2021 Oscar Predictions: SOUND (November)

The Prom could be music to the ears of the sound branch of the Academy as one of the very few true musicals this year. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and The United States vs Billie Holiday will give good chase in the musical biopic department and the animated film Over the Moon could break in. The recombining of the two sound categories (editing and mixing) beginning this season will make it more difficult for all of these films though.

The Midnight Sky should be able to find a spot, the “space slot,” if you will and even the negative response to the sound mix in Tenet will likely be safe. The branch probably won’t be able to avoid the unique gimmick of Mank‘s mono sound nor the expansive sound design of Sound of Metal.

Here are my ranked 2021 Oscar predictions in Sound for November.

Green – moves up; Red – moves down; Blue – new entry this month

1. Soul (Pixar)
Nominees TBD

2. Tenet (Warner Bros)
Nominees TBD

3. Sound of Metal (Amazon Studios)
Nominees TBD

4. The Midnight Sky (Netflix)
Nominees TBD

5. Mank (Netflix)
Nominees TBD

6. The Prom (Netflix)
Nominees TBD

7. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Netflix)
Nominees TBD

8. Greyhound (Apple TV+)
Nominees TBD

9. News of the World (Universal Pictures)
Nominees TBD

10. Judas and the Black Messiah (Warner Bros)
Nominees TBD

Other Contenders

Bad Boys for Life (Columbia Pictures)
Nominees TBD

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (Warner Bros)
Nominees TBD

Da 5 Bloods (Netflix)
Nominees TBD

The Invisible Man (Universal Pictures)
Nominees TBD

Mulan (Walt Disney Pictures)
Nominees TBD

The Outpost (Screen Media Films)
Nominees TBD

Over the Moon (Netflix)
Nominees TBD

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix)
Nominees TBD

The United States vs. Billie Holiday (Paramount Pictures)
Nominees TBD

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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.

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