigan in WEAPONS | © Warner Bros.

NICK:  Hello Eric! I’m writing you the day after the Actor Awards announced their winners. Amy Madigan took their Supporting Actress prize for her pristine turn in Weapons, while Wunmi Mosaku can add Sinners’ Best Ensemble award to her shelf. It’s a three-way race between them and Teyana Taylor’s commanding turn in One Battle After Another, and I for one couldn’t be happier. Hell, Inga Ibsdottir Lilleass and Elle Fanning are better also-rans than most of the past decade’s undisputed champions.

After several years in a row of middling lineups, this is the best Supporting Actress field since 2020, maybe even 2016. There aren’t even any leads (or categorically ambiguous) to dampen our fun. In a year with plenty of outside contenders and tantalizing non-starters, all five women earned their nominations fair and square, without feeling preordained. I’m still debating if Taylor or Madigan will go all the way, and while I ponder the fate of all things, let me ask you: How do you feel about this category, Eric? Where do you think the winds are blowing?

ERIC:  Nick, I agree wholeheartedly that this is the best field we've had in many years, not a lame performance in the bunch!  Which is why I'm personally a bit dismayed that the two performances I feel are the strongest (Sentimental Value's Inga and Elle) are the two that seem out of the running for a win...

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