Rank and File: Predictions for the 83rd Academy Awards

Today is Oscar day! Or, it is in America. As of right now it's 10:36pm on Sunday evening in Australia. The ceremony is telecast live here from 12:30pm tomorrow (er, Monday - are you following this?), which is really quite nice if you're, like me, just sitting around home and not doing anything anyway. Gone, thankfully, are the days where Australians had to avoid television and online media like the plague for fear of having the delayed telecast spoiled - I will, however, never forget the time when Channel 9, the network that has screened the awards for as long as I remember, spoiled Halle Berry's history making win mere minutes before her category was to be announced! - due to declining ratings and the ever-burgeoning presence of social media all but making the ceremony a mere arbitrary obligation for night own diehards.


Here I thought we'd have a bit of fun with the traditional predictions post. Instead of simply listing who I think will win, I have decided to rank all the contenders in their respective categories (with my predicted winner highlighted in bold). I've done quite well for myself this year, having seen the largest number of nominees pre-ceremony ever. Even in the Best Documentary category, where I rarely seem to get past seeing three of the nominees months(/years!) after the awards, I have been privy to four of the five. I kick myself right now for deciding against seeing Wasteland at last year's Melbourne International Film Festival when I had the chance. In fact, the very final Oscar contender I had to watch was Tim Hetherington and
Sebastian Junger's Restrepo, which received a well-timed direct-to-DVD release just last week (as did Dogtooth, which I aim to revisit, but haven't gotten to just yet).

So, without further ado, let's get to it!

Best Picture
1. Toy Story 3
2. The Social Network
3. Black Swan
4. The Kids are All Right
5. 127 Hours
6. Inception
7. The King's Speech
8. True Grit
9. Winter's Bone
10. The Fighter

Best Director
1. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
2. David Fincher, The Social Network
3. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, True Grit
4. Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
5. David O. Russell, The Fighter

Best Actor
1. James Franco, 127 Hours
2. Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
3. Colin Firth, The King's Speech
4. Jeff Bridges, True Grit
- Javier Bardem, Biutiful

Best Actress
1. Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
2. Annette Bening, The Kids are All Right
3. Natalie Portman, Black Swan
4. Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine
5. Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone

Best Supporting actor
1. Mark Ruffalo, The Kids are All Right
2. John Hawkes, Winter's Bone
3. Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech
4. Christian Bale, The Fighter
5. Jeremy Renner, The Town

Best Supporting Actress
1. Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom
2. Amy Adams, The Fighter
3. Melissa Leo, The Fighter
4. Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
5. Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

(I'm better on a lot of last minute screener action for Weaver, as well as every Australian member of the Academy ticking her box, so to speak.)

Best Original Screenplay
1. Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Bloomfeld, The Kids are All Right
2. Mike Leigh, Another Year
3. David Seidler, The King's Speech
4. Christopher Nolan, Inception
5. Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson & Keith Dorrington, The Fighter

Best Adapted Screenplay
1. Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
2. Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich, Toy Story 3
3. Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy, 127 Hours
4. Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini, Winter's Bone
5. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, True Grit

Best Editing
1. The Social Network
2. Black Swan
3. The Fighter
4. 127 Hours
5. The King's Speech

Best Cinematography
1. Black Swan
2. True Grit
3. Inception
4. The Social Network
5. The King's Speech

Best Costume Design
1. I Am Love
2. True Grit
3. The King's Speech
4. Alice in Wonderland
- The Tempest

Best Art Direction
1. Inception
2. The King's Speech
3. True Grit
4. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Part 1
5. Alice in Wonderland

Best Make-Up
1. The Wolfman
- Barney's Version
- The Way Back

Best Original Score
1. How to Train Your Dragon
2. Inception
3. The Social Network
4. The King's Speech
5. 127 Hours

Best Original Song
1. "Coming Home" from Country Strong
2. "A Whole New World 2.0" from Tangled
3. "Randy Newman's Burps Would Get Nominated Here" from Toy Story 3
4. "The Song That Sounds Like Nothing" from 127 Hours

Best Sound Mixing
1. The Social Network
2. Salt
3. True Grit
4. Inception
5. The King's Speech

Best Sound Editing
1. TRON: Legacy
2. Unstoppable
3. Inception
4. True Grit
5. Toy Story 3

Best Visual Effects
1. Inception
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
3. Hereafter
4. Alice in Wonderland
- Iron Man 2

Best Documentary Feature
1. Inside Job
2. Exit Through the Gift Shop
3. GasLand
- Restrepo
- Wasteland

(The category I've gone back and forth on the most. I have Restrepo here to watch before the ceremony and will update this when I've finished it.)

Best Animated Feature
1. The Illusionist
2. Toy Story 3
3. How to Train Your Dragon

(The one category were I don't care what wins - even if we know what will - and the first time this category that thrown up an entire roster of nominees worthy of the win!)

Best Foreign Language Film
1. In a Better World
2. Dogtooth
- Biutiful
- Incendies
- Outside the Law

Best Documentary, Short Subject
- Killing in the Name
- Poster Girl
- Strangers No More
- Sun Come Up
- The Warriors of Quigang

Best Animated Short
1. Day and Night
- The Gruffalo
- Let's Pollute
- The Lost Thing
- Madagascar, A Journey Diary

Best Live Action Short
- The Confession
- The Crush
- God of Love
- Na Wewe
- Wish 143