Predicting Oscar winners can be dicey. Prognosticators usually consider all the previous year-end awards: Critics Choice, Golden Globes, the British Academy Film Awards, and -- more importantly -- the professional guild awards: producers, directors, actors, writers, etc.
Then there's the precarious art of anticipating the inclinations of the 9,375 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. To further complicate matters, voting for best picture involves a preferential voting system that kicks in if no picture receives more than 50 percent of the votes in the first count.
There may be surprises this year. Some Oscar observers think Conclave will win best picture because it's the most well-regarded movie among the so-called serious contenders. At one point, The Brutalist was considered a frontrunner. Not anymore.
Anora remains a favorite but not by a mile. Sean Baker won top director honors from the Directors Guild of America. A victory at the Directors Guild often signals that the director's film -- in this case, Anora -- will take best picture. The Producers Guild of America also awarded Anora its top prize. The last professional guild to weigh in -- The Screen Actors Guild of America -- bucked the trend and picked Conclave as its best picture.
Here's the weirdest possibility: Emilia Pérez, which led the field of nominations with 13, could end up with only two Oscars, Zoe Saldana's for best supporting actress and El Mal's for best song.
Much-admired, Emilia Perez took a hit when one of its stars, Oscar-nominated Karla Sofia Gascon, was tagged for old social media posts that were deemed racist and Islamophobic.
So where does that leave us? I'd be lying if I said I knew what will happen when awards are handed out on March 2.
Whatever transpires, the Oscars remain an important event for a tattered film industry, for the nominees and winners, for those devotes who participate in Oscar pools or have personal rooting interests, and for seasoned movie fans who, even if skeptical about Oscar, can't turn away.
I approach Oscar predictions with a mixture of resignation and trepidation. It's an habitual critical exercise, but one that involves plenty of guesswork, informed I hope.
In cases where I've named a movie that could win, it's because that particular race may be hovering close to a toss-up.
So here are my predictions in the major categories:
Best Picture: Anora
Could win: Conclave.
The Other Nominees:
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Perez
I'm Still Here
Nickel Boys
The Substance
Wicked
Best Director: Sean Baker, Anora
The Other Nominees:
Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
James Mangold, A Complete Unknown
Jacques Audiard, Emilia Perez
Best Actor: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
The Other Nominees:
Timothee Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice
Best Actress: Demi Moore, The Substance
Could win: Mikey Madison, Anora
The Other Nominees
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
Karla Sofia Gascon, Emilia Perez
Fernanda Torres, I'm still Here*
*Dark horse, but not impossible
Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
The Other Nominees:
Yura Borisov, Anora
Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice
Best Supporting Actress: Zoe Saldana, Emilia Perez
The Other Nominees:
Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown
Ariana Grande, Wicked
Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
Best Adapted Screenplay: Conclave
The Other Nominees:
A Complete Unknown
Emilia Perez
Nickel Boys
Sing Sing
Best Original screenplay: Anora
Could win: A Real Pain
The Other Nominees:
The Brutalist
September 5
The Substance.
Best Documentary Feature: No Other Land
The Other Nominees:
Black Box Diaries
Porcelain War
Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
Sugarcane
Best Animated Feature: The Wild Robot
Could win: Flow
The Other Nominees:
Inside Out 2
Memoir of a Snail
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Foul
Best International Feature: I'm Still Here
Could win: Emilia Perez
The other nominees:
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Flow
The Girl With the Needle
That's my take on the major categories: A few last, thoughts, though: If Oscar wanted to endorse movies that meet its criteria for quality but also had broad appeal, Wicked and Dune: Part II would be the top contenders.
A bit of Googling showed that to date, Wicked has grossed more than $727 million worldwide. Dune: Part II has grossed more than $714 million worldwide. By contrast, Anora has grossed around $37 million worldwide. Wicked’s budget was estimated at $145 million; the budget for Dune has been estimated at $165 million. Anora was made for $6 million.
Gross receipts can be misleading, of course. Variables include the number of screens on which a movie is released; the amount spent on advertising; audience familiarity with the cast or with the movie’s source material; and possibly its rating.
I'm not trying to equate money spent and money made with quality. What I’m getting at is a way to estimate what moviegoers are watching and how it might align with the preferences of Oscar voters.
I’d say that five of this year’s nominees (Anora, The Brutalist, Emilia Perez, I’m Still Here, and Nickel Boys) might be called “niche” movies with The Substance occupying a middle ground between niche movies and films with mass-market potential.
It’s not a new idea, but one worth revisiting: Like most cultural preoccupations, movies have become fragmented, generating factional support. It’s difficult to imagine, for example, that Brady Corbet, the director of The Brutalist, thought his three hour plus movie would be a blockbuster.
That doesn’t mean The Brutalist couldn’t be regarded as the best picture of 2024; rather it indicates that we’ve become an audience of segmented viewers with some crossover between what once was considered art house and mainstream fare.
The results can be strange. I have friends who were open to experiencing what The Brutalist had to offer, but walked out of Wicked after the first 20 minutes. At a lunch with former co-workers, one expressed disdain for The Brutalist; another thought it was the year’s best movie.
Some filmmakers don't seem to be looking to make a box-office killing. Sean Baker (Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket, and Anora) has become an essential movie voice by looking at lives we often ignore: sex workers, uprooted kids being raised in motels, and Russian immigrants in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.
As Baker’s work suggests, strains of humanity — though sometimes as absurd as it is heartbreaking or inspiring — can be found in every subculture.
The point: We live in times when consensus is difficult to reach. That may be as true for the Academy’s voters as it is for the rest of us. That's why we should be careful about assigning too much meaning to Sunday’s awards. Maybe a pervasive lack of agreement is the meaning.
The Academy doesn't disclose its Oscar vote count. But what would we conclude if we knew that Anora had surpassed the required 50 percent mark by beating Conclave with 500 or fewer votes. It might only mean that Anora won an Oscar for best picture and Conclave didn't. It wouldn't tell us whether anyone would be rewatching or discovering either picture 10 years from now.
So, good luck in your Oscar pool, and let's hope that 2025 brims with stimulating, entertaining, and emotionally powerful movies -- whatever conclusions, if any, we'll be able to draw about the rest of the year.
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