Oscars 2016: Who Will Win?

2016 Oscars Predictions

The Oscars are approaching fast and that means it's time to predict the winners. Here's how I think the major races will turn out.

Best Supporting Actor:

The winner should be Mark Rylance.  The great stage actor delivered one of the best performances of the year in Bridge of Spies, understated and subtle, it was completely unexpected from an actor who collected numerous Tony Awards for his over-the-top stage performances. With that being said, he's going to lose to Sylvester Stallone for playing Rocky again.
Predicted winner: Sylvester Stallone, Creed

Best Supporting Actress:

This is a tricky category because two of the nominees (Alicia Vikander and Rooney Mara) are lead actresses. This sometimes works, as lead actresses have won in this category in the past (Jennifer Connelly, Catherine Zeta Jones, etc.), so it seems likely that Alicia Vikander will take this one for her role in The Danish Girl. There's a small possibility that Steve Jobs' Kate Winslet may upset. 

Predicted Winner: Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl

Best Actor:

It's going to be Leonardo DiCaprio. The grueling production of The Revenant seems like enough for the Academy to reward him. Whether or not it's a good performance seems irrelevant at this point. 

Predicted Winner: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant

Best Actress:

This year's true Best Actress would be Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn. If the audience didn't care about the main character, Brooklyn would be tedious, but it's one of the best movies of the year, and that's largely due to Ronan. But the Oscar will probably go to Brie Larson for her heartbreaking performance in Room. She's been delivering great performances for years, so it's nice to see her get some recognition. 

Predicted Winner: Brie Larson, Room

Best Director:

Alejandro G. Iñárritu will likely become the third director in Oscar history to win Best Director back-to-back, after John Ford and Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The much-discussed troubled shoot of The Revenant is probably going to be seen by voters as making the finished film all the more of an achievement. 

Predicted Winner: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, The Revenant

Best Picture:

The three major predictors (The SAG, DGA, and PGA) all went to different films, so this category is harder to predict than in past years. The films that have a chance of winning are The Revenant, Spotlight, and The Big Short. 

The Revenant has the most nominations of any film this year, with 12. Spotlight and The Big Short only have 6 and 5, respectively. The last time a film won with less than 7 nominations was The Departed almost a decade ago. But, The Revenant does not have a screenplay nomination. The last time a film won without a screenplay nomination was Titanic in 1998 (and before that was The Sound of Music in 1966). 

Aside from Best Picture, The Revenant will most likely win Actor, Director, and Cinematography, maybe others. Spotlight and Big Short will win their screenplay categories, but probably nothing else. The last time a film won Best Picture and only one other Oscar was in 1953 with The Greatest Show on Earth (perhaps the worst film to ever win Best Picture).

So does all this mean The Revenant's going to win? Maybe, but when was the last time a film as gory and brutal as The Revenant won? Certainly not recently. The other two feel more like past winners in this sense, and also have "important" subjects, and that never hurts either.

Also never has a director directed consecutive Best Pictures, and Iñárritu directed Birdman (a film I didn't even like that much), so Revenant winning would be a first. 

What also must be considered is the bizarre voting system used by the Academy for this category. They use a preferential ballot, where voters have to rank the films first, second, third, etc. This could work against Revenant, as it is a very divisive film. A film like that is either your favorite or your least favorite, so it won't get many second and third place votes. Spotlight and Big Short have been generally well-liked by most, so either film could presumably win by having the most second place votes.

Ultimately, there are things working for and against each film, I'll say Revenant, but wouldn't be surprised by Big Short, or maybe Spotlight.
Predicted Winner: The Revenant