Oscar Predictions: Best Adapted Screenplay

This year, Oscar nominations will be announced on Tuesday, January 23rd. I’ll be offering detailed predictions in most of the major categories, saving some of the biggest categories for last.

Last year’s nominees: Arrival, Fences, Hidden Figures, Lion, Moonlight

This year’s locks: Call Me By Your Name, The Disaster Artist

Very likely: Molly’s Game

Possible: Mudbound, Victoria and Abdul, Logan, Wonder, Blade Runner 2049, Wonder Woman

Unlikely: The Lost City of Z, Wonderstruck

The rundown: This category is a hard one to predict. Both Call Me By Your Name and The Disaster Artist feel like sure things since the rest of the Best Picture contenders are all original screenplays. Molly’s Game should be a lock, but screenwriter Aaron Sorkin was snubbed two years ago for a much stronger, Globe-winning screenplay, “Steve Jobs,” so it’s far from guaranteed. The same goes for Mudbound, which might finally rebound with lots of Oscar love but has been spotty during awards season with the major awards bodies. After that, I have no clue. I have a hard time imaging that genre films like Logan, Blade Runner 2049, and Wonder Woman could crack the list, and Wonder and Wonderstruck have also been largely absent from awards season. I didn’t even realize that the 2016 New York Film Festival closing selection, The Lost City of Z, had been released, and that it’s been nominated once or twice on the awards circuit. That leaves me with a film that probably won’t manage a Best Actress nomination but seems up Oscars voters’ alley: Victoria and Abdul.

One possible crazy scenario: Once considered a strong contender for Best Actor, Stronger has all but disappeared from the awards conversation. Is this where it could finally show up?

Forecasted winner: I don’t see this going to anything but Call Me By Your Name.