This year’s awards season has been a wild ride, to say the least. As the Oscars are set to air soon on the 11th of March, 2023’s eventful celebration of the best of cinema is finally coming to an end. With numerous brilliantly-made movies containing phenomenal performances released this year, we would hate to have an Oscars ballot and be forced to choose a single winner. Just kidding, we would actually kill to be a part of the Academy. But alas, we’ll settle for speculating on who the major Oscar winners will be this year based on the victors of other awards ceremonies. Here are our best guesses for the major Oscar categories.
Our Oscar Winner 2024 Predictions
Contents
1. Best Supporting Actor
Sterling K. Brown, American Fiction
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
PREDICTED WINNER: Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things
Robert Downey Jr. has consistently swept every supporting actor award this season for his role in Christopher Nolan’s biographical thriller Oppenheimer. Downey Jr. played Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss, a navy officer and a member of the US Atomic Energy Commission with an intense dislike for the titular character of the movie. Marvel’s Iron Man is so talented at playing a middle-aged obsessive hater that he won the Golden Globe, BAFTA, and the SAG awards for best supporting actor. With an awards run like that, Downey Jr. is all but set to win his first ever Oscar, having been nominated twice before in his career. Ready for the hat trick?
2. Best Supporting Actress
Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
America Ferrera, Barbie
Jodie Foster, Nyad
PREDICTED WINNER: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Speaking of an actor with their first ever Oscar win on lock, Da’Vine Joy Randolph definitely falls under that category as well. Her heartbreaking performance as a grieving mother in the comedic coming-of-age The Holdovers was a standout, and since the Best Picture nominee was so critically acclaimed, that’s really saying something. Randolph scored the best supporting actress awards at the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Awards, the BAFTA Awards, and the SAG Awards, just to name a few. It’s safe to say that this first-time Oscar nominee will be a first time Oscar winner come the 11th of March and boy, does she deserve it.
3. Best Actor
Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Colman Domingo, Rustin
CLOSEST CONTENDER: Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
PREDICTED WINNER: Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction
Irish actor Cillian Murphy had an amazing year in 2023 as he finally landed a lead role in a Christopher Nolan movie after years of playing supporting characters in the director’s films. Murphy couldn’t have chosen a better movie than Oppenheimer to play the lead as the amount of accolades the biopic has racked up is truly something to behold. Having won best actor at the SAG and BAFTA awards, Murphy is at the centre of all the attention. However, his biggest contender lies in The Holdovers’ Paul Giamatti, who successfully wrestled the Critics Choice award away from Murphy. If the actor who portrayed Oppie loses the Oscar, it’ll be to Giamatti, but we doubt that that’s going to happen.
4. Best Actress
Annette Bening, Nyad
PREDICTED WINNER: Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
CLOSEST CONTENDER: Emma Stone, Poor Things
The Oscar race for Best Actress is by far the most thrilling category every year — there are just way too many talented actresses in Hollywood. This year, it’s a toss up between Emma Stone and Lily Gladstone (insert rock joke here). The category for best actress has been fierce this awards season, with the BAFTA given to Stone while both actresses received a Golden Globe by virtue of their movies having different genres. However, Gladstone won the SAG award, so the pendulum once again swung in favour of her regal performance in Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Her potential Oscar win will make history as the first ever for a Native American actor, so we can’t help but to root for Gladstone more.
5. Best Director
Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
PREDICTED WINNER: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest
When it comes to the Best Director category at this year’s Oscars, there’s only one possible winner. Never mind the fact that he won best director for every other notable award ceremony, the fact that his submitted movie gained a whopping 13 Oscar nominations tells you everything you need to know. It’s rare for a director who isn’t also an actor to have epic star power, but Christopher Nolan continues to exceed expectations even on that front. His all but guaranteed Best Director Oscar win this year will be his first, having been nominated only once before in the category. Our apologies to legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese but 2023 is Nolan’s year.
6. Best Picture
American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
PREDICTED WINNER: Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest
Need further proof of our previous point? Nolan’s Oppenheimer has snagged the highest accolade for a movie at every awards ceremony this year, including the Golden Globes, Critics Choice, Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild, Producers Guild, and the BAFTAs. This type of unchecked dominance doesn’t occur often, so when it does, it’s easy to predict the outcome. Despite the varied list of amazing movies nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars this year, Oppenheimer is sure to receive the award. If it doesn’t, we’ll eat an atomic bomb.
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