The 94th Oscars will be handed Sunday, March 27th, 2022.

As I have been doing for a few years, as we get into the awards season, I’ll post the fictional ballots for some of the guild awards, showing what my vote would be if I had one. I will, as a rule, abstain from my fictional vote if I haven’t seen at least half of the nominees. And to be perfectly clear, I’m not a member of any of these guilds and organizations.

A word. This will be the first time since the 1980s I won’t watch the telecast, so this is my last post about the Oscars until they decide to hand in all awards during the live telecast again. I do not agree with this change, and I think it disrespects roughly one-third of the nominees (and filmmaking professionals) by creating, in effect, two classes. What I can do to show my displeasure is to boycott the ceremony and stop talking about the Oscars. I debated internally if this post should go up; ultimately, most of the work had been done, so I decided on a compromise: I will post this to the blog but not on social media; this also gives me the chance to voice my displeasure here. AMPAS, a word of warning: out of sight, out of mind; the longer it takes for this mistake to be corrected, the more likely I will have stopped caring, at all.

The list of nominees can be seen here.

Here it goes:

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Troy Kotsur, for CODA

Best Film Editing: Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum, for tick, tick… BOOM!

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Donald Mowat, Love Larson, and Eva von Bahr, for Dune (Not seen: The Eyes of Tammy Faye.)

Best Costume Design: Luis Sequeira, for Nightmare Alley (Not seen: Cyrano.)

Best Production Design: Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau, for Nightmare Alley

Best Sound: Tod A. Maitland, Gary Rydstrom, Brian Chumney, Andy Nelson, and Shawn Murphy, for West Side Story

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Jessie Buckley, for The Lost Daughter

Best Documentary (Feature): Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Monica Hellström, Signe Byrge Sørensen and Charlotte De La Gournerie, for Flee (Not seen: Attica, Writing With Fire.)

Best Documentary (Short Subject): abstain (Not seen: Audible, Lead Me Home, The Queen of Basketball, Three Songs for Benazir, When We Were Bullies.)

Best Music (Original Score): Alberto Iglesias, for Parallel Mothers

Best Music (Original Song): Lin-Manuel Miranda, for “Dos Oruguitas”, from Encanto (Not seen Four Good Days, but listened to the song out of context.)

Best Animated Feature Film: Jared Bush, Byron Howard, Yvett Merino, and Clark Spencer, for Encanto

Best Visual Effects: Paul Lambert, Tristan Myles, Brian Connor, and Gerd Nefzer, for Dune

Best Short Film (Animated): abstain (Not seen: Affairs of the Art, Bestia, Boxballet, Robin Robin, The Windshield Wiper.)

Best Short Film (Live Action): abstain (Not seen: Ala Kachuu – Take and Run, The Dress, The Long Goodbye, On My Mind, Please Hold.)

Best International Feature Film: Drive My Car (Japan)

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Benedict Cumberbatch, for The Power of the Dog

Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay): Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa Oe, for Drive My Car

Best Writing (Original Screenplay): Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier, for The Worst Person in the World

Best Cinematography: Janusz Kaminski, for West Side Story

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Penélope Cruz, for Parallel Mothers (Not seen: Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye.)

Best Directing: Paul Thomas Anderson, for Licorice Pizza

Best Picture: Sara Murphy, Adam Somner and Paul Thomas Anderson, Producers, for  Licorice Pizza

2) West Side Story

3) Nightmare Alley

4) Drive My Car

5) CODA

6) Belfast

7) Dune

8) The Power of the Dog

9) King Richard

10) Don’t Look Up