Oscars Predictions 2024

It’s nearly time for the 96th annual Academy Awards, which means it’s time for us to place our predictions for who is going to win what. Will Oppenheimer blow away the competition? Has Barbie done Kenough to win over some Academy voters? Or will they be furiously jumping on Poor Things? Let’s have a look at all 23 categories and find out.

For each category I will list the nominees and put an asterisk next to the ones I have seen, before setting out my prediction and the reasons for it.

Best Picture

• The Holdovers*
• American Fiction*
• The Zone of Interest*
• Barbie*
• Oppenheimer*
• Poor Things*
• Past Lives
• Anatomy of a Fall*
• Maestro
• Killers of the Flower Moon*

Prediction: Poor Things

There is a very, very good chance that this will go to Oppenheimer. The biopic of the father of the atomic bomb has swept up most of the big awards in the run-up to the Oscars, including the top prizes at the BAFTAs, the Critics Choice Awards and the Golden Globes (for Best Drama). But in recent years, the Oscars have occasionally bucked the trend and allowed a less obvious, but far more interesting winner to pip the frontrunner to the post. So for example, in 2020 big blockbusters by Tarantino, Scorsese and Sam Mendes were beaten by a quirky Korean black comedy about a poor family living in someone else’s basement, and in 2022 Steven Spielberg’s remake of one of the greatest musicals ever written was beaten by an indie film that almost nobody saw because it was released on Apple TV+. Oppenheimer was incredibly well made and would be a worthy winner, but it was also longer than it needed to be and a lot of its success was down to people feeling peer-pressured by The Internet to watch it in a double-bill with Barbie. I’m a big fan of supporting the underdog, so I would like to think that the Academy might surprise everyone and vote for something else.

But which of the many other excellent nominees will they go for? Barbie would be great but seems unlikely – it is rare for a film without a Best Director nomination to win Best Film, and if Barbie wins everyone will assume it was a pity vote specifically because it was snubbed for Best Director. The Holdovers or American Fiction would be lovely surprises but neither of them feels like it has made enough of an impact on cinema audiences (the test for this being: will my non-regular-cinema-going work friends have heard of it?). The Zone of Interest has had a lot of good word-of-mouth but feels way too bleak to win enough votes.

My guess is that Poor Things has the strongest chance. It is so much more fun to watch than Oppenheimer but still beautifully crafted – simultaneously both thematically mature and humorously juvenile. Yorgos Lanthimos has the near-requisite Best Director nomination, and has good form with the Academy having had several nominations for The Favourite and The Lobster (Poor Things has only two fewer nominations in total than Oppenheimer). Poor Things was a huge hit with critics and more commercially successful than the likes of Anatomy of a Fall, Past Lives or Zone of Interest. Its R/18 rating was probably the main reason it didn’t do as well as some of the other big contenders but I don’t think that necessarily hurts its chances. And while Oppenheimer won the Golden Globe for Best Drama, Poor Things won the equally prestigious Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy. I can see the Academy going for this, and it would personally be my preferred option too.

But yes, realistically it is probably going to be Oppenheimer.

Best Actress

• Emma Stone (Poor Things)*
• Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon)*
• Annette Bening (Nyad)
• Carey Mulligan (Maestro)
• Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall)*

Prediction: Emma Stone (Poor Things)

My second prediction for Poor Things feels like a bit more of a shoo-in. Emma Stone was fantastic and fearless as Bella Baxter – a woman with a literal child’s mind exploring her mind, body and world. It’s an incredible, committed performance that she clearly had a great time with, and it’s already won her several major Leading Actress awards (including the BAFTA and the musical/comedy Golden Globe). Her biggest competition is Lily Gladstone (who won the Screen Actors Guild award and drama Golden Globe) or potentially Sandra Hüller (who has received a huge amount of praise this year for her performances in both Anatomy of a Fall and Zone of Interest). Gladstone would be a worthy winner too, but Stone seems to be the clear favourite.

Best Actor

• Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers)*
• Bradley Cooper (Maestro)
• Colman Domingo (Rustin)
• Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer)*
• Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction)*

Prediction: Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer)

Although I’m rooting for Poor Things for the big prize, I do think Oppenheimer will do very well this year and this is the first of many times I’ll be coming back to it in this article. I’ve been a fan of Cillian Murphy for a while – he is one of those actors who usually has a minor role in a big film or a major one in a small one, so it’s good that he’s getting so much recognition given the opportunity for a lead part in a major blockbuster. This also feels like the culmination of a long career with Christopher Nolan, having popped up to a greater or lesser extent in all three Nolan Batmans, Inception and Dunkirk. His performance as Oppenheimer is understated but effective, and has won him all the major awards (BAFTA, drama Globe, SAG award). I would not be at all upset if this went to Paul Giamatti or Jeffrey Wright, who both gave performances that probably stuck with me more than Cillian Murphy’s did (Giamatti won the musical/comedy Globe and the Critics Choice award, so is probably Murphy’s biggest competition here) but Murphy is the clear favourite and I think this is his to lose.

Best Supporting Actress

• America Ferrera (Barbie)*
• Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple)*
• Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers)*
• Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer)*
• Jodie Foster (Nyad)

Prediction: Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers)

The Holdovers was a joyous discovery this winter – an original, heartwarming, funny and Christmassy holiday film that I had heard almost nothing about before I saw it. Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s performance as a grieving school cook transformed what could have been a background role into the emotional core of the movie. She is the clear frontrunner going into this ceremony with a slew of awards already, and I would be very surprised if the Academy votes any differently. Although I have to say that Danielle Brooks heartily deserves the award too – her fearlessly feisty character was the highlight of The Color Purple and if for whatever reason this doesn’t go to Randolph, I would hope Brooks will pick it up instead.

Best Supporting Actor

• Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things)*
• Robert De Niro (Killers of the Flower Moon)*
• Robert Downey Jr (Oppenheimer)*
• Sterling K. Brown (American Fiction)*
• Ryan Gosling (Barbie)*

Prediction: Robert Downey Jr. (Oppenheimer)

In an alternative universe in which Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig were nominated for Barbie, I would be writing here that Ryan Gosling is my prediction for Supporting Actor. His performance in Barbie was fantastic – hugely committed and entertaining, but with enough cracks in the veneer (or should that be plastic?) to show that there was some deep insecurity behind the blinding white teeth. In a way the film was as much about his arc as it was Barbie’s, despite the main thrust being the importance of recognising the value of women in a male-dominated world. Unfortunately, that very message is exactly why Gosling can’t win this award. The backlash that would come from Ken getting a statuette when Barbie (and her female director) weren’t even nominated would be insane, especially given that the Academy is already criticised regularly for failing to recognise female talent. It’s not that he doesn’t deserve it, I just don’t think the Academy can vote for him without it looking like they didn’t actually understand the film he’d be winning it for.

Of the others, Downey Jr is the standout favourite. He has already won a load of awards for playing Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer – the closest thing the film has to a baddie (apart from the looming threat of nuclear armageddon). He is at turns charming and jealous, desperate to protect his political career and smear Oppenheimer’s reputation after a humiliating public slight. His involvement in the hearings that followed the detonation of the bomb was the most compelling part of the film’s final act and helped make sure that the audience’s interest didn’t lapse after the explosion they’d probably bought the cinema ticket to see. The other nominees are great too, but Ruffalo was too cartoonish for the Oscar, Brown didn’t get a lot of screen time, and De Niro had the kind of role that he can do in his sleep. Again, I fully expect the Academy to vote for the frontrunner here.

Best Director

• Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall)*
• Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon)*
• Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things)*
• Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer)*
• Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest)*

Prediction: Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer)

Regardless of whether Oppenheimer gets the top prize, I expect this will be Christopher Nolan’s year to get Best Director. Every film he’s released in the last 20 years has been event cinema – tremendously popular with both critics and audiences, with a distinctive style and a rotating roster of regular cast members. It’s genuinely quite surprising that he hasn’t won an Oscar already – Memento, Inception and Dunkirk all earned him nominations but none of them resulted in a win. It may be because, to a greater or lesser extent, they were all genre blockbusters that relied largely on action to attract audiences (even if they were more intelligent in writing and plot than the average action movie). The Academy tends to favour dramas, and Oppenheimer is Nolan’s first film in a while that sits wholly within that genre. All of the other nominees here are strong contenders, and again I would be very happy for this to swing towards Poor Things and Yorgos Lanthimos, but this is Nolan’s time.

Best Adapted Screenplay

• American Fiction*
• The Zone of Interest*
• Barbie*
• Oppenheimer*
• Poor Things*

Prediction: American Fiction

A film’s screenplay is about far more than just the dialogue, but the two writing categories nevertheless often go to the films that rely most on intelligent and witty dialogue. Again, Poor Things and Oppenheimer are likely to be strong contenders, but I would like to see this one go to American Fiction. For starters, it has some very intelligent and witty dialogue – it manages to be both funny and touching in equal measure, which is no easy feat, and it has a lot to say about the state of racial relations in modern America. Building on my first point though, it also has some really strong visual gags to round out the screenplay. Plus there is something poetic about a film about a writer winning an award by adapting his way of writing winning the award for Adapted Screenplay.

Best Original Screenplay

• The Holdovers*
• May December
• Past Lives
• Anatomy of a Fall*
• Maestro

Prediction: Anatomy of a Fall

I am sorry to say I’ve only seen two of these nominees, so I can’t really comment on most of them (I’ve heard a lot of good things about Past Lives, which feels like it could be a contender here, but missed it in the cinema and haven’t yet had time to watch it since it came out on Netflix). Of the two that I have seen, either of them would be a worthy winner and I definitely enjoyed The Holdovers more, but I suspect this will go to Anatomy of a Fall. Set predominantly in a courtroom, most of the drama and tension of the film is rooted in the script. There are lots of deep, introspective conversations about the nature of human interaction. And again, the main character is a writer, which feels appropriate for this category but also means that her character is naturally very verbose and witty.

Best International Feature Film

• Io Capitano
• Society of the Snow
• The Zone of Interest*
• Perfect Days
• The Teachers’ Lounge

Prediction: The Zone of Interest

Generally speaking, if one of the Best Picture nominees is a foreign film, that film will win Best International Feature Film (which, when you think about it, makes perfect logical sense). That has been the case in four out of the last five years – All Quiet On The Western Front, Drive My Car, Parasite and Roma were all up for Best Picture and won Best International Film (and of course Parasite also won Best Picture). I would be very surprised if the same doesn’t happen this year. The Zone of Interest is an incredible film, even if it is a horribly difficult watch, and fully deserves both the Best Picture nomination and the inevitable win in this category.

Best Animated Feature

• Nimona*
• Robot Dreams
• The Boy and the Heron*
• Elemental*
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse*

Prediction: The Boy and the Heron

This is one of the trickier ones to call. Robot Dreams hasn’t been released in the UK yet so I can’t really comment on that, and I don’t think it will go to Nimona or Elemental (although I’m very happy to see them both on this list). Nimona was excellent but is likely to suffer for being a Netflix release without the big studio backing of the others. Elemental felt like a real return to form for Pixar after a string of straight-to-Disney+ releases, but for whatever reason it doesn’t seem to have chimed with audiences the way Pixar used to. But the other two nominees are pretty huge contenders. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was one of the cinema highlights of last year – a sequel that pushed the artistic boundaries of animation to somehow improve on its incredible Oscar-winning predecessor. The Boy and the Heron was a fantastical return to moviemaking by the venerated Hayao Miyazaki and features elements of many of his biggest hits. In other words, this is a showdown between old and new – gentle, traditional hand-drawn animation by one of the most beloved and experienced filmmakers on the planet vs exciting, technologically advanced animation by some of the best new blood in Hollywood. I expect the Academy will take the opportunity to give Miyazaki one last plaudit before he retires (again) – there is at least one more Spider-Verse film still to come and I expect the people behind it will have plenty more nominations in the future.

Best Documentary Feature

• To Kill a Tiger
• Bobi Wine: The People’s President
• 20 Days in Mariupol
• Four Daughters
• The Eternal Memory

Prediction: 20 Days in Mariupol

I don’t have a huge amount to say about this as I haven’t seen any of the nominees, but not only did 20 Days in Mariupol win the BAFTA, it was the only one of these five that was nominated for a BAFTA. That suggests to me that it is the clear frontrunner. It also feels like a timely entry, given that it tells the story of the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the perspective of the journalists trying to get that story out to the rest of the world – I expect that will appeal to a lot of the Academy voters. From a quick look at their synopses the others all sound fascinating too, but I think the subject matter of 20 Days… will win out.

Best Original Score

• Laura Karpman (American Fiction)*
• Ludwig Göransson (Oppenheimer)*
• John Williams (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny)*
• Jerskin Fendrix (Poor Things)*
• Robbie Robertson (Killers of the Flower Moon)*

Prediction: Ludwig Göransson (Oppenheimer)

This is another one where Oppenheimer feels like it has to be the favourite. The others all work well for the tone of their respective films – American Fiction is gently jazzy, Poor Things is weird and wonderful, Killers of the Flower Moon is deep and rhythmic, and Indiana Jones is John Williams doing what John Williams does best. I would never discount John Williams in this category completely, but Dial of Destiny wasn’t the Indie comeback that everyone wanted it to be so I would be surprised if it gets the win here. Göransson’s Oppenheimer soundtrack does a lot of work for that film though. It has to capture both the excitement of the scientific invention and discovery in the first half and the gravity and existential dread of the second half, and it manages both beautifully. Göransson already won the BAFTA, the Golden Globe, the Critics Choice Award, and the Grammy, so it would be a pretty huge upset if he didn’t get this too.

Best Original Song

• Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt – I’m Just Ken (Barbie)*
• Jon Batiste, Dan Wilson – It Never Went Away (American Symphony)
• Billie Eilish, FINNEAS – What Was I Made For? (Barbie)*
• Scott George – Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People) (Killers of the Flower Moon)*
• Diane Warren – The Fire Inside (Flamin’ Hot)

Prediction: I’m Just Ken

I do wonder sometimes how seriously the Academy voters take this category. For a start, they keep nominating Diane Warren to the point where it’s starting to feel cruel. This is her 15th nomination (including one every year since 2018) without a win, and let’s face it, if she didn’t win for I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing from Armageddon then she isn’t going to win with a song from the Cheetos movie. Instead, and rightly, this award often goes to a song that isn’t necessarily the best one but puts the biggest smile on your face – see for example Man or Muppet or last year’s winner Naatu Naatu. This year that song is undeniably I’m Just Ken – a daft but brilliant ballad to the fragility of masculinity. The live performance is already promising to be the highlight of this year’s ceremony – if they don’t get an army of A-list cameos on the stage to join in with the backing singing (Ryan Gosling: “I’m just Ken” / Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ryan Reynolds, etc: “And so am I!”) then it will be a wasted opportunity. Plus the award goes to the songwriter rather than the performer, so it wouldn’t cause the same problems that I talked about in the Best Supporting Actor category. I actually also really like its fellow nominee from the Barbie soundtrack, What Was I Made For, which is beautiful and breathy and the polar opposite of Ryan Gosling’s performance. But if Billie Eilish wins then she will have won two Oscars (and headlined Glastonbury) before she’s turned 23, which might actually tip Diane Warren over into some sort of psychotic breakdown. Wahzhazhe is great too but would be a surprising choice.

Best Sound

• The Zone of Interest*
• The Creator*
• Oppenheimer*
• Maestro
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One*

Prediction: The Zone of Interest

The sound is absolutely what makes The Zone of Interest such a powerful film. It keeps a constant sense of dread over everything else that happens and never lets the audience forget the horrors going on nearby, even when the plot is at its most mundane. Without such effective use of sound it would just be a film about a German family with some barbed wire on their back wall, instead of one of the most disturbing films of the year. This could feasibly go to Oppenheimer again, although the most memorable use of sound in that film was the couple of minutes in the middle where there wasn’t any. Maestro is obviously all about music so I’m sure makes great use of its soundscape but I’d be surprised if it does anything especially original with it. For me this has to go to The Zone of Interest.

Best Visual Effects

• Godzilla Minus One*
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3*
• Napoleon*
• The Creator*
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One*

Prediction: The Creator

Just as The Zone of Interest would have been nothing special without its sound, The Creator would have been nothing special without its special effects. All of these films have the kind of big action set pieces that tend to do well in this category, but The Creator, more than any of the others, makes great use of its effects shots in its quieter moments too. It was genuinely one of the best looking films I’ve seen in a while, with digitally rendered sci-fi characters and structures built seamlessly over the beautiful beaches and mountains of southeast Asia. Several characters were robots or had robot parts, but they never felt any less real than their human counterparts. The plot was a little derivative and the dialogue was naff, but the visuals alone were more than enough to justify seeing it at the cinema. There are good reasons to go for the others too. As Keith said in our latest podcast episode, Godzilla Minus One had some incredibly impressive effects given its relatively miniscule budget. At the other end of the financial scale, Guardians 3 had people crying over the treatment of a perfectly convincing Rocket Raccoon and his friends. And Napoleon and Dead Reckoning both made great use of practical effects alongside the digital ones to keep their films looking more gritty and grounded. But it’s hard to look at any shot in The Creator and not be struck by the effectiveness of its effects, so I think that has to be my pick.

Best Cinematography

• Oppenheimer*
• Poor Things*
• El Conde
• Maestro
• Killers of the Flower Moon*

Prediction: Oppenheimer

Cinematography is a very broad creative discipline that takes in everything from lighting and colour to framing and camera movements. It’s easy to spot when it’s done badly but can be quite difficult to tell good from great without some sort of standout element to grab the viewer’s attention. El Conde, for example, is probably on this list because it was shot in black and white, with extra attention given to the strength and angles of the lighting to convey the mood of any given scene. Like many westerns, Killers of the Flower Moon is full of sweeping wide angle shots of the American wilderness. But Oppenheimer has all of that and more. Its use of black & white and colour photography to distinguish between the two different timelines of its plot is hardly original, but it should be distinctive enough to stick in the Academy’s memory. The scenes at Los Alamos capture the American countryside in a way that contrasts effectively with the tightly framed interiors of Oppenheimer’s security hearing. To my mind, the only other nominee that feels like it could topple the bombmaker is (again) Poor Things, which made great use of colour filters and lighting to give its scenes a surreal, otherworldly quality. But Oppenheimer’s Hoyte van Hoytema, who is also responsible for the look of many other Nolan films, has won many other awards in this category this year and feels very likely to win again.

Best Film Editing

• The Holdovers*
• Oppenheimer*
• Poor Things*
• Anatomy of a Fall*
• Killers of the Flower Moon*

Prediction: Oppenheimer

I am running out of things to say about Oppenheimer and running out of clips of it on YouTube, so I’ll keep this one brief. Jennifer Lame, editor of Oppenheimer, has won so many of the smaller awards that it would be quicker to list the ones she didn’t win. She managed to cut between different timelines without it ever being confusing or difficult to follow. She also kept the tension of the scenes at the right level with the speed of the cuts. All of these entries were very competently edited but it would be a miracle if Oppenheimer didn’t sweep this up too.

Best Production Design

• Napoleon*
• Barbie*
• Oppenheimer*
• Poor Things*
• Killers of the Flower Moon*

Prediction: Barbie

Although I don’t think it will do as well as it deserves overall, it would be a real shame if Barbie didn’t win anything, and I think this is its strongest chance for an award. The production design was one of the first things that made people start to take the film seriously as more than just a cash-grab by Mattel. Every detail of Barbieland has been crafted to look like a giant toy that somehow still functions as a believable universe – a kind of pink plastic Oz, that is clearly artificial in every way but still feels familiar and lived in. The epitome of that is Barbie’s Dream House, with its solid blue pool and toy-packaging inspired wardrobe. The other nominees all have perfectly good production design (especially Poor Things, which also stands a very good chance here) but the imagination and attention to detail that went into Barbieland feels so stand-out that I think it deserves this the most.

Best Costume Design

• Napoleon*
• Barbie*
• Oppenheimer*
• Poor Things*
• Killers of the Flower Moon*

Prediction: Killers of the Flower Moon

Killers of the Flower Moon has a lot of nominations that I suspect it’s not going to win, but like Barbie I think it deserves something, and this would be a good one for it to take. Period dramas often do well in this category, and Killers… ticks that box with a range of 1920s fashion. More significantly, it has some very authentic looking garments for its Osage characters, ranging from traditional tribal wear to more contemporary outfits that are nevertheless distinct in style from those of the white characters. It could still be quite a tight race – Napoleon and Oppenheimer also have the period settings, Bella Baxter wears some great frocks in Poor Things, and Barbie has an immaculate outfit for every occasion. But it would be a shame for the Scorsese epic to go away empty-handed so that’s my pick here.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

• Society of the Snow
• Golda
• Oppenheimer*
• Poor Things*
• Maestro*

Prediction: Poor Things

The main thing that makes me think this will go to Poor Things is the incredible work done on the face of Willem Dafoe’s Godwin Baxter, which is so scarred that it tells a story all on its own. But there is some great hairstyling on display here too, from the cascading black waterfall of Bella’s hair to the carefully ruffled Mark Ruffalo. The makeup work that transformed Helen Mirren and Bradley Cooper into the title characters from Golda and Maestro is very well done, but I think Poor Things’ better box office success will stand it in good stead. And I don’t remember anything quite so stand-out in Oppenheimer for this category so this is one of the few awards that I would be surprised if it goes to the Chris Nolan film.

Best Live Action Short Film

• The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar*
• The After
• Knight of Fortune
• Invincible
• Red, White and Blue

Prediction: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Yes, a big part of this choice is that it’s the only one that I’ve seen. But The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar was a fantastic little short, directed by Wes Anderson and starring Benedict Cumberbatch (both of whom have strong track records with the Academy), based on a story by Roald Dahl. It has all the quirky charm of a Wes Anderson film but feels a lot less pretentious than some of his more recent feature length movies. If the Academy want to go down a more political route they might vote for Red, White and Blue, in which a pregnant mother has to cross state lines to get an abortion (a very hot topic in America right now), but I suspect Henry Sugar is a lot more fun and visually engaging.

Best Documentary (Short Subject)

• Grandma & Grandma*
• The ABCs of Book Banning
• Island in Between
• The Barber of Little Rock
• The Last Repair Shop

Prediction: Grandma & Grandma

Four of the nominees in this category (according to the synopses on IMDB) are about very worthy causes – the impact that banning books in schools can have on a child’s education, the importance of making sure disadvantaged young people have access to music, a nonprofit community bank that helps communities who can’t get help from the bigger banks, and the relationship between Taiwan, the USA and China. All very important messages and I’m sure well-made films. But I’m giving my vote to a charming little film about two sweet old Chinese ladies farting in bed and watching Superbad. The eponymous pensioners in Grandma & Grandma (or to give it its proper name: Nai Nai & Wài Pó) are the maternal and paternal grandmothers of the filmmaker Sean Wang who, having got along like sisters since their children married, and having since lost their husbands, live together and keep each other company. They are instantly likeable characters and, although it might not have such an obvious point to make as the other contenders, the two Grandmas have enough wisdom and experience to impart (over 170 years’ worth between them) that you still come away feeling like a better person for having seen it. It’s available on Disney+ and less than 20 minutes long so well worth a watch. I think the Academy will have fallen in love with these two and if either or both of them is able to make it to the ceremony then I expect them to steal the show in the acceptance speech.

Best Animated Short Film

• Our Uniform
• Pachyderme
• Ninety-Five Senses*
• Letter to a Pig
• War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko

Prediction: War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko

Last but not least we come to one of my favourite categories to research. Slightly disappointingly, I’ve only been able to find one of this year’s Animated Short nominees available to stream in full for free. Ninety-Five Senses (which you can watch on Documentary+ here) is narrated by Tim Blake Nelson, who voices an elderly man looking back on his life as he experienced it through each of the five senses. It starts out quite light but gradually drifts to a very dark place, and is a lot more moving than I expected it to be when it began. I would not be upset if it wins. I have managed to watch the trailers for the other four nominees. Letter to a Pig looks interesting but the trailer is too abstract to properly get a feel for the story. Pachyderme appears to have a disappointing lack of elephants. Our Uniform has an unusual textile-based 2D animation style. But going by the trailer alone, my pick is War is Over!, which is about two soldiers on opposite sides in WW1 playing chess, using a carrier pigeon to convey their moves to each other. It’s beautifully animated (the style reminds me a little of the hugely underrated Christmas movie Klaus) and has a lot of talent behind it – the director Dave Mullins was an animator at Pixar for about 20 years, the score is by Thomas Newman (American Beauty, Shawshank Redemption, Finding Nemo, Skyfall), Yoko Ono is an executive producer, and Weta Workshop worked on the animation. If the full thing is as good as the trailer suggests then it should be quite powerful, albeit perhaps not as original as Ninety-Five Senses.

And that’s it! Send us a message or post in the comments to let me know what you agree or disagree with. I’ll be staying up to watch the ceremony and live tweeting from the Geeky Brummie X account, so get in touch if you’re watching along too.