Oscar Predictions: Best Art Direction

This year, Oscar nominations will be announced on Thursday, January 15th. As a result, most of the corresponding guilds won’t have announced their picks by then, so I’m making predictions in advance without being able to take those into consideration. I’ll be offering detailed predictions in most of the major categories, saving some of the biggest categories for last.

Last year’s nominees: American Hustle, Gravity, The Great Gatsby, Her, 12 Years a Slave

This year’s locks: Into the Woods, Interstellar

Very likely: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Possible: Fury, Mr. Turner, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, Birdman

Unlikely: Boyhood, A Most Violent Year, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The rundown: This category is usually friendly to epics and fantasy films, but the second Hobbit film didn’t make the cut last year after the first did the year before. Into the Woods seems like a no-brainer, and Interstellar should be recognized here as well. The Grand Budapest Hotel is an obvious choice, and let’s just hope that since the film is closer to a Best Picture nomination than a Wes Anderson film has ever been before, this will finally be the one to do it (“Her” getting in last year is inspiring at least). After that, I’m betting on Fury and Mr. Turner to be recognized here over a whole host of Best Picture contenders.

One possible crazy scenario: Something like Guardians of the Galaxy manages a mention.

Forecasted winner: Isn’t this (along with the next category) the place to reward Into the Woods?