Numlock Awards: 94th Oscars Ballot
Gird your predictions, this is an interesting year.
Numlock Awards is your one-stop awards season newsletter. Every week, join Walt Hickey and Michael Domanico as they break down the math behind the Oscars and the best narratives going into film’s biggest night. Today’s edition comes from Michael.
Hey everyone, happy Oscars weekend! First, thanks to all of you for sticking with us for another awards season, it’s been great hearing from all of you throughout these last few months. Second, we’d like to hear from you one more time! We’re going to do another end-of-season Q&A, so you can reply to this email with questions about how this awards season went — everything from the model to the ceremony to our favorite tidbits along the way! Thanks again.
Without further ado, here’s my final ballot for the 94th Oscars. The predicted winner will be in bold.
Best Picture
Belfast
CODA
Don’t Look Up
Drive My Car
Dune
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
The Power of the Dog
Nightmare Alley
West Side Story
You know how Walter’s model more heavily weights recent precursor performance vs. historic precursor performance? In other words, the last five years of getting it right matter more than the 10 before that? That’s how I feel about picking CODA. The wins for The Power of the Dog feel like several lifetimes ago, and the DGA is pretty meh at predicting the Best Picture winner these days, so I think CODA’s recent wins at the PGA and SAG and the cast’s all-out publicity tour — at this point, there’s not a single talk show that hasn’t had a visit from Marlee Matlin or Troy Kotsur — are making me feel like CODA’s got the momentum.
This will be the second consecutive year where I’m going against Walter’s model (which has The Power of the Dog taking this) — it didn’t work out last year when I thought Minari would triumph over Nomadland. Let’s see how we do this year.
Best Director
Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car
Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Steven Spielberg, West Side Story
Even with The Power of the Dog coming up short at the PGAs, Campion has seemed like a lock for some time. If she wins, she’ll only be the third woman in history to do so, after Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) and Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker).
Best Actress
Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
Kristen Stewart, Spencer
No one won the BAFTA — historically the most predictive in this category — because none of these women got BAFTA nominations. Chastain did win SAG and Critics’ Choice, plus she did some smart campaigning by saying she’ll forgo part of the red carpet to see some of the non-televised awards inside the theater, so I’m thinking it’s hers to lose.
Best Actor
Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
Andrew Garfield, tick, tick… BOOM!
Will Smith, King Richard
Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth
Not a complicated or controversial choice.
Best Supporting Actress
Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter
Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Judi Dench, Belfast
Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog
Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard
My take that Anita is basically the Joker for women has held strong this awards season. She’s the only character that changes throughout the course of the movie and she gets memorable songs. No one goes to see West Side Story because of Maria.
Best Supporting Actor
Ciarán Hinds, Belfast
Troy Kotsur, CODA
Jesse Plemons, The Power of the Dog
J.K. Simmons, Being the Ricardos
Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog
I think Jesse Plemons has siphoned some votes away from Kodi Smit-McPhee, but not enough to ultimately make a huge difference. Troy Kotsur is the most solid lock for CODA.
Best Original Screenplay
Belfast
Don’t Look Up
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
The Worst Person in the World
Belfast won the Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe, Licorice Pizza won BAFTA, and Don’t Look Up took the WGA. I’m going with Belfast, which has 7 nominations but a very small chance of winning in any other category besides Screenplay. Kenneth Branagh also doesn’t have an Oscar yet, with his first set of nominations coming for acting in and directing Henry V in 1989, so in a sense he’s due.
Best Adapted Screenplay
CODA
Drive My Car
Dune
The Lost Daughter
The Power of the Dog
Jane Campion got the Critics’ Choice Award here for writing The Power of the Dog, but writer-director Sian Heder won the BAFTA and WGA for adapting CODA. (The Power of the Dog was ineligible at WGA.) Campion is a pretty sure bet for directing, where Heder isn’t even nominated, so if voters want to spread out awards to different people, Heder makes sense.
Best Animated Feature Film
Encanto
Flee
Luca
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Raya and the Last Dragon
Disney has been in the news in a not-so-great way with the Don’t Say Gay bill in Florida, so I’m giving the edge to The Mitchells vs. the Machines, which features an out lead character (and is also great). Mitchells vs. the Machines also took home the Annie Award a few weeks back.
Best International Feature Film
Drive My Car
Flee
The Hand of God
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom
The Worst Person in the World
With nominations for Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay, I’m going with Drive My Car.
Best Documentary Feature
Ascension
Attica
Flee
Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Writing with Fire
Flee also popped up in Best Animated Feature, so there’s clearly support in a few branches.
Best Documentary Short Subject
Audible
Lead Me Home
The Queen of Basketball
Three Songs for Benazir
When We Were Bullies
I did a deep dive on this category the other week, and I’d highly recommend Audible and The Queen of Basketball, with the edge to Audible.
Best Live Action Short Film
Ala Kachuu
The Dress
The Long Goodbye
On My Mind
Please Hold
Riz Ahmed, nominated for Best Actor last year for The Sound of Metal, is actually nominated for his short The Long Goodbye. Going to go with him.
Best Animated Short Film
Affairs of the Art
Bestia
Boxballet
Robin Robin
The Windshield Wiper
The conventional wisdom here is Robin Robin, which is by the same studio behind stop-motion favorites like Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep.
Best Original Score
Don’t Look Up
Dune
Encanto
Parallel Mothers
The Power of the Dog
I explored this category in depth last week, and I’m sticking with Hans Zimmer picking up a second Oscar for Dune.
Best Original Song
“Be Alive,” from King Richard
“Dos Oruguitas,” from Encanto
“Down to Joy,” from Belfast
“No Time to Die,” from No Time to Die
“Somehow You Do,” from Four Good Days
I’m starting to waver a bit here — “No Time to Die” keeps winning precursor awards, but I have to think that if you’re voting for Encanto in anything, it’s gotta be song. This would be Lin-Manuel Miranda’s EGOT. (You can see my full rundown of this category here.)
Best Sound
Belfast
Dune
No Time to Die
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
Back when Best Sound was split between Sound Editing and Sound Mixing, I would have given Editing to Dune (for creating the soundscape of Arrakis) and Mixing to West Side Story (a category that favored musicals). Given we’re combined here, I’m going to go with West Side Story, which is maybe the more obvious Sound movie.
Best Production Design
Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story
Would be surprised if Dune missed here. Even detractors of Dune could appreciate its sets.
Best Cinematography
Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story
Ari Wegner (The Power of the Dog) is only the second woman ever nominated in this category! Not a great history there. Still, Dune took the BAFTA and the cinematographers society award.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Coming 2 America
Cruella
Dune
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
House of Gucci
This category isn’t as blockbuster-friendly as you would think. But gee, do they like when you transform a well-known actor into another famous person, with wins recently for Darkest Hour (Winston Churchill), Vice (Dick Cheney), and Bombshell (that former Today Show third-hour anchor). Jessica Chastain will be there cheering on the hair and makeup team of Tammy Faye as they collect their Oscar I suspect.
Best Costume Design
Cruella
Cyrano
Dune
Nightmare Alley
West Side Story
A perennial favorite category here at Numlock Awards, I’m going with Cruella since it’s a movie that’s about fashion (and a lot of other really weird things) in a way that Dune is not. I’d personally vote for Dune, but alas I’m not an Academy member.
Best Film Editing
Don’t Look Up
Dune
King Richard
The Power of the Dog
tick, tick… BOOM!
If there’s a single thought I had after watching Don’t Look Up, it certainly wasn’t, “Well at least the editing was strong.” I’m going with tick, tick… BOOM!, which melds the musical and dramatic parts so well. tick, tick… BOOM! also took the ACE Award for Best Editing, Comedy/Musical.
Best Visual Effects
Dune
Free Guy
No Time to Die
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Spider-Man may have to console itself with the honorary Twitter award thing. I’m going with Dune.
Best of luck with your ballots! And please do send in questions for our post-Oscars mailbag.