December forum polls, part two: the race solidifies

As December draws to a close, our second forum poll series of the month sees what a few weeks of critics awards (okay, and SAG) can do to the race. In most cases, that means solidifying it. Check the trackers for the Big Eight categories for yourself here, and you’ll see that in most categories we are moving towards a consensus set of nominees. The ones most in doubt right now? Best Actress (thanks to Amy Adams gaining ground), Best Director (probably still the toughest to predict), and Best Supporting Actor. Furthermore, we feel eight films are really solid in terms of a Best Picture nomination: 12 Years A Slave, American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Gravity, Her, Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska, and Wolf of Wall Street. all these film have at least 80% of the forums putting their money on them. That is strong support.

Will our perspective on the race have changed once the industry awards nominations have started rolling out in early January? Be sure to check out in next month’s (nay, next year’s!) installment of our forum polls, which should be up around the middle of the month. Or follow developments as they, well, develop in our predictions forum.

• Author
• Recent Posts

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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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.

Latest posts by Erik Anderson (see all)

• Frontrunner Friday Oscar Predictions: We Need to Talk About ‘Marty’ - January 30, 2026
• 2026 Sundance Film Festival: ‘Josephine’ Wins Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award - January 30, 2026
• Midnight Critics Circle (MCC) Awards: ‘Marty Supreme’ Wins Best Picture - January 28, 2026