It Wouldn’t Be A Best Picture Race Without More Controversy [Contender Countdown]

94th Annual Academy Awards are Sunday, and that means it's time to name the best of the best of the past year in film. While not quite as chaotic as last year's pandemic-altered releases, this year still offered an interesting mix of theatrical blockbusters, acclaimed streamers and some combination of the two (thanks, HBO Max!). The top films of the year span the cinematic spectrum as well, including a Western, a musical, a star-studded satire, a horror-noir, a Japanese road film and a handful of heartfelt family dramas, leaving voters with some big decisions to make when it comes to the Academy's biggest prizes. So, who will win? Here are ET's predictions for the 2022 Oscars, based on who's been winning with the guilds, the BAFTAs and other precursor awards shows, as well as the ebb and flow of recent film trends.

CODA is on a roll this final weekend of Oscar voting (Ballots are due at 5:00pm pt on Tuesday) , getting a major shot of adrenaline by taking the PGA’s top Best Picture prize, and now just picking up the WGA award for Adapted Screenplay today. If you are counting that now gives it a solid three of the four major guild (DGA, PGA, SAG, WGA) honors to put itself in a strong position going into the last stop of this long season, the Oscars next Sunday. What this one-two-three punch will mean to the ongoing Oscar balloting is anyone’s guess, but the headlines of these major peer group wins from groups that definitely have some significant crossover with Academy membership will be hard to ignore.

Apple Original Films’ CODA has won the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures at PGA Awards tonigtht, making a Best Picture win at Oscar next Sunday highly likely — while also making history as the first ever streaming film to win this award at the Producers Guild Awards.

Marlee Matlin made history by becoming the first (and still only) deaf actor to win an Oscar, picking up best actress for Children of a Lesser God. This year Matlin is not nominated, but her film Coda is up for three awards: best picture; best adapted screenplay and best supporting actor for her co-star and on-screen husband, the deaf actor Troy Kotsur (he’s the leading contender after trousering the Bafta on Sunday). On paper, Coda doesn’t look like a gamechanger.

Clayton Davis “CODA” is on the rise as Oscar voting gets underway — and writer and director Siân Heder admits she’s surprised by the love and adoration the film has received in recent months.That includes, most recently, her BAFTA win for adapted screenplay. On the latest episode of the award-winning “Variety Awards Circuit Podcast,” we talk to Heder about what it feels like to be an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, and working with her talented cast, which includes the Oscar-nominated Troy Kotsur, along with Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin, Emilia Jones and Daniel Durant.

Clayton Davis A weekend trio of big wins for Netflix at the DGA, BAFTA and Critics Choice awards has given Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” the gas required to make it over the finish line. That’s if it can keep its closest competitors — “Belfast” from Kenneth Branagh and “CODA” from Siân Heder — at bay.The Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures, which is the top prize from the PGA Awards, has been one of the most vital and telling precursors from all major guilds.

Each of this year’s Best Picture nominees has survived a journey to cross the finish line, before earning the Academy’s consideration. Here’s how they came together.

Winning the Academy Award for Best Picture often demands so much more than simply making a great film. Sometimes, it comes down to peaking in the minds of awards voters in the final weeks of the season, capturing late awards and having the cast and story to charm the voters.

2022 Academy Awards fast approaching, another set of presenters have been announced. Halle Bailey, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Jamie Lee Curtis, Woody Harrelson, Samuel L. Jackson, Shawn Mendes, Tyler Perry and Tracee Ellis Ross will present at the 94th Oscars.Previously announced presenters include Daniel Kaluuya, Mila Kunis, Lupita Nyong’o, Naomi Scott, Wesley Snipes, John Travolta,  Ruth E. Carter, Anthony Hopkins, Lily James, John Leguizamo, Simu Liu, Rami Malek, Uma Thurman, Lady Gaga, Kevin Costner, Zoë Kravitz, Rosie Perez, Chris Rock and Yuh-Jung Youn. «Movies inspire us, entertain us and unite us across the globe,» said show producer Will Packer in a press release.

Clayton Davis Netflix has the right to flex after this weekend’s trio of big wins from the Directors Guild of America (DGA), BAFTA and Critics Choice Awards, where it won the top prizes with Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog.” With its mighty 12 nomination haul, and the criticism from Oscar-nominee Sam Elliott over the movie’s homosexual themes, arguably helping it along, the film could be headed for B-E-S-T-P-I-C-T-U-R-E (so to speak). However, with two 50/50 screenplay categories up for grabs — “Belfast” and “Licorice Pizza” battling for original, and “CODA” and “The Power of the Dog” angling for adapted — the answer to which film wins the Academy’s top prize is within those races.Walking into a ceremony with the most nominations is not always a given for Oscar success, shown by our last three tally leaders: “Mank” (2020), “Joker” (2019), “The Favourite” and “Roma” (2018).

LONDON -- Sci-fi epic “Dune” won five prizes and brooding Western “The Power of the Dog” was named best picture as the British Academy Film Awards returned Sunday with a live, black-tie ceremony after a pandemic-curtailed event in 2021.New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion was named best director for “The Power of the Dog,” becoming only the third woman to win the prize in the awards’ seven-decade history.Lead acting trophies went to Hollywood star Will Smith and British performer Joanna Scanlan, as an event that has worked to overcome a historic lack of diversity recognized a wide range of talents — including its first deaf acting winner in Troy Kotsur for “CODA.”Last year’s awards ceremony was largely conducted online, with only the hosts and presenters appearing in person.

The 27th Annual Critics Choice Awards handed out their laundry list of honors on Sunday afternoon in a ceremony hosted by the incredible Nicole Byer and Taye Diggs. The Critics’ Choice never met an award they didn’t like and all in all handed out 41 trophies across both film and television.

as the British Academy Film Awards returned Sunday with a live, black-tie ceremony after a pandemic-curtailed event in 2021.Jane Campion was named best director for “The Power of the Dog,” only the third woman to win the prize in the awards’ 75-year history.Lead acting trophies went to Hollywood star Will Smith and British performer Joanna Scanlan, as an event that has worked to overcome a historic lack of diversity recognized a wide range of talents — including the first deaf acting winner in Troy Kotsur for “CODA.”Last year’s awards ceremony was largely conducted online, with only the hosts and presenters appearing in person.

Clayton Davis Women filmmakers are taking the reins of their destinies in Hollywood, with many stepping behind the camera and creating stories universal to the human condition. This has been a slow-moving machine to see these talents recognized at the Oscars, especially in best director.In the 94-year history of the Academy Awards, there have been 581 films nominated for the top prize for best picture.

Volcano director Roman Bondarchuk, Valentyn Vasyanovych (Atlantis) and Nariman Aliev (Homeward) explaining their reasoning.“Ukrainians are defending their freedom and right to exist,” Bondarchuk recently said in a statement obtained by The Guardian, while also criticising opera singer Anna Netrebko who cancelled performances at the Met in New York.“We need help. It is necessary to limit the influence of Russian culture in the world.

Clayton Davis The best picture Oscar race is in a dead heat, with any number of paths to victory. But there’s another fierce competition, years in the making, to be the first streaming giant to win the Academy Awards’ most coveted honor.On the television side, Netflix and Amazon each made a play to become the first streamer to win the Emmy Award for either of the top series categories, but Hulu shattered the glass ceiling with “The Handmaid’s Tale” in 2017.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticThe Oscar campaign for “CODA” has touted the film as “history-making.” If you wanted to be a literal-minded curmudgeon about it, you could say that the history it’s talking about was already made — when Marlee Matlin, in 1986, became the first deaf performer to win an Academy Award for best actress, for her great, ardent, wounded performance in “Children of a Lesser God.” Matlin deserved to win (the other nominated actresses that year were Jane Fonda for “The Morning After,” Sissy Spacek for “Crimes of the Heart,” Kathleen Turner for “Peggy Sue Got Married,” and Sigourney Weaver for “Aliens,” which is the only one I’d put in Matlin’s league).Nevertheless, history works in waves. Sidney Poitier made history by becoming the first Black actor to be a Hollywood star, as well as the first to win an Academy Award for best actor (in 1963, for “Lilies of the Field”).

Sasha Urban editorThe Hollywood Critics Association held its fifth annual awards on Monday in-person at the Avalon Hollywood in Los Angeles, Calif.Siân Heder’s “CODA,” which won for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture at the SAG Awards Sunday, took the top award for best picture, with Heder winning for adapted screenplay and Troy Kotsur winning for supporting actor. The HCA also honored the cast of the film with a spotlight award, while the best cast ensemble award went to the cast of Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast.”“Dune” led the evening with four awards, including the best director tie between Denis Villeneuve and “Power of the Dog” helmer Jane Campion.

Clayton Davis The SAG Awards may have signaled a shift in the Oscar season and the switch of support for the streamers.After landing 12 Oscar nominations, Netflix’s “The Power of the Dog” looked to be the odds-on favorite to win best picture, a prize the streamer has coveted since its historic run for “Roma” (2018). However, the streaming giant went home empty-handed on the film side of the house, just one year after becoming the second studio to garner the most nominations for ensemble with three.Apple Original Films’ “CODA” had a momentous evening, winning cast ensemble and supporting actor for Troy Kotsur, who’s the first deaf actor ever to be nominated and win.