Out on a limb: Oscar picks & predictions

I never feel hugely confident about predicting the Oscars, mainly because I am always hoping for upsets. This year's race has been unusually tricky to predict, with distinct winners from the guilds, Bafta and various precursor awards. So this year I'll feel happy if I get my usual 15 out of 20 correct. I get to vote in several awards during the season, but here's who I'd vote for if I got my hands on an Oscar ballot, along with who I think will win, and who could sneak in and walk off with the prize...

PICTURE
Will / should win: Everything Everywhere All at Once
Dark horse: All Quiet on the Western Front

INTERNATIONAL FILM
Will win: All Quiet on the Western Front - Germany
Should win: The Quiet Girl - Ireland
Dark horse: Close - Belgium

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Will win: Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio
Should win: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Will win: Navalny
Should win: All The Beauty and The Bloodshed
Dark horse: Fire of Love

DIRECTING
Will / should win: Everything Everywhere All at Once - Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
Dark horse: The Fabelmans - Steven Spielberg

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Will / should win: The Banshees of Inisherin - Martin McDonagh
Dark horse: Everything Everywhere All at Once - Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Will win: Women Talking - Sarah Polley
Should win: Living - Kazuo Ishiguro
Dark horse: Glass Onion - Rian Johnson

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Will / should win: Michelle Yeoh - Everything Everywhere All at Once
Serious contender: Cate Blanchett - Tár

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Will win: Austin Butler - Elvis
Should win: Colin Farrell - The Banshees of Inisherin
Dark horse: Bill Nighy - Living

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Will win: Angela Bassett - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Should win: Hong Chau - The Whale
Dark horse: Jamie Lee Curtis - Everything Everywhere All at Once

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Will / should win: Ke Huy Quan - Everything Everywhere All at Once
Dark horse: Barry Keoghan - The Banshees of Inisherin

ORIGINAL SCORE
Will / should win: Babylon - Justin Hurwitz
Dark horse: All Quiet on the Western Front - Volker Bertelmann

ORIGINAL SONG
Will / should win: Naatu Naatu, RRR - MM Keeravaani, Chandrabose
Dark horse: Hold My Hand, Top Gun: Maverick - Lady Gaga, Bloodpop

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Will / should win: Elvis - Mandy Walker
Dark horse: All Quiet on the Western Front - James Friend

FILM EDITING
Will / should win: Everything Everywhere All at Once - Paul Rogers

PRODUCTION DESIGN
Will / should win: Babylon - Florencia Martin, Anthony Carlino
Dark horse: Elvis - Catherine Martin, Karen Murphy, Bev Dunn

COSTUME DESIGN
Will / should win: Elvis - Catherine Martin
Dark horse: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - Ruth E Carter

VISUAL EFFECTS
Will / should win: Avatar: The Way of Water - Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, Daniel Barrett

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Will / should win: Elvis - Mark Coulier, Jason Baird, Aldo Signoretti
Dark horse: The Whale - Adrien Morot, Judy Chin, Anne Marie Bradley

SOUND
Will / should win: Top Gun: Maverick - Mark Weingarten, James Mather, Al Nelson, Chris Burdon, Mark Taylor
Dark horse: All Quiet on the Western Front - Viktor Prášil, Frank Kruse, Markus Stemler, Lars Ginzel, Stefan Korte

Critical Week: We will rock you

With Oscar night on Sunday, all eyes are on how Hollywood wraps up this year's surprisingly unpredictable season. There are very few sure winners for this ceremony, so let's hope for lots of upsets. My predictions will be posted on Saturday as usual. Meanwhile, movies keep arriving in cinemas. Woody Harrelson has a lot of fun in the inspiring remake Champions, about a lively young basketball team. Yes, it's full predictable, but director Bobby Farrelly adds some spark. Scream VI takes the franchise to New York for another meta-horror with comical touches. This one's unusually grisly, and also sometimes properly scary. And there's also the clumsy horror pastiche Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, set up as a sequel to the iconic tale. Except that this is mindlessly misogynistic and sadistic.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom
Lonesome • Sound of Silence
PERHAPS AVOID:
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey
ALL REVIEWS >

Further afield is Norwegian filmmaker Bent Hamer's offbeat Canadian drama The Middle Man, a stylised story about grief that's moving but rather bleak. Lola is a fiendishly inventive British thriller about two sisters in 1941 who build a device that receives future broadcasts, changing their lives and then some. Also inventive, Italian ghost story Sound of Silence is packed with visual panache, although the story feels thin. From Australia, Lonesome is a powerfully honest drama about a runaway who makes a connection in the big city. And the documentary Brainwashed astutely explores the impact of the gender-bias that's ingrained in moviemaking. It should be essential viewing at film school.

Films this coming week include the superhero sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in 80 for Brady, Alec Baldwin in Supercell, Mike Faist in Pinball and the British drama Rye Lane. There's also The Stroll, the opening night film at BFI Flare, plus three theatre press nights (reviews here soon).

Critical Week: Oscar night 2016

The Oscars were handed out on Sunday night in a brisk Hollywood ceremony hosted by Chris Rock, who gave the event an #OscarsSoWhite theme. That felt a bit much at times, because the important point was made so forcefully right at the top of the show. There was far too focus on specifically black issues, which sidelined the inequality in other ethnicities, plus gender and sexuality. The LGBT audience was insulted when Anohi wasn't invited to perform her nominated song. Even worse was the sexist parade of scantily clad women as The Weeknd performed his song. So while racism was positively addressed, there's still a long way to go before Hollywood properly confronts diversity.

At least that theme gave the ceremony its only jaw-dropping moment, when Stacey Dash appeared to wish everyone a "happy Black History Month". Mainly the show played it very, very safe, only livened up by anarchic comics like Sarah Silverman and Louis CK. And of course Sacha Baron Cohen seriously going for broke as he introduced a Best Picture nominee in character as the ridiculous Ali G. Honestly, it seems like Oscar's ratings problem is that the ceremony is completely lacking in these kind of entertainingly bonkers moments. (Why do pundits always call awkward moments the "worst" bits of the show? They're always the only thing you remember!) And the truth is that its the fast-paced parade of no-nonsense awards presenting in minor categories that makes viewers tune out. Next year, bring back Rob Lowe and Snow White.

Awards-wise there were a few surprises, with a handful of upsets including Sam Smith's win for his Spectre theme and Ex Machina's visual effects triumph. Two other deserving surprises caused me to shout out loud: Mark Rylance for Supporting Actor and Spotlight for Best Picture. My other big cheer came when the gorgeous Stutterer won for Live-Action Short. Director Ben Cleary and producer Serena Armitage came along to two events I hosted as chair of the London Critics' Circle Film Awards: our nominations announcement event in December and our ceremony in January, where they won the Short Film prize.

I watched the Academy Awards at the official Oscar London event, a live all-night telecast in a cinema with a crowd of industry people cheering on their friends. It was almost like being at the ceremony itself, even if we were watching the show from 1.30 to 5am! As always on Oscar night, I went to bed as the sun was coming up.

As for films I watched over the past week, the screening line-up included the gorgeous Foreign-Language Oscar winner Son of Saul, Sacha Baron Cohen's mixed gross-out action comedy Grimsby, the devastating Ibsen-based Aussie drama The Daughter, the oddly mannered relationship-collapse drama Like You Mean It, and the wonderful film-fan-catnip documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut.

This coming week's screenings include Gerard Butler's sequel London Has Fallen, the drone thriller Eye in the Sky, Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams in I Saw the Light, the animated sequel Kung Fu Panda 3, the period drama Marguerite and the short film collection Mexican Men.