2022 Oscar Predictions: FILM EDITING and CINEMATOGRAPHY (December)

We won’t have guild nominations for film editing (ACE) and cinematography (ASC) until next month but there are a few critics groups who expand outside of the traditional ‘top 8’ categories and animated/documentary/international film.

For film editing there isn’t much of a consensus or leader as Washington DC went for tick, tick…BOOM! while Phoenix and Boston Online went for Dune. West Side Story captured Las Vegas and Chicago went for The French Dispatch. In cinematography, however, Ari Wegner’s lensing of The Power of the Dog is the frontrunner (with critics) five wins: Atlanta, Boston and Boston Online, New York Online and Chicago. Dune is no slouch with three wins so far: Washington DC, Phoenix and South Eastern. Nightmare Alley picked up a win from Philadelphia and The Tragedy of Macbeth was first out of the gate with its NBR win.

Here are my ranked 2022 Oscar predictions in Film Editing and Cinematography for December 2021.

FILM EDITING

Green – moves up ↑ Red – moves down ↓ Blue – new/re-entry ♦ Black – no movement ↔

1. Dune – Joe Walker (Warner Bros/HBO Max) ↔
2. Belfast – Úna Ni Dhonghaile (Focus Features) ↔
3. The Power of the Dog – Peter Sciberras (Netflix) ↑
4. King Richard – Pamela Martin (Warner Bros/HBO Max) ↓
5. Don’t Look Up – Hank Corwin (Netflix) ↔
6. West Side Story – Sarah Broshar and Michael Kahn (20th Century Studios) ↑
7. No Time to Die – Tom Cross and Elliot Graham (MGM/UAR) ↑
8. tick, tick…BOOM! – Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum (Netflix) ↑
9. Nightmare Alley – Cam McLauchlin (Searchlight Pictures) ↓
10. The Matrix Resurrections – Joseph Jett Sally (Warner Bros/HBO Max) ↓

Other contenders:
CODA – Geraud Brisson (Apple)
Flee – Janus Billeskov Jansen (NEON) ↓
House of Gucci – Claire Simpson (MGM/UA)
Licorice Pizza – Paul Thomas Anderson (as Andy Jurgensen) (MGM/UAR)
Spencer – Sebastián Sepúlveda (NEON)
The Tragedy of Macbeth – Joel Coen (as Reginald Jaynes) and Lucian Johnston (A24/Apple Original Films)

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Green – moves up ↑ Red – moves down ↓ Blue – new/re-entry ♦ Black – no movement ↔

1. The Power of the Dog – Ari Wegner (Netflix) ↑
2. Dune – Greig Fraser (Warner Bros/HBO Max) ↓
3. The Tragedy of Macbeth – Bruno Delbonnel (A24/Apple Original Films) ↔
4. Belfast – Haris Zambarloukos (Focus Features) ↔
5. West Side Story – Janusz Kaminski (20th Century Studios) ↑
6. Nightmare Alley – Dan Laustsen (Searchlight Pictures)
7. Spencer – Claire Mathon (NEON) ↓
8. C’mon C’mon – Robbie Ryan (A24) ↔
9. Licorice Pizza – Michael Bauman and Paul Thomas Anderson (MGM/UAR) ↔
10. The French Dispatch – Robert Yeoman (Searchlight Pictures) ↔

Other contenders:
Being the Ricardos – Jeff Cronenweth (Amazon Studios)
Cyrano – Seamus McGarvey (MGM/UAR)
Don’t Look Up – Linus Sandgren (Netflix)
House of Gucci – Dairusz Wolski (MGM/UA)
King Richard – Robert Elswit (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
The Matrix Resurrections – Danielle Massaccesi and John Toll (Warner Bros/HBO Max)
No Time to Die – Linus Sandgren (MGM/UAR)
tick, tick…BOOM! – Alice Brooks (Netflix)

Photo by Niko Tavernise/20 Century Studios

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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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