Predicting The 91st Academy Awards - The Categories Giving Me Sleepless Nights

By Matt Neglia 

​After looking at the acting categories and the categories I personally deem to be locks for the 91st Academy Awards, we now come to the final remaining categories. These are the categories which have been giving me sleepless nights these past few days, especially when the guilds decided to truly go their own way this year and many of the precursors we rely on to tell us about these categories rewarded films which didn't end up receiving Oscar nominations in the end anyway. For these articles, I typically tend to rely on stats with a hint of gut instinct thrown in there. Today, I'm going to mostly be relying on my gut because for these categories, stats have truly failed us this year....or have they?

​You may have heard me deliver my final Oscar predictions on Episode 130 of the podcast but after some thoughtful reflection and going through these one more time, I can honestly say that after this post goes up, these will be my final locked in Oscar predictions for the 91st Academy Awards.

​THE SHORTS

The Short nominees are...

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Animal Behaviour
Bao
Late Afternoon
One Small Step
Weekends

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Black Sheep
End Game
Lifeboat
A Night At The Garden
Period. End Of Sentence

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
Detainment
Fauve
Marguerite
Mother
Skin

Always difficult to predict and very rarely does anyone get 3 out of 3 of these correct, even if they have seen all of the nominees which I have at this point for the first time ever. I don't want to spend too much time on these except to say both Liam Heffernan and Josh Williams did a great job of breaking down two of these three categories for us all which you can read here and here. As far as Best Animated Short goes though, I'm going to be basic like everyone else and pick "Bao," though I suspect (since literally everyone is picking it) that's where our Oscar pools we'll get messed up the most because...that's just the way life is.

​​PREDICTED WINNERS: "Bao," "Period. End Of Sentence" & "Skin"
RUNNER-UPS: "Weekends," "A Night At The Garden" & "Marguerite"
PREFERRED WINNERS: "Bao," ""Period. End Of Sentence" & "Marguerite"

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Oh "Black Panther." Why couldn't you have just been nominated for this award? Whether you deserved it or not, at least this would be one less category to predict. With no Best Picture nominees present and two of the most important precursors going to "Black Panther" (Critics Choice & BAFTA) we have only the VES, some critics groups and our best guesses to help us predict which film will walk away with the Best Visual Effects Oscar this year.

​The nominees are...

Avengers: Infinity War
Christopher Robin
First Man
Ready Player One 
Solo: A Star Wars Story

Let's take a quick look at the Visual Effects Society though where two of the nominees here won major awards.

VISUAL EFFECTS SOCIETY
2002: The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
2003: The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
2004: Harry Potter & The Prisoner Of Azkaban
2005: King Kong
2006: Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
2007: Transformers
2008: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
2009: Avatar
2010: Inception
2011: Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (Hugo won Supporting Visual Effects & won the Oscar)
2012: Life Of Pi
2013: Gravity
2014: Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes
2015: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
2016: The Jungle Book
2017: War For The Planet Of The Apes
2018: Avengers: Infinity War (First Man won Supporting Visual Effects)

10/16 match up with Oscar gives "Avengers: Infinity War" roughly a 63% chance at winning the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. However, looking at the previous winners, a few things are clear: They're either Best Picture winners/nominees or they have other nominations in other categories with the exception of one: 2016's "The Jungle Book." However, Favreau's film was a steamroller that year in this category which "Avengers: Infinity War" has not been, losing out Critics Choice & BAFTA to a film which wasn't even nominated. So, what else can we look at? How about the fact that out of all of the nominees, the only film to have nominations outside of Best Visual Effects is "First Man." Of all of the nominees here, "First Man" is the only one that feels like it was the closest to a Best Picture nomination due to its showing of support in the tech categories. Even though it did not get the Best Picture nomination, we can look at films such as "Blade Runner 2049" & "Interstellar" in recent years which fit the same mold as "First Man" does this year where they had other tech nominations but nothing above the line or a Best Picture nomination. Chazelle's space epic also wouldn't be totally from out of left field either considering that "Hugo" managed to win this category in 2011 by only nabbing a Best Supporting Visual Effects win at VES prior just like "First Man" has done this year.

I truly believe "Avengers: Infinity War" has the best visual effects of the year and objectively should win. However, Marvel has never won in this category before. Had "Black Panther" been nominated, that would've probably changed this year but as it stands, the Academy has never really warmed up to Marvel that much until this year and while I expect to see the mega studio get rewarded elsewhere throughout the evening, this is the most appropriate place to give a "We're Sorry" prize to the critically acclaimed but undervalued "First Man."

​​PREDICTED WINNER: "First Man"
RUNNER-UP: "Avengers: Infinity War"
PREFERRED WINNER: "Avengers: Infinity War"

​BEST SOUND MIXING

The nominees for Best Sound Mixing are...

Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
First Man
Roma
A Star Is Born

​And here is the stats breakdown for the Cinema Audio Society & BAFTA winners...

Not so much a hard category to predict anymore ever since BAFTA & CAS Announced. It's this categories twin brother that is the one that is keeping me up late at night. "Bohemian Rhapsody" won both the CAS & BAFTA for Sound which has been a good indicator that the film which wins both of those awards will go on to win the Oscar for Best Sound Mixing. Of the times 9 times it has happened, only three of those times did the award go to something else: in 2003, 2005 & 2015. Let's look at why. In 2003, "Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World" went up against the awards juggernaut which was "The Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King" which defeated every challenger who opposed it. "Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World" would go on to win the award for Best Sound Editing though. In 2005, "Walk The Line" fell to "King Kong" which also managed to pick up wins for Best Sound Editing & Best Visual Effects. And most recently, "The Revenant" lost Best Sound Mixing to "Mad Max: Fury Road" which also won Best Sound Editing.

If you're going to predict against the CAS/BAFTA combo, you need to ask yourself this....is there a film nominated for both Sound Editing and Sound Mixing that can win both against "Bohemian Rhapsody?" If the answer is no, then there's no way "Bohemian Rhapsody" can lose Sound Mixing to something else.

PREDICTED WINNER: "Bohemian Rhapsody"
RUNNER-UP: "A Star Is Born"
PREFERRED WINNER: "Roma"

BEST SOUND EDITING

The nominees for Best Sound Editing are...

Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
First Man
A Quiet Place
Roma

And here is the breakdown for the Best Sound Editing Oscar along with a side-by-side comparison with Best Mixing Oscar winners, since the categories seem to go together so often.

Let's take a look statistically at the odds for each film nominated here starting with the predicted Sound Mixing winner "Bohemian Rhapsody."

​BAFTA winners have matched up here 8/18 times (44%) and that is the same results for a film to win here that also has a Best Sound Mixing win. The next statistic is if you have a Best Picture nomination, which in this case would apply to 3 of the nominated films here. If you have a Best Picture nomination, your chances of winning Best Sound Editing since 2000 are 12/18 times which would be a 67% likelihood (this number increased a lot since the expanded Best Picture era). This applies to "Bohemian Rhapsody" once again but also "Black Panther" and "Roma" which also have Best Picture nominations. However, they have not won any of the prizes we usually look to in order to help us predict this category.

"A Quiet Place" does not have a Best Picture nomination and only has its single nomination in this category. However, it did win MPSE and it is a film which did well across the industry guilds on the lead up to nomination morning so it might make sense to reward the film that was heavily based on sound, the sound award. The MPSE correlation to the Oscar for Sound Editing is 9/18 times, which gives it a small leg up on the BAFTA win and Sound Mixing pairing with a 47% chance. However, a lone Sound Editing nominee has not won in this category since "The Ghost In The Darkness" in 1996, thus bringing "A Quiet Place's" chances down drastically.

​So, what does this mean for the film without prior wins or a Best Picture nomination? "First Man" is objectively, probably the best of the nominated films here and deserves to win the award. However, with no Best Picture nomination and getting shut out by the guilds, its chances at winning here look very unlikely. 7/18 winners for Sound Editing won without a Best Picture nomination which gives Damien Chazelle's beloved space epic a 39% chance. Of those 7 times, there were 3 instances where the winner for Best Sound Editing had no Best Picture nomination and no prior win from the MPSE or BAFTA to give us an indication that it would win here. However, in all 3 of those instances, the winning film had a corresponding Best Sound Mixing nomination, something that "First Man" has. So I don't know. *Throws hands up in frustration*

No matter how you look at it, this is a category where any one of the nominated films could win. My heart says to go with "First Man." My brain says to go with the Best Picture nominee that also happens to be an action film and has a corresponding Best Sound Mixing nomination, so "Black Panther" it is. And I'll probably be wrong.

PREDICTED WINNER: "Black Panther"
RUNNER-UP: "First Man"
PREFERRED WINNER: "First Man"

​BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

This and Costume Design are a two-horse race between "Black Panther" and "The Favourite." Both are Best Picture nominees and both have split the major guilds we look at to determine a winner in this category.

The nominees for Best Production Design are...

Black Panther
The Favourite
First Man
Mary Poppins Returns
Roma

​And here is a breakdown of how the category has gone down each season since the beginning of the 00's.

Let's take a look at the percentage chances for each precursor winner...

​Critics Choice - 7/9 (78%)
ADG - 12/18 (67%)
BAFTA - 8/18 (44%)

Critics Choice & ADG - 7/9 (78%)
​BAFTA & ADG - 7/18 (39%) 6/9 (67%) for the same time period as Critics Choice
Film won with no Critics Choice/BAFTA/ADG: 2010 & 2012

Statistically, the odds favor "Black Panther" prevailing here. The fact that it was not nominated for the BAFTA alongside "The Favourite" was very hurtful to us awards pundits, as "The Favourite" was able to win there very easily. However, I cannot seem to shake this idea that "The Favourite" is more beloved than "Black Panther" as evidenced by its nominations for Director, Acting and Screenplay, elements that "Black Panther" does not have. Which is why, this year, I'm doing something I wouldn't normally do. Typically I would rely on the stats here but my gut tells me "Black Panther" is going to win one and "The Favourite" is going to win the other (between this and Costume Design). Which leads me to...

PREDICTED WINNER: "The Favourite"
RUNNER-UP: "Black Panther"
PREFERRED WINNER: "The Favourite"

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Here we are again looking at the same issues plaguing us in Best Production Design. This one feels a little bit easier to nail down though I'm still not entirely confident.

The nominees are...

The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs
Black Panther
The Favourite
Mary Poppins Returns
Mary Queen of Scots

And once again, here is a chart breakdown of previous winners from the precursors...

Looking at the above winners, here's how they break down...

Critics Choice - 8/9 (89%)
​CDG - 9/18 (50%)
​BAFTA - 10/18 (56%)

Critics Choice & CDG - 5/9 (56%)
BAFTA & CDG - 7/18 (39%)

Once again, the odds are with the Critics Choice & CDG winner. Critics Choice has only mis-matched this category once in 2016 but otherwise they have been spot on. "Black Panther's" costumes were hailed as unique and groundbreaking. Seeing it win here would be an inspired and deserved choice much like "Mad Max: Fury Road" was a few years ago. While "The Favourite" has more traditional costumes which this category seems to go for, I feel more confident here than I do in Production Design that "Black Panther" will pull off a tough victory against its strongest competition.

PREDICTED WINNER: "Black Panther"
RUNNER-UP: "The Favourite"
PREFERRED WINNER: "Black Panther"

​BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

The nominees for Best Original Score this year are...

BlacKkKlansman
Black Panther
If Beale Street Could Talk
Isle Of Dogs
Mary Poppins Returns

Throw a dart. Seriously. With no Golden Globe, Critics Choice or BAFTA winners to fall back on (All of those went to either "First Man" or "A Star Is Born"), this category truly is up for grabs. The only statistic we can look at is Best Picture nominees versus non-Best Picture nominees.

2000: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2001: The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2002: Frida
2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2004: Finding Neverland
2005: Brokeback Mountain
2006: Babel
2007: Atonement
2008: Slumdog Millionaire
2009: UP
2010: The Social Network
2011: The Artist
2012: Life of Pi
2013: Gravity
2014: The Grand Budapest Hotel
2015: The Hateful Eight
2016: La La Land
2017: The Shape Of Water

So, it's pretty clear: in the age of the expanded era especially, to win Best Original Score, you either need an undeniable narrative (like Ennio Morricone had in 2015)  or a Best Picture nomination. This puts "BlacKkKlansman" and "Black Panther" at an advantage over critical favorite "If Beale Street Could Talk" which many have argued next to the snubbed "First Man" was the Best Original Score of 2018. However, without a Best Picture nomination, it's very difficult to confidently say Nicholas Britell will win his first Oscar for this film. I have been banging the drum for Britell to win all season. This is one of the predictions I will change from what I said on the podcast. Terrence Blanchard has been working in this industry for years with Spike Lee, earning his first nomination for his work on "BlacKkKlansman." Upon a re-listen, I think it's absolutely terrific work and would make a fine choice in this category while honoring a composer who has never received his just due for a distinguished career. But like I said, anything could win here.

​PREDICTED WINNER: "BlacKkKlansman"
RUNNER-UP: "Black Panther"
PREFERRED WINNER: "If Beale Street Could Talk"

BEST FILM EDITING

The nominees for Best Film Editing are...

BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Vice

​Critics Choice is out from the stats this year as "First Man" won there but was not nominated for the Oscar (boo!). That leaves ACE, which gives two films their award for Editing in both Drama and Comedy categories and BAFTA which has been on a 4 year streak with this category.

​Let's take a look at the stats...

So, the chances look like this...

ACE - 12/18 (67%)
​ACE (Drama) - 11/12 (92%)
BAFTA - 9/18 (50%)

​The stats suggest that ACE-Drama winner "Bohemian Rhapsody" is going to win the Oscar for Best Film Editing. It has a Best Picture nomination and a narrative behind it that John Ottman "saved" the movie after the departure of director Brian Singer. However, what if the controversy from Singer controversy finally caught up with the film during voting?

"Vice" is a movie with the flashiest editing and it did receive 8 Academy Award nominations. That is nothing to scoff at and despite the film's many dissenters on Film Twitter, it definitely has its supporters within the Academy. This is a tough one to call between the two and who knows? Maybe there will be some sort of a split and "The Favourite" could come up the middle and surprise. However, no ACE - Comedy winner has won in this category since 2002 when "Chicago" won Best Picture. I'm truly torn here but I'll go with Adam McKay's whacky political drama-satire and eat my words if I'm wrong.

​I'm also not discounting a surprise out of nowhere win for "BlacKkKlansman" which had bold and flashy editing as well. However, with no precursor wins, it's hard to pick it. One has to go back to the early 2000's to find a time where a film would win without a BAFTA or ACE win which was more likely then because who knows what would've happened had the Critics Choice been around to tell voters which film to consider in this category. Like I said, it's tough. One thing is for sure...I'm confident that "Green Book" is not winning this one.

​PREDICTED WINNER: "Vice"
RUNNER-UP: Bohemian Rhapsody
PREFERRED WINNER: "Vice"

​BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay are...

The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs
BlacKkKlansman
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
If Beale Street Could Talk
A Star Is Born

With the major awards going to different films this (including USC Scripter, which went to the non-nominated "Leave No Trace") we need to examine what has the best chance to win the Oscar this Sunday.

Oh Spike. I can't even begin to imagine what a night it will be if he has to sit back and watch another one of his beloved films lose at the Oscars again. Winning that BAFTA award was crucial, since "BlacKkKlansman" (The presumed front runner in this category all season long) failed to win at Critics Choice & WGA. Let's see how the stats break down though.

​Critics Choice - 9/23 (39%)
Golden Globe - 8/23 (35%)
WGA - 15/23 (65%)
BAFTA - 7/23 (30%)

"BlacKkKlansman's" BAFTA win has the worst stats of the bunch. However, what's helping it is that "BlacKkKlansman" has a Best Picture nomination while Critics Choice winner "If Beale Street Could Talk" and "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" do not. 21/23 of the last Oscar winners all had Best Picture nominations which is an undeniable advantage of 91%.

​Even though the precursors are shaky and BAFTA does not have the greatest track record, this is all the ammunition I need to suggest that Spike Lee will win his first competitive Oscar this year.

​PREDICTED WINNER: "BlacKkKlansman"
RUNNER-UP: "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"
PREFERRED WINNER: "BlacKkKlansman"

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

This is a two horse race between two Best Picture nominees with a third contender, looking to come up the middle in the case of a split scenario.

​The nominees for Best Original Screenplay are...

The Favourite
First Reformed
Green Book
Roma
Vice

Let's see the awards breakdown for this category....

Like Best Adapted Screenplay, the major precursors have gone to different films this season with the WGA being excluded as the winner was a non-Oscar nominee with "Eighth Grade."

Critics Choice - 15/23 (65%)
Golden Globe - 8/23 (35%)
​BAFTA - 12/23 (52%)

The above percentages favor "First Reformed" winning this category and Paul Schrader being rewarded with more than just his first nomination in this category, but his first win as well.

However, Paul Schrader's film is not a Best Picture nominee and looking at the past 23 years tells us that like Best Adapted Screenplay, this category tends to heavily favor Best Picture nominees with 19/23 of the winners having a Best Picture nomination. This heavily favors "Green Book" and "The Favourite" in this scenario. "The Favourite" has better odds with the BAFTA win than "Green Book" does with the Golden Globe win and considering the former's  overall show of support from the Academy's multiple branches and "Green Book" facing controversy and not having as much support, this leads me to lean more heavily towards "The Favourite" here but seriously though....watch out for sentiment to propel Paul Schrader to a surprise win.

​PREDICTED WINNER: "The Favourite"
RUNNER-UP: "First Reformed"
PREFERRED WINNER: "The Favourite"

​BEST PICTURE

And here we are. The big one. The one category that most of us agonize over all season long: Best Picture.

The nominees are...

Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Roma
A Star Is Born
Vice

In what has been the most wild guild season in quite some time, every film in the Best Picture race is going into Oscar night with something against it.

Black Panther - No other above the line nominations
BlacKkKlansman - No previous guild wins
Bohemian Rhapsody - No director or screenplay nomination
The Favourite - No prior Best Picture wins elsewhere
Green Book - No director nomination
Roma - No editing nomination & no Foreign Language Film has EVER won Best Picture
A Star Is Born - No director or editing nomination & no prior Best Picture wins elsewhere
Vice - No prior Best Picture wins elsewhere

With everything so divided and so many factors involved, let's take a look at the Critics Choice, Golden Globes, BAFTA, PGA and SAG Ensemble awards to help tell us something about the almighty Best Picture race....

Lots of winners. Lots of stats. Here's how it all looks matching the above to the Oscar winner for Best Picture...

Critics Choice - 14/23 (61%)
Golden Globe - 9/23 (39%)
​BAFTA - 8/18 (44%)
​PGA - 20/29 (69%)
​SAG - 11/23 (48%)

​Looking at all of the Best Picture winners from 1989 (when the PGA started) to today, there have only be two instances where the Best Picture winner did not win any of the major precursors for Best Picture but still won the Academy's top prize...1992 with "Unforgiven" & in 1995 with "Braveheart." In both instances, they won the Golden Globe and DGA awards for Best Director. So, immediately films such as "BlacKkKlansman," "Vice" "A Star Is Born" (Oh how the mighty have fallen). and "The Favourite" (Best British Film does not count) are out. Had any of the above mentioned films won Best Director at Golden Globe, Critics Choice, BAFTA or DGA, this would be a different story. While it's sad to see those films go, I think the key possibly to unlocking the Best Picture race this year is the DGA Award, which surprisingly has matched with Best Picture in more instances than any of the above awards.

DGA
1989: Born On The Fourth Of July
1990: Dances With Wolves
1991: The Silence of the Lambs
1992: Unforgiven
1993: Schindler's List
1994: Forest Gump
1995: Apollo 13
1996: The English Patient
1997: Titanic
1998: Saving Private Ryan
1999: American Beauty
2000: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2001: A Beautiful Mind
2002: Chicago
2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2004: Million Dollar Baby
2005: Brokeback Mountain
2006: The Departed
2007: No Country For Old Men
2008: Slumdog Millionaire
2009: The Hurt Locker
2010: The King's Speech
2011: The Artist
2012: Argo
2013: Gravity
2014: Birdman
2015: The Revenant
2016: La La Land
2017: The Shape Of Water
2018: Roma

The age of the preferential ballot has brought about more Picture/Director splits than ever before. Alfonso Cuaron is assured to win Best Director this Sunday after sweeping the critics groups, Critics Choice, Golden Globe, BAFTA and DGA. The DGA has a slightly higher stat than PGA though with 21/29 years matching with Best Picture resulting in a 72% chance for "Roma." And that's the story here. "Roma" has the stats. Critics Choice, BAFTA and DGA is a huge combo to have heading into Sunday. The last two films to famously have those combinations and lose Best Picture were "La La Land" and "Brokeback Mountain." So, while "Roma" is the heavy stats favorite, it's not unheard of that it could still lose this.

Since there have not been any other times in recent history where a Best Picture winner emerged without winning Critics Choice, Golden Globe, BAFTA or PGA Awards for Best Picture or the DGA, we have to conclude that the only films which can win Best Picture are...

​Black Panther - Won SAG
Bohemian Rhapsody - Won Golden Globe
Green Book - Won PGA & the Golden Globe
Roma - Won Critics Choice, BAFTA & DGA

I think we're past the point where the SAG Ensemble nomination stat matters that much anymore after "The Shape Of Water" became the first film since "Braveheart" to win without the nomination. However, we have seen other Best Picture winners emerge after winning only the SAG award before the Oscars, such as "Shakespeare In Love" and "Crash." But still, it's hard to argue against the fact that "​Black Panther" does not have any above the line nominations for director, acting or writing. In terms of eliminating films here from a stats standpoint, that's the easiest one to let go.

Next up is the fact that "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Green Book" do not have Best Director nominations. "Argo" is famously the last film to win Best Picture without this nomination and "Driving Miss Daisy" before it in 1989. While "Argo" was able to work its lack of a Best Director nomination into its narrative for a Best Picture win ("Poor Ben Affleck"), it was also able to win Best Adapted Screenplay. While it is possible to win Best Picture without winning one of the screenplay awards, it's much harder to win without a nomination. Since "Bohemian Rhapsody" is lacking both Director and Screenplay nominations, that is the next one to knock off the list.

"Green Book" though....very closely resembles "Driving Miss Daisy" in many ways. Both won the Golden Globe for Best Picture, both won the PGA, both did not have Best Director nominations but both did have acting, screenplay and tech nominations. It's not impossible for "Green Book" to pull off a win against "Roma," a movie that is seen as a boring chore to sit through by some and the enemy of the film industry which will bring about the end of the theatrical experience (so over dramatic) because it is a Netflix film. While "Roma" may be missing a Best Film Editing nomination, something that every best Picture winner in recent times has had with the exception of "Birdman" and once again..."Driving Miss Daisy," it has everything else.

Yes, no Foreign Language Film has ever won Best Picture. Yes it is in black and white (I don't see this as in issue considering recent wins for "The Artist" and "Schindler's List"). Yes, it is a Netflix film. So what? Alfonso Cuaron has crafted a masterpiece which will stand the test of time and it is already almost guaranteed to win three Oscars already walking into the door this Sunday (Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film & Best Cinematography). "Green Book" may have surprised us all by getting a Best Film Editing nomination like "Three Billboards Outside Of Ebbing, Missouri" did last year, where "Roma" did not. But like Martin McDonagh's film last year, it was lacking a Best Director nomination like "Green Book" is this year. Both films also won at the Golden Globe awards and were seen as "the enemy" by a majority of the internet in the hunt for the Best Picture prize. The parallels are all there.

​One last thing that I will add though which I feel might be crucially important to predicting a "Roma" win is that actors are still the biggest part of the Academy's membership and "Roma" was able to pull a surprise nomination for Marina de Tavira in Best Supporting Actress after having no nominations virtually all season from anywhere. if that is not a sign of support, from the Academy that "Roma" is beloved, I don't know what is.

​​PREDICTED WINNER: "Roma"
RUNNER-UP: "Green Book"
PREFERRED WINNER: "The Favourite"

And that's it. After all of the predictions, analysis and hard thinking, these are my final predictions for the 91st Academy Awards.

Best Picture: "Roma"
Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron - "Roma"
​Best Actor: ​Rami Malek - "Bohemian Rhapsody"
​Best Actress: Glenn Close - "The Wife"
Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali - "Green Book"
Best Supporting Actress: Regina King - "If Beale Street Could Talk"
Best Original Screenplay: "The Favourite"
Best Adapted Screenplay: "BlacKkKlansman"
Best Animated Feature: "Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse"
Best Documentary Feature: "Free Solo"
Best Foreign Language Film: "Roma"
Best Cinematography: "Roma"
Best Costume Design: "​Black Panther"
Best Film Editing: "Vice"
Best Makeup & Hairstyling: "Vice"
Best Original Score: "BlacKkKlansman"
Best Original Song: "Shallow" - "A Star Is Born"
Best Production Design: "The Favourite"
Best Sound Editing: "​Black Panther"
Best Sound Mixing: "Bohemian Rhapsody"
Best Visual Effects: "First Man"
Best Animated Short: "Bao"
Best Documentary Short: "Period. End of Sentence"
Best Live Action Short: "Skin"

If you want to read my previous articles diving into some of the above categories not detailed in this one, check out those here and here. My team's predictions can be read here and our predictions can also be heard on the podcast here. Also be sure to enter into our contest to predict the Academy Awards here.

​Lastly, I want to thank each and every one of you who have continued to help support Next Best Picture through this amazing awards season. The coverage will not stop after Sunday's show. We cover awards season all year round and with a head start already from the Sundance Film Festival  there's still a lot of fun to be had in the off season both here on the website and on the podcast as well.

Which leads me to my next point....no matter what happens on Sunday, don't take it personally. It's already been a rough season for most of us, having to watch some of our favorite films not crack the Oscar nominations and see films we really despise get there instead. I have learned its best to not let yourself get emotionally attached to everything that is going on politically and just sit back and enjoy the movies and the madness.

Thank you once again for what has been an unforgettable awards season and enjoy the show!

You can follow Matt and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars and Film on Twitter at @NextBestPicture