2016 Oscars: FINAL Oscar Winner Predictions of the 2015/2016 Season

Erik Anderson February 24, 2016

The think pieces have been written, the conspiracy theories spun, the statistics thrown in and then thrown out again. It’s all come down to this, Oscar week. Oscar voting just concluded yesterday so nothing anyone says now can change anything. All we have left will be the ashes of predictions gone wrong or the triumph of a risk that pays off.

It’s been a wild ride this season, so much Oscar history is about to be made. Whether The Revenant pulls off a Best Picture win and subverts the PGA for the first time since the expanded field or The Big Short keeps that stat strong and becomes the first December release in 10 years to win or Spotlight laughs at us all and “surprises” by being the early frontrunner that never went away, it’s going to be a really interesting night. We’re keeping a very close eye on early awards that could tell us what the final result will be, most especially Film Editing. If that goes to The Big Short, as four Gold Rush Gang members are predicting, we could see it win Best Picture. Yet, only one person, Chris Pepper, is predicting that to happen. Just as only one person, Long Pham, is predicting Spotlight to win. They’re either crazy or brilliant if they’re right.

One of the fun elements of the night will be the 10 showdowns between The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road. I’ve been calling a sweep for The Revenant for a while now but I couldn’t quite go there in my final predictions. I simply can’t see Mad Max going home empty handed when so many other Best Picture nominees will be. Those tech categories, which Mad Max and The Revenant have volleyed back and forth on with the guilds, will be the most exciting.

It will be interesting to see how the #OscarsSoWhite controversy is handled, both by host Chris Rock and by the presenters and winners. It will no doubt be on the minds of everyone there. I look forward to (likely) winners Ennio Morricone and Sylvester Stallone battling it out for longest standing ovation. These are the moments that The Academy loves; creating a lasting memory and feeling good about themselves by giving an old white man an Oscar.

I hope they add all of the Leonardo DiCaprio Oscar memes into the In Memoriam this year, they will be sorely missed in future years.

I hope there are some shocking upsets in categories we think are rock solid. When you remove personal interest and involvement in the Oscars it makes the show a lot more fun.

Don’t forget to keep your eye on AwardsWatch’s twitter and main page on Oscar Sunday where I’ll be tweeting and updating the show live. Hopefully under the influence of lots of champagne.

Here are the FINAL Oscar winner predictions for the 2015/2016 season from The Gold Rush Gang in all 24 categories.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.