The time has finally come to open some envelopes and find out who will take home Oscars at tonight’s presentation of the 94th Annual Academy Awards. It’s been a long, strange season that has boiled down to two very different films directed by women and released via a streaming service duking it out for Best Picture with Netflix’s The Power of the Dog vs Apple TV+’s CODA. One is the critics’ fave with the most nominations of any of this year’s films (Power of the Dog has an even dozen mentions), while the other is tied as the least nominated Best Picture nominee this year (CODA is hoping to become the first Best Pic winner with fewer than 4 nominations since Grand Hotel in 1932). Either way, a streamer will take the top prize for the first time, cementing an industry shift several years in the making.

Last year’s Oscars, a muted and awkward affair, saw Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland take the highest honor along with trophies for Zhao’s direction and Frances McDormand’s third Best Actress statue. Academy producers then made the bizarre choice to push Best Actor to the final award, assuming a posthumous honor for Chadwick Boseman only to be surprised with an absent Anthony Hopkins victory to close the show. While this year’s shindig promises to be a return to a bigger and grander ceremony, the Academy has also made several perplexing choices - punting eight of the categories to be handed out during a non-televised pre-show is unprecedented and insulting, not to mention a truly strange and desperate attempt to court younger audiences to take time on the broadcast to shout out the results of a Twitter poll asking for #OscarsFanFavorite and #OscarsCheerMoment. After going hostless for the past several years, the trio of Regina Hall, Amy Schumer, and Wanda Sykes will handle hosting duties.

As ever, there’s a healthy mix of sure-things (Dune will net a handful of technical awards, likely being the most awarded film of the year; 3 of the acting categories feel locked up), tight battles (Billie Eilish or Lin-Manuel Miranda for Best Song?), and wide-open question marks (Best Editing is a true 5-way race and one of the most exciting categories this year - too bad it’s one of the eight that will be awarded off screen before the ceremony even officially begins). We’re Team Power of the Dog at CineMunch and are hoping Jane Campion’s masterpiece (not a word we throw around lightly) takes wins wherever it can!

So settle in, mix yourself a cocktail or two (in lieu of our traditional Oscar Menu, we’ll be sipping chocolate martinis), and follow along with our predictions below!

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.