Oscars predictions: How many Oscars will Netflix win this year?

Netflix was nominated for their most Oscars in the feature film categories with Roma and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. How many Oscars will Netflix win?

The 91st Oscars are less than a week away, and Best Picture still feels like it is up for grabs. A Star is Born might have been a frontrunner upon its release in October, but it has been a long five months since then. Each of the Hollywood guilds (Producers, Writers, Directors, Screen Actors, Cinematographers) has given their top prize to a different movie, leaving us without a dominant narrative in the run-up to Sunday.

Netflix has already won Oscars in Best Documentary Feature (2018’s Icarus) and Best Documentary Short Subject (2017’s The White Helmets), but they broke new ground in the awards conversation this year, racking up 14 nominations, as many nods as they’ve received in every previous year combined. Roma leads the way with 10 of those nominations, including Best Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, and Cinematography.

Roma’s campaign budget has likely exceeded its $15 million production budget. Fast Company reported last month that Netflix’s push to anoint their first Best Picture winner has cost somewhere around $25 million. That money, spent on screenings, billboards, dinners, and who knows what else, has bought them more nominations than they’ve ever had at once, but what wins are actually in their future? My guess is that they will end the night with six Oscars to add to the two they’ve already won.

In what categories? Here’s how I expect it to shake out:

Best Costume Design

Mary Zophres is up for her work on The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Netflix’s other multiple nominee this year. The title character’s creepily pristine white duds were an especially inspired stroke, but I think the real contenders for this award are Black Panther’s Ruth E. Carter and The Favourite’s Sandy Powell.

Best Cinematography

Alfonso Cuarón acted as his own Director of Photography on Roma. His camera moves slowly, back and forth, scanning each impeccably staged scene and then returning, almost like a wave. Water and waves are crucial to the story and visual language of the movie, and it is exciting to see form and content link up in that way. My guess: he will win. And he deserves it, even in an especially strong field.

Best Production Design 

Eugenio Caballero and Bárbara Enríquez are nominated for Roma here, but again I think it will be a fight between the suffocating, almost pungent gaudiness of The Favourite and Black Panther, a real feat of world-building, so lush and regal.

Best Sound Editing and Mixing

These two are tricky for many to discern or predict, myself included. But Roma is an incredible act of sound mixing. The layered conversations, sometimes several happening simultaneously and in the same frame, are handled masterfully. It deserves the Mixing Oscar, but there is more support for Bohemian Rhapsody (to some, a sensational auditory experience, though that’s more Queen’s doing than anyone else’s) across the board than anyone predicted, and I wonder if it will carry over into this category. My guess is that Roma wins Best Sound Mixing and loses Editing.

Best Original Song

“When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings,” written by David Rawlings and Gillian Welch, is the closing number of Buster Scruggs’  opening vignette. It’s a funny, sad little thing, and telegraphs the Coens’ central theme (spoiler: it is death) that ties the rest of these Old West shorts together. But I’m confident that “Shallow” has this one wrapped up. Though it might be their only win of the night.

Best Documentary Short Subject

I have to admit I’m in the dark on this one. This is one of two categories that Netflix has previously won, and they have two entries in the category this year: End Game and Period. End of Sentence. That gives them decent odds, so my relatively uninformed guess is that Netflix takes another trophy here.

Best Foreign Language Film

Roma will win here. It is the only film nominated for both Best Foreign Language Film and Best Picture. I do wonder if its votes in this category will detract from votes in the Best Picture race. That would be stupid, but Academy voters can be fickle. We’ll see.

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is made up of five short films set in the Old West, three of which feature original scripts by the Coen Brothers, so it’s inclusion in this category is a little odd to begin with. I think Spike Lee has the best chance at winning this one for his Blackkklansman script.

Best Original Screenplay

For all of its virtues, Roma is not a particularly dialogue-driven movie. I expect voters to hold that against it in this category and go with the chattier Green Book, which has a good foothold in the Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor races as well.

Best Supporting Actress

Marina de Tavira’s nomination for her portrayal of Sofía, the abandoned, resilient, mildly negligent mother in Roma was a big surprise, and it indicated a higher level of support of the movie, making it the closest thing we have to a frontrunner for Best Picture. That said, she has no chance. Regina King is likely to win for her work in If Beale Street Could Talk.

Best Actress

Yalitza Aparicio is the heart of Roma, but the race seems centered around Glenn Close and her performance in The Wife. She holds the record for most actress nominations without a win. And if anyone has a chance of stealing it from her, it is Lady Gaga.

Best Director 

Alfonso Cuarón will probably win here. Spike Lee could upset with a win for Blackkklansman, which would right a decades-old wrong, but I think his Oscar will come earlier in the night. Cuarón has already won the Directing prize at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, and the DGA Awards. He’s got a Directing Oscar already for Gravity, and I think they’re itching to give him another.

Best Picture

Honestly, who knows? There’s really no consensus, but it seems like Roma has a slightly better chance than Green Book, A Star is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Black Panther, the other real contenders. Roma is my guess. We’ll see.

That’s six Oscars for Netflix. Tune in for the Oscars on Sunday, February 24.

How many Oscars do you think Netflix will win? Comment below!