Oscar Predictions: Best Sound Editing

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: All is Lost, Captain Phillips, Gravity, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Love Survivor

This year’s locks: Interstellar

Very likely: Fury, Birdman

Possible: Whiplash, American Sniper, Unbroken, Gone Girl

Unlikely: Guardians of the Galaxy, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, The Imitation Game

The rundown: Unlike Best Sound, this category tends to lean more towards the technical, honoring genre films along with, on average, two Best Picture nominees. I’m including Birdman and two other films that I feel like will place here even if they don’t make it to the top category: Whiplash and American Sniper. They’ll likely join tech-heavy Interstellar and Fury, which probably won’t be Best Picture contenders, and Unbroken and Gone Girl are their biggest other competition. Guardians of the Galaxy, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, and The Imitation Game could also show up.

One possible crazy scenario: Into the Woods, which is a sure thing for Best Sound, shows up here too despite historical evidence of musicals not being honored here.

Forecasted winner: It depends on what makes the cut but probably Interstellar.