Oh man. I’m falling behind. Stupid personal life, rearing its ugly head in at literally the worst possible time – less than a week before the Academy Awards! I’m gonna try to speed through the last few categories as quickly as possible. Next year, I’m already planning to have a bunch of them written early.

The last couple of categories are going to be complete guesswork. So here’s a movie that you’re going to be seeing a lot of in my next few prediction articles – Mad Max: Fury Road. It just seems to be one of those films that cleans up in the technical awards but falls short in Best Picture.

5th Most Likely To Win: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

This nominee was a big surprise. Non-best picture nominees rarely, if ever win. Especially considering the competition also includes a big action movie with explosions. The original 1977 film won film Editing but none of the sequels were nominated until now. This would be an exceptionally odd winner.

4th Most Likely To Win: Spotlight

This film is, in my eyes, the Best Picture frontrunner. But there’s nothing about the editing of the film that’s particularly noticeable. It could win… but only if the film wins Best Picture. And even then, it’s pretty unlikely.

3rd Most Likely To Win: The Revenant

In most of the technical categories, the race is clearly between The Revenant and Fury Road. But I highly doubt that The Revenant is gonna win this one, mainly because the editing is actually a drawback to this movie.  It’s way too long and unfocused. A win here would be completely undeserved. Sadly, it’s not impossible.

2nd Most Likely To Win: The Big Short

A very close race. If this is winning Best Picture, it’s definitely also winning this. Unlike Spotlight, the editing really stands out. It’s effectively used to tell the story, which is the way great editing should be done. It’s done in a very fast-paced style and it could very easily win. And yet…

MY PREDICTED WINNER: Mad Max: Fury Road

It seems to me that this category usually goes to the film with the ‘showiest’ editing. And editing doesn’t get more ‘showy’ than in Mad Max: Fury Road The editing is one aspect that everybody seems to be praising. And since a number of films with better editing failed to make the cut, this is the movie I would vote for. Heck, the editing is probably one of the major reasons why everybody loves the movie so much in the first place!

I’ve seen four of the five nominees. My ranking is;

1.) Mad Max: Fury Road
2.) The Big Short
3.) Spotlight
4.) The Revenant