Here are my predictions for each of tonight’s Oscar categories including what I would like to see win, excluding the shorts.
Best Picture
Will win: Roma, probably — but don’t be surprised if Green Book crashes the party at the end of the show.
Should win: A Star is Born — or BlacKkKlansman, or The Favourite. While Roma is a worthy winner, if given the option, I’d rather see any of those other three films walk away triumphant.
Best Director
Will win: Alfonso Cuaron (Roma).
Should win: Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman). Cuaron won this award as recently as 2013 (Gravity), while Lee is nominated in this category for the first time in his career. Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite) and Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War) also turned in outstanding work in 2018, but if it’s me handing out this award, I’m going with Spike Lee.
Best Actor
Will win: Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody).
Should win: Bradley Cooper (A Star is Born). I haven’t seen Bohemian Rhapsody, so I can’t lay claim that Malek’s performance is bad or undeserving, but Cooper’s transformation into Jackson Maine in A Star is Born is a performance for the ages.
Best Actress
Will win: Glenn Close (The Wife).
Should win: Olivia Colman (The Favourite). This is a career award for Close, who has been nominated at the Oscars on six previous occasions and gone home empty-handed each time. I am of the many out here in the world who’ve not seen The Wife and thus can’t attest to the greatness of Close’s performance, but if I’m voting for my favorite among the nominees, I’m going with Colman’s turn as Queen Anne in The Favourite — her performance is the glue that holds the film’s comedic and dramatic bits together, and I can’t see anyone else playing that role as deftly as Colman. (My runner-up is Lady Gaga, who at one point in A Star is Born actually makes you believe she is just an ordinary person who gets nervous before going on stage.)
Best Supporting Actor
Will win: Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?). The smart money here is on Mahershala Ali (Green Book), who is the presumptive favorite and who will almost certainly take home the award, but I’m anticipating a small upset here on the heels of a recent surge by Grant since the nominations were announced last month.
Should win: Sam Elliott (A Star is Born). Never before has anyone backed out of a driveway with so much emotion.
Best Supporting Actress
Will win: Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk). This category feels more up-in-the-air than I would have expected, what with King not being nominated at the SAG Awards in this category, but I don’t see her being slighted at the Oscars.
Should win: Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk). The next best option here is Rachel Weisz (The Favourite), but I’d rather see King emerge victorious.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Will win: BlacKkKlansman. Don’t be surprised if Can You Ever Forgive Me? or If Beale Street Could Talk upset here, but this feels like the award Spike Lee is destined to leave with tonight — especially knowing he stands no shot at Best Director (see above).
Should win: BlacKkKlansman. I would be fine seeing any of the nominees take this one home, but Spike Lee is the most deserving here.
Best Original Screenplay
Will win: The Favourite. The screenplay awards present an opportunity to give a major prize to a beloved movie not likely to leave with the night’s top award. Roma is the Best Picture frontrunner, Green Book‘s screenplay has been mired in controversy for weeks, and Vice is a political satire that might be too controversial itself. While First Reformed could earn Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) his first Oscar, I’m not counting on it.
Should win: The Favourite, hands down.
Best Foreign Language Film
Will win: Roma. No foreign language film has been nominated for Best Picture and lost this category — though Roma is the first film to be nominated in both categories and be seen as the frontrunner for the night’s top prize. That could seemingly open the door for Cold War, which is nominated in Best Director and Best Cinematography, if voters are casting ballots for Best Foreign Language Film under the impression that Roma will win Best Picture and it would be nice to give this award to another contender, but I’m not counting on that.
Should win: Shoplifters. For the first time since 2013, I’ve seen more than half of the foreign language contenders — this year, that’s Roma, Cold War, and Shoplifters. For my money, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters is the best of the bunch, a richly felt family melodrama that is as refreshing as they come.
Best Animated Feature
Will win: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse. I have nothing more to say here.
Should win: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse. See above.
Best Documentary Feature
Will win: Free Solo. With Won’t You Be My Neighbor? missing out on a nomination, the field feels a bit wide open, but Free Solo seems most likely to capture the attention of a wide range of voters.
Should win: Minding the Gap. Director Bing Liu’s doc (available to stream now on Hulu) is technically marvelous and paints a heartrending coming-of-age portrait, with the effects of toxic masculinity and abuse at its very core. I can’t speak to each of the other contenders, but this is where my vote would go for one of the year’s best movies.
Best Editing
Will win: The Favourite. While Bohemian Rhapsody took home the top dramatic prize at the ACE Eddie Awards, I’m placing my money on The Favourite here, in hopes that “Best Editing” doesn’t simply mean “Most Editing.”
Should win: The Favourite. I would be happy to see BlacKkKlansman win here as well, but given the different character’s storylines that must be weaved together coherently — including the very distinct comedic and dramatic tones that must be balanced while doing so — my vote goes to The Favourite here.
Best Cinematography
Will win: Roma. While Alfonso Cuaron didn’t take home the top prize from the American Society of Cinematographers — that was Lukasz Zal, for Cold War — I’m betting the wider Academy body puts Cuaron over the top here.
Should win: Cold War. I was quite taken with Pawel Pawlikowski’s film when I saw it last month, and Lukasz Zal’s camerawork accounts for at least some of that. (Runner-up here is A Star is Born, whose photography is magnificent in its own right.)
Best Sound Editing
Will win: A Quiet Place. I can see First Man (or Bohemian Rhapsody) winning here too, but its start has been fading for quite some time. Of note, A Quiet Place took home the Effects/Foley prize from the MPSE, while Bohemian Rhapsody took the Dialogue/ADR prize. I’m counting on the latter to be the better predictor here.
Should win: A Quiet Place. In a movie where the sound really, really matters, and where the use of sound (and sometimes, the absence of it) feels extremely inventive, this feels like the right move.
Best Sound Mixing
Will win: Bohemian Rhapsody.
Should win: A Star is Born. But it won’t.
Best Original Score
Will win: If Beale Street Could Talk.
Should win: If Beale Street Could Talk. It’s the only one of the five nominees I actively remember this far removed from seeing each film, which has to count for something, right?
Best Original Song
Will win: “Shallow” (A Star is Born). There are four other nominees, but there are no other options.
Should win: “Shallow” (A Star is Born). It’s the best of the five nominated songs, and of the three songs nominated for movies I’ve seen, it is the most consequential to the story — not to mention the fact that the first performance of “Shallow” sticks out as perhaps the high-point of A Star is Born.
Best Visual Effects
Will win: Avengers: Infinity War, probably. I honestly couldn’t tell you.
Should win: I’ve seen exactly 0 of the 5 nominated movies (sorry, First Man). Where is Black Panther when you need it?
Best Production Design
Will win: The Favourite. It’s between this and Black Panther, I think, and at the end of the day I believe The Favourite will win due to it not being an effects-heavy fantasy film.
Should win: The Favourite, I suppose.
Best Costume Design
Will win: Black Panther. Another category that seems to come down to The Favourite versus Black Panther, though I think Ruth Carter’s work in Black Panther may get the recognition it deserves here.
Should win: Black Panther. See above.
Best Makeup & Hairstyling
Will win: Vice. I saw a picture of Christian Bale as Dick Cheney, and that’s all I needed to know.
Should win: Vice, I suppose.
Qwerty Thoughts 