Volunteer Writer: Mariana Peñafiel Ide

Email: mpenafiel@umassd.edu

As the film awards season draws to a close with the Oscars being the final event this Sunday, many are wondering who will ultimately take home the coveted award. 

The Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Awards, the BAFTAs, and the Actors Awards are all significant on their own, but they also give audiences some clues about what might happen on Hollywood’s biggest night.

Everyone can make their own guesses; that is one of the most fun parts of award season. 

I will look at the results from earlier awards ceremonies, as well as my own opinion, to predict what might happen in the five major categories on the biggest night in film: the Oscars.

Best Actress

In this category, I think the winner is pretty obvious. It would be very strange if Jessie Buckley doesn’t walk away with the Oscar for Best Actress in her hands. 

She won the Golden Globe, the Critics Choice, the BAFTA, and the Actors awards. Although these are not the only awards of the season, they are the ones that make more noise and for her role in Hamnet that took absolutely every single one.

People liked her work, with fair reasons she did an incredible performance in the Chloé Zhao movie and she is not involved in any controversy—that, believe it or not, it does hold weight for the academy. 

Nothing is written, but the odds are definitely in her favor. 

Best Supporting Actress

Here, things are a little bit more tricky. The SAG Award went to Amy Madigan for her role as the aunt Gladys in the horror film Weapons. 

Although the Golden Globe went to Teyana Taylor for her role in One Battle After Another, the BAFTA went to Wunmi Mosaku for her incredible performance in Sinners, and the Critics Choice and SAG awards went to Madigan. 

Amy Madigan has a better chance of winning. And even though she’s not my favorite among the nominated actresses, it would be a great victory for the horror genre—a genre that is often ignored by the Academy, despite its incredible box office success.

Only six horror films have been nominated for Best Picture, and only one has won: The Silence of the Lambs.

Generally speaking, horror films only receive nominations when the film also raises some profound issue or debate. Weapons is simply a horror film, and it would be great if an actress won for her incredible performance and nothing else.

The only actresses that haven’t won any awards this season are Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, both for the movie Sentimental Value. I think this is mostly because they are for the same movie, the votes were divided. 

Best Supporting Actor

It is curious that the votes did not split in this category.

There are two nominees for One Battle After Another in this list. Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn were both nominated—and one might expect the votes to split between them as it happened with the best supporting actress category—but Sean Penn has been given the BAFTA, and the SAG taking an important lead over the other nominees. 

Stellan Skarsgård won the Golden Globe for Sentimental Value and the Critic Choice went to Jacob Elordi for his performance in the Guillermo del Toro movie, Frankenstein. 

Sean Penn, after securing the SAG, might have also secured the Oscar. 

As you may have noticed, there is a patron mentioning the SAG awards as an indicator for the Oscar winner. 

But Why is the SAG Award so Important?

The SAG Awards previously stood for the Screen Actors Guild Awards and were renamed this year to The Actor Awards Presented by SAG-AFTRA.

This means that these prizes are actors voting for other actors. They focus exclusively on performance in film and television, and most of the actors who vote here also vote in the Oscars weeks later.

It is precisely this factor that makes them such a reliable indicator for the Academy Awards, especially in the acting categories.

In 2023, for example, Angela Bassett was widely expected to win the Oscar after taking both the Critics Choice and the Golden Globe. However, the award ultimately went to Jamie Lee Curtis, who had won the SAG award.

It does not always work that way, though. Last year, many expected Demi Moore to win the Oscar after claiming the Golden Globe, the Critics Choice, and this same award. Ultimately, however, Mikey Madison took the Oscar after winning the BAFTA—a reminder that nothing is ever guaranteed.

And this is exactly what makes the next category so intriguing and unpredictable. 

Best Actor

The Golden Globe was awarded to Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent and Timothée Chalamet for Marty Supreme. The awards divide comedy and drama into two categories.

The Critics Choice Award went to Chalamet, crowning him the favorite, but many people’s opinions have changed as his Oscar campaign has also changed.

Last year, the American-French actor said after winning the SAG Awards for his role as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown,  “I can’t downplay the significance of this award because it means the most to me, and I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness”

And many people resonated with that. Normally, actors try to come across as humble in their acceptance speeches, but Chalamet stated his goals loud and clear and left people wondering why we find it so difficult to speak well of our merits when they are well deserved.

There were a lot of people rooting for Chalamet this awards season, but many of them have abandoned ship after all the drama he has been involved in and also that his pride in his job is starting to look more like bold arrogance.

The director of Marty Supreme is involved in a great scandal after some years ago, he hired a 17-year-old actress for the role of a prostitute. Once on set, the teenager was involved in a scene that included nudity and simulated sex that she had not been warned about and did not consent to.

This created a backlash against the director, causing apprehension about giving Chalamet the Oscar, as indirectly it would mean awarding the director of the movie.

While some speculate about how the situation could affect the race at the Academy Awards, it is worth remembering that beyond the industry implications, the situation involves real people and deserves to be treated with seriousness rather than as just another awards-season drama.

After this, Timothée Chalamet lost to Robert Aramayo for his performance in I Swear, although Aramayo is not nominated for the Oscar as his movie has not yet come out in the United States. That led us to the SAG Award, which was won by Michael B. Jordan for his performance in Sinners as the twin brothers Smoke and Stack.

Making him now a favorite—and my favorite—to win at the Oscars.

Best Picture

When Sinners released, it was a huge box office hit and resonated with audiences. But at the start of awards season, it was widely ignored by the various ceremonies until the narrative changed dramatically at the SAG Awards.

Sinners also took the award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, which is the version of the Best Picture category at the Actors’ Awards. That night, the ceremony made it clear that Sinners was back in the race for the Oscar and that it might be leading. 

One Battle After Another was the favorite to win the Oscar after a near-perfect awards season, where it took everything except the SAG.

As I stated before, these awards are a great indicator of what might happen at the Oscars’ night, but they are not absolute.

Even so, I think Sinners has a great opportunity to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. I must admit this is highly influenced by my personal preference, as One Battle After Another still leads the awards season in this category.

Still, my prediction for best picture is Sinners.

I can’t say anything for sure, but my predictions are clear. I assume that many other people have predictions similar or different from mine, and the only thing we can do is wait and see what really happens on the most important night for the film industry.