Abzee’s Oscar Predix for the year in film 2022 (Updated)

The nominations for the 95^th Academy Awards will be announced in exactly 2 weeks’ time. After the slapgate that was the Will Smith-Chris Rock embarrassment of last year, the Covid affected restricted ceremony of the year prior to it, the host-less events from the couple years before that, and the shadow of the #MeToo and #OscarsSoWhite movements that loomed over the two ceremonies previous to these… the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would like the Oscars this year to be a return to normalcy and one that would be remembered only for the films rather than any scandal or drama. Having host Jimmy Kimmel back to anchor the evening is a step in that direction.

At a time when global film industries are in a state of flux, audiences’ viewing habits are shifting, and theatrical outings are becoming more and more about just tentpole releases… perhaps this will be the massiest Oscars in years. The Oscars have always battled low ratings owing to charges of snubbing popular films in favour of snobbish prestige fare. Think The Hurt Locker winning over Avatar, or Anthony Hopkins in The Father over Chadwick Boseman in Black Panther… there are several examples.

Summer blockbusters and superhero films, genres that have kept the film industries and theatres still relevant, have always received a reluctant appraisal from the Academy in technical categories like Visual Effects and Sound. The 95^th Academy Awards could be different.

Abzee’s Oscar predix for 2020-21

There you have it. The longest Oscar season of our lifetime yet. And it just feels wrong. The ongoing pandemic threw the whole Oscar season in disarray… we now have a 14 month long eligibility window to make up for the months lost, which means that this year’s Oscar will honour the ‘best’ of 2020 and the first couple of months of this new year too. Several rules, at the Oscars, BAFTAs and Golden Globes were changed. Some were due to the pandemic, some as a natural response to the various civil and societal upheavals that the world and especially the United States experienced this last year… and these bodies wanted to make the right noises thusly. Were these changes hasty as the odd BAFTA nominations have revealed? Were they mere tokenism as the audacious Golden Globes revealed? Or will they strike some balance of hope and resurrection as the Oscars intend to do?

Oscar predix for the year in film 2019

With the 2020s all set to roll in a matter of only a few hours, honouring the films of 2019 will be our vestigial link to the decade gone by. A lot has happened over the last decade… this blog, and the wonderful world of movies that we all love and argue over, has offered us a safe space from all that is out there. Things must change, they always do… and a 2020 vision at least augurs well. But for a nostalgist, certain things, at least the good ones, must also be constant. My inconsistent annual Oscar predictions being something that I would like to keep doing. Here then, on the last day of 2019, are my Oscar predictions for the 92^nd Academy Awards. The actual nominations voting open on the 2^nd of January, 2020 and the nominees will be announced on the 13^th of the same month. The Oscars will be presented this time on the 9^th of February, 2020.

Best Picture

1917 Universal Pictures
THE IRISHMAN Netflix
MARRIAGE STORY Netflix
ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD Sony Pictures Releasing
PARASITE CJ Entertainment and Neon

If the Academy nominates six films, then
JOJO RABBIT Fox Searchlight Pictures

If they nominate seven, then
JOKER Warner Bros. Pictures

With eight nominations,
FORD V FERRARI 20^th Century Fox

With nine,
LITTLE WOMEN Sony Pictures Releasing

And when ten,
THE FAREWELL A24

Potential Spoiler– THE TWO POPES Netflix
Dark Horse– BOMBSHELL Lionsgate
Long Shot– A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD Sony Pictures Releasing
Unanticipated Sneak-ins– KNIVES OUT Lionsgate, RICHARD JEWELL Warner Bros. Pictures

Oscar Predix for the year in film 2017

In under a week’s time, on the 5th day of the 2018 new year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will open its polls to their members for nominations across a range of categories for the year in film 2017. On the 12th of January, the polls will close… and almost a fortnight later on the 23rd of January, the nominees for the 90th Academy Awards will be announced. The actual Oscar ceremony takes place this time on the 4th of March, giving the nominees well over a month’s time to lobby for themselves.

The precursor season is all but over. Most of the critics’ bodies have made their preferences known, and now only the Golden Globes, BAFTA and Guilds remain to seal the races for the films in contention. This year has been unravelling of sorts for Hollywood, and international cinema. With Harvey Weinstein’s precipitous fall from grace, followed in quick succession by so many other players right up till Kevin Spacey… the social juggernaut that was the #MeToo movement… the Academy this time around will find itself not merely voting for their preferences, but their leanings. Coming so soon after the Academy having to combat the #OscarsSoWhite charge, and the controversial win handed to Casey Affleck last year, the 90th Oscars promise to be psychosocially charged. Here then are my predictions, the earliest in recent memory, for the 90th Academy Awards. These predictions have been arrived at by studying the overall trend of films in the precursor season, the support garnered from various critics’ bodies and a certain old-fashioned hunch. Even then, given the year that it has been, we might as well see a film like All The Money In The World make a late surge if only to laud it for replacing Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer barely weeks before release and successfully carrying out a reshoot and post-production to meet the original release deadline. That’s the kind of directorial feat which may find artistic respect and social resonance given the year that we have had. Nevertheless, here goes-

Best Film
DUNKIRK Warner Bros. Pictures
GET OUT Universal Pictures
LADY BIRD A24 and Focus Features
THE POST 20th Century Fox and Universal Pcitures
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI Fox Searchlight Pictures

If the Academy nominates 6 films, then the film that gets in will be
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME Sony Pictures Classics
If the Academy nominates 7 films, then
THE SHAPE OF WATER Fox Searchlight Pictures
If they go with 8 films,
THE FLORIDA PROJECT A24
If 9, then
DARKEST HOUR Focus Features
And with 10,
MUDBOUND Netflix

Potential Spoiler- THE BIG SICK
Dark Horse- PHANTOM THREAD
Long Shot- I, TONYA
Surreal Surprises- BLADE RUNNER 2049; ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD
Sneak Up- WONDER WOMAN

Oscar 2017 predix

With a little over 3 hours left to go before the Oscar nominations are announced for the 89^th Academy Awards, in keeping with an annual tradition, here are my last-minute predictions across 18 major categories.

Best Film
HELL OR HIGH WATER
HIDDEN FIGURES
LA LA LAND
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
MOONLIGHT

If the Academy nominates 6 films, then the film that gets in will be
FENCES
If the Academy nominates 7 films, then
ARRIVAL
If they go with 8 films,
LION
If 9, then
HACKSAW RIDGE
And with 10,
SILENCE

Abzee’s Oscar Predix for the year in film 2015

With just a week to go before the nominations for the 88th Academy Awards are announced, and a day prior to the ballots being closed for the same… here then, in keeping with my annual tradition, are my predictions (in alphabetical order) for the Oscars 2016.

Best Picture
THE BIG SHORT
CAROL
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
SPOTLIGHT
THE REVENANT

I’ll probably regret not including THE MARTIAN in this list, but over the past few weeks THE BIG SHORT is gaining late season traction; and with its Academy friendly ensemble, I suspect it will sneak in at the expense of the one-man show from Mars. But how cool is it to have FURY ROAD in that lineup, and an almost sure lock at that.

If the Academy goes with 6 films in this category, then naturally the film that gets in will be
THE MARTIAN
If they nominate 7, then
INSIDE OUT
If 8,
BRIDGE OF SPIES
9,
STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON
And when 10,
ROOM

The gritty SICARIO has every chance of getting in as well, while BROOKLYN is a dark horse. CREED and EX MACHINA are long shots.