Animated Feature
✓ “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”
“Marcel the Shell With Shoes On”
When “The Shape of Water” won best picture a few years ago, I talked to a voter who spelled out exactly what had put the film over the top: “When I saw the movie, I liked it. But when I heard Guillermo del Toro talk about it afterwards, I loved it.” Academy members are so delighted by that film’s genial Mexican auteur that they even squeezed his dark, expensive noir “Nightmare Alley” into last year’s best-picture race after most pundits had pronounced it dead. So expect his stop-motion “Pinocchio” to be the victor here over box office hit “Puss in Boots.”
Documentary Feature
“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”
“A House Made of Splinters”
After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spent the last year beaming into Hollywood events like the Cannes Film Festival and Golden Globes, I think academy members will be inclined to cast their votes for “Navalny,” a thrilling documentary about the imprisoned Russian opposition leader. The film follows the Putin critic Aleksei Navalny up until his incarceration and contains a killer sequence in which, having recovered from a poison attack, he manages to track down and bait his poisoner into a confession. That footage isn’t just golden — it’s the sort of thing that wins gold statuettes.
International Feature
✓ “All Quiet on the Western Front,” Germany
“Argentina, 1985,” Argentina
“Close,” Belgium
“EO,” Poland
“The Quiet Girl,” Ireland
“Close,” but no cigar. Nice to know you, “The Quiet Girl” and “Argentina, 1985.” And to “EO,” we say XO. But let’s be real: The best-picture nominee never loses in this category, so a victory for Germany and “All Quiet on the Western Front” is one of the easiest calls of the night.
Cinematography
✓ “All Quiet on the Western Front”
“Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths”
“Elvis”
“Tár”
No woman has ever won this category, and “Elvis” cinematographer Mandy Walker has a good shot at becoming the first. Still, I suspect more voters will choose James Friend’s striking tableaus of war in “All Quiet on the Western Front.”
Original Song
“Applause” (“Tell It Like a Woman”)
“Hold My Hand” (“Top Gun: Maverick”)
“Lift Me Up” (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”)
✓ “Naatu Naatu” (“RRR”)
“This Is a Life” (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”)
This race features two of pop music’s biggest stars: Super Bowl headliner Rihanna, who sang a sensitive ballad for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” and former winner Lady Gaga, who wailed over the closing credits of “Top Gun: Maverick.” But both will lose to “Naatu Naatu,” which sparks a fantastic dance-off in “RRR.” Since that Indian blockbuster came oh-so-close to making the best-picture lineup, this category provides an easy place for fans to reward it.
Original Score
✓ “All Quiet on the Western Front”
“Babylon”
“The Banshees of Inisherin”
“Everything Everywhere All at Once”
“The Fabelmans”
“Babylon” ends with a hellzapoppin’ history-of-cinema sequence enthusiastically scored by former winner Justin Hurwitz, but the winner in this category almost always hails from a best-picture nominee, so I’m picking “All Quiet on the Western Front,” with its dread-soaked three-tone motif from Volker Bertelmann.
