Win the Best Director category
Go with whoever won the Director’s Guild of America award. Those winners have matched 64 times in the past 71 years. And the Oscar goes to: Alfonso Cuaron for Roma.
Win the Best Cinematography category
Does The Favourite have an angle on the black and white beauty of Roma or Cold War?
When you look at the last six years, this honor has gone to the same film that won BAFTA's Best Director — every time. The British Film Academy Film Awards (BAFTA), which awarded The Favourite in most every other category, went with Roma here. Oscars will too.
Win the Best Animated Feature Film category
Nine out of thirteen PGA-winning animated films also won this Academy Award. Bad news for Incredibles 2 and Isle of Dogs. And the Oscar goes to the deserving Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse.
Win the Best Foreign Language Film category
It’s a two-horse race with Netflix’s Roma (Mexico) versus Amazon’s Cold War (Poland). Will voters reward Cold War here, assuming a Best Picture win for Roma? The safest bet is that every voter with Netflix (everyone) has at least seen Roma, the likely winner here.
Win the Best Adapted Screenplay category
The USC Scripter Awards, which has accurately predicted this category for the last seven years, awarded Leave No Trace, perhaps rewarding an overlooked gem that was snubbed in Oscars nominations? Looking for some better direction this year, the WGA award went to Can You Ever Forgive Me?, your statistical front runner and potential Oscar winner.
I think you have to ignore the stats in categories where an unrecognized legend is in the running. Having zero competitive Oscars to Spike Lee’s name, Academy voters are sure to do the right thing here — BlacKkKlansman upsets.
Win the Best Original Screenplay category
Britian's BAFTA picked The Favourite. Of course they did. The winner in this category most closely resembles the Writers Guild of America's winner, but they honored Eighth Grade, a film not nominated here. Limited stats point to The Favourite, but this may be a place to reward Green Book, a film more likely to resonate in the U.S.. I'll go with stats and pick The Favourite in a tight race.
Win the Best Actor/Actress/Supporting Actor/Supporting Actress categories
The SAG voters are all actors and are the largest block of voters for the Academy Awards.
In the past ten years:
90% of the SAG winners also took home the Oscar for Best Actor
80% of the SAG winners also took home the Oscar for Best Actress
90% of the SAG winners also took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor
80% of the SAG winners also took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress
The Best Supporting Actress stat will dip further next year because winner Emily Blunt was not nominated for Oscar and Oscar nominee Regina King wasn’t nominated for SAG. Which means: Rami Malek, Glenn Close, Mahershala Ali and Regina King are your likely winners.
Win the Best Music (Original Song) category
Ooh-la-la. Lady Gaga does indeed go home with an Oscar on Sunday —for Shallow from A Star Is Born. Streisand won in this category for Evergreen from 1978’s A Star is Born. Judy Garland’s The Man That Got Away, from the 1954 A Star Is Born, lost to Frank Sinatra’s Three Coins In The Fountain so it's not a sure thing. Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy-nominated Black Panther song is the one that would upset, but he's not even working the voter crowd and promoting it.
Win the Best Music (Original Score) category
My turntable would choose If Beale Street Could Talk. However, this award most often aligns with the BAFTA Award for Best Film Music, which honored A Star Is Born — not nominated here. This is a close race with Terrence Blanchard's BlackKkKlansman score and Black Panther. I think the large group of voters will go with the one s connected to a Grammy-winning score and nominated album, Black Panther.
Win the Best Sound Editing category
This category rewards “most aesthetic” sound design and the creating of sound effects. Whatever,the loudest movie always takes Best Sound Editing, period. Speed, Pearl Harbor, Mad Max, Zero Dark Thirty, The Dark Knight, King Kong, T2, Bourne Ultimatum and Arrival have all won Oscars in this category. Bohemian Rhapsody took BAFTA, but my ears are still ringing from underdog First Man.
Win the Best Sound Mixing category
This category rewards most euphonic sound mixing, and often varies from the Best Sound Editing award. Whiplash, Les Miserables, Dreamgirls, Ray and Chicago are among past winners. That's a lot of music-driven winners. Plus, the CAS Award-winner often matches this award and they liked the music of Queen. Day-oh! Sounds like Bohemian Rhapsody to me.
Win the Best Film Editing category
Best Film Editing winners don’t always align with Best Picture winners. (Dunkirk, Hacksaw Ridge, Mad Max, Whiplash and Gravity are the past five winners). BAFTA editing winner Vice has an edge but it's similar and not as good as 2016 nominee-but-not-editing-winner The Big Short. The American Cinema Editors (ACE) award, The Eddie, has gone on to win Oscars in 11 of the last 15 years. Stats point to the zippy, flashy bio of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.
Win the Best Production Design category
This award, renamed from “Best Art Direction” in 2012, has only aligned with Best Picture four times since 2000. One might assume The Favourite to be the favorite; the past five years the winner of Art Director's Guild period film category went on to win this one. It rewarded The Favourite in that category and Black Panther in the Fantasy Film category.
The winner of this category often aligns with either the Critic’s Choice award which awarded Black Panther, or with the BAFTA Awards which chose The Favourite. For a tiebreaker, add in the energetic new diverse voters and one film gets the edge. And the Oscar goes to: Hannah Beachler, the first African American to be nominated in the category and to win — for Black Panther.
Win the Best Makeup and Hairstyling category
Realistic age transformations such as Gary Oldman-to-Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour win last year are the best bet. And the Oscar goes to: Christian Bale’s transformation in Vice.
Win the Best Costume Design category
Period pieces such as The Favourite and Mary Queen of Scots almost always (21/26) beat modern and fantasy ones, but this might be a year off trend. People want to see this winner: Three time nominee Ruth E. Carter (Malcolm X, Amistad) for Black Panther in a close call over Sandy Powell who created costumes for two nominees in this category, The Favourite and Mary Poppins Returns. She's won for The Young Victoria, The Aviator and Shakespeare in Love.
Win the Best Visual Effects category
A nominee that also has a Best Picture nomination will always win in this category, but that’s not an option this year so we must look to the VES Awards. For eight of the past fourteen years, the winner for Outstanding VFX has gone on to win the Oscar. First Man may be more prestigious but I bet the Oscar goes to the VES winner, another superhero film: Avengers: Infinity War.
Win the Best Documentary category (Feature)
It's a year full of popular topics and films, so the jury's not out with Free Solo and RBG in the mix. RBG boasts a women duo of seasoned documentarians. Free Solo presents a wife and husband documentarian (and previously nominated) team that climbed (with tools) alongside their freesoloing subject — wow, it's a close one. I'd go with the one most everyone saw on home, rental or CNN — RBG.
Win the Best Animated Short Film category
Beginning just three years ago, ALL members of the Academy (not just category peers) can pick the winners of: Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, Best Animated Short Subject and Best Live Action Short Subject. That means everyone from actors to musicians will have a say, so dumb it down a bit when making your picks
Bao,from Pixar, is the story of a mother suffering from empty nest syndrome who makes a baozi dumpling that comes to life as a boy. It was released with the Incredibles 2 this summer.Sounds like they wrapped this one up!
Win the Best Documentary Short category
It's a category filled with heavy films. Period. End of Sentence aims to fight the stigma of menstruation across cultures. In its advantage? It airs on Netflix.
Win the Best Live Action Short Film category
An elderly woman who confronts her own long-repressed romantic feelings for another woman in the film Marguerite. It's done well at shorts film festivals and it's the most lighthearted of the bunch and may be worth your prediction. In a category without stats, I'm going with Skin, featuring a neo-Nazi who starts life anew. It's the choice that has been buying full-page trade ads and is getting the full film treatment next.
Win the show’s-running-time tiebreaker.
In 2002, the show ran four hours and 23 minutes. Whew! The Academy has loudly promised to come in at three hours. I’d bet on exactly three hours.
Here are the timings for the past ten years:
2009: 3 hours, 30 minutes
2010: 3 hours, 37 minutes
2011: 3 hours, 15 minutes
2012: 3 hours, 14 minutes
2013: 3 hours, 35 minutes
2014: 3 hours, 30 minutes
2015: 3 hours, 43 minutes
2016: 3 hours, 37 minutes
2017: 3 hours, 49 minutes
2018: 3 hours, 53 minutes
Win the tiebreaker: Which film will win the most awards? And how many?
There are a lot of opportunities to spread the love. Bohemian Rhapsody should take three or maybe four, but I predict a solid four wins for Roma.
Win the Best Picture category
I saved the biggest (and toughest) category for last because we're going to have to narrow down ten almost-equal contenders. I hope the music doesn't cut me off before I finish.
1. We know that past films without an editing nomination don’t often win the best prize. That would narrow the field to just Bohemian Rhapsody, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, The Favorite and Vice. Bohemian Rhapsody and The Favourite failed to earnd DGA or PGA nominations, so remove those two.
2. But I don't think you can count out Roma and A Star Is Born. No film in the past 10 years has won the best picture Oscar without being nominated by both the Directors Guild and BAFTA; and Oscar winners have a history of being nominated for one of the Writers Guild's two top prizes. Counting just those who have DG and BAFTA noms, we now have five: A Star Is Born, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, Roma and Vice.
3. The Globes don't help us narrow these. Despite having double the chance of predicting the Oscars, only 50 percent of Globe winners in the best drama (Bohemian Rhapsody) and best musical/comedy (Green Book) categories have gone on to victory with the Academy. 50/50 odds for Green Book.
Vice not winning a Globe for Screenplay or film in the slighter Comedy film category nor winning Best Actor or Best Supporting Actress SAG has removed this film from discussion. Plus, its divisive. It'd remove Vice. We now have four: A Star Is Born, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book and Roma.
4. For nine of the last eleven years, the Producers Guild’s choice for Best Picture went on to claim the top prize at the Oscars. 20 of the past 29 years have done the same. Good news for PGA winner Green Book.
The stats are lining up for Green Book, however those awards came before some recent bad press for the director and for the film's authenticity. The Best Picture Oscar race is now determined by a preferential ballot on which members are asked to rank their top five nominees, so I think Green Book's reign is over.
5. That leaves three, each with an equal shot to win. A comeback and a nod for director-snubbed Bradley Cooper for A Star Is Born? (Did you see him on Oprah?) A long-deserved award to Spike Lee from a new diverse group of voters that honor BlacKkKlansman? Or will it be a nod to the most stunning cinematic visual treat of the year, ironically by Netflix — Roma? Or will a win for Best Director and Best Foreign Film be enough reward? It's so close, I'm going with Roma. Go with your gut on this one folks, stats only go so far.
Good luck with your Oscars pool everyone!
