It’s been a matter of faith for months that the current Oscar season has brought one of the most wide-open races in years. And when it comes to which film will win Best Picture, that’s true: At this point, as many as six films have a plausible chance to win the top award.
But if you’re talking about what’s going to be nominated, things aren’t quite so unpredictable. A consensus has formed around eight of the 10 Best Picture nominees, four of the five Best Actor ones, four of the five for Best Director …
And yet, who really knows? The Academy is much bigger than it was a decade ago, with 9,905 voting members as of December, and it’s far more international. And while the majority of members are still based in Los Angeles, how many of them made the effort to watch the movies and vote during a month when the city was in flames?
This, after all, is a year in which nominations voting was extended twice, the date of the nomination announcement was pushed back twice and the Nominations Luncheon was canceled. It’s a year with a lot of distractions and without a “Barbenheimer” to get voters and viewers engaged.
With those uncertainties hanging over Oscar season, here are our best guesses as to what films will come out on top when nominations are announced on Thursday morning. We’re betting (not literally, mind you) that “Emilia Pérez” winds up with the most nominations, followed by “The Brutalist” and “Conclave.”
Note: As we’ve explained many times before, the Academy uses ranked-choice voting in the nominations round, which requires voters to rank their favorites in order of preference. Each person’s vote goes only to the film ranked first on the ballot unless that film already has enough votes or has been eliminated from contention, in which case the vote shifts to the highest-ranked choice that’s still in the running on the ballot. The bottom line: It’s better to be ranked first on a third of the ballots than to be ranked third or fourth on almost all of them.
Best Picture
The sure-thing nominees in this category, and the ones that could possibly win, seem to be “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” “A Complete Unknown,” “Conclave,” “Emilia Pérez” and “Wicked.” Beyond that, “Dune: Part Two” will have huge below-the-line support, while “The Substance” will likely benefit from the way ranked-choice voting rewards films with passionate support, even if they’re too bold and too weird to have mass appeal.
For the last two spots, “A Real Pain” and “Sing Sing” have the advantage of having almost certain acting nominees in Kieran Culkin and Colman Domingo, respectively. That may give them a slight edge over “Nickel Boys,” “September 5” and the real wild card, “All We Imagine as Light.”
Predicted nominees: “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” “A Complete Unknown,” “Conclave,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Emilia Pérez,” “A Real Pain,” “Sing Sing,” “The Substance,” “Wicked”
Watch out for: “All We Imagine as Light,” “Nickel Boys,” “September 5”
Best Director
This is the category where major contenders have often been bypassed in recent years, mostly in favor of international directors: Justine Triet for “Anatomy of a Fall” over Greta Gerwig for “Barbie,” Ruben Östlund for “Triangle of Sadness” over James Cameron for “Avatar: The Way of Water,” Ryusuke Hamaguchi for “Drive My Car” over Denis Villeneuve for “Dune,” Thomas Vinterberg for “Another Round” over Aaron Sorkin for “The Trial of the Chicago 7” … Two of the most obvious candidates are from France (Jacques Audiard for “Emilia Pérez”) and Germany (Edward Berger for “Conclave”), with Sean Baker (“Anora”) and Brady Corbet (“The Brutalist”) edging out Jon M. Chu (“Wicked”) as the U.S. directors with the best shot at a nomination.
Chu could squeeze in as well, as could Directors Guild Award nominee James Mangold for “A Complete Unknown.” But it seems highly characteristic of the Directors Branch to go instead for Coralie Fargeat, the French auteur behind “The Substance.” And it wouldn’t be unlike them to bypass another big name in favor of Indian director Payal Kapadia for “All We Imagine as Light” or exiled Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof for “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.”
Predicted nominees: Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez” ; Sean Baker, “Anora”; Edward Berger, “Conclave”; Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”; Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance”
Watch out for: Jon M. Chu, “Wicked”; Payal Kapadia, “All We Imagine as Light”; Denis Villeneuve, “Dune: Part Two”
Best Actor
The weaker of the two lead acting categories feels as if it has four clear favorites in Adrien Brody for “The Brutalist,” Timothee Chalamet for “A Complete Unknown,” Colman Domingo for “Sing Sing” and Ralph Fiennes for “Conclave.” The question is who else will join them – and barring a shocking nom for Hugh Grant in “Heretic” or a slightly less shocking one for Jesse Eisenberg in “A Real Pain,” the strongest candidates seem to be Daniel Craig for “Queer” and Sebastian Stan for “The Apprentice.”
Will Donald Trump’s victory drive people toward or away from Stan, who plays him in “The Apprentice?” That’s a tough call, but Craig seems like a safer call. (And no, the online furor over the use of AI for Adrien Brody’s Hungarian-language scenes wouldn’t have really hurt his chances even if it had happened during the voting window; for the most part, Oscar voters don’t follow the discourse on what used to be called Film Twitter.)
Predicted nominees: Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist”; Timothee Chalamet, “A Complete Unknown”; Daniel Craig, “Queer”; Colman Domingo, “Sing Sing”; Ralph Fiennes, “Conclave”
Watch out for: Jesse Eisenberg, “A Real Pain”; Hugh Grant, “Heretic”; Sebastian Stan, “The Apprentice”
Best Actress
This is the most fiercely competitive of all the acting categories, with at least eight women who feel as if it’d be crazy for them not to be included – Cynthia Erivo for “Wicked,” Marianne Jean-Baptiste for “Hard Truths,” Angelina Jolie for “Maria,” Nicole Kidman for “Babygirl,” Mikey Madison for “Anora,” Demi Moore for “The Substance,” Karla Sofía Gascón for “Emilia Pérez” and Fernanda Torres for “I’m Still Here” – and a couple of other potential surprises in Pamela Anderson for “The Last Showgirl” and Kate Winslet for “Lee.”
Really, you can flip a coin to narrow that group down, though Madison and Moore seem safe with Erivo close behind. Beyond that, Gascón will probably be representing the film with the most nominations, while I refuse to believe that voters won’t recognize Jean-Baptiste’s fearsome performance. And even if things break the way I expect, I’ll be mourning the absence of Torres and Jolie.
Predicted nominees: Cynthia Erivo, “Wicked”; Marianne Jean-Baptiste, “Hard Truths”; Mikey Madison, “Anora”; Demi Moore, “The Substance”; Karla Sofía Gascón, “Emilia Pérez”
Watch out for: Angelina Jolie, “Maria”; Nicole Kidman, “Babygirl”; Fernanda Torres, “I’m Still Here”
Best Supporting Actor
Kieran Culkin is the obvious frontrunner for portraying the real pain in “A Real Pain,” with Edward Norton for “A Complete Unknown” and Yura Borisov for “Anora” strong as well. Guy Pearce was overlooked by SAG Awards voters for “The Brutalist,” but he seems a likelier Oscar nominee than, say, SAG nominee Jonathan Bailey for “Wicked.” The fifth spot could go to Jeremy Strong for “The Apprentice” or Clarence Maclin for “Sing Sing,” though once upon a time Denzel Washington seemed to have a firm grasp on a nom for the relish with which he tackled “Gladiator II.”
Predicted nominees: Yura Borisov, “Anora”; Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”; Edward Norton, “A Complete Unknown”; Guy Pearce, “The Brutalist”; Jeremy Strong, “The Apprentice”
Watch out for: Clarence Maclin, “Sing Sing”; Stanley Tucci, “Conclave”; Denzel Washington, “Gladiator II”
Best Supporting Actress
This is another category where SAG voters picked a couple of likely Oscar nominees – Ariana Grande for “Wicked” and Zoe Saldaña for “Emilia Pérez” – while overlooking others, notably Isabella Rossellini for her short but potent performance in “Conclave.” Beyond those three, “The Substance” seems to be picking up enough support to boost Margaret Qualley.
Other contenders include Felicity Jones for “The Brutalist” (where she has the disadvantage of appearing in the second half of the long film, which most people don’t like as much as the first half), Selena Gomez for “Emilia Pérez,” Danielle Deadwyler for “The Piano Lesson,” Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor for “Nickel Boys” and two late-surging SAG nominees, Monica Barbaro for “A Complete Unknown” and Jamie Lee Curtis for “The Last Showgirl.”
Predicted nominees: Ariana Grande, “Wicked”; Felicity Jones, “The Brutalist”; Margaret Qualley, “The Substance”; Isabella Rossellini, “Conclave”; Zoe Saldana, “Emilia Pérez”
Watch out for: Monica Barbaro, “A Complete Unknown”; Jamie Lee Curtis, “The Last Showgirl”; Selena Gomez, “Emilia Pérez”
Best Original Screenplay
This category has a solid consensus in favor of four likely Best Picture nominees – “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” “A Real Pain” and “The Substance” – plus the tense Munich Olympics drama “September 5.” But that doesn’t mean that “All We Imagine as Light” couldn’t sneak in, or even Mike Leigh’s “Hard Truths,” with the director’s unique method of workshopping a screenplay into existence over a period of months.
Predicted nominees: “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” “A Real Pain,” “September 5,” “The Substance”
Watch out for: “All We Imagine as Light,” “Challengers,” “Hard Truths”
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Academy’s Writers Branch likes to sprinkle in some indies along with bigger films, which is why “Sing Sing” and “Nickel Boys” could well end up in the mix alongside larger productions like “Conclave,” “A Complete Unknown” and maybe even “Dune: Part Two” and “Wicked.” “Emilia Pérez” will likely grab a spot for a non-English screenplay, but don’t rule out the Brazilian film “I’m Still Here.”
Predicted nominees: “A Complete Unknown,” Conclave,” “Emilia Pérez,” “Nickel Boys,” “Sing Sing”
Watch out for: “Dune: Part Two,” “I’m Still Here,” “Wicked”
Best Cinematography
The American Society of Cinematographers nominations are usually a solid predictor of four out of the five Oscar nominees – but with the ASC supersizing its category to seven nominees this year, it lost its ability to do anything other than narrow the field to “The Brutalist,” “A Complete Unknown,” “Conclave,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Maria,” “Nosferatu” and “Wicked.” And it didn’t even do that, really, because the groundbreaking POV film “Nickel Boys,” nominated by the ASC in a special category for smaller productions, is a clear Oscar contender as well.
Predicted nominees: “The Brutalist,” “Conclave,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Nickel Boys,” “Nosferatu”
Watch out for: “A Complete Unknown,” “Maria,” “Wicked”
Best Film Editing
It used to be a hard-and-fast rule that no film could win Best Picture without at least being nominated for editing – and while “Birdman” and “CODA” punctured that certainty, it’s still a pretty good guideline, with only one film in the last six years getting a nom in this category without getting one for best pic. That means the top contenders for picture are also the top contenders here.
Predicted nominees: “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” “Conclave,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Emilia Pérez”
Watch out for: “A Complete Unknown,” “September 5,” “Wicked”
Best Costume Design
“Wicked” is a lock, of course. But what else? There are spooky designs (“Nosferatu” for serious spooky, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” for silly spooky), period re-creations (“Blitz” for the 1940s, “A Complete Unknown” for the ’60s) and even a movie that dresses all the men in matching black, white and red gowns and all the women in black ones (“Conclave”).
Predicted nominees: “Blitz,” “A Complete Unknown,” “Conclave,” “Nosferatu,” “Wicked”
Watch out for: “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Maria”
Best Production Design
A lot of the top contenders are pretty monumental, creating everything from an acclaimed architect’s masterwork to a couple of planets to the land of Oz to the Vatican to a vampire’s castle. Greenwich Village in the 1960s, Maria Callas’ Paris apartment and a creepy fantasy version of Hollywood glam ‘n’ grime were pretty cool, too.
Predicted nominees: “The Brutalist,” “Conclave,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Nosferatu,” “Wicked”
Watch out for: “A Complete Unknown,” “Maria,” “The Substance”
Best Makeup & Hairstyling
This category has a habit of nominating films that don’t show up in any other category, including “Norbit,” “Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa,” “House of Gucci” and last year’s “Golda.” Will “Waltzing With Brando” (Billy Zane looking amazingly like Marlon Brando at several different points in his career) fulfill that function this year? It just might, though the competition includes a sequel to a past nominee (“Dune: Part Two”), a couple of horrifying tour de forces (“The Substance” and “Nosferatu”), two different jobs of transforming Sebastian Stan (“A Different Man” and “The Apprentice”) and a movie that paints Cynthia Erivo green (“Wicked”).
Predicted nominees: “A Different Man,” “Emilia Pérez,” “Nosferatu,” “The Substance,” “Waltzing With Brando”
Watch out for: “The Apprentice,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Wicked”
Best Original Score
The newly-expanded 20-film shortlist in this category, up from its usual 15, found room for a lot of smaller films scored by female composers – but the nominations are likely to go largely to men, albeit ones who mostly haven’t been nominated before. Top contenders include Daniel Blumberg, Robin Carolan and the French team of Clément Ducol and Camille, who bring the drama to “The Brutalist,” “Nosferatu” and “Emilia Pérez,” respectively.
Volker Bertelmann is definitely not in the first-timers club, winning for “All Quiet on the Western Front” two years ago and a strong contender for the less assaultive “Conclave” this year, while Kris Bowers’ lavish score to “The Wild Robot” has the potential to make him the first person to win (or even be nominated) in Best Documentary Short one year and Best Original Score the next.
Predicted nominees: “The Brutalist,” Daniel Blumberg; “Conclave,” Volker Bertelmann; “Emilia Pérez,” Clément Ducol and Camille; “Nosferatu,” Robin Carolan; “The Wild Robot,” Kris Bowers
Watch out for: “Challengers,” Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross; “The Room Next Door,” Alberto Iglesias; “Wicked,” John Powell and Stephen Schwartz
Best Original Song
Rule No. 1: Until further notice, never pick against Diane Warren getting nominated. This year, precedent suggests that “The Journey” from “The Six Triple Eight” will be her eighth consecutive nomination and her 16th overall. Rule No. 2: Songs performed on screen have an advantage, which is good news for “El Mal” and “Mi Camino” from “Emilia Pérez,” and maybe for Kristen Wiig’s charming “Harper and Will Go West” from “Will & Harper” and the thumping rap track “Sick in the Head” from “Kneecap.”
But that list leaves out the marvelously retro Elton John/Brandi Carlile collaboration “Never Too Late,” Maren Morris’ rousing “Kiss the Sky” from “The Wild Robot” and Trent Reznor and Atticus’ Ross techno workout “Compress/Repress” from “Challengers,” among others.
Predicted nominees: “Never Too Late” from “Elton John: Never Too Late”; “El Mal” from “Emilia Pérez”; “Mi Camino” from “Emilia Pérez”; “The Journey” from “The Six Triple Eight”; “Harper and Will Go West” from “Will & Harper”
Watch out for: “Compress/Repress” from “Challengers”; “Sick in the Head” from “Kneecap”; “Kiss the Sky” from “The Wild Robot”
Best Sound
With the old sound editing and sound mixing categories combined into a single award, the slate of nominees is typically a mixture of big, loud movies and music-oriented ones. “A Complete Unknown,” “Emilia Pérez,” “Wicked” and “Joker: Folie a Deux” are all on the 10-film shortlist, which means that music films should have a strong showing this year, but theater-shaking flicks like “Blitz,” “Dune” and “Gladiator II” won’t allow music to hog too many slots.
Predicted nominees: “Blitz,” “A Complete Unknown,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Emilia Pérez,” “Wicked”
Watch out for: “Gladiator II,” “The Wild Robot,” “Deadpool & Wolverine”
Best Visual Effects
“Dune” won three years ago, and its sequel is every bit as formidable. The latest string of “Planet of the Apes” movies were all nominated – and if voters love how Wētā FX created a world full of apes, they should also appreciate how the same company plopped a single ape in the middle of a music biopic in “Better Man.” Then there’s “Mufasa: The Lion King,” a movie that was essentially created in the computer. “Wicked” is in the running, too, though voters could also reward Ridley Scott’s emphasis on in-camera effects in “Gladiator II” or the skillful supporting effects of the lower-key “Civil War.”
Predicted nominees: “Better Man,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” “Mufasa: The Lion King,” “Wicked”
Watch out for: “Civil War,” “Gladiator II,” “Twisters”
Best International Feature Film
For months, the big three in this category have been “Emilia Pérez,” “I’m Still Here” and “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” the submissions from France, Brazil and Germany, respectively. All three of them seem to be locks for nomination, and the animated Latvian film “Flow” is likely to be included both here and in the animated feature category. The Academy’s love for Italian films could fill the fifth spot with “Vermiglio,” though Ireland’s brash rap movie “Kneecap” or one of the Scandinavian entries, Norway’s “Armand” or Denmark’s “The Girl With the Needle,” could break into the lineup instead. If there’s a dark horse, it may be Palestine’s “From Ground Zero,” which is made up of 22 short films made by directors in Gaza over the past year.
Predicted nominees: Brazil, “I’m Still Here”; France, “Emilia Pérez”; Germany, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”; Italy, “Vermiglio”; Latvia, “Flow”
Watch out for: Denmark, “The Girl With the Needle”; Ireland, “Kneecap”; Palestine, “From Ground Zero”
Best Documentary Feature
The Israeli/Palestinian doc “No Other Land” and the chronicle of the abuse of indigenous children, “Sugarcane,” have won the most awards for nonfiction films this season, and they should both appeal to Documentary Branch voters. The adventurous approach of “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” and the emotional punch of the Ukraine-set “Porcelain War” could prove irresistible as well, though you can’t discount the equally adventurous “Dahomey” or the emotional “Daughters.”
The big question: Will the branch nominate the Will Ferrell/Harper Steele road movie “Will & Harper,” a wildly enjoyable doc that deals with Steele’s coming out as transgender – or will voters continue their reluctance to nominate enjoyable movies, apparently out of fear that those films will overshadow weightier nominees once the ballots are in the hands of the entire membership?
Predicted nominees: “No Other Land,” “Porcelain War,” “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” “Sugarcane,” “Union”
Watch out for: “Dahomey,” “Daughters,” “Will & Harper”
Best Documentary Short
The shortlist in the doc short category is filled with dark stories from significant filmmakers, including ones with previous Oscar nominations (Skye Fitzgerald for the eye-opening story of kangaroo hunting, “Chasing Roo,” Smriti Mundhra for the death row story “I Am Ready, Warden,” Betsy West for the heartbreaking story of children in a war zone, “Once Upon a Time in Ukraine”). Other strong entries include Peabody winner Kim A Snyder’s “Death by Numbers,” a story from the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting, and the immersive, formally adventurous “Incident” from celebrated artist and filmmaker Bill Morrison.
Predicted nominees: “Chasing Roo,” “Death by Numbers,” “I Am Ready, Warden,” “Incident,” “Once Upon a Time in Ukraine”
Watch out for: “Makayla’s Voice: A Letter to the World,” “Planetwalker,” “A Swim Lesson”
Best Animated Feature
The three biggest contenders are clearly Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” the top-grossing animated film of all time and the entry from the company that has dominated this category; “The Wild Robot,” the best shot in years for DreamWorks Animation to win the award it hasn’t held since “Shrek” won the first animated-feature Oscar back in 2002; and “Flow,” the Latvian indie that became a critics’ darling and won the Golden Globe.
Beyond that, voters in the Animation Branch love stop-motion and they love Aardman, which bodes well for that company’s “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.” In the past, the film with the best shot at landing the last spot might well have been the imaginative, dour indie “Memoir of a Snail” – but ever since the Academy allowed volunteers from all branches of the Academy to vote for this category in the nomination round, big-studio films have done better and indies have done worse. That could potentially help Disney’s “Moana 2.”
Predicted nominees: “Flow,” “Inside Out 2,” “Memoir of a Snail,” “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” “The Wild Robot”
Watch out for: “Chicken for Linda!,” “Moana 2,” “That Christmas”
Best Animated Short
The best of this year’s shortlisted animated films are wildly varied and range from the surreal line drawings of animation pioneer Don Hertzfeld’s “ME” to the Coptic imagery of the sobering “The 21” to the imaginative “The Wild-Tempered Clavier,” in which each frame was hand-painted on a sheet of toilet paper. The shorts categories are fiendishly difficult to predict in the nomination phase, but these are the animated films we think have the best chance.
Predicted nominees: “In the Shadow of the Cypress,” “Maybe Elephants,” “ME,” “The 21,” “The Wild-Tempered Clavier”
Watch out for: “A Bear Named Wojtek,” “Beautiful Men,” “Wander to Wonder”
Best Live Action Short
If you liked “Conclave,” the short “Clodagh” is another story from the Catholic Church. If you liked “Emilia Pérez,” “Dovecote” is another film starring Zoe Saldaña. They’re both among the live-action shorts that made the strongest impression.
Predicted nominees: “Clodagh,” “Dovecote,” “I’m Not a Robot,” “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent,” “The Masterpiece”
Watch out for: “Anuja,” “The Ice Cream Man,” “An Orange From Jaffa”