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Predicting The 89th Annual Academy Awards

We’ve finally come to the big moment where I lay down my best predictions as to who will be taking home Academy Awards in all 24 categories. This year is a little different from last year in that it’s pretty much been a one-track award season for a certain little musical (as opposed to last year, where things were a little uncertain heading into the big night), but, as always, there’s plenty of room for surprises to happen, so let’s dive right in:

Oscar statuettes are displayed at Times Square Studios 23 January 2006 in New York. The statuettes will be presented to winners of the 78th Academy Awards 05 March 2006 in Hollywood.
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Best Cinematography
Arrival
La La Land
Lion
Moonlight
Silence

All right, say it with me now: “La La Land is going to win this one, too.” It’s true that the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) went with Lion, but they match AMPAS less than half the time, so we could actually say that Lion winning there hurts it more than helps it. However, with wins from BAFTA, The Broadcast Film Critics Association, The Online Film Critics Society, and multiple others, it seems fairly obvious that Linus Sandgren’s gorgeous work on La La Land will be awarded on Sunday evening.

Best Film Editing
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Moonlight

Yes, you guessed it. La La Land has been the favorite in this category throughout the entire awards season, winning awards from such groups as The American Cinema Editors (ACE), The Broadcast Film Critics Association, The Chicago Film Critics Association, The Online Film Critics Society, and The Washington DC Area Film Critics Association. It’s true that Arrival won the ACE Award for Drama and Hacksaw Ridge won the BAFTA for editing, but with La La Land being as immensely popular as it is, it seems absolutely impossible that they wouldn’t award it the biggest of the technical categories.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Arrival
Fences
Hidden Figures
Lion
Moonlight

The screenplay race has been a little bizarre this year, and it’s all due to the fact that The Academy deemed Moonlight to be an adapted script, as opposed to just about everyone else that deemed it original. So, after Arrival has enjoyed cleaning up in this category for most of the season, Moonlight has become the new favorite mainly due to it winning the USC Scripter Award (which finally put it up against its adapted competition, and which has matched the Adapted Oscar for the last six years in a row). I wouldn’t say it’s impossible for Arrival to win here (and I’m personally hoping it does), but it just doesn’t seem likely with the popularity of Moonlight (which won the second most Best Picture awards throughout the season).

Best Original Screenplay
Hell or High Water
La La Land
The Lobster
Manchester by the Sea
20th Century Women

Here we have a rare instance in a screenplay category where we just don’t have enough facts to narrow it down to the winner. For certain, this is going to either Manchester by the Sea or La La Land, but thanks to Moonlight winning the Original Screenplay WGA award, we can’t say for certain which it will be. However, my guess would be the former, for it’s been the single most lauded screenplay throughout the season, even taking the BAFTA earlier this month.

That being said, it could easily be La La Land, especially if it’s going to sweep. It tied with Manchester by the Sea at the Critics’ Choice and won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay, and as we all know, The Academy likes to match up Best Picture and Screenplay most of the time. What would be really interesting if La La Land does win here is that it would mark the first time in nearly 60 years that a musical won an Oscar for its screenplay (Gigi was the last to do so way back in 1959), so it does have history against it. It really could lean either way, making it one of the most nail-biting categories of the night.

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