Tonight's the night. The 98th Academy Awards. What's felt like a long awards season (thanks in part to the Winter Olympics) reaches the grand finale this evening at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Conan O'Brien's returning to host for the second year running; once he settled into the role last year, he did well. Hopefully he'll have shed the first time nerves and do just as well tonight.
As regular readers will know, it has become a tradition for me to predict the nominations and the winners in the main six categories (the four acting categories, Best Director and Best Picture). I've done this since 2003 with varying degrees of success.
Last year, I slightly underestimated the Academy's love for Anora and got 4/6 (missing Best Actress [Mikey Madison] and Best Director [Sean Baker]). It's been a wide-open awards season in some categories this year, so I don't expect to do as well tonight. But stranger things have happened...
So, without further ado, here are my predictions for who will win.
Best Supporting Actress: Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another)
Because the supporting acting categories have been so wide open this year, I've focused on seeing those films which contain the nominated performances (I try and see as many nominated films as I can but I don't always manage it). But, this year, I've managed to see them all, and- for me- Teyana Taylor's fierce, ferocious turn as compromised revolutionary Perfidia Beverly Hills just squeaks it over Amy Madigan's performance in Weapons (although I won't be mad if Madigan wins; she is great, even if the film surrounding her isn't). The first part of One Battle After Another positively crackles with Taylor's kinetic, livewire performance and, for me, the movie loses something once her character steps out of the frame.
Best Supporting Actor: Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value)
I've got a feeling this one is just going to be wishful thinking on my part, although Skarsgård did win the corresponding award at the Golden Globes. He gives a considered and measured performance as lauded movie director Gustav Borg, attempting to make his most personal film yet. Borg's not a nice guy: he's an emotionally distant father, a borderline alcoholic, and utterly selfish but, crucially, there's a charm and charisma that helps you overlook some of those worst excesses. Josh Safdie could have taken a leaf our of Joachim Trier's book for that, but I'll get onto Marty Supreme in a bit. It's also the only one of this year's Supporting Actor nominees which feels the most grounded and the most "real" (Penn and del Toro play their characters very broad; Elordi and Lindo are in genre movies where their characters are heightened anyway). This feels unlikely (Sean Penn's BAFTA and Actor Award wins could see him take the gold) but I'm still holding our for it. Fun fact: if he does win, Skarsgård will be the first Supporting Actor Oscar winner in a foreign-language/international film.
Best Actress: Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)
Groucho Marx is said to have called Judy Garland not winning Best Actress for A Star Is Born (1954) "the biggest robbery since Brink's". I mean absolutely no disrespect to the other four actresses in this category with my next statement, but if- by some strange turn of events- Jessie Buckley doesn't win tonight, you can apply that comment here. Not only has she been the runaway winner throughout the awards season (the only consistent acting winner across all awards) but her performance as Agnes Shakespeare in Chloé Zhao's beautiful meditation on grief and loss is utterly tremendous. Buckley grounds the movie; her anguish at the loss of her son is emotionally affecting and I'm not afraid to say I cried several times throughout. There's been some claims that the movie is emotionally manipulative but I didn't feel that way about it. Unsurprisingly, for those who know me, Hamnet has been my favourite film of this awards season and it will be entirely fitting to have it honoured at the Oscars with Buckley's win.
Best Actor: Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme)
Full disclosure here, folks: I did not care for Marty Supreme. Two and a bit hours of unpleasant, amoral people doing unpleasant and amoral things to each other isn't my idea of a good time. And they don't come more unpleasant and amoral as the lead character, played by Timothée Chalamet. Marty Mauser is brash, unapologetically self-centred, possessed with an unshakable self-belief that he's the next best thing in table tennis and pretty much steps on, manipulates and cons those around him to make this dream a reality. The last act attempt to redeem this irredeemable arsehole felt emotionally hollow and manipulative and, crucially for me, didn't work- but that's more a problem with the script and less to do with the performance. Did I like the film? No. Did I like Chalamet's performance? Ish. He's given better performances elsewhere. But he's definitely committed to the bit here, and I think that might see him through, despite awards love cooling from him recently (see BAFTAs and Actor Awards). Personally, were I a voting member of the Academy, I would have put my vote in for Michael B. Jordan for his stellar work in Sinners; and there's still a chance (given his win at the Actor Awards) that this might happen.
Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)
Best Picture: One Battle After Another
From the get-go of this awards season, One Battle After Another has been the runaway winner. Nabbing Best Picture from the Critics' Choice Awards, the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs and the Producers Guild, it really has stood tall against the other nominees. A strangely timely movie, there's no way that anyone involved in its production could have predicted exactly how close to home its themes of revolution and resistance against authoritarianism would get. It's a film that meets the moment we find ourselves in, whether by accident or design, and- whilst I might have personally resonated with other nominees better- it's an undeniable triumph.
And no small part of that triumph comes at the hands of its director, Paul Thomas Anderson. He gets superb performances from his ensemble cast, balances comedy and drama expertly, and also pulls off one of the most tense and technically accomplished car chases I've seen on film in years. Again, Anderson has won all the major precursor awards so he seems fairly nailed on for tonight.
Whilst these aren't official predictions, I think Sinners and One Battle After Another will get the Original and Adapted Screenplay awards respectively (as they did at the Writers Guild Awards earlier in the month), Frankenstein will get a lot of technical love (I'm expecting to see it get Production Design and Hair & Make-Up at the very least), and KPop Demon Hunters will win Best Original Song for "Golden".
So there are my predictions. What do you think?
For the third year, ITV and ITVX will be broadcasting the telecast in the UK, starting at 10:15PM GMT with the ceremony due to start at 11:00PM (as the U.S. has already swapped to Daylight Saving Time whilst the clocks don't go forward here until the end of the month).
I'll be watching. Will you?
A full write-up of my thoughts on the ceremony, plus a full list of the winners, will follow as soon as possible once the ceremony finishes.
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