Guild Predictions: Art Directors, Costume Designers, Sound Designers, Film Editors, Sound Editors
Critics awards are fun and they can help create potential narratives (or bolster existing ones) but it’s the film and television guilds that really tell us where the wind is blowing for Oscar nominations. Many guild members are also members of their corresponding Academy branch and next week is going to bring us the Art Directors Guild (9th), Cinema Audio Society (10th), Costume Designers Guild (10th), American Cinema Editors (11th) and the Motion Picture Sound Editors (13th).
Eligibility is key in many of these guild races (which is what makes the Writers Guild such a strange batch of noms every year) and sometimes the list of eligible films to choose from can come from a relatively small pool (like the ADG). Still, it takes a bit of knowledge and instinct to know what they’re going to go for and what it will actually mean. Three of these groups split their nominations by categories including comedy or drama for ACE and period, fantasy and contemporary for ADG and CDG. That gives us 15 nominations each from which to figure out how to get it to five for an Academy Award nod.
Sometimes these guilds follow the path for a film we already know it’s on but sometimes, like last year with Bohemian Rhapsody, it highlights that a film is potentially a tech behemoth that we need to be in front of rather than behind. What looks like that this year? I think Joker is the biggest, most likely candidate to be a huge guild getter. It could show up at every one of these. This might be where Downton Abbey shows off its best finery or where a straightforward drama like Marriage Story asserts itself as a Best Picture frontrunner. Ad Astra, 1917 and Ford v Ferrari should be major players here as well. But there’s also always those films that perform really well at this stage and then just seem to disappear right at Oscar nomination voting. A Quiet Place did that last year, across multiple guilds (including SAG and PGA) and ended up with a single mention, for Sound Editing.
Here are my predictions for the Art Directors Guild (ADG), Cinema Audio Society (CAS), Costume Designers Guild (CDG), American Cinema Editors (ACE) and the Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE).
Art Directors Guild (ADG)
Period Film
- 1917
- Jojo Rabbit
- Joker
- Little Women
- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Spoilers: Downton Abbey, Ford v Ferrari, The Irishman
Fantasy Film
- Aladdin
- Avengers: Endgame
- Cats
- Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Spoilers: Ad Astra, Alita: Battle Angel, Dumbo
Contemporary Film
- A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
- Knives Out
- Marriage Story
- Parasite
- The Two Popes
Spoilers: Us
Cinema Audio Society (CAS)
- 1917
- Ford v Ferrari
- Joker
- Rocketman
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Spoilers: Avengers: Endgame, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Costume Designers Guild (CDG)
Excellence in Period Film
- Dolemite Is My Name
- Joker
- Little Women
- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
- Rocketman
Spoilers: The Aeronauts, Downton Abbey, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit
Excellence in Fantasy Film
- Aladdin
- Avengers: Endgame
- Dumbo
- Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Spoilers: Ad Astra, Captain Marvel
Excellence in Contemporary Film
- Bombshell
- Hustlers
- Marriage Story
- The Two Popes
- Us
Spoilers: Knives Out, Parasite
American Cinema Editors (ACE)
Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic)
- 1917
- Ford v Ferrari
- The Irishman
- Joker
- Marriage Story
Spoilers: Parasite, Richard Jewell, The Two Popes
Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy)
- Hustlers
- Jojo Rabbit
- Knives Out
- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
- Parasite
Spoilers: Dolemite Is My Name, The Farewell, Rocketman, Uncut Gems
Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE)
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Feature Animation
- The Addams Family
- Frozen II
- How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
- I Lost My Body
- Missing Link
- Spies in Disguise
- Toy Story 4
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Foreign Language Feature
- Atlantics
- Invisible Life
- Les Misérables
- Monos
- Pain and Glory
- Parasite
- System Crasher
- Tel Aviv on Fire
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Feature Motion Picture – Music Underscore
- 1917
- Ad Astra
- The Aeronauts
- Avengers: Endgame
- Ford v Ferrari
- Joker
- The Lion King
- Parasite
- Us
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Feature Motion Picture – Musical
- Cats
- Frozen II
- The Lion King
- Rocketman
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Feature Motion Picture – Dialogue/ADR
- 1917
- Ad Astra
- Ford v Ferrari
- The Irishman
- Jojo Rabbit
- Joker
- Marriage Story
- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
- Us
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Feature Motion Picture – Effects/Foley
- 1917
- Ad Astra
- The Aeronauts
- Alita: Battle Angel
- Ford v Ferrari
- Joker
- Midway
- Spider-Man: Far From Home
- Us
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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