Oscar Futures: Our Final Predictions for the Nominees

Every year, Oscar pundits say the current season is the hardest one they’ve ever tried to predict. And this year, they might be right! Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Dale Robinette/Warner Bros., Universal Pictures/Everett Collection, Melinda Sue Gordon/Apple TV+

Every year, Oscar pundits say the current season is the hardest one they’ve ever tried to predict. And this year, they might be right! While we can be sure that the likes of Oppenheimer, Barbie, and Killers of the Flower Moon will contend in the major categories, there’s still so much in flux ahead of Tuesday’s nominations. Thanks to the SAG strike, the awards circus didn’t fully kick off until early December, and it’s hard to tell what effect the shortened season will have. What I do know is that in the supporting races I’ve never been less confident in my picks. To make it even tougher, we’re flying blind in the writing categories, since the Writers Guild won’t announce its nominations until late February.

Complicating matters further is the fact that this season is stocked with worthy contenders; for the first time ever, I personally enjoyed every single film in my predicted Best Picture ten. That means we’re in for some hard cuts, but it also means your favorite under-the-radar pick can never fully be counted out. With all that in mind, here are my predictions for the eight biggest Oscar categories.

Best Picture

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

Here’s a quick-and-dirty way of predicting the Best Picture ten: Take the ten nominees from the Producers Guild Awards, remove one or two obvious middlebrow picks, and replace them with artsy and/or international contenders. Except that this year, the producers did the job for us, nominating Anatomy of a Fall and Zone of Interest over accessible fare like Air or The Color Purple. Can it really be that simple? While I’m tempted to throw in a left-field pick like Origin just to prove my worth around here, these ten films have stood head and shoulders above the competition all season long. I think we’re in for a rare perfect match with the PGA.

Best Director

Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Alexander Payne, The Holdovers
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall

Wait, where’s Greta Gerwig? I’m hoping I’m wrong, but I can’t ignore the scuttlebutt that this is the branch most likely to ding Barbie for being a summer blockbuster produced by a toy company — especially since that lines up with opinions I’ve heard from voters on the trail. Of the rest, Lanthimos, Nolan, and Scorsese have the requisite scale and vision to feel like locks. Though the bittersweet Holdovers doesn’t feature the fireworks of a typical directing nominee, the dramedy looks to have surged into the runner-up spot behind Oppenheimer, and after getting in at BAFTA and the DGA, Payne seems safe, too.

That leaves a single spot for one of our foreign-language auteurs: Jonathan Glazer of The Zone of Interest and Justine Triet of Anatomy of a Fall. Zone feels more like a “director movie,� but Anatomy has bested it whenever they’ve gone head-to-head at a major precursor. And if you’re snubbing Gerwig, nominating Triet also makes sense as a cover-your-ass move.

Best Actor

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

Is Leonardo DiCaprio now in his Tom Hanks era? Just as Hanks has struggled to get nominated in the 21st century, so, too, is Leo finding recognition much harder after his long-awaited trophy. Even while leading a certain Best Picture nominee in Killers of the Flower Moon, he was left out at SAG and BAFTA, and now appears a long shot for a Best Actor nod. In part that’s due to DiCaprio ceding the spotlight to co-star Lily Gladstone; by contrast, Rustin’s Colman Domingo is absolutely everywhere promoting his civil-rights biopic. The veteran character actor has been magnetic on the trail, and now looks set for his first career nomination — a sign of how a well-run campaign can overcome a so-so film.

Two more biopic stars, Cooper and Murphy, make up our top tier, alongside Giamatti, who should finally get the Best Actor nomination for an Alexander Payne film that eluded him on Sideways nearly 20 years ago. Our final spot goes to another first-timer, Jeffrey Wright, who’s riding a wave of critical acclaim for the literary satire.

Best Actress

Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Margot Robbie, Barbie
Emma Stone, Poor Things

Lily Gladstone and Emma Stone are squaring off for the trophy, and Carey Mulligan is repping a film that continues to be recognized by industry groups no matter how many redditors turn their noses up at it. A few pundits have raised the possibility of Margot Robbie missing out, but I’ve never put much stock in those fears: Not only is Robbie the face of the year’s biggest film, she also gives a subtly transformative turn. (She’s fantastic being plastic.)

Of those in the hunt, Nyad’s Annette Bening scored a SAG nomination for a traditionally Oscar-friendly role, but she’s otherwise fallen by the wayside. A24’s Past Lives has been better received, though I think film and performance are both a tad too gentle for Greta Lee to get in. Instead I’ll go with Sandra Hüller, who’s also fronting a likely Best Picture nominee, and who happens to give the most forceful performance of the bunch. (Though whether it was forceful enough to propel her husband out that window, we may never know.)

Best Supporting Actor

Willem Dafoe, Poor Things
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Charles Melton, May December

As I like to say, the Oscars are the Oscars, not a machine that tabulates guild nominations. So even though May December hunk Charles Melton missed at both SAG and BAFTA, I’m predicting Academy voters are with-it enough to recognize his revelatory turn, the same way Brian Tyree Henry snagged a Supporting Actor nod out of thin air last year. Sometimes you just gotta have faith.

That’s not the only tough call here. Beyond the expected top two of Robert Downey Jr. and Ryan Gosling, this field gets murky quick. While I was tempted to include both Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo from Poor Things on the basis that this category often sees a double up, in the end I went only with Dafoe, who edged his co-star at SAG. Finally, I have Robert De Niro’s devilish turn in Killers, a steady-as-she-goes performance that’s shown up at every precursor. But I don’t feel good about leaving out Ruffalo … or for that matter Dominic Sessa of The Holdovers, whose fortunes are rising after a surprise BAFTA nom, and Sterling K. Brown of American Fiction, who gives his film a jolt of life whenever he’s onscreen.

Best Supporting Actress

Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
Jodie Foster, Nyad
Sandra Hüller, The Zone of Interest
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

I always knew the supporting-actress race would surprise me, but I never expected this. Besides Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who’s likely to win the whole thing, and Emily Blunt, a coattail pick from the Best Picture front-runner, nobody else in the field feels safe. Danielle Brooks and Jodie Foster are standouts who’ve gotten in nearly everywhere at the same time their films have largely faded from the conversation. I’m giving my fifth spot to Hüller, who’s drafting off of her own lead campaign, but who would be among the least sympathetic performances the Academy has ever recognized. And that’s who I think will get nominated!

That means I’m leaving out Julianne Moore’s snakelike turn in May December, Penélope Cruz’s masterful envelope acting in Ferrari, and Rosamund Pike’s Saltburn scene-stealer. Even Barbie’s America Ferrera, who has the Oscar clip to end all Oscar clips, has a shot. At a certain point all you can do is throw up your hands and embrace the chaos.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, Barbie
Cord Jefferson, American Fiction
Tony McNamara, Poor Things
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon

When the Academy ruled that Barbie was an adapted screenplay rather than an original, they didn’t just take away the comedy’s best shot at an above-the-line award. They also created an all-killer, no-filler screenplay lineup that includes four top-tier Best Picture contenders plus a TIFF Audience Award winner. It’s anyone’s guess who’ll take this trophy, but luckily, we don’t have to worry about that today.

Best Original Screenplay

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

Pour one out for Andrew Haigh, who probably would have been nominated for All of Us Strangers had Barbie not switched to Adapted. His loss is these screenwriters’ gain, as the departure of the plastic colossus means one more seat for original work. Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, and Past Lives are Best Picture mainstays that all feel like “screenplay movies,� which is to say they’re dialogue-driven, human-scale dramas with an intellectual bent. Maestro — which aims to dazzle you with direction, not writing — is a less-natural fit, but the industry seems to love the Bernstein biopic, and it’d hardly be the first film to get a Screenplay nomination as a consolation prize for missing Director. The final Original Screenplay spot is often a place for this hippest of branches to flex its cinéaste cred, so let’s go with the Semioticians Guild’s top film of the year, May December.