Get ready for tonight's 93rd Academy Awards

After months of trudging through the longest (and dullest) award season in modern history, tonight Hollywood hosts the 93rd Academy Awards. It’s going to look very different.

Despite the mandated flexibility of making the show go on and the movie business’s current tumultuous state, I’m still expecting tonight to be fun. It can be easy to feel cynical about another award show, but this is the Oscars - it really is an honour to win.

My advice? Like most entertainment during the pandemic, take the show's spirit seriously and the literal show less so. You’ll relax and have a lot more fun, but if you want some help filling out an Oscar ballot for your stay-at-home party, my annual cheat sheet is listed below.

The equally prestigious and localized ceremony celebrates the best in filmmaking from not just 2020 but also early 2021. One of the many changes this year is the Academy allowed movies released in a 14-month window (instead of twelve) to qualify for awards, from January 1, 2020, to February 28, 2021.

Another temporary change is you didn’t need a theatrical release. With many cinemas still closed, like they were most of 2020, any movie that had planned or scheduled a release that was then cancelled got a free pass (just for this year).

Lastly, the award show itself will look different. Oscar-winner Steven Soderbergh is directing the TV broadcast. Most of the details are a closely guarded secret, but he’s gone on record saying the show “will feel like watching a movie.”

But who’s going to bring home a statuette? That’s the big question of the night. Luckily, I saw more than 250 movies last year, including over 90% of all the nominated movies at tonight’s show. After an exciting year in cinema, let me help guide you in the likeliest winners.

Like most years, the Academy is expected to give multiple prizes to several movies instead of several to only one or two. It’s worth remembering that predicting the Oscars isn’t about who you want to win. It’s about who you think the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science actually voted to win.

Here are my predictions for the five movies I believe will win more than one statuette. You can use my background and predictions to help you win your Oscar ballot tonight.

NOMADLAND

• Best Picture
• Best Director for Chloé Zhao
• Best Adapted Screenplay for Chloé Zhao
• Best Cinematography for Joshua James Richards

Nomadland is truly outstanding in its entertainment value, wisdom, beauty, nuance and soul. What else can I say? It won't be everyone's cup of tea, and it's certainly no big-screen blockbuster. But it's so beautiful and resonant in so many ways I couldn't stop watching. It is unquestionably the best movie of 2020. (Read the original Oakville News review from September 2020 here.)

MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM

• Best Actor for Chadwick Boseman as Levee Green
• Best Costume Design
• Best Makeup and Hairstyling

It's still a mystery how this film didn't make the cut to be a Best Picture nominee, even with six Oscar nominations and a likely three wins. None of these are locked, including the late, great Boseman for Best Actor, but his likely win tonight is equally for his work in this film as it is the legacy and his whole filmography that he left behind. (Read the full Oakville News review here.)

PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN

• Best Actress for Carey Mulligan as "Cassie" Thomas
• Best Original Screenplay for Emerald Fennell

Best Actress is by far the hardest category to pick. The most deserving nominee, Vanessa Kirby in Pieces of a Woman, is the only one with zero chance of winning. But the other movies (including stars of the first two movies listed above) are getting rewarded somewhere else, and the fact Mulligan is in almost every scene of the film makes her the frontrunner.

SOUL

• Best Animated Feature Film
• Best Score for Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste

One of the most creative and sophisticated animated movies ever, this should have been in more categories like Best Picture and screenplay. Soul was a risk for Pixar being their first dramatic film, but my did it pay off. And the music? Reznor and Ross won ten years ago for The Social Network, and now they, with Jon Batiste's jazz elevating the story, will win again. (Read the full Oakville News review here.)

SOUND OF METAL

• Best Sound
• Best Editing

When the word "sound" begins the title, winning Best Sound is a no-brainer. But this drama about a rock drummer losing his hearing is less likely for editing; this could also go to The Trial of the Chicago 7. (Read the full Oakville News review here.)

Another fun fact: editing is the fourth of Chloé Zhao's nominations tonight for Nomadland, and it's likely the only one she'll lose. But if she does win them all, she'll be the first woman ever to win four Oscars in one night.

The other two acting prizes will likely go to Daniel Kaluuya as Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah for Best Supporting Actor and Youn Yuh-jung winning Best Supporting Actress for her performance as grandmother Soon-ja in Minari.

Other frontrunners include Denmark’s Another Round for Best International Film, Leslie Odom Jr. and Sam Ashworth’s “Speak Now” from One Night in Miami for Best Original Song, and the amusingly titled My Octopus Teacher for Best Documentary Film.

Tonight’s ceremony begins airing on various networks at 8:00 p.m., but if you’re looking for a pre-show event, there’s a local one: I (Tyler, the author) am co-hosting an Oscars trivia show with Film.Ca Cinemas CEO Jeff Knoll tonight.

The local cinema normally hosts an in-person party, but this year’s party is digital in order to remain safe. The game is free, appropriate for all ages, and winners get the cinema’s new Zuzu’s popcorn. The game starts at 6:00 p.m., and you can learn more online on how to watch and play from home here.

If you’re interested in reading about my in-depth analysis for all 23 categories tonight, you can read and download my annual film essay for free by clicking here. It contains my complete predictions for tonight’s Academy Awards. It also includes a recap of my movie-watching habits and thoughts on all movies from 2020.

Otherwise, get ready for an exciting and unpredictable 93rd Academy Awards. As Bette Davis said in the 1951 Best Picture winner All About Eve, “Fasten your seatbelts: It’s going to be a bumpy night!”