Our 2024 Oscars predictions for every category
Ace your office Oscar pool with this guide to all the races, from big names you know like Barbie and Oppenheimer to the shorts and technical categories
Film Features Oscars
Here we are at the end of another awards season, with frontrunners in some categories and others that are too close to call. As we get ready for the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday, we think it’s safe to say it’s going to be a big night for Christopher Nolan and Oppenheimer. But with such a strong field of contenders, it’s tougher than usual to predict the categories where Oppenheimer isn’t nominated. And there are even some categories we’re actually expecting it to lose. Gasp.
This year we decided to go all-out and pick a winner for every single category. So if you’re filling out your Oscar pool ballot and have no idea what to put down for, say, Best Documentary Short, don’t worry—we’ve got you covered. Or at least, we’ll try our best. These predictions are based on what we know about the nominees in each category. But as much as we try to get inside the heads of the voting Academy members, we can never be totally sure how it will turn out.
Read on for all the categories in alphabetical order, with the exception of Best Picture, of course. There may not be much suspense this year, but we’re still keeping up our tradition of saving that one for last.
25 Comments
Rooting for my boi Chris even though if he wins for Oppenheimer, it’ll be kind of like a Scorsese/Departed win to me.
How so?Scorsese should have won for Goodfellas.What realistically has Nolan done thats better than Oppie, that would warrant him having won?
Memento, I’d say.
I don’t know about “realistically” since it wasn’t nominated, but he should have won for The Dark Knight, full stop. All due respect to Slumdog Millionaire which was indeed very good, but Dark Knight, Best Picture, Best Director.It’s lost some of its sheen in the years since, but I think Inception was also an incredibly strong, emotionally-rewarding, and very rewatchable film. I don’t remember what movies were nominated that year (but isn’t that what everyone complains about anyway?), but that movie has lived in my heart rent-free ever since.I don’t think anything he’s made since then, including Oppenheimer (IMO it loses momentum after the Trinity test and spends the rest of the movie trying to build it back up), has been as good, but it had been over a decade between Goodfellas and The Departed too, so…
Wow, really? It’s not my favourite Nolan movie, but still up there as far as his canon goes, whereas The Departed is one of the worst Scorsese movies I’ve seen.
I’m not putting down Oppenheimer; I really like The Departed. And yes, I’ve seen Infernal Affairs; I still like Departed more. But even at the time, the consensus was that Scorsese was long overdue for an Oscar win, his Departed Oscars really felt like a belated award for his earlier works.Similarly, I *liked* Oppenheimer a lot. It was a very good movie. But I don’t think it’s quite up there with his The Prestige/The Dark Knight/Inception hat trick. YMMV.
I love this analysis, especially the Nolan/Scorsese comparisons.
What the Oscar Nominees Teach You About Film Directing (Scorsese, Nolan, Glazer, Lanthimos, Triet) – YouTube
If these all go as AVC predicts, every movie gets something…
…except for MAESTRO!
Lily Gladstone was great. FULL STOP. It’s rude and demeaning to say she might win as an Indigenous person because the her winning is a chance academy members don’t want “to pass up.”
She absolutely deserves to win on the merits of her terrific performance. She was so good in the film. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
You didn’t imply otherwise.
>It’s rude and demeaning to say she might win as an Indigenous person Good thing no one did that, isn’t it?I really worry about how poorly so many seem to be at reading comprehension.
After watching Poor Things on Hulu recently, I thought Stone’s performance was ultimately better, but it’ll probably go to Gladstone, whose performance was really amazing as well.
Think you have the Poor Things/Barbie technical showdowns crossed. I’d put Poor Things winning Costume and Barbie winning Production Design.Disheartening this will be the second year in a row a big studio with famous names attached will buy an Animated Short award with what is not only the worst of the nominees but also just a straight up mediocre film.
I’m gonna be so mad if Godzilla Minus One does not win!
Limiting Zone of Interest to only getting Best International and Best Sound won’t be enough, I wouldn’t be surprised if this took home the entire damn Best Picture.
Ugh, that Wes Anderson short should not win anything.
“Our”? Are you including ChatGPT as a person?
I’m hoping that one or more Oscar winners at the Academy Awards
ceremony will, finally, tell the audience that maybe the involvement of very
young — and especially infant/toddler — actors in filming negatively
melodramatic scenes has or readily can have a lingering effect on them, even
trauma.I doubt that any Oscar nominee or winner at the Awards ceremony
will tell the audience that the involvement of very young — and especially
infant/toddler — actors in filming negatively melodramatic scenes has or readily
can have a lingering effect on them, even trauma.Decades before reading Sigmund Freud’s theories or those of any
other academic regarding very early life trauma, I began cringing at how
producers and directors of negatively melodramatic scenes — let alone the
willing parents of the undoubtedly extremely upset infants and toddlers used —
can comfortably conclude that no psychological harm would come to their
infant/toddler actors, regardless of their screaming in bewilderment.Initially I’d presumed there was a reliable educated consensus
within the entertainment industry and psychology academia that there’s little
or no such risk, otherwise the practice would logically and compassionately
have ceased. But I became increasingly doubtful of the factual accuracy of any
such potential consensus. Cannot one logically conclude by observing their
turmoil-filled facial expressions that they’re perceiving, and likely
cerebrally recording, the hyper-emotional scene activity around them at face
value rather than as a fictitious occurrence?
I could understand the practice commonly occurring within a naïve
entertainment industry of the 20th Century, but I’m still seeing it in
contemporary small and big screen movie productions.Contemporary research tells us that, since it cannot fight or
flight, a baby stuck in a crib on its back hearing parental discord in the next
room can only “move into a third neurological state, known as a
‘freeze’ state … This freeze state is a trauma state” (Childhood Disrupted,
pg.123).This causes its brain to improperly develop; and if allowed to
continue, it’s the helpless infant’s starting point towards a childhood,
adolescence and (in particular) adulthood in which its brain uncontrollably
releases potentially damaging levels of inflammation-promoting stress hormones
and chemicals, even in non-stressful daily routines.We also now know that it’s the unpredictability of a stressor, and
not the intensity, that does the most harm. When the stressor “is
completely predictable, even if it is more traumatic — such as giving a
[laboratory] rat a regularly scheduled foot shock accompanied by a sharp, loud
sound — the stress does not create these exact same [negative] brain changes” (pg.
42).
I’m hoping that one or more Oscar winners at the Academy Awards ceremony will, finally, tell the audience that maybe the involvement of very young — and especially infant/toddler — actors in filming negatively melodramatic scenes has or readily can have a lingering effect on them, even trauma.I doubt that any Oscar nominee or winner at the Awards ceremony will tell the audience that the involvement of very young — and especially infant/toddler — actors in filming negatively melodramatic scenes has or readily can have a lingering effect on them, even trauma.Decades before reading Sigmund Freud’s theories or those of any other academic regarding very early life trauma, I began cringing at how producers and directors of negatively melodramatic scenes — let alone the willing parents of the undoubtedly extremely upset infants and toddlers used — can comfortably conclude that no psychological harm would come to their infant/toddler actors, regardless of their screaming in bewilderment.Initially I’d presumed there was a reliable educated consensus within the entertainment industry and psychology academia that there’s little or no such risk, otherwise the practice would logically and compassionately have ceased. But I became increasingly doubtful of the factual accuracy of any such potential consensus.Cannot one logically conclude by observing their turmoil-filled facial expressions that they’re perceiving, and likely cerebrally recording, the hyper-emotional scene activity around them at face value rather than as a fictitious occurrence?
I could understand the practice commonly occurring within a naïve entertainment industry of the 20th Century, but I’m still seeing it in contemporary small and big screen movie productions.
Nolan and HYPENHEIMER….are no way is better than SCORSESE and Killers…..yet again, the Oscars will favor the crowd-pleasing, America-trumping movie
OppenHYPEr was right there tho
No performances have ever made me question of the nature of humanity and my relationship to it like Sandra Huller this year. I’m thinking of Anatomy, where she is nominated and unlikely to win, and Zone of Interest. Just amazing. I don’t think anyone earned it like she did this year.
Note to Self: Cheat off A.V. Club next year. Nice work so far–I think you’ve gotten all but one, and only the big ones are left…
Welp you guys were pretty much dead on. #oscarssopredictable