Achievement in Sound Editing
“Mad Max: Fury Road” Mark Mangini and David White
“The Martian” Oliver Tarney
“The Revenant” Martin Hernandez and Lon Bender
“Sicario” Alan Robert Murray
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Matthew Wood and David Acord
Achievement in Sound Mixing
“Bridge of Spies” Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Drew Kunin
“Mad Max: Fury Road” Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo
“The Martian” Paul Massey, Mark Taylor and Mac Ruth
“The Revenant” Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Randy Thom and Chris Duesterdiek
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson
These are more categories that, up until a couple of weeks ago, I thought would easily go to Mad Max: Fury Road, but with The Revenant winning the BAFTA for Sound and the Cinema Audio Society’s award for Sound Mixing, it appears to be the favorite for both categories.
Unfortunately, the Motion Picture Sound Editors don’t announce their awards until the 27th, so I can’t include their results in these predictions, but based on the fact that the BAFTA has led to a film winning both sound categories in several instances in the last few years (Gravity, Hugo, Inception, and The Hurt Locker), it seems a pretty safe bet. However, I would add to watch out for Mad Max here as well, as it could easily take one of these for itself. (UPDATE: The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road have tied for the MPSE’s top award, so I remain quite comfortable in picking The Revenant for both categories).
Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
“Embrace of the Serpent” Colombia
“Mustang” France
“Son of Saul” Hungary
“Theeb” Jordan
“A War” Denmark
Here we have one of the easiest categories of the night to predict. Son of Saul has been an unstoppable force throughout the critics’ awards, winning such prizes as the Critics Choice and the Golden Globe, so count on it to finish its streak at the Oscars.
Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
“Anomalisa” Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson and Rosa Tran
“Boy and the World” Alê Abreu
“Inside Out” Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera
“Shaun the Sheep Movie” Mark Burton and Richard Starzak
“When Marnie Was There” Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Yoshiaki Nishimura
Speaking of easy categories to predict, Inside Out has also been an unstoppable force throughout the entire awards season, picking up the Critics Choice, Golden Globe, BAFTA, Producers Guild’s award for animated film, and a boatload of Annie awards that included Best Animated Film. Anything else winning the Oscar would be an enormous shock. It’s a shame that the best film of the year (it achieved a higher rating than ALL of the Best Picture nominees) will have to settle for this, but I suppose it’ll have to do.
Best Documentary Feature
“Amy” Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees
“Cartel Land” Matthew Heineman and Tom Yellin
“The Look of Silence” Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen
“What Happened, Miss Simone?” Liz Garbus, Amy Hobby and Justin Wilkes
“Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” Evgeny Afineevsky and Den Tolmor
Completing a trio of easy-to-predict categories, Amy is poised to take this one pretty easily, especially after having won a ton of critics’ awards, the Critics Choice, the BAFTA, and the Producers Guild’s award for documentaries. Personally, I hope that the excellent doc The Look of Silence gets recognized, but sadly it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen.
