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.