The Annual Dalliance With Clairvoyance

We are fast approaching that night were much of the continent forms strong opinions about art they haven’t actually seen, but Jane down at the office told them was good – the Oscars! As such, it’s time, once again, for me to take a stab at predicting the future, adding my own voice to the din of online prognosticators. In recent years I have had decidedly mixed success in this endeavour, and that is unlikely to change this year. I always make an effort to see as many of the nominated films as possible, to decrease the amount of blind guessing required, and this year have managed to see all but five. While it is doubtful that will increase my accuracy, at least you know there’s an actual opinion behind these predictions, rather than merely an amalgam of hearsay.

As per usual, I will highlight my predicted winners in each category in red, as well as highlighting which nominee I think deserves to win in blue for those categories where the two are not the same. Let’s begin.

Best Picture

• American Hustle
• Captain Phillips
• Dallas Buyers Club
• Gravity
• Her
• Nebraska
• Philomena
• 12 Years a Slave
• The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Actor in a Leading Role

• Christian Bale (American Hustle)
• Bruce Dern (Nebraska)
• Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street)
• Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave)
• Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)

Best Actress in a Leading Role

• Amy Adams (American Hustle)
• Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)
• Sandra Bullock (Gravity)
• Judi Dench (Philomena)
• Meryl Streep (August: Osage County)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

• Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips)
• Bradley Cooper (American Hustle)
• Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave)
• Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street)
• Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

• Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine)
• Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)
• Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave)
• Julia Roberts (August: Osage County)
• June Squibb (Nebraska)

Best Animated Feature

• The Croods (Chris Sanders, Kirk DeMicco, Kristine Belson)
• Despicable Me 2 (Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin, Chris Meledandri)
• Ernest & Celestine (Benjamin Renner, Didier Brunner)
• Frozen (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Peter Del Vecho)
• The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki)

Best Cinematography

• The Grandmaster (Philippe Le Sourd)
• Gravity (Emmanuel Lubezki)
• Inside Llewyn Davis (Bruno Delbonnel)
• Nebraska (Phedon Papamichael)
• Prisoners (Roger A. Deakins)

Best Costume Design

• American Hustle (Michael Wilkinson)
• The Grandmaster (William Chang Suk Ping)
• The Great Gatsby (Catherine Martin)
• The Invisible Woman (Michael O'Connor)
• 12 Years a Slave (Patricia Norris)

Best Directing

• American Hustle (David O. Russell)
• Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón)
• Nebraska (Alexander Payne)
• 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
• The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

Best Documentary Feature

• The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, Signe Byrge Sørensen)
• Cutie and the Boxer (Zachary Heinzerling, Lydia Dean Pilcher)
• Dirty Wars (Richard Rowley, Jeremy Scahill)
• The Square (Jehane Noujaim, Karim Amer)
• 20 Feet from Stardom (Nominees to be determined)

Best Documentary Short

• CaveDigger (Jeffrey Karoff)
• Facing Fear (Jason Cohen)
• Karama Has No Walls (Sara Ishaq)
• The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life (Malcolm Clarke, Nicholas Reed)
• Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall (Edgar Barens)

Best Film Editing

• American Hustle (Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers, Alan Baumgarten)
• Captain Phillips (Christopher Rouse)
• Dallas Buyers Club (John Mac McMurphy, Martin Pensa)
• Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, Mark Sanger)
• 12 Years a Slave (Joe Walker)

Best Foreign Language Film

• The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium)
• The Great Beauty (Italy)
• The Hunt (Denmark)
• The Missing Picture (Cambodia)
• Omar (Palestine)

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

• Dallas Buyers Club (Adruitha Lee, Robin Mathews)
• Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (Stephen Prouty)
• The Lone Ranger (Joel Harlow, Gloria Pasqua-Casny)

Best Original Score

• The Book Thief (John Williams)
• Gravity (Steven Price)
• Her (William Butler, Owen Pallett)
• Philomena (Alexandre Desplat)
• Saving Mr. Banks (Thomas Newman)

Best Original Song

• Happy (Despicable Me 2)
• Let It Go (Frozen)
• The Moon Song (Her)
• Ordinary Love (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom)

Best Production Design

• American Hustle (Judy Becker, Heather Loeffler)
• Gravity (Andy Nicholson, Rosie Goodwin, Joanne Woollard)
• The Great Gatsby (Catherine Martin, Beverley Dunn)
• Her (K.K. Barrett, Gene Serdena)
• 12 Years a Slave (Adam Stockhausen, Alice Baker)

Best Animated Short Film

• Feral (Daniel Sousa, Dan Golden)
• Get a Horse! (Lauren MacMullan, Dorothy McKim)
• Mr. Hublot (Laurent Witz, Alexandre Espigares)
• Possessions (Shuhei Morita)
• Room on the Broom (Max Lang, Jan Lachauer)

Best Live Action Short Film

• Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn't Me) (Esteban Crespo)
• Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just Before Losing Everything) (Xavier Legrand, Alexandre Gavras)
• Helium (Anders Walter, Kim Magnusson)
• Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?) (Selma Vilhunen, Kirsikka Saari)
• The Voorman Problem (Mark Gill, Baldwin Li)

Best Sound Editing

• All Is Lost (Steve Boeddeker, Richard Hymns)
• Captain Phillips (Oliver Tarney)
• Gravity (Glenn Freemantle)
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Brent Burge, Chris Ward)
• Lone Survivor (Wylie Stateman)

Best Sound Mixing

• Captain Phillips (Chris Burdon, Mark Taylor, Mike Prestwood Smith, Chris Munro)
• Gravity (Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead, Chris Munro)
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Christopher Boyes, Michael Hedges, Michael Semanick, Tony Johnson)
• Inside Llewyn Davis (Skip Lievsay, Greg Orloff, Peter F. Kurland)
• Lone Survivor (Andy Koyama, Beau Borders, David Brownlow)

Best Visual Effects

• Gravity (Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk, Neil Corbould)
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton, Eric Reynolds)
• Iron Man 3 (Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Erik Nash, Dan Sudick)
• The Lone Ranger (Tim Alexander, Gary Brozenich, Edson Williams, John Frazier)
• Star Trek Into Darkness (Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Ben Grossmann, Burt Dalton)

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Before Midnight (Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke)
• Captain Phillips (Billy Ray)
• Philomena (Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope)
• 12 Years a Slave (John Ridley)
• The Wolf of Wall Street (Terence Winter)

Best Original Screenplay

• American Hustle (Eric Warren Singer, David O. Russell)
• Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen)
• Dallas Buyers Club (Craig Borten, Melisa Wallack)
• Her (Spike Jonze)
• Nebraska (Bob Nelson)

And that wraps up another year. As with last year, there are a significant number of close categories.We’ll just have to wait for the awards to see just how well (or how awful) I did.

The Oscars air on March 2 on ABC beginning at 4:00 PM, PST.