For the first time in 3 years, I’m heading into the Academy Awards without having seen all of the Best Picture nominees. Luckily, I’ve seen all but one of them (Spotlight), which means I’m not going in totally blind.
Before my predictions, I just want to say that in addition to the 7 Best Picture nominees that I saw, I also watched Spectre, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Inside Out, and Creed, all up for at least one Oscar outside of the Best Picture race. I would rank these 11 films as such:
- Creed
- The Martian
- Mad Max:Fury Road
- Brooklyn
- Room
- Spectre
- Inside Out
- Bridge of Spies
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens
- The Revenant
- The Big Short
In a perfect world, Mad Max will win all of the undercard awards as well as Best Director and Picture, but we do not live in a perfect world. Instead, these awards will mostly belong to The Revenant, though if there is to be an upset, The Big Short will be walking away with these awards. To both: yuck. The night will be an overall win, however, if Sly Stallone walks away with that Best Supporting Actor Oscar. (Yes, this is more important than Leonardo DiCaprio getting his…)
Anyway, here are my predictions for the 88th Academy Awards:
Best Picture
Spotlight
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
Best Actor
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Matt Damon, The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn
Best Director
Lenny Abrahamson, Room
Alejandro Iñárritu, The Revenant
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
Adam McKay, The Big Short
Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone, Creed
Best Supporting Actress
Rooney Mara, Carol
Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs
Rachel McAdams, Spotlight
Best Animated Film
Anomalisa
Boy and the World
Inside Out
Shaun the Sheep Movie
When Marnie Was There
Best Foreign Language Film
Embrace of the Serpent
Mustang
Son of Saul
Theeb
A War
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Big Short, Charles Randolph and Adam McKay
Brooklyn, Nick Hornby
Carol, Phyllis Nagy
The Martian, Drew Goddard
Room, Emma Donoghue
Best Original Screenplay
Spotlight, written by Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy
Bridge of Spies, written by Matt Charman and Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
Ex Machina, written by Alex Garland
Inside Out, screenplay by Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley; original story by Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen
Straight Outta Compton, screenplay by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff; story by S. Leigh Savidge and Alan Wenkus and Andrea Berloff
Best Original Score
Bridge of Spies, Thomas Newman
Carol, Carter Burwell
The Hateful Eight, Ennio Morricone
Sicario, Jóhann Jóhannsson
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, John Williams
Best Cinematography
Carol, Ed Lachman
The Hateful Eight, Robert Richardson
Mad Max: Fury Road, John Seale
The Revenant, Emmanuel Lubezki
Sicario, Roger Deakins
Best Production Design
Bridge of Spies
The Danish Girl
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Best Visual Effects
Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Best Original Song
“Earned It,” Fifty Shades of Grey, Music and Lyric by Abel Tesfaye, Ahmad Balshe, Jason Daheala Quenneville and Stephan Moccio
“Manta Ray,” Racing Extinction, Music by J. Ralph; Lyric by Antony Hegarty
“Simple Song 3,” Youth, Music and Lyric by David Lang
“Til it Happens to You,” The Hunting Ground, Music and Lyric by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga
“Writing’s on the Wall,” Spectre, Music and Lyric by Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith
Best Documentary (Feature)
Amy
Cartel Land
The Look of Silence
What Happened, Miss Simone?
Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom
Best Costume Design
Carol
Cinderella
The Danish Girl
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Mad Max: Fury Road
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared
The Revenant
Best Short Film (Live Action)
Ave Maria
Day One
Everything Will Be Okay
Shok
Stutterer
Best Short Film (Animated)
Bear Story
Prologue
Sanjay’s Super Team
We Can’t Live Without Cosmos
World of Tomorrow
Best Documentary (Short Subject)
Body Team 12
Chau, beyond the Lines
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah
A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness
Lasy Day of Freedom
Best Film Editing
The Big Short
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Best Sound Mixing
Bridge of Spies
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Best Sound Editing
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Sicario
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
-FLIPP