Hello! I am here to talk about the Oscars, because they’re dumb and pointless and don’t matter, which is why they’re so exciting and fun and feel like they matter. I usually do a predictions list before the nominations come out and sometimes I’ll pair that with a final one that predicts the ultimate winners. This time though, I figured I’d skip the first part and just try to go all in on these final predictions, giving a shot at predicting every category! What a weird and pointless endeavour! Still, what better way to celebrate the Oscars than with a time consuming and pointless venture? Each category will have my prediction for what will win and we’ll slowly add onto that. For a category like Best Documentary Short, I will probably struggle to find all the nominees, but in categories I’ve seen all the entries for, expect to see both “Should Win” and “Should Have Been Nominated” along with maybe some written words! We’re gonna have a lovely little mix of some speculation and some unasked for opinions, so buckle in and just scroll to wherever is most interesting for you!

Best Documentary Short Film

Will Win: The ABCs of Book Burning

Best Live Action Short Film

Will Win: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

The other films are going to struggle to compete against a name as high profile as Wes Anderson and while I’d have preferred a different short from this anthology, it would be a nice win and a funny little way for Wes Anderson to finally get an Oscar.

Best Animated Short Film

Will Win: Letter to a Pig

Best Documentary

Will Win: 20 Days in Mariupol

Should Have Been Nominated: Kokomo City

For a category in which so many great films can be made, I always despair a little at Best Documentary for choosing to reward the topic more than the film. Take last year, in which Navalny won over All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, a move that clearly only happened because no one saw either film. By that same merit, 20 Days in Mariupol is a slam dunk for the win, a look at the Russian invasion of Ukraine which is a conflict that us snobbish Westerners can all agree on and not one of those “complicated” ones. I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen any of the films in this category, documentaries often take longer to make it to UK shores than other categories do, so my snobbishness could well be unfounded. 20 Days seems like some genuinely good journalism and documenting of an ongoing and very real issue, it’s just not the kind of documentary I’m usually interested in. The kind of thing I’m interested in is Kokomo City. It’s a documentary that is a series of interviews with transgender sex workers, which gives an in depth and compassionate look at an underground scene but does so with a sense of levity and a genuine artistry. If you didn’t see it, seek it out, it’s the kind of film that an award like this should point attention towards!

Best Visual Effects

Will Win: The Creator

Should Win: Godzilla Minus One

Should Have Been Nominated: Oppenheimer

Even though I think The Creator is the worst film of the selection, its visuals are stupendous. On a budget that’s impressively low, the VFX crew created a world you fully believed in, even if its storytelling let it down. My choice though would be Godzilla Minus One, an even cheaper movie that is a magical thing to behold. Godzilla looks just as good as (and often better than) the American interpretations and you believe every second he’s on screen. Easily the most baffling omission though is Oppenheimer. I guess because they emphasised how many of the effects were practical, people believed it didn’t fit the category. But, a practical effect is still a visual effect! It’s a weird reverse of that thing where the original Tron was ineligible because they used computers for the effects. Bonkers! More impressive, it’s one of the few categories where Oppenheimer didn’t have a presence and yet it still feels like it was done dirty.

Best Film Editing

Will Win: Jennifer Lame for Oppenheimer

Should Win: Thelma Schoonmaker for Killers of the Flower Moon

Should Have Been Nominated: Johnathan Alberts for All of Us Strangers

Controversially, editing films that are really long is really impressive! Anyone can snip away at a film to get it to 100 minutes, but it takes a true master to make a long film flow with the ease of a film half its length. Both Jennifer Lame and Thelma Schoonmaker have done some of the best editing work I’ve ever seen, in ways both really big and really small. Truthfully, either of them could win and either of them would really deserve to win, I just wanted an excuse to mention them both in conversation. They edited films made by cinematic visionaries but those visions would have been nothing without the editors. Similarly, the ghostly power of All of Us Strangers comes from its editing. We slip between faces and images of faces in ways that blur time and identity and all ultimately come together to form this powerful emotional core. Intangibility of all kinds powers the film and a huge portion of that comes in how the editing slots together these intangible little things into a big thing that is coherent despite being ephemeral. What I’m saying sounds like nonsense but it’s editing that is almost impossible to describe, such is its inherently brilliant and cinematic nature.

Best Costume Design

Will Win and Should Win: Holly Waddington for Poor Things

Should Have Been Nominated: Stacey Battat for Priscilla

Three of the films in this category are the obligatory period drama picks, in which artists very successfully recreate looks from the past. I don’t mean to diminish their work but again, it’s not the kind of thing I get excited for. Barbie is a more interesting shout, in which everything has to look like something that a doll would wear, but Poor Things is an undeniably perfect choice here. Not only is there a period element in the Victorian setting, but there is this little bonkers thread that makes every dress, every suit, every weird pair of shoes pop. It’s a slam dunk choice. I would have enjoyed some love for Priscilla though, it is a film so precisely constructed in that way that all Sofia Coppola films are. With Priscilla’s outfits being an important part of the confinement of the film, they have to be perfect for the film to work and they truly are perfect. It could never surmount Poor Things but a nomination would have been appreciated.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Will Win: Maestro

Should Win: Poor Things

Should Have Been Nominated: Talk to Me

CHAOS WIN: Golda

So, this is a weird little category. As an award, it usually goes to one of two things; either a superhero movie or a biopic with a “transformative performance.” This year, it will be the latter, for weird and controversial reasons. Bradley Cooper is unrecognisable in Maestro, sure, but it hinges on this weird issue of a very pronounced fake nose. Much of the work is subtle, but that nose draws attention and it may just win the statue. The much worse version of this and my easy chaos pick is Golda, in which Helen Mirren wears a fake nose to play a political figure in the Israeli government. It is everything Maestro was criticised for and worse, just a terrible terrible film to talk about at a time when Israel are committing the crimes they’re committing. Fingers crossed it doesn’t become an awful footnote in Oscar history. What would deserve this is Poor Things, a film which has the perfect blend of obvious and squelchy effects (god bless Willem Dafoe’s face) and tasteful makeup work on Bella that evolves as she does. It seems like it and Oppenheimer will split the technical categories so my fingers are crossed here. A little recognition though for Talk To Me would have been a treat. Squishy monster effects never seem to get the appreciation they deserve and oh, what squishes we were gifted.

Best Cinematography

Will Win and Should Win: Hoyte van Hoytema for Oppenheimer

Should Have Been Nominated: Dan Laustsen for John Wick: Chapter Four

I don’t know how the hell El Conde got nominated, but at least that weird film with a blood sucking Margaret Thatcher gets some notoriety for the rest of time. I also don’t know why Maestro is in this category. Is it because it’s black and white? That’s pathetic. Killers of the Flower Moon is very pretty in places and Poor Things uses great cinematography to show off sensational production design (more on that soon) but this is absolutely an award that Oppenheimer has to take. Whenever I think of Hoyte can Hoytema, I think about him lugging around these huge IMAX cameras on these shoulders, a physical endeavour that he overcomes for the sake of creating some of the most beautiful images ever seen. And yeah, it’s easy to make space stuff look pretty, but making guys in rooms talking look engaging? That is an art and one that he will certainly be rewarded for. It wouldn’t beat Oppenheimer because there is clearly no better cinematography this year, but a nomination for John Wick: Chapter Four would have been a treat. These set pieces are stunning and succeed in looking beautiful while still keeping the action visible and coherent. Again, that sounds simple but I cannot imagine the logistics or planning that go into one of these sequences, let alone ten of them in a single film. Stunning stuff that still isn’t as exciting as blokes in rooms talking bombs.

Best Production Design

Will Win: Barbie

Should Win: Poor Things

Should Have Been Nominated: Asteroid City

Very good stuff going on in the category this year. Barbie is naturally the headline, which I think is helped by that whole “the world ran out of pink paint” thing that went on for a while. It is obviously brilliantly constructed, but I think it struggles to compete with Poor Things. A lot of its behind the scenes stills have shown a lot of green screens, but they’ve also shown unspeakably lavish sets, built with intricacy and care. Barbie would deserve the award but the world of Poor Things is such an alien world (especially compared to the world of dolls) that you have to fully believe in the world to let anything get in. Speaking of aliens though, show a little love for Asteroid City! I know it’s a cliché to say that Wes Anderson films are beautiful but God, this is a stunner. Plus, it’s entirely about construction and storytelling, so thematically it has to be on point! Anyway, a robbed film, we all treated it too harshly.

Best Sound

Will Win and Should Win: The Zone of Interest

Should Have Been Nominated: John Wick: Chapter Four

At one point, Oppenheimer had a shot with this award but the tide has turned. The sound is immaculate and again, it has to work for the film to work, but The Zone of Interest is an all timer. The sound of the film has to tell a separate story to the visual component of the film, which is so much more complicated than it sounds. Words are not strong enough to talk about what has been achieved so all I can recommend is that you check it out for yourself and feel absolutely terrible for a week! To go lighter though, I would have loved some appreciation for John Wick: Chapter Four. Action films are great because of how satisfying and cool the sounds of people being punched or shot or kicked in the face are and few films feature as much punching or shooting or kicking as John Wick. You can listen to the film and truly believe that you heard a man roll down two flights of stairs and that is the kind of movie magic I believe we should celebrate.

Best Original Song

Will Win: “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie

Should Win: “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie

Should Have Been Nominated: “Dear Alien (Who Art in Heaven)” from Asteroid City

CHAOS WIN: “The Fire Inside” from Flamin’ Hot

The nominees in this category mean that a film about the creation of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos is now an Oscar nominee. Wild. If it wins, anarchy. In reality though, it’s a Barbie competition. The Academy love Billie Eilish so they’re very likely to reward her again for her (admittedly great) song that soundtracks the big emotional moment at the end of the film as well as the credits. While the film ends, it’s the song that sticks with you. However, I and many others love the deeply silly “I’m Just Ken”, a song which channels the melodramatic torment at the heart of the silliest man of the year. Somehow it still makes me giggle after all this overexposure, which is a marvel in and of itself. Call me a broken record, but I think Asteroid City should have been nominated. The “Dear Alien” song is a catchy and silly ditty which, unlike many nominations that often appear in this category, actually exists in the world of the film. I would always so much rather have that than just a song to play over the credits.

Best Original Score

Will Win and Should Win: Ludwig Göransson for Oppenheimer

Should Have Been Nominated: kwes. for Rye Lane

Again, this is one of those categories where there are a few nice options, where Poor Things could be a really cool winner… But nothing can stand in the way of Oppenheimer. I obviously love Ludwig Göransson for his work on Community and the fact that he has gone from this little sitcom that was always on the edge of cancellation to a colossal blockbuster without missing a beat remains genuinely impressive. It’s also a propulsive score that powers the audience through what could so easily be a challenging film and yet isn’t. I can’t imagine Oppenheimer without it. Another score that is a part of the films personality is the one for Rye Lane by kwes. Rye Lane is a film that is fun, such a breeze and very (without sounding completely cringe) cool, which the score amplifies. It is the perfect music for walking around and chatting and again, Rye Lane doesn’t exist in as perfect a form it does without that score.

Best International Feature Film

Will Win: The Zone of Interest

Should Have Been Nominated: The Taste of Things

I feel bad because I haven’t really done my dues with this category. It’s always tricky to catch the international films before the ceremony and so to be frank, I haven’t. To counteract that, I won’t say what I would pick, because I’ve only seen one of the films. That film though, The Zone of Interest, seems set to take the category. It is, after all, the only film in this category that is also nominated for Best Picture, its odds not hurt by the fact that it is also excellent. It will also be the first time that the UK picks up the prize in this category, enjoy that trivia nerds. I would have loved to see a nomination for The Taste of Things though. For those who don’t know, countries can only nominate one film to represent themselves and France chose Taste over Anatomy of a Fall, which also got nominated for Best Picture. This has resulted in a huge and slightly messy war in which Taste has been an unfortunate casualty, doubly unfortunate because it’s an incredible film! It’s this beautiful and meditative study on food and love and the space where those two blend into a tasty sauce, which I have been raving about since October. Please, I urge you to give it a chance, as long as you don’t do it on an empty stomach. It is such an underappreciated treat that is at risk of being lost to the footnotes of film history.

Best Animated Feature

Will Win and Should Win: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

This will be a quick one because I also haven’t seen much of the category, but that’s not going to slow me down too much because the two I have seen are the two that make up the competition here. It is coming down to either The Boy and the Heron or Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Boy has a chance because Ghibli have never won this award before and with what is allegedly Miyazaki’s last film for the company, this would be the perfect time to reward him and Ghibli. However, the film is very abstract and requires you to work for it and I don’t know if all the people voting will appreciate that. Spider-Verse is the much easier film and a film which, admittedly, I prefered. It has its frustrating cliffhanger ending and the animators weren’t well treated, but God, what a picture. If you want to celebrate how far we can push animation, this is the most interesting case Hollywood has made for the medium since… Well, the last Spider-Verse film.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Will Win: Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach for Barbie

Should Win: Tony McNamara for Poor Things

Should Have Been Nominated: Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon

After all the hubub about Gerwig not getting a Best Director nomination for Barbie, expect her to take Adapted Screenplay. I’m saying this like it’s a foregone conclusion but actually, this is a pretty competitive category, full of worthy winners. Poor Things, American Fiction, Oppenheimer and The Zone of Interest would all deserve the win, with Poor Things just barely edging out the competition for me for the simple reason that I find the dialogue very funny. But man, would it have been so hard to nominate Killers of the Flower Moon? This is such a large and complicated story which is somehow wrangled into a film that is not just watchable but compellingly so. I think it is witchcraft on all fronts and should be rewarded for that magic.

Best Original Screenplay

Will Win: Celine Song for Past Lives

Should Win: Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik for May December

Should Have Been Nominated: Ari Aster for Beau is Afraid

Past Lives only got two nominations but has this warm feeling behind it, where the people who love it just absolutely adore it. I wasn’t quite as infatuated but also I had the feeling that this was a film I could return to and constantly pick up more from. Many are rooting for either Anatomy of a Fall or The Holdovers, but I just have this gut feeling that Past Lives could take it. What will not win though is May December, a film that is nominated by basically a miracle. It is such a tricky story and very emotionally complicated and I cannot even fathom how you go about making a film about this topic that works. And while it never stood a chance, Beau is Afraid being nominated would have been incredible. Ari Aster poured his weird little heart out onto the page and created a film that is, without question, an Ari Aster film. It did not work for most people but it really worked for me and to be honest, I think how much it didn’t work for a people is a sign that this film had real impact. It’s a bonkers mess but weirdly works. Sue me, I would put it here.

Best Supporting Actress

Will Win and Should Win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers

Should Have Been Nominated: Rachel McAdams for Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

Of all the categories this year, this is the one which is least likely for an upset. For the entire awards season, Da’Vine Joy Randolph has been clearing up and you know what? Totally deserved. Her role is amazing, she elevates the film and all her speeches have been awesome. I look forward to her winning this, it won’t be a shock but it’ll be a lovely moment. Apologies to the other nominees, no one else is coming close. Someone who could have come close though would have been Rachel McAdams for Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. I believe this film is really going to stand the test of time and man, if America Ferrara is getting nominated almost solely on the back of that speech in the middle of Barbie, McAdams has a version of the speech which is so much smarter and more heartbreaking and has these beautiful layers going on that people of all ages and genders will gravitate to. She’s ace, should have snuck in here and then also lost to Da’Vine Joy Randolph.

Best Supporting Actor

Will Win: Robert Downey Jr. for Oppenheimer

Should Win: Mark Ruffalo for Poor Things

Should Have Been Nominated: Charles Melton for May December

I find this a slightly weird category to write about because for me, I just can’t understand how Charles Melton is not only not the frontrunner for this award but isn’t even nominated. Not only is his performance better than any of the other ones in this category but it is also my favourite performance of the year full stop. You watch him on screen with this sick feeling in your stomach and see a boy trapped in a man’s body, failing to get out or even be fully seen. If you haven’t seen May December, watch it just for Melton’s performance, it is that good. Anyway, everything after that is quite underwhelming. By now, Robert Downey Jr. has the award in the bag, but some silly little guys could stand to cause an upset. Ryan Gosling was great as Ken and Mark Ruffalo plays a version of that character, turned up to a brilliantly nauseating level. Ruffalo would be my pick, but Gosling is more likely to come in with the upset if for some reason Downey Jr. doesn’t take the trophy.

Best Actress

Will Win and Should Win: Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon

Should Have Been Nominated: Vivian Oparah for Rye Lane

Best Actress is maybe the most competitive of the big five categories this year, coming down to two absolutely brilliant performers giving some of the best performances we’ve seen this decade. This two horse race isn’t to diminish the other actresses in competition, the other three are all great performers who did pretty great work across their careers, but imagine trying to beat Lily Gladstone or Emma Stone. The two have been handing the baton between each other since November and about a month ago, Stone seemed like the one to beat. Her role in Poor Things is a very strange one, but it’s a strangeness she’s allowed to lean into and make really funny. A role this comedic is rarely celebrated this much and that’s awesome! But, Gladstone has been my choice since the moment I saw Killers of the Flower Moon. It’s a more typically dramatic role, but one that she nails. Her eyes contain emotions that her face isn’t allowed to process and her body carries generations of weight that can never be off loaded. I am bad at talking about why acting works, I just think she’s amazing and this would be an amazing win for the Native American community, topped with what would be a very emotional speech from Gladstone. Indulge me though (you know, for a change), Vivian Oparah should have been nominated for Rye Lane. She got a surprise nom at the BAFTAs, but clearly no Americans saw the most gleefully romantic movie of this year or most other years. Both our leads deserve props for what they do, but Oparah gets the more dramatic arc and is hiding her emotions for much of the time, letting them all build into a really joyous finale. She’s ace, keep an eye out for her in the future!

Best Actor

Will Win and Should Win: Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer

Should Have Been Nominated: Andrew Scott for All of Us Strangers

CHAOS WIN: Bradley Cooper for Maestro

Can we all agree that it would be hysterical if Bradley Cooper wins this? It feels like Cooper basically handpicked the role for himself to win an Oscar and everyone could smell it and has refused to give him a single award this year. But if he does sneak in? I will piss myself with laughter, it would make the Oscars such a farce. Anyway, this was another two horse race for a while, but Paul Giamatti has since lost steam with his performance in The Holdovers. He’s lovely and warm, but he cannot compete with Cillian Murphy. IMAX as a camera format is almost exclusively used for big landscapes and spectacular action, not close ups, but in Christopher Nolan’s hands he make’s Murphy’s face the biggest face you have ever seen. In that face though, magnitudes. You read the world in his face, from ambition to terror to anguish. He’s fab and those terrible people with Peaky Blinders tattoos will enjoy an extra large can of lager to celebrate his win. Someone I thought genuinely could have had a chance getting nominated was Andrews Scott for All of Us Strangers. He gives one of those wonderful performances that blossoms as the film continues, where every new scene reveals something about his emotional state that you hadn’t considered before. By the time the film wraps up, you realise quite how much was on Scott’s shoulders (which is even after you realise he only has three co-stars) and also he’s great because he made me cry. A big omission here, but one that I think would still lose to Cillian Murphy.

Best Director

Will Win: Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer

Should Win: Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon

Should Have Been Nominated: Raine Allen-Miller for Rye Lane

After 25 years as a filmmaker with a track record that makes his contemporaries blush, Christopher Nolan seems primed to finally take home his first Best Director Oscar. For Oppenheimer, it’s fully worth it, a film which required an untold amount of wrangling to make coherent, let alone compelling. In what is an incredibly strong category (one in which I genuinely don’t think you could or should squeeze anyone out to make room for someone like Greta Gerwig), Nolan is the clear favourite for once. I would love to see Scorsese take it though. He has still only won this award once after ten nominations and Killers of the Flower Moon feels like the apex of a career already full of highlights. I feel similarly about it as I do Twin Peaks: The Return, in that I hope it isn’t the last thing we get from a legendary director, but it would be a phenomenal final note to end on. Say it with me though, justice for Rye Lane! I am a broken record and refuse to be fixed! Raine Allen-Miller has created a film that appears deceptively simple, but is such a gentle balancing act to perfect that she deserves immense credit. In the same way that Richard Linklater rarely gets the credit he’s due for choreographing the Before trilogy, Allen-Miller makes it look easy. Crucially, she also makes it feel new, a film that is indebted to the Before trilogy but not some mere imitator. It feels like in every scene, she picked the most interesting way to visually tell the story and never once made the wrong choice. I cannot wait for what she does next, but I also am forever grateful to her for giving us Rye Lane.

Best Picture

Will Win: Oppenheimer

Should Win: Killers of the Flower Moon

Should Have Been Nominated: The Taste of Things and Rye Lane

CHAOS WIN: Maestro

Alright, finally here. You have scrolled all the way down to read this one, past hours of work I spent writing, just to get my thoughts on Best Picture and to that I say: yeah, fair enough, let’s not waste anymore time then, eh? Maestro is by far the worst film on this list and while I would struggle to actively call it bad, it is a film that has no vision, no perspective and no real reason to exist outside of winning an Oscar. It would be an unbelievably funny win, a historic “how did that happen” moment and part of me almost wants it for the surprise. With that discounted though, we’re left with nine really solid nominees. American Fiction is a funny drama that’s about prejudice but also how that competes with how to actually live a life and then also a bunch of great jokes about being a writer. Anatomy of a Fall is an incredibly smart courtroom drama that’s less about whodunnit and more about what goes into what we believe about whodunnit. Barbie is a blockbuster that had no right being as great as it was, sneaking subversiveness into an impressive corporate product. The Holdovers is one of those “movies they don’t make anymore” movies that is warm and lovely while never sugarcoating the dark bits, more fit to be a holiday classic than it is a major contender in this category. Past Lives is a gorgeous and complex drama about two people and their feelings, the kind of thing that is set to resonate deeply with quite a few but also bounce off just as many people. Poor Things is far too weird and far too excellent to be a contender at this ceremony and somehow is. What a miracle it is, though your parents would do well to watch it when you’re not around. Finally, The Zone of Interest is a film that we are destined to talk for decades and is in real conversation with what the future of cinema could look like, of course it won’t win because it is too good for that.

Which leaves us with two. As I’ve been saying throughout this post and in my best of the year list, Killers of the Flower Moon is a masterpiece. It is a sprawling western epic about a true American evil, in which traces of joy are slowly infected by a darkness that has left neither me, nor America. In the process of doing so, it is also a display of some of our great film artists working at the top of their game, across editing, cinematography and acting to name but three. In every single way, it is the greatest film of the year and my favourite. Unfortunately, it seems to be about 26 minutes too long for most people, so to Oppenheimer it goes. To be fair to it, it really does feel like the movie of 2023. Not only did it gross an obscene amount of money at the box office, but it was beloved by critics across the globe, got audiences back into cinemas and showed the importance of large format cinema projection. It’s quite wonderful and deserves the win, which is good because I can’t see anything beating it to the finish line. Get this prediction in to all your friends to sound smart and then hey, boot up your lovely pristine TV and rewatch it, to absolutely blow the tits off your neighbours once the bomb drops and decimates your speakers. That’s the true magic of cinema.