It’s coming up to Oscars night again, when the brightest stars of Hollywood glam up the red carpet in the hope of receiving a C-3PO toy. As usual, I’ve gone through all of the categories to lay out my predictions for the winners. Which do you agree with? Which do you not? Leave some comments or drop us a message on social media and let me know – I’ll be staying up to watch the ceremony and live Blueskying (is that the verb?) as they’re announced.
For each category, I’ve listed the nominees first and put a star next to the ones that I’ve seen, then I’ll add my prediction and reasons.
Best Film
- Bugonia*
- Frankenstein*
- F1*
- Hamnet*
- Marty Supreme*
- One Battle After Another*
- The Secret Agent*
- Sentimental Value*
- Sinners*
- Train Dreams*
Prediction: One Battle After Another
There’s a strong field for Best Film this year – a good mix of artistic achievements (Hamnet, Sentimental Value, Train Dreams) and entertaining crowdpleasers (Bugonia, F1, Sinners). There are several that I think would be very worthy winners. Hamnet was an emotionally blistering film that won Best Drama at the Golden Globes, but I don’t think it gathered enough of an audience to take the trophy here. Sinners has broken the record for the most Oscar nominations, as well as being my personal favourite film of the last year, but genre films rarely get the top award. Train Dreams was absolutely beautiful, but I hadn’t even heard of it until the nominations were announced so I expect it will have passed a lot of others by too. And I really loved The Secret Agent, but I think its biggest battle will be with Sentimental Value for the International Film category and I don’t think either of them will win this one. The big favourite has to be One Battle After Another, which has both artistic merit and popularity with audiences. It won Best Film at the BAFTAs and Best Comedy or Musical at the Globes, together with several other prizes at each that are normally good indicators for Best Film (Director, Screenplay, Editing). If any other film wins this then it will be a huge upset.
Best Director
- Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another*
- Ryan Coogler – Sinners*
- Josh Safdie – Marty Supreme*
- Joachim Trier – Sentimental Value*
- Chloé Zhao – Hamnet*
Prediction: Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another
As with Best Film, this is PTA’s to lose. He’s the clear favourite after winning the BAFTA and Globe, as well as the top prize at the Directors Guild of America awards. Every other nominee deserves to be here too – each of their films carries the director’s clear fingerprints, be it the racial themes in Coogler’s Sinners, the frenetic tension in Safdie’s Marty Supreme, the introspection of Trier’s Sentimental Value or the dreamlike beauty of Zhao’s Hamnet. But One Battle After Another takes all the narrative and visual texture that Anderson is known for and ratchets it up to a grander scale than much of his previous work. He has now received 14 Oscar nominations across 7 films (for a combination of Film, Directing and Screenplays), and it’s about time he walked away with a trophy.
Best Actor
- Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme*
- Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another*
- Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon
- Michael B Jordan – Sinners*
- Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent*
Prediction: Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme
This is where it starts to get a little harder to predict. Chalamet and Moura won the equivalent Golden Globes for Comedy/Musical and Drama, respectively. Moura wasn’t nominated at the BAFTAs, where Chalamet (and Jordan, Hawke and DiCaprio) lost out to a very surprised Robert Aramayo for I Swear. And the Screen Actors Guild gave the award to Michael B Jordan, which was seen as a bit of a surprise (but in no way undeserved). I would love to see this go to Wagner Moura, whose (fittingly) double-role in The Secret Agent was a beautifully measured balance of anger, sadness and determination. But I think Chalamet probably has the better chance. Marty is an utterly deplorable but totally compelling character, who goes about his life with an energy and ego that it’s hard to imagine anyone else pulling off quite as well. This is Chalamet’s third nomination in the acting categories and he was a close contender last year with his portrayal of Bob Dylan, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Academy rewards him now as an apology for giving it to Adrien Brody then.
Best Actress
- Jessie Buckley – Hamnet*
- Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You*
- Kate Hudson – Song Sung Blue
- Renate Reinsve – Sentimental Value*
- Emma Stone – Bugonia*
Prediction: Jessie Buckley – Hamnet
At this point, there is almost no way this is going to anyone other than Jessie Buckley. Her role in Hamnet is pretty awards-friendly to begin with, but she still knocked it out of the park with a beautiful performance. Her grief at the loss of her son is, of course, heartbreaking, as is the revelation she experiences in the theatre at the end of the film. But everything that builds up to those moments is completely captivating too, establishing a flawed but loving family dynamic that makes the impact of the tragedy hit so much harder. I loved Bugonia and I thought Renate Reinsve was excellent in Sentimental Value, but their roles weren’t nearly as memorable. I think the only other nominee with a hope is Rose Byrne, whose performance in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You was so closely scrutinised by the camera in every shot that it felt claustrophobic, but really this is going to Jessie Buckley.
Best Supporting Actor
- Benicio Del Toro – One Battle After Another*
- Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein*
- Delroy Lindo – Sinners*
- Sean Penn – One Battle After Another*
- Stellan Skarsgård – Sentimental Value*
Prediction: Stellan Skarsgård – Sentimental Value
This is another tricky one. I’m knocking Jacob Elordi out from the start – he did a perfectly fine job as Frankenstein’s Monster but I think his lack of experience compared to the other nominees makes him look a little out of place on this list. Sean Penn and Stellan Skarsgård are probably the frontrunners, after Penn won the BAFTA and the SAG Actor Award, and Skarsgård won the Golden Globe. I think the Academy are slightly more likely to lean towards Skarsgård – Penn can be quite a controversial figure, and while his menacing Colonel Lockjaw was an excellent baddie, Skarsgård’s performance felt much more personal and measured. Plus Penn has a couple of Oscars under his belt already, whereas this is Skarsgård’s first despite a career of incredible acting. Personally I would give it to him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes to Sean Penn (and I wouldn’t completely discount Del Toro or Lindo either).
Best Supporting Actress
- Elle Fanning – Sentimental Value*
- Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – Sentimental Value*
- Amy Madigan – Weapons*
- Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners*
- Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another*
Prediction: Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another
A tough one again, but I think Teyana Taylor is (just) going to take it. She won the Golden Globe, whike Mosaku won the BAFTA and Madigan won the Actor Award, so there is no clear frontrunner. But there is a lot of love for One Battle After Another this season and it feels likely that it will win one of the acting awards, so since I’m not giving it to DiCaprio or Penn I’m going with Taylor. I loved Weapons and Amy Madigan was great, but it was a very quirky performance that doesn’t seem like the sort of role that would win loads of awards. Mosaku would be a very worthy winner too and I think is Taylor’s closest competition, although the fact that she’s British probably gave her some extra points with the BAFTA voters. But Taylor made a big impact for what turned out to be a relatively small role – she disappears early in One Battle, and the fact that you spend most of the film expecting and wanting her to resurface is testament to the strength of her performance.
Best International Feature Film
- It Was Just an Accident
- Sentimental Value*
- Sirât
- The Secret Agent*
- The Voice of Hind Rajab
Prediction: Sentimental Value
There is a bit of a logical rule that invariably proves to be true, which is that if one of the International Feature Film nominees is also nominated for Best Film, it’s probably going to win the best International Feature Film award. Because if it’s in the running for best film from anywhere, it would make no sense for it to be beaten in this category by a film that isn’t. (I would add that the same could be said for Animated Feature Film and Documentary Feature Film if either of them ever got nominated for Best Film, but they almost never do). This year though, there are actually two nominees in this category that are also up for Best Film – Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent. As they are also coincidentally the only two of these that I’ve managed to see, I’m going to focus on them. My personal favourite is The Secret Agent – not only did I find it more entertaining, but I also felt its story was more closely rooted in the country it was made in than Sentimental Value, which told a beautiful story that could really have been set anywhere. The Secret Agent won the Critics Choice Award and Golden Globe in this category while Sentimental Value won the BAFTA. I would love to see this go to The Secret Agent, but I think the fact that Sentimental Value has also been nominated for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing, as well as a slew of acting nominations, probably makes it the frontrunner here.
Best Animated Feature Film
- Arco
- Elio*
- KPop Demon Hunters*
- Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
- Zootropolis 2*
Prediction: KPop Demon Hunters
Personally I would give this to Zootropolis 2, which I thought was the better film. It won the BAFTA, but that’s mostly because KPop Demon Hunters wasn’t eligible for nomination, having not had a proper UK cinema release. This category, more than most of the others, often takes into account the cultural impact of a film as much as its artistic merit, and there’s no denying that KPop Demon Hunters has been phenomenally popular with audiences. It won the Golden Globe and almost all of the Annies that it was eligible for. And it’s by no means an undeserving winner – the animation is stylish, the character design is full of personality, and it makes great use of light and colour especially in the combat and concert scenes, not to mention all the ridiculously catchy songs. Elio was adorable, Arco isn’t out in the UK yet but looks great, and I missed Little Amélie which looked gorgeous, but this is KPop Demon Hunters’ award to lose.
Best Documentary Feature Film
- Mr Nobody Against Putin
- The Perfect Neighbor
- Come See Me In The Good Light
- Cutting Through Rocks
- The Alabama Solution
Prediction: The Perfect Neighbor
I haven’t seen any of these nominees so I’m going purely on hearsay, but most of the buzz seems to be around The Perfect Neighbor – a documentary made up largely of police bodycam footage about a neighbour dispute in Florida that escalates into a deadly shooting, defended under the state’s “stand your ground” laws. The film is available on Netflix, making it very accessible to wider audiences, and it won several of the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards. Mr Nobody Against Putin won the BAFTA and sounds fascinating – a teacher secretly filming how his classes are being turned by the state into a military recruitment centre to support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine – but the last couple of Oscars in this category have gone to anti-Russian movies and it feels likely that they might go in a different direction this year.
Best Original Screenplay
- Blue Moon
- It Was Just An Accident
- Marty Supreme*
- Sentimental Value*
- Sinners*
Prediction: Sinners
All three of the nominees that I’ve seen in this category would be worthy winners, but I think this will go to Sinners. It’s got some great dialogue that really ramps up the tension, and its treatment of the transcendent power of music was one of the most original and memorable moments of cinema this year. Marty Supreme and Sentimental Value were both much more dialogue-heavy films, which often do well in these categories, but Sinners was a great example of why a screenplay is about much more than just the words people say. It won the BAFTA and the Writers Guild Award in this category and has to be the favourite to win again here.
Best Adapted Screenplay
- Bugonia*
- Frankenstein*
- Hamnet*
- One Battle After Another*
- Train Dreams*
Prediction: One Battle After Another
There’s stiff competition from Hamnet in particular here, but this is another one that’s almost certainly going to One Battle After Another. The film has some brilliantly witty and emotional dialogue, as well as a good rollicking story that never feels dull even in its slower scenes. I’m not familiar with Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, the novel on which the film is loosely based, but it seems to have adapted it well into the medium of cinema. OBAA won the BAFTA and WGA in this category and is the frontrunner here too.
Best Original Score
- Alexandre Desplat – Frankenstein*
- Jerskin Fendrix – Bugonia*
- Ludwig Göransson – Sinners*
- Jonny Greenwood – One Battle After Another*
- Max Richter – Hamnet*
Prediction: Ludwig Göransson – Sinners
All of these films had some lovely music but Sinners had music in its very DNA. One of the central themes of the film was the power of music to bring people together, whether they are artists from different times or vampires revelling in their newfound power. It has its roots in the same American deep South mythology that has travelling fiddlers making deals with the devil at a crossroads for unnatural musical talent. The musical set pieces are the moments that stick with you long after you leave the cinema, but the gorgeous, heavy bluesy soundtrack pervades every scene. This won’t be Ludwig Göransson’s first or even second Oscar, having won previously for Black Panther and Oppenheimer, and it probably won’t be his last, but it will almost certainly be his third.
Best Original Song
- Dear Me (Diane Warren) – Diane Warren: Relentless
- Golden (Ejae, Teddy Park, Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam and Jeong Hoon Seo) – KPop Demon Hunters*
- I Lied To You (Raphael Saadiq and Ludwig Göransson) – Sinners*
- Sweet Dreams of Joy (Nicholas Pike) – Viva Verdi!
- Train Dreams (Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner) – Train Dreams*
Prediction: Golden – KPop Demon Hunters
Dear me – another year, another Oscar nomination that Diane Warren is not going to win. The poor songwriter has now had 17 nominations in this category without a single win (not counting the pity honorary award she received in 2023), and even this entry – which was pointedly written for a film about her career and all the many, many songs she’s written for films over the course of the last four decades, is going to be beaten by some cartoon pop stars. Because just as with the Animated Feature category, there is no getting past the cultural zeitgeist of KPop Demon Hunters. Golden is a ridiculously catchy tune that has become a chart hit in its own right, and it’s won just about every similar award in the run-up including the Golden Globe and the Grammy. I Lied To You is as wonderful as all the music in Sinners, and Train Dreams is as beautiful as you’d expect from Nick Cave, but this one’s going to the Golden girls.
Best Sound
- Frankenstein*
- F1*
- One Battle After Another*
- Sinners*
- Sirât
Prediction: F1
I’m pleased to see that F1 has had a few nominations – despite clearly having a lot of funding from the sport, it was a brilliantly entertaining film. I don’t think it necessarily deserves its Best Film nomination, but it absolutely deserves the award for Best Sound. The noise of those racing scenes rattled the whole cinema and captured the intense experience of driving such a fast car in a way that you simply don’t appreciate watching the Grand Prix on telly. I wouldn’t completely discount One Battle After Another or Sinners in any of these awards, and I’ve heard Sirât has some incredibly oppressive sound that ramps up the tension, but my money’s on F1 here. It also won the BAFTA and Critics Choice Award.
Best Editing
- F1*
- Marty Supreme*
- One Battle After Another*
- Sentimental Value*
- Sinners*
Prediction: One Battle After Another
There aren’t any major standouts in this category this year, but it feels like it’s going to be another win for One Battle After Another. It’s had a good track record so far this season, winning the BAFTA and the ACE Eddie Award for Editing in a Theatrical Comedy Feature Film. The Eddie for a Theatrical Drama Feature Film went to Sinners, and the Critics Choice Award went to F1, so it’s by no means a done deal, and I still think there’s a strong case for Marty Supreme too which had some very frantic editing adding to the general chaos of the plot. But One Battle After Another showed great use of editing without needing to show it off – languishing in long takes where it served the plot or added to the tension (see especially the undulating car chase scene near the end of the movie – clipped below, but [spoiler alert] maybe don’t watch it if you’ve not seen the film yet), but never feeling like there was any superfluous footage that should have been cut. It could very easily go to the fast-paced racing scenes of F1 or the hot & heavy music videos of Sinners, but I’m going to guess at OBAA.
Best Cinematography
- Frankenstein*
- Marty Supreme*
- One Battle After Another*
- Sinners*
- Train Dreams*
Prediction: Sinners
This looks to be a close race between BAFTA and American Society of Cinematographers winner One Battle After Another, Critics Choice Award winner Train Dreams and Sinners, which has dominated the smaller critics’ awards. Any of them would be very worthy winners, all making great use of the natural light in their respective parts of America. I thought the cinematography in Train Dreams was particularly stunning – it opens with a shot looking up at the forest canopy from the trunk of a tree, just as the tree is felled and the camera falls with it. The American wilderness never looked so beautiful. And with its ACE win, OBAA is probably the favourite to take the Oscar. But I’m going to pick Sinners for this one, partly because its cinematographer was Autumn Durald Arkapaw, which would make this the first time a woman has ever won this award.
Best Visual Effects
- Avatar: Fire and Ash*
- F1*
- Jurassic World: Rebirth*
- Sinners*
- The Lost Bus
Prediction: Avatar: Fire and Ash
This is the first Avatar film that wasn’t nominated for Best Picture, but so far the franchise is two for two winning Best Visual Effects and the third film doesn’t appear to be dropping that legacy. The entire concept of the series is built around pushing the possibilities of what visual effects can do, using groundbreaking motion capture and greenscreen technology to dazzling effect. Jurassic World is the only other nominee that came close to putting its effects quite so front and centre, but it wasn’t critically well-received enough to be in with a shot here. Sinners and F1 made very effective use of VFX but it’s a lot more understated. Avatar is the first thing many will think of when they think of special effects at the cinema this year and it’s basically guaranteed to win this award, having already won the BAFTA, Critics Choice Award and Visual Effects Society Award.
Best Production Design
- Frankenstein*
- Hamnet*
- Marty Supreme*
- One Battle After Another*
- Sinners*
Prediction: Frankenstein
Frankenstein has been in a lot of nominee lists up to this point and not really had a look in, but when you get to the design awards, all of a sudden you’re going to be seeing a lot of it. Production design has always been a major strong point in Guillermo Del Toro’s films, bringing his gothic sensibilities to life in a way that feels at once realistic and like something out of a fairytale. Frankenstein’s castle, with its glowing machinery, creepy statues, ominous empty spaces and eery vaulted dungeons, is the best example of this, but it also extends to other settings in the film like his brother’s stately wedding venue and the frozen ship that bookends the story. Each of the other nominees has great production design in its own way, but they’re all replicating an identifiable time and place in world history – the imagination and attention to detail that went into the fantastical element of Frankenstein sets it apart. Frankenstein won the BAFTA and Critics Choice Awards in this category, as well as the Art Directors Guild Award for production design in a period film (with One Battle After Another winning their award for production design in a contemporary film) which makes it the favourite to win here too.
Best Costume Design
- Avatar: Fire and Ash*
- Frankenstein*
- Hamnet*
- Marty Supreme*
- Sinners*
Prediction: Frankenstein
Period films often do best in this category, which gives Frankenstein, Hamnet and Sinners a bit of an edge. Again though, Frankenstein has emerged as the clear favourite, winning the BAFTA, Critics Choice Award and the Costume Designers Guild Award for a period film (they also have separate awards for contemporary films and sci-fi/fantasy films, but neither of those winners – One Battle After Another and Wicked: For Good – are nominated here). Frankenstein is a worthy winner, with everything from sailors’ uniforms, to gentrified suits, to Mia Goth’s swirling dresses on display. Like with Production Design, Hamnet, Marty and Sinners all do a great job of recreating the costumes of their settings, but those settings are also limiting in how much the designers’ imagination could shine through – Frankenstein has a bit more capacity for costume designer Kate Hawley to have some fun. And just to cover it off – Avatar goes too far the other way, with heaps of imagination but nothing to ground it to anything relatable beyond ‘I guess it makes sense that these coastal-living aliens would wear a lot of netting’.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
- Frankenstein*
- Kokuho
- Sinners*
- The Smashing Machine
- The Ugly Stepsister
Prediction: Frankenstein
With the Makeup and Hairstyling category, it always helps to have a centrepiece that will stick in people’s memory. See for example Gary Oldman’s transformative prosthetics in The Darkest Hour, the layers of fat added to Brendan Fraser in The Whale, or the monstrous creature at the end of last year’s winner The Substance. This year there are a couple of contenders – the Rock’s makeup in The Smashing Machine was always bound to appear on the list of nominees – but once again the clear favourite is Frankenstein. Or, more specifically, Frankenstein’s Monster. The strange patchwork of silvery-greys that make up Jacob Elordi’s body in the film are an eerily accurate portrayal of what it would look like if you stitched together bits of skin from several different corpses, and make for a striking image. Frank’s hair and makeup team have already won the BAFTA, Critic’s Choice Award, and the Makeup Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Award for prosthetics. The Guild Awards for contemporary makeup and hairstyling both went to One Battle After Another (not nominated here), and the awards for period makeup and hairstyling both went to Sinners, making the vampire movie a contender for the Oscar, but it feels like this is going to Frankenstein along with the other design awards.
Best Casting
- Hamnet*
- Marty Supreme*
- One Battle After Another*
- Sinners*
- The Secret Agent*
Prediction: Sinners
This is the first year that this award has been handed out at the Oscars, so there isn’t much of a precedent to base it on, making it a tough one to call. The role of a casting director is to find the best actors for a film, so arguably we can get a bit of an indication of where this might go by looking at the nominees in the acting categories – that would suggest that One Battle After Another is the favourite with four nominations, followed by Sinners at three and the others with one each. But if that was the main indicator, you’d expect to see Sentimental Value with its four acting nominations in here too. Looking at other awards, the BAFTAs rather unhelpfully gave it to I Swear which isn’t nominated here, while the Critics Choice Awards and the (American) Casting Society’s Artios Awards gave it to Sinners and the (British) Casting Directors Guild Awards gave it to Hamnet. As an American organisation, the Casting Society are probably the best indicator for where this will go at the Oscars, which will be decided by the Academy’s Casting Directors branch. On that basis I think I’m going for Sinners, but I think One Battle After Another would be a worthy winner here too – both films have big ensemble casts with plenty of background characters and extras too.
Best Live Action Short
- A Friend of Dorothy
- Butcher’s Stain
- Jane Austen’s Period Drama*
- The Singers*
- Two People Exchanging Saliva*
Prediction: Two People Exchanging Saliva
I’ve been able to track down a few of these ones. Jane Austen’s Period Drama (find it on YouTube) is a fun concept in which a typical Jane Austen heroine tries to explain menstruation to a typical Jane Austen gentleman – knowingly ridiculous but perfectly played, and with a trio of sisters named Estroginia, Labinia and Vagianna, and I really enjoyed it. The Singers (available on Netflix) is quite a sweet film about a group of barflies having an impromptu singing contest. But by far the most interesting was Two People Exchanging Saliva – a surreal black and white French film set in a world where you get slapped in the face for currency and kissing is punishable by death, leading everyone to deliberately bad dental hygiene to put off any would-be snoggers. It’s also quite wonderfully ridiculous and has some more silly names (the baddie is a woman named Petulante), but has a surprisingly emotional ending. It sounds like it’s a strong contender among critics too. I wouldn’t completely bet against A Friend of Dorothy either – I’ve not been able to watch that but it stars Miriam Margolyes and Stephen Fry, which is a winning combination in anyone’s book.
Best Animated Short
- Butterfly*
- Forevergreen*
- Retirement Plan
- The Girl Who Cried Pearls
- The Three Sisters
Prediction: Butterfly
Two of the nominees in this category are available on YouTube this year, and of those two that I’ve been able to see, Butterfly feels like the most likely winner. The deceptively simple artwork – seemingly composed entirely of oil painted frames – is used to great effect, blending from scene to scene as it tells the story of a Jewish swimmer and his memories of the holocaust. It’s a beautiful story with some heartbreaking moments that are bound to have connected with audiences. Forevergreen is sweet, but has neither the emotional impact nor the distinctive artistic style of Butterfly. It sounds like Retirement Plan (featuring the voice of Domhnall Gleeson) is another strong contender, but I’m going to back one that I’ve watched instead.
Best Documentary Short
- All The Empty Rooms*
- Armed Only With A Camera: The Life And Death Of Brent Renaud
- Children No More: Were And Are Gone
- The Devil Is Busy
- Perfectly A Strangeness
Prediction: All the Empty Rooms
I’ve only managed to watch one of these, but All The Empty Rooms seems to be among the favourites. It’s a very affecting film following journalist Steve Hartman as he works through a project to photograph the bedrooms of all the children killed in school shootings in the USA. Several of the films on this list deal with subject matter that feels just as timely and important (Children No More documents a vigil in Tel Aviv for children lost in Gaza, while The Devil Is Busy follows a security guard defending an abortion clinic from protesters), but it’s impossible not to connect to the parents grieving for their kids.
And on that cheery note, we come to the end of the categories! What did I get right? What did I get wrong? We’ll find out on Sunday night, but let me know what you think in the meantime!
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