Welcome to Oscars week! Over the next five days, we’ll be running through all 20 feature categories in contention at this year’s ceremony—not to be confused with all of the awards that will actually be presented during the ceremony. Sharper and more knowledgeable critics than I have already and justifiably skewered the Academy for its laughable decision to announce the winners of eight different categories before the show proper and then somehow “edit” them into the telecast. Now, it’s possible to acknowledge that not all 23 categories (20 features, plus three shorts) possess an equivalent degree of luster; hell, I imply as much every year by titling this opening piece “odds and ends” before moving on to “the big techies” (which include film editing, original score, and production design… all of which won’t be presented live this year). But it’s foolish to pretend that this bizarre, fanboy-chasing maneuver—which is presumably designed to save time, though there are rumblings that the Academy will replace the missing minutes with, I dunno, more montages about the magic of movies, all while still limiting the telecast to three hours, we promise—will somehow attract potential viewers who were otherwise on the fence.
This makes no sense. If you don’t care about the Oscars, the prospect of not seeing the award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling presented live will not suddenly make you want to watch the Oscars. If you do care about the Oscars—if you annually follow cinema’s most prestigious, pretentious gala, and if you recognize the Academy’s value as a recordkeeping institution while still lamenting its general unwillingness to be truly adventurous—then the marginalization of a handful of categories (and of the hard-working artisans deprived of their chance to hear their name read aloud by a gorgeous celebrity) represents a pointless, self-flagellating smack. To quote a certain crime lord who made his share of disastrous decisions: It accomplishes nothing.
So it goes. Here at MovieManifesto, we still care about all of the feature categories (not so much the shorts, he murmured hypocritically), and we’ll briefly analyze all of them over the coming week. Let’s get started.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
NOMINEES
Encanto
Flee
Luca
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Raya and the Last Dragon
WILL WIN
Disney and Pixar typically rule the roost here (they’ve won eight of the last nine years), but they’re competitors this year, with Disney’s Encanto squaring off against Pixar’s Luca. Could that result in a vote split, allowing Netflix’s The Mitchells vs. the Machines to sneak in? I doubt it. Mitchells played well with critics (as did Flee), but Luca seems to have ceded the spotlight here, with Encanto sucking up most of the industry’s oxygen. It’s the favorite, and we don’t talk about underdogs.
SHOULD WIN
I found Flee disappointing and Raya and the Last Dragon tedious, but the other three contenders here are all worthy. Mitchells vs. the Machines is an enjoyable, breakneck adventure with some very funny gags, but at the risk of being basic, I’m more partial to the Disney entries. They’re a virtual toss-up—both will likely appear on my year-end top 20, which I’ll formally unveil next month—but forced to choose, I’ll take the sweet soul of Luca over the pop ingenuity of Encanto.
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
NOMINEES
Cruella
Cyrano
Dune
Nightmare Alley
West Side Story
WILL WIN
Come on. Sure, the other contenders are impressive period or fantasy pieces, but only one incorporates the supposed magnificence of its costumes into its actual plot. Cruella takes this one in a walk.
SHOULD WIN
I’m going to be voting for West Side Story in plenty of higher-profile categories (whoops, there I go again), and Cyrano was one of my favorite movies of the year, but I’ll be basic once again and side with the Academy here. I don’t know that the costumes in Cruella are good, exactly, but they’re colorful and memorable, and they help bring texture to a frantic, overstuffed picture.
MOVIEMANIFESTO’S BALLOT
Cruella
Cyrano
Last Night in Soho
The Matrix Resurrections
West Side Story
Did you see Anya Taylor-Joy’s dress? Did you see Yahya Abdul-Mateen’s suits??
MovieManifesto’s winner: Last Night in Soho.
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
NOMINEES
Ascension
Attica
Flee
Summer of Soul
Writing with Fire
WILL WIN
I am woefully ignorant when it comes to documentaries, but Summer of Soul seems like the smart pick here; it’s critically beloved (no less an authority than A.O. Scott named it the best movie of the year), it apparently features killer music, and it’s the work of a major celebrity in Questlove. Keep your eye on Flee, though.
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
NOMINEES
Drive My Car (Japan)
Flee (Denmark)
The Hand of God (Italy)
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (Bhutan)
The Worst Person in the World (Norway)
WILL WIN
Factoid alert: Since this category was created in 1947, a Best Picture nominee has also been nominated here six times. And all six times, it has won. (For the nerds: Z, Life Is Beautiful, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Amour, Roma, and Parasite.) What I’m saying is, Drive My Car is a pretty safe bet.
SHOULD WIN
I haven’t seen Lunana, and I didn’t love Flee or The Hand of God. But Drive My Car and The Worst Person in the World are both excellent—the former for its rigorous intelligence, the latter for its heedless (but insightful) exuberance. Forced to choose, I’ll take Drive My Car.
MOVIEMANIFESTO’S BALLOT
Drive My Car (Japan)
Quo Vadis, Aida? (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Titane (France)
Undine (Germany)
The Worst Person in the World (Norway)
Just a tremendous year for international cinema, to the point where it killed me to limit myself to five films (apologies to Maria Schrader’s I’m Your Man and Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta). Quo Vadis, Aida? was actually a nominee in this category last year, but the Academy’s eligibility criteria for this field have always been dumb (even before accounting for its inane pandemic-inspired window-shifting), and that movie’s devastating depiction of a war-torn family (and country) is too powerful to neglect. You can’t believe Titane until you see it. And Undine is a marvel, a soaring romantic melodrama with rapturous images to match its thorny, intricate themes.
MovieManifesto’s winner: Undine.
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
NOMINEES
Coming 2 America
Cruella
Dune
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
House of Gucci
WILL WIN
Remember, “best” makeup typically equals “most” makeup. And The Eyes of Tammy Faye opens with a scene of Jessica Chastain’s character describing the quality and intensity of her makeup, which she’s had permanently etched into her face. Good luck mosting that.
SHOULD WIN
Am I allowed to pick Emma from last year? No? Fine, I’ll take Cruella.
SHOULD BE HERE
In critical circles, I’m a partial dissenter on The Green Knight, a wildly ambitious movie whose impressive visual achievements never quite synchronize with its rambling, episodic story. But you’re telling me that this isn’t one of the five best achievements in makeup of the year?
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
NOMINEES
“Be Alive”—DIXSON and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (from King Richard)
“Dos Oruguitas”—Lin-Manuel Miranda (from Encanto)
“Down to Joy”—Van Morrison (from Belfast)
“No Time to Die”—Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell (from No Time to Die)
“Somehow You Do”—Diane Warren (from Four Good Days)
WILL WIN
Welp, Disney sure did botch this one. The Mouse House often limits its submissions in this category to avoid potential vote-splitting; there’s a reason that Frozen’s powerhouse hit “Let It Go” didn’t compete against “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” or “For the First Time in Forever.” So it made sense for the studio to only proffer one song from Encanto. Unfortunately, instead of selecting runaway smash “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” it chose “Dos Oruguitas,” a lovely, Spanish-language ballad that isn’t nearly as catchy or popular as “Bruno.” As a result, Encanto has somehow maneuvered its way into underdog status here, with “No Time to Die” as the likely winner; the past two James Bond songs have snagged Oscars, and Eilish is a rising pop star. (That said, don’t rule out Beyoncé.)
SHOULD WIN
“We Don’t Talk About Bruno.” Wait, whoops.
SHOULD BE HERE
As with The Green Knight, I didn’t fully embrace the critical hit Annette, but “So May We Start” is a killer opening song that deserved recognition. Also, I know that most of Cyrano’s songs were ineligible (because they previously appeared in the play), but “Every Letter” is a gorgeous piece of music that’s beautifully integrated into the film itself, which makes it exactly the kind of song that the Academy should be rewarding in this category instead of lazily picking whatever crap Diane Warren warbles over the closing credits for the 15th straight year.
BEST SOUND
NOMINEES
Belfast
Dune
No Time to Die
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
WILL WIN
[spoken in The Voice] Dune.
SHOULD WAIT WHAT
I’m sorry… Belfast? I appreciate the Academy looking to highlight smaller-scale work in this field as opposed to just reflexively selecting the biggest, loudest movies available; for example, The Power of the Dog is a nice pick here. But Belfast? For its sound??
MOVIEMANIFESTO’S BALLOT
Dune
The Humans
The Killing of Two Lovers
Memoria
A Quiet Place, Part II
Sometimes, bigger really is better; that was the case with Dune. People seem to have dismissed the Quiet Place sequel as more of the same, and maybe it was, but it still wielded sound and silence in thrilling ways. The Humans will have you leaning forward to grasp every creak, whine, and groan of its marvelously dilapidated location. The Killing of Two Lovers is agonizingly quiet. Memoria is very much not my thing on the whole, but its use of sound is fairly brilliant, especially in the riveting scene where Tilda Swinton attempts to describe the alien noise that’s haunting her.
MovieManifesto’s winner: The Humans.
Coming tomorrow: Five more categories, two of which will be broadcast live during the actual Oscars!
Jeremy Beck is the editor-in-chief of MovieManifesto. He watches more movies and television than he probably should.