After a wild Oscar season, the 97th Academy Awards are now just days away—and while a handful of races are all sewn up, others feel entirely up in the air. Here’s the Vogue verdict on who will win, who should win, and who should’ve been a contender in 12 key categories.
Best Picture
Will win: Anora
Should win: Nickel Boys
Should’ve been a contender: Sing Sing
If there was any justice in the world, Greg Kwedar’s life-affirming, tearjerking prison drama, Sing Sing, should have taken home this prize, but it sadly missed out on a nomination. Of the 10 films in contention, RaMell Ross’s epic and intimate Nickel Boys would be the worthiest victor in my eyes, but sadly it has absolutely no chance of winning. Nor does Dune: Part Two, which has, unfairly, been relegated to the sidelines of this year’s awards race; The Substance, which is surely too divisive for a preferential ballot; I’m Still Here, which has its (very vocal) supporters but is still too under-seen; and former frontrunner Emilia Pérez, which has been marred by scandal.
It’s not totally impossible that a crowd-pleasing wildcard like A Complete Unknown or Wicked sweeps in here—and The Brutalist, the Golden Globes’ pick for best motion picture: drama shouldn’t be fully counted out, either—but this race is now primarily between Conclave, which scooped the top honors at the BAFTAs and SAGs, and feels like a centrist, consensus pick, and Anora, which triumphed at the Critics’ Choice Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, and Producers’ Guild of America Awards. That latter prize uses a weighted preferential ballot, just as the Oscars do for best picture, and has gone the same way as the Academy seven times out of the last 10 (exceptions include PGA winners The Big Short, La La Land, and 1917 versus eventual Oscar winners Spotlight, Moonlight, and Parasite). So, Conclave could easily upset, but this currently feels like Anora’s to lose.
Best Director
Will win: Sean Baker for Anora
Should win: Sean Baker for Anora
Should’ve been a contender: RaMell Ross for Nickel Boys
RaMell Ross’s inventive adaptation is the biggest directorial achievement I saw onscreen last year, but the Academy’s directing branch—which is more resistant to rewarding auteurs earlier in their careers and, it has to be said, has a terrible track record of recognizing Black directors in particular (only six have ever been nominated in almost 100 years)—ignored him. With respect, Conclave’s Edward Berger also deserved to be in this line-up over A Complete Unknown’s James Mangold and Emilia Pérez’s Jacques Audiard, though it is a joy to see The Substance’s Coralie Fargeat included here.
The real contest, however, is between The Brutalist’s Brady Corbet, the best director recipient at the BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and Venice Film Festival, and Anora’s Sean Baker, who won the Palme d’Or and best director prizes at the Independent Spirit Awards and Directors’ Guild of America Awards. The latter has correctly predicted the Academy’s best director recipient 18 out of the last 20 times (with the exception of 1917’s Sam Mendes over Parasite’s Bong Joon-ho, and Argo’s Ben Affleck over Life of Pi’s Ang Lee), meaning Baker has the edge—and after such a brilliant, more-than-two-decade-long career in independent cinema, a victory for him would feel thoroughly well deserved.
Best Actor
Will win: Adrien Brody for The Brutalist
Should win: Timothée Chalamet for A Complete Unknown
Should’ve been a contender: Daniel Craig for Queer
This race, perhaps more than any other, stands on a knife edge: Brody has taken home almost every major prize going (the Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Critics’ Choice Award) but Chalamet has surged at the very last minute, with a surprise SAG win. Eighteen of the last 20 SAG best actor recipients have gone on to scoop the Oscar—with the exception of Fences’s Denzel Washington in 2017 (who lost the Academy Award to Manchester by the Sea’s Casey Affleck) and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’s Chadwick Boseman in 2021 (who was bested by The Father’s Anthony Hopkins)—so Chalamet does have a very good chance of reaching the podium, and with his expertly calibrated portrayal of Bob Dylan, he really should. However, I feel like Brody’s prior wins, more traditional campaign, and longer career may just clinch it for him.
Elsewhere in this category, it’s a delight to see Sing Sing’s Colman Domingo and Conclave’s Ralph Fiennes in the mix, though Daniel Craig’s heartbreaking work in Queer should have secured him a spot here, too, perhaps over The Apprentice’s undeniably impressive Sebastian Stan.
Best Actress
Will win: Demi Moore for The Substance
Should win: Demi Moore for The Substance
Should’ve been a contender: Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Hard Truths
This Oscar should have been Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s, who gave the performance of the year in Mike Leigh’s modest suburban drama, but without her in the running, it is—to a degree at least—in play. The less said about Emilia Pérez’s embattled Karla Sofía Gascón the better (the fact that she’s now attending the ceremony is truly mind-boggling), and Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo, though beloved, doesn’t seem to be a viable winner this time, but The Substance’s Demi Moore, Anora’s Mikey Madison, and I’m Still Here’s Fernanda Torres could all realistically come out on top.
Moore took the best actress in a motion picture: musical or comedy Golden Globe, the Critics’ Choice Award, and the SAG for her audacious, career-best turn, so feels like a near lock at this stage—but, then again, Madison has been riding high of late with victories at the BAFTAs and Independent Spirit Awards, so an Oscar win certainly isn’t out of the question. It’s Torres who is the dark horse, though: since her best actress in a motion picture: drama win at the Globes, over the likes of Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie, she hasn’t gone head-to-head with Moore or Madison at any of the major televised ceremonies.
Many Academy voters will have caught I’m Still Here shortly after that Golden Globe victory, and are likely to have it fresher in their minds than Anora or The Substance. Torres’s turn, as a resilient mother holding her family together following her husband’s disappearance during the military dictatorship in ’70s Brazil, is also a much more conventional, Oscars-friendly one than that of her two competitors. There’s also the matter of the Academy’s voting body, which has become increasingly international over the last few years—and that global contingent could have even more sway this year, as many LA-based members found their lives disrupted by the recent wildfires and may have been unable to attend screenings and vote in time. I’m Still Here also stunned prognosticators by making it onto the best-picture shortlist—so a win for Torres isn’t that farfetched.
I’m personally still holding out for Moore—her big swing of a performance feels like the more exciting choice, she’s campaigned brilliantly, and is also a Hollywood legend who has never really gotten her due—but if Torres somehow got in here, it’d be an awards-season plot twist for the ages.
Best Supporting Actor
Will win: Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain
Should win: Jeremy Strong for The Apprentice
Should’ve been a contender: Clarence Maclin for Sing Sing
After wins at the Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice Awards, BAFTAs, SAGs, and Independent Spirit Awards, Culkin’s victory feels the most nailed down of all the acting races, though I would love to see his Succession co-star, Jeremy Strong, pull an upset with what is the much stronger performance as Donald Trump’s slippery and nefarious mentor, Roy Cohn. Their fellow nominees, The Brutalist’s Guy Pearce, A Complete Unknown’s Edward Norton, and Anora’s Yura Borisov are all deserving, too, but Sing Sing’s Clarence Maclin is conspicuous in his absence here, for a breakout turn that was highly Oscar-worthy.
Best Supporting Actress
Will win: Zoe Saldaña for Emilia Pérez
Should win: Ariana Grande for Wicked
Should’ve been a contender: Danielle Deadwyler for The Piano Lesson
There was a moment, as the scandal centered on Karla Sofía Gascón was breaking, when it felt like she might take the whole Emilia Pérez team down with her—but Saldaña, who had already picked up a Golden Globe by that point for her all-singing, all-dancing turn, has since proved invulnerable. Even those who disliked the film or have been distancing themselves from it following its campaign implosion have been reluctant to lay the blame at Saldaña’s door. Her streak continued with a Critics’ Choice Award, BAFTA, and SAG, the latter two of which were voted on during said scandal, meaning she’s almost definitely got this in the bag.
When it came to showstopping, scene-stealing, high note-hitting supporting performances last year, I much preferred Grande’s simpering Glinda in Wicked, but Academy members are often unwilling to reward pop stars-turned-actors in the acting categories (just see: A Star is Born’s Lady Gaga in 2019 and Hustlers’s Jennifer Lopez in 2020, though Moonstruck’s Cher in 1988 was a notable exception). Aside from that, I have serious questions about this category: while A Complete Unknown’s Monica Barbaro, The Brutalist’s Felicity Jones, and Conclave’s Isabella Rossellini are all wonderful actors, the fact that those first two made it in with their largely sidelined, underwritten parts and the latter with her meager seven minutes of screen time over The Piano Lesson’s indomitable Danielle Deadwyler is, frankly, criminal.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Will win: Conclave
Should win: Nickel Boys
Should’ve been a contender: Dune: Part Two
Conclave’s Peter Straughan has so far picked up the Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Critics’ Choice Award for his taut but also reasonably straightforward adaptation of Robert Harris’s potboiler of the same name, meaning he’s in the lead for the Oscar. A Complete Unknown, Emilia Pérez, and Sing Sing seem unlikely to give it a run for its money (though that latter film’s script is fantastic), but RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes’s astonishingly bold reinterpretation of Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys might just be able to. It was the Writers’ Guild of America’s pick for best adapted screenplay—though, admittedly, in a category where Conclave wasn’t competing—and is a thrillingly experimental and deeply moving take that should be celebrated.
In recent years, the Academy has also used the two screenplay prizes to anoint exciting (and sometimes more emerging) writer-directors—American Fiction’s Cord Jefferson, Women Talking’s Sarah Polley, Jojo Rabbit’s Taika Waititi, Moonlight’s Barry Jenkins, Promising Young Woman’s Emerald Fennell, Get Out’s Jordan Peele—and rewarding Ross here, who’s been a breath of fresh air on the awards circuit, would continue that tradition. Alongside this, I’d also have liked to see more recognition for Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts’s excellent Dune sequel—in this category, but everywhere else, too.
Best Original Screenplay
Will win: Anora
Should win: The Substance
Should’ve been a contender: Hard Truths
Anora’s Sean Baker will probably take home this statuette, given he scooped the Writers’ Guild of America’s best original screenplay prize, though A Real Pain’s Jesse Eisenberg is hot on his heels, having secured the BAFTA and Independent Spirit Award, as is The Substance’s Coralie Fargeat, who received Cannes’ best screenplay prize as well as the Critics’ Choice Awards’ best original screenplay honor.
Given that Baker is now basically a lock for best director, I’d love to see the Academy spread the wealth here, and Fargeat would be my personal choice for her utterly bonkers satire, especially because this is the only award the best director nominee could feasibly take home herself. After the year she’s had, she should have something to show for it. The Brutalist won’t win here and nor will September 5, but instead of the latter, it’d have been great to see living legend Mike Leigh make it in for his razor-sharp work in Hard Truths.
Best International Film
Will win: Emilia Pérez
Should win: I’m Still Here
Should’ve been a contender: All We Imagine as Light
In the space of about a month, Emilia Pérez has gone from 13-time nominated behemoth to pariah to somewhere in between. As the backlash has slowly receded—and the cast and crew have distanced themselves from Gascón—I suspect the mob musical, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes, the International Film BAFTA, the best-foreign-film Critics’ Choice Award, and Golden Globes for best motion picture: musical or comedy and international film, will still have enough support to take this prize. Having said that, I’d love to be proven wrong, and for Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here—which got a surprise best-picture nomination and is a significantly better film—to sweep in. The Girl with the Needle, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, and Flow are also all welcome additions to this category, but if a sixth spot could be added—and if India had, of course, submitted it as its official pick—it’d have been wonderful if Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light could’ve been here, too.
Best Production Design
Will win: Wicked
Should win: The Brutalist
Should’ve been a contender: Maria
The Brutalist’s jaw-dropping interiors and furniture design by Judy Becker and Patricia Cuccia would swing this one for me, though Wicked’s eye-popping Emerald City, as conceived by Nathan Crowley and Lee Sandales, is, admittedly, no less impressive and the more likely winner. (At the Art Directors’ Guild Awards, the latter won the prize for excellence in production design for a fantasy film, but The Brutalist lost to Nosferatu in the period-film category.) Conclave, Dune: Part Two, and Nosferatu also come together to form a strong shortlist here, but it’s an outrage that Pablo Larraín’s Maria—and that incredible, baroque Parisian apartment, with its marble busts, intricately painted walls, and stained glass-filled kitchen, all created by Guy Hendrix Dyas—was left out. It is, without doubt, one of the most stunning sets from the last year in cinema.
Best Costume Design
Will win: Wicked
Should win: Nosferatu
Should’ve been a contender: Maria
Wicked’s costume designer, Paul Tazewell, has so far taken the BAFTA, Critics’ Choice Award, and the Costume Designers’ Guild Award for excellence in sci-fi or fantasy film for his extraordinary work in the musical blockbuster. (Wicked’s fellow Oscar nominees Conclave and Nosferatu took that guild’s contemporary and period film prizes, respectively.) Previously Oscar nominated for West Side Story and having lost out to Cruella’s Jenny Beavan, it does feel like Tazewell’s time—though I was, in truth, more blown away by Linda Muir’s ravishing velvet ballgowns and silk capes from Nosferatu, ensembles which are both staggeringly beautiful and terrifyingly austere, perfectly embodying the spirit of Robert Eggers’s Victorian spine-chiller. A Complete Unknown, Conclave, and Gladiator II round out this category, but Maria should really have gotten in too, for Massimo Cantini Parrini’s lavish and intricate recreation of Maria Callas’s wardrobe. Academy voters clearly didn’t connect with this film, but its sumptuous design elements deserved more acknowledgement regardless.
Best Make-Up and Hairstyling
Will win: The Substance
Should win: The Substance
Should’ve been a contender: The Apprentice
For birthing Monstro Elisasue, Pierre Olivier Persin, Stéphanie Guillon, and Marilyne Scarselli deserve this statuette, no question—and should get it, having already landed the BAFTA, Critics’ Choice Award, and two Make-Up Artists Hair Stylists’ Guild Awards, for best contemporary make-up and best special make-up effects. But, surely, alongside A Different Man, Emilia Pérez, Nosferatu, and Wicked, there should have been space here for The Apprentice as well, in which Brandi Boulet, Colin Penman, Michelle Côté, and Sean Sansom worked tirelessly to transform Sebastian Stan into an orange-skinned, prematurely balding, baby-faced Donald Trump. The evolution of that look is genuinely horrifying to behold.
