Oscar Winner Predictions: Best Art Direction

The competition: The Grand Budapest Hotel (Adam Stockhausen and Anna Pinnock), The Imitation Game (Maria Djurkovic and Tatiana Macdonald), Interstellar (Nathan Crowley and Gary Fettis), Into the Woods (Dennis Gassner and Anna Pinnock), Mr. Turner (Suzie Davies and Charolotte Watts)

Previous winners: The Great Gatsby, Lincoln, Hugo, Alice in Wonderland, Avatar, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Sweeney Todd
My winner: Announcing shortly after the Oscars!
The facts: The only one of these nominees who has won before is Gassner, who took home a trophy for “Bugsy” in 1991. Pinnock, a double nominee this year, has contended before, as have Stockhausen, Crowley, and Fettis. Movies set in the present rarely win this award, but there is also no such film nominated this year.

Who should win: “Interstellar”
Who will win: It’s a fierce three-way battle. I don’t think that “The Grand Budapest Hotel” will have much technical success, and I’m inclined to favor the sci-fi settings of Interstellar over the overpopulated forest in “Into the Woods.”