Is it just me, or is awards season getting longer? Now with the Cannes Film Festival firmly planted as a major Oscar launching pad, the offseason lasts a mere four weeks. Nearly eight months later, we’re finally putting away our pencils and using pens to lock in nomination predictions. The time between now and then has been either an asset or a liability for so many contenders, displaying the adage that you never quite know how the cards are going to be dealt.

When making the final Oscar nomination predictions, you have to know that you’re going to be incorrect on at least 25% of them. And that’s okay, because there are so many unknown variables that can tip the scales in either direction. Because of this, I go in with a very pragmatic approach. It’s best not to overcomplicate things. Stick to what’s been favorited, and don't be a hero with out-of-left-field predictions. You may get one of those right, but probably more wrong.

As a focus tool, I’ve devised each category into three levels of likelihood for a nomination: Locks, Safe, and Shaky. Here’s a breakdown of how those categories are defined:

Locks are virtually guaranteed to get a nomination. They’re more focused on winning the Oscar, with the nomination only being a formality. The only time you should spend on them is what it takes to write their names down on your predictions. A lock being snubbed is cause for headlines, and that’s something you can’t predict.

Safes seem likely to happen, and a snub would be a major talking point. They’ve hit pretty much every precursor they could, and displayed support from the voting body. But there might be a hiccup in their campaign or a nagging feeling that there’s reason for doubt. Someone like Viola Davis in The Woman King fits this description. She was nominated at every precursor and is a titan in the industry. But the film just wasn’t landing in other categories, which led her to come up short at the finish line.

Shaky is where you find a group of people fighting for those spots. They’ve hit some places and missed others, or their work goes against what the branch tends to favor. They might also have legitimate reasons for being a surprise nomination or a not-so-surprising snub.

As a matter of transparency, I will not be predicting the three short categories: Live-Action Short, Animated Short, and Documentary Short. It’s a fool’s errand to try to provide analysis for a category where I’ve seen none of the contenders and have no precursors to guide the way. I’ll just be going with the GoldDerby consensus.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

Best Picture

Locks

1. One Battle After Another

2. Sinners

3. Hamnet

4. Frankenstein

5. Marty Supreme

6. Sentimental Value

Safe

7. Bugonia

Shaky

8. It Was Just an Accident

9. Train Dreams

10. The Secret Agent

One distributor getting three films into Best Picture is quite an accomplishment. Having all of those films in a foreign language makes that a historic achievement. Fresh off winning Best Picture last year with Anora, Neon seems poised to do just that with Sentimental Value, It Was Just an Accident, and The Secret Agent. F1 seems to be the only potential spoiler, likely trying to copy the package of Ford v Ferrari. That’s still weaker than what I have in the ‘Shaky’ category, which is why I have it just missing.

Best Director

Locks

1. Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)

Safe

2. Chloé Zhao (Hamnet)

Shaky

3. Ryan Coogler (Sinners)

4. Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value)

5. Jafar Panahi (It Was Just an Accident)

We have eight directors fighting for five spots. Actually, it’s more like seven for four spots since we all know Paul Thomas Anderson is going to win the Oscars. As a former winner who recently had her film win the Best Motion Picture - Drama category at the Golden Globes, Zhao feels pretty safe. Coogler would normally be safe as well, as he has yet to miss a nomination anywhere. There’s just too much PTSD from this branch snubbing blockbuster directors for me to fully believe he’s locked in.

International contenders are this branch’s bread and butter. Joachim Trier just picked up the European Film Award for Best Director as part of Sentimental Value’s sweep of the above-the-line categories. Seven of the last eight winners of that prize went on to receive an Oscar nomination, so I’m keeping him in. I’m still clinging to Jafar Panahi for that last spot, who I feel has always been making work that directors love, and has a super compelling narrative for how he had to craft this film.

I haven’t even mentioned DGA nominees Josh Safdie and Guillermo del Toro, who shepherded films likely to receive double-digit nominations. There’s also Kleber Mendonça Filho for The Secret Agent, which has shown to have a ton of passion behind it. Anyone who goes 5/5 in this category should immediately go out and buy a lottery ticket.

Best Original Screenplay

Locks

1. Sinners (Ryan Coogler)

2. It Was Just an Accident (Jafar Panahi)

3. Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier & Eskil Vogt)

4. Marty Supreme (Josh Safdie & Ronald Bronstein)

Shaky

5. The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho)

The top four can all be predicted with certainty. I have The Secret Agent in my Best Picture predictions, so I need another strongly correlating nomination to support that claim. That’s kind of a backwards way of looking at it, but I also think the film is stronger than the closest competition of Blue Moon and Sorry, Baby. The writer’s branch is also not afraid to go international. However, 3/5 non-English nominees does seem a bit excessive.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Locks

1. One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson)

2. Hamnet (Chloé Zhao & Maggie O’Farrell)

Safe

3. Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro)

4. Train Dreams (Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar)

5. Bugonia (Will Tracy)

These five were all nominated at Critics' Choice and made the BAFTA longlist. Also making CC was No Other Choice, which was absent from the BAFTA longlist. It also won’t have the benefit of a Best Picture nomination. Neither will Rian Johnson, who will likely see his streak of writing nominations for the Knives Out films come to an end.

Best Casting

Safe

1. Sinners

2. One Battle After Another

3. Marty Supreme

4. Hamnet

Shaky

5. Sentimental Value

There are no locks here, simply because we have no precedent to make estimations on. By using the combination of the precursors that have either casting or ensemble prizes, we can find five films that have regularly been nominated.

Best Lead Actor

Locks

1. Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme)

2. Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another)

3. Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon)

Safe

4. Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent)

Shaky

5. Michael B. Jordan (Sinners)

Despite showing up at every precursor, I’m still classifying Michael B. Jordan as a shaky contender since his next closest competition, Jesse Plemons, is making quite the surge at the moment. Wagner Moura would definitely be in the same boat as Jordan had he not won the Golden Globe. The only thing that separates Jordan and Plemons is Critics' Choice, which was before Bugonia really started to show its true strength. While I’m not going to predict it, I think Jordan could be this year’s big acting snub, falling in line with recent examples like Margot Robbie (Barbie), Lady Gaga (House of Gucci), Viola Davis (The Woman King), and Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips).

Best Lead Actress

Locks

1. Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)

Safe

2. Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value)

3. Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You)

Shaky

4. Emme Stone (Bugonia)

5. Chase Infiniti (One Battle After Another)

Which four ladies want to lose to Jessie Buckley? Rose Byrne and Renate Reinsve seem to be up to the task, strongly showing up at nearly every precursor. Unlike Best Leading Actor, this category is favorable to younger, less-known performers. It worked wonders for Mikey Madison last year, and I think it will help Chase Infiniti get nominated. That leaves Emma Stone and Kate Hudson for the last spot. Already with two Oscar wins, I think Stone has become this generation’s Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, or Kate Winslet when it comes to regularly getting nominated. Plus, she’s in a secure Best Picture nominee, while Hudson will be her film’s lone representative.

Best Supporting Actor

Locks

1. Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value)

2. Benicio del Toro (One Battle After Another)

3. Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein)

Safe

4. Paul Mescal (Hamnet)

5. Sean Penn (One Battle After Another)

It’s been a steady crop of nominees all season, with all five appearing at the Golden Globes, SAG, Critics' Choice, and the BAFTA longlist. Well, Stellan didn’t get nominated at SAG, but I’m chalking that up to guild discrimination against foreign language performances, which is not a thing for the Oscars.

Best Supporting Actress

Locks

1. Amy Madigan (Weapons)

2. Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another)

Safe

3. Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value)

Shaky

4. Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners)

5. Odessa A’zion (Marty Supreme)

We started this season with a pretty weak slate of potential nominees, seemingly making this a cinch for Ariana Grande. To my surprise, I now have her out, a symptom of Wicked: For Good taking a beating over the past few weeks. Then again, she’s made it everywhere she could so far. Every year, someone always gets in with less when compared to those they beat out. In this case, that would be Odessa A’zion, whose late SAG nomination could push her in.

Best Cinematography

Locks

1. Sinners

2. One Battle After Another

Safe

3. Train Dreams

4. Frankenstein

Shaky

5. Marty Supreme

This is a repeat of the nominees at the American Society of Cinematographers Awards. It’s not wise to perfectly replicate their choices, but it did just happen in 2023. I originally had Hamnet in here, but it was notably missing at ASC (where Łukasz Żal previously won with Cold War) and at its home turf of the British Society of Cinematographers. Everywhere Hamnet missed, Marty Supreme was there to fill the void, aided by Darius Khondji’s increased stature amongst the branch.

Best Film Editing

Locks

1. One Battle After Another

2. Sinners

3. Marty Supreme

4. F1

Shaky

5. Frankenstein

The American Cinema Editors Awards will announce their nominees the week after the Oscar nominations. That makes things rather difficult, leaning more on CC and the BAFTA longlist. Thankfully, the films in the “Locks” category got in at both. A House of Dynamite also accomplished that, although I’m really not sensing the passion for that film to get a lone nomination in this category. The next best would be Frankenstein, which is already going to be nominated in almost every other craft category.

Best Original Score

Locks

1. Sinners

2. One Battle After Another

Safe

3. Frankenstein

4. Hamnet

Shaky

5. Marty Supreme

Best Picture nominees have never fully represented this category since the expansion of the Best Picture category. But I also think that’s just a coincidence aided by the fact that we used to have composers who would be nominated regardless of the film’s quality. If anything were to get in over Marty Supreme, it would be Hans Zimmer with F1, which showed up at both the Golden Globes and CC.

Best Original Song

Locks

1. “Golden” (KPop Demon Hunters)

2. “I Lied to You” (Sinners)

Safe

3. “Dear Me” (Diane Warren: Relentless)

Shaky

4. “Train Dreams” (Train Dreams)

5. “The Girl in the Bubble” (Wicked: For Good)

Before last year’s nominations were even announced, we already knew that Diane Warren was going to be nominated at this year’s Oscars. Most likely done for very strategic purposes, her documentary, Diane Warren: Relentless, was released in January, only a few days after the new Oscar qualification season started. It doesn’t matter that she wasn’t nominated at either the Globes or CC, as she has friends where it matters. This category has also shifted away from documentary songs, with the only non-Diane Warren nomination since 2016 being last year’s “Never Too Late” from Elton John: Never Too Late.

Best Sound

Locks

1. F1

2. Sinners

Safe

3. One Battle After Another

4. Avatar: Fire and Ash

Shaky

5. Sirât

In the days of the split sound categories, Best Sound Mixing tended to favor music, while Best Sound Editing favored loud explosions. When we combine that precedent into one category, we have our nominees. Sirât is a bold prediction that should pay off because of how much sound is integral to the narrative.

Best Production Design

Locks

1. Frankenstein

2. Wicked: For Good

Safe

3. Sinners

4. Marty Supreme

5. Hamnet

After combining the Art Directors Guild, CC, BAFTA longlist, and category precedent, we can come to a pretty safe set of nominees. The previous two Avatar films have been nominated here, but I think this is where the lesser enthusiasm for Fire and Ash is going to bite it.

Best Costume Design

Locks

1. Frankenstein

2. Sinners

3. Wicked: For Good

Safe

4. Hamnet

Shaky

5. Hedda

We have a very period-centric list of nominees, almost all of them Best Picture contenders. Going through the history of this category, the voters do not like contemporary costuming. Almost all lone nominees are for period work, which bodes well for Hedda, which also showed up at CC and the Costume Designers Guild. There’s still a very distinct possibility that One Battle After Another could be nominated, especially when the work comes from 4-time Oscar winner Colleen Atwood, who is also represented by Kiss of the Spider Woman.

Best Makeup & Hairstyling

Locks

1. Frankenstein

2. Sinners

3. Wicked: For Good

Safe

4. The Smashing Machine

Shaky

5. Kokuho

   
   

We have three big players at the top, each with makeup being central to their stories. Then there’s the transformation required for The Rock to become Mark Kerr in The Smashing Machine, which was shepherded by category mainstay Kazu Hiro (Darkest Hour, Bombshell, Maestro). Going down that line of logic, the sneaky nominee would be Kokuho, a story set in Japanese kabuki theater, which recently became the country’s highest-grossing live-action film ever. This branch has also shown favor to international contenders like Society of the Snow, Pinocchio, Border, and A Man Called Ove.

Best Visual Effects

Locks

1. Avatar: Fire and Ash

2. F1

Safe

3. Superman

Shaky

4. The Lost Bus

5. Sinners

The good thing about this category is that we already know which film is going to win. The bad news is that we’re really not sure who the rest of the losers will be. It’s usually good to go with at least one Best Picture nominee, which, in this case, would be Frankenstein and Sinners. In the case of the former, even fans such as myself will tell you that the visual effects are not that good. It was also totally omitted from the Visual Effects Society nominations, where The Lost Bus picked up several nominations.

Best Animated Feature

Locks

1. KPop Demon Hunters

2. Zootopia 2

3. Arco

Safe

4. Little Amélie or the Character of Rain

Shaky

5. Elio

It’s been a very weak year for this category, which means there’s been hardly any movement. In any other year, a bomb such as Elio would not even be considered. Luckily, it received a leading number of nominations at the Annie Awards, which has just as strong a Pixar cohort as the Oscars do.

Best International Feature

Locks

1. Sentimental Value (Norway)

2. It Was Just an Accident (France)

3. The Secret Agent (Brazil)

Safe

4. Sirât (Spain)

Shaky

5. No Other Choice (South Korea)

Could Neon do the unthinkable and get all five of its foreign language films nominated? Given that this category hardly goes fully as expected, I’d say the odds aren’t that good. Then again, there are so many alternatives that it’s almost impossible to accurately predict who exactly it will be. At this point, I’m just going to hedge my bet and go with the full Neon sweep. 4/5 is still a very good score for this category anyway.

Best Documentary Feature

Safe

1. The Perfect Neighbor

2. 2000 Meters to Andriivka

Shaky

3. The Alabama Solution

4. My Undesirable Friends: Part I - Last Air in Moscow

5. Cover-Up

As time has shown us, there is no such thing as a “lock” in this category, with the closest thing this year being The Perfect Neighbor and 2000 Meters to Andriivka. Tangentially related to the latter film is My Undesirable Friends: Part I - Last Air in Moscow, which has gained some great headway through the major critics' prizes. Rounding out the rest of the category are two American political documentaries. Those choices could be a mistake by me since this category has increasingly leaned international, but I think the fact that these films are very critical of America is an asset that will get them in.