And away we go…

General rules to follow:

For Best Picture: actors tend to rule.

For predicting upsets: sometimes you might be right about the one that gets in, but in so doing you might be wrong about the one that gets dropped off. As a result, you don’t really gain a point if you’re looking for an overall score. For instance, many are predicting The Lighthouse to get in for Best Cinematography — I think that is a great prediction and will probably come true. But the problem is: which of the ASC five do you discard to make way for The Lighthouse? If you pick the wrong one, then you don’t gain a point. So for me personally, even knowing The Lighthouse is a likely nominee, I do not know which one will drop off. Of course, if you are just looking for shock and awe, being one of the few that gets something right — then by all means, predict it.

Predicting based on total nominations: that can be tricky, since you don’t know for sure which categories a film will land in. I estimate about 11 nominations for Once Upon a Time. I know that’s not likely, but I’m hedging my bets that it will land in more than a few places. I know it’s probably going to land in Makeup or Costumes but I don’t know for sure which one it will land in. So I’m predicting both.

Re: the preferential ballot, Marshall Flores gives us some insight as to how it all works (WONK ALERT):

For Best Picture, voters rank five films for Best Picture on their ballots. There are three rounds of voting.

Round 1:

1) Ballots are sorted into piles by their number one choices.

2) A film needs at least 9.1% of the vote for a Best Picture nomination.

3) If a film has at least 11% support, that film is nominated and triggers the “surplus rule.” This means that bonus votes will go to the next highest ranked contender on ballots that listed that film at number one.

Round 2:

1) If any film(s) triggered the surplus rule in round 1, surplus votes are calculated and then distributed to other films.

2) Same thresholds from Round 1 still apply: 9.1% of the vote is needed for a Best Picture nomination; 11% secures a nomination and invokes the surplus rule.

3) All films with less than 1% of the vote are eliminated.

Round 3:

1) The vote required to obtain a Best Picture nomination is lowered from 9.1% to 5%.

2) Ballots from films eliminated in Round 2 are reallocated to their next highest choices among the remaining films in contention.

3) Voting concludes. All films with at least 5% of the vote are nominated for Best Picture; the rest are eliminated.

For most other categories that use a preferential ballot for nominations, the first few steps are the same: voters rank a list of five names or films, and ballots are sorted by the number one votes in the first round of voting. Beyond that, the two processes begin to diverge:

— In Round 1, you need at least 16.7% of the vote to secure a nomination. However, that percentage is not static, and will increase in subsequent rounds as the number of contenders securing a nomination increases and, concurrently, the number of open nomination slots decreases.

For example, let’s say in Best Actor balloting Joaquin Phoenix hits 17% of the vote and secures a nomination in Round 1. That means that there are four nomination slots left, which then means the minimum number of votes needed for a nomination goes up from 16.7% to 20% of the remaining ballots in the next round(s). Now let’s say, instead, that Phoenix and Leo DiCaprio both were nominated in Round 1. This means there are three open slots left, and the nomination threshold instead goes from 16.7% to 25% (this change is not arbitrary – it’s derived mathematically).

— Only one film or name is eliminated per round of voting — the one with the lowest vote total. Voting continues round by round until all five nominations are had. As such, nominations balloting in other categories goes on for a lot longer than with Best Picture.

If you made it through all of that, congratulations! But the TL;DR main takeaways from contrasting how the preferential ballot is applied are these:

— For Best Picture nominations, passion drives the process. With only three rounds of voting, films need a lot of top of the ballot support (i.e., top three support) to obtain a nomination.

— For other categories, where balloting goes on for much longer than just three rounds, broad support from the voters secures a nomination. In other words, the principles that determine a Best Picture winner under the preferential ballot — having a consensus and not being polarizing — are also in play here.

FINAL OSCAR NOMINATION PREDICTIONS

My three hardest categories to nail down, I think, are Director, Actor and Actress. Let’s get started.

Best Picture

DGA/PGA/SAG/ACE/WGA

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood*

The Irishman

Parasite

Jojo Rabbit

*not WGA eligible so N/A

PGA/DGA/ACE

1917

So that is our Big Five: the films that would likely be the five nominees if the Academy still had only five Best Pic nominees. Then we add a few more, adding in other guild nominees that might influence things:

PGA/WGA/ACE

Joker

Marriage Story

Knives Out

PGA/WGA

Little Women

PGA/ACE

Ford v Ferrari

SAG

Bombshell

That appears to be our top ten, give or take a Bombshell

Best Picture:

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

1917

Parasite

Jojo Rabbit

The Irishman

Joker

Marriage Story

Knives Out

Little Women

Ford v Ferrari

Alt: Bombshell

Best Director

Todd Phillips, Taika Waititi, Greta Gerwig or Pedro Almodóvar in that fifth spot. Honestly it could be any of them. I generally go with DGA five — the reason for that is that it’s always possible that it turns out that way. 16,000 DGA members chose their nominees while there are only 400 or so members of Oscar’s directors branch.

We started the season with these five films as the most popular. Nothing has happened since to change all that much. If you think Little Women has as much gravitas and popularity, go for Greta Gerwig to make Oscars history as the first woman ever to get two directing nominations (which you gotta admit, would be pretty cool). But I sort of see that fifth slot as being between Todd Phillips for Joker or Taika Waititi for Jojo Rabbit. I am torn between them. I do think Pedro Almodóvar has a real shot for Pain and Glory too. YIKES. I would say you could pick anyone for that fifth slot and get 4/5 right. I could also see something like Gerwig and Almodovar. I guess expect the unexpected.

Thing is, since the DGA pushed the date to announce their nominees either after or on the same day as the Oscar ballot deadline, we haven’t really seen a 5/5 match-up. That seems to tell me that it won’t be the DGA five. But it still could be. Past correspondence vis-à-vis DGA went like this:

2000 — 4/5

2001 — 5/5

2002 — 4/5

2003 — 4/5

2004 — 4/5

2005 – 5/5

2006 — 4/5

2007 — 4/5

2008 — 4/5

2009 — 5/5

2010 — 4/5

2011 — 4/5

2012 — 2/5 (date change chaos)

2013 — 4/5

2014 — 4/5

2015 — 4/5

2016 — 4/5

2017 — 4/5

2018 — 3/5



Best Director:

Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Bong Joon-ho, Parasite

Sam Mendes, 1917

Martin Scorsese, The Irishman

Todd Phillips, Joker

(Alt: Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit, but… this is a tough one)

It’s okay with me if it’s Greta Gerwig or Pedro Almodóvar

Best Actor:

It is such a competitive category that the winner is going to likely be tied to movies voters liked overall. But in general, going with SAG five is not a bad way to go. And that is what I’ll do:

Joaquin Phoenix, Joker

Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Adam Driver, Marriage Story

Christian Bale, Ford v Ferrari

Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory

(Alt. Taron Egerton, Rocketman)

But I would love it if it was Eddie Murphy for Dolemite Is My Name or Antonio Banderas for Pain and Glory

Best Actress :

Going with SAG five here as well, though I know Saoirse Ronan has a real shot.

Renée Zellweger, Judy

Charlize Theron, Bombshell

Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story

Cynthia Erivo, Harriet

Lupita Nyong’o, Us

(Alt: Saoirse Ronan, Little Women)

Best Supporting Actress:

Laura Dern, Marriage Story

Margot Robbie, Bombshell

Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers

Scarlett Johansson, Jojo Rabbit

Florence Pugh, Little Women

(Alt: Nicole Kidman, Bombshell)

Best Supporting Actor:

Brad Pitt, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Joe Pesci, The Irishman

Tom Hanks, Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Al Pacino, The Irishman

Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes

(Alt: Jamie Foxx, Just Mercy)

Original Screenplay:

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino

Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach

Parasite, Bong Joon-ho, Jin Won Han

1917, Krysty Wilson-Cairns, Sam Mendes

Booksmart, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, and Katie Silberman

(Alt: Knives Out — this is a case of knowing Booksmart is probably in but a case of not knowing how much they’ll like 1917)

Adapted Screenplay:

The Irishman, Steve Zaillian

Jojo Rabbit, Taika Waititi

Little Women, Greta Gerwig

Joker, Todd Phillips and Scott Silver

The Two Popes, Anthony McCarten

(Alt: Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood)

Documentary Feature:

For Sama

American Factory

Apollo 11

One Child Nation

Honeyland

(Alt: Knock Down the House)

International Feature:

Parasite, South Korea

Pain and Glory, Spain

Les Misérables, France

Atlantics, Senegal

Those Who Remained, Hungary

(Alt: Beanpole)

Best Cinematography:

1917

Ford v Ferrari

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Joker

The Irishman

(Alt: The Lighthouse)

Best Editing:

Ford v Ferrari

The Irishman

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Joker

Jojo Rabbit

(Alt. Parasite)

Production Design:

1917

The Irishman

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Jojo Rabbit

Ford v Ferrari

(Alt: Joker)

Sound:

1917

Ford v Ferrari

Joker

Rocketman

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

(Alt: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker)

Sound Editing:

Ford v Ferrari

Joker

1917

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

(Alt: Avengers: Endgame )

Costume Design:

Dolemite Is My Name

Rocketman

Jojo Rabbit

Little Women

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

(Alt: Judy)

Visual Effects:

The Irishman

Lion King

Alita: Battle Angel

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Avengers: Endgame

(Alt: 1917)

Original Score:

Joker

1917

Marriage Story

Little Women

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

(Alt: Jojo Rabbit)

Original Song:

“I’m Gonna Love Me Again,” Rocketman

“Into the Unknown,” Frozen II

“Spirit,” The Lion King

“I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away,” Toy Story 4

“Stand Up,” Harriet

(Alt: “A Glass of Soju,” Parasite)

Makeup and Hair:

Bombshell

Joker

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Rocketman

Dolemite Is My Name (alt. Judy)

Animated Feature :

Toy Story 4

Missing Link

Frozen 2

Abominable

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

(Alt: I Lost My Body)

Live Action Short:

Brotherhood

Little Hands

Miller & Son

The Neighbors’ Window

Refugee

(Alt: Nefta Football Club)

Documentary Short:

Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)

St. Louis Superman

In the Absence

Fire in Paradise

Ghosts of Sugar Land

(Alt: After Maria)

Animated Short:

Hair Love

Kitbull

Hors Piste

The Physics of Sorrow

Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days

(Alt: Mind My Mind)

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