Oscars Prediction Roundup

We’ve spent the past six posts analyzing the 21 feature awards to be handed out at this year’s Oscars. Now, in a selfless exercise of service journalism, this post synthesizes all of our predictions and preferences in one handy, annotated location. (Sorry, I ignore the shorts.)

Best Actor
Will win: Rami Malek—Bohemian Rhapsody (confidence: 4/5)
Should win: Viggo Mortensen—Green Book
Worst omission: Jonathan Pryce—The Wife

Best Actress
Will win: Glenn Close—The Wife (confidence: 3/5)
Should win: Olivia Colman—The Favourite
Worst omission: Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie—Leave No Trace Read More

With all of our category-specific analysis in the books, here are each of the Manifesto’s predictions for the 21 feature categories at this year’s Oscars. (Sorry, I ignore the shorts.)

Best Actor
Will win: Gary Oldman—Darkest Hour (confidence: 5/5)
Should win: Daniel Day-Lewis—Phantom Thread
Worst omission: Tom Hanks—The Post

Best Actress
Will win: Frances McDormand—Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (confidence: 4/5)
Should win: Saoirse Ronan—Lady Bird
Worst omission: Jennifer Lawrence—mother! Read More

For your annotated pleasure, here are each of the Manifesto’s predictions for the 21 feature categories at this year’s Oscars. (Someday, I might start picking the shorts, but not this year.) For the record, I’m pegging La La Land to take home 10 Oscars (one shy of the record), but its total could range anywhere from 6 to 12. Read More

Last year, the Manifesto did a respectable if unextraordinary job predicting the Oscars, hitting on 17 of 21 feature categories. (I never pick the shorts. Deal with it.) We’re hoping to improve this year, though with an unpredictable Best Picture race and multiple heavy hitters competing in the technical fields, things could get dicey.

So be it. Here are the Manifesto’s official Oscar predictions; they’re sorted alphabetically for ease of access, but I’m also including confidence points, just so you can see where I’m shaky and, well, less shaky. Read More

Last year, the Manifesto had an incredibly strong showing at the Oscars, correctly predicting 19 of the 21 feature categories. I can assure you that will not be the case this year. But the surprises are part of the fun, and I look forward to seeing just where I went disastrously wrong in my predictions. Scanning through this list, I wonder if I’ve overrated The Grand Budapest Hotel (which I’m pegging for five wins) and underestimated American Sniper (which I’ve chalked up for just two wins, both in the sound categories). It’s also rather bizarre that I came close to choosing Boyhood to win Best Picture, yet I’m ultimately predicting it walks away with just two trophies (and only one of those victories is relatively assured).

In any event, here are the Manifesto’s official predictions for each of those 21 feature categories (per usual, I’m skipping the shorts). I’m organizing them in order of confidence levels; I try to distribute these evenly, even though I’d really rather assign the lowest possible confidence to 14 different categories.

Read More