The nominations for the 94th Annual Academy Awards were unveiled back on February 8th by Leslie Jordan and Tracee Ellis Ross. There was the usual mix of surprises (Judi Dench?!) and shocking snubs (where on Earth is Denis Villeneuve?! Sorry, Lady Gaga!), including Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog leading the nominations with 12 over technical powerhouse Dune (which netted an even ten noms).

I correctly predicted 87/120 of this year's nominees (72.5%), which landed me my worst ever finish at GoldDerby (874th place finish of 9,721 participants - top 9% though!) Having finished 12th, 1st, 8th, and 4th in years past, this year’s results were nothing to write home about. In particular, the short film categories proved trickier than usual for most every prognosticator (likely owing to the fact that the shortlists for those categories increased from ten to fifteen).

Read on for a list of the nominations and my predictions results.

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

My Predictions: 8/10 (had Drive My Car at #11 and Nightmare Alley at #13)
Missed the Cut: tick, tick…BOOM!, Being the Ricardos
Analysis: Returning to a fixed set of ten nominees for the first time since 2010, this field offered up a nice mix of studio films, indies, and even an international pic. Hopefully voters are able to continue to see more films and expand their definition of what a Best Picture is - it’s past time for a Documentary to be included here, for example! With its dominant dozen nominations, The Power of the Dog got a major boost to its frontrunner status as it hopes to do for Netflix what Roma was just shy of doing a few years back. Seemingly so far in front in fact, that it’s tough to discern which of the other nine nominees is actually challenging as runner-up. Belfast, CODA, Dune, West Side Story, and King Richard shouldn’t be counted out, but each missed one or more big nominations (with Oscar and at other precursor awards) that usually point to a victory. We’ll look ahead to the Producer’s Guild Award as the only other voting body to use the preferential ballot used by the Academy to see where this race might lie closer to the ceremony.

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

My Predictions: 4/5.
Missed the Cut: Denis Villeneuve (Dune), Adam McKay (Don’t Look Up)
Analysis: Campion becomes the first woman in history to nab a second nomination in this category (28 years after she became just the second woman ever nominated for Best Director for The Piano). She likely has this all sewn up, even if her film stumbles at the finish line. Voters might be waiting to award Villeneuve for Dune Part Two, but his absence here was the biggest jaw-dropper of nominations morning.

BEST ACTOR
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)

My Predictions: 4/5.
Miss the Cut: Leonardo DiCaprio (Don’t Look Up), Peter Dinklage (Cyrano), Nicolas Cage (Pig)
Analysis: Bardem nabbed that open fifth slot, though Ricardos proved to only have support from the actors branch. Will Smith, on his third Best Actor nomination, is very far out front in this race.

BEST ACTRESS
Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye)
Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter)
Penelope Cruz (Parallel Mothers)
Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos)
Kristen Stewart (Spencer)

My Predictions: 4/5.
Missed the Cut: Lady Gaga (House of Gucci), Alana Haim (Licorice Pizza), Jennifer Hudson (Respect), Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World), Rachel Zegler (West Side Story)
Analysis: This year’s most turbulent category continued the Best Actress chaos with a shock snub for Gaga, a rally for former frontrunner KStew, and a welcome surprise in Penelope Cruz. The battle for the win might be as hectic as last season and we can’t even look to BAFTA to see which way the wind is blowing as precisely zero of their Actress nominees overlap here. Any of the five could take it at this point.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Ciarán 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)

My Predictions: 4/5.
Missed the Cut: Bradley Cooper (Licorice Pizza), Jared Leto (House of Gucci), Jamie Dornan (Belfast), Ben Affleck (The Tender Bar), Mike Faist (West Side Story)
Analysis: I was happy to predict both the Plemons inclusion (showing just how strong Power of the Dog is across almost every branch of the Academy) and the Jared Leto exclusion (thank goodness), but this will come down to Smit-McPhee vs Kotsur.

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)

My Predictions: 3/5.
Missed the Cut: Caitríona Balfe (Belfast), Ruth Negga (Passing), Ann Dowd (Mass), Cate Blanchett (Nightmare Alley), Rita Moreno (West Side Story), Marlee Matlin (CODA)
Analysis: The nominations announcement began with this category and from the first name called (Jessie Buckley?!) we knew we were in for a wild year. And then Judi Dench popped up to net her eighth career nomination over a costar we all thought was safe, no less! Ariana DeBose will win for her Anita in West Side Story, 61 years after Rita Moreno did the same.

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

My Predictions: 4/5.
Missed the Cut: Being the Ricardos, Parallel Mothers, Mass, C’mon C’mon, The French Dispatch
Analysis: Despite three acting nominations, Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos was blanked everywhere else, most surprisingly in this category. The Worst Person in the World nabbing this mention was the highlight of the morning for me, though it’ll likely lose to either Belfast or Licorice Pizza.

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

My Predictions: 5/5.
Missed the Cut: West Side Story, Nightmare Alley, Passing, The Tragedy of Macbeth
Analysis: With a win here for Power of the Dog, Jane Campion would add to the Original Screenplay Oscar she won for The Piano, making her the first woman to win both writing categories.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Encanto
Flee
Luca
The Mitchells vs the Machines
Raya & the Last Dragon

My Predictions: 5/5.
Missed the Cut: Belle, Sing 2
Analysis: Encanto is coming in hot and looking to best critic’s fave Mitchells vs the Machines.

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
Drive My Car (Japan)
Flee (Denmark)
The Hand of God (Italy)
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (Bhutan)
The Worst Person in the World (Norway)

My Predictions: 4/5.
Missed the Cut: A Hero (Iran), Compartment No. 6 (Finland)
Analysis: A rare year indeed when 3/5 of these films received nominations outside of this category, though with major mentions for Director and Screenplay (oh, plus a little Best Picture nom), Drive My Car should …drive away with this win.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Ascension
Attica
Flee
Summer of Soul (…or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Writing With Fire

My Predictions: 2/5. Oops!
Missed the Cut: The Rescue, Procession, In the Same Breath
Analysis: Flee went three for three, nabbing nominations in Doc, International, and Animated (a first for any film) - alas, it’s not the frontrunner in any of its three races, with Summer of Soul likely out front here.

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

My Predictions: 4/5.
Missed the Cut: Belfast
Analysis: Dog’s DP Ari Wegner is just the second woman nominated for Best Cinematography (after Mudbound’s Rachel Morrison) and hoping to be its first winner. As with most of the tech categories this year though, she’ll face stiff competition from Dune.

BEST FILM EDITING
Don’t Look Up
Dune
King Richard
The Power of the Dog
tick, tick…BOOM!

My Predictions: 2/5. Oops!
Missed the Cut: Belfast, West Side Story, Licorice Pizza, No Time to Die

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

My Predictions: 3/5.
Missed the Cut: The French Dispatch, Cyrano, Belfast
Analysis: One of the few below-the-line categories that Dune might not win, though it’s right up there with Nightmare Alley.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Cruella
Cyrano
Dune
Nightmare Alley
West Side Story

My Predictions: 5/5.
Missed the Cut: House of Gucci, The Power of the Dog

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

My Predictions: 4/5.
Missed the Cut: The French Dispatch, No Time to Die, Spencer, Being the Ricardos

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
"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)

My Predictions: 4/5.
Missed the Cut: “Just Look Up” (Don’t Look Up), “Here I Am (Singing My Way Home)” (Respect), “Guns Go Bang” (The Harder They Fall), “So We May Start” (Annette), “Beyond the Shore” (CODA)
Analysis: This branch really can’t get enough of Diane Warren as she earns her 13th nomination in this category for a movie no one saw or will see (Four Good Days??), and a song no one actually listened to. I kid, but only slightly. Beyonce nabs her first Oscar nom for the song from King Richard, but it’s likely the other Grammy magnets, Billie Eilish and Finneas with “No Time to Die”, who will take down the Encanto song (preventing Lin-Manuel Miranda from completing his EGOT).

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Coming 2 America
Cruella
Dune
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
House of Gucci

My Predictions: 5/5.
Missed the Cut: The Suicide Squad, West Side Story, Cyrano

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

My Predictions: 4/5.
Missed the Cut: Spider-Man: No Way Home, A Quiet Place Part II, tick, tick…BOOM!, Last Night in Soho

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

My Predictions: 3/5.
Missed the Cut: The Matrix Resurrections, Godzilla vs Kong, Ghostbusters: Afterlife

As for the short film categories, I managed just 3/5 in Documentary Short, 2/5 in Animated Short, and an impressively abysmal 1/5 in Live Action Short.

On to Phase Two!

The 94th Annual Academy Awards will be broadcast live on ABC on Sunday, March 27th.