For our sixteenth and final Rundown article, we look at the Big One. After the jump, you’ll find our winner and runner-up predictions for Best Picture as well as general commentary about the race.

Best Picture

Winner Predictions

• American Sniper
• Birdman (TB R) [New]
• Boyhood (WL O) (PP O) (TL O)
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• The Imitation Game
• Selma
• The Theory of Everything
• Whiplash

Runner-Up Predictions

• Birdman (WL R) [New] (PP R) [New] (TL R) [New]
• Boyhood (TB R) [New]

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Wesley Lovell: For 34 years, only one precedent has remained unblemished. It’s not the DGA. It’s not the PGA. It’s not the SAG. It isn’t even the trifecta. It’s a category that few concern themselves with and even fewer cite with regularity. That category is Best Editing. Not since Ordinary People in 1980 has a film won Best Picture at the Oscars without a nomination for Best Editing. Even films that won without a Best Director nomination like Driving Miss Daisy and Argo had a film editing nomination. It was a sign in 2005 that a Brokeback Mountain victory wasn’t in the cards. Yet, this year, I see more people ignoring the precedent in favor of a film that “doesn’t need an editing nomination to win.” Birdman is that film. When the Academy failed to nominate the film for the award, few took note of the exception and fewer still have used it as reasoning for their selections. While I want to predict a Birdman victory, I cannot shake the feeling that 34 years of history can’t be all wrong. That’s why I’m sticking with my pick of Boyhood as the eventual Best Picture winner. Sure, the guild sweep of Birdman would suggest it’s a stronger contender, but those guilds (PGA, SAG and DGA) are much larger in scope and more willing to look forward rather than behind. BAFTA lines up a lot with Oscar voters and recent years have shown it to be a better precursor than many. They went with Boyhood. There are myriad reasons Birdman could win and an equal number why Boyhood could win. Some precedent is getting kicked to the curb this year. It’s just a matter of which one loses out.
Peter J. Patrick: This should be a down to the wire race between early critics favorite Boyhood and guild favorite Birdman.
Tripp Burton: Has the tide really turned from Boyhood to Birdman, or does the BAFTA hold more weight than the other guilds and foresee a win here for Linklater? I for one cannot say, and I’ll be waiting with baited breath until the envelope is opened (and how lucky are we that for the second year in a row we get a tight race for Best Picture?). I’ll stick with guilds for now, but I also know that whatever happens, it will affect how we predict the Oscars for the next few years, at least.
Thomas La Tourrette: Without corresponding directing nominations Selma, The Theory of Everything, American Sniper and Whiplash are out of the equation. The Imitation Game just does not seem to have caught the Academy’s fancy, even with eight nominations, and I don’t believe it will be a factor in the voting. The Grand Budapest Hotel is likely to win the most Oscars this year, but I think it will be viewed as too slight to win for Best Picture, though the same might have been said about The Artist. That leaves only Boyhood and Birdman in contention. When Boyhood first opened and then started winning most of the precursor awards, it seemed to be the prohibitive front-runner. People could admire the devotion of director Richard Linklater and his small troupe of actors that met annually for 12 years for filming, and it looked like that admiration would carry over to the Oscar win. However, then Birdman won the PGA, DGA and SAG cast award which meant it was a definite contender. The momentum seemed to have totally shifted, but with a win from BAFTA for Boyhood, it really is up in the air. This really could go either way, and I am just not sure what way that will be. Personally, I liked Birdman better, but I am just not sure it is the type of film that the academy will totally take to their collective hearts. Boyhood looks likely to win for film editing, which often goes hand-in-hand with the Best Picture winner, which may be just enough to propel it to the win. It would not surprise me if Birdman won, but I think the Academy will honor Boyhood for the commitment the filming took to produce it.

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