With award season coming to an end, we look toward the penultimate night of nights in the film industry, and lay our bets for who will win, who will get snubbed, and who may surprise us.
Let’s break it down. This year the Academy will feature 24 categories, as follows:
Best Picture
Lead Actor
Lead Actress
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Director
Animated Feature
Animated Short
Adapted Screenplay
Original Screenplay
Cinematography
Best Documentary Feature
Best Documentary Short
Best Live Action Short
Best Foreign Language Film
Film Editing
Sound Editing
Sound Mixing
Production Design
Original Score
Original Song
Makeup & Hair
Costume Design
Visual Effects
If the previous awards of this season (Golden Globes, SAG Awards, and BAFTA’s) are anything to go by, some predictions have become a sure bet:
Animated Feature is going to Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse.
“Shallow” from A Star is Born will win Best Original Song.
Now that we have them out of the way, it’s time to breakdown the categories that could surprise us, what we think deserves the award, and what is most likely to win.
Starting with the biggest award, and the grand finale of the evening: Best Picture. Roma and The Favourite lead the pack this year with 10 nominations, however, it is very unlikely that The Favourite will win, and though Roma is in with a better shot, I don’t think it will come out on top. Bohemian Rhapsody is the favourite to win, and it truly does deserve it. My vote would also go toward A Star is Born, but with this year’s competition, it may not quite make it.
Lead Actor will be a head-to-head between Rami Malek and Christian Bale. In the end, it will probably go to Rami Malek, but we could be surprised. The award for Lead Actress is in the same position, with a struggle between Olivia Coleman and Glenn Close. If I had to lean one way, I would say Glenn Close will come out victorious.
In the supporting categories, though Mahershala Ali will most likely win, it would be good to see Richard E. Grant take home the award, purely on a democratic level. The Supporting Actress category this year has become easily overlooked, but could go to Regina King, in the end.
Since Roma is nominated for so many awards, it may not win Best Picture, but could very well clean up in many other categories. Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Cinematography and Best Foreign Language Film will most likely be dominated by the Netflix film.
As for design categories, this could very well be where The Favourite shines, potentially taking home the awards for Costume Design, and Production Design, though Vice will undoubtedly win for Hair & Makeup.
For now, all we can do is wait and see what happens when February 24th rolls around.
What are your predictions? Let us know in the comments below.
