Starting with the Cannes Film Festival in May, the film awards season is finally coming to a close with the Academy Awards. It’s been an exciting season, with every contender and pretender experiencing their own rollercoaster of emotions. For some, it’s been a steady climb of positivity, while for others, the fall came much sooner than expected.

Even though the Oscars are the last and most significant ceremony, it’s not the only awards show in town — collectively known as “precursors.” Several critics' groups and guilds present their awards between December and March, with the winners often strongly predicting the Oscar outcome. Major precursor awards include the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild (SAG), Critics’ Choice, British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA), and the Producers Guild of America (PGA).

Using a mix of this season’s precursor results and nearly a century of voter patterns, I’ve made my predictions for who will win in each of the twenty-four Oscar categories, along with analysis for all above-the-line categories. I hope this helps you win your Oscar pool and brag to your friends and family.

Best Picture

1. One Battle After Another

2. Sinners

3. Hamnet

4. Sentimental Value

5. Marty Supreme

6. Frankenstein

7. Bugonia

8. The Secret Agent

9. Train Dreams

10. F1: The Movie

Despite a record-breaking sixteen nominations for Sinners, which led many of us to assume that this would be a two-horse race between that and One Battle After Another, only one of those horses has been consistently winning throughout this season. The latter film has gone on an unprecedented winning streak throughout the precursors, picking up the top prize at the Golden Globes (Best Musical or Comedy), Critics’ Choice, BAFTA, PGA, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Association, National Board of Review, and the Gotham Awards.

Sinners won the best ensemble prize from the Screen Actors Guild, a prize that correlates well with Best Picture. But when comparing that prize against One Battle After Another’s haul, this doesn’t seem like a fair fight.

Best Director

1. Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)

2. Ryan Coogler (Sinners)

3. Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value)

4. Chloé Zhao (Hamnet)

5. Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme)

Even if the battle (pun intended) seemed slightly open between One Battle After Another and Sinners, this is a category where there was never any doubt. Paul Thomas Anderson has won the Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, DGA, and BAFTA awards, fully sealing up his Oscar chances. Always the bridesmaid and never the bride, this will be a nice moment for one of America’s greatest modern filmmakers to receive his flowers finally.

Best Original Screenplay

1. Sinners

2. Sentimental Value

3. Marty Supreme

4. Blue Moon

5. It Was Just an Accident

It’s been fun this season to watch the two titans of One Battle After Another and Sinners dominate their respective screenplay categories. The former won at the only head-to-head matchup at the Golden Globes, which does not separate its screenplay prize. Other than that, Sinners has won the Critics’ Choice, WGA, and BAFTA prizes. While the WGA prize comes with a bit of an asterisk from the weaker competition due to guild restrictions, its win at BAFTA was mighty impressive since it beat the theoretical runner-up, Sentimental Value, which seemed more likely to win closer to its home turf.

Best Adapted Screenplay

1. One Battle After Another

2. Hamnet

3. Train Dreams

4. Bugonia

5. Frankenstein

To put things in perspective, Paul Thomas Anderson has won the Best Adapted Screenplay prize from forty-five critics/guild organizations throughout this entire awards season. The film with the second most wins is Pillion… with two. And that film isn’t even nominated for the Oscar! There’s no reason to have a shred of doubt over PTA continuing that trajectory to the Oscars.

Best Casting

1. Sinners

2. One Battle After Another

3. Marty Supreme

4. Hamnet

5. The Secret Agent

As this is the first year for this category, we don’t have any precedent to assume the tendencies of voters and the influence of precursor awards. The nominees were selected by the Casting Directors Branch, which went pretty basic, with only Best Picture nominees. If we extend that logic to the entire Academy membership when it comes time to vote for the winners, the eventual winner will likely be Sinners or One Battle After Another. The former won the prize from the Casting Society of America, Screen Actors Guild, and Critics’ Choice, and boasts the legendary status of casting director Francine Maisler.

Best Lead Actor

1. Michael B. Jordan (Sinners)

2. Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme)

3. Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent)

4. Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another)

5. Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon)

After presumably coming in second place last year to Adrian Brody (The Brutalist), Timothée Chalamet seemed primed to ascend the coveted steps to victory. He won the Golden Globe (Musical or Comedy) and Critics’ Choice, cementing himself as the clear favorite. Since then, he’s been stumbling, losing to Robert Aramayo at BAFTA and Michael B. Jordan at SAG. Theoretically, Chalamet still has the objective edge. But his loss of momentum is coinciding with Sinners’ rise across several categories, which is why I’m going a bit out on a limb with Jordan.

Best Lead Actress

1. Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)

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

3. Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value)

4. Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue)

5. Emme Stone (Bugonia)

Jessie Buckley has undergone one of the most dominant runs this decade for an actor. Along with a few dozen critics’ prizes, she also picked up the Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, BAFTA, and SAG prizes. There’s no way she loses the Oscar after that.

Best Supporting Actor

1. Sean Penn (One Battle After Another)

2. Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value)

3. Delroy Lindo (Sinners)

4. Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein)

5. Benicio del Toro (One Battle After Another)

   
   

After nearly a decade of this category being plagued by unambiguous sweepers, it’s nice to witness some chaos. Jacob Elordi kicked off the revolving door by unexpectedly winning the Critics’ Choice. That was then followed by Stellan Skarsgård winning at the Golden Globes, and Sean Penn at BAFTA and SAG. There’s even still the wild card of Delroy Lindo, who was not even nominated at any of the precursors. After all those absences, his unlikely inclusion here signals that the Oscar voters really like him. With Penn taking the two biggest prizes, it seems like he’s got the advantage.

Best Supporting Actress

1. Amy Madigan (Weapons)

2. Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another)

3. Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners)

4. Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value)

5. Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value)

For several months on paper, the lack of stiff competition made it seem like Ariana Grande would steamroll her way to a victory of Wicked: For Good. The winds started to change once Amy Madigan picked up Critics’ Choice and Teyana Taylor won the Golden Globe. Things were then blown wide open once Grande was snubbed entirely, with further chaos occurring once Wunmi Mosaku won the BAFTA. Now that Madigan won at SAG during the final stretch of the Oscar voting window, she might be the ultimate victor. This is still a very close race to call.

Best Cinematography

1. One Battle After Another

2. Train Dreams

3. Sinners

4. Marty Supreme

5. Frankenstein

Ever since Ryan Coogler collaborated with Kodak to publish a YouTube video explaining the different aspect ratios of Sinners, it seemed like that film had this Oscar in the bag. And yet, those fortunes never materialized amongst the industry awards, with One Battle After Another unexpectedly running away with awards from the British Society of Cinematographers, BAFTA, and American Society of Cinematographers.

Best Film Editing

1. One Battle After Another

2. F1: The Movie

3. Sinners

4. Marty Supreme

5. Sentimental Value

Even at a length of 161-minutes, One Battle After Another flies by with its flawless breakneck pacing. That sentiment awarded it the Best Film Editing prize at BAFTA and the American Cinema Editors Awards (Comedy), a precursor combination that has flawlessly led to Oscar victory.

Best Original Score

1. Sinners

2. One Battle After Another

3. Frankenstein

4. Hamnet

5. Bugonia

Is Ludwig Göransson about to become the new John Williams? The jury is still out if he’ll be able to match the sheer number of nominations. But it’s certainly looking like he’ll be able to match the tally of wins. He’s won the Critics’ Choice, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Grammy for his original score for Sinners. That will definitely translate to the Oscars, where it will mark his third victory in seven years. And if that wasn’t impressive enough, I fully expect him to be back at or near this same position next year with The Odyssey.

Best Original Song

1. “Golden” (KPop Demon Hunters)

2. “I Lied to You” (Sinners)

3. “Train Dreams” (Train Dreams)

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

5. “Sweet Dreams of Joy” (Viva Verdi!)

With 1.5 billion streams on Spotify, “Golden” is the kind of chart-topping song that could not be muscled out of the top position of this category. It’s a similar trajectory to recent winners like “Shallow” and “Skyfall,” which harnessed their cultural popularity as an asset to Oscar glory. Wins at the Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice, and Grammys further secured its victory potential.

Best Sound

1. F1: The Movie

2. Sinners

3. Sirât

4. One Battle After Another

5. Frankenstein

When in doubt, it’s always wise to pick the loudest film and/or the film that intertwines its soundwork with its narrative. The consolidation of Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing into a single category has also implicitly suggested that the predicted winner must also be a Best Picture nominee. That disqualifies Sirât, a shame because it features some ingenious audio moments. F1: The Movie is by far the loudest film of the Best Picture nominees, and fits the action genre mold of previous winners like Ford v Ferrari, Top Gun: Maverick, and the two Dune films.

Best Production Design

1. Frankenstein

2. Sinners

3. Marty Supreme

4. Hamnet

5. One Battle After Another

Similar to Best Costume Design, this category is all about capturing a period in time (All Quiet on the Western Front, Mank, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) or creating a fictional world (Dune: Part One, Mad Max: Fury Road, Poor Things, Wicked). Frankenstein melds both of those qualities in lavish style, with gigantic, sumptuous sets that are always highlighted by Guillermo del Toro’s constantly roaming camera. It won at Critics’ Choice, BAFTA, the Set Decorators Society of America (Fantasy or Science Fiction Film), and the Art Directors Guild Award (Period Film).

Best Costume Design

1. Frankenstein

2. Sinners

3. Hamnet

4. Marty Supreme

5. Avatar: Fire and Ash

To win this category, you must be a film with period costumes, specifically dresses. It’s what recent winners like Wicked, Cruella, Poor Things, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom all have in common. Of this year’s crop of nominees, Frankenstein is the closest comparison. It won this prize at the Critics’ Choice, BAFTA, and the Costume Designers Guild Awards (Excellence in Period Film).

Best Makeup & Hairstyling

1. Frankenstein

2. Sinners

3. The Smashing Machine

4. Kokuho

5. The Ugly Stepsister

   
   

The key to this category is to have a transformative performance as a leading contender in one of the acting races. Recent winners that exemplify this strategy include Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, The Whale, Poor Things, and The Substance. Frankenstein fits that bill this year, with Jacob Elordi fully plastered in makeup as the mad scientist’s famous undead creation. The film won this award at the Critics’ Choice, BAFTA, and Best Special Make-Up Prosthetics at the Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild’s awards.

Best Visual Effects

1. Avatar: Fire and Ash

2. F1: The Movie

3. Sinners

4. The Lost Bus

5. Jurassic World: Rebirth

What other purpose is there for the Avatar films besides grossing billions of dollars and winning this category? I’m so sure of this prediction that I’m already rubberstamping Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 for this win in their respective years.

Best Animated Feature

1. KPop Demon Hunters

2. Zootopia 2

3. Arco

4. Little Amélie or the Character of Rain

5. Elio

This category has seen some tight races over the past few years, with The Boy and the Heron and Flow upsetting predicted favorites Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and The Wild Robot, respectively. That’s unlikely to happen this year as KPop Demon Hunters has steamrolled the competition with its culture-defining popularity. Further bolstering its chances is the high likelihood that “Golden” will win the Oscar for Best Original Song.

Best International Feature

1. Sentimental Value (Norway)

2. The Secret Agent (Brazil)

3. It Was Just an Accident (France)

4. Sirât (Spain)

5. The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia)

Sentimental Value maxed out its nomination haul on Oscar nomination morning, getting in at every above-the-line category it was eligible for. That also includes Best Film Editing, another strong indication of the film’s strength across several branches. It also swept the European Film Awards and won Best Film Not in the English Language at the BAFTAs, where it received an equally high number of nominations.

The Secret Agent is no slouch either, winning this category at the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice. That Best Picture nomination was not guaranteed on Oscar nomination like Sentimental Value was, hinting that there’s enough passion to make it competitive against the odds. Not that it’s causation, but a country hasn’t won this category in consecutive years since Denmark did in 1987 and 1988 with Babette’s Feast and Pelle the Conqueror, respectively. I’m Still Here won this award last year when it statistically shouldn’t have, so I wouldn’t fully count out Brazil to pull off another upset.

Best Documentary Feature

1. The Perfect Neighbor

2. The Alabama Solution

3. Mr. Nobody Against Putin

4. Come See Me in the Good Light

5. Cutting Through Rocks

There’s one film each year whose biggest fight is to push past this branch’s biases and simply get nominated. Once that’s accomplished, the win is almost a formality. My Octopus Teacher and Summer of Soul are recent examples of this route. The Perfect Neighbor will likely replicate it, with its popularity extending to the culture at large thanks to its release on Netflix and poignant topic. There are never any sure things with this category, so a surprise winner is a very real possibility.

Best Animated Short Film: The Girl Who Cried Pearls

Best Documentary Short Film: All the Empty Rooms

Best Live-Action Short Film: Two People Exchanging Saliva