With the 96th Academy Award final voting occurring this week, I took a look at 6 different award predictions made by different news outlets and tallied the results to see who they think will be walking out with awards March 10th.
By Alex Richard
Best Picture
It should not be a surprise to anyone that everyone predicted Oppenheimer to win Best Picture. With 13 nominations, the most nominated film, Oppenheimer has been the favorite for the award since it was released back in July of 2023.
Best Director
Christopher Nolan is unanimously expected to capture his first Academy Award for Best Director for Oppenheimer. Somehow, despite the incredible film catalogue, this is only his second nomination in the category.
Nolan has won the Best Director award in all other major film awards and is expected to receive the recognition he deserves at the Oscars.
Best Actor
To my surprise, the race between Cillian Murphy and Paul Giamatti is much more one sided than I anticipated, and not in the way many of you might expect.
Giamatti for his role in The Holdovers was predicted to win Best Actor by five of the six websites looked at. Polygon is the only outlier, who believes Murphy will get the honor for his portrayal as J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Best Actress
The Best Actress award is a two-woman race between the Stones, Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon) & Emily Stone (Poor Things) which is fitting, with both women winning their perspective Golden Globe categories.
The votes are tied 3-3, with Variety, Polygon, and Screen Rant predicting Lily Gladstone to become a first-time winner. Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times, and IndieWire believe Emma Stone will become a two-time Oscar winner.
Best Supporting Actor & Best Supporting Actress
There is no suspense for these two awards. Robert Downey Jr and Ryan Gosling both entered the award season during the summer of Barbenheimer, but RDJ started winning every award it became abundantly clear that the award was coming his way.
Davine Joy Randolph came onto the scene strong for her performance in The Holdovers, immediately becoming the favorite in a very strong field. Despite the competition, similar to Robert Downey Jr, she swept all the Best Supporting Actress awards and is the favorite.
Best Original Screenplay
Anatomy of a Fall, written by the film's director Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, slightly edged out The Holdovers, written by David Hemingson, in the predictions for Best Original Screenplay.
Both Anatomy of a Fall and The Holdovers rely heavily on the relationships and interactions between the characters on screen, and both scripts make the viewer truly enthralled with the stories and make them feel, whether that be empathy, anger, sadness, etc... Both films are highly deserving of the award.
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Best Adapted Screenplay award goes to the best screenplay adapted from previously established material. That can be from a book, play, musical, etc... This category had the most variety in the predictions, with three different films selected.
American Fiction was the lead vote-getter with 3 votes. Cord Jefferson made his feature directorial debut while also writing the screenplay, which was based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett.
The power couple of Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach were picked by Los Angeles Times, and IndieWire for their excellent work of Barbie. On what could have been a run-of-the-mill film based on a children's doll, Gerwig & Baumbach were able to make one the funniest movies of 2023, while also being able to talk about more heavy topics such as the effects of the patriarchy and feminism. Not to mention, Barbie was the biggest movie of the year. An incredible success for Baumbach, and especially Gerwig, as she directed the film.
Based on American Prometheus by Kai Bird, Christopher Nolan was able to make a three-hour biopic feel like a breeze and an amazing cinematic experience. Just like Barbie, Oppenheimer overachieved at the box office and was a massive success, and the critical response was just as strong. Screen Rant was the lone of the six websites to predict that the award is head Nolan's way.
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