Guild Predictions: Art Directors, Costume Designers, Sound Designers, Film Editors, Sound Editors

Erik Anderson December 7, 2019

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

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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.