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Our Oscar Predictions for 2022: Winners in All Categories

Joe Allen
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Now that the Oscars are right around the corner, it’s time to take a final look at who is likely to prevail on March 27. The Power of the Dog and Dune head into the night with plenty of momentum coming off of their large nomination totals, but smaller films like CODA have also made themselves heard all awards season long.

The ceremony, which is set to be hosted by Regina Hall, Wanda Sykes, and Amy Schumer, is already the subject of controversy because of its decision to shunt some of these categories out of the proper broadcast. Even so, there’s likely to be plenty of interest in who will win across the board, even if most people have never watched a single one of the live-action shorts (you should, btw).

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Belfast
CODA
Don’t Look Up
Drive My Car
Dune
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story

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CODA has been surging in recent days, but Power of the Dog’s 12 nominations should be enough to help it overcome that groundswell of support for the much smaller indie.

Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car
Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Steven Spielberg, West Side Story

Jane Campion will be the second female winner of Best Director in the history of the category, and will likely take this prize pretty easily, regardless of how Best Picture shakes out.

Will Smith in King Richard.

Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
Andrew Garfield, Tick, Tick … Boom!
Will Smith, King Richard
Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth

Will Smith has been the frontrunner in this category all season long, and he seems likely to take home the award on Oscar night.

Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
Kristen Stewart, Spencer

A pretty hectic category, but we’re guessing Oscar voters will want to see Colman’s speech the most, which may just give her the edge and her second Oscar.

Ciaran Hinds, Belfast
Troy Kotsur, CODA
Jesse Plemons, The Power of the Dog
J.K. Simmons, Being the Ricardos
Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog

He’s taken basically every precursor with grace, so it would be shocking if Kotsur didn’t lock up the big award early on Oscar night.

Best Supporting Actress

Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter
Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Judi Dench, Belfast
Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog
Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard

DeBose has been a commanding frontrunner all season, but deservingly so given how strong her performance is in Spielberg’s update.

Best Original Screenplay

Belfast
Don’t Look Up
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
The Worst Person in the World

Some are concerned that Don’t Look Up could win the big prize, but we’re guessing the Oscars will be content to award Adam McKay with his second screenplay Oscar as the movie’s biggest trophy.

CODA
Drive My Car
Dune
The Lost Daughter
The Power of the Dog

The Power of the Dog is the obvious winner here, but the Academy likes The Lost Daughter, and it’s pretty hard to deny it as a feat of adaptation.

The cast of Encanto.

Encanto
Flee
Luca
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Raya and the Last Dragon

Given its status as a global phenomenon, it’s hard to imagine anything besides Encanto winning here, even if the category is incredibly strong overall.

Best Production Design

Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story

Power of the Dog is likely to win here on the strength of its overall status as the frontrunner, although Dune could certainly sneak in because of the scope of its technical achievements.

Cruella
Cyrano
Dune
Nightmare Alley
West Side Story

Cruella has the flashiest costumes of the bunch, so it feels like a pretty solid winner here in spite of strong sci-fi costuming in Dune, and the glorious color of everything in West Side Story.

Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story

A great group of nominees, but we expect Power of the Dog to win here in part thanks to its strength at the Oscars generally. It also happens to be one of the year’s best-looking movies.

Don’t Look Up
Dune
King Richard
The Power of the Dog
Tick, Tick … Boom!

Tick, Tick … Boom! won a major pre-cursor here, so we’re betting on an upset that will have live prognosticators a little alarmed. This may also be their only chance to award a film that the Academy seemed to like quite a bit.

Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye.

Coming 2 America
Cruella
Dune
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
House of Gucci

This one could go a number of different ways, but Tammy Faye has the benefit of a real-life comparison and some over-the-top looks, so we’re giving it the edge.

Belfast
Dune
No Time to Die
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story

Dune seems like a runaway favorite in a number of technical categories, but perhaps none more than sound, where its design is both impressive and incredibly noticeable.

Dune
Free Guy
No Time to Die
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Spider-Man: No Way Home

Dune would win this one in a just world, but we’re betting the Academy takes the only shot they have at awarding the biggest movie of 2021 here.

Don’t Look Up
Dune
Encanto
Parallel Mothers
The Power of the Dog

Hans Zimmer seems likely to win here for his somewhat astonishing score for Dune, an element that is key to the movie’s sense of momentum and the feeling of dread that pervades every moment.

“Be Alive” (King Richard)
“Dos Oruguitas” (Encanto)
“Down to Joy” (Belfast)
“No Time to Die” (No Time to Die)
“Somehow You Do” (Four Good Days)

Billie Eilish is a star, and her Bond song has had so much time to breathe since it was initially released almost two years ago that it feels like the easy pick in a pretty star-studded category.

Sly Stone in Summer of Soul.

Ascension
Attica
Flee
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Writing With Fire

Every documentary here is great, but Summer of Soul may have the edge because of the sheer level of acclaim it received when it was released over the summer.

Best International Feature

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, Bhutan
Flee, Denmark
The Hand of God, Italy
Drive My Car, Japan
The Worst Person in the World, Norway

Drive My Car is nominated in Best Picture, so it would be kind of a shock if it didn’t pick up this award.

Affairs of the Art
Bestia
Boxballet
Robin Robin
The Windshield Wiper

A Netflix animated short about some cute birds? Robin Robin seems like a good bet, but the shorts are notoriously difficult to nail down.

Audible
Lead Me Home
The Queen of Basketball
Three Songs for Benazir
When We Were Bullies

Netflix has tended to do exceedingly well in shorts, and it has three of the five nominees in this lineup. With its mix of heart and tragedy, Audible could be the cream of the Netflix crop.

The Dress
The Long Goodbye
On My Mind
Please Hold
Ala Kachuu — Take and Run

Riz Ahmed is the starriest name in this lineup, and that should be more than enough to allow him to win the day.

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Joe Allen
Joe Allen
Contributor
Joe Allen is a freelance culture writer based in upstate New York. His work has been published in The Washington Post, The…
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