What was it that Ralph Fiennes said in “Conclave?” Oh yeah: “There is one sin that I have come to fear above all others: certainty.”
The Academy and ABC have been using some of Fiennes’ speech in their ads, which makes sense if you want to play up the idea of suspense. But it’s also a good thing to remember for anybody who tries to predict who’s going to win at the 97th Academy Awards on Sunday – because unlike many recent years, certainty is a hard commodity to come by in this most unsettled of years.
It was a year of wildfires that ravaged the home of the movie business and disrupted the awards calendar, and a year of controversies and takedown campaigns on social media, the most significant of which was the late-January revelation of past racist and anti-Muslim tweets from “Emilia Pérez” star and Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón. At the time, the film was the presumed Best Picture frontrunner, but Gascón’s social-media history torpedoed its chances and left the race without a plausible favorite in the run-up to the start of Oscar voting on Feb. 11.
But that changed in a two-day stretch in which “Anora” won the Critics Choice Award on Friday, Feb. 7 and the Directors Guild and Producers Guild Awards the following night. Oscar voting began a few days later – but as it neared its end, “Conclave” won the BAFTA Film Award and then followed a week later with the SAG Awards’ ensemble prize, in the process giving the race something that had seemed to be missing since the rise of “Anora”: a viable alternative.
So now we’re in the homestretch with a number of major races that feel like complete tossups – not just Best Picture, but also Best Actor and Best Actress, among others. “Conclave” definitely feels as if it has the momentum right now, but that’s irrelevant because Oscar voting ended on Feb. 18. The question is, did it have the momentum back then?
We’ll know on Sunday. In the meantime, here are our best guesses, all of them almost completely free of the sin of certainty.
Best Picture
Nominees:
“Anora”
“The Brutalist”
“A Complete Unknown”
“Conclave”
“Dune: Part II”
“Emilia Pérez”
“I’m Still Here”
“Nickel Boys”
“The Substance”
“Wicked”
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had lots of conversations with Academy members who are both shocked and delighted that “Anora” could win Best Picture – shocked because a raucous indie about sex workers and Russian thugs is not the kind of movie the Oscars normally recognize, and delighted because they love the message an “Anora” victory would send about the changing face of the Academy. (The 2023 winner, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” would be another example of that changing face.)
But because it would be a different kind of winner, and because “Conclave” has shown broad appeal in the homestretch of awards season, “Anora” doesn’t feel like the kind of clear favorite that its DGA/PGA/WGA trifecta would normally indicate. It’s not at all hard to imagine that the more traditional pleasures of the papal drama could prove to be more to the Academy’s liking, more to the tastes of the large European contingent of Oscar voters and more likely to benefit from the ranked-choice voting system that rewards consensus favorites over passion picks.
Then again, if “Conclave” really gets a boost from ranked-choice voting, wouldn’t it have beaten “Anora” at the Producers Guild, which also uses the system? In a close race, that’s the deciding factor for me.
And hey, even in “Conclave” it’s the bold, non-traditional candidate who wins the election.
Predicted winner: “Anora”
Best Director
Nominees:
Sean Baker, “Anora”
Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”
James Mangold, “A Complete Unknown”
Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez”
Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance”
Whether or not “Anora” wins Best Picture, Sean Baker probably has the inside track here, since “Conclave” director Edward Berger isn’t even nominated – and when Berger was nominated at the Directors Guild Awards, he lost to Baker. The strongest challenger among the directors who were nominated is BAFTA winner Brady Corbet, who could get degree-of-difficulty points for his epic “The Brutalist.”
Predicted winner: Sean Baker, “Anora”
Actor in a Leading Role
Nominees:
Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist”
Timothée Chalamet, “A Complete Unknown”
Colman Domingo, “Sing Sing”
Ralph Fiennes, “Conclave”
Sebastian Stan, “The Apprentice”
Timothée Chalamet’s win at the SAG Awards was the first sign all season that Adrien Brody had some competition in this category. In Chalamet’s favor: Nine of the last 15 winners in this category played real people, and “A Complete Unknown” is more fun than “The Brutalist.” In Brody’s favor: This award rarely goes to actors under 40 and only once to an actor under 30 (Brody in 2003!), and “The Brutalist” has more heft than “A Complete Unknown.”
Predicted winner: Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist”
Actress in a Leading Role
Nominees:
Cynthia Erivo, “Wicked”
Mikey Madison, “Anora”
Demi Moore, “The Substance”
Karla Sofía Gascón, “Emilia Pérez”
Fernanda Torres, “I’m Still Here”
The ugliest Oscar race is also one of the most unsettled. Demi Moore grabbed momentum at the Golden Globes even though she’s in the kind of movie that never wins Oscars. Karla Sofía Gascón was essentially knocked out of the running when her past tweets were circulated. Mikey Madison interrupted Moore’s smooth road to Oscar by winning at BAFTA and the Spirit Awards. And Fernanda Torres lurks in the shadows with the very real potential to pull off a shocker. It’s impossible to discount the enthusiasm for Moore on the awards circuit over the last two months, but it’s also hard to ignore that Oscar voters are not known for being terribly sentimental (sorry, Glenn Close in 2019 and Chadwick Boseman in 2021) and that in this category they’re far more open to rewarding young performers than they are in Best Actor. Those last signs point to Madison, but we’re cautiously sticking with Moore.
Predicted winner: Demi Moore, “The Substance”
Actor in a Supporting Role
Nominees:
Yura Borisov, “Anora”
Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”
Edward Norton, “A Complete Unknown”
Guy Pearce, “The Brutalist”
Jeremy Strong, “The Apprentice”
If the two lead acting categories are baffling, the supporting categories are essentially locked. Kieran Culkin has been winning every award all season, and there’s no reason to think his streak won’t continue at the Oscars.
Predicted winner: Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”
Actress in a Supporting Role
Nominees:
Monica Barbaro, “A Complete Unknown”
Ariana Grande, “Wicked”
Felicity Jones, “The Brutalist”
Isabella Rossellini, “Conclave”
Zoe Saldaña, “Emilia Pérez”
Zoe Saldaña was the first person associated with “Emilia Pérez” to denounce the opinions expressed in castmate Karla Sofía Gascón’s old tweets, and the backlash against the film seems not to have dented her position as the clear favorite in this category.
Predicted winner: Zoe Saldaña, “Emilia Pérez”
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Nominees:
“A Complete Unknown”
“Conclave”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Nickel Boys”
“Sing Sing”
Even before “Conclave” came on strong at the end of awards season to become a real Best Picture contender, this was the one category in which it appeared to be the favorite. Screenwriter Peter Straughan won at the Writers Guild, BAFTA, the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Awards and the Scripters – and although there’s lots of affection for “Sing Sing,” “Nickel Boys” and “A Complete Unknown,” he should win again at the Oscars.
Predicted winner: “Conclave”
Writing (Original Screenplay)
Nominees:
“Anora”
“The Brutalist”
“A Real Pain”
“September 5”
“The Substance”
The two top Best Picture candidates should come out of the writing categories in good shape on Oscar night, with “Conclave” likely winning for adaptation and “Anora” taking the prize for Sean Baker’s original screenplay. “A Real Pain” writer-director Jesse Eisenberg, though, has a real chance to make it a bumpier night for “Anora.”
Predicted winner: “Anora”
International Feature Film
Nominees:
Brazil, “I’m Still Here”
Denmark, “The Girl With the Needle”
France, “Emilia Pérez”
Germany, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”
Latvia, “Flow”
Until the last couple of days of January, there was no question that “Emilia Pérez” was going to win in this category after it received 13 nominations, a record for a film not in English. But Karlagate demolished that sure thing and posed a huge question: Will the ultimate effect of Gascón’s tweets be to deny the film an Oscar in the one category it had seemingly locked up? “I’m Still Here” might well be the beneficiary of the backlash; in fact, it might well have won under the old system in which you had to see all five nominees in a theater in order to vote. This one is very close, but here’s guessing that significantly more voters saw “Emilia Pérez,” and that enough of the voters who gave the film all those nominations will stick by it.
Predicted winner: “Emilia Pérez”
Animated Feature Film
Nominees:
“Flow”
“Inside Out 2”
“Memoir of a Snail”
“Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”
“The Wild Robot”
DreamWorks Animation won the first Oscar ever given in this category, for “Shrek” in 2002 – and it hasn’t won another one since then, with Disney and Pixar racking up 15 wins in the ensuing 23 years, including 13 wins in a 15-year stretch between 2007 and 2021. When Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” came out and launched a box-office trajectory that would make it the top-grossing animated film of all time, it seemed to be on a path to extend that dominance – but the wordless Latvian film “Flow” won critics awards and then DreamWorks’ “The Wild Robot” premiered to near-unanimous acclaim and a string of victories at virtually every show where film professionals vote. DWA’s 50th film, and the last to be completely animated in-house, isn’t a complete lock – there’s a lot of Disney/Pixar love in the Academy and a lot of international voters who could go for “Flow” – but it looks like the company will finally have another Oscar in this category.
Predicted winner: “The Wild Robot”
Documentary Feature Film
Nominees:
“Black Box Diaries”
“No Other Land”
“Porcelain War”
“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat”
“Sugarcane”
With four of the five nominees exploring issues of colonialism and invasion, this is a dark and timely group of films. (The fifth nominee, “Black Box Diaries,” is equally tough in its depiction of the filmmaker exploring the aftermath of her rape.) “No Other Land,” filmed over five years in Gaza by Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, has a horrifying urgency and has won most of the top documentary awards for 2024. It’s considered the favorite to win the Oscar, with subject matter that will help it with some voters and hurt it with others. But don’t underestimate “Porcelain War,” in which three Ukrainians document a life that consists of defiantly making art in between picking up guns to fight the Russians. It’s harrowing but also healing in the way it uses creativity to resist erasure – and the beauty it finds in a world of ruin could give it a boost with voters, if they’re open to three consecutive years of anti-Russian films in this category, after “20 Days in Mariupol” and “Navalny.”
Predicted winner: “Porcelain War”
Cinematography
Nominees:
“The Brutalist”
“Dune: Part II”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Maria”
“Nosferatu”
“Maria” won the American Society of Cinematographers Award and “Nosferatu” has some jaw-dropping cinematography, but they’re up against a sobering statistic: Only once in the last 18 years has the winner in this category not been a Best Picture nominee. (That was “Blade Runner 2049” in 2018.) Of the three best-pic nominees in contention here, “Dune: Part Two” is the sequel to the 2022 winner – but “The Brutalist,” which revived the long-dormant VistaVision format, is the clear favorite.
Predicted winner: “The Brutalist”
Costume Design
Nominees:
“A Complete Unknown”
“Conclave”
“Gladiator II”
“Nosferatu”
“Wicked”
The costume design and production design categories often go hand in hand, sometimes to big movies whose wins are all in below-the-line categories: “Moulin Rouge,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “The Great Gatsby,” “Black Panther” … “Wicked” seems to be in that position this year, starting with its witty riffs on outfits we remember from “The Wizard of Oz” back in 1939. (But if those cardinals’ gowns and nuns’ habits from “Conclave” win, watch out.)
Predicted winner: “Wicked”
Film Editing
Nominees:
“Anora”
“The Brutalist”
“Conclave”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Wicked”
This might be a category that’ll provide an early clue to the Best Picture race on Oscar night, but it might also be a bit of mid-show misdirection. It’s most likely another battle between the adrenaline rush of “Anora” and the masterfully quiet tension of “Conclave,” so it could feel like a key indicator of voter sentiment. Still, the editing winner has also won Best Picture only four times in the last 15 years, and this could be a likely place for voters to give another nod to the best-pic runner-up.
Predicted winner: “Conclave”
Makeup and Hairstyling
Nominees:
“A Different Man”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Nosferatu”
“The Substance”
“Wicked”
For only the third time in the category’s history (the others being 2004 and last year), three Best Picture nominees are in the running for makeup. “A Different Man” could conceivably beat them all, but it’s more likely that the Grand Guignol grotesquerie of “The Substance” will win out over the green-hued prettiness of “Wicked.”
Predicted winner: “The Substance”
Music (Original Score)
Nominees:
“The Brutalist”
“Conclave”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Wicked”
“The Wild Robot”
“The Brutalist” has won most of the precursor awards and would continue the trend of European composers winning: Ludwig Goransson for “Oppenheimer” and “Black Panther,” Volker Bertelmann for “All Quiet on the Western Front,” Hans Zimmer for “Dune,” Hildur Gudnadottir for “Joker”… “Conclave” could continue the trend of Volker Bertelmann winning. “The Wild Robot” could place Kris Bowers on the roster of animated-feature composers who’ve won alongside Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste for “Soul,” Michael Giacchino for “Up” and Alan Menken for lots of things. All of those would be entirely reasonable outcomes, although BAFTA’s track record of predicting the Oscar winner nine times in the last 10 years suggests that Daniel Blumberg and “The Brutalist” are in a good position.
Predicted winner: “The Brutalist”
Music (Original Song)
Nominees:
“El Mal” from “Emilia Pérez”
“The Journey” from “The Six Triple Eight”
“Like a Bird” from “Sing Sing”
“Mi Camino” from “Emilia Pérez”
“Never Too Late” from “Elton John: Never Too Late”
Originally, the question in his category was, “Will the two ‘Emilia Pérez’ nominees split the vote and let Diane Warren finally win her first competitive Oscar in her 16th nomination, or Elton John win his third, or the ‘Sing Sing’ songwriters score an upset?” Then it changed to, “Will the furor over Karla Sofia Gascon’s tweets hurt ‘Emilia’ so much that somebody else will win?” It’s possible the answer to that question is yes – but it’s likelier than “El Mal” has been singled out as the “Emilia” song to vote for, and that Gascon’s actions won’t be held against the songwriters.
Predicted winner: “El Mal” from “Emilia Pérez”
Production Design
Nominees:
“The Brutalist”
“Conclave”
“Dune: Part II”
“Nosferatu”
“Wicked”
“The Brutalist” had to design the work of a master architect from scratch and “Nosferatu” was richly, majestically spooky. But this is another crafts category where “Wicked” seems likely to carry the day, with its creation of a land of Oz that goes way beyond what we’ve seen on screen before.
Predicted winner: “Wicked”
Sound
Nominees:
“A Complete Unknown”
“Dune: Part II”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Wicked”
“The Wild Robot”
“Dune: Part Two” and “A Complete Unknown” won the top awards from the Motion Picture Sound Editors and the Cinema Audio Society, respectively, while “Wicked,” “Emilia Pérez” and “The White Robot” won in different MPSE categories. But since the Oscars combined their sound editing and sound mixing categories into a single Best Sound award, the CAS has been a slightly more accurate predictor. So unless Timothée Chalamet wins for Best Actor, this could be the likeliest place for voters to reward “A Complete Unknown.”
Predicted winner: “A Complete Unknown”
Visual Effects
Nominees:
“Alien: Romulus”
“A Better Man”
“Dune: Part Two”
“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”
“Wicked”
It’s astounding that the performance capture work done by Wētā FX on the rebooted “Planet of the Apes” franchise has yet to win an Oscar, but history suggests that won’t change this year. Instead, a different sci-fi franchise, “Dune,” may well join the “Star Wars,” “Indiana Jones,” “Lord of the Rings” and “Avatar” franchises as the newest film series to win in this category twice.
Predicted winner: “Dune: Part Two”
Animated Short Film
Nominees:
“Beautiful Men”
“In the Shadow of the Cypress”
“Magic Candies”
“Wander to Wonder”
“Yuck!”
“Beautiful Men,” “Magic Candies” and “Yuck!” are sleek and professional and could attract voters who often gave this award to Disney and Pixar in the past. “In the Shadow of the Cypress” is elegant, visually stylish and narratively oblique. Then there’s “Wander to Wonder,” a purposefully ragtag mixture of stop-motion animation and live action that includes a death, several different stages of grief and a pint-sized performer, voiced by Toby Jones, who declaims Shakespeare without any pants on. (No underwear, either, for fans of male puppet nudity.) It’s the weirdest and creepiest nominee and it feels like nothing else in the category, which could be the key to its success.
Predicted winner: “Wander to Wonder”
Live-Action Short Film
Nominees:
“A Lien”
“Anuja”
“I’m Not a Robot”
“The Last Ranger”
“The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent”
“Anuja” has Netflix behind it, while “A Lien” and “I’m Not a Robot” couldn’t be timelier, given current fears surrounding immigration and AI, respectively. “A Lien” in particular packs a punch and could ride today’s headlines to a win. But there’s no reason for voters not to watch all five of these films before voting – and if they do that, chances are that the one that will linger is “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent,” a harrowing flashback to early ’90s Bosnia and Herzegovina that captures the inhumanity of the Yugoslav Wars while never leaving the confines of a train car.
Predicted winner: “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent”
Documentary Short Film
Nominees:
“Death by Numbers”
“I Am Ready, Warden”
“Incident”
“Instruments of a Beating Heart”
“The Only Girl in the Orchestra”
It’s been almost a decade since this category was won by a tough, issue-oriented film; in recent years, voters more often gravitated toward character studies and movies about people they can love. That could mean the 89-year-old musician in “The Only Girl in the Orchestra,” but this feels like a year for something more sobering – quite possibly “Death by Numbers,” the affecting memories of a survivor of the Parkland school shooting, or “I Am Ready, Warden,” which explores the concept of forgiveness in the story of an inmate on Texas’ death row. The wild card, though, could be “Incident,” in which veteran filmmaker and artist Bill Morrison examines a police shooting entirely through the use of security-camera and police bodycam footage. It bucks the recent trend in the category but feels singular enough to grab voters’ attention.
Predicted winner: “Incident”
