Predicting The Winners At The 96th Oscars!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7nlfrwKwGOvm0JzB1My4Gf

Earlier today, the speculation came to an end as the nominees for the 2023 Academy Awards have officially been announced. There were a few surprises in the nominees but here are our picks for who will win in each category and why.

Join in on Sunday this article is updated with the winners during the show!

Winners will be denoted bold and in Red.

Best Picture

Let's just get Best Picture out of the way rather than holding off on that one until the end of the article. The nominees are:

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

This race pretty clearly comes down to Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer, and Poor Things, even though the best movie nominated is definitely Poor Things. That said, Oppenheimer will take it because it feels more inventive than Killers of the Flower Moon. I would not count out the outside chance of a possible run by The Zone of Interest, but that is likely to earn it's hardware in another category.

This is not a surprise that Oppenheimer won. I'd expect to see Florence Pugh on stage when this award is given next year to Dune Part Two as well.

Best Director

There is a lot of talk about Greta Gerwig being snubbed, to which I reply with that car chase scene in Barbie that looked like it was cut from a Nissan sales event ad.  That's not to say she is a bad director, she's actually one of the best working today, it's just Barbie definitely has its flaws. If there is a snub, it's Chad Stahelski for John Wick: Chapter 4. That said, the nominees are:

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

This race comes down to whether Scorsese will win his second Oscar or if Nolan will win his first. Christopher Nolan will win his first for Oppenheimer because it feels more like a culmination of everything Nolan has done in his career up until this point while Killers of the Flower Moon is just another fantastic movie that is up to the standards that viewers have come to expect from Scorsese.

This is a long-overdue award for Nolan and I doubt this will be his last.

Best Lead Actor

Sure DiCaprio did not get nominated but the bigger snub in this category is Zac Efron not getting a nomination for The Iron Claw. The nominees are:

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

This is going to go to Cillian Murphy for his role in Oppenheimer. Paul Giamatti could give him a run for his money but it's unlikely he will be able to pull off the win.

No surprise on this one either, this is a well-deserved win for Cillian Murphy.

Best Lead Actress

Having seen all these films now it is apparent we have four incredibly powerful performances and Carey Mulligan sneaking into the slot that probably should have gone to either Margot Robbie for Barbie or Greta Lee for Past Lives. That said, here are the nominees:

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

While Benning and Huller both put on great performances (and Huller doing it in both Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest), this race comes down to Emma Stone and Lily Gladstone. Considering I made the pick before the SAG awards, I am going to stick with my original pick and say this goes to Emma Stone because she does the most acting, maybe not the best acting.

Despite me picking Emma Stone, I'm still a little surprised she won over Lily Gladstone. She did a fantastic job in this film and this was a toss-up but I'm still a little surprised.

Best Supporting Actor

This is probably the easiest category to pick so let's just get through it. Here are the nominees:

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

Obviously this is Robert Downey Jr.'s year. Congratulations to the other nominees but it's not their year.

No surprises here.

Best Supporting Actress

This is probably the closest race of the acting categories. Each actress in the race has a conceivable chance of taking home the award. That said, here are the nominees:

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

Let's start by saying I loved America Ferrera in Barbie but she's unlikely to win because she doesn't do a ton in the movie. Danielle Brooks also has a great performance but the lack of love for The Color Purple in other categories (especially Best Original Song) does not inspire confidence that she will win here, which is unfortunate because she had a great performance. This will go to Da'Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers.

Best Original Screenplay

Both screenplay categories have some stiff competition this year but this one is the tighter of the two. Every movie in this category could conceivably win this award so here are the nominees:

• Justine Triet and Arthur Harari (Anatomy of a Fall)
• David Hemingson (The Holdovers)
• Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer (Maestro)
• Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik (May December)
• Celine Song (Past Lives)

It's going to be an unpopular pick but hear me out, I think Celine Song wins this year for Past Lives. The fact that it got only got nominated here and for Best Picture makes me think it is primed to take home this prize.

Man I'm taking a beating here tonight. That fight and the ensuring courtroom dramatics of that scene handed this to Anatomy of a Fall and it is well-deserved.

Best Adapted Screenplay

This category is competitive like Best Original Screenplay, just a little less because there is a clear frontrunner. The nominees are:

• Cord Jefferson (American Fiction)
• Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach (Barbie)
• Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer)
• Tony McNamara (Poor Things)
• Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest)

Poor Things had the best script in this category and arguably the best script of a movie in 2023. It's a profoundly weird movie but it just works because the script makes the viewer invested in the story of Bella.

Never have I been more happy to be wrong because I don't think I projected American Fiction to win anything.

Best Animated Feature

Now I have not seen Robot Dreams yet because its wide release is not until May. I decided to see Fancy Dance at the Hamptons International Film Festival last year instead and I do not regret that decision. Here are the nominees:

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

I'm sticking with Nimona because that remains my personal favorite animated movie from last year, even though the smart bet would be Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

The Boy and the Heron was a solid movie and this is a well-deserved win.

Best Documentary Feature

This is another category where my personal favorite and the nominee that I think will win don't exactly line up, however I've already gone out on a limb a few times and I'd rather not risk it again. The nominees are:

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

I think that the anti-Russian/Pro-Ukrainian sentiment that carried Navalny over the finish line last year will carry over and give award 20 Days in Mariupol. Besides the fact that it is a ground account of the ongoing Russian invasion, it is genuinely well made and will give PBS a well-deserved win.

As I said in the original article, this is a well-deserved win because 20 Days in Mariupol is a must-watch documentary.

Best International Feature

This race should have been closer but politics got in the way of a competitive category. The nominees are:

• Io Capitano (Italy)
• Perfect Days (Japan)
• Society of the Snow (Spain)
• The Teacher's Lounge (Germany)
• The Zone of Interest (United Kingdom)

The standard rule I play by is that if a film is nominated for Best Picture and also "Best (blank) Feature", it will probably win the more specific category, even if it does not win Best Picture. France put The Taste of Things in for consideration rather than Anatomy of a Fall because director Justine Triet was critical of French PM Macron at the Cannes Film Festival. Because Anatomy of a Fall is not in this category, it opens up the race for The Zone of Interest to take home the award.

The rule holds true and The Zone of Interest deserved this win.

Best Animated Short Film

This was a tough category to pick a winner from because my local AMC did not hold screenings of the nominated shorts and three of the five were not available to stream so I have not seen most of these. That said, here are the nominees:

• Letter to a Pig
• Ninety-Five Senses
• Our Uniform
• Pachyderme
• WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko

In the podcast episode above, I said WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko based purely on name recognition but having seen Ninety-Five Senses, I now think that's going to win. It blends animation styles in a fantastic way and the story carries some very intense emotion.

Three straight years I've over-thought this category and got this wrong.

Best Live Action Short Film

I'm not going to over think this category this year, let's just get into the nominees:

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

I want Wes Anderson to win an Oscar and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar should pull him over that finish line.

Finally a category I didn't overthink into being wrong. Congrats to Wes Anderson.

Best Documentary Short Film

I regret watching the first documentary I watched from this category first because, after watching it, I am fairly certain that it is going to win the category. The nominees are:

• The ABCs of Book Banning
• The Barber of Little Rock
• Island in Between
• The Last Repair Shop
• Nai Nai & Wai Po

The ABCs of Book Banning is political but in a way that will be popular within the academy voting body, it is concise, and it delivers the message it intends to clearly. It's going to win this category.

This was a surprise for me because I thought for sure this was a locked category but good for The Last Repair Shop for pulling off this major upset.

Achievement in Cinematography

The nominees for Achievement in Cinematography are:

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

Robbie Ryan and Yorgos Lanthimos use their fisheye lens so much you would think they were film students who bought a new piece of equipment and then used it as much as possible in their next project to justify the purchase. Poor Things is going to win in this category.

I have to stop being so confident because it always ends up with me being wrong.

Achievement in Costume Design

This was the category that Marvel Studios should have really tried to get Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 nominated in because the practical costuming effects for Counter-Earth looked great. That said, the nominees are:

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

I'm not a huge fan of this award going to recreations of existing costumes (or creating human-size versions of toy costumes) so Poor Things should ideally win here.

The costuming in Poor Things was fantastic so this is well-deserved.

Achievement in Film Editing

Editing is something most people don't notice unless the movie is doing something really cool and different or if the movie is just failing on fundamental levels (Madame Web). The nominees are:

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

This comes down to Anatomy of a Fall and the way it shoots the courtroom sequences and Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer is going to win because the editing is masterful and manages to tie multiple timelines together in a cohesive way that is not confusing.

Not a big surprise considering how well Oppenheimer was edited.

Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

Full disclosure, I have not seen Society of the Snow. The nominees are:

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

Like costuming, I think this goes to Poor Things because it did some truly interesting things with the makeup of all the characters in this film.

You can tell I was doing this one last when I was writing this piece because I was like "Yeah sure Poor Things" but it worked out because I was right.

Best Original Score

It was not until I saw the nominees in this category that it really set in how great the scores were in movies this year. Here are the nominees:

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

For me this comes down to Ludwig Goransson for Oppenheimer and Jerskin Fendrix for Poor Things but I think Ludwig Goransson wins his second Oscar for his fantastic work in Oppenheimer. Poor Things' score is just a little too off-key (by design) to give it a win.

By the end of his career, I feel that we will look at Ludwig Goransson the way we look at John Williams and Michael Giacchino.

Best Original Song

I'm not the biggest fan of this category because it feels a little off. A lot of the songs created for this category are designed to play during the credits and are basically just pop hits designed to get an Oscar nomination. I think the rules need to be reworked a bit because the fact that songs from actual musicals like The Color Purple and Wonka get omitted (Wonka somehow didn't even make the shortlist) while a song from the credits of Flamin' Hot gets nominated feels weird. Similarly, there should be an exception for songs that came from books but were not set to music previously because there are one or two songs from The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes that should have been eligible.

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

This is going to come down to to one of the two songs from Barbie and I think I'm Just Ken takes it home. That song has remained in the cultural zeitgeist longer. Had Dua Lipa's Dance the Night Away been nominated, this would have been a harder choice.

Second Oscar for Billie Eilish. Great job on this song.

Achievement in Production Design

I'm going to be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of production design that's just rebuilding things that already existed in real life. This is also another category that Wonka and The Color Purple were criminally omitted from (to the point where one has to question if WB did that on purpose to give Barbie a better chance). Here are the nominees:

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

Considering there was a global shortage of pink paint in the aftermath of Barbie's release, I think Barbie is going to win this. The only other movie I really look to as competition would be Poor Things but Barbie is definitely more of a crowd-pleasing movie.

Should have gone with my gut here.

Achievement in Sound

This is probably the toughest of the technical categories to call because there are two solid contenders and not in a "toss-up" situation. Here are the nominees:

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

This comes down to The Zone of Interest and Oppenheimer but I think Oppenheimer wins. That's not to discount the genuinely haunting soundscape of The Zone of Interest but Oppenheimer is going to win because it is more well-known.

I am my own worst enemy when it comes to over-thinking these nominations.

Achievement in Visual Effects

This race comes down to two movies with the other entries deserving their spots but not serious threats to those two entrants. The nominees are:

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

Maybe it's recency bias but Godzilla Minus One is going to win this. It feels weird that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is in this category since the most interesting visuals of the movie were the costuming and practical effects that went into the aliens on Counter-Earth. The only real competition comes from The Creator but Godzilla Minus One looked better on a much smaller budget.

Definitely a deserved win from this team for making Godzilla Minus One look as good as it did on such a small budget.