It’s finally upon us! The 97th Academy Awards! Hollywood will descend upon the Dolby Theatre tomorrow night, and it’s likely to be the most exciting Oscars night in years for Academy obsessives like yours truly. This season has had few clear frontrunners, and the late-season flood of televised and guild awards has been split between a number of top nominees in almost every category (with the only exception being Best Supporting Actor, which has been swept all season long by Kieran Culkin). America may be crumbling, but the Oscars are still here. See my predictions below, and join me in the comments to discuss each category!

Best Picture: Nothing exemplifies how all-over-the-place this season has been quite like Best Picture. Dune: Part Two led the race for nearly the first half of the year, building on the success and acclaim of Denis Villeneuve’s first Dune adaptation and staying in the conversation to the tune of five Oscar nominations. It was supplanted in late May by Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning Anora, which itself was soon replaced by fellow Cannes premiere Emilia Pérez, this year’s most-nominated film (falling just short of tying the all-time record with a mere 13 nominations). After a rapturous reception at the Venice and Toronto film festivals, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist led the pack throughout the fall, though over the holidays box office juggernaut Wicked briefly held the pole position. Unmentioned in all of this is Conclave, the sort of film that would’ve easily walked away with the Best Picture trophy just a few years ago. It inarguably has a strong chance, with eight nominations and recent SAG Ensemble and BAFTA Best Film wins. Emilia Pérez has fallen apart in recent weeks as star Karla Sofia Gascón has been mired in controversy over past remarks on social media and then took it upon herself to go on a disastrous self-funded campaign blitz. The top race probably comes down to Conclave, Anora, and The Brutalist, and I have to give the edge to Anora with recent wins at the Producers Guild, Writers Guild, and Directors Guild.
Predicted Winner: Anora

Best Director: With Edward Berger (Conclave) this year’s surprising recipient of the “nominated by the Directors Guild but not the Academy” prize, this comes down to Brady Corbet and Sean Baker. Baker won at DGA and Corbet at BAFTA and the Golden Globes, but my thinking on Picture makes it pretty tempting to call Baker here as Anora peaks at just the right time – the Academy has awarded Picture and Director to the same film 15 times since 2000, and aligned with the DGA 20 times over the same period. 
Predicted Winner: Sean Baker, Anora

Best Actor: If The Brutalist is getting awarded anywhere Sunday night, it’s for Adrien Brody in Best Actor. Brody won Best Actor – Drama at the Golden Globes and the BAFTA for Best Actor, besting his closest competitors, Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown) and Ralph Fiennes (Conclave) in both instances. Chalamet took a major late-season victory with his SAG win last weekend, making this race a bit more exciting, but no one has ever won an acting Oscar with only the SAG in hand among major precursors.  
Predicted Winner: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist

Best Actress: Mikey Madison won at BAFTA amid Anora’s late-season surge. Demi Moore (The Substance) and Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here) won Comedy/Musical and Drama, respectively, at the Golden Globes, and Moore won the SAG. Interestingly, the Oscars will make the first major award that has had all three women in the same category, with Torres missing out on nominations at SAG and BAFTA. The Academy’s two favorite narratives are in play here: the out-of-nowhere ingenue (Madison) and the overdue nomination for a long-beloved industry favorite (Moore). My heart says Moore, but my head says Madison. 
Predicted Winner: Mikey Madison, Anora

Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain. Done and done.
Predicted Winner: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

Best Supporting Actress: Since Emilia Pérez bowed at Cannes, this has been seen as Zoe Saldaña’s to lose despite her arguably being the film’s true lead. Her greatest competition has come in the form of another co-lead actress, Ariana Grande (Wicked), but Saldaña won at SAG, BAFTA, and the Golden Globes, and it’s hard to imagine her losing on Sunday unless the backlash against Gascón and Emilia Pérez is taking everyone down with it. If the Academy wants to award an actual supporting role, it’s Isabella Rossellini for Conclave, but I see no reason to think they’ll start caring about category fraud now.
Predicted Winner: Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez

Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay: It’s hard to get an apples to apples comparison for the writing awards: the Golden Globes has a combined screenplay category, and the Writers Guild has enough eligibility restrictions that frontrunners frequently get disqualified. Conclave won the screenplay award at the Golden Globes and the BAFTA for Adapted Screenplay, while Anora won Original Screenplay at WGA, A Real Pain at BAFTA, and Nickel Boys took the WGA for Adapted Screenplay. It’s hard to go against Conclave in Screenplay given its precursor success (and WGA ineligibility), while the Anora surge and A Real Pain’s disappointing performance in nominations makes me think that Anora will take Original.
Predicted Winners: Conclave (Adapted), Anora (Original)

Best Animated Feature: Flow or The Wild Robot. The Wild Robot or Flow. That is the only question that matters in this category. The very British-leaning BAFTA unhelpfully gave their award to Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, while the top two Annies went to The Wild Robot (Animated Feature) and Flow (Animated Feature – Independent). My heart is with Flow, but it only won one other Annie (Writing) and the Golden Globes, while The Wild Robot took home eight other Annies besides the top prize, as well as the Producers Guild award for Animated Feature.
Predicted Winner: The Wild Robot

Best Documentary Feature: Always a tough category, but this year, truly, yeesh. BAFTA and the PGA both awarded Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which did not garner an Oscar nomination. On paper the film with the best narrative would seem to be No Other Land, the acclaimed independent documentary about the growing and violent illegal Israeli settlement movement in Palestinian territory in the West Bank, but the ongoing lack of formal distribution for the film and the industry backlash against the cast and crew of The Brutalist for their outspoken pro-Palestine stance makes me think it has quite an uphill battle to a win. So where does that leave us? DGA and Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Porcelain War, which would be the third consecutive winner to touch upon Vladimir Putin’s crimes against humanity and/or invasion of Ukraine. 
Predicted Winner: Porcelain War

Best International Feature: BAFTA and Golden Globes winner Emilia Pérez long seemed like the easy frontrunner here, but Gascón’s late-breaking antics have probably ended its chances. Flow would be an unorthodox pick, but it’s generally tough to bet against a Picture nominee here, so I’m going with I’m Still Here.
Predicted Winner: I’m Still Here (Brazil)

Best Animated / Documentary / Live Action Short: Do I ever get the shorts right? Rarely, and never with any attempt at a methodical approach, but maybe the umpteenth try is the charm! In animated, Wander to Wonder won the BAFTA for British Short Animation and the Annie for Short Subject, so that’s an easy (and probably wrong) pick. Otherwise…um…I Am Ready, Warden and A Lien?
Predicted Winners: Wander to Wonder (Animated), I Am Ready, Warden (Documentary), A Lien (Live Action)

Best Cinematography: Among major precursors, the American Society of Cinematographers awarded Pablo Larrain’s Maria, while BAFTA (which didn’t even nominate Maria) went with The Brutalist. Since the expansion of the Best Picture field in 2009, the only winner in this category not also nominated for Picture is Blade Runner 2049 in 2017, making The Brutalist the easy favorite here over Maria.
Predicted Winner: The Brutalist

Best Costume Design: The Costume Designers Guild awarded Conclave (Contemporary Film), Nosferatu (Period Film), and Wicked (Sci-fi/Fantasy Film), and BAFTA went with Wicked. It’s rare for the CDG’s Contemporary Film winner to take the Oscar, so I’d argue this is between Nosferatu and Wicked. In this case it’s hard to ignore that Wicked has ten nominations and this is probably its strongest category.
Predicted Winner: Wicked

Best Film Editing: Although Film Editing is frequently seen as an early predictor of Picture, the awards have actually only aligned nine times this century, and only twice since 2012 (the two most recent winners, Everything Everywhere All at Once and Oppenheimer).Like Picture, I think this comes down to Anora, The Brutalist, and Conclave. BAFTA gave their editing award to Conclave; the American Cinema Editors won’t hold their awards until later in March, so the only thing they can really tell us at this point is that they didn’t nominate The Brutalist across their two categories. If Anora is having a really strong night, it’ll take this, but for now I’m going with the only precursor we’ve got.
Predicted Winner: Conclave

Best Makeup & Hairstyling: BAFTA chose The Substance for their equivalent award, while the Makeup Artists and Hair Stylists Guild chose The Substance for Contemporary Makeup and Special Effects Makeup, Wicked for Period Makeup and Period Hair Styling, and The Last Showgirl (not nominated at the Oscars) for Contemporary Hair Styling. All that tells me that it’s coming down to The Substance and Wicked. The Academy loves a good “aging up” moment, no matter how grotesque, so I have to give the edge to The Substance, especially given its overall strength in quite a few other categories.
Predicted Winner: The Substance

Best Production Design: There’s not a lot to go off off here, but the Art Designers Guild gave three awards this year, to Nosferatu (Period), Wicked (Fantasy), and Conclave (Contemporary), and BAFTA gave their Production Design award to Wicked. With two strong notches in its favor (and arguable runner-up The Brutalist having no precursors), I have to go with Wicked.
Predicted Winner: Wicked

Best Visual Effects: The BAFTA for Special Visual Effects went to Dune: Part Two, which also took home four awards from the Visual Effects Society. VES’s top award went to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and among Oscar nominees Better Man also took home a prize, but the precursors would seem to favor Dune: Part Two.
Predicted Winner: Dune: Part Two

Best Score: The Golden Globes selected Challengers, which somehow didn’t make it off of the Academy’s shortlist (but it won the Snubby!). BAFTA went with The Brutalist, and it’s hard to go against them here, especially for such an impactful score. 
Predicted Winner: The Brutalist

Best Song: What a mess of a category. BAFTA doesn’t have a category for Original Song, but the Golden Globes went with “El Mal” from Emilia Pérez. If “El Mal” splits the vote with “Mi Camino,” this could mark Diane Warren’s first competitive win in 16 nominations, for “The Journey” (The Six Triple Eight), but I refuse to predict that, so “El Mal” it is.
Predicted Winner: “El Mal,” Emilia Pérez 

Best Sound: BAFTA gave their award for Best Sound to Dune: Part Two. Among nominees, the Motion Picture Sound Editors gave awards to The Wild Robot (Feature Animation), Emilia Pérez (Feature International), Dune: Part Two (Feature Effects/Foley), and Wicked (Music Editing). The Cinema Audio Society gave their Sound Mixing – Live Action award to A Complete Unknown and their Animation award to The Wild Robot. What does that all mean? Well, probably that we should go with BAFTA.
Predicted Winner: Dune: Part Two

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And there we have it! It really could be a big night for anyone, though I think Anora will be the lucky beneficiary of its late-season return to prominence. What are your predictions? Head down to the comments and sound off!

You can find more of my musings on the Oscars (and occasional reviews!) here on The Avocado, and on Letterboxd.