For our third Rundown article, we take a look at how the Academy recognizes those who construct their favorite films. After the jump, you’ll find our winner and runner-up predictions for Best Film Editing as well as general commentary about the race. Thursday, we’ll cover the big non-fiction category.

Best Film Editing

Winner Predictions

• The Big Short
• Mad Max: Fury Road (WL O) (TB R) [New] (TL O)
• The Revenant
• Spotlight (PP R) [New]
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Runner-Up Predictions

• The Big Short (WL O) (PP R) [New] (TB R) [New] (TL R) [New]

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Wesley Lovell: With Best Film Editing, sometimes the more you know, the less you know. That’s the case with this year’s awards. With minor exceptions like Whiplash and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which arguably meet the “most editing” criteria, recent history has shown this award going to either a Best Picture frontrunner/contender or a massive tech achievement. That said, with winners like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Apollo 13, The Matrix, Black Hawk Down, The Lord of the Rings, The Bourne Ultimatum and Gravity, genre fare has a solid track record here. That pretty much eliminates Spotlight from the competition. Both Mad Max and The Revenant seem to fit the historical trend of this category well and I’m leaning right now towards Mad Max, which few can claim was overlong, which some have said about Revenant. The Big Short could surprise, but the last time an actual comedy won this award was 1988’s victor Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but it was very tech heavy. Before that, The Apartment in 1960 would be the last. Big Short would be a historically unusual winner, that’s for sure.
Peter J. Patrick: The editing award can be a harbinger of the Best Picture winner to come. This may be one of those years, in which case I am predicting Spotlight for the win with The Big Short the runner-up.
Tripp Burton: This is a more competitive category than usual this year. Mad Max and The Big Short won the two Eddie Awards last weekend, and that could bode well for both of them, but they also shouldn’t discount nominations leader The Revenant. This will be neck-and-neck until the envelope is opened, and I imagine that the winner here will be riding along the coattails of other wins: if Mad Max or The Revenant start sweeping the technical categories then this should be picked up along the way, but if The Big Short makes a strong run at Best Picture, it will probably need to win this award too.
Thomas La Tourrette: Although it often feels like it takes a nomination in this category for a film to win Best Picture, the award does not necessarily go to the Best Picture winner. Lately, only about half the awards have gone to best picture winners. While I do not think that Mad Max will go on to win the big prize, I think it will easily prevail here. It has recently won the ACE award and that should herald its win here. Spotlight probably had some of the best editing of the nominees as the film felt seamless and fairly fast paced, but the low-key style does not lend itself to awards. The Revenant and Star Wars had showier work, but neither seems likely to prevail, unless Revenant totally sweeps through all the awards. That could happen seeing as how it just won the Art Directors Guild award with very few sets, but it seems reasonably unlikely to do that. I think the strongest competition comes from The Big Short, which did win the ACE for comedy/musical editing. Unless it pulls a surprise sweep in its five categories, I do not expect it to win. Mad Max easily takes home the Oscar.

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